What kind of teacher do I want to be...

I want to be the kind of teacher students feel they can come to when they have a problem, but also one they know will send them out for doing something wrong. I want to be kind but strict.

I want to be knowledgeable about my subject and be able to answer questions on the spot but I also don’t want to be that teacher who always says “No, that answer is wrong, tell me another.” I know there are always more than 1 right answer and if I feel their answer is wrong, it won’t help them if I just say no. I should ask them how they got to that answer and work with them to find any errors.

I want to be energetic and interactive and make sure the whole class is able to work as a team towards a common goal. I also don’t want to focus on group work as a main source of learning. Studies have shown, and I believe, that not everyone works better in groups and sometimes the most creative ideas come when we work alone[1]. I want to let students be creative together, but not stifle individual creativity.

I want to accept who students are; their beliefs, their gender, their sexual orientation, their race, and let them be whoever they want to be, and teach all my students to be just as accepting.

But teachers don’t go into the classroom saying I’m going to be mean but let the students walk all over me. They don’t say ‘I don’t need to know about my topic but I’m going to make sure those students know my answer is the only one that is right.’ I’ve never met a teacher who said they were going to go into the classroom and be lazy, teach from the text book and stifle creativity and no teacher would ever go into a classroom planning to discriminate. I think the curriculum is sound, and most teachers pedagogy is good, but it is in practice where most teachers find out whether they have what it takes to be a good teacher, or a bad teacher. I hope that my drive, determination and passion will help me in the classroom and that I will become a good teacher.

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[1] Cain, S. (2012) The Rise of the New Groupthink. Retrieved on the 19^th of February, 2012, from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/opinion/sunday/the-rise-of-the-new-groupthink.html?_r=4&pagewanted=1&ref=general&src=me

What's in a name...

Or what makes a teacher...

Or more importantly, what makes a teacher good or bad? Is it the fact that they shower daily and don't smell of sweat and bad deodorant? Or is there more to a good teacher than the cosmetic issues that plague our daily life.
In class we were asked to discuss in groups what we think made good or bad teachers, and why and the list was never ending. In both columns.

A good teacher should be: friendly, enthusiastic, helpful, innovation, creative, energetic, compassionate and know their subject.

A bad teacher is: bossy, uninformative, unfriendly, rude, discriminatory, unknowledgeable and lazy.

But teachers don’t walk into the classroom saying “I’m going to be rude and lazy today.” It’s not the pedagogy that seems to matter when the bad teachers walk in, it’s their practice, their attitude and their way of handling situations that seems to get in the way of good teaching.

It is not surprising that when asked what type of teacher I would like to be I reply with everything from column A and nothing from column B. We don’t go into teaching wanting to be bad teachers. It isn’t until we have that year 8 class on Friday afternoon that we realise whether our pedagogy and our planning will make it through.

Curriculum, Pedagogy and Practice...

and what it means to me.

Curriculum is a long word for a broad topic; it encompasses everything that the teacher strives for in a lesson whilst also encompassing those things that inevitably happen in the classroom when things do not go to plan.

The Australian Curriculum (http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/Home[1]) is one of many outcomes and goals, as well as certain perspectives teachers must teach to their students for them to get the 'best' out of their education. Whilst many of the outcomes are of broad scope some would undoubtedly require careful handling with some classes, and at the same time, others may be all but impossible to teach to other classes.

At the same time, is The Australian Curriculum really a fair representation of what curriculum is? Or is just a set of outcomes which influence the real curriculum that comes through in classes from the teacher’s pedagogy and practice, as well as the environment and resources available?
The transformation outcomes in an outcome based educational story line simply require ‘big picture’ outcomes[2]. Where will students be at the end of year 6-7? What do these students really need to know when they exit the schooling system? And whilst we would all like to think that we’re teaching students, not subjects, an outcome based education system undermines teaching to student’s individual needs and interests.

Pedagogy is just a complicated and ¾ the size. We may shorten our definition to the ‘Act of teaching’, but what does that really tell us about the word? And about the act itself? Pedagogy includes everything from lesson plans to seating charts, the use of technology in the classroom and the way the teacher presents their lessons. Everything that is teaching is everything that pedagogy is.

To each teacher there may be a different type of pedagogical approach, and because of this, the types of pedagogy are not listed as an exhaustive list in any form. There are though, many different types of pedagogical approach that fit into categories such as Productive pedagogies and Critical pedagogies[3]. It is interesting to explore the many ways in which teachers approach quite similar lessons in a variety of effective and ineffective ways.

Practice is the shortest word of all and this could be because they thought Pedagogical-Curriculum was too long and students wouldn’t really want to read it. Practice incorporates what the teachers are trying to teach (Pedagogy) and what the students and trying to, and actually are, learning (Curriculum). It is only by combining pedagogy and curriculum that effective teaching can take place in the classroom. The practice of being a teacher is more than just the art of teaching and it is more than just 1+1=2. It is only in practice that we can develop as teachers.

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[1]ACARA (n.d) The Australian Curriculum. Retrieved on the 17^th of February, 2012, from  http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/Home

[2]Robyn Ewing (2010) Curriculum and Assessment (pp. 31-35). Hong Kong: Sheck Wah Tong Printing Press Ltd

[3]Churchill. R, Ferguson. P, Godinho. S, Johnson. N, Keddie. A, Letts. W… Vick. M (2010) Teaching: Making a Difference (pp. 242) China: Printing International Ltd