Shaping our class

 Some rights reserved by Matt Stratton

I was just talking to one of my colleagues about this lately.  How can we shape our classroom, and our classroom culture differently.  

I was mentioning Lakoff, and how metaphors help shape our reality.  Today reading Creating Cultures of Thinking I came across the same idea.  Often we refer to school as work, especially for students.  How does this shape how they go about their day? 

I remember Sir Ken Robinson talking about teachers as gardeners. 

How powerful can we be if we start changing our metaphors? How do we start this? 

When we think about vision of a school and the places we want to go, we don't often address how we shape our school through language.   When we think about brands and story telling and the whole image of school, we as teachers need to start shaping it through our daily interactions, the metaphors we create and the language we use. 

I'm not sure gardening is the best metaphor (although it fits nicely with my environmental beliefs) but the idea that growth is always possible and that there are seasons of better growth really resonates with me (actually now I wonder if this is something we have to differentiate as well). 

Unity and standards: What are we aiming for?

        Some rights reserved by Chris Devers

Thanks again to the Place Being Resonance book I've been stuck in a world of wondering.  I apologize in advance. I know at times I am not clear in my writing, and this thought isn't fully formed, so it might not make the most sense. 

While reading it talked about what our destruction of the world looks like, and it looks like progress, parts look like sustainable development, parts look like social justice.  It looks like we are supposed to be doing the things we are doing because that's how people develop.  In order for humans to be unified (economically, socially, etc.) other things have to (and do) suffer.  So, when we are looking at unity, we are often just taking an anthropocentric view of what we need (and people would argue why wouldn't we think of humans first) and we forget about what our system (The Earth) needs. While we are going for unity, I'm not really sure we know who we are unifying with, and who (or what I suppose) we are excluding. 

It's really difficult for anyone to step back from themselves, deconstruct what they think, challenge the dominant culture and make a difference.  Where do those ideas even come from? So how can we expect people to actually protect our planet when we don't even know what we don't know. 

While I was pondering this, I started thinking about school, and how we are trying to hit standards and go through curriculums, and just race through to show progress.  My mind kind of paused for a second, what and who are we progressing and for what end?  Place Being and Resonance wants us to challenge how we teach, why are we moving towards more data? What is growth? Who benefits from our current system of education, and who suffers? I think deep down we know the answers to these questions, but it is difficult to challenge a system that wants to engage and enlighten our learners.  When we have public school systems that want to bring up literacy are we focusing too much on a specific type of reading? So much was flying through my head. 

I'm not really sure where to take it from there.  I know I have to listen more (not just to humans, but I need to be aware of the voices not being heard or acknowledged).  I know I have to slow things down and encourage actual thinking, and actual listening in my students.  I know I have to encourage students to be aware of a multi-vocal, eco-centric (as in not just anthropocentric) view of our planet. 

I guess the real question is how can we see the system we are in and try to fight for that system, while being aware of the multi-faceted aspects of our world.  How we can honestly unify through diversity? 

Checking out the back end

 Some rights reserved by Umang Dutt

Orientation week is always interesting when you have been at the same school for awhile. You get a sense of what people will be stressed out about, you kind of understand what might help them, but for the most part you just are there to respond to specific stresses and develop and manage relationships. 

This week has been reconnecting with some team leaders and admin and has been really good. I've worked with some of my new teachers which has been great and I've been diving into the backend of our learning management system. 

So far it's alright, making some sites, working on my.cis and trying to get things sorted for the upcoming year. It's interesting to see how (well a limited how because I'm not into code or anything yet) something works.  It is great when working with teachers and having to break things down, it really reinforces some good teaching practice.  You have to respond to a knowledge gap, fill things in at their level and try to support them as they make sense of a new world.  Also it's interesting to work with some higher level people and say, well here is how I'd work through it.  I don't fully know your answer, but here's how I would find out.  I think I'm going to adapt this with more of my students this academic year. 

It's also interesting to see a lot of technostress, some teachers are so stressed out about not understanding.  Not knowing is such a huge part of my world, so it's strange why people would be stressed out about it.