By the end of this week I will have finished my first month as a student in the Master of Teaching at the University of Tasmania. After finishing my undergrad studies in Melbourne in the field of fashion I moved back to my hometown of Hobart and decided to embark on the teaching career that I've been thinking about since childhood. I specialise in primary education in the Master Degree and to date am part way through week 4.
Because I'm studying part time (75%) I expect to graduate after 3 years and I won't go on placement until next year. This semester I'm enrolled in Foundations of Teaching, Teaching Primary Mathematics and Human Development.
Foundations of Teaching
In my Foundations class it's taken a while for me to grasp exactly what it is. It's the sort of subject that seems like 'everything' but often to me everything seems like everything, if that makes any sense haha. Usually what I study and do in my personal life seems incredibly important and some might call it gratitude but I feel like I couldn't go forward without whatever it is that I'm doing. Foundations is just like that, I don't think I can be a teacher without it. So far we've learnt about Professionalism, Presence, Gratitude and Reflection. Reflection - hence I've started writing.
Professionalism seems obvious but it doesn't make it unimportant, I'm mostly concerned about what to wear, whether I should wear makeup or not, shoes and other physical things like that. I don't want to be inappropriate but as a fashion graduate I have very strong beliefs about the role of fashion in the world, demonstrating identity and challenging norms. So while it might seem superficial to worry about how I look - it is backed by a lot of research and deep understanding of how appearance reflects and affects a huge range of elements. I'm also worried that the gaps in my knowledge will reveal an inadequacy to teach, for example if I spell a word wrong in the class I'm worried I'll be seen to be unprepared to teach and that will undermine me professionally.
Presence is necessary as a teacher, to be focused, committed and to expect that of the students as well. I know I'll have to work on my ability to become really focused as a teacher. I'm likely to have things going on in the back of my mind like personal problems and so forth which I don't want to affect my teaching. I think the practice for that starts now, trying hard to study without worrying about the other problems in my life. My father talks about his '100 per cent rule' which means whatever you're doing you must do at 100%, no more and no less. That included leisure activities, sleeping, working, studying etc.
Gratitude, to me that comes naturally. Of course I want to teach, of course I'm grateful when I am teaching. I'm grateful when anyone turns up to my classes or allows me to teach them something because it means they think I have something valuable to share with them and what could be a greater compliment. I think the important part of gratitude is not saying hello or thank you or smiling until your face falls off, it's about genuine deep understanding. I mean understanding in the sense of if you have a kid who comes from a rough family life and they turn up to class and are rude and angry - you shouldn't go home wondering why you got the difficult kid, you need to understand that it took a lot of effort for that kid to sit in the room and listen to you at all let alone learn anything.
As for reflection, here I am, reflecting.
Mathematics
I don't have a whole lot to say other than I love it. I knew I'd love it. I loved maths all through school, missed it terribly in my fashion degrees and now I'm back and can't get enough. The amusement is that I did high level maths at school and here at uni I spend class with plastic counters and MAB blocks but this time I get to think about how to teach the maths not just how to get the answers right. I love this because I prefer informal maths, I have my own methods of handling mathematical problems and while I had the good fortune of many teachers who celebrated this I also had teachers who tried to beat it out of me. I promise all my future students to never beat their unique ways of thinking out of them and so I don't sound too proud with that statement I further promise to continually reflect and assess whether I am beating their thinking out of them.
Human Development
As I've said for the past few weeks, love the content, hate the learning style. I'm really interesting in understanding development well, particularly little kids. As someone keen on parenting, spending time with children and obviously, teaching children I find it fascinating how people learn and grow. I enjoy exploring questions like 'could you nurture a child to be a specific type of adult?'. That's a scary one because people have been doing it for years, often in brutal ways. But it's for this reason I find the German education system interesting. I spent 6 months living in Germany on exchange as a 15 year old so I've had first hand experience in their system. Basically it's tiered according to status in society, to put it bluntly. The level of schooling you are part of dictates the level of work you will be prepared for, for example the Gymnasium schools lead to University which lead to professional careers. So this system seems to view it a waste of time to prepare people for things they aren't capable of. An extreme version would be a world where we select babies to be doctors and some to be teachers and some to be supermarket checkout attendants and you make this choice based on genetics, socioeconomic status and probability - as opposed to the desires of the child. My question is does this work and does it provide the overall best outcome?
As for learning style, I'd prefer to do case studies, discussions and real life experiences rather than list theorists, dates and key points about other people's ideas. Theorists a good but I think they're best used after I've already got ideas and developed them, then I can check my views against others and form well informed, real opinions.
Because I'm studying part time (75%) I expect to graduate after 3 years and I won't go on placement until next year. This semester I'm enrolled in Foundations of Teaching, Teaching Primary Mathematics and Human Development.
Foundations of Teaching
In my Foundations class it's taken a while for me to grasp exactly what it is. It's the sort of subject that seems like 'everything' but often to me everything seems like everything, if that makes any sense haha. Usually what I study and do in my personal life seems incredibly important and some might call it gratitude but I feel like I couldn't go forward without whatever it is that I'm doing. Foundations is just like that, I don't think I can be a teacher without it. So far we've learnt about Professionalism, Presence, Gratitude and Reflection. Reflection - hence I've started writing.
Professionalism seems obvious but it doesn't make it unimportant, I'm mostly concerned about what to wear, whether I should wear makeup or not, shoes and other physical things like that. I don't want to be inappropriate but as a fashion graduate I have very strong beliefs about the role of fashion in the world, demonstrating identity and challenging norms. So while it might seem superficial to worry about how I look - it is backed by a lot of research and deep understanding of how appearance reflects and affects a huge range of elements. I'm also worried that the gaps in my knowledge will reveal an inadequacy to teach, for example if I spell a word wrong in the class I'm worried I'll be seen to be unprepared to teach and that will undermine me professionally.
Presence is necessary as a teacher, to be focused, committed and to expect that of the students as well. I know I'll have to work on my ability to become really focused as a teacher. I'm likely to have things going on in the back of my mind like personal problems and so forth which I don't want to affect my teaching. I think the practice for that starts now, trying hard to study without worrying about the other problems in my life. My father talks about his '100 per cent rule' which means whatever you're doing you must do at 100%, no more and no less. That included leisure activities, sleeping, working, studying etc.
Gratitude, to me that comes naturally. Of course I want to teach, of course I'm grateful when I am teaching. I'm grateful when anyone turns up to my classes or allows me to teach them something because it means they think I have something valuable to share with them and what could be a greater compliment. I think the important part of gratitude is not saying hello or thank you or smiling until your face falls off, it's about genuine deep understanding. I mean understanding in the sense of if you have a kid who comes from a rough family life and they turn up to class and are rude and angry - you shouldn't go home wondering why you got the difficult kid, you need to understand that it took a lot of effort for that kid to sit in the room and listen to you at all let alone learn anything.
As for reflection, here I am, reflecting.
Mathematics
I don't have a whole lot to say other than I love it. I knew I'd love it. I loved maths all through school, missed it terribly in my fashion degrees and now I'm back and can't get enough. The amusement is that I did high level maths at school and here at uni I spend class with plastic counters and MAB blocks but this time I get to think about how to teach the maths not just how to get the answers right. I love this because I prefer informal maths, I have my own methods of handling mathematical problems and while I had the good fortune of many teachers who celebrated this I also had teachers who tried to beat it out of me. I promise all my future students to never beat their unique ways of thinking out of them and so I don't sound too proud with that statement I further promise to continually reflect and assess whether I am beating their thinking out of them.
Human Development
As I've said for the past few weeks, love the content, hate the learning style. I'm really interesting in understanding development well, particularly little kids. As someone keen on parenting, spending time with children and obviously, teaching children I find it fascinating how people learn and grow. I enjoy exploring questions like 'could you nurture a child to be a specific type of adult?'. That's a scary one because people have been doing it for years, often in brutal ways. But it's for this reason I find the German education system interesting. I spent 6 months living in Germany on exchange as a 15 year old so I've had first hand experience in their system. Basically it's tiered according to status in society, to put it bluntly. The level of schooling you are part of dictates the level of work you will be prepared for, for example the Gymnasium schools lead to University which lead to professional careers. So this system seems to view it a waste of time to prepare people for things they aren't capable of. An extreme version would be a world where we select babies to be doctors and some to be teachers and some to be supermarket checkout attendants and you make this choice based on genetics, socioeconomic status and probability - as opposed to the desires of the child. My question is does this work and does it provide the overall best outcome?
As for learning style, I'd prefer to do case studies, discussions and real life experiences rather than list theorists, dates and key points about other people's ideas. Theorists a good but I think they're best used after I've already got ideas and developed them, then I can check my views against others and form well informed, real opinions.
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