Professionalism

Our teacher meeting this week was on the topic of Professionalism. Our guest speaker was Tony Burkin.

I thought it was a fantastic session. The one big takeaway I got from this session is that we are professionals. The emphasis is all too often on teaching practice - it is what teacher meetings are made up of and it's what appraisal is made of. Therefore, the perception by default, is that you are a good teacher if you can teach. The perception is only a portion of the whole.

It was easy to get caught up in the surface discussion of the session - the things you are allowed to do, the things you probably shouldn't and the things you aren't. Then there was the grey areas like drinking in public and crying. These have caused a lot of discussion amongst the staff and it's interesting to listen to the perspectives. 

But, there was more to the session, and the nitty gritty really is looking carefully at the code of ethics. 

1 - Commitment to Learners
2 - Commitment to Parents/Guardians and Family/Whanau
3 - Commitment to Society
4 - Commitment to the Profession

And the four Principles - Autonomy, Justice, Responsible Care, Truth




All of these can be broken very easily - missing deadline, not reflecting, making up awesome lessons when you have a scheduled observation, not reading emails, resisting change, poor punctuality, talking behind backs.... etc. 

The word of the day for me was Truth. I was fortunate to have attended an earlier session with Tony as well that talked about Truth being an indicator of a Growth Mindset. You have to be truthful to yourself and to others.

The session has certainly provided me with food for thought, and I'm pleased mostly to be thought of as a professional, but now there is a standard to live up to! 

What should a teacher wear?

My Own Opinion:

This article was published a little while ago in the New Zealand Herald.
Dress to impress, teachers told - The Herald

I couldn't agree more with the NZ Teachers Council regarding dress standards. We are professionals. We expect to be paid like professionals and we expect to be treated like professionals from our leaders, our children and their parents. 

Professional does not mean expensive and it does not mean uncomfortable. It also does not mean powerful. We are role-models and we should be expected to present ourselves tidily and appropriately.

I have now taught 5 year olds to 11 year olds. I have never had a problem wearing a skirt, going out to a sports field or sitting on the floor, and I have never had a major paint spill (I did splatter dye on a knit jersey once - could easily have been lunch I spilled down my front if I was in a different job).

As part of my classroom kit, I have an art apron that I put on during art time, and I keep a pair of old sports shoes in the cupboard. 

I'm not perfect, I have made some errors in judgement before - I'm not the fashion police but in general, there are a few things I try to avoid.

1) Faded jeans (Jeans itself is an interesting debate, I generally try to avoid them, but if accompanied with a dressy top and shoes they can be acceptable at times)
2) Spaghetti straps
3) Rubber jandals with no back strap
4) Skirts any shorter than just above your knee
5) Ugg boots
6) Sweater hoodies

Kitting out the Classroom (Habitat)

One of the most exciting things for a teacher is setting up the classroom. We go into a state of craziness over transforming what is often a very dull space into a spectacular, inviting, creative learning space. I'm personally not much into Pinterest, but I do identify a little with this fabulous parody. 

I should point out here that my personal philosophy is that a classroom has to work for the teacher - but it's primary function is to support the learners. It has to be a safe place, and a place where students feel they belong. I believe that a teacher can decorate a room, perhaps in a theme (I had a 'Flying High'/Aeroplane theme last year) but learning materials must wait and go up when they have a context to the children. Start teaching vocab/sightwords then put them on the wall, teach your writing process then put the prompts on the wall, etc. 

But what happens when there's four teachers, with four differing philosophy's sharing the same four walls? How is the space and resources managed?

It's certainly a discussion that has to be had within and team - and perhaps to school level. It needs to be considered - what do management, visitors and parents want to see on the walls? Just finished products? Should parents see the planning and crafting process as well? Should there be no children's work and just reference points to learning tasks? Do children even pay attention to reference points? Can a classroom have too much 'visual clutter'?

Then there is the matter of resources. Do you put everything out at once so children have access to whatever interests them? Or if your focus is on measurement, do you just put out the measurement things? Should books be kept in one place, or all over the habitat? Should language resources be kept in a language 'centre' or should the children access that everywhere? What if it's a language book - is that a book or is it language!?!?!? 

For all of these questions I can make a decision for myself. But it comes back to the team - it's one of those little things that's going to take some time, but I think it's time worth spending getting on the same page. 

The key in the end.... WHY?

Identity

It was mentioned by one of the team members the other day that it was really important that even though we were working together in one space, it would be really important that we don't lose our own identity. 

It seems silly to make this so explicit, but it really is important when considering what people naturally do when put in a space together - that is, tip toe around how others might react to situations. 

We have been selected to work together as a complimentary team to deliver an outstanding programme to our students. We each have our own 'true colours': strengths and qualities. It is so important the children get a 'piece' of that. 

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I'm looking forward to developing a better understanding of myself, the team and the wider staff when working with Julia Atkin. Watch this space....

The Learning Environment and a Discussion on Professionalism

Learning Spaces
We are so lucky to have such a wealth of knowledge and experience on our senior leadership team. I have been inspired by Claire's journey of learning spaces for a few years now after meeting her in the Educamp circles and then staying connected via Twitter. It is fantastic now to be working alongside her as we both fulfil a dream.

Today she, and Helen, imparted the theory and their knowledge about learning spaces. The number one message: everything we are doing is for the learner. This means that we have to think about the why - before the how and the what (practices are put in place). 

There are 7 spaces to make up a classroom: group, secret, data, watching, publishing, performing and participation spaces. We can certainly see all of these things in the plans of our habitats.

One of the most enlightening parts of the day for me was having the chance to Skype with the design and development architect, Wayne Stevens. It was so fantastic to hear him speak to his design and explain the theories behind different aspects. Credit for these notes goes to Claire, as I was too busy hanging on to every word.

• The architecture can shape the behaviour and engage the students
• The spaces will allow authentic, messy play, small and large group work, performance spaces
• Children will be able to develop relationships with a range of adults
• Building designed to suit the environment including schist
• Interior has acoustic treatment to prevent reverberation: underlay, ceiling,
• There is a closed off space that allows for acoustic isolation
• Within each habitat, teachers need to plan for what daily activities are needed and where those activities will take place
• Furniture: it’s not about moving furniture around on a daily basis. Moving furniture creates down time. The spaces need to be set up.
• Education needs to be transformed and this will happen with personalisation and student agency.
• Neuro science: the blue light makes the brain attentive. (South light)
• Need to expel the carbon dioxide by opening windows even in winter
• Blockers (typically parents) will show concern re noise
• Groups sharing a space become white noise
• Displays: teachers need to define the purpose of display and agreed practice
• Montessori: meaningful displays that show the learning process
• Internal glass creates transparency which promotes transparency of practice and openness of learning

It started to get real when we were given the floor plan along with the list of planned furniture. I think everyone in the room is just waiting now for that site visit so we can check to see if what's in our heads is for real!!!

Professionalism
I really love that this team, right from the top, live their speak. The latest big project was to develop our definition of professionalism. In two groups we had to come up with four 'elements' and list the details behind that. Then we had to write a statement 'Professionalism looks like.... because... because...' I really liked that we had to justify our over arching statement twice as it really made us consider the WHY! From here we then talked through and joined the two documents all together with the principal as a facilitator continually checking that we agreed. What an eye-opening and amazing process to go through. It took quite some time but we really had ownership of that document and will live by it because of that.