Sunday 28 April 2013

Judgement Day

I had an interesting conversation during our staff professional day on Friday.  We were discussing our beliefs about Literacy and what concepts we believe our children need to develop while they are at our school.
We got on to the subject of judgements.  It came from a comment about how our children need to develop an awareness of the fact that others will perceive your work differently depending on their own experiences and that it does mean your piece of work is necessary bad, it just doesn't suit that person and you are potentially still great.  I think as a mother of up and coming musicians I find this concept easy to understand.  I understand my son is a brilliant guitar player, I also know I do not like the style of music he plays.  I know my daughter is an amazing singer, I also know that she has a voice suited to a particular genre of music.
As we were discussing this we all came to the same conclusion that if this is something so easy to comprehend as adults then why are we sitting back and making a cold hard judgement about pieces of writing, artwork, drama...  when we could in fact be pre-disposed to our opinion based on our own tastes, interests and experiences.
I think it is worth considering and quite possibly highlights the importance of moderation both within schools and externally.  Particular teachers will have certain tastes that may prevent them from accurately evaluating a piece of work.

It is these conversations that I have with our staff that continue to challenge our collective thinking and therefore push us to ensure our children have the best education they can whilst at our school.

Reflective Koru's, skillfully drawn by Ruby one of our talented Year 7's

Wednesday 24 April 2013

I think as adults we have become to caught up in what our children need to grow up to be and what they must achieve without slowing down and really thinking about what matters.
Our children are constantly expected to conform to expectations, rules, decisions made by others for them and we seem to of forgotten what it is to be a child.
In my humble opinion I believe we should be encouraging children to hold on to their imagination, to play, to relax and to explore our amazing world and everything it has to offer.  We need to encourage our children to think and develop ideas and solutions.  Gone are the days when neat books and having the answers to pop quizzes was enough.  Gone are the days when knowing things mattered - now we have to ensure our children know how to find the answers.
I have watched teaching morph over the past 12 years and I must say I don't necessarily believe it has changed for the best.  Yes we have higher expectations of our children and we are working harder now to help them achieve but at what cost.
I see fewer and fewer teachers taking the teachable moments, going outside to look at the digger that has pulled up next door, gazing at clouds for 10 minutes then writing about them, reading about spiders then going outside to find some in their habitat...  More and more time is spent putting pressure on children to acheive, to reach expectations and never straying from the planning because you won't hit the expectation if you change anything.
Thank goodness at Alfredton we have teachers who are willing to take those moments and use them to help our children learn and achieve!

I recently watched Sir Ken Robinson's presentation about School's Killing Creativity (I must of watched this at least 100 times now!) and once again I was struck with the profound impact these ideas have on education.  Sir Ken was also involved in the following video clip that I think every adult who has a child in education should watch and then go to their schools and ask what we are doing to prepare our children for this future...

 
Now ask yourself what you are doing.....