What does it mean: to teach?

I have a job interview tonight and I am not sure I am ready for it.

It feels like a very long time since I have actually taught anything.  Working with the Indigenous people here has not resulted in me feeling very much like a teacher: a failure more like it. 

Wendy is working in Al Ain for the same company I applied to.  I ‘talked’ with her on Facebook and asked what sort of questions they would be asking. 

“Easy stuff.. pedagogical stuff.. culture.. you’ll do fine.”

She has a lot more confidence in me than I do.  I mean, what is the point of educational pedagogy if no one wants to learn. 

What is my educational philosophy these days and what are my beliefs based on?  Experience?

That can’t be good.

Last time I applied for work in the Middle East I had clear, strong beliefs in education.  I had worked with kids of all ages.. I was younger.. enthusiastic and I agreed with Piaget when he said:

 “Only education is capable of saving our societies from collapse.” .. 'You go brother!' I thought.  

I’m not so sure of that now.  I mean, who says there’s not a whole lot of value just hanging out in the bush, fishing, hunting and taking it all a day at a time.

Wouldn’t the planet maybe be just a little better off?  

Probably not a good philosophy when you’re looking for a job as a teacher. And really, that’s not what I believe.  At least I don’t think it is.

I have always thought that knowledge is power and that it is the job of the educator to help people self actualize: just a little bit.. so they can dip into that power and use if for good. 

I think it was Howard Gardner who figured that the brain was a curious thing.. and always trying to make meaning.

I don’t think Howard spent much time in central Australia.  He got a lot of his ideas in China.. and believe me, that is a long way from the Ozzie desert Outback!

But that shouldn’t get me down.. I am not applying for another job in Central Australia.. I‘m moving on.   

I agree with Bloom, about conversation being an intellectual affair. I really enjoyed those long intellectual/philosophical discussions with Kymme and Trav in Cuba.  Ok.. maybe we did have a few too many Cervasas, but it was ‘light’ beer and  those little Pina Coladas in the plastic cups could hardly be considered ‘real’ drinks.. but they sure made the whole affair a lot more interesting. 

 

That’s a start.  I believe in..

Discussion – the top of Bloom’s Taxonomy: analysing and evaluating. 

I always jump in at the top.. to heck with remembering any of the terminology: all that ground floor stuff. I can’t remember the names of my friends most of the time these days.

Kathy Nunly.. I think that’s her name, I just googled to try and find some 'new' stuff.  Anyway.. she is just some American teacher that has written about a ‘layered curriculum’. She just took Blooms stuff and sloted it into a curriculum development framework.

She has organized curriculum into three layers.  You can get her book and photocopy it... she says it's ok. 

And it’s good in its simplicity.. imagination obviously not her strong suit though.. she calls them C, B, and A.  

Layer C is just the objectives out of the book reviewed and compared to those of the prescribed curriculum, organized and ordered to make sense to whomever is presenting the material.   

B are some assignment ideas.  She suggests assignments that get the students to use the information.. like Blooms ‘Understanding: translate, interpret, extract information’.  Debates, little projects, stuff like that.

Then A is like Blooms ‘Apply’.  Take what has been learned and do something with it. 

.. I suppose you could add your own A+: Create, analyse, evaluate. You know: over drinks, maybe on the beach in Cuba.  Maybe I should write that up.. change the names to something a little more creative and let people photocopy it. 

Conversation.. an intellectual affair.  I like it. 

And somebody,  a brain researcher or philosopher? Some guy who may have been on that beach in Cuba or a place just like it, wrote that “stress is counterproductive”.  Well.. hello!  You need to create an environment of ‘relaxed alertness.’  Physical and emotional well being is linked to our ability to think. 

I like that.  Sun and sand can do that. 

Howard Gardner wrote his book “Frames of Mind” in 1983 and outlined his Multiple Intelligence Theory.  I liked that theory as it just made sense to me.  When I went to school it just seemed like an awful lot of the ‘smart’ people just weren’t all that smart.  The smartest fellow in our class jumped of the Lions Gate Bridge after exams at UBC.. now how smart was that? 

The idea is that people can be smart in a variety of ways, not just one.  Education should encourage the development of ‘well-rounded’ individuals. 

And I certainly believe that ‘real world’ experiences is how people learn.  Piaget was a Constructivist.. he figured out that knowledge is generated through the interaction of experience and ideas.  A lot like John Deweys’s Experiential Learning theory: active learning.. connecting and applying knowledge and skills to real world activities. 

Like Jackie’s approach to accounting in the Middle East. 

Learning by doing.  It's how I learned to swim.. and how I taught others. 

Demonstrate .. Describe… Do. 

How hard is this.   

Oh ya.. and Scaffolding.  That seems to be a big important catch phrase in some 'intellectual' circles..

“We teach here by scaffolding.  Do you know what is meant by scaffolding?”  Ahh.. it was CAHRDS.. they figured it was brain surgery.. Someone must have read Vygotsky. He presented the ‘Zone of Proximal Development’.. that zone of stuff from what you can do alone to what you do with assistance.  First you get your learners licence and drive with your mom and then later, you can go out on your own.

It just refers to slowly taking away the level of support.. until voila..the student has learned. The teacher (or mom) has actually taught something: done her job. 

Did that in swim lessons too.. not really so very academic.   

To make sense of the world we build on prior knowledge.  That is also how we remember things.. connecting them to something else.  Things have to attach somewhere, or they blow away. 

It’s not brain surgery.. well, not really.  But sort of. It's now brain research. 

So much of what the psychologists were saying in the 50’s and 60’s have now simply been proven to be so.. for the most part.

And I think I am going to be ok.  I remember a lot of this stuff now.. now that I have ‘talked’ about it with you: sucked you into my 'self talk', my blabber.. my internal, solitary intellectual discourse. 

And now I also remember that I believe in phonics.. and using real world experiences to develop numeracy and number sense.  I know that meta cognition is important to me.  I think that students need to be encouraged to actively take part and discuss how they process information: understand how they learn.

I have opened the box.. I may be ok. 

Now if I can just stay awake during the interview.  They call from Toronto.. and I am once again.. Down Under. 

Thanks Wendy.  I sure would like a job in the sun and the sand on the Saudi Penninsula.


I guess I should think about culture now... Wish me luck!