teaching Scout

I was talking this evening as to what approach to discussion is better. Is it better to voice your opinion on a subject even if you are fairly ignorant of the topic or is it best to wait until you understand something before putting your opinion before other people?

I feel the former is the better - to be ignorant but willing to learn through discussion is better than waiting till you have accumulated knowledge and then being able to confidently explain your argument. I feel that learning with the possibility of not being right is better than the second approach which seems much more linear.

The funny thing was, that this train of thought came about during dinner. We (me and Stu) ended up talking about what was appropriate to discuss, say during a Sunday lunch, he argued that you shouldn’t just spout off your opinion about whatever current affair happens to be in the news just for the sake of it, especially if you haven’t a fully formulated opinion. I felt that it was much better to discuss things, even if they did require you to make judgements on a topic without perhaps knowing all the facts. As long as it was done in an intelligent manner where you accepted the possibility of being wrong and didn’t press your opinion on other people.

It made me think about learning in the classroom - why does the teacher (generally) always have to be right? Are we not as much of a learner as the pupil? It is necessary to know our subject matter, know the best way of management or discipline but at what stage do we put our hands up and admit that maybe we don’t know? Is it ever wise to do this infront of pupils? I would argue yes, although experience will hopefully show me when and how.

It also made me think about this blogging lark. I’m the sort of person who would prefer to say something than not. It seems that the majority of bloggers are in this camp too. But what does that mean for those who are not? And going back to the classroom, how to facilitate those learners/people (like Stu), who would prefer to have all the facts before being confident before voicing their opinion?  

I’ve been swimming under a huge pile of ‘things to get done’ recently. Combining being a full time mum, getting my dissertation moving, and being pregnant is starting to take its toll. Oh, and I’ve found myself joint organiser of our Grad Ball. Woohoo.

Despite a general feeling of tiredness and sciatic pain, this is not a moan/rant/whinge (I laughed out load when I read on the Sciatica Clinic website that protruding the head forward peering at a computer all day or regularly lifting a baby out of the back of the car doesn’t help the condition. Hmmm…)

This is more an update of life so far…

Isaac is growing up fast - he went into his new bed a few weeks ago for the first time. It was a memorable feeling, tucking him up after a story and thinking about how small he looked in this ‘adult sized bed’.

Names for the baby are starting to become more certain - Gabriel for a boy, this was completely suggested by Stewart which suprised me as it is unusual but has been growing on us recently. And Renia for a girl, this is a Polish name often used as a shortening or alternative for Teresa which is my mum’s name. She remarked recently that she doesn’t often get called Renia anymore (only by my Dad now)  and me and Stewart realised that we would be quite proud to keep up my Polish roots through the name of our child. It’s amazing how much a name can suit a person…

We’re going to visit my sister Nina in North Yorkshire for a long weekend which we are all really looking forward to (though the laptop will be coming). We’re an outdoorsy family and have been needing to get out recently on some not too strenuous walks… we’ll have plently of opportunity to do so in a few days. Also the great thing about England is that there always seems to be a nice pub or inn at the end of the walk. A bonus which is rare in Scotland! So here we come for some good food and fresh air - !!

In terms of blogging, I’ve been reading plenty of other posts and trying to keep up to date with whats going on. Although I have an ever increasing list of things I feel I should do:

*setting up RSS feeds as I keep having to click on peoples blogs to see whats new

*figure out how to tag my own posts (I think this is Technorati)?

*figure out how to format the side bar widgets

*GET SOME PICTURES IN

*set up a flickr thing

*start putting all my resources and links on…eep

*and a whole load of other things I have forgotten about just now

All in all life’s been good so far and we’re just getting on with living the present and looking forward to the future…

I recently sent out a request to secondary school headteachers across Scotland, to ask if they could forward my questionnaire to their teaching staff. I didn’t know what response to expect, though thought it would be fairly low because of the ‘unofficial’ nature of my research (it is only for my dissertaion) and the liklihood that they get requests for things like this all the time and quite simply don’t have time.

I was bowled over by the response, so far I have about 550 responses! I can see that 12 headteachers have completed it so that means at least 12 different schools. Unfortunately  it is completely anonymous and I can’t thank the individual schools personally as I quite simply don’t know who they are. So the best Universal Thankyou I can do is here on my blog! 

I really am encouraged by this response of a profession that I am soon to enter into and hope that when it is my turn I’ll be able to do the same.

Although I can’t say any specific results here because of ‘ethical procedures’, I have had a really positive response to the concept of sharing practice and some interesting and positive results from different groups of teacher. (I looked at years in service and position). The whole endeavor has shown me many useful insights not only to what teachers feel - and many gave me plenty of insightful comments - but as to my own work. I retrospect some of the questions were slightly flawed and I have learned a lesson in perhaps ‘biting off more than I can chew’ - now around 500 teachers have been able to judge me on a questionnaire that although is fine isn’t the best in the world - a scary concept indeed! Though, I suppose this blog is potentially even ‘riskier’. I guess that it goes back to the concept of’ ‘failing forward’ that I keep talking about, and it is still in my mind the way that I want to go.