teaching Scout

Being an NQT there seems to be a million different things to do. From planning lessons (this seems to range from lessons that cover the basics and we just get through the work, to the few that I’ve managed to give more thought to and use more inventive approaches), interim reports, CPD, wider school life, department life. Gettting used to school policies, getting used to department procedures (in a technical dept there is a LOT of things). You get the picture.

I hope that as I start getting more into the swing of things my impressions won’t be so overwhelming and will settle in to normality. Though to be honest, I am starting to feel it already. The pupils are recognising me about the school and a few that I don’t know seem to know my name.

My intentions over the next wee while are really to get on top of my lessons. T o make sure that I don’t get comfy in ‘just getting though them’. I feel this could easily happen as the other areas of school life, all the bits and pieces which contribute  to the big picture. So in saying this, I guess it’s achieving the balance of making my lessons smart whilst easing the pressure of all the ‘other things’ by getting on top of organisation.

and the discipline issues I talked about before? I ‘m making progress – hopefully for the better.  

I am sitting at the kitchen table with my beautiful daughter, Renia, sleeping next to me in her wee bouncy chair. She was born on Sun 22nd July, 8lb 7oz.

I was waiting till after she was born and things had settled down to see if I was still feeling the same about starting school. Good news – I am. Still enthusiatic and full of daft ideas. I’m going to take two weeks of maternity at the start of term till we’re all back to normal.

 I’m only 24, have two beautiful kids, am going to start a job career that I want to do and my husband is going to quit his work to look after our wee family. I really hope that in a years time I can look back at this post with the same happy sentiment.

I was in the position yesterday of a pupil –at my induction meeting for the council I’m going to work for next year. There were about 150 brand new teachers fresh out of Uni, sitting in the same room ready to get started in a whole new career. A whole new experience. Working with new people.
Honestly, I can’t wait.

But I realised as I was being ‘inducted’ that what I want to be is inspired by others. But more than this, I want to be inspiring to the pupils in my classes over the next year. I don’t think you can be inspiring without some sort of inbuilt enthusiasm for your subject/teaching. (Which hopefully most of us have, kinda because we chose to do this). But I hope with a bit of thought I can make my classes inspiring, creative places to be. Though who knows what will happen?
Honestly, I can’t wait.

I know it probably matter too much when I go and apply for jobs, but getting a first class honours feels pretty good! I felt I worked a lot over the past year and I’m just really glad that my lecturers recognised it through my work.
But more exciting matters – I have found out the school I’ll be at for the next year which I’m pretty happy with. Though I don’t want to say the name or authority as they might not want me to with all this blogging malarky.
I’ve also got my time table which fills me with a large degree of excitement and a small measure of complete terror!

4th year graphics – Int2 class of about 12 pupils all looking to get A’s and B’s!
3rd year graphics – Int1 class of 17 pupils, it’s a new course and will give me a big contrast to the 4th years, eep
3rd year Practical Craft Skills – Mixture of 13 pupils sitting at Int1/2. Will give me a good chance to improve my craft skills
2nd years – Just one class.
1st years -  Two classes

So I’m pretty happy about it all. Looking forward to doing some creative things with the 1st and 2nd years. Also wanting to get a lot of Inventor into the graphics courses and really making my mark on the department.

As usual I’m a few days behind current events though I’m sure by now everyone has seen the ‘London 2012′ logo. It is screaming out to me to be redesigned by….well, anyone. But when I saw this simple design exercise, it just reinforced the idea of bringing it into the classroom. If I was a teacher just now, I’d love to get a class full of kids putting up their own designs on the website. Colours, proportion, layout…hmmm?

Interestingly enough, earlier this year Chicago’s Olympic Logo for their 2016 bid was rejected on grounds that it basically looked like the olympic torch which acould not “contain the Olympic symbol, the Olympic motto, the Olympic flag, and/or any other Olympic-related imagery, such as flame, torch, medal, etc.” Because it is a bid, this measure is so as to protect and advance the Olympic movement. Considering this really was a fantastic logo, cleverly incorporating elements of the Chicago skyline and other well thought symbolism (see LogoBlog) it seems crazy that we’ve spent an awful lot of money on… well you get the picture.

The ever informative LogoBlogs’ apt description and lack of of opinion regarding the London design was fantastic. I’ve never read such an impartial description, though slipping in the word ‘amaturish’ at the end lets us know what they thought.  Pointing us to the Ugliest Logo Competitionon the same day that the ‘2012′ logo was unveiled was just the icing on the cake. Ideas’ anyone?

….well kinda.

University,is pretty much over. WOOHOO. I ain’t no academic, and it feels great having written 11,500 words and happily (though tiredly) signed them over to my tutors who will determine my fate. Though they ain’t determining my fate really. Nope, thats me. Right now I’m at such a changeable point in my life – completing uni, new baby, new job (eep). Though what is so great about it all is that it’s all new.

I’ve finally had a rest from this goddam laptop and had a taste of free time: we spent a day out cycling at Crinan, swimming with Isaac, even had the dishes done by 6.30pm!!!?

But we’ve got a great feeling of moving forward;going into a job that I really want to do and having a family life. Though now that I’m leaving university behind, I’m not just dusting myself down and forgetting all about it, over the past year I feel that it’s really been worthwhile. Though don’t ask me about Electronics/Mechanics/Education lectures, I’m talking about looking into the notion of collaborative working, you know sharing stuff n’all that. 

Not only did I instigate and help create the fantastic website technoBuzz.co.uk (c’mon I’ve gotta big it up) but I found a whole lot about working together from other people, especially the how and the why. I’ve got to say HUGE thanks to Stuart who helped me make the site (OK maybe it’s the other way around), please let me know what you think. What can be improved, if you are a technology teacher or teacher or education person feedback would be great. Also, if it works and my fellow students grasp the potential then help and advice from other people is more than welcome. We all need a (critical) friend!

I’ll leave it like that at the moment, but once I get into the swing of this blogging malarky again I’ll let you know more about what I found out from my research – though don’t expect any great revelations

Being a young mum with a young kid, reading Ewan McIntosh’s post on early years learning (he points to a report from the Scot Exec) I thought-THANK GOD! I was wondering if it was just me who thought that kids were sent to school too early? At the moment I am getting pressures from umpteen different people that my son isn’t in nursery yet – bearing in mind he just turned 3 in Febuary! The idea of him being sent off to school next year for ‘formal education’ isn’t exactly a happy thought. I completely think that we have to get more in line with the European system where kids go off for formal education nearer 6, 7 or even 8 years old.

The recent Lib Dem conference (here’s a fairly concise explanation) gave me hope where they seemed to be embracing early years learning with the ‘Active learning’ type approach. (I’m not an active Lib Dem fan, it just caught my attention). I just wish that societal pressures could be taken away from parents, where the majority of us have to ship our kids off to playgroup/nursery/school/ afterschool/breakfast clubs(!) in order to get the bread in. If we were offered a system which valued the fact that kids are kids and they have the rest of their lifes to grow up, I would be a lot happier. 

Sometimes I wonder what sort of can of worms the Tim Berners-Lee opened when he “created” the net. Here’s the situation: on my laptop, struggling through dissertation dilemma’s, when I think - I wonder if David Hargreaves has got a blog? (his booklet for Demos has shaped a large part of my work) Wonder what he’s saying? Google away and I’m sent to Demos. I have been there before, but didn’t realise that it also included a blog from the ThinkTank team. So I’m reading away, starting to get lost by clicking on loads of links when I end up here! Yes David Miliband has got a Myspace account!As Demos question in their blog: “A prescient and minutely detailed parody, or a genuine medium of grass roots communication?!  Impossible to tell… “

After looking at Milibands blog  – I think the answer is he’s nuts! “I’m too sexy” is the song he’s got on it ?!? Also the quote he’s got about Spock – huh?

 Funnily enough, when I googled “David Hargreaves Blog”, 5th on the list was David Gilmours post last year! The booklet that David refers to is great for looking into collaborative learning, and yes – I do think that Glow is one of the first examples of a lateral system (from what I’ve heard). Although the Networked Learning Communities in England has similiar principles – just not so ICT driven.

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…