teaching Scout

A ”starter” with my first years. The question went “Choose three of the colours listed and write down any words that you associate with that colour”. Three minutes.

 They all completed this, I was then going to bring it together on the board using a mindmap. The rest of the lesson was to complete ‘mounting’ our wee freehand sketches of iPods.

Well I did bring it together, although this took 40 minutes. I hadn’t planned this of course, but what I thought would be a wee starter turned out to be the most diverse and rich conversation about colour theory. I didn’t think 1st years would manage 40 mins of whole class discuss, but they did. Idea after idea. Some were met with “whit?” but most were met with, “ahh”. I will post up their end result (which was huge) and you can explore the fascinating exploration 12 and 13 year olds had on just what colour can mean to them.

For me, once they had left I had a huge grin on my face as I had, well… managed to do my job!

Have just joined the scotedublogs page. Great! Also I am the only one from my council – East Ren. eeek – here I go ‘pioneering’ the way. lol, not really.

Though I think I should now add a disclaimer widget: “These views are suprisingly enough my own and not my employers”

I’m not really one for getting too involved in Education theories or thinking. Of course these have their places and when I read about Vygotskies ideas in 1st year they made a lot of sense but I have always felt there is a risk of practitioners getting too bogged down under the weight of too many pamphlets.

 When I read about the head of an Education Authority going round and visiting classes something clicked. For me it makes complete sense that the focus of debate in education remains firmly fixed around the classroom. The teaching and learning. It’s not just NQT’s and students who should get observed, it should really just become part and parcel of our classroom lifes. The NQT should feel happy going into a PT’s class to pick up some tips and vice versa. But is education ready for this? Would the majority of us be ready to welcome the ‘top dog’ with open arms into our classroom? Probably not, but that’s because we maybe view him as the top dog and not as another man who was once in the same position as I am now.

(This post was prompted by my first observed leeson this Thurday. Eeep.) 

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’ve made it to the end of week 1. Phew! 

I’ve really realised what I’ve got ahead of me for the next year – one hell of a learning curve. At the moment it doesn’t really feel like a curve, more like a very steep slope. But, I’m determined to get up it.

I guess that being a new virtually non experienced teacher I am bound to be tested by the kids. No reputation precedes me, I am young, female and generally teaching boys (only a few girls in my middle school classes, some none at all). So far it has gone OK, though I feel that I may have a battle on my hands with a couple of classes. I strongly feel that to have a good learning environment I shouldn’t be entering into a class with a folder of punishment exercises at the ready but is it the case that at the start of a school year this is necessary to establish boundaries particularly as kids are VERY willing to push them?

A good few of my classes are highly enjoyable. The pupils have good rapport with each other and allow me the leeway needed to let my personality help with the teaching. When my personality is tempered and I have to enter into constant reprimands to keep pupils on track I feel that the whole learning process/pupil enjoyment is restricted.

Is it a stage that is necessary? Is it time or experience that will help me overcome this restrictive stage? Do experienced teachers have these classes where they have a battle on their hands? I am hoping that by establishing and maintaining decent conduct through the use of routines and procedures that these classes will ‘lighten up’. Though how long this will take I have no idea.

I’ve been a ‘teacher’ for three days now and yup, I’m pretty busy.

So here marks the start of me reflecting as a learner and a teacher (when I get around to it, of course).

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?