Where we’re at

So I suppose I arrive here in a unique position- the teaching I do* allows me to arrive in the room and meet any student exactly where they’re at. I’m a degree removed from their curriculum (sometimes) not bound by the scheme of work, the assessment criteria (again sometimes). I’m a fresh perspective & hopefully a friendly face…

I’ve been on the opposite end of the ‘educator’ scale too, teaching Ceramics, Art, 3D design and Graphics from year 5 to year 13** and I’ve been reflecting a lot on the difference between that mode of teaching (& learning) and what I’m doing and where I’m at now.

Thinking mostly about empathy- which seems to be where all my roads lead to. Is it because growing up I found myself in an education system myself that seemed to lack empathy? or because at home I was lucky enough to grow in a wholly empathetic environment? Who knows.

Would I have achieved more had I grown up with pushy parents rather than a parent that told me I could do basically anything and that I should just do what makes me happy. So which of those two do I take into my teaching? It might be time to re-read this book, Nuture Shock, although I doubt it’s high on my lockdown book clubs list of ‘want to read’
It’s focussed on the earlier years, sure, but after our session on play I wondered if much changes. I mean the brain – of course develops and the body too. But I think so much of what we do right when they’re teeny tiny humans should be revisited with students and even adults. When it comes to learning I wonder if the inner child ever grows up and actually in a creative context maybe it’s exactly THAT we should be nurturing and playing with. That’s a whole other post though so more on play later…..

I constantly revisit this idea of empathy and it’s role in teaching, not just the empathy that I (hope) I give students but also the empathy I (hope***) I teach them to exercise in what they do too, in their practise, in their career, in the business the start, the workshop they run, the mess they make, the clean up, the ride!

*Current long winded job title of my teaching – Enterprise in the curriculum specialist & Enterprise & Employability Practitioner.

**RIP to that exhausting phase of life where I taught multiple subjects to year 5 to year 13 and also LIVED at work – not for the faint hearted.
***there’s a lot of hoping in (my) teaching, you can’t rip up someones learning and try another method to find out which was best, and the things I think of as being most important to give students are also the things that are often the hardest to measure with feedback and data…. can we start collecting empathy data?

If you enter a classroom and leave feeling wildly overwhelmed by the subject or learning, but you leave feeling as though the teacher showed you empathy and compassion despite your struggle to understand the concepts, are you more likely to revisit the topic, re-enter the room and ultimately learn? surely the answer is yes? But imagine in this scenario you’re asked only to feedback on whether you know more about the subject or have a greater understanding of the concept. Your feedback would be negative – on paper – but your emotional feedback loop might paint an entirely different picture****

***Can you tell within my team we’re re-writing our feedback forms and trying to agree on learning outcomes that fit everything we deliver?