Reflections of a learning community

Every day the community of teachers at our school arrive at about 8am. People head off to speech and eurythmy classes or to the coffee room to touch base. Then its off to the classrooms where the students are greeted. In our school we take our classes through for 7 years so we teachers become a “special place” ourselves.

Their room has been warmly decorated with curtains and collections of their artworks on the wall. They know where their desks are and what to expect from their neighbours on either side. They know where I’ve hidden the Marble Run and help themselves at morning tea. They know that I know them and their interests and after a series of home visits there is now an even stronger link between home and school.

Each day follows a predictable and safe routine but is varied enough to maintain interest. Good behaviour is acknowledged and praised, really bad behaviour has consequences. All this creates a sense of security and belonging. The children love to arrive at school to hear the latest episode of the main lesson story, or to participate in some Aboriginal dance. Another child might have finished weaving their cushion cover and will be excited about displaying it, yet another child has brought her duck to school because we have a cage for visiting animals. School can be such fun!

As an “Expert Teacher To Be One Day Maybe"

I need to hone my ability to ensure that each student sees our classroom as a safe place to learn and work in. I should make myself more conscious of every action, word, thought and feeling that I convey to my class. Each minute should be accounted for in a lesson, perhaps by over-preparing material. An unrealistic dream is that my rowdy class sit quietly and expectantly at their desks, their eyes wide open as they wait for the pearls of wisdom to fall from my lips. Fat chance!

community

The strongest bond of human sympathy outside the family relation should be one uniting working people of all nations and tongues and kindreds.

Abraham Lincoln

The scientific search for the basic building blocks of life has revealed a startling fact: there are none. The deeper that physicists peer into the nature of reality, the only thing they find is relationships. Even sub-atomic particles do not exist alone. One physicist described neutrons, electrons, etc. as “. . .a set of relationships that reach outward to other things.” Although physicists still name them as separate, these particles aren’t ever visible until they’re in relationship with other particles. Everything in the Universe is composed of these “bundles of potentiality” that only manifest their potential in relationship…

A simple means to support and develop relationships is to create time to think together as staff. Time to think together has disappeared in most organizations. This loss has devastated relationships and led to increasing distrust and disengagement. Yet when a regular forum exists where staff can share their work challenges, everything improves. People learn from each other, find support, create solutions, and gradually discover new capabilities from this web of trusting relationships. This is no surprise. We’re all “bundles of potentiality” that only manifest in relationship.

Margaret Wheatley

Communities come in many sizes, from family size to global. Each part of a community is linked by strands as delicate as a spider’s web and can be easily broken by insensitive words or actions. Even though communities should be mutually supportive among the members, each member has a huge degree of self-responsibility to act when needed. However they should also temper this with a strong awareness of their nominal role within that community. While it is important that everyone be supportive and active, communities can come to grief when there is a conflict of basic ideology and when people trespass beyond their nominal roles. Some communities appear to function well as long as everyone remembers who is ‘”boss” and act accordingly. This goes against everyone feeling that they have as much say as the next person.

As an “Expert Teacher some time down the track," I would like to make sure that my students are part of a creative learning community in the classroom where no-one feels silly if they make a mistake and no-one makes anyone feel a fool. I would like to imbue the children with the feeling that they all have responsibilities towards each other, that they can work together in a constructive way.

Reflection.

Critical reflection is something that a lot of teachers do unconsciously but as a will and mind strengthening exercise, should do consciously. An exercise given by Rudolf Steiner involves the teacher calling to mind each evening every child in their class and asking themselves did they reach that child that day. To do the best job that we can in our teaching we need to constantly check ourselves and our performances. We can make use of our teaching community and ask our colleagues for their viewpoints, we can research educational literature in books or on-line, it is really important to maintain a fresh outlook and keep learning. I have taught numerous class ones in Steiner Schools, I’ve taught the damn alphabet 8 times! (I know it now). What made it interesting was the flexibility allowed me by Steiner education to find fresh images for the letters and the different groups of children before me. Still, I think I’ve had enough now.

To become that elusive “Expert Teacher” not only is it important to critically reflect about one’s performance, one has to act on one’s findings. Something else I really need to work on is those last vital minutes of each lesson because – shock, horror – I forget to round the lesson off properly with the class by reflecting on what we have learnt. I need to develop a stronger end of lesson routine.

Deep Learning

Deep learning is achieved by not only regurgitating the knowledge in a superficial way, but by asking the students relevant questions that engage their imaginations in creative and practical ways.

New information should be given in a succession of carefully constructed stages, starting with the familiar and each leading carefully onto the next. The students should be given immediate feedback on their progress, thus encouraging some of the more unmotivated children to try. Once the students feel they have a grasp of the information they can then be asked to start applying their own thoughts and opinions. This would enhance their feeling of power in their education - something that they do rather than something that is done for or to them. The more that the students apply themselves in a variety of activities that highlight their intelligences, the more they have the freedom to make their learning their own.

As a struggling not-yet Expert Teacher I assess deep-learning taking place largely through observation of my year 1 students. I observe when the children take the lesson content into the playground and take note of extra questions that are asked as they deepen their understanding. As part of our end of year reports each child will create a main lesson book which will be a reflection on the year's main lessons.