CFE: Waid Academy Week 2
CFE: Waid Academy
Personal Reflection
The week started off nicely with a bank holiday on Monday, making it a long weekend and giving the teachers and students both a little extra relax time. I spent my free time down in London for the weekend, taking the train through the snaking rails of the Scottish fields. The wooly sheep and babbling brooks gave my eyes a little gift as we paced through the wonderful sights.
Tuesday was back at school. The students were buzzing from the weekend, and the teachers were wishing for more time off. School starts with a fire-alarm like bell. All of the students line up outside of the door to their classroom, and do not proceed in until invited. The teaching style from what I have observed, is almost purely teacher-led learning. I find this creates a power dynamic shift different from Canada. The control of learning is almost solely in the hands of the teacher, and students are giving little time to discuss or reflect on classroom lectures. I find that is teacher-led teaching inhibits an environment where the teacher is the facilitator, fostering a creative and inquiry-based learning style. This, although not foreign, is challenging for me as I have seen the benefits clearly of a student-led learning style. I am also finding the lack of teaching time challenging for me, as I enjoy teaching so much. The Scottish school system is very standardized and regulated, the theory portion is something I know little about.
I have taught a couple of lesson since being here, and most of these lessons are culinary demonstrations. The students stare at me wide-eyed as I’m now the teacher that is much more flamboyant than the others, has a hilarious accent, and gestures widely with her hands. I have greatly molded my teaching style to match that of Scottish teachers while being here, but the students notice the differences almost immediately. I have found when teaching the students here, especially the older ones, they are almost scared to joke around with you. They speak very little when cooking and are taught very precisely to follow every rule. On Wednesday I was helping a student complete an activity sheet in a separate room than his classmates. Him and another student had been pulled out of their workspace as punishment of not working properly. As I was explaining to this particular student how the activity worked, the student was snickering and harmlessly mimicking my accent. I brushed the attitude off and continued explaining the work. A few moments later, the Principle of the Department was in the classroom to tell the child off for making fun of me. This is definitely a situation that I have not encountered before because at home, if I have a problem with a student, I will speak to them first and sort it out with them. To be excluded from the explanation of behavior or punishment of behavior was strange to me. I believe that all students, regardless of their behavior still need to be treated with respect. Yelling at the student made me feel like he was being shamed, and I was unclear how that would fix his behavior in the future.
Thursday was an “in-service” day, and most of the day was taken up with staff meetings. The staff meeting began with regular bookkeeping like how teachers can call in sick, and what the unwritten ground rules of the school were. Emphasis was given on how teachers need to foster a positive work environment for the students so they can feel positive about their work. The “Headmaster” then showed a video on Sir John Jones inspiring teachers on the profession. Here is what I got from the video:
- The only way in our modern education system to get a good mark is for the student to churn out exactly what I just told them.
- Being happy is being in a good mood and wanting it to carry on. Students will also work better when they are happy and have an emotional connection with you.
- Shallow Learning: teacher-led lecturing
- Deep Learning: cross-curricular understanding and applying what you are learning through skills.
- “Are we preparing students for a test, or are we preparing them for life?”
- “All of the preparation of learning kills creativity.”
- Are we asking a question to which they already know the answer?
- A teachers job is not to teach you the subject, it’s to teach you to love and have a passion for the subject. Google can teach you anything, but they can’t teach you to love it.
- Don’t just send for a bigger crane, figure out why there’s a problem in the first place.
- Your brain believes that the way you do things now is the absolute best way to do things, and it’s not. How can it be?
- Be very careful about your pre-determined perception of students, this will hurt their learning in so many ways.
- It’s important to research our own school
- Our whole goal is to create independent learners:
- How will the students react when they leave us?
- Will they be prepared?
Although I believe that all the right information is directly in front of the teachers to learn from, ultimately it’s their decision weather they learn from it and choose to practice it. I believe that Scotland is headed in the right direction (of this I am very biased) in pedagogy, but from what I observed, the teachers are still practicing very old-school teaching styles that rely heavily on teacher-led learning. During the staff meeting, teachers were put into groups and were asked to voice the perspective of different groups in the school and community. Groups were to create a plan for what the school should be like in 2020. Groups made steps to create their 3-year plan and what needed to change within the school to achieve that. Here is the plan my group proposed: “In 2020, education will structure learning toward each pupil; allowing learners to have a collaborative individual learning plan. This will encourage independent learners with life skills who will succeed in life.” With the new “Curriculum For Excellence” in place in Scotland for six years now, schools could be headed in the right direction with the participation of teachers and learners alike.