Of cups and learning

Many years ago, I read 'Travels' by Michael Crichton. I was intrigued by his mention of auras. It reminded me of a distant cousin who used to claim that he could see people's auras. Unfortunately he didn't hold the same claim to fame as Michael Crichton and we generally viewed him with skepticism. But when Michael Crichton, my favourite author, with all his books generally well researched, talked of auras, I got interested. Many years passed by and my interest kept waxing and waning with circumstances. So recently when a friend added my name to the Reiki interest group, I finally decided to make some time to explore it. 

I didn't experience any earth-shaking experiences on the first day and talked to a friend who's my sounding board when it comes to spiritual/mental experiments. He said that he too has been to sessions with evaluative mindsets and that I should read about 'emptying your cup', a buddhist concept before my next session.

Surely not the ubiquitous cup again!!! In the last few days I have encountered a number of perspectives on cups.

Last week at new staff induction, I talked about the Loris Malaguzzi (Reggio Emilia) philosophy of children not being empty vessels that need to be filled with knowledge. We believe that children come to us with their own capacities which needs to be respected and valued. Their thoughts, knowledge and ideas along with those of teachers help create new knowledge in a constructivist classroom. The concept of a child being an empty vessel to be filled with knowledge is not in sync with our philosophy and it is recognized that all individuals regardless of age come in with their own cups of life experiences, interactions and reflections which make them unique individuals.

This week, I read the 'emptying your cup' story before my Reiki session. The emptying your cup zen story though seemingly contrasting with the Reggio philosophy, offers equally deep lessons. The difference lies in the hat one wears - the teacher's or that of the learner. Where the 'empty cup' concept asks learners to empty their cup and become more open-minded when going to learn, the Reggio philosophy tells the teacher that learners will bring in their cups -not empty- and that needs to be respected. 

The discussion at this point goes way deeper, about learning, about age, about societal structures, about the varying perspectives  and philosophies of cultures on teaching and learning and it still continues to work its way in my head but this is not what I would like to write about today.

Keeping my reflections and mental debates in the back burner during work, I went on a coffee break to the staff room and got chatting with my teaching colleague and friend Catherine, whose son Joseph was my student some years ago. We talked about the cup being half-full or half-empty and she mentioned that Joe had come up with a different perspective. He said that whether your cup was half-full or half-empty depended on whether you kept drinking from it, or filled it up every now and then. He said that the level of the cup would vary at different times!

It always takes the uncluttered  minds of children to come up with the most rational explanations. Simple, beautiful and so rational! The more I thought about it, the more it all made sense.

Each of us have a cup full of positive emotions inside that we reach out to, every now and then. When we experience moments of happiness, we replenish it; when we experience unhappiness, we reach out to it, we reach out for hope, we reach out for strength and we reach out for love, to regain our sense of balance.

Young minds are bubbly and positive! Every day's a new adventure, simple happenings are celebrated and our cups fill quickly. The older we grow, the more often we reach out for our cups. As we get caught in our professional and social lives and have increasingly lesser time for ourselves, the emotions in the cup recede and we find it more and more difficult to get our sense of balance. We get angry, tired, joyless and often despair at the state of events and even wonder why people around us are negative. But we forget that we might not have taken the time to replenish our cup within us.

Joe's perspective has brought clarity. Inspired, I am drawing my own list of ways to help me fill my cup and keep it brimming. 

• Being grateful for and celebrating the little, big things in my life.
• Taking time out to do things I like - cooking, dancing, listening to good music, reading books and recently zentangling.
• Keeping my happy photos handy! My daughter's photo with her bright beaming smile is my phone screen saver and it makes me smile each time I check my phone.
• Planning a new project.
• Keeping a memory or two of completed projects, always brings a wide smile!
• Keeping updated my happiness file, a simple folder where I add all special memories-notes/cards/scribbles/photos from good times.
• Learning something new.... with my empty cup!

As I get on with my Reiki experience I hope to develop the capacity of filling my cup through richer spiritual experiences. I will go with my empty learning cup and shall work towards replenishing my positive emotions cup.

Cheers to that!

Atima

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The irrational teacher!

If I said that you are to leave the comforts of your home and take a bunch of children to an adventure zone and stay with them and take care of them, ensuring that they learn something new and have fun and stay safe, for no added benefits to you,.....

.... more probable than not, the chances are that you will politely decline. That is absolutely rational. 

So what makes another person get excited and spend hours on planning that excursion, which will take him/her away from the comforts of home with a bunch of excited, energised children? Irrationality might be a correct presumption!

Or perhaps this person is a teacher. I don't have statistics but having been in this line for some time now, I am pretty sure I would be right most of the times.

Teachers are indeed an irrational breed.

When a teacher talks about her students he/she often says ‘my children’.  After spending the majority of our waking and productive hours with the lively, active, energised fresh minds, it is difficult to just remain a ‘teacher’.  More often than not, a teacher’s role morphs into that of an educator, counsellor, parent, guide, friend, mentor, nurse, nanny,  tour guide and much more. We teachers talk about our students’ parents,  as ‘my parents’,  simply because in our heads they ARE ours! We spend hours distressing about ‘my child ’ who is not reading or writing at the correct level.  We talk, we google, we draw upon every resource possible to plan for our children. We spend hours rejoicing small achievements.  A spelling word that a child has mastered after weeks of hard work brings a happy smile or even happy tears on the face of a teacher.

As a school, we take months in planning something that lasts an hour! An excursion for us is not a chance to take off from school. It is a responsibility, which we happily take on because we want ‘our kids’ to learn from these experiences. 

So when well-intentioned bystanders question the TKPS or the MOE about the need to take children to the outdoor camps like Kota Kinabalu that was struck by the earthquake, I’d like to say…. take a break please! Give the school community space to come to terms with the tragic incident. School staff spends months on planning the trips to give children a more holistic learning. They leave their families and comfort to take their children for experiential learning. They try their best to shield their children from every possible stress. They ensure safety to the best of their capacity. It would be easy for them to stay in their safe harbour and not worry about anything, but they do it because they want to give ‘their children’ the best possible.  

Unfortunate incidents esp natural disasters cannot be helped.  It is unfortunate that the six children and their teacher lost their lives. But look at the teachers who shielded the children from the boulders by standing in front of them! That is a natural teacher instinct.  It is the confidence in that instinct that helps a school send children on excursions.

The Earthquake in Sabah is a tragic incident. Families that have lost the little ones must be in shock. The parents’ grief would be insurmountable. So would the teachers’. Do spare a thought to the teachers’ families as well. In a school community all staff members work for the children’s best. Spare a thought for the community and don’t question their good intentions, esp at this time. They would be doing a lot of questioning themselves. Trust me.   

Factors for effective learning

So I give up! I made it halfway! The 100 days of learning still continue but the documentation through daily blogging has fizzled out. I have my notes, scribbled all around, with the hope that I will some day document my learning experiences but realistically speaking that is a long long way off! So I have decided to go with the flow and update whenever I can. Blogging...like religion and social media, is created by us humans to better our lives and should not be dictating our lives in exchange. Quite certain about that! 

In the last few weeks, some of the mini lessons that I have enjoyed are to do with Maths and the Arts. The more I re-discover Maths, I am convinced about Maths being a part of the Arts. I have watched a number of videos, tried to find patterns in things around me and listened to Mathsartists. I loved this TED talk on the Magic of Fibonacci numbers . I would love to return back to the classroom to share my new-found love with children. Will definitely try it if I can with the senior grades if I get a chance/time. 

One of the things that I am happy about was the way we followed up with the Maths workshop at school. Some staff were kind enough to share their experiences in the staff meeting and we managed to pull together lessons from different year levels. It was good to see how teachers were using their experiences and learning to run inquiry lessons in Year 1, 3 and 4. The good part about the sharing was that it inspired more staff to share their work. I am happy receiving emails now where staff members are keen to share their work with the rest. This bodes well for a positive school culture.

I often examine and re-examine my role at work. I enjoy leadership but I am still growing and finding my balance. I am conscious that I am moving from a managerial view of leadership to that of leading and capacity building. Read an intensely thought provoking blog post re curriculum design by Grant Wiggins, who never fails to amaze me with his astute observations. His blog post on Curriculum leaders not managers raises a number of questions and throws the reader into an uncomfortable position. 

I have now looked at a number of models PBL, Inquiry-based curriculum, Genius Hour (http://www.geniushour.com/), iTime, etc. and I have done a number of class visits as well as self-reflections. For any of these models to be successful, the teachers HAVE to learn to read and understand the curriculum and be comfortable in letting it go! A well- written curriculum is vital for the new staff but it needs much more than classroom management and curriculum delivery to develop successful learning engagements for children. 

Empathetic relationships with children and their families, hunger for learning and 'listening' to/reading the current contexts, in my view are three very important factors for successful teaching and learning. 

I have not heard of and cannot imagine a successful classroom where the teacher leaves the children as soon as she/he comes out of the classroom. Most often than not a teacher's students are 'my children'. Every year teachers talk of how good this batch is and how we'll never have a batch this good again! And yet, every year we get connected to the new bunch and take pride in their success and feel hurt at their failures. Empathetic relations are important to understand children's contexts and the hurdles as well as possibilities in their learning journeys. The weekend recounts, the little stories during class conversations, the show and tell sessions, the text to self connections during guided reading, the characters they build in narrative writing, the way they talk to their friends, adults, the way they respond on stage, to questions, to open-floor opportunities, all help in building the stories of the children in class. Parent-teacher meetings, emails, communication and meeting parents in a social context helps complete the picture. The important role of the educator then, is not to judge the context but build on and through it. 

Hunger for learning... I cannot repeat this enough. The hungry teacher is effective! Teachers are greedy beings, usually! A new resource probably generates equal excitement in the teacher as a pay rise! Ok, now I am exaggerating but just a little. All teachers love collecting teaching resources. But then there are those that are on a constant lookout for research, for new developments and new strategies as well. They regularly read, upgrade, up-skill and are on a constant lookout for what works well in other classes. They modify, better and apply their learning in their own classrooms as they sift through myriads of information they find on the net, in their colleagues' rooms, in staffroom conversations, in journals and magazines and believe it or not even through staff meetings! They can be viewed as over competitive, energy-driven and in Indian lingo called 'enthu-cutlets'! What I find fascinating about these teachers is that their enthusiasm for learning gets modelled in their teaching. It transfers into their students subliminally. When a student shares a new information the sense of wonderment and curiosity is as evident in the teacher as the other students. This helps build a culture of learning. Students are bound to thrive in such classroom cultures.

Last but not the least important is the listening to or reading the context. The knowledge component of the written curriculum has a lag, simply because the world is changing too rapidly! It is important to read/listen to the context. While the basic understanding of the skills in language and maths including reading, writing and maths operations remain important, the once considered essential components of the disciplines are rapidly changing. Being aware of those changes is equally important as being aware of the written curriculum. And how does one do that?

For one.... develop the hunger for learning! More to come..thoughts galore in my head!

Days 42 - 50 - Additional Language Learners

It's been a good eight days or perhaps more, not having documented my learning journey through this blog. Having said that, I have not really abandoned the project but was unable to use the time effectively due to some extra commitments.

One of my biggest learning during these eight days has been about Additional Language (AL) learners. I have met teachers, additional language learners and concerned parents who want their children to pick up the language but don't know how to support them. 

Last week I attended a meeting of the AL teachers and one of the most interesting things that I learnt there was that every single Language quote in Mandarin is not attributed to Confucius! OK, I am exaggerating, I do know that! Just that I could not resist laughing when the presenter shared a quote which was assumed to be that of Confucius and she said "Not all Chinese quotes belong to Confucius!" It is typical to have Chinese associated with Confucius. It is an easy reference, easy assumption.....perhaps because we don't know better. In my view we don't have much understanding of the Chinese culture and the embedded, inherent values that go with it. 

I have been preparing for an interview about International Mindedness by a professor in the University of Melbourne. I have been trying to work on some of the questions that he is going to ask me. One of the questions is "What is the best indicator of international mindedness?" I have been reflecting on it since the last few days and my best response is that the best evidence of international mindedness would be when an Asian teacher would be able to bring his/her pedagogy with pride at the same table as a Western teacher and both would be able to draw upon the best practices from each others' cultures. For now, the balance is extremely skewed and the Asian staff (more so the mandarin staff) is particularly restricted to taking pride only in its culture and supporting lessons which do not encompass the vast pedagogical practices which are an inherent part of that culture. 

This might sound strange because I am a strong believer in the inquiry-based pedagogy. However, it bothers me that we might be losing a strong culture of learning because those cultures are losing pride in their practices. If we are truly international-minded we should be examining their beliefs, values and cultural norms before applying a standard fit of inquiry to their pedagogies. It is a challenge to all leaders in the authentic international contexts.

I have taken the role of helping facilitate the AL teachers interest group. As always, I realise that the more I work to train/facilitate teachers, the deeper my understanding becomes. The new research paper from the IB gives an interesting insight into the AL learning. More than anything it is simply gratifying to read that the challenges are felt across the community, particularly with languages that are considered to be 'not very useful'. 

This brings me to the stress families undergo in regards to AL learning. Whether the parents are getting a child to learn a language due to its usability in real-life contexts (eg talking to grandparents, using the language for business, etc.) or usability to pass the exam requirement, the challenges remain similar. (I am now planning a workshop on this for parents.)  

One of the key things is for schools to rethink their AL philosophy. Mother tongue versus AL is great; however for a number of nationalities English has now become a naturally acquired language. It can have a tinge of the local lingo and accents to become Aussie English, English English, American English, Hinglish, Singlish etc but it does come naturally to many because they are immersed in it. In addition, Mother tongue in many cases does become literal.... it is what the parents use amongst themselves but their children have no context as they are speaking English. 

How does a child in such a case learn the language? 

More reading needs to be done, however one thing that is clear is for teachers and parents to develop an interest in the AL and make the context for use, relevant for the learner to get motivated. 

More to come.......

Day 41 - Balance in teaching and learning

The weekend's given me some time to reflect on my Maths PD. I particularly liked the fact that the workshop leader talked about a balance in the curriculum, citing research acknowledging the place for procedural fluency, adaptive reasoning, conceptual understanding, strategic competence and productive disposition in maths teaching and learning. The ACER research gives this in detail.

Today I read the article on John Hattie's visit to Alberta - Key to better education. His statements provide an interesting alternate view on constructivist approach. I quote
"The personalized, discovery style of teachers can work, but only after students have accumulated the right amount of knowledge so they’re ready to dig in deeper, Hattie says. “I have no trouble with all the constructivism notions at the right time, but if they dominate, I think they miss the point completely.”

In his book Five Minds for the future Howard Gardener talks about the necessity for students to master the information within the major disciplines like maths. He talks about the disciplined mind that needs to retain information that may not necessarily be intuitive. He also talks of synthesizing and creative minds that need to be cultivated along with respectful and ethical minds.

All above resonate with what experienced teachers have been doing all this while - providing the right balance in the curriculum. The PYP talks about the concepts, knowledge, skills (in the new model skills is replaced by approaches to teaching and learning), attitudes and action and it is again vital to ensure that there is a balance in these components.

Pleased with the learning that validates my own approach towards teaching and learning.

Day 37 to day 40 - A myriad of experiences and learning!

So I haven't been able to update my learning days for a while now. Last week was super hectic at work but some beautiful gems came my way as a result. 

An intense school certification visit ended on a great deal of learning. Not only did I learn more about my work, I learnt more about myself, how I behave under pressure, how it affects my physical being and how it affects me mentally. It was funny how this 100 days of learning made me look at myself with a lens, from a separate plain as I was going through the daily motions. I realised that I need to eat extra healthy, keep extra reminders to keep breathing normally as my breathing becomes shallow when I am under stress. It was good to have my work friends and colleagues drop into my office to keep checking on me........ relationships matter.... a lot, more so in times of absolute busy-ness! 

Some of the major learning during this visit was the technical vocabulary used by other departments. I had heard the terms scheduled, preventive and predictive maintenance before; however, this was the first time they made some sort of sense to me. (Esp, after having googled them!) I quote from wikipedia!

• An individual bought an incandescent light bulb. The manufacturing company mentioned that the life span of the bulb is 3 years. Just before the 3 years, the individual decided to replace the bulb with a new one. This is called preventive maintenance.
• On the other hand, the individual has the opportunity to observe the bulb operation daily. After two years, the bulb starts flickering. The individual predicts at that time that the bulb is going to fail very soon and decides to change it for a new one. This is called predictive maintenance.
• The individual ignores the flickering bulb and only goes out to buy another replacement light bulb when the current one fails. This is called corrective maintenance.

Wow!

This week I met an interesting guy. He reminded me of myself because he was bursting with ideas, had loads of energy (which his continuous cans of coke added to!) and was ready to take on the world..... then and there! I also realised the effect he was having on people around him. It reminded me again of the need to keep a reign on ideas and read the group which is to implement the change and the ideas. The pace of change needs to be in sync with the understanding as well as the energy levels of the group the change is going to be applied on. It will be interesting to see how we lead the change. 

The mooncake festival at school was another reminder of the cultural diversity I have the privilege of experiencing at very close quarters. While the Hofstede's cultural dimensions have opened my eyes to the possibilities, the habit of constant reflection and analysis now helps me to see beyond these dimensions. I am particularly intrigued at the changing facets of these dimensions with the changing demographics, education, English proficiency and the third culture seeping in. This needs a deeper reflection, observation, more reading and perhaps a PhD! If only it wasn't this expensive!

The most enjoyable learning I had this week was through my professional development course on mathematics. I have always been interested in maths but this session was absolutely brilliant. The workshop leader provided us with some amazing maths challenges and I particularly fell in love with Pascal's triangle! I also loved the website http://nrich.maths.org/frontpage which provides excellent open-ended maths inquiries for learners. My colleague and I started a particular activity and we just couldn't let go. This is going to be Micky and my favourite site for a while now, knowing his love for maths!

Happy with the very productive week in terms of work and learning. :)

Day 36 - Sustainable Ganesh Chaturthi

I have always enjoyed Ganesh Chaturthi, particularly the singing and the food! I have not had many occasions to go to houses that set up the Ganesh idols for the festivities but whatever few I have had, have been wonderful.

Having said that, I get very concerned when the festival cycle comes to an end and devotees happily immerse the colourful idols of Ganesh in lakes or rivers. I feel very concerned at the environmentally un-friendly way of bidding goodbye to the god and immersing plaster of paris idols with the accompanying fabric/plastic/metal etc in our  water bodies. 

I decided to research on the impact of the festival in our water bodies. The only data I could get  was some references to a study done by the Central Pollution Control Board. I haven't been able to corroborate it and do not know the validity of this source. (http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-ganesh-visarjan-how-it-impacts-our-environment-1887519), however this seems to be the only one readily available on a google search. Anyway... 

A related study on lakes by CPCB in 2010 found that:
* The acid content in the waters increased
* The TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) increased by a 100%
* The Dissolved Oxygen content increased during the day due to the agitation of waters during immersion and reduced at night when organic discharge increased

* The heavy metal content sampling showed a ten fold increase in metals such as iron, while copper content in the sediments increased by 200 to 300%. 

The point is that immersing an idol made of non-biodegradable material, with paints which may have harmful chemicals, does not make the human society better, which in my opinion is the intention or the rationale of all religions and religious festivities. 

I celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi but do not set up an idol separately for the occasion. If I would I would definitely make it with flour or clay, the old-fashioned way, which is certainly more sustainable. (We need to stick to the old traditions our previous generations had... they were in harmony with the environment.) 

I received this interesting new take on Ganesh Chaturthi from a friend on whatsapp which has been my learning for the day.

So this idol has been made using 28 kilos of chocolate. The person who made this kept it for the celebrations and then in the end, immersed it in milk (instead of the water bodies) and distributed the milk in the local orphanage. How sweeeet is that? :)

I love the creativity and comparative sustainability of this project. More power to such creative genes and may the celebrations continue! Happy happy everyone!