For this week’s blog post I am going to focus on the word connection. This is a word that has travelled leaps and bounds over the years. Its meaning has taken on a skin like a chameleon and transformed itself as technology and innovation took off. It’s meaning has expanded from something small and intimate, to something large and global. I do not mean this to sound negative, but similar to a lot of things in our world, this advancement comes with the good and the bad. As I try to place myself in a world without the ease of today, I think that connection would have been such an genuine and intimate experience. Connecting with a diverse group of people would have taken great effort and coordination. Pioneers couldn’t hit up their friends on Facebook, or tag them in a post on Twitter. Instead, they had to physically find themselves standing face-to-face with another human and coordinate the next time they would meet meticulously and precisely. I think of what family life would look like in this time as well, when there was no technology to interrupt genuine connectivity. Social skills and oral communication were constantly being developed and refined, and people were more likely to sit and process emotion, feeling, and thought. I also think of the school experience during this time. The connection between teacher and student. I was intrigued by this time period and found a teacher guide from the 1880’s about pioneer schools in Texas. Children were often taught in one-room school houses. It was stated that real teachers were a “prized possession” for the community. The rules during this time for both students and teachers were not humanitarian or moral, but teachers often had the same students for multiple years of their lives and it is hard for me to think that no connection was formed. If we could disconnect ourselves from the disciplinary and rigid structure of the school, what would that model look like now? By putting myself back in those times and thinking about connection from a general standpoint at that time, it makes me strive to create a place where genuine human connection exists in the classroom. The advancements made in technology have done wonders of good for society as a whole, but I think there is real benefit in creating balance. A balance where we connect with students around the world via Skype, but also allow ourselves to grow and be vulnerable inside a morning sharing circle. A balance where we post our class happenings on our Twitter, but also leave wall space open to celebrate the achievements of different students. "Balance is not something you find, it’s something you create.” - Jana Kingsford So create a culture that is both tight-knit and intimate, as well as global and connective. Doing this will not only benefit students, but will allow you to have more of an influence on your student’s lives as well, and is that not a main reason we all wanted to immerse ourselves into the teaching world in the first place? Check out my fellow Lakehead 9x9x25 bloggers:
Helen Dewaard - http://extending.hjdewaard.ca/category/9x9x25-blogging-challenge/ Steven Secord - http://teachingbythebay.ca
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I have learned a lot in my years of post-secondary about the importance of community, and for this week's blog post what a better way to transition from Thanksgiving weekend than talking about gathering. More specifically, gathering information, gathering resources, and gathering together. Gather InformationIf we are awake to the wide circle of reality around us, then its intelligence can join to ours in ways that reach far beyond what we can imagine from our point-wise awareness" - Arthur Zajonc The world provides us the opportunity to gather information on a daily basis, we simply need to act like sponges. Mindfulness and awareness are two key components to allowing ourselves to soak up this information. As teachers, it can be easy for us to slip into the leader mentality instead of the co-learner mindset. If we allow them to teach us, we can learn a lot from students and gather information about what they have learned, how they learn, and why they know what they know. Parker Palmer talks about letting the subject be the centre of our classroom in his powerful novel, The Courage to Teach. It takes the microphone away from the teacher and "the subject itself corrects us, resisting our false framings with the strength of its own identity, refusing to be reduced to our self-certain ways of naming its otherness" (Palmer, 2017, p. 108). We must be open and available to students and subjects in order to gather and soak up information. Be the sponge in a world full of hydrophobics. Gather ResourcesHere is where I get to tell all educators about an amazing platform that allows teachers to gather and share resources they can use across grade levels and curriculum subjects. This collaborative environment is called Cube for Teachers, and it allows you to save resources found on the web to folders of your choice. Cube is great for planning units, saving ideas for the future, and organizing resources into one place. There are many wonderful educators you can follow on Cube to see what they are sharing that may inspire future lessons of your own. Besides this community, be sure that you are continuing to gather resources to keep both yourself and your students inspired and excited to learn in a world that continues to change and grow. Gather Together
Check out my fellow Lakehead 9x9x25 bloggers:
Helen Dewaard - http://extending.hjdewaard.ca/category/9x9x25-blogging-challenge/ Steven Secord - http://teachingbythebay.ca First, a bit of an introduction
I think a big way we grow is by learning more about ourselves. To do this we must constantly be reflecting a light back on ourselves. Why did this upset me? Why did I respond in such a bitter way? Only by self-reflection do we create a pathway for change.
One of the things I have come to know about myself is that I desire structure. I thrive on routines, schedules, and plans. Therefore, to set myself up for success for this free flowing challenge, I decided I would grant myself that much desired structure. I am a graduate student this year and one of the opportunities granted to me along this pathway is to work with a professor at the Lakehead University Orillia campus. Not to brag, but this year I hit the jackpot and was assigned to work with two amazing women in the Faculty of Education, Frances Helyar and Helen Dewaard (who is also doing this challenge). My main task for these educators is to release a weekly podcast for the faculty, which I have set up to focus around a new word each week (see, structure). I thought this was the perfect opportunity to be able to write a blog post simultaneous to the podcast and incorporate the word of the week in a reflective way. So, here we are with the word dream. Dare to dream
Deadlines and commitments. This is what Dan Pallotta tells us are the very two things we need to achieve our dreams.
Pallotta suggests, "we are born to dream and we might die without ever having the chance." I know I have dreams, and I know you do too. We tend to look at what I am going to call our "safe gifts" are. You know the gifts we were born with that will land us a stable career, make us financially secure, and allow us to fit in with a respectable group of friends. But what about your dreams? The dreams that use your "risky gifts" and might not offer you all of the frills of a comfortable life. Why don't we pursue those? Well, my thought is that it boils down to two main reasons: fear and time.
What if you took the advice of Pallotta and made yourself a commitment with a deadline? What if you dared to follow your dreams?
Follow my fellow Lakehead 9x9x25 bloggers:
Helen Dewaard - http://extending.hjdewaard.ca/category/9x9x25-blogging-challenge/ Steven Secord - http://teachingbythebay.ca |
AuthorJust a university student blogging about her reflections, assignments, resources, and learning tidbits. Archives
October 2018
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