What is teaching to me?

The short version... teaching is fun, two-way learning, about engagement, passionate, difficult, rewarding and something I love to get up and do EVERY day.

The longer version ... each teacher has a background that they take into their classroom and I am no different. My pedagogy (love that word!) is a mix of my background, traits, biases and learning as I go. I do not believe that I expected that it would be easy for me but I have learnt that taking on a new job in a new company is a measure of TRUST ... trust in myself.

I have been fortunate to have had some amazing experiences before I came to teaching. I am a father of three, a husband to an incredibly intelligent and thoughtful wife, and I have had over 20 years in business at reasonably senior levels. Because of these experiences, I have a different insight to many other teachers as I came into a new profession at 44 years of age. I will discuss that job transition in a different post but for now ... what is teaching to me?

Teaching is a TWO-WAY profession ... you impart knowledge, you share, you give, you understand and in doing this you get feedback (sometimes you have to LISTEN hard). Then you adjust and try again. There is nothing more honest than a child ... they tell you (in words or body language) what they like or dislike. I have learnt to go to other teachers to get a better understanding of how I can help my students. My favourite saying "I get better the more people I talk to". I chat, listen, disagree and take on board what I feel will be better for my students. I do not always get it right, but I move into each day trying to get better.

Teaching is about ENGAGEMENT. I have to engage my students - this is not just about how I say something but it is about what I say and do. An example ... I used to use a behaviour wall chart to give visual feedback to my students as the day and week went on:

from: http://www.brightconcepts4teachers.com/2014/08/weekend-warriors-back-to-school-cool_31.html

I found the chart okay but some of my Year 5 and 6 students (I teach a composite class) were not into it. They just did not care when they got to the top of the chart. And some of them were not really fazed when they hit the bottom - even with consequences. Then ... I was chatting with my daughter about her new French teacher. She was very excited ... they had started to use ClassCraft in the classroom and could set themselves up in teams, create characters, gain experience points, fall in battle ... why was I not using this in my classroom!

Now I am not afraid to admit that I played a little Dungeons and Dragons when I was early in high school. So the gamification of classroom behaviour had me more than interested. So ... I tried it.

My 2016 class went from strength to strength ... my Principal's quote: "You have done a wonderful job with your class this year". I feel the improvement I saw in my class was partly due to the way I leveraged ClassCraft and my use of Emotional Intelligence to engage the class. I had a huge mix of kids ... artists, sportspeople, mathematicians ... well, the whole gamut of Multiple Intelligences. Each of them had to be treated as an individual in a class of 27. ClassCraft allows this as the interactions are individual but also affect your team. I made rewards that were specific to my class - reading time, sport etc. I created consequences in the game that related to areas that my students needed to work on ... poetry, creative writing or public speaking. We made it fun.

(Well, the "worst" of it was that I setup a "test student" to check what would happen if I changed the game's parameters. This was all fine until "Test Student" got hit with a consequence - "Sentences" as they are known in the game. "Test Student" was to dance for 10 seconds. And so ... I did - the kids loved it. We accepted our consequence and moved on!). ClassCraft has brought a new level of engagement, interaction and negotiation into our class. I encourage and reward them if they have new ideas for the game. They are logging on at home and sending me messages! Now how many behaviour management tools do you know where the kids want to login to it?!

So there it is ... teaching for me is passionate, about engagement, two-way communication and fun. I can't imagine doing anything else. I do wonder what would have happened if I had not taken this leap into this profession ... but that is for another time ... I keep learning ...