When did we forget about the journey?

As a child growing up in the nineties in a small, small farming community in the Freestate in the middle of nowhere, dreaming very big dreams was part of everyday life. Having said that, the urgency and desire to leave and become something/someone great, rich and powerful was absolute. This of course pushed me to work hard, focus on grades and sometimes push myself beyond measures just to be able to reach what I thought then was the "end destination". 

My, how the mighty and naive have fallen!  Fast forward past many mistakes and hard lessons to where I am today. A student yet again, who finally knows in her being that there is no end destination to be met, there is only the journey. This leaves me with a clear vision of my future teaching practice: To NOT let the children/learners become so focused on results, that they forget about their journeys, to learn through them and yes, have fun in them! My heart has been full since I started PGCE. This course has surprised me in too many ways to mention here, but one of the more pleasant surprises was to notice how the lecturers and the faculty place emphasis on the experience of learning, not just the outcomes. This is certainly a goal to strive for in my future as an educator as I believe that this will promote the over-all well-being of your learners.

How can we as educators in the present and of the future help learners to achieve this positive learning experience? Foley suggests in Teaching the whole child that we as teachers should do the following:

·         -Be available and accessible to students.

·         -Create an environment of open communication, where student concerns and worries can be heard.

·         -Provide solid education in foundation skills.

·         -Have empathy and understanding for the students’ current circumstance and provide them with the tools with which to facilitate a positive outcome.

·         -Intervene when students experience bullying and harassment.

·         -Promote pro-social bonding (remembering birthdays, family occasions, just be yourself)

These methods can certainly help you to promote the joy of learning, but we should also keep in mind that being mindful teachers and teaching our learners to be mindful may also have a very positive outcome. To be mindful is to be in the moment, to be open to your surroundings and not to judge the experience.  This allows us to be more creative, not judge our shortcomings too harshly, and to find new and exciting ways to improve ourselves. Thus enjoying the journey, and not focusing on the destination. I can just imagine how this would have a positive influence on our learners, as Ernest Hemingway says, it is the journey that matters in the end.

World wide learning - a Possibility or not?

"How can you teach someone about the world when you are isolating them from the world?" – Matt Whalan

What a relevant question this is! I certainly grew up in a world where we as learners were very much isolated from the world and when you think about all that is out there to learn and to pique your interest, that can make you fall in love with a subject and truly engage with it and LEARN, what a shame that we were denied that privilege.

 We as embarking educators have an obligation to ask ourselves if there is any reason to deny our future learners of such a privilege. This might not be such an easy task, there are many factors that come into play and that have to be kept in mind, but we cannot be responsible for yet another generation isolated from the world. Hamilton says disagreeably that   "...both teachers and students are confined by their defined roles, limited to be either bankers making knowledge deposits or empty bank vaults passively receiving those deposits." This truly cannot still be the accepted form of education and we as educators should try our best to not be confined by the defined roles. Hamilton quotes Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed in his article where Freire says that “Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction”. What he means by that statement is that we should redefine ourselves as teachers who can also be students and allow our students to also be teachers. We all have something to bring to the table and also to take away from the table. I feel that this will allow for true engagement and for learning to take place. When you watch a video such as “The Independent Project” and see what children are capable of when you give them authority to choose what they study and do the research and experiments by themselves, you can only shake your head in amazement and awe. These students have found a new passion for learning by simply finding ways of making work interesting and fun. We as educators can and should learn from these learners.

Is technology-mediated self-directed/distance learning the way forward for our learners? There certainly is a possibility of it becoming a reality. The question is should it? Hamilton poses a few concerns regarding technology-mediated self-directed/distance learning, one of which is the difficulty of communicating with peers who do not speak the same language than you.  The other problem is that people have different forms of access, meaning not only “material access, but also functional access (the ability to use), experiential access (the ability to use in a personal context), and also critical access (the ability to choose to use)” Hamilton. These are just two problems discussed, I am sure there are many more. There is certainly a lot of attributes as well, but at the moment this might not yet be able to become a reality. We as educators should therefore find a way to facilitate technology-mediated self-directed/distance learning in a way that get our learners interested and engaged, and also to help them distinguish between what is important and factual and what is not.  It might not be realistic for learners use only technology-mediated self-directed/distance learning, but it sure can help.

Social media in the classroom. Say what????

When I was at school many many moons ago, social media did not even exist. Almost all of us had those blue and grey/white nokia 3310's and Mxit just became a thing.  Now look at me, I'm blogging and Tweeting for Pete's sake! This has sure been an interesting life so far but sometimes I feel like I'm just not wired the same as the 90's kids who grew up in much more advanced technological times. I drag my feet when it comes to jumping on the bandwagon concerning technology, but I must admit by experiencing it first hand in this class, I cannot and will not deny the value in it.

Having read Davis and Provenzano's helpful suggestions on how to use social media in your classroom, I feel a new sense of excitement for next year when we all go out into the big bad world and have our own classrooms full of eager learners which we are supposed to somehow both inspire and educate (shivers down my spine). 

Using social media in my subjects, English, History and Life Orientation seems like a wonderful tool to engage with your learners and inspire and motivate beyond the classroom. In English we can use social media in various ways. You can let the learners form groups and record them acting out certain parts of a prescribed text/play, then post it on a protected social media site and let them comment on each others work. Or let them blog about things that are happening at school, in the media, in class, the community and so on. By doing this you are enhancing both reading and writing skills and stimulating critical thinking as well. You can also share interesting and relative literature on a social media platform for those who are interested.  

In History, a helpful social media tool might be Instagram, using pictures of historic figures and buildings to enhance understanding of certain concepts. The learners can also blog some of their critical essays, and get their peers’ opinions before handing in their final essays. They can also use social media to create groups where you share certain shared views.
Most of the above can be applied in Life Orientation as well. You as a teacher can also use social media like twitter to announce homework or assignments and to remind the learners of due dates or just to encourage them by sending them something inspirational or motivational.

The above mentioned, is discussed very, very briefly, I would love to ramble on about this for pages and go into detail about the various ways in which social media can be incorporated in the classroom, but alas...I would just like to mention that even though this is exciting and I would definitely like to make use of social media next year and every year after that, there are some pitfalls that we as teachers should also be aware of such as potential violation of the teachers and the learners’ privacy and school regulations.   If you can avoid these, social media in the classroom is the way to go!