Task 4D - Literature

What is a teacher? My own brief research into teaching professionally. 

Paula left a comment on my blog suggesting I should use google to find the meaning of teaching and the meaning of being a teacher, below are my findings this lead me to teaching what it means to be a teacher, the profession itself, what it takes to teach and finally reasons why people teach. 

Below is what I have found online to help to develop my line of inquiry, I will continue to gather other sources of literature to blog about. 

https://www.edutopia.org/discussion/heart-teaching-what-it-means-be-great-teacher

Talks about what a teacher needs to be kind, compassionate, empathetic, positive, builder and have the ability to inspire. 

http://www.teachhub.com/teaching-profession

Discusses teaching as a profession (site recommend by Paula)

http://www.dawn.com/news/759706/teaching-what-it-means-to-be-a-teacher

What it means to be a teacher 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/schools/let-me-ask-you-this-why-do-teachers-teach-9695704.html

Reasons why people teach. 

This is a good start for me to start finding literature for the next few tasks. This will help me to build other ideas using the informations from google and when all the data is back from my questionnaires.

 If anyone is looking to form a SIG group with me to chat about teaching let me know. 

Three Questionnaires

I am going to save this for when I get to Reader 6, but I will generally ask people to help me to form my inquiry. 

Teacher’s Questionnaire

1.     Why do you teach?

2.     What skills do you think people need in order to be an effective Primary School teacher?

3.     What would you say are your own personal qualities as a teacher?

4.     How would your students describe you?

5.     What do you think good teaching practise is?

6.     Are there any specific behaviour management techniques you use? If so why?

7.     Are there any Behaviour management practitioners that have influenced your techniques?

8.     Do you think it is important for teachers to have qualifications?

9.     Have your qualifications helped you in your teaching career? If so how?

10.  Have you heard about the school that swapped detention with meditation? What are your thoughts on this? Would it work?

Family/ Friends Questionnaire

1.     What is a teacher?

2.     Are there different types of teachers?

3.     What skills do you think people need in order to be an effective primary school teacher?

4.     Has a teacher ever left a positive lasting experience with you? If so why has it stayed with you?

5.     Has a teacher ever left a negative lasting experience with you? If so why has it stayed with you?

6.    Have you taught anyone before? If so who and why?

7.     Would you approve if your child took part in meditation/mindfulness in school instead of the usual detention? If yes why? If no why ?

Children’s Questionnaire

        1.What is a teacher?

  

2     2. Do you have a favourite teacher? If so why?

      3.What makes a really good teacher?

      4.What is a good lesson?

  5.How do you learn best? Circle one 

Looking                     Hearing                    Doing                Reading and writing 

6.What do you think of detention? If you could change it what would you change it to? 

Questions and Answers

Finding Questions and Answers... 

1. What would I love to learn?

I would love to learn exactly what skills I have or need to develop to be a successful Primary School Teacher. I want to know different teaching methods and how to engage students. I would love to learn more about behaviour management schemes and what schemes work in what schools and why they work. I would like to understand why people teach and discover experiences people have had with a teacher that has changed or developed their lives in one way or another. I would also like to find evidence of what other people view as good teaching practise. 

    2. What is a teacher?

I believe a teacher is a role model someone who provides another person with  information, and that information makes a change of some sort to their lives whether it be, how to do something or what to do. Sometimes the change is small,sometimes a change is big, being a part of that process no matter how big or small is why I want to be a teacher. 

    3.Why do I want to teach?

I want to teach because I enjoy it. I like to help people and to feel like I have a purpose and a role to play. Even if it is for those 7 children who have turned up to after school club. 

   4.Does mindfulness help children to behave better?

I do not have the answer for this, I would like to explore this further.

   5.Behaviour management techniques

I have witness so many different behaviour management techniques. I would be interested to explore these techniques further and find practitioners in behaviour management and their reasons to why they work and how they work.

   6.What is a teacher ? Are there Types of teachers? 

This came up in the Skype, this set a lightbulb off in my head! What is a teacher? I was assuming that a teacher is a teacher that I see every day a primary/secondary teachers. But as discussed in the Skype conversation there are so many different types of teachers, you can learn something from someone you cross path with in the street. I am going to explore the correct definition to a teacher, and what other people think is a teacher. 

Can teachers be categorised or are all types of teachers the same whether their job title is teacher or not. 

   7.  Ask the audience 

As I am aiming to teach Primary school children I am also going to ask them what is a teacher? 

What makes a good teacher do you think?

Are there different types of teachers in your school?

Do you like a teacher in particular ?

If so, why ? 

I need to research outside of my own opinions and thoughts, I am going to create three separate questionnaires a Colleagues Questionnaire,Family/Friends Questionnaire  and a Children's Questionnaire to try to find some more answers to guide me further in my inquiry. 

Is there anyone who I can form a SIG group with ? Anyone else interested in teaching? Any aspect of it to form a discussion ?

Thanks for reading ! :) 

Skype 07.10.2016

Skype Session
The session lead by Adesola proved to be incredibly informative and changed my thought process and my view on module 2. 

The imagery Adesola told us had helped me to realise I don't need the correct answer right now it need to develop. See your inquiry as a ball of clay or a lump of wood that is going to take time to create or carve- Take time to fully form the question- sculpt. 

During the Skype session we spoke about making assumptions in our inquiry questions. We all spoke about the obvious assumptions that I had made in my question. Below is my initial question, I knew it needed to be developed and I was stuck on how to develop it. The Skype has helped me immensely and I have now taken a new turn in my journey. 

"What makes a good teacher?"

 Good- What us good? Good isn't definable, we don't know what good is! 
Teacher- A teacher could be anybody, you can not define a teacher. 

Instead I should be asking questions like, what do you see as being a teacher? What do you think good teaching practise is? 
This way I will find answers to my inquire not evidence to back up my views or opinions that already exist. 

Something that Adesola said has changed how I now look at my inquiry question, Adesola said "What would you love to learn more about?" We went on to discuss that this is what your inquiry should be about to help you in your professional practise, not an old interest rekindled but something new that is pushing you forward to the next part in our careers. 

The most important thing that I discovered from the Skype was because of what Megan was saying that she was working in the past as if she was in module 1, this made me realise that I am working too far in the future. I know that I would like a career in teaching and to develop my teaching practise, so I formed a question without realising, in order for the question to  give me the answers, therefore it was riddle with assumptions. Now I know that I need to find exactly what I would love to learn more about and to ask other questions to find my own question. 

Below is a photo of the notes that I made during the session. 

The Skype has left me with new questions to investigate.

1. What would I love to learn?
2. What is a teacher?
3. Why do I want to teach?
4. Why do others teach?
5. What does teaching mean to me?
6. Differences in Primary and Dance teaching
7. Does mindfulness help children to behave better?
8. Behaviour management techniques
9. Types of teachers

Mind Full or Mindful?

I have been thinking about my inquiry and keeping an open mind, something that has interested me this week was about a school that have replaced detention with meditation and the results were brilliant! This one video has led me further discovering really interesting mindful strategies and I have read testimonies of teacher, parents and students of how it has helped them. Do we all need to be a bit more mindful rather than mind FULL? Does this mind set help children? Does it help with behaviour management? Is it a life skill that we need to learn in school? Do teachers need to be mindful and teach children how to take care of their mind? Is this good teaching practise? Are you a better teaching by being mindful? 

Maybe I could tie this in with teachers and schools behaviour management strategies what works and what doesn't, can you have one behaviour management strategy that suits every child? As you can see one video has created another 15 questions that hopefully are going to help me to refine my question. Below are some videos that I have found that have sparked this interest.

A school replaces detention with meditation 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJq6oI_vO2U
This led me to find the Holistic Life Foundation that is introducing mindfulness into schools.

Holistic Life Foundation 
http://hlfinc.org

Holistic Life- Ted Talk- I really recommend this video, it shows what they have done but talk alot about why breathing is so important. The video also takes you through breathing exercises.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBJ7MUJzvZc

I have also been told about Cosmic Kids youtube channel that teachers often play to children to explain those hard questions like 'why are people mean?' They explain it so well to children and create strong visuals to take through life. They use yoga and meditation in all their videos.

You Tube Cosmic Kids- Why are people mean?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5LLfdhGekA

This may or may not form part of my inquiry but I found it very interesting. It also has helped me to realise what type of teacher I want to be, combining this with Rita Pearsons view on education https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFnMTHhKdkw I feel more confident in my teaching and inspired to inspire other students.

A exercise for you all to try, take a moment to look at the photo and evaluate what you do day to day...

Where are you? Do you live in the past and think in the future? Where is your mind?