Professional practise, influences, tasks and next steps...
Before the Skype I was feeling a bit out of the loop as I have recently been unwell and away from my blog, where as prior to this I felt I was really on a roll. I was really looking forward to the Skype to kick start myself again and get back to where I was before the illness. The session with Adesola was very interesting, enlightening and I had that "lightbulb moment" during the Skype.
Adesola really got us thinking about so many thing and it has really left me contemplating my new findings. I have chosen a few of the questions and topics to discuss in this blog that have really stuck with me.
What is your professional practise?
I can now answer this question in two different ways.
Q:What is your Professional practise ? A: My professional practise is a thing.
Q:What is your professional practise ? A: Answer Art Educator
I am starting to see my professional practise now as a thing rather than a singular job that I do day in day out. Before this Skype I felt that the words Professional Practise were blurred and the meanings to me were unclear, where as now I am starting to see my practise as a part of a large jigsaw puzzle, my professional practise is a job but it is also connected to a wider field which has different branches and avenues to pursue.
Another way I look at it now is that my job title is a Lead Dance and Gymnastic teacher, but my practise is an Art Educator and that is what my field is I am in the education system. Knowing this now can provide me with so many different avenues to develop my career, primary school teacher, teaching assistant, support staff, special needs, dance teacher in secondary schools, gymnastics coach, I.S.T.D teacher ... It is all one field and I am part of it, in order to progress in my job I must research and develop my knowledge of my field.
From this part of the Skype chat I am left with many thought provoking questions that I will be exploring over the next few weeks, where am I at in my Professional practise ? Who influences my practise and the choices I make? How could I develop my practise? Where could it go? What avenues are out there? What interest me?
Who do you admire ?
After the Skype chat had finished, I began thinking about the chosen people that I mentioned, why do I admire them? I chose people higher up in my company and selected particular primary school teachers that have inspired me because they have made a change to my thoughts and actions in my practise. Then again I questioned my thoughts, why them ? Why not my other managers or peers? What is it that they do that makes me inspired? It also made me realise how many people I aspire to and even people I have not met, for example Bill Rogers who has written so many behaviour management techniques, he has guided me and helped me with my practise for years and I admire his work greatly. Now I know what type of model I would like to be and have a greater understanding of what qualities in a person inspire me.
-Committed
-Kind
-Inspiring ideas and methods
-Does everything to the highest standard
- How they deal with hard situations
-How they don't mix personal with professional
-Creative
-Modest
Tasks are there to stimulate Practise
This was another lightbulb moment the tasks are there to stimulate me thinking about my practise that is the overriding reason for them. We discussed that if a task is not stimulating you, you don't need to do it and to spend more time on a task that is achieving what you need. We spoke about old styles of learning and how you could revise something and sit a test of 10 questions then apparently your skilled in that subject where as this course allows us to use the tasks as a tool to get to where we need to be and to build our knowledge and not to use the tasks necessarily as an instruction sheet.
Overall the Skype was incredibly beneficial I have a new direction that I am working towards and it has helped to clear and re focused my thoughts.
Great read Lois-May :) a lot of the times if you feel like you are not motivated in either your job or a task in life, going back to your inspirations and remembering the reason why you have committed yourself to what you have chosen to do in the first place can really be help! It's hard enough to put yourself out there every day when you are following pretty much the same routine daily. A burst of inspiration is all it takes sometimes, whether it is a person you look up to, music, a pep talk or even a Skype call to share these ideas amongst ourselves :)
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more that burst of inspiration that you have spoken about is key, doesn't matter how motivated you are or what your work ethic is like you often still need that inspiration especially coming from a creative background, thank-You for your comment.
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