the purefinder - archives - Sat, 2004-12-11
« We didn't notice the photographer. | Main | the same profound calmness »December 11, 2004
I'm not the person I was.
I'm not the person I was.
The people that we are, the aggregations of our decisions and fears and aspirations and prejudices and principles and capabilities and weaknesses, must always exhibit some malleability as we clumsily negotiate our ways through the world and our lives.
Most of the time we don't notice these incremental adjustments to who we are.
Sometimes we are subject to a bigger jolt and we become aware that we are not quite the same people we were before.
I haven't written here since September; this was the point at which I enthusiastically plunged into a degree course that will eventually allow me to become a teacher in primary schools.
Part of my purpose in writing for this place has been to continue to develop my abilities as a writer. I have also written because I felt that finding the words to express my internal dialogues helped in the way that a conversation with a friend will help.
The institution at which I am studying emphasises the value of reflective writing to us as we learn, and as we test our learning in the classroom; I have thus been required to write similar stuff, which is often pretty good, for another audience. If you are reading this piece, then you are, probably, not amongst the audience for the other stuff.
Since September I have written voluminously. I have reflected upon new understandings and new learning and new connections I have noticed between bits of my learning and between bits of my understanding.
These are the incremental changes that I referred to earlier; the emphasis that our tutors have placed on reflective writing about our learning has made me notice what might previously have passed me by.
This last two weeks I have been on placement in a primary school near Lincoln. I have planned and delivered actual lessons to real children in a real classroom. I have manipulated the behaviour and attitude of 30 children to create the artificial environment of my (temporary) classroom - a place and time where learning can take place.
Some learning took place.
There were many small incremental changes in me throughout my fortnight in the school: my planning improved; my approach to planning went though several changes; I adjusted my relative proportions of fear and confidence; I found effective ways of addressing the behaviour of the challenging children in the class I was placed in; I became more effective at delivering the lessons I had planned.
I also had one of the big jolts.
I was writing and reflecting (in one of the things you can't read) about my anticipation of what my departure from the school would be like. I knew that I would miss, tremendously, the children who were, mainly, delightful. I knew that I would miss the opportunity to continue developing my competences.
I knew that there was also something else.
Eventually, I found the words. I thought that I had been a beneficial temporary presence in the lives of the children.
They are extremely well looked after by their very capable and effective teacher - who was inspiring during our time in the school. Nevertheless, I thought I had added something to some of the children. I had actually helped to provide some of the little nudges and pushes that would help promote incremental change in them as the people that they are and will become.
I had gone into the classroom as someone who was anxious not to get in the way too much and as someone who wanted to try and minimise the damage that I did to the children's learning. I left as someone who considered himself to have become a person who helps, and has helped, children to learn. I have helped them to learn a few of the things that they need to know about numeracy and literacy and science. I have also taught them a little about how to interact appropriately with the world and its inhabitants. I have been a positive influence.
I still have almost everything to learn, and fortunately a lot of time left to learn it, and I am certainly not yet sufficiently competent to be unleashed on any set of children for too long - lest their lives be blighted by misconception and misunderstanding and ignorance, but, nevertheless, I think I have become a teacher.
There were tears when I left. Some of them were from the children.
Posted by padraig at December 11, 2004 01:59 PM