1.4 Prof. Commitment – Page 2 – Tales of a Newly Qualified Teacher

May 9, 2016

My Adventures Are Finished…

End of Placement Reflection

I can’t honestly believe I have finished my placement. I am thoroughly gutted my time at Adventure Aberdeen has come to an end. This placement has been a huge eye opener for myself.

Although over the past six weeks have been full on and there have been tears sometimes from the amount of energy I have used and the lack of sleep I have had, I would not swap this experience: this placement has definitely changed me personally and professionally for the better.

Personally and professionally, this placement has definitely given me a wider view on outdoor education. With outdoor education growing into a much bigger part of teaching through the Curriculum for Excellence as well as it being something you need to be able to do to remain register on the General Teaching Council Scotland, I am glad I have had this opportunity to experience outdoor education. I have been able to go on amazing outdoor education sessions which I can definitely take into my own pedagogy including bikeability, scavenger hunts, wilderness skills, mountain biking (Go MTB scheme) to name a few. I have also been given the opportunity to challenge myself, try new things and overcome fears which I could easily be asked to do with a child/group as a teacher such as coasteering, surfing, canoeing, gorge walking, rock climbing and abseiling. All of these activities I couldn’t do without a qualified tutor but is now something I would definitely not say no to doing.

Professionally, I used to think that outdoor education in the rain was not a good idea especially with small children. I compared it with Sweden and did wonder how they managed in. Now after placement, outdoor education is a year round option in my opinion. Yes it can be cold but it snowed every day for my fifth week at Adventure Aberdeen and we never cancelled any of the sessions. Yes there were changes to the plan but we were still taking children outdoors. However, I now know that you just have to be prepared and not be afraid to change the lesson then we can always take education outdoors.

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Flexibility around sessions/lessons is a huge thing I have taken away. In first year, I tried to stick to my lesson plan to the word most of the time. However, around 95 percent of the time with Adventure Aberdeen some part of the plan changed. However, there wasn’t a bad session I was out on but if the tutors were not flexible there would have been which is a key lesson I will take away.

(It might have been snowing but we were still outdoors and smiling!)

I have read and realised through hands on experience just how much children get from outdoor education. You may be teaching about one thing but the outdoor is so free that there are a number of different things a child can and will take away from the session and the tutors do not always realise how much depth and breadth a child can take from their sessions educationally and personally. IMG_0410 (2)

The biggest thing I have taken away, personally and professionally, from my placement is the thoughts I have been having around my future career. Although I know I want to work with children to make a difference for children. I am not so sure I know if I want that to be in a classroom. I am not naïve, I know this isn’t always a hands on, adventurous job: it has its own challenges and its own stresses. However, I also know that I have had a phenomenal time this last six weeks and I did not want to leave. I am now looking into doing a postgraduate degree in outdoor education after I finish my degree and do my probationary year, whilst also gaining some outdoor education qualifications in the meantime. I am not saying I would never teach, I do thoroughly also enjoy teaching in a classroom but this maybe something I still decide to do. But right now, teaching is looking like something I would come back to later after I have the chance to experience some more outdoor education. I now personally and professionally thoroughly have a massive love for outdoor education and the outdoors.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this placement and I am very grateful for all of the opportunities I have had through the learning for life module and Adventure Aberdeen. These six weeks have been phenomenal and I have done things I will never forget.

March 17, 2016

What is Cromdale?

During the 21^st to the 24^th of March, I am going to be going to Cromdale as part of my placement with Adventure Aberdeen. Therefore I thought I should do a post all about the wonder of Cromdale, one before and one after going there.

“Cromdale Outdoor Centre is Adventure Aberdeen’s residential base on Speyside. Converted from a Victorian village school and schoolhouse it is located in the heart of the Cairngorms National Park. It is ideally located within easy reach of some of the most spectacular water and land based activity sites in Scotland. The base is perfect for all groups involved in outdoor activities or courses.

Cromdale is situated right in the heart of the Cairngorms, here you can experience the natural beauty of Speyside. From the outstanding waters and unusual wildlife to the towering mountains, this area is known for its breath-taking scenery. Step outside and be greeted by Scotland at its very best. Cromdale Centre is ideally based for a variety of outdoor activities and visits. Venues easily accessible from the centre include:

The River Spey (300m from the centre) – access and egress for kayaks, canoes and white water rafts
The Speyside Way (200m from the centre) – gentle and scenic walking and biking on waymarked trails.
The Cromdale Hills (500m from centre) – excellent and extensive hill walking country with superb views of the Cairngorms and Speyside.
Huntly’s Cave (7 miles) – superb rock climbing and abseiling venue.
Bridge of Brown Gorge (10 miles) – one of Scotland’s premier gorge walking locations.
The Lecht (21 miles) and Cairngorm Mountain (27 miles) – for fantastic ski-ing, downhill mountain biking and hill walking activities with ski-lift and funicular railway access.
A multitude of venues for glen or hill walks – Adventure Aberdeen can provide guides and/or instruction.
Official Forestry Commission Mountain Biking centres at Moray Monster Trails (20 miles) or Laggan Wolftrax (45 miles).
Extensive off-road cycling within the Spey and Cairngorms areas – Adventure Aberdeen can provide guides and/or instruction.
Aviemore and Carrbridge areas have many visitor attractions. The Aviemore tourist office or website can provide more details” (Adventure Aberdeen, no date, no page).

My reading has shown the importance for residential outdoor education as well as the importance of a residential trip in the Curriculum for Excellence so I am looking forward to heading to Cromdale to experience this for myself as part of the tutor team.

Reference

Adventure Aberdeen (no date) Residential Packages Available at: http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/AdventureAberdeen/Outdooreducation/adventure_residential_packages.asp (Accessed on 17/03/16)

January 27, 2016

Upstart Dundee Launch

Upstart is a campaign for a nationwide moment to push back the starting age for school in Scotland from 4 or 5 years old to 7 years old to allow time for play and for children to be a child for as long as possible.

Queue the mad panic from parents. But just wait… There are so many benefits it may be time to step out of your comfort zone and into a new adventure and here is why.

The lecture theatre was filled in Dundee – Brenda (the Convener of Upstart) expected around 30 people but with a keen audience of over 330 people turned out it was the biggest launch for Upstart yet.

So why would we want children to start school later?

I have already looked into this in an early blog post available here.

In Scotland, we are keen advocates of learning everything as quickly as we can and we have one of the lowest school starting ages in Scotland with only 12% of countries worldwide having their children start school at 4-5 years old where as 66% of countries have children start school at 6 years old and the remaining 22% of countries have their children start school at 7 years old. An OECD survey shows that the 22% of countries that have their children start school at 7 years old are the countries with the children who tend to do the best academically.

Those countries that start at the age of 7 years old have a play-based kindergarden for 3-7 years old but by the age of 11 years old there is no difference in reading ability and those who start school at 7 years old are in fact keener to learn to read than their peers who started school at 5 years old.

In Finland, they do the least number of hour of schooling in the developed world yet still get the best results. They start school aged 7. They play until the age of 7. They lead healthier lives physically and mentally, they live longer and they are still better academically.

If we are living longer lives as adults, which Brenda quoted could be until 120 years old for this generation, then why are we continuing to decrease the time that a child spends playing?

The idea that children should play until the age of 7 is not a new idea. Sue Palmer, the founder of the Upstart movement and a language and literacy specialist, informed us at the launch that the idea originated from the Greeks.

The benefits of play are extensive. Sue Palmer and Dr Suzanne Zeedyk stated that free play build and influences many areas of our lives: it builds resilience, problem solving skills, social and communication skills, self-regulation, a love of learning. Free play influences creativity, sensory development, emotional experiences, friendships, a child’s thinking ability, motoric development, and the quality of marriage in later life. But the problem? Free play, such as playing in a sandpit, does not look like learning and in Scotland we love to push education.

Prince George at two years old is off to “nursey school” – into school at two years old. But according to the press it is not for the Prince to have a chance to play to develop all of the skills above it is to get him “into lessons” (The Telegraph, The Daily Mail and The Metro). We are too quick these days to put extra pressure onto children by adding the element of schoolification to early education.

The experiences a child has clearly affects the kind of adult you are. The pressure put on children currently has a clear impact on their mental health as children and as adults. In Scotland, there is a real decline of play – due to the school starting age and the development of technology. 2 in 3 children aged between 5 and 16 years old have their own tablets and at least a quarter of children are sent to bed with their tablets. In Scotland, there is also a huge increase in mental health problems and there is a widening achievement gap. How does our First Minister plan to fix this? By putting yet MORE pressure on children and teachers by reintroducing standardise testing – they didn’t work with the old 5-14 curriculum so why are we going back to this idea? Why do we not move forward for a 21st century change? Into a new revolution. A new adventure. An adventure where play and childhood is at the forefront?

Convinced? Follow the national Upstart movement on Facebook here and on twitter @UpstartScot.

Still unsure? Have a look at some more evidence

October 14, 2015

Is Teaching A Profession?

I recently came across a photo on an educational page I follow on facebook which I absolutely loved and linked very well with a few news articles lately. I felt this following blog might be of some interest (and help) especially to the MA1 who will writing their essay on professional now or in the near future.

The quote (of Donald D. Quinn) came from the Education to the Core’s facebook page (this does not mean I endorse or support this facebook page at all). “If a doctor, lawyer or dentist had 40 people in his office at one time, all of whom had different needs, and some of whom didn’t want to be there and were causing trouble and the doctor, lawyer or dentist without assistance, had to treat them all with professional excellence for nine months, then he might have some conception of the classroom teacher’s job”.

Now, I am not all one hundred percent in favour of this quote as it seems to dismay how much work doctors, lawyers and dentists do. I have never been either of those or studied any of their professions in depth but I am sure they are very hard working people from those I have had the pleasure meeting whilst at university.

However, there are a few sources out there that also seem to think that teacher do not quite make it as professionals or teaching does not quite make it as a profession. Teachers compared to doctors, lawyers and dentists seem to the least trusted – the government hold a lot more power over teachers than these other professions. A Guardian Education Correspondent, Sally Weale, summed up that the teaching profession is very closely monitored by the government by saying in her article “despite Michael Gove’s intentions, teaching has become a profession monitored to within an inch of its life. Weale links this to the reason for the huge drop out of newly qualified teachers very early in their career. This is something that doctors, lawyers or dentists do not have as much pressure on them as teachers.

There has been a record number of teachers leaving their profession due to the amount of work and stress they are under. “A combination of unacceptable number of hours worked, a punitive accountability system, the introduction of performance-related pay and being expected to work until 68 for a pension has turned teaching into a less than attractive career choice” (Blower, Quoted in The TES, 2015). I personally believe that teacher work just as hard as any other professional in professions such as medicine or law. However, due to quotes such as “He who can does. He who cannot teaches,” we do not get the same trust from the government or same respect as other professionals. Shaw (quoted in The Importance of Teaching, Volume 70 No. 5) rebuts this by stating that “teachers can do something, and do do something; they teach. Like any other professional activity, teaching requires a cultivated ability. To be done exceptionally well, it also requires a special talent and a sense of vocation”

Additionally, Quinn’s quote suggests that teachers have an incredibly hard job which most of the time goes unappreciated. Teachers work under many pressure listed in Quinn’s quote as well as the Guardian article which many other professions and professionals do not have. I believe this makes a good stance as to why teachers should be deemed as professionals and the job we do a profession.

I hope this has sparked some thoughts on teaching being a profession and teachers are professionals. However, in my own opinion, I clearly still believe that yes we are professionals for reasons such as those stated in Quinn’s quote and many more.

October 2, 2015October 2, 2015

Blackboard to Glow Transition

After our ICT lecture with Derek on the ePortfolio transition to the VLE Blackboard to Glow Blogs, I have decided to blog the changes. Last year in MA1 we had a bit of a disastrous time using blackboard for our ePortfolio, the lack of engagement with the ePortfolio showed because of this.

The blackboard ePortfolio was a long list of pages with no interconnectivity between them, this meant that the students had to write and copy and paste anything they wanted to feature in more than one page. However, on the Glow blogs, students can categorise one blog post onto as many pages as they wish as well as linking each blog post to the professional standards.

The Glow blogs allows easier sifting through posts. In the ePortfolio on blackboard, there was endless pages and posts getting lost throughout the pages which I can only believe made life difficult for the advisor of studies and markers to look through and find the relevance of each post. However, on the glow blogs ePortfolio, the blog posts can be tagged and categorised into different pages and professional standards which means that the posts can be found with a lot more ease in my opinion.

I personally think that adding links, different blogs/ePortfolio’s, media I think is a lot easier on the glow blogs than the ePortfolio from blackboard. I think adding links, videos, pictures is more straight forward on glow blogs than it was on the ePortfolio, I never once added a video or picture to my old ePortfolio but I will not hesitate to add to my new ePortfolio.

Overall, in my own opinion, I definitely prefer the new glow blog ePortfolio over the blackboard ePortfolio and I think this will show especially with the MA2 engagement in the ePortfolio.

September 30, 2015October 2, 2015

Hello world!

This is the first post in my education blog in my journey through the standards for provisional registration as a student teacher at University of Dundee.

“Just Another Teaching Blog” is my first ever blog – so bare with me please! My blog is going to contain anything and everything with a link to my degree and my journey as a student teacher through to graduating as a teacher!

I hope you find something interesting!

Happy Reading.

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