Practitioners
As teachers you aim to inspire and motivate your students but also to instil a lifelong love of learning. As the old adage goes - practice what you preach.
One of the reasons I became a teacher was the innate drive to know more. I wanted to explore with my five senses and share this with students, give them the same feelings of awe and wonder and the various ways that this can be achieved through reading books, getting lost in a wormhole on hyperlinks on Wikipedia, discussing ideas amongst peers and travelling the world to broaden the sense of what is out there beyond the boundaries of a country and its culture.
I've been fortunate to work in various countries and undertake professional development in each. These workshops and conferences have been delivered in person and online around the world, by professors, experts and even my own colleagues. That's what great international teaching brings; ideas from beyond the walls, different ways to be successful, knowledge to impart onto others. What everyone on these courses is after is the benefit of the students in their care. Some of the people who deliver these workshops come from a background of analysing data and statistics, others are still in the classroom, it's important to gain a balance, practice and theory don't always mesh together as they should. What works in one area of the world or to one set of students might not have the same effect elsewhere, but the more tools you have at your disposal, the better equipped you are to manage the scenarios you face.
I am now into my twelfth year of teaching and I've recently started my NPQH (it's a national qualification for prospective headteachers). The structure, the goals, the standards are all in line with what is happening in the UK. We teach through the English National Curriculum, so it's important to stay up to date and relevant with what improvements are being made, whether this is in assessment, teaching, mentoring or coaching. You might be reading this thinking how much has really changed since you were back in school and it's not just the influence of technology, the rigour applied, the fact that educators are able to easily look at curriculums and methods being taught from Scandinavia to New Zealand, allows everyone to build a bigger and more developed picture. A dentist isn't using the same techniques for teeth implants as they were thirty years ago, we're not even using the same curriculum that we were 13 years ago.
Being on the NPQH enables me to not only help myself and my career, but gives me the chance to hand down this knowledge to the rest of the staff, to make sure the school and the children continue to develop. We're practitioners, not experts. The essays lead to discussions that are two way - head teachers in the UK don't face the issues we as a school are facing at present, but people have been through similar situations, how did they cope and how did they adapt? These courses are the Silk Road of education, ones that work to establish a culture for the staff and students to thrive and achieve beyond the current expectations.
Miss Herman, Deputy Head and Year 4 and 5 Teacher.
