[MUSIC] In this session, we're going to be looking at: what have I learnt about myself; what have I learned about myself as a teacher; what have I learned about myself as a colleague; and what have I learned about myself as a learner? There are four identities there. Four identities, trying to understand how I think about myself, and what have I learnt about myself? What are the positive and the good things that I'm able to do? As myself, as a teacher, what do I do really well? What methods do I really do exceptionally well? What are the areas of what I have done that are not so strong, or weaker? About myself as a colleague. How am I supportive? How am I able to generate new ideas around the areas of how we teach as a group? But more important, what have I learned about myself as a learner? How do I learn? How do I want to grow? And how do I want to think about how I learn, and how I teach? I want to draw your attention to the powerpoint slide on Below the Waterline. The narrative there is about a Zimbabwean teacher, who talks about having this policy framework in school, the conventions of the schools, the rules of the schools. But at the same time, who she is as a person, what are her real beliefs, what are her values, how she thinks about life. I'm sure you think about that. I'm sure you think about the policies and the rules of the schools and your own beliefs and values, and how you reconcile that. The deep structures of the Rules, Policies, Procedures, and Conventions, on one level are our Beliefs, Values, Attitudes, and Expectations on another level. I'm going to use a small example for you to think about this a little bit more. Ten years ago, or 20 years ago, we thought very different about people who are differently able. We believed, 20, 30 years ago, that people with disabilities should not be allowed into school, or allowed access into schools. Or another example is, teenage women who'd gotten pregnant, were not allowed back into the school, because we felt that they deserved not to come back into school. Because it maybe was in line with our values, or our beliefs, that girls who were pregnant should not come back into school - that they should be punished, and they need to take responsibility for that consequence. But there's a new policy structure, there are new procedures, in terms of those girls being allowed into the schools. How do we reconcile that? What are all the expectations we have for that? What are our attitudes to those young women, or girls who come back into schools? Are they still in form with our beliefs, or our positions on these issues? Now, our values, our beliefs, are linked to five ways of being. And I'm going to refer to the work of Egan. You all recall, for instance, when you were growing up, when you were very young, how you paid attention to the somatic, to our bodily senses of touch and feel. We were curious as children. We wanted to construct things with Play-Doh and Plasticine. We used a lot of gesture, because our modes of communication were not as evolved. And as we grew older to primary school, the whole idea of being mythic; of listening to stories, and being read stories, to make meaning of the world around us; listening and making sense of things through jokes and humor; of course games, and theater and drama and play, and imation all played a significant role as well. Much later as teenagers, another way of being was the romantic. Of wanting ideal solutions, good endings to things. Think about reading Romeo and Juliet then. The idea was for the two lovers to be together at the end, but it didn't happen. Think about the disappointment when we watch a movie, and things then go the way we would hope them to have gone. Of course, much later in secondary school, we tend to be and draw more on the philosophic, asking the deeper questions about our existence. Asking questions about truth, and our existence - what is knowledge, why do we need education? And of course much later in the secondary, and maybe when we are going in university, the irony, the ironic comes to pass. Testing the limits of theory; pushing the boundaries of what we want to know, and should know; also, playing devil's advocate; and positioning ourselves some two arguments at the same point, and trying to find answers in using those methods. Now, as a mythic, as a teacher, how often do you draw on this way of being? How do you challenge your learners through the use of stories? Through the use of games? Through the use of drama and play? How do you use that in your personal life for yourself as well? As the romantic, how do you draw on wanting an ideal world? A world with equality, and issues where people can all live together - does that ring a bell in how you want things to be? How do you draw that way of being in your classroom at the moment? The philosophic, about asking the deeper questions about our existence? Or why we teach in a particular way? Or why and how we do things? And why certain things are necessary and other things are not? How do we push, or encourage our students to think about the deeper questions? Or why they learn, or how they learn/ Or why particular positions are necessary, and others are not. And of course, the ironic as a teacher, how do you position yourself in terms of doubt and uncertainty? How do you use uncertainty and doubt and skepticism in your own teaching, by taking a particular position deliberately to get a reaction from your class, or from your students? Now, all these ways of being, are there to release the energy. They're there to release an energy to find ways to release the creative energies of the students, and for this force to foster experimentation, and breathe life, excitement, and enthusiasm, into the learning environment, for students and their teachers. Now, self belief and self efficacy is critical. For instance, when you draw on these multiple ways of being, think of the way your neighbor learns to learn; think about the enabling environment that you create; think about how you play into the motivation of your learner, by using stories, using dramas, using romanticism. I will conclude the session with: "I see, I think, I wonder". So, what do you see in this presentation that reflects your own ways of being in the classroom? What does it make you think? How are some of the ways that you're utilising those five positions? What are some of those five positions that you really privilege? Maybe there is some of those five positions, or ways of being, that you don't even consider. Maybe you don't want to think about that. And what do you wonder, or puzzle, about, and would like to know more? [MUSIC]
