The pathway and The Learning Pit

Thinking Dispositions

During Teacher Only Day, taking every moment of downtime to trawl through the Live Twitter Feed, These caught my eye.

We spent the day hashing out Learning Dispositions in our school and their visibility in practice.

I can't help but continue to draw the parallels between what we endeavour to instil in our students and what we equally must endeavour to instil in ourselves. No one is perfect... if they were, what learning would need to take place? What a boring life that would be!

I'm drawn to my defects within this graphic:

Managing Impulsivity is something I've grappled with forever! The irony is that, with an ADHD son, I'm finding more and more of my own quirks that align with his behaviour... Managing Impulsivity being one! How many times has hindsight given me a reminder that I need to work on this?

Thinking and Communicating with clarity and precision: Now you'd think that in my profession this would be a given... With age I've found this harder to control when I'm communicating 'on my feet' so to speak. With time to process... even a few moments... I'm good. I can even articulate thoughts and ideas quite well. However, in the moment... 

My thinking tends to go on tangents. Often. There's no rhyme or reason for ti and sometimes it can go out of control, however there is often an epiphany in there that works in my own head, but may be extremely difficult to articulate to others. Sometimes the Thinking and communicating gets a little jumbled. 

I'm setting myself a goal, as of now, ('on my feet' - I haven't really thought this out!) of Keeping my mouth shut. I need to develop my own Communication by ensuring I treat my thoughts like weeds, by considering them before choosing to communicate them. In order to develop the clarity and precision of my communications, I need to ensure that they are a great deal more considered! (And yes, again I can draw a parallel to my sons tendencies!)

Leading Innovation: The 3 Carriage Train

I found this a while ago, saving it as a draft so I could come back to it and give it the attention it deserved. I didn't watch it properly, but was inspired by the blurb that went with it.

I went through a period, during term three and early term four, where I was becoming disillusioned with my ability to drive eLearning being hindered and held back by my ideas and input being squashed.

This has changed my way of thinking in that it puts my context into perspective. I am often frustrated at my ideas, thoughts and input being thwarted or overlooked, often due to my lack of years and experience in the classroom. 

I've changed my outlook on this, mainly due to the perspective this clip has brought about in my own understanding and thought process. The wall that has often come up is probably not even about me... but about the fears and need for change within the other party.

I am eternally grateful to be working collaboratively alongside someone who, despite self describing themselves as being in the twilight of their teaching career, is open to making the shift. He constantly wants to learn, change and develop his own abilities. He's embracing the mind shift and stepping out of his comfort zone. He would place himself in the second carriage, but is definitely eager to be with those in the first. 

I thrive on learning from others in the first carriage. Manaiakalani Outreach and our Cluster eLeader Meetings keep the thirst for more ideas and knowledge burning. I'm lucky to have a peer, within the school, who is eager to drive change too... however is held back by the lack of availability of devices.