So far...

I have come to the conclusion (so far) that being a teacher is not about what you teach or where you teach. It is all about the learners. Not even you, but how you interact and reach them.
Nothing you do should be to benefit you. Your should always ask yourself "how can I get to the learners? How can I help THEM?"
Even on the days where you just want to murder something you have to put them first.


I love this, because the people who are good teachers are really amazing people. You know you can trust a good teacher in all the other aspects of life.
I guess what I'm saying is if you are a good teacher you are a good person.
That is why you get people who are excellent teachers but have not actually studied education.
A lot like parents, being a teacher is about laying yourself down so the learners can walk over you and don't have to touch the dirty ground.


Judge a person by the way they teach.

Tech-mediated self-directed distance learning... What?

Tech-mediated self-directed distance learning?
Yes it is possible. Even more than we think. In fact a lot of people actually do this even without knowing.

I am a living example of this. In 2010 I found out about psychology for dogs and became very interested in it. I wanted to know what it was so I started doing my own research on the topic. For three years I read books, did research and made myself an expert on the matter. Then I got a certificate as a Dog behaviourist and trainer just to actually have a paper to my name and now I earn money through what I absolutely love!

This is an example of tech-mediated (I used technology to help) self-directed (I educated myself) distance learning (I did not have a lecturer or a teacher helping me. I did it all on my own and out of love for the subject).

THAT IS THE KEY... LOVE for the subject.

If you love something and is interested in it, it won't feel like work.

Keep Drama Alive

"Consider social media in your subject area"
...
Well my subject area is DRAMA so this matter of social media lies close to my hart. Social media can be used so creatively in drama and in ways that other subject areas might not be able to use it.
Here are just a few ideas that I would love to try when I teach Drama.

1. Let the learners make videos as a form of journaling the year.
I am a fan of journaling and sometimes I feel that a open and paper or a keyboard just does not let me say what I feel so passionately about. Making videos can let the emotions and information fly out of a person in a way a pen maybe can not. It is also a evidence to reflect on and to see how much you have grown. This will also give the learners confidence in front of a camera and an invisible audience

2. Podcasts are also a great way of encouraging the camera-shy learners to journal and become more at ease with hearing there own voices. If their assignment is to put it on the internet (which it probably should be) you can teach them the importance of having a voice and letting it be heard. With that I should obviously state that teaching them to be 'internet-safe' is also very very important.

 3. Instagram can be used in drama to unlock creative outlooks on life. I would give my learners a monthly or weekly assignment to post a photo on Instagram which they consider as photographic and maybe say why.

4. All the social media types like Facebook is a fantastic medium to encourage the learners to develop their writing skills. Poems, stories or even just quotes that they have read.

Social media in a drama class in important because the drama curriculum can so easily just focus on only on the history of drama and not invite media (which ever media) in. Inviting it in will keep drama alive because it will make it interesting.

Pedagogy Like a Baby

"The best digital tools inspire us, often to use them in ways the designer couldn’t anticipate. The worst digital tools attempt to dictate our pedagogies, determining what we can do with them and for whom. The digital pedagogue teaches her tools, doesn’t let them teach her." - Jesse Stommel.

 

 

The most important fact that stood out to me while reading these two articles,

Decoding Digital Pedagogy, pt. 2: (Un)Mapping the Terrain and Decoding Digital Pedagogy, pt. 1: Beyond the LMS, were the fact that digital pedagogy is a lot like a young child growing up.

 

Let me explain.

Children are confusing things. They are not orderly or in any way neat and organized at all. That is how their brain works. It is all-over-the-place and the best thing about this is they, all of us, were born this way. We learned how to speak by blabbing different sounds and we learned how to walk by crawling and falling all over first. The schooling system wants us to become organized, stand in straight lines and sit in neat little rows exactly like the person in front of you and worst of all, to me, it wants you to write in a straight line (I could never understand why). This is scary because it stops the flow of creativity.

Here is a story first.

When I was in grade six or seven it was time to start learning different facts. I tried to learn them the way I was taught at school (writing them down in an orderly fashion) but that did not work. Then one day my mother gave me a little book about mind mapping (luckily my mom understand the important things in life) and in this book it explained to me that our brains work best if they are “deurmekaar” (for the lack of a better English word) so I started mind mapping the work I had to learn and – boom – all of a sudden I got A’s here and A’s there.

What I’m saying is that what I read from these articles made me excited to become a pedagogue, because it unlocks mystery, creativity and curiosity in learners and that to me is THE best way of learning and when a teacher gets that, he or she will be successful.

 

Like Jesse Stommel said: "It looks like failure. And wonder."

The New Pen an Paper

Growing up in school I constantly heard "No phones in class" or "Put that thing away or I'll take it away." Especially in South Africa where we are technologically a bit behind the rest of the world. Then I got to university and some lecturers are still like that but others encourage technology in classes. Confusing right.

I could not help to notice a strong tension between technology in a learning environment or no technology. This is a very prominent debate in the 21 century. This tension is also visible in the article about Digital Pedagogy.

Let's break it down... Digital, in it's simplest form, means to use your hands. In the earlier years like when our parent were growing up their digital pedagogy was a pen and paper and now we find ourselves in a transition period to where digital pedagogy is electronically. In my opinion there is no need for this above mentioned tension because a computer, tablet or cellphone is exactly the same as a pen and paper. It is the new pen and paper.

Hit by a Tsunami...What?

I graduated with a BA Drama and Theatre Studies degree in 2015 at the University of Stellenbosch. You would think that I'm used to studies and a lot of work by now. I certainly thought so but then... I started my PGCE (Post Graduate Certificate of Education) year.


The first week was fine. The workload I could handle and I thought "Oh, this isn't so bad" But. . .
Slap! Bang! Fall-on-my-face. PGCE was like "Aaw look at this girl walking in here like she's gonna be a teacher. Let me hit her in the face with reality!"


And that is how I was hit by a PGCE tsunami workload.


The End