Teach Anyway...

As time ticks on, and another fall semester comes to an end, university students are quickly reminded that Christmas break is but the calm after the storm. Presentations, papers and exams will consume university student lives for the next few weeks, alongside eating large (or small) quantities of food, pulling all-nighters, and mental breaks. Then, the calm will come. Students will head home to celebrate the holidays alongside their families and friends. Eventually, students will return to school in January to then prepare themselves, once again, for a similar April demise they met just a few short months ago.

Source: http://www.thecommissioningelf.net
/we-should-work-jointly-with-communities-
to-improve-our-nhs-together-says-guide/

            Traditional methods of schooling, and grades-based approaches to teaching, create a cycle of need. Students and teachers become so overwhelmed and stressed in their attempts to succeed in this cycle that they eventually breakdown. Yet, throughout the breakdown, they recognize the world operates using this system, and this system only. So, they wallow in sorrow for a moment or two, and then return to the source that caused them so much distress before. And why? In order become, what society calls “successful”. Because, in traditional schooling practices, success is measured only by grade obtainment, a cycle of need is formed. Students intrinsically motivated to be successful fail to recognize they have the power to be successful in other ways. Recognize I said a cycle of need, not a cycle of want. Students and educators today, don’t want to be involved in the system. Current teachers talk to reporters and administrators of their desires to alter their practice, prospective teachers sit in university classrooms and propose ideas to each other they believe will revolutionize education in the future, and students, students often fail even to enter the classroom because their feelings of disconnect and despair are so strong. They don’t want to be in school, but they need it. They need it to be “successful”.

            This class has taught me that transforming education from a cycle of need to a cycle of want begins with the teacher making the curriculum relevant to my students. As the interpreter of the curriculum documents it is my responsibility to design educational tasks that will inspire life-long learners to want to return to my classroom everyday. This class has allowed me the opportunity to practice the skill set I will need to use to accomplish this goal. And, while the skill set was difficult to use at first, the more I practiced, the more I saw my skills developing. New and unfamiliar strategies of design were difficult to be passionate about but by being gritty I was able to accomplish something I barely saw possible, and created something I now consider meaningful. Five weeks ago, I never thought my curriculum document would ever be complete. Now, it’s practically done, days, weeks, in advance of its due date. Over time, I recognized that I wanted to be putting the document together; I wanted to learn to do something new; I wanted to be successful.

            By engaging with the course theory in a practical way through the group curriculum project, not only have I become a grittier student, but I have become a grittier teacher as well. This assignment is preparing me to be a practicing teacher – it is allowing me to develop the skills I need to be successful instead of testing me on my knowledge of such a skill set, and it is teaching me to be gritty about my practice. My realization about the importance of “grit” will impact my future teaching practice because it will allow me to achieve things I never thought possible. It will allow me to tackle difficult tasks head on, with confidence and pride that all goals are attainable. Finally, it teaches me that I can do anything.

Source: http://www.eco-coach.com
/blog/2013/06/07/creating-change-
when-youre-not-in-charge-part-ii-of-ii/

The thing is, we don’t have to do anything. Everything each of us chooses to do is a conscious decision we make as an individual and is indicative of the consequences or rewards we seek to avoid or achieve, respectively. For instance, I didn’t have to practice backward design in this class. As a group, my colleagues and I easily could have reverted to traditional practices and designed our curriculum beginning with instructional tasks, developing culminating activities next, and concluding our project with the design of assessment tools. We could’ve just arranged these items in reverse order prior to handing them in and called it a day, labeling our final project as a backwards design construct. But, we chose differently. We chose, instead, to be brave, to be gritty. We dove head first into the backwards design process and while we met many obstacles, we climbed so many more mountains and found so many more rewards! If I’m going to sit in a classroom and talk about the idea of revolutionizing education, and being successful in living a life, not making one, I need to be brave enough to attempt to accomplish that myself. Now, I can say I’ve done that. Eventually, my actions will spread. Others will jump on board as they see the passion and grit developing in my (future) classrooms, and a revolution will begin. A cycle of want will result in education and success will be measured differently.

            Now motivated and properly prepared, I think I am ready to advance to step two in my father’s plan for me, the one I dreaded and feared and worried about in so many posts before. It’s time for me to go out into the world, with all of the knowledge and skills I have gained, and work towards my goal not of getting a job and building a life, but of living my life, as a teacher. This class has shown me I'm going to encounter politics, and curricula and even students I don't like. But it's also shown me that I am destined to do this, to be someone's champion.  I think that now, I'm gritty enough to face them. I'm ready to face these challenges. It's time to teach, anyway.  

“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.” – Helen Keller