It has been an interesting couple of months from a professional point of view - a mixture of teaching and training courses in Britain, interspersed by a couple of weeks coaching and mentoring of teachers in a girls' church school in Malta. These various experiences have reinforced a number of things.
Although some specifics have changed over the years, the teaching and training courses have confirmed that the basic issues that teachers have to address these days are much the same as they always have been. The challenges around additional targets, admin and paperwork are certainly very real, but the actual skills required to engage, motivate and help pupils behave appropriately are the same as ever. Similarly the strategies and qualities required to manage department members differ little. It is interesting that anecdotes and experiences I share with colleagues when delivering training seem to resonate as much as they ever did.
The beliefs that if you can teach you can make a food fist of most subjects, and also that people and issues are often much the same wherever you go was highlighted on my recent Malta trip for Creative Education. As I have experienced in England, teachers in a coaching/mentoring context were initially wary. However, once they realised that our job was simply to help them to move on by improving the quality of teaching and learning, and perhaps more importantly, we were just people like them, many of them were keen to get stuck in and try out some new strategies. As always, it was fantastic to see them grow as professionals and to experience the positive response from the students in the school.
As part of process I modelled some learning activities whilst delivering an economics lesson - not really my speciality given that I am a PE teacher! I have to say that during the planning phase I felt quite apprehensive that I had been too ambitious in the range of learning strategies I had included in the lesson. I needn't have worried in the slightest. The students responded marvellously and were able to articulate how they had enjoyed independent and collaborative learning. Given that the Maltese programme is really content heavy, many teachers struggle to see alternative ways of delivering lessons without falling behind with delivery. Whilst this is challenging it is also a great opportunity.
I look forwards to coming months being equally as busy as the previous two.
