One of my new year’s resolutions was to make myself more available both to the members of staff and students alike.
I started off with year 4 De Rohan first thing in the morning… I joined them for the first part of the maths lesson which started off with some mental work on their mini white board on which they wrote the answer to a simple arithmetic operation presented by their teacher.
needless to say that I imagined the students scribbling their answers on their tablet and putting it up proudly showing off their answer, but let us not go there today!
Coincidentally, today we started lectures again (I am reading a post grad in educational leadership at UOM) and one of the themes discussed was teacher appraisal. These visits in the classroom are somewhat percieved as some sort of appraisal… And we all agreed that teachers are, to say the least, uncomfortable with these visits. I hope I am not putting any unnecessary stress on my colleagues simply because I spend some time in the classroom and have a look at the copy books!
Nevertheless I felt challenged by the lecturer when he asked me what I would do if I observe some sort of bad practice, would I bring it to the teacher’s attention? How would I do that? Once this happens, will I feel welcomed again in that class? Are we open to criticism? Hmmmmmmm!
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