OK, here we go. This blog entry is not going to be the brightest one because I have had quite a lot of wine but I am trying my best. :-) Just had my matriculation dinner at Homerton College in Cambridge and it was really good; the food and company was awesome and there was lots of free wine as well; good times! Homerton has ca 300 PGCE students and around 240 were there tonight. I met a few people from my course and from my placement but there were also a lot of new faces. At the moment, I am sitting at the train station in Cambridge and the next and last train to Royston is going to leave in 20 minutes so I thought it might be time to write some stuff for my blog again :-)
So, my first week of proper ‘teaching and learning’ observation is over and I have seen many positive as well as negative things. Plus there was always my book ‘What’s the point of school’ which challenged me all the way through and encouraged me to think critically about all of the things at hand- very much like a good teacher. I am not saying that all what the book says is right (as my friend Steve pointed out) but it is certainly interesting to consider different points of view and keep an open mind.
Today for example all of the 10 (female) PGCE students at my community college at Sawston were required to present what they had discovered in this week of observation and the focus was on ‘teaching and learning’. Now, all of the presentations were very good and I enjoyed them as well, the problem was just that none of the other people actually concentrated on the ‘learning’ criteria. As a teacher, I think you can get very tangled up in what you have to do; however how the students learn and what they think they are achieving is so much more important! Of course, you, as a teacher, should facilitated that learning, but all too often it is just the way you are responsible for the classroom or how many students are achieving your target grades that dominates your ‘learning facilitating’. ‘Learning is not about the teacher; it should all be about the students.
Tonight at my matriculation dinner, I talked to a few other teachers, expressing the view point that students should learn what they want to learn; that they should be able to learn at their own pace and that they should be able to have an influence on how their ‘learning communities’ are run; the basic principles of democratic education. Other students started to argue with me (which is great as it makes me question my own point of view and keep an open mind!) and I am truly enjoying finally being at a university where people are not afraid to voice their opinion. It is really amazing that I feel that I have finally arrived at a (geographical) place where discussion and interest are good things! Long live the geeks! :-)
Talking about which, I am going back to Southampton tomorrow night. I really think that I should stay here in Cambridge in the next weekends to make some more friends (and get to know the people on my course better) but I really miss my friends down in the South and can’t wait for tomorrow’s working day to finish. Although the journey down takes a very long time (3 hours) and is very expensive (£37 in advance) it will be all worth it- hopefully!
But back to Cambridge: Homerton College is really nice! After tonight’s dinner I can confirm that their food is truly awesome and that the people are really nice. :-) There was a candle light reception in the great hall for all of the new PGCE students (incl a drinks reception beforehand) and afterwards the principal of the college gave a really nice speech. Half of the people on my course and from my school are affiliated to Homerton and that seems to be the general statistics. The college is right next to the department so I guess that is one of the reasons why a lot of people chose it.
No comments:
Post a Comment