You Can Change - Motivational Video Ft Secret Entourage

Fear is the green light not the red light.  

If you feel fear then you need to do it.

You are in control of what happens.

You can change.  

This week in my teaching I have had some quite difficult classes.

Some of the students have been rude and argumentative.  They have disrupted the lesson so much that they have prevented other students from learning.

The concepts that I have been teaching have not been particularly difficult, yet because of the disruption, it has been difficult to convey them properly, making sure that each student understands them.

At the end of the lesson I have felt discouraged, worn out and yes a little fearful about whether I can manage the behaviour enough to have a lesson where the students really learn.

Do I need to change the whole structure of the lesson, or just some of the elements?

Do I need need to change the way I teach and react less to the behaviour which some of the students probably design to upset me and cause disruption?

The answer is definitely 'yes' within certain parameters.

Am I afraid of that?

Again the answer is 'yes'.  

It means more work and more trial and error with this particular group.  

It will demand more time and effort when I am planning my lessons.

I will need to continue my own professional development, researching, studying and putting into practice strategies and ideas to break the cycle of poor behaviour.

And the further fear?

That the demands of the education system and the inspection regimes are such that I am not supposed to get this wrong.  That each student should seemingly be on an ever upward learning cycle.  That it could affect my appraisal result, my ability to teach.

Yet I feel the fear and so I need to do it.

For the sake of my students and their learning.

For the sake of the education system.

But most of all for my own sake.  

For the knowledge that I have done the very best I can and that at some later stage, some of my students may have cause to thank me for the way in which I helped them through a difficult time.

Life is not easy.

Teaching is not easy.

Learning is not easy.

But we must all feel the fear and do it anyway.

I CAN change.

Back to school

Did you enjoy school?  Did you love learning from your teachers?

Or were (are!) you like so many of my students who really do not want to be there?

Many of my teenaged students struggle with morning lessons - particularly on a Monday after a week's break.  They would far rather be in bed and maybe come into school later in the day.

Or students who are very close to taking their GCSE exams at the age of 16.  Exams upon which our Government place huge emphasis - the students, the teachers and the schools are measured and placed in league tables, based on the results. 

Poor results mean that the schools have more frequent inspections, may be forced to become an Academy and parents may not choose to send their children to the school, due to those results.

What are we teaching our students?  That they have to play the game? 

At the moment I am running revision sesssions with students who are on the borderline of achieving the results that our Government considers to be a 'good' pass.  That is exactly what I am doing - teaching them to play the game of getting the most marks they can from what they know.

I have spent the past week, whilst I have had a holiday from teaching in school, learning, studying, developing my knowledge and abilities.

When I asked my students today who had done any study over the break, only a small handful admitted that they had done so.

Have we squeezed the love out of learning in our education systems?

It is a topic I shall return to often because it is one which I feel passionately about.

Do let me know about your own experiences in school.  Did you love it or hate it.  Do you wish you had paid more attention whilst you were there?  What do you think would improve the ways in which we help young people to gain knowledge and to grow?

I would love to hear from you.