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I’m a professional.
I don’t need someone telling me how to do my job.
They have no idea what it’s like “down on the ground”.
Sound familiar?
As teachers, we are notoriously bad at accepting advice from anyone who isn’t in education themselves, and to be honest, even that is a stretch sometimes. We’re constantly bombarded with other people giving their opinions on what we do - whether that's the media, politicians, parents or someone who, heaven forbid, went to school themselves therefore-feels-entitled-to-tell-us-how-to-do-our-job.
I hate being told about my job from someone who has never spent a day in my classroom, yet somehow “just knows” what it’s like. It doesn’t sit well with me. And I imagine you’re not a fan of it either.
However.
Stepping off my metaphorical soap box for just a second and taking a step into the crowd, I think that we could choose to look at things a different way.
Every job comes with its challenges. Every job has its highs, lows, quirks, ins and outs. But every job also has its hacks, systems and strategies for getting work done through the path of least resistance. And that’s where I see the value for us.
If we can identify what hacks, systems and strategies improve efficiency in other industries, we can teacher word incoming synthesise these with what we know to be true from our teaching experiences to definition incoming create new understandings, ideas and opinions. And improve our practice.
I’m not proposing that everything from other industries would be applicable to what we do - far from it - but I believe that there are gems out there that it would be a waste not to use ourselves.
The difference will be that I will simply share these with you if you’d like to listen and from there, it’s up to you to synthesise and decide if you would like to apply any of them. Kua mārama? Got it?
I’ll link to articles below as I write them. In the meantime, if you or someone you know have any hacks, systems or strategies that would be useful for teachers, reach out to me at kath@attheminute.com and let’s kōrero!
Be purposeful teachers
Who are in control
Feel inspired
And know they’ve done enough.
Read on:
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