Some of my course-mates were skeptical about the benefits of being at the course but I was ecstatic. I felt that we are a lucky bunch; I even wondered if there is another part of the world where you can be selected for training and be paid whilst at it.What could be better than having so much TIME to REFLECT - especially for a natural thinker like me?
I was always feeling rushed to just deliver the 'goods' of teaching and sometimes, this was done without the adequate thought that was expected of the job. I mean besides being a curriculum gatekeeper (teacher), I am a curriculum leader (Level Head). Both the roles require decision-making based on sound educational principles. When the day-to-day concerns hit you, there is hardly the time to ponder about the 'curriculum' and being embroiled as a involved party with conflicting priorities and demands, it is virtually impossible to take a step back and look at the curriculum from outside the 'box' - objectively and critically.
At the MLS course, apart from the weekly learning journals, presentations, assignments, discussion forums and break-out sessions - all of which are expected to be supported by knowledge gained and re-created from the stimulus provided at lectures and the recommended readings, there are other really rejuvenating respites - like the regional and local school visits.
My team-mates and I have made contact with a number of secondary schools to dialogue with their curriculum leaders about their English programmes. The school we visited yesterday was a Centre of Excellence for English, Literature and Drama in the North Zone. The school had a well-integrated approach to the teaching of all of these three subjects and the key, in my view, was the school's teamwork and infrastructure support. Of course, the school had only one main stream which meant that curriculum leadership was less complex and so, deployment of teachers and their professional development could more streamlined. But the model was not wrong and can be applied to my/any school - if we focus on a single stream at a time and deployed our teachers more strategically. The learning was rich, not because they practised strategies vastly different from any of the five schools whose Heads were present and listening with interest but because the sharing affirmed aspects of our own belief systems and choices and also demonstrated the sound reasoning and work process that was embarked on to support the curriculum choices by the educators sharing snippets of their bread & butter with us. They had teachers who had to teach graduating classes in their second year of teaching (something that some of our schools look upon tentatively) but they rise to the occasion - not without coaching/mentoring and monitoring by team leader of the graduating classes. There was nothing as engaging or intriguing as the sharing by operational experts on curriculum matters because of the links between curriculum choices and unique school contexts. The three hours flew past, unnoticed and we still had questions.
I am looking forward to the rest of the school visits as well, and this being a practical aspect of the course, my team is keen to learn more through dialogues with practitioners rather than an over-reliance on theory. (not that readings have not been insightful; they are records of other educational researchers' practice and experiments and are short-cuts to discoveries about educational practices, etc.)
Cheers to learning and God give me the wisdom to make a difference in my own school when I return later this year. After all, my teachers and students deserve a better me after this wonderful recharging experience!
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