Reflective Ramblings

Kia ora tātou, what a year and now time to reflect.

This blog is going to go through three kinds of phases firstly I will just talk a wee bit about my personal life at the moment, then professional musings followed by a glance toward the horizon.

Personal

It is so difficult to separate our professional lives from our personal ones. We give a lot to this job and it is never too far from your mind, how can I improve what went well, how can I reach that student or group of students. It can almost turn into a constant thought loop. It was personally quite hard-hitting this year when some of my colleagues quit the profession. They talked about the constant feeling of failing and feeling inadequate while swamped in constant paperwork. I can personally agree with this I know that other professions will sacrifice time with their whānau to get ahead, but in teaching, you often feel like Sisyphus, there is no end to our task.

Personally, I am going to be part-time next year and I hope to get more time to focus on my well being. I have approached the holidays by looking at my personal vices. N0-vember saw me quitting alcohol for the month which went well. Decaf zember is now my time to limit my coffee intake eventually cutting it out I am currently on one coffee a day just in the morning. I have noticed I am a little less irritable but this is possibly due to the fact I am also on holiday. The next detox though is the hardest!

The Internet. I am looking to spend around 3 weeks completely disconnected from my various Social media, You tube, Fummbl, reddit, BBC, Whatsapp and all emails. This is a habitual part of me I love my daily trawl through Twitter thinking I am changing the world.

Anyway personally a tough year but now I get to play with my own kids and try and drag my mind away from education.

Professional

A massive year professionally again. I have to site the Mind Lab course as a fantastic catalyst for my practice. I have again though tried to change too much. My aims of turning every lesson into something spectacular has not always worked. I can count my successes but also failures. Developing a cohesive future-focused learning environment is difficult and I again need to revisit this.

I think through everything I have done comes this idea of relationships. Ensuring that I spend the time to build these in class with all the students. The classroom and the learners are changing but what is at the centre of change is the relationship and classroom culture.

Future Focus

So going onwards firstly breath stop and think. I look forward to time with the whānau time away from the screen. Next year looks exciting with changes to timetable structures and room to break down subject silo's. I will also continue to use this as a place to share my thoughts on what is bound to be an exciting year.

So enjoy the festivities and have a happy Hogmanay.