Today I am struggling to fit in the #28daysofwriting challenge. It is Thursday and I am tired. Not just a little bit tired but a huge amount of tired. It is coming up to the end of week four of term one, and I have already lost count of how many 12 plus hour days I have done. Not to mention how many are planned for next week. So today, I confess, I don’t want to fabricate something to write. I just want to find a cool (it is very hot and muggy tonight which is not helping) and quiet hole under a rock and pretend I am invisible.
It does get me wondering.
This must be what it feels like when students don’t want to write. Every day many of our students all around the world come to school and are faced with that age old dilemma of ‘what shall I write today’. Many more come tired after who knows what happened the night before, struggling to fire up their imaginations and rise from the stupor that lack of sleep induces. And, many more come to school hungry, not having had breakfast or dinner the night before, unable to concentrate or focus on the task at hand because the claws of hunger are scraping away at their little empty tummies.
It certainly puts my tiredness into perspective.
There is so much we ask of our students that we ourselves as adults struggle with… sit down adn be quiet when you are being spoken to/at? How often at PD and other meetings do we comment to the person sitting next to us, sometimes it is even about the topic at hand! How often do we sit on the floor cross legged for 20-30 minutes at a time? Or work in absolute silence when there are people around us that we want to talk to? Ah the list goes on… school seems a little contrived and divorced from reality when you look at it like that.
I agree.
I guess that is why all educators, when asked how the PD went, remark on how good the food was before talking about that PD – because like our students, it is all of our needs that need to be catered for. Pun semi intended.
Sometimes, it is good to get a different perspective and as you have mentioned, to experience it though the eyes of our students- that is where the power of the video is so good – if teachers were to critically watch themselves and the engagement of their students more often, how much of a catalyst for change would that be….
Very true – we so often expect of students what we have trouble doing ourselves. That needs some very serious reflection…
Blast it all – now my brains working again – sluggish, but the hamster is slowing turning the wheel of reflection….I am wondering….