AuthorPatrick is just setting out on the journey of becoming a teacher. Archives
November 2017
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Above us the rain clouds were gathering, the sky bruising with splashes of dark grey as the clouds grew heavier. Raincoats and umbrellas were the accessories of the day. Not to be deterred, around ninety student teachers headed out in different directions to be guided through the varying opportunities for place-based learning in Nanaimo’s downtown core. My small group had gathered before a recent installation on the Nanaimo sea wall. Our guide was City of Nanaimo’s Culture and Heritage Coordinator Chris Barfoot, a gentleman with an in-depth perspective on the vagaries of municipal art appreciation. As we ventured across the town under his tutelage, we began to examine different pieces from permanent installations to more temporary ones whose purpose was to push experimental pieces. Ideas began to form and congeal in my mind as to the utility of public art in relation to place-based learning. In essence, whatever the art piece, it is intricately linked to its environment. The traditional home of art, the gallery, is still place-based but lacks the connectivity and linkages that art exhibited in the open enjoys. Questions learners could begin to examine might be: how does the form of the piece relate to the ground or place it is situated in; what are the artist’s intentions and how does the surrounding landscape’s colour compliment it; does the art piece relate to the specific history of the locale? While exploring this theme, the endless possibilities and avenues of learning came rushing out. An excellent example of this type of connectivity between place and art came when we visited the Port Theatre to admire Phil Ashbee’s “Salmon Coming Home” mural. An expansive piece that soars above the foyer of the theatre, it manages to provide a linkage from this modern building to the aboriginal lifeways that existed here long before. For students, it would an excellent place-based learning opportunity to explore the history of the very land underfoot while also debating how it relates to the structure that houses it. Following on from the art walk, we joined City of Nanaimo’s Heritage Planner, Chris Sholberg, to begin a brief inquiry into the architectural history of the core area. From our short journey down the old streets and inspection of brick walls dating back hundreds of years, I was quickly convinced of the ‘magical door’ city architecture could provided for learning. You may wonder how an old, slightly crumbling facade could direct learners into and exploration of the past? Well, consider the hidden stories within each building. Not only does the form of the architecture give us clues to building date but also historical records are easily investigated and could return to students the names of the families who once lived in these residences. Questions would no doubt flow: who might have lived in here when it was a hotel? What would the socio-economic make-up have been here in the downtown area at the turn of the century? There is no doubt that place-based learning has a tangible, almost tactile element to it that could propel students to a higher, perhaps more sophisticated level of learning. But the groundwork must be laid. It would be ineffectual to simply let students wander the streets without a good grounding in the historical architecture and basic timelines for the development of Nanaimo. But if these are present, it is clear the learning will be sound. Overall, it was a wonderful and intriguing experience exploring Nanaimo’s cultural present and past.
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9/16/2017 A discourse of memories17 September, 2017 A mad mix of standards and methodologies. A maelstrom of classroom techniques, management, corporal punishment and style. After twelve years inside the classrooms of eight schools across three continents, I have been exposed to a wide variety of educational approaches. It all began in a small kindergarten in Sussex, England where through wooden toys, veils and imaginative play I was exposed to the pedagogy of Rudolph Steiner. My memories are dim but I do remember our happy group traipsing across dew covered fields on the search for fairies and gnomes, who were said to reside near the rabbit warren. The decision to have me in the Waldorf-Steiner school was the result of my parent’s rejection of the old models of education. They were drawn to Steiner’s holistic paradigm that extended beyond mere textbooks and spelling tests, instead prioritising the individual and the development of imagination. However, it did not take long for my science-oriented father to grow leary of the lack of chemistry laboratories in the upper years of the school. Also, to forego the instruction of reading and writing until students were at least seven years old took a great leap of faith on the part of my parents. The void was too expansive and the leap did not come. I was withdrawn from the Steiner program and sent off to the local grammar school in a smart, pale blue shirt with grey shorts and socks. My overarching memory: the sense I had entered an alien world with incomprehensible languages and subjects. Math class involved me leaning over the shoulder of my neighbour and copying every iota of what was appearing on her page into my own illegible chicken script. My next foray into the educational wilds was in Richmond, Canada. Instantly I was shuttled out of my assigned classroom into the remedial class at regular intervals. The teachers must have quickly identified my inadequacies. But perhaps ‘inadequacies’ is the wrong term. The Steiner school had a model that required the commitment of 12 years for fruition to occur. To participate for a fleeting moment and then retreat, well, it is not so surprising the result may be less than desireable. And yet, I feel the responsibility of all educational systems should be the development of the child in a way that should they depart at any time their achieved skill set should meet a basic standard. Anyhow, let us not stop the action. Again the wheels move, the roar of aircraft jet engines our soundtrack to another peregrination across the vast oceans. A metallic crescent moon stood prominently above the schoolyard as all around me little uniformed children rushed off to their classrooms. It was a rainbow of ethnicities: European, African and Indian children, all lustily yelling outside before the enforced silence of the classroom. Incredibly, I had found myself in an Islamic school in a small town in Botswana. Again, it was off to the remedial classroom for me. I recall an echoing hall filled with those small, knee scraping desks upon which were seated children of varying age. The principal taught us with a stern manner and an ever waving, meter long ruler stick that on occasion thrashed an unwilling student. As those schools that came before, it did not last and this time I found myself standing next to a small trunk filled with all of my belongings before the doors of a private boarding school in the suburbs of Johannesburg, South Africa. This was misery for me. My dominant memories were of loneliness, tear streaked pillows, canings, fierce Rhodesian teachers, scratchy collars, and again, loneliness. But apparently they offered the best education around. Some years later I would have been found on a beach in a small village in the Western Cape of South Africa. Armed with a stick and with my younger brother beside me, we were both prodding at a recently deceased sea skate. Yes, we both agreed that it would make an admirable specimen for our dissection class. We dragged the small carcass back to our classroom. However, this was no school but our home and a new adventure into the realm of home-education. I could not have travelled further from the strict conformity of the boarding school. Here, under the guidance of my father, we explored our own interests, help fashion our own curriculum, and spent half our time directing ourselves. It was emancipation in the both the creative and moral sense. However, we were also surprisingly traditional. We had our own desks, a schedule, tests and grades. And yet, so many features of British Columbia’s new curriculum were present in our daily learning activities. Naturally our relationship with our teacher was strong, he was our father. But beyond that there was that focus on our own interests that led to passion and enthusiasm that had for so long been absent in my education. Of all the years spent at desks, stunned by incomprehensible questions or maintaining chilled silences for fear of a corporal punishment inclined teachers, it was only during my experience with homeschooling that the joy and potential of learning came to the for. Of course with today’s demands of modernity, with every parent working and standardized testing, the possibility of children being able to experience home education is slim. Nonetheless, I firmly intend to draw from my own experiences and weld them into my practice as a teacher within the traditional school system. I want joy and spirit in my learners and to source this, to unleash it, will require incorporating elements of the home education experience. |