Right now, thousands of teachers in New Zealand are preparing for the start of Term 1. Teaching children to be authors, writers, artists, mathematicians and most of all kind people with valuable and nurturing relationships.
Well, it takes quite a lot of planning, which means thinking, reading and researching. It takes informal and formal observations, collaborative discussions. Then the time-consuming task of sourcing resources, printing, laminating, cutting, gathering and making this environment beautiful.
I think some more about each lesson, x each student, where will the learning experience fit best for them? How can I meet them where they are right now?
Then comes the teaching which may be only 45 minutes, after your days of preparation. However, when you nail it, when the children are on fire with you, then the documentation and the next step happens naturally.
Times this by 5-6 lessons and by the end of the day you are pooped out. Add 20 years of this, to make me on the cusp of 55, and it's real baby.
I want to continue to have the energy to love my job, my husband, my own children and most of all to love myself. Because if we go back to the beginning of this piece of writing I start with... we are always with ourselves and our energy, our vibe, mood, state of well-being cannot be hidden from ever perceptive children. They deserve the best of us.
Therefore, I am happy to take on Literacy and Numeracy responsibilities, I am happy to mentor young teachers, I am happy to support my colleagues, to offer help and ways of being well. I will form relationships with my families, I will go out of my way to make sure their child has the best resources and support I can find.
I am slightly amused with the phonics revolution that is taking place. I have always taught phonics, along with 100,000s of teachers. We just never got credit for it. "It was what the baby teachers did."
I'm pleased the voice of phonics is being heard louder and stronger than before. After 28 years of being a teacher, 10 in ECE and 18 in primary, I know that protecting, preserving and upholding what is taught in schools is one major key in ensuring our teachers are energetic, accomplished and confident practitioners.
I admire the principal who stands up to their community and upholds literacy and numeracy as priorities for learning. Now the learning must be child centred and involve a community curriculum (that is around the child's world view). It must allow them to bring their curiosity and creativity. Children must, by the nature of learning, be disruptive in their thinking.
A community tends to dictate what takes precedence in being taught in school. If parents are pushing me to teach their child to be a competitive swimmer, a national athlete, a leader in recycling, gardening and eco-farming, then this will impact my time, energy and ability to prepare and teach structured literacy.
After 29 years of this, I know I am good at it. I can differentiate my learning experience within a whole class context. I can observe well and adapt in the moment. I can listen to and make your child know that they belong and that they can do hard things. It takes practice, humility and love of the job to get to this point. I can see that we (communities) are burning our young teachers out. We are expecting them to be superhuman.
Parents need to seriously think about what they really want school to do for their child, and principals need to stand up to their community on behalf of their teachers.
Don't get me wrong now. I love sport, I teach PE, I take collaborative discovery groups. Teachers know though that discovery happens first in the heart of a child. They are ignited when their ideas are heard and valued. When in a phonics lesson we applaud their nonsense words that rhyme and are part of a collection of creatures in their fantastical world. They then create this world with their loose parts collected and the imagining and creating and learning goes on.
I am writing this in direct response to the article by Mark Bracey, "Phonics won't cure all our reading problems". I really like the article and I agree with Mark. I think that one of the main ways in which we can ensure our teaching practitioners excel in teaching structured literacy is by prioritising what is taught during the school day. Let's do our best to make sure teaching is a joy. The children are a joy of course. That is why I do it.
* Sonya Judson is a teacher at St George's School in Whanganui.
