or the devil is in the details…

The idea of the WALT (we are learning to) and the quantitative measuring of this limited learning makes me as a learner not want to bother. They (the great edu clobbering shop) started giving the course objectives out at night classes , arggh. I try not to read them. The moment someone pin points the exact thing that I am meant to learn , itemises it and lets me know just how how I will know that I know it I find I no longer want to be involved in the process. I’m not saying here that we should hide or wait for kids to work out what it is that we are communicating to them – “teaching” them.

What I learnt at teachers college was FOLLOW THE RUBRIC… I had a few resubmits. One of my teachers rescinded his after I showed him how to use inference when reading., or some such disrespectful comments. Another told me I actually needed to write that I was a critical thinker and give written evidence for this despite having had me in her class where we had several topics where I stridently disagreed with the dominant paradigm. I’m not  a shrinking violet when I think I’m right! I also find playing the devils advocate a good sport. Did Teachers College mean to teach me the power of the box ticker in education?

As a teacher, playcentre adult, I found saying what someone had learnt difficult. It  always seemed an invasion of their privacy, pure conjecture, and for so many things learning is a continuum and so to try and pin point a location seems ludicrous., is not the direction enough.

However as a homeschooling parent who can be EROed I am the box ticker….

My goals: 

• Helena can think about her own learning
  • – make goals,
  • notice when and what she has learnt
• I make some kind of  record of our process /progress including the beloved rubric
• everything is evidence based
• I follow her lead – who am I to dictate what and when (I can say this because I’m a nerd and why would you not talk maths, science and philosophy over dinner)
• I do Professional Development

Things to consider:

• You don’t know what you don’t know!
• THE LEARNERS -Helena is at least as contrary as I am