Dear Dash

Recently I read a post by this lovely and inspiring lady, in which she talks about the difficulties she has had learning and the difficulties her son faces too.

This post and my current teacher-y reflections on learning and self perception have turned into this:

Hey Dash,

I know you don't know me and I'm a teacher which means I might represent a lot of things you don't necessarily love but I wanted to write you a little note to cheer you on. (I'm not a perfect teacher, just so you know, but I try not to be The Trunchbull from Matilda either - just a regular get it right sometimes and stuff it up other times kind of teacher.)

So I wanted you to know that learning is difficult. Those kids you're looking at in class who easily cruise through and already know how to do everything... those kids aren't actually learning anything new. They might be practising some skills they already have and getting better at them - and that's okay at school, sometimes. But... if there is never any struggle and frustration then nothing new is actually being learnt.

Now it might seem really nice to cruise through school, and I will confess I was one of those kids - except in PE, you would have totally kicked my butt in PE. However, I promise you that you are going to leave school with skills and understanding I didn't have.

Dash, you know what it is like to look up at the face of a mountain and feel like you have no climbing gear, but, you know that you have climbed this kind of mountain before and conquered it. That struggle, that frustration and pain and the ability to persevere in spite of those, are strengths you are going to have naturally as an adult.

You understand that feeling of conquering a mountain and so when you meet another mountain even though it's tough and you probably want to run away, you know you can make it up there.

When everything comes easy to you as a kid and then again at university you can be sure that when you do come across a task that you don't know how to do and everyone around you seems to know as an adult you feel overwhelmed (like you do sometimes now). As an adult it is a very hard lesson to learn, to find a new way, to keep trying, to ask really dumb questions, because you kind of think - sheesh, I'm an adult I should already know this.

Do I
take a risk, 
ask a question, 
push harder, 
struggle again, 
do it badly rather than not doing it all, 
risk making a fool of myself
or, do I
deflect my inadequacy by playing the fool, 
stop trying anymore, 
shut down, 
run away
generally try to sabotage this whole thing?

Dash I hope that you keep pushing, that you keep trying and that when you look around at a group of friends who aren't struggling at all you take a little moment to tell yourself you've actually learned, or begun to learn something today and they may have only practised.

You are not the only one who is finding it hard and you are definitely not the only one who needs different skills to learn the same stuff.

You have bushwacked your way into creating an entirely new neural pathway and others have just run along a highway that is already there. Whose brain is getting stronger? Who is gaining more self-knowledge to equip them throughout their life? You are.

Learning something new always comes at an effort. All that effort you are investing is making your brain strong, it is increasing your capacity to understand how you learn and it's probably making you a more compassionate and understanding person - which might not seem that great now but it will really make you a great boyfriend to someone in the future!

There is no elite athlete, artist, lawyer, doctor, researcher, successful person who has not run at some point straight into something that was too hard for them - but their perseverance and their ability to keep at it until it did stick and it did make sense - that's what got them to the top of the podium.

Success in life is not guaranteed by how easy you find academic learning.

I made these images and words today to remind me about not running away from the hard and to remind me to keep trying as a teacher even when it feels like the hardest job in the world. Teaching is about making it hard and easy for everyone. Keep going Dash - as Dr Seuss says "You have brains in your head, you have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose."

Go out and conquer that learning mountain and when all seems too much remember that amazing a-ha feeling when you get it!

Learning is for the brave, and you Dash, you can choose to be brave even when you don't feel like it.

Miriam

kids and teaching

Sometimes teaching is like herding cats, (which the myth busters well and truly proved is impossible), a room full of people seemingly going in any direction but together or the direction you want.

Teaching can feel like scaling an impossible mountain in a pair of stilettos and a party hat.

Mostly I realise what an absolute joy and privilege it is to be left to care and guide for what is most important to people.

This week these are the things that have made me smile as I have met a much of new people in small bodies:

Did you build that dress?

How many years does it take to make a dress?

and when we were using fabric scraps from my sewing room and they pulled out a matching piece to the dress I was wearing -

(gasp) you cut up your dress!

Kids say the best stuff. You are never long without something to smile about when you hang out with them. That's not to say it's all peachy and there aren't any teacher eyes (I'm sure you've seen those before) happening.

Teaching is one of those jobs that is demanding on every front - energy, emotion, problem solving, relationally ... the work is never, ever finished and there is always something you could do better or more or another resource you could make or a plan to refine or an assessment to do - it is a relentless job in the way parenting is.

You have to be able to muster courage and patience when you feel like hiding or shouting or throwing in the towel. You have to be the adult but you also have to engage the child in you - you have to find the balance between steering the ship and inspiring the sailors - even when it's time to scrub the decks.

I think most children start the learning journey filled with a sense of wonder and possibility and I think as teachers we can lose that so quickly when we look at the demands put on us from every direction. Sometimes teaching doesn't feel like taking a group of unique, interesting and potential-filled children on a journey as much as it feels like a train station where you are constant being harassed by people who aren't on your train for things they need - records, data, notices, permissions, health and safety...

That's not a reflection on where I am at right now it's a reflection on teaching as a profession which it seems is often run by someone at the top of the pyramid (in government) who has never taught and who is trying to make schools run on a business model.... it makes me sad.

Somewhere, somehow we need to try to hold on to learning first for the joy of learning, engaging with potential, and taking children on a journey. Targets, nationalised tests, league tables, and grading in many cases do nothing for each student or for the integrity of the classroom programme. Maybe they fit a catch cry for accountability but they don't really, not in the things that matter.

Truth is there are going to be fabulous teachers and there are going to be rubbish teachers and all the national standards in the world are never going to make a difference to what I want from a teacher - a person who can continue to be committed to my child on their good and bad days, a person who genuinely loves to learn, a person who can inspire, lead, guide and meet my children where they are and knows - or will work hard to find out - how to build a pathway from where they are now to the joy of new knowledge (even when the new knowledge is totally tedious like a spelling rule).

Am I a perfect teacher? Heck no! Some days I do pretty well and other days I know I miss opportunities. As a parent there is no one whose job is more important to me than the people who teach my children and that is both motivating and terrifying to me in equal measure as I teach other people's children.

If you know a teacher give them a little hug today and don't tell them they should love their job because of all the holidays (let's not go there) tell them what they are doing will have lasting effects, thank them for what they are doing well, tell them something nice your child has said about them, remind them that their job is one of the most important jobs in the whole world - because there are leaders and criminals and parents and environmental activists and authors and artists and politicians and researchers and all sorts of children that will be adults in every class.

Children are the best, children are also our future and let's all of us take that responsibility very seriously.

Who was a teacher that made a difference for you? And why?

love you more than a pile of completed marking xxx