Day 38 of Today

Second sketch for commission.

Day 37 of Today

I was asked by a friend of my mum's to paint him a 'strong black woman with an expression of pain yet ultimately victory'. This is a practice sketch of me gibving that a go... Hmm...

Day 36 of Today

Sunrise between St James' Street and Clapton stations.

Day 35 of Today

 

A dog followed me to the train station today...

Day 34 of Today

Today has been a bit up and down...

Day 33 of Today

Autumn falls...

It starts...

Well, it has officially started...

I am finally studying for a Masters in Education with The Open University. It has been an interesting experience waiting for this day to come. It has been made more interesting by the build up and panic created by other people.

When I told people that I was about to start, their reactions were mainly that I was insane or that I was taking on too much. People were incredulous that I could take on this while teaching full-time. For me, I need to be continually assessing and reflecting on my practice and this study will allow me to do that. My source of support will mainly be coming from my partner, who, like me,  believes that if I have a thirst for knowledge I should quench it.

Looking to my next point of call for support, I went to the OU forum and was greeted with what felt like hysteria.  It felt like a virtual room of anxiety. People worrying about course notes, use of technology and the assignment that is more than a month away!

I questioned why with all that I am currently doing at school:

-I've launched a school newspaper with the year 4, 5 and 6s
-I am conducting a Young Reader's Programme with the Year 4s and The Literacy Trust
-and I have just been made music coordinator

We also have a brand new Head at the school, who I am trying to impress and present professionally too. All this, and we have just bought and moved house!


However, today I sat and spent five hours reading and blogging. I loved it! I felt at peace and I did it all at my pace, though have still manged to be ahead of the study planner. I think I may enjoy isolating myself despite the shift distance learning institutions are making towards interaction and socializing. Maybe I can ease myself into it.

My main action point for myself is to start thinking more critically about what is I am reading.but I am actually enjoying the academia again. Whoop whoop!

Day 32 of Today

First full day of MEd study was empowering.

Educational Research - A Single Concept?

Bassey is hugely critical of Lord Skidelsky's assumption that educational research is a single concept that can only be studied by a group of researchers who work externally to the field they are studying. The study of 'educational research' as plural concept enables a transient phase of understanding. I, too, am critical of the assertion that Skidelsky has 'stud[ied] professionally much of the research that has taken place' informing his decisions to move all research to the TDA. This ignores the ability to cover research questions that may be difficult to bring in to the public light. He believes that educational research should be its on subset of a larger group of research disciplines; that it should have a close link to practice and aim to improve educational action via informing educational judgements and decisions, thereby illustrating the functional purpose of research. The outcomes should come by way of improvements in learning. 

This is contrasted with the other discipline-based research, which Bassey makes distinct. He states the psychological, sociological, philosophical, historical and economic research are research on education by stating that these are focussed on examining specific phenomena involved in educational processes and their settings. I disagree with this, as I believe that all these disciplines are education and education is part of them; to make them completely distinct means we will always be infringing on one discipline or another. For example, when we study 'peer pressure and it's effects on learning', we are looking through a social discipline, when we question the practice of teaching maths in the classroom, we must look at previous history of mathematics teaching.

When amalgamating all teachers within the box of only being able to offer 'personal theories' using David Tripp (1993)'s statement 'most academic educational knowledge is of very little use to teachers and that teachers' knowledge and understanding of their practice is seriously under-represented and discounted in the university discipline of education.' to support this, I feel confusion and anger. What is the point of me undertaking this Masters study if all I need is teaching practice, practical experience? Is this all a narcissistic and futile activity? 

Even Dylan Wiliam (cited in Lipsett, 2008), deputy director of the Institute of Education states the Masters study needed to have a practical focus, so teachers could see how to use what they learn in their classrooms.

"Research shows that current masters degrees do not appear to make people better teachers and there is no relationship between those that hold them and children progressing any quicker," he said.

"The masters needs to be practical and focused on making people the best teachers and not filling their heads full of educational theory."

So now we have William stating that teachers need not to be filled with 'educational theory' and Bassey claiming that by being led by professional discourse and everyday experiences, teachers can only offer 'personal theory'. Surely having both personal and educational theory makes can aid in strengthening the competency of  teachers. I agree with Bassey in the sense that purely 'personal theory' cannot fully inform educational action yet, like William I believe that those whose heads are filled with 'educational theory' do not a better teacher make.

My experiences and professional discourse with colleagues form the predominant understanding of my teaching practice, however, the training and reading I have obtained and will obtain from this study allow me to be reflective about what it is actually easy I am understanding. It allows me to place my understanding within the stratosphere of other teachers and staff within the educational field.

This is why I am undertaking the MEd. It will allow me to input all my sources of knowledge into my practice.

References 

Bassey, M. (2007) ‘On the kinds of research in educational settings’ in Hammersley, M. (ed) (2007) Educational Research and Evidence-Based Practice, Milton Keynes, The Open University  pp. 141–50

Hammersley, M. (ed) (2007) Educational Research and Evidence-Based Practice, Milton Keynes, The Open University

Lipsett, A. (2008) 'New teachers to follow masters programme', The Guardian [Online], Available at:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/mar/07/highereducation.teachertraining Accessed on: 7th Oct 2011

Day 31 of Today

After days of things going badly, life started to look really good...

Day 30 of Today

Our new dining table. By candlelight.

A response to Gao and Shum: Investigating the role of bilingual teaching assistants in Hong Kong

This study was a qualitative account of the roles of two bilingual teaching assistants in a school in Hong Kong. Despite the niche subject matter, I was interested in reading this article, mainly because I teach in a school where 85% of the children do have English as their first language. Within my class, I have children who are Polish, Turkish, Urdu, Punjabi, Spanish, Portuguese and Somali. The majority of these children are not competent in their own language which produces a significant issue when teaching literacy in my classroom. It would  require at least seven different teaching assistants or a teaching assistant who was multi-lingual to support all of these languages. I, myself do not speak any languages apart from English, something I am not proud of and have spent years promising that I will remedy.

A prominent discovery came from the discussion about cultural tourism and the importance of the relationships between the teaching assistants and the learners. Within the environment of my class, I attempt to incorporate all the languages in to my everyday teaching practice. This may be by asking the children to answer the register in their own language and trying to repeat their greetings or by asking the children to lead explanations about cultural or religious events that are taking place to the class. The suggestions that this could be seen as a superficial act leading to cultural tourism brings up the question of how to immerse my class in the seven cultures whilst still teaching the institution's culture. I feel I being less discriminatory by treating all the cultures and minorities as equally important. How do you make the coverage of different cultures more than a tourist activity if it is not based on natural experiences? I have a duty to socialise children in to the cultural, social, and linguistic norms of the British culture and feel I can do this without speaking the learner's language.The article speaks of the bilingual TA and the learners relationship being necessary for the child to maintain high self-esteem, which I, as teacher, feel ostracised by. One of the aspects of developing relations with my learners is aiding the social development and I would rather do this alongside the teaching assistant rather than via a teaching assistant. For me, the article evoked an image of conflict between teachers and the learners.

During whole-class discussions, I encourage my learners to buddy up with same language speakers;  I believe this has a huge effect in social development. It enables them to maintain the cultural identity that this article talks about learners needing while at the same time providing a partner to share the experiences of learning a new language and culture with. The study uses an example of children not understanding idioms as an example of the challenges faced by South Asian children in a Hong Kong school, however, I often have to explain British idioms to English-speaking pupils who have not been to exposed to them before. Idioms are often more philosophical and moralistic so I find that this explanation makes space for cultural discussion . They can be explained in a simplistic manner linguistically and taught as set phrases, without necessarily going into the grammatical structures or historical derivation of the phrase in question.

I found it interesting that a study that was exploring the effectiveness of the role of teaching assistants would not use the data collected from the learners. All data collected was done so via the teaching assistants and the teachers, resulting in only presenting their perceptions. I feel that this restricts the scope of this study, as they could never fully explore their research questions without it. How do we truly know that the teaching assistants are developing the learners' self-esteem without talking with the learners?

A question that is raised from my reading of this article is whether schools should look into creating a separate learning identity that all learners (and teachers) all must adapt to fit into.  I also wonder whether I am doing this already.

References

Gao, F. and Shum, M. (2010) ‘Investigating the role of bilingual teaching assistants in Hong Kong: an exploratory study’, Educational Research, vol. 52, no. 4, pp. 445–56

Day 29 of Today

Flowers on a train platform.

Day 28 of Today

'He sailed off through night and day...to where the wild things are'
- Maurice Sendak

My Year 4 class creative representation of the book.

Day 27 of Today

The view from our hotel in Kep. Bloody paradise!

Day 26 of Today

'Every situation, every moment is of infinite worth, for it is the representative of a whole eternity' 

- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Day 25 of Today

Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made, and forgot to put a soul into.  ~Henry Beecher, Life Thoughts, 1858

Day 24 of Today

What a greeting! Entrance to our hotel -  Okay Villa in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Day 23 of Today

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner, that I love London Town!

Day 22 of Today

We are officially homeowners!!!! These are the most difficult-to-get and expensive keys I have ever I owned! O happy day!

Day 21 of Today

Positive horizons! We are this close to completing on our house!

Day 20 of Today

A school trip. This was the most peaceful part.

Day 19 of Today

Iron Man. Created by my class.
- head as large as bedroom, taller than a tree

Day 18 of Today

Little creature greeted us whilst we were taking a break from our vast workloads. He seemed pretty pissed that we stole his makeshift house of underneath our waterproof BBQ cover.

Day 17 of Today

Oh, what a week it has been. Very vulnerable.

Day 16 of Today

' For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled.' 
- Hunter S. Thompson  


My soul has been trampled today.

Day 15 of Today

Nice to see that there is still colour on a miserable day.

Day 14 of Today

Testing. Feeling bad for the kids at the moment as there is quite a lot of pressure. Feeling bad for myself as there is a lot of marking.

Day 13 of Today

He came home sad and stressed. All he needed was somewhere to lay his head.

Day 12 of Today

The Jewish bakery is open again. Huzzah.

Day 11 of Today

In the In-Laws garden. A rainy day didn't seem so rainy.

Day 10 of Today

Dinner at Da Peppino's for Pa Green's birthday. The swordfish was mighty tasty.

Day 9 of Today

O it is pleasant, with a heart at ease,
Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies,
To make the shifting clouds be what you please.
~Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Day 8 of Today

A bad day. Lots of shadows.

Day 7 of Today

Had to go for a walk during my lunch time to get away from work. Teaching is rewarding but also very draining. I feel there is too much still left to do to help all the children in my class. Finding this on my walk made me even more reflective.

Day 6 of Today

 

Mmmmmmm. The Jewish bakery down the road from my school makes delicious rogs, chocolate ones are my favourite. I could eat a vat of them.

Day 5 of Today

 

A pretty good description of my day. Well, not all of it but definitely the end. It's a shame that I can't remember the good bits.

Day 4 of Today

A day of laundry. Briefly rid me of Sunday blues, which was odd.

Day 3 of Today

New mugs from the charity shop for £1.50 for the pair. A day of drinking coffee. Hangover averted.

Day 2 of Today

 

I put a deposit on this bed today. A new bed for our new house. 

Day 1 of Today

He got home from work. The sun was shining on his face as I gave a him a kiss. I took a photo.

Chasing creativity...

When I was a little girl, I used to spend weeekends scrapbooking, collage-making, and knitting. No, I wasn't boring, I had a social life too. I was just more creative. I've learnt that I have a creative soul and when I'm not creative, I often become stressed and mentally frustrated.

In my previous blog , Lullah in Wonderland, back in 2009, I took part in  a pledge in the London Word Festival's 'One Hundred Days to Make Me a Better Person' project. My pledge was to take a picture that represents my day, accompany it with a word that also represents my day and post it on my blog, which is essentially what I did... for 46 days. I started to feel bad when, for whatever reason, I couldn't take a picture or post to my blog so I quit. To this day, I am still annoyed with myself for it.

So I'm back. I decided today to stop looking longingly at  blogs where the author does not fear and puts whatever they feel like with little care for who reads it. Well actually before doing this, I found this video, Jonathan Harris: Today, which was exactly what I was going for when I had decided to complete my own project back in 2009.  If you can't be bothered to watch it, here is a brief summary of his intentions: a guy turns 30, realises he isn't quite where he wants to be in life so starts documenting his existence daily through photography, just one photograph a day.
Two thoughts kept disturbing me when watching the video:
1)This guy lives in a beautiful place somewhere in America.  I live in Walthamstow, East London, which is not renowned for its beauty.
2) This guy clearly does and sees some weird and wacky stuff. I am teacher who spends most of her day at school, if not, I will then be thinking about school or doing something towards school.


And yes, you've guessed it. I nearly quit again right there and then.
But here I am...


I think I will always love writing, drawing and photography yet I spend such little time doing them.
I have recently joined up to 750 words, which is based on Julia Cameron's The Artist Way  and her suggestion to complete Morning Pages - three pages of whatever happens to be in your stream of consciousness while writing - and I am writing again. I have downloaded an app called Pic Plz where I have been trying to be more creative when taking photos on my phone. And finally, I have started drawing again, using a book I bought a long time ago called Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards.

(Now I'd like you to know I hadn't drawn in about nine years before drawing these:)

Me -

My hand -

So, what's my point? Well, I want you to use Mildred and Montag to chart my quest for creativity and I want to have fun doing it. So, I'll be here creating photo stories, drawings and other crap for myself, that anyone is free to come and have peek at if  they want to.


It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult. ~ Seneca