Energy Levels: Coffee and Yo-Yos
For the last year or so, it’s felt that my personal energy levels throughout the day was a relatively simple system to manage. There were essentially two inputs: sleep and coffee. If one was missing, I’d need a little more of the other and vice versa.
This week however has been a roller-coaster, particularly once we started getting stuck into the “real work”. I found the first few days (before classes started) really exhausting: probably because I find it a particularly draining thing to meet a number of new people which was essentially a fairly accurate description of our first day or two. But once that was out of the way a curious thing started happening. Being in a learning environment with so many people who are desperate to learn, and feeling like I was engaging with the content in ways I haven’t felt for a long time was energising me. I came out of lectures feeling better than when I went in. I’m fairly sure there were a couple of people who started to be concerned about my clear hyperactivity issues, but it has been an exciting thing. Naturally this process eventually wears me out, so I’ve been up and down like a yo-yo all week: one moment feeling that I could run a marathon, the next thinking very seriously about whether I’ll put one foot in front of the other.
Exciting times.
Bit sillier but…
…thought I should share some thought’s from our “Awe Wall”. We have a piece of butcher’s paper set up in one of the rooms here at college as our Awe Wall, where we can post things that hold us in awe. In typical spirit, it hasn’t been taken too seriously, leaving us with some cracking quips. The things currently holding TfA associates in awe include:
- Unidentified coagulated desserts
- Person X‘s very suave “jumper shoulder” look
- We clap a lot (this is pretty accurate)
- Pumpkin and potato with a side of pumpkin and potato (vegetarian options not always as diverse as might be hoped)
- Person Y did 500 pushups
- Downward facing dog and nipple to knee (hopefully a description of the early-morning yoga classes, else I’m not so sure…)
OK – in hindsight I’m pretty sure these are probably funnier to me than they are to you. But anyway – something a little bit lighter from the Big Brother house TFA Academy.
Content
So having been welcomed to our heart’s content, last night and then today was mostly just focused around some genuine pedagogical content. Exciting times! It’s been a relief to get really stuck into some meaty stuff and find that I’m not completely out of my depth, and might actually have useful contributions to make. Definitely feeling the beginnings of the transformative process into my teaching alter-ego: Mr Matheson.
There’s something really fantastic about being in lectures with people who are so unequivocally engaged with the subject matter. It draws you in further, and almost has you wondering what the next insightful question will be. We were forced to hold questions at a number of points during the day due to the need to cover the required ground in the timeframe. It just becomes an exciting learning environment to be a part of, and it’s certainly inspiring to say the least.
I was fascinated today with the address from Ros Black from the Federation for Young Australians (www.fya.org.au). Her lecture was focused around the report “How Young People Are Faring” (which you can find at http://www.fya.org.au/media/publications/ ) – and specifically what was working in schools in the efforts to fight disadvantage. Check out the report, and also the “Impact of Racism” report on the same page. Genuinely useful research.
Sorry for the necessarily rushed nature of these posts, I’m afraid I can’t see a lot of depth coming into the blog while the Intensive is running: there’s just a whole lot that is going on. But I’m endeavouring to provide daily updates on things I’ve found interesting, and hoping that it helps me remember later on… I guess we’ll see.
The little things
It’s the little things that have you realise that you might be becoming a teacher. For me, seeing a whiteboard eraser in our welcome satchels caught me out. We’ve even got pigeon holes in the rec room here – I don’t know if this is just because of being around school staff rooms as a kid, but nothing says teacher to me quite like a pigeon hole.
Enjoying the little things.
And the adventure truly begins…
Just pumping out a really quick post in between going from one place to another, but I thought I’d better mention that the intensive has started in earnest. We’ve been welcomed and introduced more times than previously thought possible, and cogitated over the mission and values of Teach for Australia until our collective brains hurt, but nevertheless it’s been an exciting couple of days.
A couple of thoughts that stood out already: a quote I’ll likely misquote and have also managed to forget the original owner of from Amartya Sen : “Freedom is the ability to choose a life one can reasonably find value in”. That’s the sentiment at least.
The second was from Martin Seligman, a very impressive man who seems to have fathered positive psychology – he was talking about what it means to flourish, and boiled it down to four pillars: Happiness or amount of pleasure, finding meaning, positive relationships and achievement or mastery. The idea being that if these four are aligned, one can be considered to be flourishing.
Off now – will correct later
Unemployed
As of almost exactly this moment, I’m (temporarily) unemployed. It’s sinking in a bit that the bridge back to my IT career might not have been burned, but is certainly a lot more charred than it’s ever been. From here I’ve got two weeks off (and in a sweet coincidence, my wife has literally just finished her communication design degree), before the intensive starts, so for the first time since I was about 16, I don’t have a job, at least until the intensive starts – though that doesn’t really count, I’ll only really be entering the realm of the employed masses once Term starts in late Jan.
So this is another of the new beginnings. Each step along the way has added a healthy dose of anticipation, but with it a degree of nervousness and perhaps even a touch of fear. One thing’s for certain: it’s certainly an adventure ahead.
Door problems at Teach for Australia
Julia Gillard was once more promoting Teach for Australia in the media, this time on Lateline raising a concerning problem.
“They were literally having their doors beaten down by high-performing graduates who wanted to get on the program, and they had to turn people away.”
via Lateline – 11/11/2009: Gillard discusses education changes. (emphasis mine)
I must admit that in the visits I’ve made to the Teach for Australia offices I hadn’t noticed any damage to their doors: but I suppose it is the sort of thing you fix fairly quickly.
(I can’t stand the misuse of the word “literally” – maybe I should be shilling for an English class…. )
Kate Ellis on body image
I reckon when we’re at a point where young Australians are listing body image and self esteem as their number one concern in Mission Australia surveys, when we see dwindling confidence and self assurance from those who cannot possibly live up to the entirely unrealistic images that they are being bombarded with and aspire to replicate- then the time is probably long overdue for us to actually see some action.
via Moving past the blame game on body image | Article | The Punch.
Federal Minister for Youth, Kate Ellis, has written an interesting article about body image, as part of the publicity tour for the recent proposed national strategy on body image. There’s some good recommendations in the report – though you can’t help feeling that the whole thing is a little bit wishy-washy. However, politics aside I was struck the with magnitude of the quote above: that the number one concern for young people would be body image and self-esteem. If that sort of research doesn’t have an impact on how you teach: I don’t know what would.
(More information about the proposed strategy on body image can be found at youth.gov.au)
Julia Gillard wants to make us famous
“TONY EASTLEY: So if I interview you in 12 months time from today, you’ll be able to tell me that some of these problems, a lot of these problems have been alleviated and we’re around these problems of deficiencies in teacher expertise?
JULIA GILLARD: If you interview me in 12 months time, Tony, I’ll be able to go through with you each of the schools that’s got extra resources under our disadvantaged schools program where we’re making a difference. I’ll be able to give you the names of our Teach for Australia graduates who are out there teaching in schools. I’ll be able to tell you about how many students have gone into maths and science teaching induced to do so by our program to halve their HECS.”
Jokes aside though, I think this illustrates the stakes of this little experiment we’re a part of in Teach for Australia. This program has got national visibility, and while the Teach for Australia staff and the schools we go into will be doing everything they can to support us – there is still a definite sense that the success or failure of this program ultimately rests in the hands of the associates on the ground.
Teach for Australia Associates’ Blog
For those of you following along at home: you could well be interested that the Teach for Australia associates now have our own group blog. So if you’re an associate, interested in the Teach for Australia program, or just looking for more whimsical insights into what kind of whack jobs would give up perfectly good careers to get into teaching: make sure you pop on over for a quick read.