Month: September 2024

Wow, a lot to unpack for sure. Some people were set free today. I get that it happens at international schools, but still pretty full on. And then we’re unpacking our next unit.

We get this idea that we hear from the past to kind of dictate our future. How do we really look at our central idea without drawing from past experiences. I get that it is impossible to separate yourself from your past, we use our context to make sense of our world. But is it possible to be really empathetic about how other people might not be included, like how do we know what the kids really need if we don’t ask them.

I guess all this brings me back to Schwab (2013), and how we bring the theory into the practical. Also there is this idea that we have to make a decision, run the course (curriculum) and then judge. It’s so hard at the unpacking stage to really understand how our decisions are going to work. I know that we can modify and tweak as we go through, but what consequences do our decisions have (I’m thinking this both because of the people no longer with us, and the journey we are about to go on with our students).

I guess I just wonder about how these practical problems require multiple perspectives. How do we include (all, most, representatives) of the community into our decision making process. How do we get their feedback afterwards? And I guess, does it really matter?

The beginning of the year is always kind of interesting. We have a lot of opportunity to get to know our new group of kids, but one of the ways we know them is through testing. I fully understand that we need to know where kids are to get them to their next step. But some of the standardised testing, seems a little bit forced?

I’m just on this because I teach two classes, and it seems like I’ve been lucky with the draw so I get all the standardised tests. I’m not really worried about the loss of teaching time, I’m more just curious if it has the desired effect.