We’ve got some house martins underneath our eves. It’s that time of the year when eggs that have become chicks get that one chance to learn to fly.
My son, Ben, visited his school this week. He starts nursery there in September. He’s full of enthusiasm and could have started at Easter but we didn’t think he was ready.
I’ve scraped up five house martin chicks in two days. It wasn’t a pretty sight.
It’s easy to see when something physically dies. It’s less easy to see confidence shattered, an internal fire put out, inquisitiveness squashed.
It’s not easy being a parent or a teacher. Remember Icarus? It works both ways.
Are we abdicating our responsibility when ‘student voice’ dictates what we do rather than how we do it?
Isn’t it unreasonable to expect the majority of those who are not yet adults to make significant contributions to the world’s knowledge?
Continue reading “Are we doing young people a disservice?”
I see this a lot:
- Someone is demoing Twitter.
- They ask their network why they use Twitter.
- People respond “it’s the best CPD I’ve ever received”
No. It’s. Not.
It might be the best Continual Professional Stimulation (CPS) you’ve ever received but development is more than getting a bunch of ideas. Development is:
[The] act of improving by expanding or enlarging or refining.
or
[A] process in which something passes by degrees to a different stage (especially a more advanced or mature stage).
That’s why TeachMeets, for example, are better CPD for those who present at them than for those who attend. Those who merely read tweets or attend TeachMeets are being professionally stimulated but not (necessarily) developed.
Happily, many of those who experience CPS end up undergoing CPD as they put those ideas into practice, reflect on it (via their blog, TeachMeet, etc.) and then make it better.
That’s development.
That’s CPD.
That’s all. 🙂
Image CC BY-NC TarikB
