Wind In My Head: A Gathering of Teachers
Wind In My Head
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
A Gathering of Teachers
Message I sent out today while waiting for a briefing to start.Being in a room full of teachers is quite a put off.
No offence to any of the teachers out there.
Reply to message
Teachers en masse are repulsive.
Once again, no offence meant to the teachers out there, seeing that I am a teacher, I am married to a teacher and I have many good friends that are teachers.
But seriously.
I was at the briefing session for the, get this...wait a minute... wait for it....wait... NATIONAL INTERSCHOOL BLOGGING CHAMPIONSHIPS 2005!!!!
The objectives?
1. To harness new media and technology for pedagogical purposes.
2. To encourage creativity through writing with the use of visuals and images.
3. To allow teachers to learn more about their students through blogging.
So, 2 out of the 3 objectives are for the benefit of the teacher actually. Yes, no doubt it will EVENTUALLY benefit the students, but isn't the blogging supposed to be for them and about them? Why should the objectives be, in local policy speak, teacher centred?
But I guess what else can you expect from something that is jointly organised by the Ministry of Education? Of course there has to be a teaching point to it. Even if, during the briefing, we are told that the rationale behind this is that blogging is a popular tool for teenagers to express themselves and it helps meet the various psychosocial needs of each stage of life. After this was very eloquently read off the slide, great conviction and belief was added in a not so under-tone by the guy muttering "whatever that means...". Yup, I'm totally sold by the idea.
Anyway, there will be a national interschool blogging championships. No stopping it. We've all been given our briefing kits. On one hand, I think it's quite an interesting idea. But on the other, I'm not sure how much I trust any competition whose banner is so uncreatively nationalistic. Yes, red and white. All you needed was a couple of stars and a crescent moon to complete.
And I was right to be put off by the many teachers in the room. Micromanaging is the word that comes to mind. Why question minute logistical issues when this is just a general launch? And what took the cake and made me dislodge my lenses through violent amounts of eye rolling and face-palming was the introducing of the judging criteria.
It comes in two parts. Like everything today, there is the voting part tied to the popularity of the blog and the content and presentation part tied to the pedagogical aspect of it *more eye rolling here, but it is reasonable I guess*. Anyway, trust a teacher to ask about the "weightage" of the judging and how many percent would go to popularity and how much would go to the actual judging by a panel. And on top of that, she wanted a guarantee that the weightage was going to be heavier on the side of the panel.
Can you say exam-mode? And we blame our students for seeing everything in term of exams and grades. Bah!
So, the gathering of teachers, makes me question, do I belong to such a group? I'd like to think not. But I hear that if you hang around too long, you too, end up joining the dark side.
-Gulp-
Ondine tossed this thought in at 18:14
3 thoughts...
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At 8:28 pm
dagger said... Hang in there, be strong and always keep in mind why you joined the service in the first place. So long as you hold true to your ideals...
But interschool blogging championships? Too much like thinkquest in my days: interschool website building competition. Though it would be interesting to see how students toe the line between being politically correct and yet boundary pushing to garner popular vote.-
At 10:41 pm
Tym said...
I think the dark side is maybe when you abandon the traditional way of doing things and teach your padawans the way you want to, not the way it's always been done all these long years. So really, your ambition should be to join us on the dark side ...
The nibc5 (what an abbreviation!) webpage damn ugly and user-unfriendly!-
At 8:57 am
Ondine said...
That dark side is fine. Time to break out the m and m chocolates. :) .."You are no use to me when you are a nut".. Heh.