Both of my contacts were able to respond to this week's questions. My sister in Canada has many opportunities for professional development available to her. The district and the school run between 6 and 8 pd days per year. There are workshops after school hosted by the district. Each teacher completes a growth plan every year that is reviewed with the admin staff. There are limited funds available for out of city/province pd opportunities. My colleague in Hong Kong notes that the richer private schools have many quality professional development opportunities. Smaller schools have less resources to work with.
In Hong Kong an issue that my colleague brings up is the push for student learning to be self-directed, for learning to be authentic and truly inquiry based. She works in the environment of the IB Primary Years Program both as a teacher and a member of the school evaluation visit team. The program strongly encourages this type of learning. She relates that to achieve this there must be an environment that "creates a safe space for teachers to innovate and test out new ideas" and that this takes time and effort from everyone involved.
My sister's professional goals are to improve in areas like guided reading, digital files and portfolios, use of the interactive whiteboard and communication with parents. She dreams of smaller class sizes, less paperwork and more support. She is challenged like many of us by a vast array of needs and not enough resources. The professional goals of my colleague in Hong Kong are quite different. She would like to focus on inquiry based learning and do some research into the development and fostering of basic skills using this approach. She wants to find a way to balance 'toolbox' lessons with inquiries, so that children will be able to use the new 'tools' of learning in their inquiry. Her hope is to understand the inquiry learning method in depth and be able to share that knowledge with others. Her biggest challenge is exhaustion. Working with young children requires a ton of energy. You need to model excitement for learning and motivate them to want to learn. She then goes home to her own children, one of whom is currently the same age as the children in her class. Her professional dream is to be a published author and retire from everyday teaching. She would like to share her enthusiasm and knowledge in other ways like as a story-teller or running writing workshops. She, like many of us, is tired of the constant paperwork and bureaucracy involved with teaching.
In Hong Kong an issue that my colleague brings up is the push for student learning to be self-directed, for learning to be authentic and truly inquiry based. She works in the environment of the IB Primary Years Program both as a teacher and a member of the school evaluation visit team. The program strongly encourages this type of learning. She relates that to achieve this there must be an environment that "creates a safe space for teachers to innovate and test out new ideas" and that this takes time and effort from everyone involved.
My sister's professional goals are to improve in areas like guided reading, digital files and portfolios, use of the interactive whiteboard and communication with parents. She dreams of smaller class sizes, less paperwork and more support. She is challenged like many of us by a vast array of needs and not enough resources. The professional goals of my colleague in Hong Kong are quite different. She would like to focus on inquiry based learning and do some research into the development and fostering of basic skills using this approach. She wants to find a way to balance 'toolbox' lessons with inquiries, so that children will be able to use the new 'tools' of learning in their inquiry. Her hope is to understand the inquiry learning method in depth and be able to share that knowledge with others. Her biggest challenge is exhaustion. Working with young children requires a ton of energy. You need to model excitement for learning and motivate them to want to learn. She then goes home to her own children, one of whom is currently the same age as the children in her class. Her professional dream is to be a published author and retire from everyday teaching. She would like to share her enthusiasm and knowledge in other ways like as a story-teller or running writing workshops. She, like many of us, is tired of the constant paperwork and bureaucracy involved with teaching.
Hello Jennifer
ReplyDeleteYou stated that in Canada teachers complete "a growth plan every year that is reviewed with the admin staff"; I think that is a great idea for teachers to develop their skills through workshops. However as you said, there aren't always enough resources.
Thank you for sharing
Ghayna Alsafadi
Thank you for sharing this. I think it is so interesting to hear how Early Childhood is in other countries. Unfortunately, I have lacked success getting in touch with my contact from another country, but I do so enjoy reading about other who have been successful!
ReplyDeleteHello Jennifer,
ReplyDeleteI think that is amazing that your sister have to attend 6 to 8 pd's a year. Does you sister like attending them? I teach in the Catholic school system and have to attend 3 or 4 and we complain about attending those. We also have to set standards for ourselves at the beginning of the school year and follow up with our standards through out the school year and at the end of the school year we expound on our year talk about our pros and cons and ways of improving. Thanks for sharing, I find thing to be very interesting.