Carpe Diem


cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Darcy Moore

I am currently listen to the live stream from TEDxLondon of the #EducationRevolution. Here are the speakers and the Facebook page for the event.

Sir Ken Robinson has just opened the conference with his usual inspiring clarity. His anecdote relating Peter Brook‘s beliefs regarding theatre, that you can strip almost everything away, except that relationship between ‘the actor’ and the ‘audience’ resounds with me. I know you know this and I do too. It sounds simple and I have heard many speakers talk about relationships as the key. Ken, as always, just manages to illustrate the point powerfully.

Darcy1968
Sir Ken’s #PeterBrook #theatre anecdote about the importance of relationships in education is THE theme IMHO #educationrevolution
17/09/11 4:16 PM

Regardless of the complexities of curriculum and schooling, ideology and economies, we need to focus more on the importance of the relationships that learners have with their teachers, who are hopefully learners too. This is the heart of the experience of learning and feeling valued in any community.

The delegates at this TEDxLondon event are being encouraged to make a pledge that will make a difference. I pledge to do better in genuinely connecting with the young people in the schools and spaces I work and learn.

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Comments(5)

  1. It sounds like a small thing, but one thing I know I am pledging to do next semester is learn all of my students’ names. My unit only runs for 9 weeks, and knowing people’s names in that time can be a challenge but I think is a big key to knowing more about them personally.

    I know that name recall is a weak spot of mine, so I’m devising a wall display to help me achieve what is now a pledge 🙂

      • Darcy Moore

      • 13 years ago

      I completely understand where you are coming from with this pledge. As a DP in a large school, it is sometimes very challenging to remember all the students, parents and ex-students’ names. I need to do better with this too. I am trying hard with Danish names at the moment and it is not always easy. Remembering back to my first class ever, as a prac student, I went home on the first night and memorised the roll. The difference it makes to be able to say a name (and then know what it is the person is passionate about) is of profound importance to making a connection.

      An aside: I used Survey Monkey to ask students their interests and what they were passionate about learning before I actually started teaching classes in Denmark. It was really interesting to see the range of responses. I feel the quality of the work students produced as a result of our #LondonRiots lessons was due to the fact that I could bring in bits an pieces of information, street art photos, music, etc. that I knew someone in the class was interested in.

      Lets keep the pledges and see how we are going in 12 months time.

    • Troy

    • 13 years ago

    The relationships between community members is something that has helped me with truly connecting with the Indigenous community, the idea was to create a sense of place for the learners and community leaders. Now sharing Edmodo parents code so parents can engage has led to some quality learning and students resubmitting ‘work’ from earlier in the year and it does feel as if mum or dad has had a look and said you can do better…

      • Darcy Moore

      • 13 years ago

      I wondered if HS teachers were using the parent code in Edmodo. It is a clever idea and potentially very useful/powerful. Good stuff.

  2. What an excellent pledge. I wrote a post on my Teacher’s T-party blog saying that the essence of good classroom discipline is having a good relationship with the kids, and the basis of that – even if we can’t remember their names just at the moment- is that we care about them and are interested in them.

    My husband did casual at Dapto for a while a couple of years ago and he said to look you up because you were a keen blogger so here I am.

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