Monday 3 April 2017

Balance through Integration (sharpening the focus)

As I've pursued and had repeatedly brought to my attention, this need for balance and a nationally expressed concern for teacher workload, I've been reading and teasing some ideas out for myself.

When you're working with the nation's more fragile families, it's not OK to stop questing for improvement. Equally, if quality, high performing staff are "the goose that lays the golden egg" we don't want to kill the goose by our continual quest for improvement or the improvement certainly will not happen.

I notice that in lots of the conversation about these and related challenges the issues or elements rapidly become dichotomous, i.e. this or that; -or this versus that.
I kept wondering if our teachers and team leaders as first researchers, were looking for the affordances of "this with that" and how we would balance, plan for and resource that, what that combo might look like and how achievable it might be.

So I began the year, thinking about how to do what we do really well and have it sustainable. What we are discussing here, emerges as a key sustainability issue and brought about a sharpening focus, from looking into the affordances and balance of digital learning and teaching, to how we might integrate well to enhance the balance and reduce the tension in the system.

I also continue to think about what we can safely get rid of in the environment of an ever expanding curriculum.



1 comment:

  1. Hi Russell,

    I came across your site as part of my Masters research into future-focused schooling. These are great reflections on the need for balance. Education is often seen as opposites in conflict (phonics vs. sight words, strategy vs. basic facts, digital learning vs. non-digital), when in reality finding balance and implementing strategies dependent on your learners' needs is what's most important. I particularly like your final comment, which may read as a throw-away, but is actually at the core of modern schooling - with so many demands on teachers/students time, what can we cut out to make the load manageable. Great question, and I'm sure many educators worldwide would love to know what you find!

    Cheers,
    Nathan Calvert
    Kristin School

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