What makes a good teacher? That is the question! This week this kids were actually pretty keen to answer this question. They were confident that they had something to say.
Have a listen to see what the kids think a good teacher is. Now all we have to do is live up to it!
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I didn’t get nearly as many kids running away from me this week as I did last week! Maybe my note in the daily bulletin that goes to all classes actually got through.
My impression was that the kids thought these questions were a bit easier to answer this week as I didn’t need to have too much discussion with them to help them answer, so that was good. I might make the next few questions a bit easier so they become much more confident in answering.
The answers to this weeks questions were pretty interesting, and some were predictable. By far the kids see the most important thing as reading and writing. There were lots of different answers about what the least important things were. A couple of Year 8 students even said that history was not important because ‘we don’t need to know that stuff’. It would have been good to have the time to ask the kids for reasons for all of their answers, and I did for some. Some have reasons, others just shrugged their shoulders. I did mention to a few that when they were talking about what they thought was least important, that they shouldn’t just focus on the things they didn’t like. I told them to think of something they had learned that they didn’t think they’d ever use. Most of the kids who said they thought sport wasn’t that important were avid sport fans, and the one student who said she didn’t think music was that important actually really likes music. It’s interesting to see that some kids can see beyond their interests. But I wonder how much relevance they do see between school and the lives they think they will lead. One of my questions in the coming weeks might have to be ‘Do you think school prepares you for life? Why or why not?’ Hmm, I will put that one on my list.
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NEXT WEEK’S QUESTION: What makes a good teacher?
This episode was a bit harder to do this week as again, I had a lot of kids running away from me or just saying ‘no thanks.’ They saw me coming with my little recorder and promptly walked the other way. I’m going to have to get the message to them that nothing they say is ‘wrong’ and they’re not going to get into trouble for saying what they think. One student even asked me this week if I was going to do anything with the answers they were giving us. I said that we can’t change everything at once, but that we don’t know what we should change if they don’t tell us.
I loved the kids answers this week. I gave some of the kids examples of what other kids had said to get them thinking about what they might say, but that was all the prompting I did. They came up with everything themselves really.
One of the strongest answers was that the kids want more sport – both the girls and the boys. In the past I have mostly pretty much ignored this response because they can’t just be outside playing sport all the time, and they can’t, but I still think we need to pay a bit more attention to the fact that they want to. My Chinese classes aren’t all of a sudden going to contain P.E activities, but I could keep it in mind a bit more. More games was something the kids said a lot – and I thought it was interesting how one little one (Gr 2 student) thought that the big kids don’t get to play many games.
Anyway, have a listen and let me know what you think. Click on the badge to be taken to the podomatic site.
NEXT WEEK’S QUESTION: What is the most important thing you learn how to do at school? What is the least important?
I put up a few posters around school last week (this post and episode are a bit late!) so the students had some notice on what the question would be for Friday. I found though, that the way I had phrased it “What do your teachers need to know about how you learn?” seemed to be a bit hard and was stopping kids from answering. Quite a few refused and some even ran away! So, in trying to get the students to answer and to make it easier to understand that I was really just wanting them to tell me about how they learn, the question ended up being “How do you learn best?” I got a lot more relaxed responses and “Oh, I know how to answer that!” replies when I did that.
Have a listen…
NEXT (THIS) WEEK’S QUESTION: What could teachers do to help make school more interesting?
For the first Friday Vox Pop I wanted to ease the kids into being interviewed by me so I kept it simple this time by asking them to tell me one thing they are looking forward to learning. Badminton, swimming, running, spelling, Chinese calligraphy, and the jaws of life all got a mention!
It was really good fun getting out there with my little recorder, and I had a few students checking up on me over the course of my yard duty to see how my interviewing was going.
You can listen to the episode by clicking on the badge below, which will take you to the podcast page , or by subscribing through iTunes (though check for it after Feb 4 as I’ve only just submitted it and it takes a couple of days to be approved).
Next week I’m going to ask the students what their teachers need to know about them to help them become better learners.
Friday Vox Pop is a podcast project in the making and will be launched on Friday Feb 8th. Each week I will ask the students at my school a question about their learning and education and you will hear the answers in the podcast which you will be able to subscribe to through iTunes.
Drop in again at the start of Feb to hear what the kids think…
