Monday 14 November 2011

Karate and lessons we can learn as educators

Four weeks ago a door to door salesman came to our door. After pulling my stupid golden retriever away from him as he entered the gate, I thought to myself "What the heck does this guy want?" He wasn't obviously selling a product. I can usually pick those ones. I was suprised to find out that he was advertising our local karate club and looking for people to sign on.

Mr 5 in our home is a very eager lad. He missed out on Prep this year by 26 days. He loves being active and we were keen to sign him up when we found out one of his mates goes as well. So off we went four weeks ago not knowing exactly what to expect. I was plesantly suprised with some of the lessons that my child learnt. My highlights were:

- At the start of each lesson the whole class takes some time to reflect quietly at the start. My child has responded well to this.  It allows him to focus on the task ahead.

- Learning together. In his class the majority of students are children but there are some adults. They are all treated as equals.

- Ability modelling. Students learn from each other and encourage and model for each other. My boy is in the lowest group but still gets techniques modelled by other students.

- Routines and traditions. Every class starts and finishes the same way. They also respect traditions that have obviously been developed throughout time.

So as I blogged about this yesterday (most of this post was done on my phone using the blogger app) I started to think about what we do as educators and can we take some of the activities that my boy does at karate in our classrooms.  I personally do focussing activities at the start of each session.  At the start of the day, it is going through what we are going to be doing during the day.  After break, it is some type of settling activity.  This quiet personal reflection time allows the child to calm down and focus on the task that is coming up.  I think that routines are something that makes an educators life easier.  If you have rotuines set up in your classroom and the students know what is expected, your life and more importantly, the students life will be a lot easier.  One thing that I don't think we do enough in education is learning together.  We don't model lifelong learning skills enough as educators.  I feel that by undertaking courses such as Change11 (which is going to form the basis of my next blog post) students can see educators as learners as opposed to just teachers.  But how do we share with our students the fact that we are learning?  At karate yesterday, Sensei Chris told the students that he was going to a competition in Sydney on the weekend and in the previous weeks, he has been at weekend workshops. Whilst this didn't affect my son (he was to busy busting to find out if he got a certificate to pay attention) it reassured parents that the person in charge of the class is doing everything possible to be the best instructor that he possibly can be.

So I would love to hear your thoughts on the following two questions - Firstly: how do we foster a culture of lifelong learning amongst teachers and secondly, how do we share our passion for lifelong learning with our students?

Enjoy the video


1 comment:

  1. hi, translate please.

    Eu tenho um aluno que vai ser professor e na atualidade ele esta em estagio supervisionado e ele tem alunos de Karatê.

    Ele necessitava utilizar estes alunos de Karatê para aplicar o seu estagio , mas o seu estagio deveria contemplar o conteúdo de < praticas inclusivas> ou seja, aplicar 08 aulas ( com liberdade) sobre praticas inclusivas para alunos com deficiência física-
    O professor-aluno não dispensou as aulas de karatê, ele deu as 08 aulas aplicando com seus alunos simulações de que estas crianças deveriam ser portadoras de deficiências ( uma aula com deficiência visual, outra com deficiência auditiva, outra com deficiência física , outra para crianças mudas...)

    O professor apesar de ser exímio karateca se dispôs a aprender, e as crianças aprenderam as dificuldades das outras pessoas quanto a questão do corpo e da sobrevivência.

    suas respostas-
    1- para se aprender ao longo da vida usa-se a criatividade e deveremos enfrentar coisas novas sem resistência.
    2- compartilhar a paixao demonstrando que desejamos ouvir e trocar experiencias novas com os alunos e eles sairão da repetiçao do dia a dia em busca de novidades com liberdade e valorizando o que eles possuem de bom.

    ReplyDelete