A friend, colleague, respected educator, entrepreneur and rabid Richmond Football Club fan is Clare Weare. Clare has recently founded the incredibly clever Start Smart Tasmania and her work in providing speech, language, feeding and education services including speech pathology, orofacial myology and SLN support for schools and families is going to be making a huge difference.
Clare and I even taught together many years ago. And while our friendship was borne in education it has been forged across time through a shared obsession with our beloved Tigers … as the grins at Saturday’s Preliminary Final reveal.
Following a football team so devoid of success for more than 35 years undoubtedly builds resilience. But more than this, the frustration, the anguish, the apparent hopelessness and the struggle itself teaches you to choose your attitude.
Richmond will play in the Grand Final this Saturday and Clare and I will be there. I’m going to choose to enjoy it rather than be completely beholden to the dread of losing. I’m going to choose to smile at the occasion rather than worry about the outcome. The outcome, in the end, will be what it will be.
As you take a final mid-semester breath ahead of the final quarter of 2017 – Term Four – it’s important to take a moment to choose your attitude. Choose optimism, joy and a celebration of both the distance you have covered and the toil you have endured. If you choose despondence and desire for it all to be over, then the likelihood of a positive outcome is reduced.
Educators, even more than footballers, are hard workers. Unfortunately, we are rarely celebrated on a podium, sprayed with champagne and ticket-tape in front of 100,000 fans when our work is done. It’s because your work is important rather than eye-catching.
What Richmond footballers and educators have in common is that the choice of their attitude is going to matter when the last quarter starts.
Free WEBINAR – Real Evidence – The Bridge from Data Collections to Improved Instruction
There is a solution to this. Schools need to be smarter about what data they capture and then use it strategically to illuminate the real student story. This no doubt involves, some testing but just as importantly, investing time collecting other vital student evidence such as who they are, how they learn and what they are passionate about. When teachers work together armed with this evidence to discuss their students, problem solving as they plan and then adjusting this planning as their kid’s progress they have incredible impact.
This is not ‘rocket science’ by any stretch of the imagination but a clear ‘work smarter, not harder’ approach to education and is about evidence informing teaching.
This webinar is about by having a more evidence informed approach whereby allowing schools to build the bridge between student evidence and improved instruction. Via real examples coupled with some tricks and strategies that you can adopt the next day in your school/classroom, your school can’t miss this one.