What has education done for me?

 

What has education done for me?

 The logo of my high school when I was there - no reo Māori, only the dead Latin language

Education has shaped my life in two ways: as a practitioner, employed in education in one way or another for the last 15 years, and as a learner.

My high school experience was uneventful, populated with small moments that defined the direction on my learning - a maths teacher needlessly underscoring my ongoing lack of understanding in front of the class, for example, or hearing second-hand praise from my English teacher, which lit my shy and anxious teenage heart up with warm affirmation.

I attended art school but was too mixed-up, anxious and distracted to make the most of it, an opportunity I look back on and wish I could do all over again. According to the dominant narrative of what matters, I came through okay, grades-wise; yet, for myself I made very few artworks or pieces that I considered successful, that held meaning for me or met the criteria of success as far as I was concerned.

I returned to learning when our first child was on her way with one intense year of graduate teacher’s college. Here, the real learning occurred when it was applied, in the classroom, where it mattered. I was successful in gaining good grades in the academic side of things - essays exams, etc. - but I knew my applied learning in the classroom was riddled with small failures in classroom management, student interaction and support and an overall lack of understanding and confidence in what I was doing. I was only beginning to understand, back then, that the process would take years to gain mastery over. Perhaps those grades were only an indication that I was ready or had enough foundational knowledge to truly begin learning.   

My narrative identity in terms of education is that I apparently know what it takes to be successful in the system, though I personally have my doubts about those levels of success. One of the ways to be successful is to concentrate on your strengths and jettison the subjects that you feel weak in. For example, my high school mathematics experiences led me to believe I was weak in maths - I didn’t “get it” and, while my teacher highlighted this fact, he also did nothing to help me get it. The narrative was that maths was something you got or you did not.

As I watch my high school-aged daughter struggle with maths, I am aware of the same narrative arising in her education experience., and how it leaves her feeling when - with a little one-to-one help - she comes to understand what is asked of her and her self-belief grows before your eyes.

The readings and learning in this module so far have led me to reflect on how teachers contribute to the narrative identity of the learners in their classroom - through the culture they create and the way learners are treated. I’ve recently experienced this with my two children, who both had the same teacher in Year 7 who did very little to create an inclusive, supportive culture in his classroom, situated in a school that also had a negative culture overall. We witnessed the rapid decline in mental and social wellbeing that occurred for each of our kids, and in both instances changed schools for the better. 

This is all perhaps summed up in a comment made recently by a colleague, which rang true and has stayed with me, sitting at the heart of my thinking about this: no one cares about what you know, they will only remember how you treated them.

 The logo of my high school now - a move from Latin to te reo, macrons/tohutū in place - perhaps people are now also pronouncing the name of the school correctly