Thought of the Day: Sunday, August 17th, 2014

Change is an ever present force around us

This blog post is devoted to thinking about just how powerful a force change can be for both educators and for students. Change is ever present, affecting our day-to-day lives as educators as well as the lives of our students.

Within the PYP framework 'Change' is one of the 8 key concepts that drive the learning that takes place in the classroom and single subjects. Here is a definition of change and the rationale for the concept of change taken from the 'Making the PYP Happen' handbook. 

Definition:
The understanding that change is the process of movement from one state to another. It is universal and inevitable.

Rationale:
This concept was selected, not only because it is such a universal feature of all existence, but also because it has particular relevance to students developing international-mindedness who are growing up in a world in which the pace of change, both local and global is accelerating.

I believe that when looking at the above definition and rationale for change, it is very much from a macro level perspective. Although it is critical to look at change from this larger, more global perspective, the focus of this blog post is to think about change from more of a micro-level in our own teaching and learning and in the learning of our students. 

When considering our own students, they must understand that change is very much a part of their learning journeys. As their physical, mental, emotional, social and cognitive states change, so too does their learning. They need to understand that even subtle changes in these states has great impact on their learning. They need to be aware that learning naturally ebbs and flows as a result of change. 

One day they may be on a roll sucking up knowledge all around them and improving upon their skills in the classroom and in the single subjects while the next day they are not. What has changed and why has it changed? These questions are critical for our students to reflect on in order to ease tensions that may arise as a result of hitting the wall at times in their learning and skill development. 

As for our own teaching, we must also be aware of little changes that impact our practice. It is natural that we won't always be on a roll with our teaching, but reflecting on the impact of change is always a good place to start when things may not be going as smoothly as we like. In the photo at the top of this blog post, I placed changed all around the student with an arrow pointing in both directions to show that as change takes place, the student is impacted. The student is both the initiator and receiver of change. As teachers, we are no different. Change impacts us all on both a macro and micro level.