I led a workshop at our school the other day which I started by encouraging some reflection on reflective practice and continued to propose and discuss some ideas for peer observation.
I started off with a quote from Julian Edge, whose ideas and writings I respect and who was my tutor on a module entitled Teacher Education on the MA course I finished last year. The quote is:
"You can train me and you can educate me, but you can't develop me. I develop."
I asked the teachers present to discuss this quote in groups. I asked them to consider what the difference is between the words 'train', 'educate' and 'develop'. This produced a lot of discussion, which I felt could have lasted a lot longer than the few minutes I allowed. As a result, I thought I'd share it here to find out what anyone else thinks.
Over to you...
References:
Edge,
J. (1999) Managing professionalisation or “Hey, that's my
development!” IATEFL
Issues,
149, 14-16.
This comment is from Marian Steiner (sorry Marian!), but I stupidly deleted it by mistake and can only retrieve it from the email confirmation and paste it here. Here it is, as it was:
ReplyDelete"Great quote! And very inspiring topic for debate.
To me, development is something that can only really happen with the initiative from the inside. Education and training can be thrown at us and bounce right off us, if we don't let it in and personalise it. Development starts with the will to improve and open up - to make training and education personal and intimate - it's driven by personal reflection and is inextricably connected to who we are, our beliefs, feelings and to our image of ourselves as teachers. It can't happen from the outside.
Thanks for sharing, Richard!"
Hi Marian,
DeleteThanks for the comment. I like the idea of development being something that happens from the inside. I suppose in education and training we can make teacher-learners more aware of the process of reflection and its importance. It is very personal, but reflection in groups is, I think, important too, as it allows for challenge which promotes further reflection and the development of ideas.
Of course, development is not necessarily always for the better! We can't help developing, it happens naturally, but whether it is a positive process and how positive it is can be helped by being supported by others. Hence the usefulness of blogs and PLNs, I reckon.
I've pondered the difference between training and education before but not thought about development. Maybe it's what you DO with either/both of the others?
ReplyDeleteI recall from discussion on my MA course how it was suggested that training and education come from the outside and development from within - similar to the points raised by Marian, above. I think maybe development is how training and education affect you as a person and your professional identity - in terms of professional development, which I don't think can be extracted from the personal.
DeleteThe thing is, much development probably happens outside of formal training and education situations, so the importance of informal learning to development is huge. Again, as I said above, I think it's important to be aware of reflection as a more 'formalised' task, rather than just thinking about classes on the bus on the way home. So raising awareness of these possibilities is possibly the way to go.
I'm new to blogging but I wrote a rather 'academic-y' post about the difference between traditional PD (training) and more holistic teacher development here:
ReplyDeletehttp://bourgoinpierre.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/how-many-teachers-does-it-take-to-change-a-light-bulb/
;-) P!
Many thanks Pierre! I enjoyed your article and looking through your blog it seems as though we have many shared areas of interest. I came across the concept of heutagogy on my MA course and I'm fascinated to read you article on it, I haven't got time now unfortunately, but I'll get in touch when I have!
DeleteAny comment regarding your thoughts on here would be much appreciated.
Cheers