I was challenged tonight by @edutweetoz to think about Vulnerability in terms of my educational life! With this in mind I need to reflect, I have been stabbed, sliced and had my car totally trashed, students have died, suicide, car crashes and I have seen homelives that make Oliver look like a rich kid from LA!

But as a educator I walk into a room of students thinking what can I do to help! I share stories some tough, usually when tough stories are needed, but these stories are first hand they are stories I have lived so they are close to the bone!

I have often wondered whether I would get a call from a angry parent but to this day this has not happened. In my belief the reason for this is when a human shares a human self story there is a unwritten pact, "that was between him and us/me" this is what keeps me knowing that education is never a lost cause and no child doesn't deserve this opportunity!

To young teachers out there this is no game, this is real, make sure you are ready to share as kids don't hold back with their questions and their questions need to be answered one way or another.

Yes, for the phobics out there this is scary and challenging but we need to get the chalk dust on our shoes if we are to gain the respect through relationships with our students.🎓

http://youtu.be/7Pq-S557XQU

So I watched this video from one of my favourite Youtube creators and I am left with a overpowering feeling of What the?

As a educator I have spent twenty years being goal based, setting beautiful pathways where my students thrive and prosper into young men and women! However these pathways were based in a belief that there were jobs, there were specific jobs for specific types of students! I felt I had I good grasp of who should or at least could be capable of doing what in their future! Well this now appears or at least is beginning to manifest itself as the wrong way of thinking!

The way I am now seeing it is as follows; we are working with our students to design their pathways to their skill set so that what ever profession is placed in front of them they can do!

Wow that sounds easy! 🌝

The fear of lack of success!

~What does this mean for us as educators?

~Does guilt play a role in your life as a teacher?

~Is there different levels of success?

~Are you too hard on yourself?

The fear of judgement!

~Do you feel you need to get better at something because "they" are better at it than you?

~Who is going to judge me if I try this?

The fear of exclusion!

~If I work hard with the kids who are interested am I excluding?

~If I do something different from my peers will they exclude me?

The fear of time!

~Do I have enough time to get through all the aspects of this task?

~Do I miss out on PD that will benefit my classes because I have done School based PD?

~Do I make time to reflect on what happens in my classroom?

The fear of loss of language!

~Do I have time to share the individual discourses of each subject with my students?

~Are we slowly losing the different styles communication/language?

Questions of the educational mind!

Every now and then I get a grounding reminder of the importance of the basics in the classroom environment. As usual this happens on holidays with my own children.

I currently have a yr10 class that I am having issues with, and this has reminded me that it is not the amount of technology access nor the amount of money we have that makes a classroom a connected learning environment, it is the amount that people feel they can share of themselves that counts!

So to all the educators/learners out there when you walk back into your classes, develop relationships like there is no electricity before you build relationships in other environments as in my opinion what we share I f ourselves is more important than what we share of others!🎓