As a educator of some years experience the challenges of my last few months have been quite the conundrum! I have been asked to complete my S rating in order to become a full time educator in the Qld education department, this involved a interview with a panel!

So I am asked the following after teaching in a community for the period of 3 months, how have you effected the community through you teaching?

Well, this was a tough question, as I have had many areas where I had effected the community and was still effecting the community long after I left in positive ways. But I had only been part of this community for a very short time, so why was it expected that I would have?

This lead me to thinking about community and what it actually is, its value, it reason, it's life, and how it is formed?

I found myself with some questions about why it is not a more important part of what we teach in the classroom environment. How often do we write down what our local community is, why is it what it is and do we agree or disagree with it and how do we change it?

Suddenly realising that community for humans is a NEED like water, food and shelter and it needed to be part of every persons day.

Community is the reason for empathy, compassion, understanding and education!🎓

What is this thing called relationship and how do we define it in the workplace of education? I am always perplexed these days when people say how is your relationship with your principal? Well to be blunt I don't have one, I believe this is a working connection that benefits both parties. If you are really lucky if you have a principal who can build a relationship and show emotional care and support rather than structural connection and then I would say "great".

In these times of deadlines, massive educational systems of grading and in my personal opinion mass functional split between teacher and administrator we need to be careful of blurring these two things. A connection is for specific purpose and holds rules and regulations and a relationship is emotional, sometimes out of balance and one party can be called to give for no direct benefit other than just to give!

As a further reflection point I think ICT is blurring some of these lines!🎓

So in my usual calm manor I write my feedback question on the board, and the kids all rip a scrawny piece of paper out of their books and write down their grade and their sentence! I begin collating away and realise that my usual trend is not there! The kids have given me a much larger C rating and they are blaming!

What is my next step? Well tomorrow I walk into that class and we work through the blame and we ask why not A's?

Every student has the same opportunity in my room, some need to work a little more, some may need more of my guidance, some may need to spend time with me after school to learn it, some may need to access Khan Academy videos more regularly but you all have these opportunities! Spend the lesson solving there reasons for why they can't in order to create a classroom full of " I can."

THAT IS MY JOB!

What does this really look like? Educators like myself use words like Literacy Numeracy and Digital Literacies, these are simply explained in by human communication skills! How we talk? Yes they are broken down into these categories so we can measure them by testing. But what is beginning to happen is people are being labelled at every year level, in fact twice a year they get labelled. How many times does a person have to be labelled before they just begin to believe the label is them?

What does a test look like to have a great married life?

What does the test look like to raise great children?

What does the test look like to have a job you love doing?

What does the test look like to fall in love?

Is there a test that will save the lives of Syrians that are dying every day?

Yes it is important for our kids to have a understanding of whether they are succeeding or not, but this can be a conversation rather than a mark. Feedback rather than a report, as these are the things that will create learners and people who want to drive change to solve the situations of our world.