#edblognz Week 1 No.3

Challenge No. 3

“Write about some legendary bloggers, educators, inspiring leaders that help you to dream bigger?”

There is ONE person I have selected for this challenge.

This choice was a ‘no-brainer’.

This person is a blogger, an educator, AND an inspiring leader.

This person’s thinking and ideas resonated with me back at the end of 2012.

Having lost my dear mum to a drunk driver in June 2012, I felt this urge to ‘up my game’ and DREAM BIGGER!

So my journey into future-focused pedagogy began.

PERNILLE RIPP was my inspiration.

“Blogging Through the Fourth Dimension” is her blog.

“Passionate Learners – Giving our Classrooms Back to our Students” was Pernille’s first book and was released in 2014 as an e-book.

I purchased and read immediately!

Then wrote this blog post as reflection on my reading.

Very recently the second edition of this book was released in print, titled Passionate Learners – How to Engage and Empower your Students.

I am in the process of purchasing.

What resonated with me in Pernille’s writing was her honesty and the practical approach she took to sharing her journey.

Being a teacher and writing from what she was experiencing made everything so real – and she wrote about stuff which we could all relate to. She made suggestions about the small things we could start to change in order to give the classroom back to our kids.

So I did.

I began to change some of the things which she suggested – I started to break some of the ‘rules’!

First and foremost was keeping this question at the front of everything

“Would I like to be a student in my class?”

She talks about learning to trust your students, being okay when things don’t go right or the way you expect, sharing control of what is to be learnt, stop talking so much and let the learners do more talking, allow kids to be experts at things, stop answering their questions, be open to feedback from your learners, be accepting of more noise in the classroom, your classroom is about how it ‘feels’ more than what it ‘looks like’, ditch the ‘classroom rules’, create a space that works for the kids rather than one that works for you (get rid of teacher desk), create a space which has no front or back, allow for students to collaborate, encourage and expect student voice, maximise time in class so the need for homework is eliminated.

One of the most exciting sections in her book was that which discussed

“Letting go of the Punish, Behave, Reward Cycle”

I have always been wary of the concept of ‘rewards’ for doing things which are expected in the classroom. In the ideal world, learners will not need incentives because they are intrinsic and WANT to do things to the best of their ability. Constantly putting incentives in front of kids will only teach them to expect rewards whenever they do something!

I re-posted her original post on my blog here as it made so much sense to me.

SO what was Pernille’s alternative?

“Create a community of learners over rewards and punishments”

Learn ways to motivate learners intrinsically!

Provide some choice, allow kids some control over their learning, be excited yourself as the teacher.

As well as her book and her blog was the Global Read Aloud. This literacy initiative which gives classroom teachers all over the world an opportunity to connect their classes and collaborate over a 6 week time frame is for me where the future of literacy is heading.

My involvement in this during 2014 was what inspired me to start #NZreadaloud – the kiwi version – “One Book to Connect Kiwi Kids”

The most exciting moment for me happened earlier this year when I tweeted Pernille to ask her some advice about #NZreadaloud ( I had already been in contact with her about the initiative). She IMMEDIATELY tweeted back saying she had some time to have a Hangout if I did…

Yes… I had time…so we talked.

This blog post here was inspired by my conversation with Pernille.