Educating the Dragon

I’m not so flash up the front, especially when I have very little to say and what can be said needs to be done carefully. My last day at Peterhead School arrived yesterday and although I spent much of the week ferrying my stuff home it did not feel real until I sat in the staffroom desperately scribbling keywords on my hand trying to think of something to say.

Here is what I wanted to say…

I want to begin by thanking Jenny, who works in the next class and is the polar opposite of me, being ultra-organised. I must have driven her crazy with my last minute questions.

I wanted to thank Martin Genet, Principal, firstly for employing me in the first place and secondly for giving me the IWB which has led to so many developments in my professional life, most of which can be tracked through my blog archive.

I was somewhat disappointed with Amazon.com whose tracking system failed to deliver David Warlick’s book, Redefining Literacy for the 21^st century, a book I was gifting to the school.
I wanted to emphasise that it was not that I couldn’t deliver the curriculum in the ‘Peterhead Way’ it was more to the point that I didn’t want to. I believe that there are elements within the ‘Peterhead Way’ that are right for the 21^st century, for the community in which we serve yet there is an element within that philosophy that is resistant to change. I realise that change needs to incremental within any institution but I felt saddened to think that individuals who wish see the school community grow are not given the flexibility to try things out. As I identified in my recent podcast there is no excuse more burying our heads in the sand and ignoring implications of technology on the education system we are providing for the next generation.

My heart goes out to my principal, a true visionary and leader who is handcuffed to staff who are pillars of the school. I wish in some ways that I could have stayed, the school and the wider Flaxmere community is on the cusp of a wave of change…. I wonder if they will paddle hard and catch the wave or allow it to flow beneath them and allow the tide to drift them further into the ocean.

I am nervous of the future. Not having a job and relying on relief teaching, but I guess that change is good. You have to embrace it. As Steven Carden says: “Without hope driving our aspirations we become captive to whatever is happening in the present.”