UNEXPECTED THOUGHTS
Sometimes we see things that prompt thoughts that are entirely unexpected and often, apparently, have very little to do with what we have just noticed. This rarely happens at school: the life of an educator is full-on and leaves very little time for breathing out when school is in session. If you’re not teaching, you are planning, if you are not planning, you’re assessing, and if you are not assessing, you’re in front of a dashboard with your latest set of data thinking about the outcomes of that assessment.
Two writers this month know all about the insistent demands of school leadership, and found themselves prompted to unexpected thoughts when they were traveling. Nigel Winnard was in Morocco when he was astonished by the sight of snow on the High Atlas shimmering in the distance and Matthew Savage, initially disconcerted by the polluting bustle of life on Vembanad Lake in Kerala, was exhilarated by the wildlife he could see and hear all around him while exploring its quiet backwaters.
International educators are great travellers – that’s one of the reasons why we put ourselves out there. Travel is, if you like, one of the elixirs of an international life, throwing our way a host of encounters we simply may not otherwise have experienced. Interestingly, these two writers are brought back to the essence of learning in a series of meditations stimulated by what they had experienced in India and Morocco, and which the pressure of school life would hardly have had allowed them time and space to consider. Having had his breath taken away by the High Atlas, Nigel Winnard finds himself wondering about the sheer wonder of ‘firsts’ that happen as children learn, while Matthew Savage ponders the very nature of learning that cannot be reduced to or expressed by the measurement of any data.
Both writers hope that we can all find time to notice and enjoy the small moments of learning that happen every day in the place where we work. Collectively experienced, they are, perhaps, just as important as any grand attempts to capture and measure the attainment of complete generations.
And of course, just like seeing the snow on a desert mountain range or hearing the tropical call of a coucal, these small moments are so much more joyful.
Andy Homden is Editor of International Teacher Magazine and the CEO of international education consultants, Consilium Education.
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