Our staff had a professional development day recently. The group was asked some “simple” questions such as “How do children learn” and “What do you do to facilitate learning”. The thoughts of the group were then collected and presented as a word cloud. Obviously this is a relatively crude way of summarising the ideas of the group - but it does capture the essence of what was discussed. It seems to me that this is a solid representation of the “wisdom of the group” approach. There were no “outside” educational leaders or gurus present at this workshop, no-one was flown in from interstate to facilitate, no-one earned a cent in presenters fees. Yet the result is a more than fair representation of the things that effective teachers do. In fact, if each item was to be expanded and clarified we would have the basis of a fairly satisfactory professional text.
Obviously knowing what to do and being able to do it are two different things. If our staff can enact these practices in the classroom our students will be the beneficiaries. However, it strikes me that the knowledge base in our staffroom is a fairly significant one. There is an expression that an expert is someone who lives more than 100 miles away. Upon reflection it is obvious that we all must live 100 miles away from someone - and thus can all be classified as experts.
Whilst it must be acknowledged that effective teachers need to be effective learners themselves and always strive to develop their skills and knowledge base, perhaps it is time to place more value on the “home grown” wisdom within our schools.
Effective classroom teachers may well be the real educational experts.
