kate southcombe
“powerful,” “motivated” and “strong.” The students then choose four of these emotions that they could identify with, and they wrote them down in their folders. The main list was then displayed in the classroom for constant use when student are struggling or feeling low. We reminded the students that it is important to acknowledge our feelings when we are upset; we are allowed to feel angry or nervous, but staying in that state will not help us, as Robbins believes. Having a list of empowering emotions at our finger tips means we can draw on them to give us the inspiration to keep going. The next session focused students on their beliefs and values: What is important to them and what do they deeply believe in and value above all else? This exercise was daunting for many of them. We are rarely encouraged to put time or effort into considering our personal philosophy and even those fresh from school had no apparent experience of recording their beliefs or values on paper. As a class I told them that I could already name some of their values based on their behavior. This shocked them at first, but I said, “for example I know that you all value education or further study.” How do I know this? Some students cottoned on to the fact that it was because they had enrolled on this course. Gradually they began to offer ideas of things they valued, such as family and friends.
Here are a few of the value statements that individual students produced. • I value my family and friends and also my time with myself. • I think that my education/career is one of the most important things for me. • I think that everyone deserves a second chance. • I value trust. Without trust nothing works, you can’t do anything without trust. We discussed how these values and beliefs help us to make decisions – and how we can reflect on our philosophy to help us decide what we must do. I put forward the suggestion that all decision making is about clarifying our values, and establishing what is important to us (Robbins, 2001). This basic plan could be used for any age group of students. With small adjustments for younger children, such as having pictures of people or situations that help indentify emotions, teachers can help children get in touch with their feelings and relate these feelings to how they behave. Role playing certain emotions and getting others to spot the emotion can be a fun way to see how our emotions affect our behaviour. Creating
their own philosophy can be anything from writing a set of value statements to drawing pictures of things or people who are important to them. The key is getting the students to think about what they believe in and what they value. What I found so interesting was how the initial strategy to improve attendance in our class became much bigger than simply dishing out warning letters. As tutors we did some soul searching and asked some difficult questions, but in the process we discovered more about what we believe in and what’s important to us. Ultimately our teaching philosophy has become explicitly embedded in our practice for all to see. By using the students’ perspective as a starting point, we have created a dynamic within the classroom that has unleashed some motivated and inspired students who want to be there.
I modeled some sentence starters to encourage students and to enable them to start writing their own philosophy: • I believe
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• I value • I feel it is important…
photo: nyul
Teachers Matter
• I think
