I always say this to our teachers, as it very much is the sharpening of our ax! (“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax. ” -Abraham Lincoln).
Planning & preparing for the year ahead & reflecting on the academic year that has just passed is so vital in order for us to continue to improve the quality of education our students experience. Teachers need much time to read, process & learn new things to continuously make themselves better educators. However, when school starts, we get into our daily grinds and there’s really not much time to question, ponder, gather new info, etc.
In 2018, after I officially took the lead at the school, I introduced two things during summer break:
- Teacher Tours.
- Make May a working month.
So, after a three week holiday in April, we’d go on Teacher Trips. We went to Munnar in 2018, & to Yelagiri in 2019. As soon as we returned, we would be energised and rejuvenated and we’d spent the entire month of May preparing for the year ahead. Usually, before I came in, when students were off, so were the teachers, apart from a few duties like book distribution, etc. However, there is so much planning & learning that can happen during this time, that is vital for the smooth functioning of the upcoming academic year. We came up with a fun, productive timetable for every day and this was thoroughly enjoyed by all teachers, and we got so much done!
We started the day with yoga, moved on to small group activities (theme groups, subject groups, task-based, etc) then large group activities (watching TED talks, having debates, discussions & presentations, etc), then individual work & ended the day with an hour of sports & games for all teachers! Working together, eating together & playing together helped a great deal in team building also!
This year, due to the pandemic, we were not able to go on any tours. However, we did continue to have debates & discussions online about various topics:
- Maslow before Bloom
- Making new changes to improve our online learning
- Debate on Competition & Extrinsic Rewards vs. Collaboration & Intrinsic Rewards (At the end of this debate, we have decided to almost eliminate any competitions at our school – What are we doing by constantly pitting students against each other?)
- Debate: Medium of Instruction – Tamil vs. English
- Educating for an unknown future.
- Understanding & helping children see & be aware of new moon, full moon, etc
- How to give specific, constructive feedback