Accelerator 2018 - Activating Change!
Provider/Presenter:
Core Education
If I was to summarise the key things I took away from this Professional Development what would they be and why?
The importance of creativity and collaboration.
How has this professional development challenged my thinking?
After a very long 2 days, I came out of this PD feeling challenged, but in a good way. I was able to pitch an idea to a group of 30-40 professionals about something I believed was important in the field of education, with a focus on Pasifika and Maori students. Why are they my focus? Because they're at the tail end of the current education system and it's an aspiration of mine to play my part to help shift UP! Starting with my own class.
Accelerator made me think about them so much and even my own practice. I thought to myself if my current practice is actually helping them? Am I making a difference? What more can I do to cater effectively to the needs of the students?
I liked how the whole room was told to "Hold your ideas lightly" and be ready to be questioned and disrupted. It's important to unfold the layer of thinking behind an idea to reach the core of what it is you actually want. "A reasonable person maintains the status quo, an unreasonable person disrupts it" - it's good to be different!
What aspects of my practice would I consider changing as a result of this professional development and why?
I'm not much of a critical thinker, it's growing on me though. In the culture I was brought up in, we are expected to listen to our elders, no questions asked. But in the field of education, it's about challenging and unpacking your thoughts and thinking. I think I'd like to apply that to my class and question my students in ways that would challenge them. Allowing their thoughts to grow and their thinking to be conceptualised.
