[MUSIC] In this, the final of 16 lectures in this course. Let's look at some of the things we've already talked about, thought about, worked with, starting I think with the very important notion of childhood. The world of childhood, the place that children are growing up in today and the nature of the schools in which they live. The influence of technology. And then you will remember the important idea of children living nested lives that they live in classrooms, that those classrooms are in schools and those schools are in communities and children live in families and they live in peer groups and they live in a policy environment. So we always have to go beyond our thinking about children as simply existing in that period of time when they're in the classroom. As a young teacher, I remember a student following me down the road and seeing me going in to the dentist and being extremely surprised that his teacher was going into a dentist. Yes, I said teachers do have teeth, and teachers don't just go into a cupboard overnight and come out the following morning. They also live in families and in communities. Well, the American educator John Dewey talks about the nature of an education, that is essentially dependent on the social situations, in which children find themselves. Whether that is within the classroom, within a school, within families, the social situations in which children find themselves. And as you go through this course and we talk about developing relationships, children developing their relationships with their fellow students and their families and the community, but also teachers. What about the relationships that you have as a teacher with your students, with your colleagues, with the families, with the wider community, with school leaders, and perhaps with political leaders as well? In the volume edited by Tony Townsend, Cirone is quoted about the business of teaching: Not like any other business, and Cirone says, "We take them big, small, rich, poor, gifted, exceptional, abused, frightened, confident, homeless, rude, and brilliant. We take them with attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder, junior rheumatoid arthritis, we take them all. Every one. And that is why it's not a business, it's a school." And one of the things that we have to remember, as Peter Schrag reminded us, when he asked what is the longest distance in the world. And his answer, the longest distance in the world is between an official state curriculum policy and what goes on in a child's mind. Is this a classroom that you would recognzie? Each child with its own individual image of what's happening. Each individual construction, as we talk about children constructing their ideas when they're presented with a stimulus or teaching. The chair of a government task force committee in England over a number of years, Sir Ken Robinson, now living in California, California, and you may have seen many of his talks on the internet. If you go into the internet and you simply put in Sir Ken Robinson, you'll find a lot of those talks and, indeed, we have some of those on this, you'll have seen some of those during this course, but he talks about the tyranny of being right. If you're never prepared to be wrong, whether you're a student or whether you're a teacher, Ken Robinson says, you'll never come up with anything original. And he worries, that by the time children have got to be adults, they've lost that capacity to be wrong, to not be frightened of making mistakes, frightened of being wrong. And he says, don't we as teachers too often stigmatize mistakes? In an educational system where mistakes are the worst thing you can make? If at first you fail, try again. Fail better. And Judith Warren Little, we quoted before but remember that quote, "As a teacher, we must pursue the connections with aggressive curiosity and healthy skepticism." She's talking about the connection between teaching and learning. We must pursue the connections with aggressive curiosity and healthy skepticism. And one of the main messages we hope has come through this and will continue through all the seven other courses in this program is that all of us is better than one of us. But we learn together and we learned through processes and tools that we can use, such as those described and that you've hopefully used within this course, such as reflective diarying, peer observation, collaborative lesson planning and shared assessment. In 2009 the Organization for Economic Corporation Development OECD said the global challenge, applying to systems everywhere in the world is to create a knowledge rich profession in which schools and teachers have the authority to act and the necessary knowledge to do so wisely and access to effective support systems. As you've come to the end of the fourth lecture in this unit and indeed the 16th in this introductory course, time to go back, have another look again, not only at the activities and the ideas raised in this 16th lecture, but right back from the beginning. Perhaps revisit some of the ideas, have a look again at some of the videos that you have perhaps already looked at, revisit them, have a second look at your responses to the quizzes that have taken place at the end of each of the three previous weeks because here at the end of the fourth quiz, we'll ask you to take the fourth quiz as your final assessment. An important part of the course is those discussions you have with your colleagues in your own school and in the forums, and your own continued contribution to your developing portfolio, which you want to go back to again and again and again, and have a look at the ideas that you have collected there, your responses, your writing... Those things you've collected that have not only an immediate impact on your thinking, I used to think, now I think, but also on what you do in the classroom, classroom, I used to do, now I do. And you will take the fourth quiz going back looking at the other three and the fact you've progressed to this point to take this final assessment and also you haven't been engaged in writing short essays and reflections up until now. Perhaps this final one, you will want to use it to reflect on the whole course that you have taken so far and how the ideas come together and gel and make sense to you in your own classroom and in your own school and in their own communities that you serve. And looking forward, this introductory program dips a toe in the water, if you like, into these big themes that follow in the rest of the seven units. So we started off with domain one, professional knowledge and understanding, and we talked about what it is to be a teacher. To think about the learners and their learning, and the nature, shape, and impact of curriculum. And then we touched on domain two, which is about professional practice. Planning for teaching and learning, introduction to student assessment. And domain three, which deals with professional values, relationships and engagement. And the two courses there, Course 7, being a professional and what that means. And the eighth course, developing relationships. Well, that one sits right at the end, and perhaps it's placed there because in a way it encompasses everything that you're about as a teacher, about the relationships that you develop, not only with those immediately in front of you in your classroom, but with your colleagues, with parents, with community, with policy. So the final course, developing relationships, in a way comes back and will revisit these themes and remind us just how important it is that we're not in a business. The business of teaching is integrally and essentially about the relationships we develop with that range of people who constitute a school and a school community. And as you go on through the course, above all, it has to be an enjoyable experience, why learn if it's not enjoyable and at the same time challenging? And remember those three precepts: connect, extend, challenge. But if this course is successful, it's connecting with what you already do or know as a teacher but it's extending and enriching that knowledge. And hopefully, it has been so far a challenging introduction to these key ideas and as you go through it, you will continue to be challenged in greater depth, and be able to take the ideas and see their immediate and practical applications in your own classroom. [MUSIC]
