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Find Some Heroes- James Taylor

Need Ambition and Vision? Find Some Heroes

– by James Taylor

Inspiration is something that we all need, whatever we do, but as educators we need an extra dose. Our job places us in front of expectant and demanding learners, from a variety of ages and backgrounds, and we are expected to deliver interesting, fresh, satisfying, stimulating and yes, inspirational classes. In other words, we have a tough job (but let’s not complain about that, it’s part of what makes it so rewarding).

So external inspiration is something that we need on a regular basis. We need to be reminded of why we do this, and what we get out of it. There are many sources for this inspiration, and often they are fairly obvious. As teachers we can look to our colleagues and if we’re lucky enough to be in that position, a mentor (and if you need a mentor, why not look at the iTDI Mentor Programme?)

Perhaps we can look at those teachers we don’t know personally, but are aware of their work through their books, talks, videos and blogs. Or we can go further afield and look at personalities whose lives seem to have focussed on the ideas of ‘educating’ society, such as Ghandi, Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela. They are people who have tried to change the world on a big scale, just as you may wish to change it on your own small scale.

Personally, while also looking for my inspiration from those types of people, try to be inspired by more unlikely sources. These people are my heroes, not specifically because I’m a teacher, but more because of their ambition and their vision.

My first hero is Thomas Heatherwick who, as wikipedia states:

“…is an English designer known for innovative use of engineering and materials in public monuments and sculptures. He heads Heatherwick Studio, a design and architecture studio, which he founded in 1994.

Heatherwick’s most renowned works include the B of the Bang, The Rolling Bridge, East Beach Cafe, the so-called ‘Boris’ New bus for London and the Seed Cathedral. Heatherwick also conceived the design for the 2012 Summer Olympics flame cauldron, which features 204 individual ‘petals’ symbolising each country participating in the Games. The ‘petals’ converge with one another to create a unified flame symbolising hope and peace.”

In my view Heatherwick is a genius. He transforms the everyday features of our landscape into stunning works of art and has a remarkable ability to make highly conceptual ideas into simply beautiful objects.

My second hero is James Murphy, described by Wikipedia again as:

“James Murphy is an American musician, producer, DJ, and co-founder of record label DFA Records. His most well-known musical project is LCD Soundsystem.”

LCD Soundsystem are one of my favourite bands of all time, but that’s not the only reason he’s a hero to me. As described in the Guardian in 2004, “A sharp, dry young graduate, who majored in English, Murphy was in talks with (TV) producers… They told him they were looking for writers for a new sitcom and sent him some scripts but, intent on pursuing a career in music, he failed to respond. He even ignored their offer to be the first staff writer on the show. Its name? Seinfeld. He still has the letter pinned to the wall of his office, a constant reminder of what he refers to as “the biggest mistake of my life”. He’s not proud of it.

“Failure is not a positive,” he tells me. “And I speak as a … lifetime failure.”

He spent years messing around, not taking life seriously until he reached his thirties, took a serious look at himself and decided to get serious about his music. At an age when most rock musicians are washed up, he made some of the most joyous music I’ve ever heard.

So the obvious question is how do a designer and a musician make me a better teacher? What can I learn from people operating in those radically different media?

Well, from Heatherwick I have learned to never accept anything at face value. It is possible to make beautiful things from difficult or challenging situations. Whereas he might transform air vents into angel wings, I might have to transform an unwilling student into a willing one, or a boring coursebook into a useful resource.

And from Murphy I have learnt that I should never settle for mediocrity. Stuck in a rut, he decided to transform his life and make something wonderful. I must never think that a boring class is acceptable, that a learning opportunity can just be skipped, or that a student can be neglected. I must always expect more from myself and be the best I can be, all the time.

This is the inspiration I need to be a better teacher. Although people like Heatherwick and Murphy (and Darwin, and Welles, and Waits, and Turning) have little practical application for my teaching, their influence is as profound as my teaching heroes.

James’s Heatherwick shelf (below)

So my recommendation to you is to find your own heroes who you can learn from. This isn’t a new idea, people have been surrounding themselves with saints and martyrs for centuries, but now we have the choice to learn from a massive variety of people. Find your heroes, study them, listen to them speak about what made them who they are, reflect, and then do as they say. Remind yourself of their genius by putting pictures of their work on your walls, and gaze upon it when you need help. Gather up all that positivity and inspiration and use it to become a better teacher and a better person. – James Taylor

Learn more!

Thomas Heatherwick: rolling bridge / TED talk / Olympic Cauldron

James Murphy: All My Friends / ‘I speak as a lifetime failure’

Read more work from James Taylor on his always fascinating blog TheTeacherJames.

Challenges in Teaching – Alexandra Chistyakova

Reaching Challenging Learners

– Alexandra Chistyakova

To many teachers the most challenging learners are those who take an English course only because someone else wants them to learn the language. These people could be employees whose boss insists on their professional development; or these could be children and teenagers who are forced by their parents. In both cases, the learners can clearly understand the benefits of learning English but as long as they don’t need it today, they lack the necessary persistence and determination. In such a situation a good way to grasp the learners’ attention and whet their appetite for learning is to make lessons more engaging and fun.

However, the learning situation might be much more complicated than this if an unmotivated learner has some special needs.

Some time ago I had to teach a 15-year-old boy who has an absent-mindedness problem. During a lesson, the boy used to suddenly switch off and withdraw into himself, completely losing the track of the lesson and not noticing what was happening around him. Even more so, the boy was aware of his problem but he didn’t seem to even try to make the slightest attempt to collect himself and focus on the task.

As it was the first time I had to deal with such a specific learning situation, I had to accumulate the whole arsenal of teaching techniques I knew. Through try and error, I singled out the types of activities that can work well for absent-minded learners. The activities fall into three categories.

First, there are activities and games designed for kinesthetic learners, where a student has to do something instead of just listening, reading or doing exercises in a worksheet. These activities may range from board games, tasks with vocabulary or phrase cards (such as sorting out cards or placing them in order) to total physical response activities (such as miming, acting, or moving around).

Second, computer games can be a great help: successful completion of a game requires concentration and some physical response (such as eye-hand coordination). Computer games can be easily exploited for teaching and practicing grammar, vocabulary or phonetics.

Third, when it comes to the speaking practice, be prepared to discover that your absent-minded learner forgets everything you taught and practiced before and slips to his or her “favourite” mistakes. If this is the case, a teacher (or other students) can register mistakes the learner makes. This activity can be turned into a sort of a game: Hangman, for example. In the case with my student, we imagined that he was playing a computer game where he had to go through a number of levels to win. However, if he made a particular number of mistakes, he automatically was placed onto a lower level. My student liked this activity because the idea of game levels resonated with his computer games addiction. This game helped him to focus and successfully complete a task.

All in all, if you happen to teach learners with the problems of attention concentration, you can raise their alertness and help them strengthen their memory by letting them learn though doing and moving and through using real-life objects. Furthermore, you can increase the effectiveness of lessons by decreasing the length of activities, making tasks more manageable, easier to focus on and more dynamic for the learners. ~ Alexandra

Staying healthy and motivated – Scott Thornbury

What Motivates You As A Teacher?

— Scott Thornbury

It’s not the best of times to be a teacher. In Spain, where I live, and in response to the deteriorating economic situation, the government has just announced an increase in class numbers and an increase in teachers’ hours. Not only is this likely to reduce the quality of education, but it reinforces a perception that teachers are undervalued (there’s no concomitant increase in teachers’ salaries, of course) and it contributes very little to teachers’ self-esteem. Not very motivating!

It’s worth reminding ourselves, though, that – even if our governments don’t value us – our students do. Who, apart from their parents and siblings, has made the biggest impression on their lives, after all? Ask anyone to name a formative influence on their lives and chances are, they’ll name a teacher.

What do teachers do, then, to validate their role in education and to retrieve a measure of self-respect?

I decided to ask my Twitter followers. My question: What motivates you as a teacher?

These are some of the answers I got:

As I sifted through the responses, I found they fell into four main areas:

Learner feedback/ results. For example: “I love when the light comes on in a student’s eyes and you know that they’ve ‘got it”
External validation: “Appreciation also helps to raise motivation..whether from students or from your boss”
Intrinsic drive: “Continuous professional development & using my new knowledge to help students”
Peer support/community: “What keeps me going is the experience of knowing extraordinary people every year”

Each of these areas is within the teacher’s control. 1. You can get results, because you know what you’re doing, and you do it well; 2. Your students – and even your boss – will appreciate you if you do your job; 3. You can push yourself even further, because you’re always learning; and 4. You can become part of a community of teachers who you care for, and who care for you.

And (with regard to point 4) that’s why ITDi is such a great idea: it extends the notion of community to a global level.

Connect with Scott, Chuck, Tamas, Vladimira, Nour, Ann and other iTDi Associates, Mentors, and Faculty by joining iTDi Community. Sign Up For A Free iTDi Account to create your profile and get immediate access to our social forums and trial lessons from our English For Teachers and Teacher Development courses.

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Motivating our students – Chuck Sandy

Please Stop Talking About Motivation — Chuck Sandy

When we say someone is unmotivated, what we often mean is they are not doing what we think they should be doing. When we say we ourselves our lacking motivation, what we often mean is “I don’t feel like doing anything today” or “I don’t feel very well” or even “I don’t feel like I belong here.” It sounds like depression, doesn’t it?

Openly confessing to being unmotivated is sometimes a small act of personal rebellion and sometimes a call for help. When it’s a call for help, having to listen to someone talk about motivation will just make things worse.

Our students don’t usually use words to describe their inner states. They act them out in ways that can look like a lack of motivation but isn’t. When we see someone doing this, we have to stop and say to ourselves, “No, I am not going to walk over and give a lecture on the importance of being motivated.” Yet, sometimes we do what we have just told ourselves we shouldn’t. Why do we do this?

Often it’s because we mistakenly feel it’s about us. It’s not about us, yet we look at a student acting out and looking openly unmotivated and think, “I am not reaching this student, do not know how to reach this student, and the only thing I can think to do is stop this behaviour because it’s a threat.” Such thoughts occur to all of us. We’re human.

I’ve got a student who worked hard getting me to notice how unmotivated he is. Every time he slouched down or pulled out his mobile or indicated he has no book, pen, or paper, he looked at me to see if this would be the moment I walked over and used the voice of authority on him – the one he’s probably had used on him all his life.

He acted out. I responded in a normal way. He stopped what he was doing, and then started doing something doubly annoying. I ignored that because it wasn’t bothering anyone except me. Instead I commented on something else and walked away. It was a stand off that lasted until one day he could stand it no longer.

As I approached his group to talk to another student, he looked up and said in a loud angry voice “I’ve got a headache, alright?” I was completely taken aback. He glared at me, repeated this line in an angrier voice, and then waited. I confess, I almost said something different from what I did say, but what I did say was, “I’m sorry to hear that. Why don’t you go to my office and take a nap. The door’s open.”

He picked up his bag, turned to me, and said, “I’m not stupid, you know.” I said, “I know that. I didn’t say you are. I said maybe you could use a nap. My office is a great place to take naps.” He stormed off without another word.

An hour later, he came in, sat down, asked someone what we were doing, and started doing it. At the end of class, when the room was empty he said, “You have a nice office” and left. That was about a month ago. Since then he’s become what some might call a motivated person. He’s pleasant, brings his materials and participates.

Why do people act like this and what happened there? I have no idea, but clearly there was much more than a nap involved. Some wall fell down. A new understanding was born between us and something important happened.

People sometimes work hard at putting up fences to keep others from coming in their inner world and messing things up. I don’t know why people do that, but they do. If you’re going to be a teacher, you have to understand this has nothing to do with motivation and nothing to do with you. Your job is to wait patiently, look for an opening in the fence and when you see it, reach in and say the right thing. A miracle happens when we are able to do this.

It’s as simple and as complex as that. — Chuck Sandy

Connect with Chuck, Scott, Tamas, Vladimira, Nour, Ann and other iTDi Associates, Mentors, and Faculty by joining iTDi Community. Sign Up For A Free iTDi Account to create your profile and get immediate access to our social forums and trial lessons from our English For Teachers and Teacher Development courses.

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The Special Needs Issue – Tamas Lorincz

A First (?) Day — Tamas Lorincz

I have thought about this day for a long time. I feel my heart beating in my throat; I’m not able to breathe deeply enough. The closed door lies just ahead, and behind it my future. I hear the bell, again and again. I can’t put this off any longer. I have to go through it.

It was a journey for me to get to this stage. My parents insisted I remain with people like me, to make it easier. But I had greater ambitions. My hopes were high with what I wanted to achieve and the people I wanted to inspire. All this to be abruptly halted, one minute after the bell, by two pathetic inches.

People turn to look at me and the first impression I have made is the last I had wanted to.

“Open the other door so he can get through,” they all say to each other, to no one in particular. I wheel myself back a little to give the gathering crowd space.

“I can’t, the latch is stuck,” says another, as I feel myself disappear into the blackness I have occupied so often throughout my life.

Another person tries the latch, then a third, before it finally gives and they are able to open both doors so that my wheelchair can pass.

I haven’t inspired awe, I have attracted pity. The students look at me with a mixture of curiosity, doubt and a bit of fear. They have no idea what to do with me.

When did the word ‘special’ become fraught with so much derision? I am not ‘special.’ I am not ‘unique.’ I do not have special needs and I am not ‘differently abled’. I’m just not able to move my legs.

This…..inconvenience, hindrance, even idiosyncrasy, will mean, inevitably, that I will have to deal with the humiliation of the door, and others like it, everyday.

I remember all too clearly the trauma of my last school, where I had to fake sickness before class performances to avoid being carried down the stairs to the auditorium. Where I had to wait until lunchtime to go to the toilet because the only one fitting a wheelchair was near the basketball courts outside. I could go on, and on and on and on, but it gets boring, as you can imagine.

I wheel myself into the middle of the room. The students clearly have seen nothing like it before. Surely, a teacher isn’t supposed to be in a wheelchair. There’s going to be a lot to get used to.

“I bet you’re wondering how you’re going to get me to sit on a whoopee cushion,” I say to the faces staring at me. I wait for laughter. Slowly, it comes. The students lift their eyes from the ground to look at me, seeking my permission to laugh properly.

“A funny teacher!” says a boy in the back of the class, as if he’s just discovered oil. The rest of the class, fortunately for me, agrees. I have plenty more of these at hand, enough to last a year probably.

So I settle in. I don’t know what the rest of the year holds in store. More laughs, I hope. And maybe some of the students may grow to dislike me, to complain about homework and grades, and realise that I am not so special. Quite normal, actually.

I dedicate this post to every teacher who overcomes their own personal obstacles to bring the joy of learning to classrooms around the world. I wish there were more of you to teach us all. For further insight you might wish to read Dorothy Lepkowska’s November 12^th, 2012 article from the Guardian, Where Are The Disabled Teachers?

Connect with Tamas, Chuck, Scott, Vladimira, Nour, Ann and other iTDi Associates, Mentors, and Faculty by joining iTDi Community. Sign Up For A Free iTDi Account to create your profile and get immediate access to our social forums and trial lessons from our English For Teachers and Teacher Development courses.