How many times did you come home and still did school work or thought about that student that was just way too chatty in class? Teaching is one of those jobs that is very hard to avoid bringing home. Some teachers do manage to leave work at work, but for the majority of us, it’s constantly on our mind. We often get so caught up with our roles as teachers that we don’t have time to look to learn things outside of our own professional development. A while ago, this was something that was on my mind constantly, I wanted to learn about something completely new outside of teaching. And for a while, I had no idea what that may be. This required me to reflect about my own personal interests outside of teaching that I wanted to extend.
I decided to reflect with my students: what are The Ingredients of Me? We decided to do this activity to find out a bit more about ourselves outside of our current roles: teacher, students, parents, brothers, sisters, and much more. Our discovery led us to think that even though we might only be doing an activity we enjoy as little as 8% of the time, this might be something we’d like to further develop.
Here are a couple of things that I want to learn more about that can also be transferred into teaching and the classroom:
Writing Join a local writing shop to write with others and get feedback on your writing. If you’re a teacher blogger this can help you improve your writing, but also motivate you to be consistent in writing. There are many local writing workshops that are free to join, some are in the evenings some are on weekends. My favourite ones are 1 hour a week, where writers meet to just write solid writing for one hour, then they can choose to share their writing or not, but in this way, it’s not time consuming and pushes us to actually focus and write. One bonus benefit of local writing workshops is that most of them are held in local coffee shops, so it’s a very relaxed, no-pressure type of environment.
Photography During a local neighbourhood Fall fair, I discovered that there are several photography classes near my area. While these are courses and require more commitment, if one has the time to devote to learn something new, why not? The classes for beginners are especially interesting because they go over the basics. The basics help you sharpen your skills even when taking a simple picture of your classroom, or an activity you completed with your students. Your Instagram friends will start asking you for tips!
Design Thinking I only learned about Design Thinking as a process about 3 years ago. So when I joined the Design Cofounders team, and witnessed how they apply to on a day to day basis to solve problems, I saw how useful that knowledge can be in and outside of education. Design thinking is a very solution-oriented process and this helps with forming and shaping our understanding of problems on a day to day basis. However, the biggest benefit of learning about Design Thinking, is the process itself. Its emphasis on iteration, collaboration, brainstorming, feedback, solution-based thinking and most importantly, empathy are all skills we can benefit from on a daily basis.
Digital Communications This is the most fun topic for me to learn about and explore, and probably the biggest! Digital communications is so much more than using social media daily. There are so many aspects of digital communications that we can delve into and they directly impact how our students see information transmitted to them everyday. Community building, engagement on social media, digital literacy, infographics, illustrations, all impact how we see information and understand it. Now you’re wondering how you can learn about all of this? Diving into social media and building your own digital presence through profiles, writing, sharing and collaborating can teach us a lot. You can also check out the articles here and select an angle that fits with your interests.
Our interests define who we are as people, and it’s only human nature that we work to connect our learning with our daily roles. It’s really important for educators to look outside of education for knowledge but also for hobbies. It helps us to de-stress, step outside our immediate work pressures and focus on something new. This helps us to feel rejuvenated and renewed when we enter the classroom, because not only can we share our knowledge with our students, but to step outside our comfort zone and gain a new perspective.
Inclusive Entrepreneurship 