Confessions of a teacher

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

During the life of the Plymouth Enhanced Learning Conference (PELeCon), we tried to be innovative, introducing new features each of the ten years the event ran. One of the most innovative (and perhaps controversial) was the inclusion of a confessional booth during the final PELeCon. The idea was simple, and a counterpoint to the sometimes congratulatory culture seen in most conferences. In most other events, all delegates hear are the success stories, and how great everything is. But all those of us who have been engaged in education at any level will know that not everything goes smoothly. Teaching and learning is not always a bed of roses. It can be messy, divisive, disappointing, even heartbreaking.

My idea for the confessional booth was to introduce some reality and honesty to the conference. The idea was simple, and my learning technology team made it happen. They built a small booth large enough for a person to sit inside, with a curtain at the back. The delegates were invited to sit inside the booth, and use a web cam and microphone to record a short 'confession' of something that went wrong - with some commentary about what they had learnt from the failure. If they felt confident, they could then tap a red button, and the entire recording would be published on YouTube. 

Several delegates recorded 'confessions' and posted them to YouTube. Many didn't take up the offer, and it was a one-off event, because my university cancelled funding for any future events, and PELeCon was no more. Who knows what library of confessionals we might have generated. The last element was the most important - we can all learn from success stories, but it is often the failures we learn the most from. 

Reading Richard Gerver's latest book Education: A Manifesto of Change triggered further thoughts on this idea. He writes: 

'Collaboration will always suffer if there is an underlining lack of respect and trust. Many teachers feel vulnerable and actually quite insecure about their own practice, even the greatest ones, and this means that as a profession, we are sometimes nervous of sharing.' (Gerver, 2019, p 19)

Gerver documents some of the issues around teachers trolling each other and being openly hostile if they see ideas that they cannot agree with on social media. He maintains that there should be a balance between echo chambers (where everyone agrees with each other and there is no learning) and hostile, fear ridden environments where people feel they cannot speak out for fear of being humiliated by stronger voices. 

Like him, I call for a better, more psychologically safe environment within which educators can discuss and share their ideas, hopes and fears with no fear of ridicule or humiliation. The only way we can achieve this is for all of us to separate ourselves from those who would seek to undermine, threaten and bully anyone who doesn't agree with their own views. We have had too much of this in recent years and it's time it came to an end. 

Teachers - we are all in this together, and we have the same aim in mind - to provide the highest quality learning experiences for our students, our community and our society. Let's be more tolerant of each other's views, and openly share and debate in a civilised, professional and caring manner.

Reference

Gerver, R. (2019) Education: A Manifesto for Change. London: Bloomsbury Education.    

Confessions of a teacher by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Posted by Steve Wheeler from Learning with e's