Forgotten, Remembered

Dear class,

Is everyone in today?

Let’s have a recap of what you’ve been taught this year:

• Mathematics ☒

• Literacy ☒

• Physical Education ☒

• Science ☒

• Art & Music ☒

• History & Geography ☒

• Survival in times of crisis ☐

• Computing ☒

Wait! I didn't teach you how to survive in times of crisis and pandemic?

It wasn't on the schedule to prepare for sudden change?

Was that not on the timetable? Tuesdays after assembly.

Coronavirus

The Coronavirus is global, an epidemic resulting in the mass loss of life. We have not seen catastrophe of this scale. It has outpaced recent, modern pandemics such as: Swine Flu, Bird Flu, SARS, Mad Cow Disease and Ebola.

It is unprecedented. It has caused massive restructure and change.

NEWS ALERT! Italian restaurant chain collapses (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52093585)

There is devastation to business, life, relationships, money, accommodation and employment.

China, U.S.A., Italy, Spain and Iran to name a few, are victims.

So the question is...

• If we had known this would happen, what would we have done differently?
• Would I have taught you another way?
• Would Mathematics and Literacy take a back seat, while we push the arts and business to the forefront?

Let’s take our minds back to September, to the first day you walked through those gates. The day you first met me.

Your Teacher .

Early Days

As the nerves quenched the heat of summer. We found ourselves surrounded in a familiar, yet unfamiliar setting. I felt as though I were an imposter, in the guise of a teacher.

Quickly, we realised the holidays were over. While some were looking forward to coming to learn, others were not.

Eager to meet new friends; we had convinced ourselves this year would be different. We tried to reinvent the wheel.

We broke the ice.

Classes were separated by ability and chance; with some tinkering here and there.

We promised ourselves a year of fun and learning.

I advised you to build on:

• Character
• Communication
• Citizenship
• Critical Thinking
• Creativity
• Collaboration

With these, along with discipline we were told we would succeed. Our goal was to learn the core and the foundations.

Little did we realise, on March 11 2020, the WHO (World Health Organisation) officially declared that the Covid-19 outbreak a pandemic...

Although the WHO (on January 30), had been reluctant to call it a pandemic (https://www.wired.co.uk/article/china-coronavirus).

This shifted the dynamics of the world; including teaching.

This made me stop. Think.

What should I have been teaching you all this time?

What I should have taught you!

“A man who does not plan for his future, plans to fail”, is what I should have said. Plan your steps.

Childhood is a luxury afforded by little.

The Victorian masses had to work; child and all. From a young age, Victorians had to think about what they must become to ensure a good life.

We should have spent time, assessing how to make the most of your future. How to develop skills you were good at and introduce you to new ones.

Planning

I did plan... For every lesson... But it wasn’t for you.

I planned for them.

It was never really for you.

Planning should have been for you. On 'Who to be'

Be

Be grateful for life, be grateful to life ,

Be gleeful everyday,

Benign,

Be boundless energy ,

Be a strong academic student, be an A student in Sociology ,

Be the author of your own horoscope ,

Be peaceful if possible, but justice at any rate,

Be high when you low,

Be on time but know when to go ,

Be absent of wars at any past or present fought amongst themselves,

Be the cure and the vaccine ,

Be a cartographer,

Be the owner of more land than is set aside for wildlife,

Be cupid, to world government ,

Be a brilliant soul, sparkling in the galaxy while walking on earth ...

Adapted from Common (It's your world part 1 & 2:Be, 2005) .



This is your LifeForce! (Steve Peters, 2012)

These are all the things you would tell your great grandchild to be, whilst on your deathbed.

The Lifeforce!

It’s what keeps you going, even if you’ve been held back.

It’s what makes you, when you’ve been broken.

It what wakes you, when you're unconscious.

It allows you to bounce back, when you’ve been thrown.

School? - What is it?

Merriam-Webster defines a school as several things, including:

• a source of knowledge
• a group of persons who hold a common doctrine or follow the same teacher
• a large number of fish or aquatic animals of one kind swimming together

The first known use of the word came in the 12th century: a group of scholars and teachers pursuing knowledge together, with a similar group constituted a medieval university.

It comes from Middle English to which it came from Latin, which in turn came from the Greek 'scholē' - meaning leisure, discussion, lecture.

It is said to come from the word 'echein', meaning to hold, or from the word meaning to separate or multitude.

Bringing this all together, a school is a source of knowledge that comes from each other, from leisure and discussion. Teachers and educators (including parents) Have to keep pursuing knowledge.

We learn through play, talking and exploring.

Students are akin to fish! - in a school – holding a gathering.

In schools, fish learn to hunt. Learn to survive. The school is where it is safe, the species pass knowledge on to the next generation, ensuring their part in the production and up-keeping of the whole ecosystem. It is more than adhering to leadership protocols and policies.

In a school, the teachings has to be consistent with the times in which they live in. Otherwise fish cannot adapt to the changing surroundings.

Dolphins have to learn to hunt in shallow waters if there are no fish in the depths (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0038t5t) .

I should have taught you how to adapt, manage money, manage yourselves.

Closing

So knowing what we know now, in times of uncertainty, bereavement and change, I would have taught you differently.

I would have taught you to pick up a Swiss Army Knife, to explore the trees on your way.

Watch: Gever Tulley's TED talk - 5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do.

However, I can’t forget the academic - I would have taught you both. I would have planned for both.

So in essence this is an apology letter. You have been forgotten.

By systems, protocols, by policies, by principalities, by powers, by rulers of this world, by wickedness in high places all in the search for OUTSTANDING.

Schools have become businesses and you are the product. Not the customer.

It is important that we put other systems in place where we prepare students for economic and social changes regularly.

Let us not swim within this mainstream education.

Yes, you have been forgotten, but today you have been remembered.

Remember a school is not a school without the input of the fish. Neither is a school a school without you.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

The Teacher.