Substance then style or is it just style over substance?

Life does present with some odd experiences.

For 2 hours a week I teach at a local further education college - trust me, you do this for the love of it and not for the finances!  As any teacher will tell you, the amount of time spent preparing and then marking is almost as great as the time in the room.  Well yesterday the faculty I work in had been selected for a teaching inspection....and so I found one of these designated chaps in my class.

I have to say it really must be up there as one of the biggest waste of time of one person we currently operate. There sits this person with his notebook in hand, tapping away as I'm trying to deliver the lesson. It takes no account of what went before and absolutely no account of my true knowledge of the subject.

He observed a lesson on a subject he knew nothing about and watched a demo on a subject he knew even less and watched the students practise a routine that to be honest he also wouldn't have a clue if I had taught them correctly or not.

I could have stood up and delivered a lecture that was a complete load of rubbish, taught a routine that I made up in my head as I went along and 'winged it' through out - but as long as I had done it in the preferred style of the moment with the focus on the current craze/fad of teaching methods with plenty of change in pace and student involvement that's ok.

I'm not one for convention and would rather respond to the needs of the group as we go along. That is something you can only do when you are confident in the subject knowledge and that what you are teaching is current/relevant and meets the need.  If some one had come along and randomly asked me questions on my subject to see that I hopefully knew what I was talking about and perhaps went around the room and asked students about their learning experience in the classroom, even testing the knowledge that by now the teaching should have given them - surely that would be a better test of teaching skills and abilities.

So now one waits for the feedback....In all honesty, the only feed back that matters to me, is that from the students.....Have they enjoyed it, did they get what they needed and expected, has it expanded their thoughts and knowledge and are they confident with their new skills.   These should be ongoing questions throughout a course, a constant dialogue. Not whether one has ticked the boxes for this years methods/standardisations.


Had the joy of attending a great workshop on Matrix Energetics at the weekend....really enthusiastic trainer, followed no teaching rules at all, yet we all came away with a great experience and all took from it what we needed.

One little moment struck my love of irony.....The trainer wanted a volunteer and asked people to raise their hands if they were someone who had issues about putting themselves first....The irony of it I love.   Should he perhaps have picked someone who kept their hands down as they didn't want to put themselves first and ignore those whose hands shot up, as they clearly did.  Tricky one and delightfully ironic.