The Workplace – projectGENIUS https://projectgenius.online Working with schools and teachers focused on forging a brighter world. Wed, 20 Nov 2024 04:29:50 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7 https://i0.wp.com/projectgenius.online/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/cropped-Logo-1-circle.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 The Workplace – projectGENIUS https://projectgenius.online 32 32 191002203 What Do Teachers Actually Do During Festival Preparation Time? https://projectgenius.online/2024/11/20/what-do-teachers-actually-do-during-festival-preparation-time/ Wed, 20 Nov 2024 04:08:53 +0000 https://projectgenius.online/?p=4865 The school festival has finished successfully and usually people talk about what happens during the festival. However, I’d like to talk about preparations and my reflections of it instead.

According to the list of class data of the JHS/HS, there were 7 haunted houses, 3 casinos, 2 shooting games, 2 maid cafes, and a human zoo with the students wearing animal headbands lying on the ground being fed through cage bars choko boru for their food and protein shakes for drinks.

During the week of school festival preparations, I finally had some downtime between grading and making tests to walk around and help the students and teachers. Below is a list of festival related vents that I personally partiicipated or witnessed where students were practicing English conversation:

• masks being spray painted inside a classroom not well ventilated for a haunted house

• told said high school students to put on masks because of the dangerous fumes

• told high school students to turn on the classroom light because they were sawing wood in the dark using their phones as lights

• wrote cursive for the JHS 1st graders classroom board

• edited an English paper about Japanese culture that was to be displayed in the classroom

• students told me about the new Monster Hunter game coming out

• punctured a hole in the opening of a balloon for students to pump air into

• got a free t-shirt for a Biohazard/Resident Evil themed classroom

• made 30 paper flowers out of confetti paper and 30 paper trains

• decorated a hallway with a smiley face design with above said decorations

• made 20 origami cranes and 10 origami shurikens

• shot a nerf gun for a student to practice running from

• students went shopping at Daiso and Costco to buy materials and supplies

• spun a casino custom slot machine with a students face on it making different poses

• ate 3 cotton candies for the students to practice using the cotton candy machine

• students explained to me the new popcorn game that was on the homepage of Google

• brushed 2 wigs for the performances with many students complimenting them

In the past, the benefits of being an assistant teacher included team teaching and less lesson planning time to connect with students. With the increased time to connect with students, I walked around the school and interacted with students, asking about their lives. I actually knew most of their names and a lot about their family, love rumors, friends, interests, and other kinds of trouble they had going on in their life that I felt so much closer with them.

Now as a main teacher, while I don’t have as much time to connect due to increased role responsibilities as when I was in an assistant role, I still do my best to talk with my students. I really love when the festival season comes around the corner because this is one of the best times I can connect more with my students. Being able to have fun moments inside and outside the classroom is a joy to me and I love seeing my students thrive and improve in their studies. The educational and emotional responsibility we as teachers share for our students is a great task that I take pride in, as showcased during the festival season.

During the festival, the time with my students brings more natural conversations that are so unprompted and organic. While making origami, my students volunteered to become teachers and taught me how to make a crane using easy English and learned new words.

The time together with no lesson plan, but rather just sitting with students creating was the time where I not only learned new names but also their interests and daily life worries. Instead of repeating the textbooks, while making origami students asked the usual questions like what Japanese food do I like and why did I come to Japan but also unusual questions that they never would’ve had the chance to ask me otherwise about mental illness and sexual orientation.

These rare moments outside the classrooms are one of the things I have looked forward to as a teacher as I try to get those interactions every day. One of my favorite things to do when I’m not teaching is to go visit the club rooms and talk with the students. For example, the best place for me is visiting the cooking club. Learning and teaching real world skills is the best motivation for anyone to learn a language and food culture connects us universally.

When I left school during the school festival preparations week to go home, I felt a different kind of accomplishment with my students due to the connections made and look forward to making more.

Image by lifeforstock on Freepik

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Occasionally Something Beautiful https://projectgenius.online/2024/09/20/occasionally-something-beautiful/ Fri, 20 Sep 2024 06:07:48 +0000 https://projectgenius.online/?p=4853
Jason Packman
Jason Packman
Chief of English Services

One of our client schools has a class that our teachers really enjoy planning and teaching, but I have never been a fan of, either as an observer or as a substitute teacher. It is a current affairs class for third year high school students. Our teachers choose a topic and prepare texts and vocabulary lists related to the topic. The instructor stands in front of the class lecturing to students who are asked to answer questions or give their opinion from time to time.

In my experience teaching and observing this class I have not seen much engagement beyond a handful of high-level students. I wondered why there wasn’t more engagement.  Was it because the language or topics were too difficult, the students were not interested in the topics, or the students did not have the tools or opportunity to discuss?

Thinking that deeper student engagement with the material was the key to increasing student participation, I suggested in one observation report that our instructor consider  doing a jigsaw activity– breaking up the reading into sections, giving a group one section, then reforming groups so that each student in a group had read a different section and could explain to each other their assigned reading  -- to encourage discussion and increase comprehension. However, I received feedback that the teacher I had observed felt that all I was doing was telling him to have the kids play more games, to be more fun.

Looking back at my report, I probably was too blunt in my general criticism of the class – though over the years I have not  been shy in repeating my thoughts about the class to our teachers at the school -- but I am still at a bit of a loss as to why this activity perceived to be a game.

Games are a touchy subject for some EFL teachers in Japan. There are those, and  I would say I am one of them, who are wary about being associated with the stereotype of the genki English teacher, who doesn’t really teach – or know how to teach -- but just plays games and has fun with the kids while the serious learning occurs elsewhere. Whether a legitimate criticism or not, having that self-image as a teacher can be demotivating for ambitious and motivated professionals.

Games and gamification of learning can, however, be an important part of an English class, whether it is an old school board game like sugoroku  or having all the kids pull out their smart phones or tablets to play Kahoot. Some students are motivated by winning a game, it can encourage language use, and it just adds some variety to the classroom environment.

Teachers, though, should be judicious in their use of competitive games during lessons. Not all kids are motivated by competition, losing can be highly demotivating and in the worst case, though in my experience not a rare case, competition can create unnecessary and unconstructive conflict in the class. The English used in a game can also be completely disassociated from its actual context or meaning, making its usage transactional and ephemeral.

Our client schools are private schools with many of them wanting to have as many of their students as possible accepted into top level universities, which means their students are successfully passing college entrance exams. The incentive for these schools and the instructors they hire is to teach English as a Test Subject, emphasizing teacher fronted lecture courses, devaluing activities that provide opportunities to acquire language within a communicative context. We want our students to succeed in life, of course, and in Japan that means passing exams to get into universities. So, it is important for our teachers to support our clients and students in these goals. But, just like overemphasizing competitive games, teachers who attempt to motivate students solely on the basis of passing exams can also demotivate some students and lessen engagement in the classroom by promoting a way of thinking  that any activity  that is not directly related to explicitly passing exams is a waste of time within a competitive educational and career environment. 

Both competitive games and teaching to the test are similar in that they have easily identifiable outcomes. However, does that mean activities in which students are given the opportunity to engage with each other in an unstructured or lightly structured environment will ultimately have negative outcomes for student learning or development? Professor Laitha Vasudevan of Teachers College Columbia argues instead that it is essential. In an article entitled "Adolescents, Embodiment, and Play" she writes “adolescents need time and space for unfettered opportunities for experimentation and exploration of the changing world in which they live. Free play, or the full freedom to make all the decisions about play from materials to activity to location, is vital for young people’s development and sense-making about the world.” This is “because it is often in play that intertextual connections, imaginations, and other raw materials for literate engagements are sourced and nurtured.” 

How can we as teachers motivate students to use English in a more integrated way beyond just receiving a reward, whether that means becoming the daily champion or getting into their university of choice? Activities like jigsaw discussions are one way to bridge the gap between the two. A jigsaw activity puts the responsibility on students to speak and use English in their own time and their own way. In the context of the current affairs class, students can independently discuss and talk about the topic and come to their own understanding with several different classmates. The act of breaking up the essay into a number of parts and then asking students to summarize their section to other students who haven’t read it ensures that everyone will be required to engage with their classmates and the material in different ways. Understanding is then confirmed by the teacher through a whole class discussion. A jigsaw activity does introduce constraints that unfettered play would not, but, as the famous mid-20th century designer Charles Eames discussed, how one decides how to  work within constraints is an important aspect of creativity.  This activity provides both students and teachers the space to use English and interact with each other in ways that can not only help them acquire English but also, though a less constrained environment, allow them to more fully identify themselves  as English speakers.

I strongly believe that we can add plus alpha to our client schools by providing opportunities to our students to express themselves and make interpersonal connections through English. Of course it takes time to build such a culture and it is much easier for everyone to fall back on either top down, highly structured lectures or competitive games where there are clear outcomes with winners and losers, correct and incorrect answers, and everyone can rate their success by the amount (rather than quality) of  English spoken in one finite class period and have  our classroom management skills judged by how students quietly stayed in their seats and talked only when spoken to, allowing everyone to quickly and quietly get through our days as teachers and students without much trouble or stress.

By challenging ourselves and our students to do more and be better, we do risk the possibility of failure, and that some chaos and messiness will ensue. But by giving our students more autonomy in lessons in the short term we can challenge them to be better learners and help cultivate more positive attitudes and outcomes in their English-speaking journey outside of class in the long term.

The article I referenced by Prof. Vasudevan was published in the  April/May/June 2023 of LITERACY TODAY, a publication of the International Literacy Association

I took the title from a video by Project Genius’ first Chief of English Services, Peter Ackerly.

Header image "RDECOM presents STEM opportunties at Edgewood High School" by U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

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Embracing Change https://projectgenius.online/2024/06/03/embracing-change/ Sun, 02 Jun 2024 23:55:57 +0000 https://projectgenius.online/?p=4803 My name is Liam Mortimer. I am entering my second year at Project Genius, although this is my 5th year in Japan. I suppose it best to reflect myself, as Jason did, about my path here. 

I spent 3.5 years in the Jet Programme in Akita, northern Japan. When I first arrived, I was escaping a corporate job in Australia that I had no desire to return to but no real plan after that. Within my first year as an English teacher, I realised I genuinely enjoyed my work for the first time in my life and since then I’ve continued down that path. That has included working on getting further teaching credentials and moving to Tokyo for better career opportunities, which brought me here.

I work 5 days a week at an elementary school in Tokyo that prioritises English education. This year, we have changed how the curriculum is taught, which has been a collective effort by the English department. Taking part in the process has been eye-opening and a great experience for all involved. The goal is to accelerate learning by having native and non-native teachers teach from the chosen textbooks. This was not the case last year and the change has been positive.

At the elementary school level, we mainly focus on student's communication abilities in grades 1 and 2. However, many students at this school can read English well by grade 2 or 3, with some being native or near-native in their general English ability. As the current 1-4 grade students move up into the higher grades, they shall be moving up a textbook each time, which is in contrast to the previous system, which used 1 textbook for two grades. Hopefully, these new changes will allow our students to pursue more English-focused junior high schools in the future.

I look forward to the year ahead on this adventure and with Project Genius as well. 

Header image by Douglas P. Perkins, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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Conflict Resolution in Japanese Schools https://projectgenius.online/2024/02/05/conflict-resolution-in-japanese-schools/ Mon, 05 Feb 2024 05:21:18 +0000 https://projectgenius.online/?p=4667  

Lily Song
by Lily Song
High School Instructor

 

In the Japanese workplace, conflicts are bound to arise due to differences in culture or language. Efficient conflict resolution is key to maintaining a healthy and productive work environment. Here are some tips:

Open Communication

Establish transparent communication for team members to express thoughts and feelings openly. This is incredibly important in Japan as many people are not too comfortable with expressing their own thoughts and feelings. 

Define the Issue

Clearly articulate the problem to ensure all parties understand the conflict's root cause. Using language that all parties can understand can help bypass the potential language barrier issue. In high schools the JTEs often have a higher level of English compared to those at elementary or junior high schools. So it is important when teaching in elementary or junior high school to use easy English or Japanese when presenting a problem or conflict.

Collaborate

Promote a collaborative approach to conflict resolution, involving team members in brainstorming and solution-building. Clearly state your goal in the lesson and the JTE goals for the lesson and work together to come to a solution that satisfies both parties.

Follow-Up

Make sure to follow up after the fact to make sure that all parties are ok with the new changes to the lesson. If there are still some points of contention, make sure to ask the JTE for their end goal for the lesson once more and work towards making the needed changes.

By embracing these strategies, workplaces can turn conflicts into opportunities for growth and foster stronger team dynamics.

 Image by jannoon028 on Freepik

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Managing Headspace https://projectgenius.online/2023/02/02/managing-headspace/ Thu, 02 Feb 2023 03:28:43 +0000 https://projectgenius.online/?p=4333
Lily Song
by Lily Song
High School Instructor

After being in Japan for nearly 4 years, one key component of Japanese society is the lack of conversation surrounding headspace. So I think it’s important for us to be able to manage our own headspace.

We’ve all had bad days or days where we just don’t feel like doing anything. I know for me, especially after a long break my headspace tends to be in a weird place. In which I physically feel tired, and mentally blocked. 

Some methods I employ to help manage the lack of motivation and the weird headspace during these periods of time are:

1. Slowing getting myself back into the regular routine. Understanding that it’s normal after a long break to want to continue resting. During this period of time what works best for me is taking naps. Allowing myself to rest and to decompress can help with clearing any sort of weird headspace problems.

2.  Division of work. As work is starting back in full swing, it’s normal for teachers to have a lot of upcoming lessons to prepare for. If your motivation is shot, preparing for lessons can feel like a monstrous task. One way to bypass this is to divide the work. What works best for me is to outline the most important tasks to the least important. Then I make sure to give myself a reasonable deadline to finish the important tasks by. Rather than trying to finish it all right away, I make sure to give myself at least 30 minutes of rest for every 2 hours of working. During that 30 minutes I will do something that can allow me to shut my brain off and to refocus.

3. Understanding that you can only do your best if you are motivated enough and are in the right headspace. Forcing yourself to finish something when physically and mentally you are not there will only add more work for you in the future.

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Happy Holidays and Happy New Year https://projectgenius.online/2022/12/24/happy-holidays/ Sat, 24 Dec 2022 01:11:06 +0000 https://projectgenius.online/?p=4309
Jason Packman
Jason Packman
Chief of English Services

I wanted to thank everyone at Project Genius for their hard work this year at their schools, especially considering the many difficulties the world has faced these past few years. I hope our team can enjoy their holidays, whether it is here in Japan or abroad.

For the last several years at the junior high school where I teach we do a crafts activity in the last class junior high school first grade class of the year. I am from California, so I never experienced a "White Christmas" until I came to Japan. The few instructions needed to explain how to make a snowflake using just a pair of scissors and a piece of paper (cut, triangle, fold) is well within our student's English ability. I am also pretty bad at crafts myself, so once students understand what to do they inevitably create much more elaborate snowflakes than I could even imagine.

And while the two instructors from Project Genius at my school are from the west coast of the US, our school's JET instructor from Australia. She described what having Christmas in Australia was like while also having our students listen to an Australian version of Jingle Bells.

I also learned some new words through this lesson, such as ute and swaggie.

We are also entering our recruiting season. If you are interested in working for us please check Craigslist or Gaijinpot for our latest openings or send us your resume directly via this form.

Please have a safe and enjoyable holiday season!

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Make the Runner Stumble Forward https://projectgenius.online/2017/05/28/make-the-runner-stumble-forward/ Sun, 28 May 2017 12:13:59 +0000 http://edu-tech.co.nz/projectgenius/?p=2963 People that work with me know I often over-do it with slogan-like language.  But usually whats going on with that is that I see a particular recurring pattern of flawed decision-making going on around me (usually in myself as well) and the slogan emerges  as a way to avoid my having to listen to myself argue its underlying logic in conversation after conversation. "Follow the learner and the learning will follow." The strongest counter argument to this one that I can think of is one of my favorite quotes from Emerson (but a quote which I think describes me when I am at my worst as a teacher):  “Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be.”  But Emerson’s thinking, here, is profoundly flawed to the point of being insidious.  It is seductive as an idea only because of it’s resemblance to an American football analogy that is profoundly CORRECT:  “Throw the ball not to where the runner IS, but to where the runner WILL BE.” Follow the learner.  Read the runner’s trajectory, encourage the runner along that trajectory, and make sure that the ball is there for the runner to catch. And alway err on the side of making the runner stumble forward to catch the ball, not backwards. "Make the runner stumble forward."]]> 2963 CONTENT and SYSTEMS (America’s “Common Core” Experience) https://projectgenius.online/2017/05/28/content-and-systems-americas-common-core-experience/ Sun, 28 May 2017 12:00:52 +0000 http://edu-tech.co.nz/projectgenius/?p=2958 The Common Core State Standards Initiative.  Usually, the words "Common Core" are uttered disparagingly.  Advocates for teachers resist the idea of education being reduced to something graduated and quantified.  Advocates for local control see The Common Core as a power grab by the central government.  Advocates on the religious right worry that the a liberal cultural elite will deploy The Core as a way to secretly teach their children subversive things like ... the actual age of the earth. Two and a half years ago, living on a kind of sabbatical in Nashville, Tennessee, I had direct and intimate experience with The Core.  Unlike most that opine about it, I was forced to read deeply into it and apply it in the context of a real teaching job.  At LEAD Public Schools, for English Language Arts, we used a Core-based curriculum called EngageNY.  Our first book was Linda Sue Park's A Long Walk to Water -- an absolutely brilliant choice.  Park's book is a very easy read that not only walks the reader through a wide range of cultural contexts but also exposes the reader to a range of literary techniques.  You can look through the first several weeks of recommended curriculum; I defy anybody to tell me that it is any less than a work of collaborative genius. Is absolutely everything you need in there?  No, but by the time you have studied the logic of how the lessons are laid out, it is easy to figure out what the students will take an interest in and find the supplements you need on line.  For example I realized that the concept of "culture clash" was vital to understanding the book, and that that was a concept that was eluding the students, so I showed them first this footage of Sudanese Sufis in Northern Sudan encouraging them to point out the similarities and differences between their culture and the culture of the Northern Sudanese Muslims.  Then I showed them footage of Dinkas in Southern Sudan -- getting them to articulate the cultural gulfs that must exist there, and the likely judgements people might make about each other.  EngageNY offers all sorts of opportunities like this to improvise ... ... IF the community entrusts the teaching profession with the power to adapt systems to the dynamic circumstances of a genuine learning community. But this is not where we are as a profession -- not right now.  It's not where LEAD was when I worked with them. The Common Core and its extensions, like EngageNY, are being used at LEAD (and probably elsewhere), not as a valuable tool for helping teachers to plan beautiful year-long courses, but as a short-cut device for making the claim to outside entities that the kids are being taught well.  Energy that teachers might otherwise invest in developing materials and making more connections for students they invest in making sure that adherence to The Core is clearly documented:  "You want to know how we teach our kids?  Look at EngageNY.  That's how we do it." We are too obsessed with the idea that being accountable means showing parents and politicians "what I taught" ... and then giving the kids some kind of assessment that "shows they learned it." Correct, you cannot teach if you aren't clear about what your are teaching, and whether or not it is being learned, BUT if that is ALL that you care about, you are not teaching. Your job is to facilitate the maximal experience of success — that is a SUBJECTIVE experience, so by definition, our efforts to make yourself accountable cannot end with “I taught this and we gave this assessment, and got this result.” As the primary in-the-room decision-maker -- your job is to draw the learner's unique GENIUS out into the world.  (I stole that from my Dad.) Systems, NOT CONTENT, is where education needs to look to optimize accountability.  LEAD actually had something that they would have argued is a "system."  We shared Google Drive folders with each other and entered all of our lesson plan information there. There was a highly involved documentation format where the teacher was expected to connect her/his lesson plan to The Common Core in as many ways as possible. This format was established by LEAD's central authority (which they called "NeST" -- Network Support Team.  It was an amalgam of templates used elsewhere.  I am fairly sure of that because there were layers of redundant information.  “What was your objective for this activity?”  “What Common Core Standard applies?”  “Which course objective does this apply to?”  “Students will be able to _______” And strangely, with all of this planning language, there was no environment devoted to post-mortem analysis.  Post-mortem happened around the copier or can’trightnowbutwalkwithme-type conversations. The best system evolves organically out of the classroom and emerges as an extension of how teachers communicate with each other and how they work together.  It needs to be a living breathing learning organism. Teachers need to stop railing against the system and advocating for particular curricula, and instead need to build the system to their purposes.  The right relations with their superiors and with each other, right relations with their students, and ultimately right curriculum will follow.]]> 2958 A Teacher’s Value Proposition https://projectgenius.online/2017/02/01/a-teachers-value-proposition/ Wed, 01 Feb 2017 05:37:14 +0000 http://learnwithpeter.com/wordpress/?p=2479 What do I want to give? What can I give? What does the school need? What does the school want? What is my Value Proposition? Each of these is a very different question.  To be truly impactful, you need to master each of them. A question I ask almost all interviewees is “if you could craft the perfect next job for yourself, pay aside, if you could pluck from the job tree whatever set of full-time responsibilities your heart desires, what would that job be?” I have to ask a question like that because I want to get a sense of the teachers’ intrinsic motivators. But after the teacher has the job, and is in the school, after s/he has gotten accustomed to how things work at her/his school and has discovered those ways in which s/he personally connects with the job -- that is, after s/he has figured out how to hitch the wagon that is the job to the raw horsepower that is her/his intrinsic motivations -- she has to ask a much more challenging question:  what is my Value Proposition? So let’s walk forward through this thought process with a very typical example of a very qualified English teacher -- Bob. What does Bob want to give?  Bob wants to teach a class where the students read short stories and vignettes from Hemingway’s In Our Time; and the culminating activity for the semester would be that the students each will write at least one short story, with fully developed characters and a compelling theme. What can Bob give?  Bob has never run this kind of a class.  He has taken this kind of a class, and if Bob is not a deep thinker, he might assume that because he took a class like this, he can teach a class like this.  But if Bob is honest with himself, a more realistic course plan might be to have this be EITHER a creative writing class -- where one or two accessible short stories or vignettes is studied as a model -- but where the real goal is to get each of the students to produce some kind of written work that s/he would be comfortable publishing. What does the school need?  The Japanese English teachers at the school do writing and reading work with the students.  They don’t do it in exactly the way that Bob would do it, so maybe he has something to offer them there.  But one thing that is striking about the school is that in spite of the fact that the students have a record of doing very well on English entrance exams, most of the students do not actually believe that they can hear or speak English, and the school is at a loss for how to address this problem. What does the school want?  The short answer to this question is “just make it fun.”  But if Bob were to really press them on this question, the answers that Bob would get are much more interesting.  For example a lot of their competitors have students participating in debate and speech competitions.  A lot of their competitors have study abroad programs but the school has not been able to get rolling with this program because most of the parents feel that their kids aren’t comfortable enough with English to really gain anything from these programs.  Bob is delighted to hear that the teachers struggle to teach the students how to write compelling paragraphs.  Discourse-level grammar is the main issue, here:  they can teach the kids how to write a particular sentence correctly, but making the correct verb choice so that it fits grammatically with a verb choice that was made three or four sentences away, that is very difficult.  However, the school has a long-standing well-developed grammar-translation approach that the students respond very well to, and it’s hard for them to see where any long-form writing curriculum might fit with what they are doing. So what should be Bob’s Value Proposition?   If Bob equates his Value Proposition to what he wants to do, Bob becomes the drunk guy at the wedding that stumbles up onto the stage, snatches one of the band microphones and starts singing “Alison.” If Bob equates his Value Proposition to what he can do, he is making a much more mature decision -- one I see teachers make all the time.  “I know how to set up an activity where students practice giving each other directions, and so that’s what I am going to do because that is what I do best.”  He is not challenging himself, and he is not showing any curiosity at all about what it might mean to connect his skill to their needs. If Bob equates the Value Proposition to what the school seems to need, then he is just being preachy.  Assuming he knows what the school needs better than the school knows -- an interesting stance to take but in the past, ProGEN has come very close to losing clients by sending in otherwise talented teachers that came barreling into the job imagining themselves as resident experts.  Foreign teachers love to criticise the grammar-translation approach, and of course there are reasons to be critical, but if mono-lingual Bob is going to evolve, he needs at least to appreciate that grammar-translation is an approach that he himself would not be able to take even if he wanted to. And if Bob equates the Value Proposition to what the school says it wants, then he is no-longer a decision-maker.  Whatever else a teacher is, a teacher is a decision maker.  Whatever Bob does, it needs to connect in some way with what he wants or he will not do it well. To truly deliver value, Bob need to respond enthusiastically to those places where what the school wants connects with what Bob can do.  Bob needs to take what the community wants, marry that want to what is immediately feasible, find those places where what is feasible resonates with what he wants to give, and then he needs to make sure, at any given moment, that whatever he is doing is fulfilling a real need -- adding value that the school would not be able to generate without him. Your Value Proposition, as a teacher, is that thing that you add, given the unique needs and wants of the school -- which would not be added, were you not there.]]> 2479 Teaching: more than method… https://projectgenius.online/2016/08/26/teaching-more-than-method/ Fri, 26 Aug 2016 00:56:02 +0000 http://learnwithpeter.com/wordpress/?p=2257 ...teaching is also the understanding of interactivity, of engagement and reaction; and the application of a certain degree of artistry.  ]]> 2257