This morning’s discussion group had a focus
loosely around Knowledge and learning which also brought us to talking about
reflection, the significances of experience, longevity of teaching, and the
fluidity of knowledge.
I was interested in the space’ between our perception
of our own learning (where we are the learner and how we expect the learning
experience to feel, what we expect teaching to look like) and our perception of
our students learning (where we are the teacher what we expect our students of
absorb from our teaching and how we expect it to be absorbed).
Is there a disconnect between these two
perceived roles? How does one inform the other? Is our idea of how we expect to
learn different from how we expect our students to learn?
I often think about how much I am asking of
my students (particularly beginners) to put themselves in situations where they
do not know how to do something or it feels impossible. When I take a yoga
class I also sometimes feel it will be impossible to do – or I don’t know how I
will even have the energy to stand up to do it – I make myself remember and
recognise that feeling of impossibility and trust in ‘just doing one step at a
time’. This gives me more inspiration in my own practice because I see my own
feeling of overwhelm and subsequent pushing through it as a reminder of what it
feels like to be learning. I do not like to ask my students to engage in a
feeling that I am no longer familiar with myself.
In the PM group we talked about different ideas that people were toying with within their practices. See comments for links to blog posts on this. We also noticed that you might respond quite differently to an idea when you have your Professional Hat on (such as dance teacher) from when you have your Student Hat on. The interest is again in how you inhabit a space between these roles. How you bring together these knowledges and experiences to support the exploration of new ideas, new learning.
Have a look at the comments below to link
into what other people in the conversation felt…
Also, please comment below if you were not
in the conversation to keep the topic going.
