According to Ghaye (1996): “Reflection is looking back and making sense of your practice. Learning from this and using this learning to affect your future action. It is making sense of your professional life”.
Ghaye, T. etal (1996). An Introduction To Learning Through Critical Reflective Practices. New Castle-upon-Tyne: Pentaxion Press
Now, let us see how far this is true:
Last month (July 2010) I had attended and offered my comments for three consecutive Reflection sessions. (17th, 24th & 31st July). Yesterday (02 August 2010), I had to observe a class by one of my trainees in a local school, and had a glance at the daily reflection entered by the trainee in the Diary. It reads “ The Common Reflection sessions are boring!”. Here one should admit that perceptions of individuals do tend to vary. Now what exactly must have prompted the trainee to write that the sessions are boring? Given below are observations made by a few trainees after their Practice Teaching in the last week of July:
* I am sorry to say that most of my friends perceive the arrival of Supervising teachers/ Teacher Educators to observe classes as ones similar to raids by Income Tax sleuths!
* Engaging classes during Practice Teaching while the Supervising teacher is present in the class is like learning to drive a car with the instructor beside you with half the control in his/her hand!...for their presence acts as a bridle that checks the mischief mongers in the class. But on comparison of pupils in schools we have realized that children are alike everywhere…studious ones, interested ones, mischievous ones and the problem makers.
* When I asked some pupils to read from the Malayalam Course Book there was hesitation, pauses, and umpteen mistakes in pronunciation! Later while introducing a particular lesson related to the Ramayana, I had asked the same pupils to read a couple of lines from the Malayalam version of the epic. To my utter disbelief, the pupils read with a fair degree of accuracy with perfect pronunciation and articulation! … I really do not know whether the pupils are deliberately pretending to be dullards or does it have anything to do with their habit of reading the Ramayana regularly as a religious exercise in their homes.[Incidentally, the second half of the month of July, in Kerala State, South India is treated as the month of the Ramayana, when in devout Hindu families the sacred epic is read/recited everyday as a ritual]
* The trainees have to conduct Diagnostic Tests during Practice Teaching. In one school, there happened to be two trainees from the same optional subject. After the test was rendered in one division by a trainee, the pupils scored high, but when another trainee gave the same Diagnostic Test in another division, the pupils scored low. A couple of days after the test was given, on several occasions, the pupils who scored low used to tell the trainee who conducted the test : “You should learn from your friend who teaches in the other division… see, how liberally he awards marks! What are you going to gain by being stingy?”
Did these appear boring to you? Do you think advice of any kind is necessary here? BUT …don’t they raise a number of questions on the way Practice Teaching is conducted and the nature of the educational environment in schools in Kerala ? Any comments dear reader?
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
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