It's been a while...
After nearly three months of living, working and pretty much being immersed in China, I've come to find that live isn't that much different here than it is at home. Mind you, that is probably because I've begun making friends here and I am lucky to have such a gifted English class relative to other classes in the school and probably in the entire district.
Nonetheless, the first three months in Shenzhen have definitely been an eye-opener. I probably couldn't have asked for a better experience to start off my (hopefully) long career as a teacher. I've learned so much about teaching and about living here and I know that I will just continue to be faced with new challenges to learn from.
It is, however, interesting to note the cultural differences between living in Shenzhen and living in Vancouver. Besides the obvious language barrier, there are just some things we take for granted in Vancouver. One of these is the concept of personal space. It's almost becoming a given for me to expect someone to lay their head on my shoulder if they are standing behind me in line, or brush up against me in a crowd and push.
It is true what we were told in August: "It is a hurry to get nowhere." People push, and rush, and move at a pace that is frighteningly fast, but at the end of the day, we're all moving towards the same goal and the same place? It leaves me asking whether this is just engrained in them culturally or is due to the growing population which begs and pleads for this inherent competitive nature.
There are concepts here, however, that I will most definitely miss when I go back to Canada. The most significant of these is tied to education. While there are certain things that definitely are lacking within their educational philosophies, the respect the children give to their teachers is unparalleled. It's actually quite refreshing. These children are taught at a very early age to respect their teachers and even though I do believe in teachers earning the respect of their students, it's nice that my students have that mentality towards me but also towards their other teachers as well.
There are definitely differences between cultural beliefs and pedagogies that I am attempting to mitigate, but I hope that I learn the best of both cultures and bring them back home.
Then one day I had it in a sentence. “Making creates evidence of learning.” The thing you make—whether it be a robot, rocket, or blinking LED—is evidence that you did something, and there is also an entire process behind making that can be talked about and shared with others. How did you make it? Why? Where did you get the parts? Making is not just about explaining the technical process; it’s also about the communication about what you’ve done.
This kind of conversation is the core of Maker Faire. Makers bring what they’ve made and share it with others. They answer questions and explain how things work. They get feedback and meet others who have insights into what they’ve made. We might consider it a performance-based assessment, just like what happens in the work world.Read the entire article HERE
Learning by doing is an educational philosophy they reference in this article and it stemmed from a man named John Dewey. He believed that the school is a microcosm for the real world. Thus, what we do in school should reflect what students will do outside of it. This proposes that education should be more vocationally based, but the reality of schooling and education is that it is taught didactically. That is to say that we 'drop knowledge' on students every day in different classes (i.e. math, science, English, social studies etc.) and hope that they absorb enough of it in order to showcase their understanding on a test or some other form of written assessment. Unfortunately, I have done this and resorted to this during my limited time teaching because it's easy. Because it's been done before. Because it's the tradition of teaching that our generation and the generations before us have been raised with.
It's not going to work anymore. The reality is that with the dawn of technology and the era of convenience, this is no longer engaging students. In the past, students may have accepted this as teaching and accepted that they would be bored, but would jump through the hoop anyway. The tide, however, is changing. Not only are students showing that this is not the best way they can showcase what they know, but teachers are also starting to become convinced that learning by doing is equally as important as taking the test.
Nonetheless, tradition is important especially within the context the education. And although we may say we are trying to move forward, convenience and, unfortunately, cost will not create the waves of change that need to take place. That being said, some teachers do an exceptional job at combining the traditional methods of assessment with the learning by doing principle. They have a test, but they also have another form of assessment in which students must show their knowledge through a performance based assessment. For instance, there would be a test, but also a short play showcasing the main concepts of a unit or building a table that can hold 10 lbs or demonstrating how to use a microscope. In this way, these teachers satisfy students who excel in the traditional form of teaching but also allow students who struggle with reading and writing to showcase their knowledge through creation. Creation is the highest level of learning and, thus, could be argued as the best way to assess whether a student has truly learned the material.
That being said, as a new teacher, I have very many limitations and still struggle to assess what my students know. As I continue to learn and mould my own teaching and assessment philosophy, I can only hope that I engage my students in a way that adequately allows them to learn and showcase what they know in ways that most benefits their own methods of learning.
