Barry Smith - Learning about Learning

Met with David Gilmour today to discuss puting together a website for all things relating to the Active Learning Partnerships programme.  I think we came up with some good ideas to involve students and parents, facilitators and those interested in getting involved.  Watch this space for more information.  I’m hoping we can have a mock up available for comments and suggestions sometime soon.  David really is doing fantastic work in supporting and developing Exc-el and its users.

I’m discussing the programme with our senior management team on Monday, hopefully we’ll get the green light and the backing we’re hoping for to make this thing work.

The text below was a blog in it’s own right, but I think it is more of an exercise in personal reflection and therefore have decided that it is not worthy of being the main focus.  It’s really a bit of navel gazing by me but I think its important to include it.  I wrote it last night after coming home completely enveloped by end of term exhaustion!

I have been thinking today about my own personal ambitions and goals, I have to say as a result of some interesting conversations I’ve had recently with colleagues.  Taking on SQH is a very clear ‘marker’ about career intentions, you are stating very that you have an ambition to take your career in a particular direction.  My experience has been that people react in a whole range of different ways to making such a statement of intent.  My thoughts today have been about what this actually means in the ‘whole scheme of things’. 

Essentially what I think am getting at is whether or not it matters what the perceptions of others are (+ve or -ve) to the decision to ‘lay your cards on the table’ and commit to becoming a senior manager.  Relationships are vital, are perceptions?  This may not be an issue for someone already in a senior management position as the intention, and the position, is there already.  However, as a PT I feel I’m may be in a slightly different position, but can’t exactly put my finger on why.In recent blogs I’ve talked about the pressures of SQH and the extra time, both in and out of school that this has meant.  I also feel that inevitably my energies are being directed in a more strategic way, in essence a change of focus for me.  But strangely I have been feeling compelled to justify my motivations for doing so.  This may be because the results of my efforts are not immediately tangible to others, or it may be because there is a realisation on my part that my energies are being spread more thinly across the board because there is much more to deal with, or it could be just that change is unsettling. 

Whatever the reason, it has made me question why I want to become a senior manager.  Am I doing this for the right reasons? What are the right reasons, and are they the same for every person?  What does it mean to be ambitious?  Is it a positive attribute?  Is having the ambition to be an excellent classroom practitioner more laudible than that of becoming an excellent senior manager or headteacher?  What does leadership mean and what is the ‘best’ style?  These are all questions without straightforward answers.  I think I am ambitious in everything that I do, when I was younger it was in a competitive sense but it is now in the sense of ’personal growth’ and because I want to ‘make a difference’ in my one chance at life.  Someone, can’t remember who(!), recently blogged about being “addicted to learning” - I think I understand that feeling.

I think I’m just questioning my own position and motivations, which I see as a positive thing, but has probably not made for the most exciting blog in the world.  Navel gazing never does.  However, it was important for me to include these thoughts in my own learning diary.  They may or may not resonate with others in a similar position.