I posted several weeks ago about what I learned during my first months of teaching from my students. I have learned more from children than in any university class. Teaching and learning are not theoretical functions and they are not just stumbling around in the dark. They are both relational, messy, and complex processes. This is a wonderful share by a teacher from Australia. She posted this great TED talk. Take a listen.

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Adora Svitak: What adults can learn from kids

This video came out a couple of years ago; it was powerful then and still is now.

“…in order to make anything a reality, you have to dream about it first…”

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About ivonprefontaine

In keeping with bell hooks and Noam Chomsky, I consider myself a public and dissident intellectual. Part of my work is to move beyond (transcend) institutional dogmas that bind me to defend freedom, raising my voice to be heard on behalf of those who seek equity and justice in all their forms. I completed my PhD in Philosophy of Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA. My dissertation and research was how teachers experience becoming teachers and their role as leaders. I focus on leading, communicating, and innovating in organizations. This includes mindfuful servant-leadership, World Cafe events, Appreciative Inquiry, and expressing one's self through creativity. I offer retreats, workshops, and presentations that can be tailored to your organzations specific needs. I published peer reviewed articles about schools as learning organizations, currere as an ethical pursuit, and hope as an essential element of adult eductaion. I published three poems and am currently preparing my poetry to publish as an anthology of poetry. I present on mindful leadership, servant leadership, schools as learning organizations, how teachers experience becoming teachers, assessement, and critical thinking. I facilitate mindfulness, hospitality retreats. and World Cafe Events using Appreciative Inquiry. I am writing and researching about various forms of leadership, how teachers inform and form their identity as a particular teacher, schools as learning organizations, hope, nonviolence and its anticipatory relationship with the future, as essential elements to teaching and learning. Academic publications can be found at Ivon Gile Prefontaine on ResearchGate

4 responses »

  1. Isn’t she incredible? What a powerhouse! What will she do with the life still ahead of her….? I like your comment that learning is a ‘messy’ process. Schools traditionally remove the ‘mess’ and reap a watered down functional learning, don’t they?

    Reply
    • I agree. We need our students to be active in all aspects of their learning including the helping to set the new directions. This will be done when we open up the process and allow all learners to have a voice. My classroom is a messy, active place. Frequently, students come back and tell me how this has served them in high school and beyond. They felt like they were part of what was done in the classroom. Their learning was done with them, not to them.

      Reply

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