Practice is the thing

By Jeremy Browne, Year 5 and 6 teacher

I am a recently retrained mature individual with a love of education. I practise as I teach: with constant reflection and reiteration of ideas and beliefs and no sacred cows. My tools are curiosity and observation.

My guiding idea with practice reflection is that learning gaps may appear anywhere in the self-belief or psychological domain and/ or the process or academic domain. As a teacher I need to be curious about and aware of who my students believe they are in the school and classroom settings as well as what they can evidence through their thinking. I also need to notice when changes occur.

My 2023 SOI concerns writing. Coincidentally, I had chosen to overhaul my approach to writing before our SOI began. Two specific ideas informed my thinking: 1) writing cannot be an externally driven process due to its creative nature, and 2) a significant volume of writing is needed through which to discover our unique points of views and with which to scaffold onto the material or external qualities of good writing. 

I commonly observe two self-limiting students practises in writing: 1) students who download everything that is in their minds onto the page and as this represents the extent of what they know this is the end of their writing process, and 2) students who are paralysed in the creative stages of writing because they believe the process is asking them to match their thoughts and ideas against an external standard though they cannot say what that is. 

Students who intuitively understand or are comfortable with a reiterative and curiosity-driven approach to writing are a minority in my classrooms, as a rule. Therefore, my updated writing process - the model through which all the different writing purposes and experiences are guided - is designed to emphasise reiteration and a lean-in to following our own intuitions and instincts (connection to self). 

Good writing is not made, it’s found.