About teaching, learning and education
Learning is, I believe, a fundamental of human life. From the moment we are born, possibly even earlier, we begin to develop and learn. To me, the purpose of life is about this growth and development. If we are growing and developing, we are living – if not, we are either stagnating or not living. I believe that this growth and development relates to all aspects of human beings, to the physical body and the world of things; to the emotional world of feelings and people; to the intellectual world of thought and ideas; and to the world of the spirit.
Learning then, is the process of achieving growth and development in all of these areas.
Teaching is about helping others to learn; helping them to grow and develop and to achieve their own life goals whatever these may be. Teachers assist others to gain important life skills and to know how to continue this learning throughout their lives.
Why this photo?
What is my philosophy of teaching? How do I teach? Why do I teach the way I do?
I sat in our family crib at Kakanui and pondered these questions. The longer I thought and sat staring at a blank computer monitor, the harder it seemed to make a start. Finally my eyes drifted to an old photo on the wall – the two subjects of the photo, my mother and a young version of me, gazed out into the future I now inhabit. And there it was. There in that image, the essence of my philosophy of teaching.
Click the 'Go back' button to explore my waka of learning photo
So what does the image of a young boy sitting on a canoe, with his mother watching on, tell us about my philosophy of teaching?
In our family, each of the children had a canoe that had been built by our grandfather. They were named using the Maori word for canoe (waka) and numbers. Mine was ‘waka rima’, as I am the 5th and youngest child in the family.
Thinking more about the photo, I realised that the canoe and other elements of the image can be seen as metaphors for my ideas, beliefs and practices around teaching and learning. So I call this photo my ‘waka of learning.’