And the learning goes on...
by Miss L Shaw on 20 March 2008
Well it may be the Easter holidays but learning in the Girls' Model goes on. This week teachers and many pupils have been spending some of their time continuing with their learning.
On Monday the teachers had the opportunity to do some learning. In education circles it's called Teacher Training. I think Teacher Learning would be a better way to describe our activities as that was what we were doing. Most of our learning was connected to the Revised Curriculum for Key Stage 3. We had workshops on employability, personal development, ICT, questioning techniques, motivation and thinking skills. We had great presenters and I learnt a lot from all the activities, plus it was great fun.
Year 12 pupils had the opportunity on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to get some help in preparing for their GCSE exams. Some girls were in school finishing off coursework. Valuable marks can be gained from a good piece of coursework. Some of my science class were in practising answering exam questions and looking at sites on the internet which can help with revision. Easter booster classes were attended by many of the girls in a variety of subjects. I hope they all learnt a lot and also had fun.
Learning is a strange thing, it goes on and on and on, it never stops happening. Learning can often happen to us even when we don't want it to or when we don't expect it to.
Babies and young children are curious about everything. It's all new and they want to find out about it. Before children can talk they use their senses - touching and feeling, tasting and smelling, looking carefully at everything. As soon as children learn language their favourite words are what, how, why, who, when, where! Unfortunately it is often un-cool to want to learn and to be enthusiastic about learning as we grow up.
I have been learning all my life.
Sometimes learning can be fun. A great experience! I enjoyed every minute of it! But...
Most of the time learning is difficult for me! A task needs to be repeated over and over and over again before I get it right. I don't understand a difficult idea and I have to do a lot of reading and thinking to figure it out. At these times I find the learning can be painful. I think I will never be able to remember or understand or do the task. Sometimes I think everyone is better than me, they learn much more easily than I do. I feel I should give up. Then suddenly I surprise myself, I begin to remember how to do something and it gets easier; I start to understand and the ideas become clearer; the essay starts to take shape; I figure out how to do something. Then I feel great!
And the next time I have to learn something difficult I try to remember the great feeling of success.
