Questioning my assumptions..

After reading Jess's blog on - questioning her assumptions - I thought it would help me to go back and look at my questions in the same way. I saw in that by Jess working through her questions in that way that a lot of her questions kept coming back to a similar topic that she was interested in, literacy in dance.

I have been struggling to stick to one topic and develop it as different questions come up through my BAPP journal each day. I know its unrealistic to think that I can develop or do research into all of them.  So I have picked out a few of my questions to look at my assumptions and see how this changes my ideas behind it.

I also occured to me that when you are the one with the assumptions it can be difficult to see beyond them. So if while reading this blog you do see anything I have miss or I am assuming other people 'get' then please point it out to me! :)

How do you define what skills a good teacher has when we are doing so much in class? 
I think my assumption is that all good teachers have the same skills. Also I am assuming that everyone knows what a 'good' teacher is. However, my opinion on that could be completely different to someone else's.
      The part about 'doing so much'  - I'm getting at the fact that there is so many factors that go into teaching a class. The planning of the lesson, any resources, your knowledge - then even though you have prepared things are unpredictable. Behaviour, accidents may occur. So maybe what I'm really interest in is that even though a teacher can be extremely prepared, circumstances can change.
- How do/should/can we deal with unexpected problems?
- Ways of managing large groups of students?

How easy is it to work with other teachers within a creative capacity? 
I think I am assuming that it can be hard. This could be the case in any job working with colleagues though. I am also assuming creative people are very protective over their work and theories of how best to teach. This could be because of the way they haved learned/been taught and also it can feel very personal. You put a lot of yourself into ideas that you create. Again it also comes back to what we spoke about in the - skype session 13.10.15 - I am assuming that we know what creativity actually is and that we all think of it in the same way. Like in the question I asked about exams being  restrictive to 'creativity' - Maybe I actually am wandering what 'it' is.
-Ways of establishing good working relationships - ethics behind it? 
- What is creativity? 

Should behaviour management differ in a creative environment? Can it stifle creativity? 
Straight away I have again used the word creativity. What is it? Also I would have to establish what good behaviour is. Different schools have different boundaries. But we could say there are types of behaviour that are generally accepted in society as good or bad. I could establish these and think about how the arts could help someone with behavioural issues.
-How could I use drama to help a student with behavioural issues? - Too specific? 
-What is creativity? 


How do we deal with young people's disappointment? 
I am assuming that it is my job as a teacher to deal with this. In some ways I think it is if you have been preparing them for a show and something goes wrong we have to be there to help and to give support but at the same time we are not there to be the young persons councillor and they will have to learn to deal with things themselves. So again I am looking at those unexpected problems. Managing those situations.
-How can we be prepared to deal with unexpected problems? 
- How can we give young people the appropriate support? 

Interestingly I appear to be very interested in what creativity is, I didn't originally think this was what I was asking myself through these questions. Also I am interested in the unpredictability of being a teacher and working with young people.

Any thoughts? Lisa x