I can’t believe it's Friday already. The weeks seem to be stuck on 1.5x playback speed, similar to the speed of the Inductions videos I’ve been trying to catch up on at work. Working Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday has turned Monday and Fridays into generous admin days rather than full studio days. It’s taking some time to adjust. I’m having to consistently reflect on my capacity to achieve what I want to do versus what I can actually do.
It’s not only physical work I’m having to consider but the mental load of being a student in a new industry. Learning how to be a teacher and teaching at the same time turns out to be pretty exhausting. Fun for sure but full on. This week I helped run classes on ‘hacking’ so I had to learn how to code. I did this by going through the exercise myself like a student would. My colleagues often use this opportunity to critique the flow of the exercise as they watch me fumble my way through an activity aimed at Grade 7 students.
I’ve had to overcome my embarrassment quickly and acknowledge that my inability to get it straight away is actually useful feedback for when we’re teaching it to students. As an educator I can empathise with the knowledge gap that you have to traverse when you learn something new. As adults it’s easy to get settled into positions that become second nature - of course there are challenges but often (hopefully) they're within the expectations of the job.
When you learn something new it's creating something that wasn’t there before. That's why I love the saying ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’ because you literally can’t know what you don’t know. Before I sat down in front of the computer on Tuesday I had NO idea how to hack into a computer system but by the end of the 20 minute session I had before class, I had enough of the fundamentals down to help guide students through the activity.
This level of learning is happening every day at the Tech School. There are so many programs that I need to be across that I’m effectively having to complete them all in order to teach them in the future. It's overwhelming. It’s making me want to come home and have a little power nap. I’m having to reset my boundaries to support this new activity and I quite like it. I like to imagine I’m shifting resources to another department that needs support.
This feels like a very self-aware and adult thing to be considering. Normally I would keep charging through, trying to maximise every minute so I could do everything. My learning curve at the Tech School is so steep that I’ve got to keep both hands on the wheel and just enjoy the ride. I’m not stressed about not knowing what I’m going to need to know. Each day is an incredible opportunity to learn something new.
I feel lucky that I can sit with a student and be just as impressed and excited about cracking the code as they are because I only did it myself 20 minutes earlier. We had classes from the Ballarat Special School this week and I was able to spend some time with students whose capacity to learn is so different from mine. Simple things that I take for granted, like using a keyboard, were barriers for some of these students.
The truth is that I found the class quite confronting. I wasn’t sure how we’d get these students through the activity given some of their limitations and still give them a great experience. I’m ashamed that my limited mindset and experience was the only barrier. By the end of the class, most of the students had worked through the activity and were having a blast. Yes, it took longer and students required more individual attention but the whole class was a buzz as we collectively tried to figure out the puzzle.
It is a privilege being able to sit at my computer and write this blog today. It is a privilege that I was able to run 6 km this morning and have ridden my bike to work all week. It’s a privilege that I’m surrounded by people who believe in me. When I reflect on how and where I’m spending my resources I do it with a sense of gratitude that I even have a choice in the first place.
