Daniel Van De Kieft

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Critical Reflection
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVpMr-Qm2Cc&feature=youtu.be
Humans are curious creatures. They all ‘tick’ in a different way, need and want individuality and

express it in numerous ways, they hold biases and ideological differences, and all have an

opinion about something. I begin this critical reflection with the thought of humanity. The fact

of the matter is that I am a human, who is a teacher, teaching other humans. What I want

sometimes conflicts with what students, but I have other humans telling me that I must teach

them X. While it may seem obvious, humans have created a system in which we must all

operate. The political component to that is quite noteworthy: over the last twenty-five years,

we have seen the world of corporate invade the "rhetoric and the policy frameworks defining

the schooling agenda" (Starratt, 2011, p.127). However, it is not what I am referring to; looking

specifically at the microcosm that is school, humans have created a community of practice

where we rely on those that we have deemed ‘leaders'. We look up to these change agents

who are both knowledgeable in the craft and humanity. Proper leaders know and understand

how humans' tick', "Unlike material resources, humans bring to the work of schooling their

larger personal work which is the development of a human life that has meaning and value and

purpose" (Starratt, 2011, p.1).

Over the last three weeks, I have had the lucky opportunity to work at St. Dominic's Catholic

College as a casual teacher and Starratt’s quote hits the ‘nail on the head’. The students are far

more concerned with my personal understanding of the world than they are with their own

development. Students seek the truth to the answers but need help connecting the importance

of it all – they need engagement and relevance (Broemmel, Jordan, & Whitsett, 2016; De

Nobile, Lyons & Arthur-Kelly, 2017; Weatherby-Fell, 2015), which they demand of me. Once the
school day comes to an end, my head is left swirling with the pedagogical choices I made

through the day. I am left wondering if I did enough, did I overlook something, did I discipline

the students correctly, should I have done something different, could I have done anything

better? I believe this is where reflexivity comes into play. With so many thoughts in my head, it

seems nonsensical to not write them down. David Frost and Judy Durrant (2003) would agree

with this statement; they argue that documenting the process and having critical reflection is

not only a natural part of teachers' everyday work but an essential way to maximize their

development as a teacher.

Teachers, a professional identity in a league of its own in which outsiders of the profession both

think they can do our jobs better and demand more of teachers each passing year. The

paradoxical situation that teachers find themselves in is nothing short of an anti-intellectual

movement that has slowly built over the last twenty-three years and has plagued the world for

the previous six. However, even ‘in the trenches', someone has to stand up and lead against

this enemy – what Australia (and quite frankly, the United States and England) needs is more

teacher leaders who exemplify what it means to be a change agent within a community of

practice. Thankfully, CTL provided my colleagues and me the opportunity to begin ‘testing the

waters' into becoming teacher leaders.

Throughout the creation of our product, the team focused on developing ourselves as teacher

leaders through collaborative discussions that focused on how we should implement our ideas.

We became a community of practice that solely focused on our experiential strand of ‘Personal

and Social Capabilities’. Picking the school and deciding on the strand was easy – ironing out

differing opinions and clashing timetables was not as such. The first few weeks were spent
deciding what exactly we would change about the CLUES program, and I personally didn't

accept some of my fellow team members ideas – they were right, just not good enough or I had

an issue with how the quiet student would react, and so on. Thankfully, my colleagues

welcomed my feedback, and we worked together to ensure ll all students would be affected by

the changes we were implementing. I felt a real sense of collaboration with my fellow pre-

teachers, as we pushed for an actual change within a school. I felt compelled with a sense of

moral purpose in what we were trying to accomplish – I had not felt that since 2016, during the

elections. I believe we became "activist professional(s)" where our moral purposes, which are

ingrained into our teacher identity, created "an alternative form of teacher identity" which "is

centered on professional learning, participation in schools and teacher communities,

collaboration with teachers and others, cooperative forms of professional development and

organizational relationships and activism based on moral and social purposes" (Boylan, 2016).

While our team might be just a microcosm of the real collaborative efforts that will happen

during our time at schools, I found it to be incredibly enriching and proactive to my

development as a teacher leader.

Humans are curious creatures, are they not? We struggle together, we fight against each other,

we look out for one another, and we live together. Along with my fellow humans, we created a

product that we believe that if implemented, would help build the social and emotional

capabilities of any students who partook in the CLUES program. We, humans, learned a lot

during our time working together, and while we were not perfect in our execution, what could

be more human? Humans, using their lived experiences to determine how best to help little

humans. What a fascinating world we all call home.

 References

Boylan, M., Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 44(1), 2016, 57-72.

Broemmel, A., Jordan, J., & Whitsett, B. M., in Learning to be teacher leaders: A framework for

assessment, planning, and instructions, New York, NY: Routledge, 2016, 66-173.

De Nobile, J., Lyons, G., & Arthur-Kelly, M. (2017). Positive learning environments. Cengage

Learning Australia Pty Limited.

Frost, D., & Durrant, J., in Teacher-led development work: Guidance and support, Oxfordshire,

UK: Routledge, 2013, ©2003, 23-26.

Pellitteri, J., & Smith, B. (2007). Building Academic Success on Social and Emotional Learning:

What Does the Research Say?

Starratt, R. J., New York, NY: Routledge, 2011.

Weatherby-Fell, N. (2015). Learning to teach in the secondary school. Melbourne, Vic.:

Cambridge University Press.