I Don't Need No Stinking Experts!

When one wants to engage in learning new information, new skills, or new philosophies, it is usually recommended that he or she consult with the expertise in that field before deciding what they know or do not know, or setting goals and achievements of learning. This can mean researching the published works of the experts, going to lectures or conferences, and keeping up to date with changing policies. Being an academic has never been a strength or even a focus of my practice as teacher, and dare I say it, even as a student. I have never valued the "facts" as much as the "experience" and the "stories". I would give myself a 4/10 on the category of Critical Practitioner. I had already read Parker Palmer's book "The Courage to Teach", when we were assigned the first chapter in class, which I suppose means I have done some reading on the subject of teaching practice, and I realte quite strongly to the idea that we teach who we are. I have a high values score for "moral purpose" and have always tried to live my life and practice as honestly as appropriate. This can be reassuring but I also have to be careful not to let it become an excuse for poor practice. I have clear strengths and weaknesses, and may always have those patterns, but I am not a static entity and neither should my class be. If I had to name the biggest influences on my teaching practice it would be myself as a person first, and the stories/observations of other teachers and their classes/philosophies second. I enjoyed Naoko Aoki's idea that the stories hold a unique value that the research and theory cannot always capture. This plays into my personality traits (ENFP) of enjoying social interaction, group learning, variety, and the value I place on Intuition over facts. In the first few months I have learned to tap into the experts knowledge in a new and exciting way for me. Instead of sitting in a library flipping through a scientific text that I cannot connet to my own practice, I have begun to use technology. Websites like TED and their video talks that are 18.5 minutes long bring the brightest minds in the western world and their wonderful ideas and inventions to me in lively, engaging media format that makes me feel and experience their knowledge in story format. Like Sir Ken Robinson's thoughts on creativity. Wow! Between these and other new formats, like blogs, podcasts, and webpages I hope to be able to find myself at an 8 or 9 out of 10 in this capacity... always exploring and testing new ideas and old assumptions with the foundation of academia and the experts support.