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A quality primary teacher of the twenty first century shows a commitment to their School’s ethos through their professional and personal life. It naturally follows that they must develop positive rapport with students and must promote; each student as a whole person; school and community values and; a clear, unified curriculum. I expect to enhance these core practices through openness to meaningful professional relationships with teaching peers and superiors and also by welcoming the contribution of parents. Such involvement would ideally form part of a broader relationship with the surrounding community. Of particular importance to excellent education practice is recognition that the family is at the heart of everything that nourishes children and that partnerships with parents and children’s guardians are an invaluable ally in providing meaningful education experiences (Graham-Clay, 2005). Now that the assumptions of Vygotsky’s social constructivism, along with a welter of other research proven understandings, have become almost universally accepted, the way has cleared for more human, relationship based classroom practices (Daniels, 2001). In particular the action of social dynamics on learning and the eco-systemic entwinement of people with their society and surrounding culture is now recognized as pedagogically profound (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). This allows the more dextrous teaching professional to maximise learning by leveraging components of relational interaction such that students are simultaneously challenged to exceed their own expectations and reassured by a warm, positive social context in which they trust (Friend & Cook, 2007). I believe that literacy and numeracy are central to effective teaching in all curriculum areas and across all phases of learning (Department of Education Training and Workplace Relations, 2009). Words and numbers are at the heart of human semiotics and understanding them is the portal through which one must pass in order to convene with all other learning. Additionally, comprehensive understanding of the central concepts and details of the content that they teach is fundamental to allowing educators to challenge their students (Queensland College of Teachers, 2006). My approach to designing assessment instruments is in keeping with current understandings that are widely espoused in the literature, see, for example, Wiggins (2005), Banks (2005) and Fetherston (2006). Amongst the shared principles laid down by those authors are that: assessment should engender learning as well as determine what has been learnt; students’ motivation is enhanced when learning’s real world usefulness is perceptible to them; assessment processes should be incremental and earlier assessment tasks should prepare learners for later tasks and; assessment should be authentic. Each person brings with them to the classroom a distinctive confluence of physical, cultural, social, emotional and cognitive circumstances that have framed their world view (Hickey, 2006). Accordingly, I do not expect that the people in my classes will be of particular types or that they will fit into categories at all. Rather, the opposite, that each of them will bring a unique blend of antecedents which, when shared and celebrated, can nurture our class community (Woolfolk & Margetts, 2007). I don’t think it is difficult to deliver those rational, prosaic components of professional performance; curriculum delivery, coordination, assessment, reportage and the like. Nor are teaching’s poetic, human aspects like relational trust, collaboration, personal understanding and pastoral care, of themselves, hard to manifest. The real magic, I believe, is in continuous and simultaneous synthesis of those two often exclusive elements. I want to create a classroom in which the art of human interaction is seamlessly combined with the science of curriculum and content and where, as a result, each individual is valued in a shared pursuit of collective enrichment. |