#aneoc

Ane: lo juro no es lo que parece!

Ilusión: friki de los dinosaurios xd

I took part in this via strange connections, this is something like what I said in my 5 minutes:

I’m very happy today; it’s the start of a week long holiday at our school! Now maybe some of you are thinking ‘typical teachers! always on holiday……!’ but us teachers will tell you we deserve all the breaks we get, or we might say the students need a break! But whatever you think, on Friday last week my colleagues and I were definitely feeling tired, and no doubt the students were too. Yet our student leaders took a moment on Friday to invite all the teachers to the staff room where they force fed us delicious pastries and hot coffee, and thanked us for all our help and efforts. Suddenly, we weren’t so tired;  a kind deed, a few kind words, left us all nodding to each other that yes, of course it was worth it.

I started with this story because I think it’s what An Era of Conscience is all about; “...kind words and good deeds create a world of love and peace….”, and how beautiful that it was the students who led the way, showed the way, reminded us teachers about this. And it is a beautiful idea, it’s obvioulsy true.

So on World Teachers Day, if you don’t mind, we can talk about what the role of a teacher is in the Era of Conscience? But before that, perhaps we should look at the role of schools. I read recently on a blog that the word school is derived from a Greek word; skhole, which means, I was surprised to find; spare time, leisure, rest/ease. I wonder how many people in our staff room on Friday would have agreed that our skhole is a place for leisure!? Yet, what a beautiful idea; a place where children and teachers (and anyone?) come to learn at leisure, to engage in learned discussion as a leisurely activity. Can we, in An Era of Conscience, readjust the purpose of our schools? Can we replace the stress and anxiety many of our young people feel, (and the teachers and parents!), by creating places where they can grow up feeling comfortable and relaxed, not forever comparing themselves to each other, or to the expected norm? After all much of our stress in adulthood seems to come from comparisons with others, or with the world created by advertisers. ‘Why is he earning money than me, do I have a house as big as her, shouldn’t I have a family now, do I have the latest phone/laptop/TV…….Where does this habit of judging ourselves by comparisons with others start? At school!  I’ve given a lot of thought to this over the last few years and believe this change ultimately requires a change in our whole society, (and what is AECON if not that), a change in the sytem/workings of capitalism to be a system with a sense of rightness, something that ultimately has to unite us all in this Era. We can’t change schools without changing Universities and Universities can’t change without businesses and employers changing - it’s a big ask, but it’s right and necessary.

I wanna goooo