I hope for all of the young people I teach and my son to be life long learners. There I said it. The answer to every teaching job interview question; "help develop young people holistically and empower them to flourish as life long learners". But what does that actually mean? Is it even possible to not be a life long learner? Life is so full of learning that we only need open our eyes and hearts to see it everywhere.
I am very lucky to head off to Year 12 camp tomorrow. 220ish Year 12 students, a bunch of teachers and careers and pathways staff set for 3 days of learning. The venue is the stunning Lord Somers Camp on the Mornington Peninsula, a footbridge between the camp and the beautiful beach with its wild pod of dolphins cresting through the waves. Does not sound like school, but it is dripping with learning. There are formal sessions around careers, wellbeing, English exam technique, motivational talks by the likes of the hilarious and inspiring Paralympian Sam Brahman and funny yoga with Guru Doudou. But the learning goes well beyond this; the conversations, the exploration of the beach, the astronomy lectures, the comedy skit show, the music played and the community grown is where it is really at.
One of the most incredible shared experience in past camps was swimming with the pod of playful wild dolphins. The joy and excitement of 18 year old young men and women being in the water with these beautiful animals was palpable and piqued curiosity and generated questions; where do they live? how may are there? what do they eat? This shared experience made us feel closer as a community of learners and demonstrated to me the importance of experiences beyond the academic classroom, authentic experiences in the real world. It made me realise the difference between learning and schooling.
So the adventure starts again tomorrow and one of the joys and sources of anxiety of going on this camp is the lack of reliable wifi, so rather than writing for the next three days, I am going to enjoy reading other #28daysofwriting bloggers' work and hopefully leaving some comments using my phone. Until we meet again, Dear Reader, I hope you have a fruitful three days and I hope I get some more dolphin photos.
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