A future

I was reminded this week exactly why I work in teacher education. It is incredibly rewarding. Our graduation ceremony on Plymouth Hoe yesterday saw not one, but two of my student teacher groups receive their degrees. The picture above is one of those two extraordinary groups of young people. They are a part of a larger group of digital literacy specialists - primary school teachers who specialise in technology supported learning. They have been with me for four years, developing their skills as educators and acquiring all the knowledge they need to go out and transform the learning of our children. They are all just as passionate as I am about learning, and each of them has a unique and creative perspective on how to use technologies to enrich and extend children's education.

With me in the picture from left to right, they are Charlotte Langslow, Matt Povey, Hannah Shelton, Megan Douglas, Chris Nesbitt, Charlotte Rice, Polly Short, Rebecca Legatt, Peter Tolley, Lloyd Chilcott and Adam Easterbrook. Missing from the picture are Kelly Holborrow and April Farrell-Langler. Each of these former students, now newly qualified teachers, have contributed significantly to knowledge already, with their regular blogging, video making and other activities related to education.

Take the example of the blog Learning to Teach by Megan Douglas which is a frank and honest running account of her time as a student teacher. Or read Hannah Shelton's account of her own journey to become a primary educator in her Life as a Trainee Teacher. Chris Nesbitt always wrote deeply thoughtful pieces, reflecting on his own learning and produced an exceptional piece of blogging for his assignment on psychological perspectives in education. Lloyd Chilcott has quite a presence on social media as can be seen here, and won the prize yesterday for the highest grade on his research project in digital literacy. I will miss the verbal sparring I enjoyed with others such as Peter Tolley, who always challenged and never stopped questioning. Along with other students in the group Polly Short was always very active in organising Teach Meets and other Education Society activities and fully deserves her first class honours degree. In fact, over half this group achieved first class degrees - something that is rare in any field of academic study. And I can't forget the brutally honest and wonderfully touching video Kelly Holborow created on her own digital identity - one that I have shown several times in my own presentations as an exemplar of student video autobiography (below).



I could go on, but I like to keep my blog posts short. I will miss this extraordinary group of young educators. I believe I have learnt as much from them as they have from me. I'm certain that each will go on to significantly impact their own particular corners of the education world. I hope to hear from one or two of them now and again to hear how they are progressing in their teaching careers, but I have no worries for any of them. They will all become great teachers. I will never forget how rewarding it has been to teach them during their time at Plymouth University, and I will treasure the immense sense of pride I felt yesterday as I watched each of them receive their awards.

Someone asked me yesterday what would be the collective noun for a group of newly qualified teachers. My response: 'A future'.

Photo: Steve Wheeler


A future by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.