Resilience #55 There’s More to the Mortar Board

I’ve recently inherited my dad’s hat. 

My mum also has one, along with a gown and fancy scarf. It’s all a bit Hogwarts on the face of it. But it wasn’t 60 years ago.

In days gone by, the mortar board was a staple teaching essential, befitting of the qualified academic. The whole hat-and-robe garb was routinely sported around school, along corridors, in classrooms, and for presentation assemblies.

You actually purchased the graduation gear, as opposed to merely borrowing one for a few hours to share on Insta.

I sense teachers have little use for a mortar board anymore. For one reason, they have so many other hats to wear. Which I’m not altogether sure is a good thing.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to start ranting about returning to traditional values and the merits of corporal punishment, just musing that you can only really wear one hat at once.

If you wear it well, that is.

And when teaching is done well, there’s somehow much less of a need for some of the other roles that arguably detract from what teachers do best.

‘Classroom Magic’ is about putting the ‘more’ back in to mortar board. Less of the peripheral stuff that has seemingly crept in under the radar over the years, and more of the stuff that really makes a difference.

And the funny thing is, ‘more’ does not have to mean additional. It means creating value by taking away some of the superfluous practice that gets in the way of what should be the best job in the world. It’s like educational buoyancy; the profession needs to lighten up.

Boil it down, and teaching should primarily be about, err… teaching.

It’s about knowing when to support, guide and intervene. It’s about knowing what to ask and how to ask, and when to step back.

Because less is sometimes more. Growth requires growing room.

Understanding when to add and when to subtract is quite a skill. Truthfully, there is no magic wand, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any magic.

I think that’s called teaching.

Will