Chance discussions are never to be missed in terms of how they can make us reflect on our practice as teachers and leaders. One such morning recently, a member of the senior leadership team popped by my office to discuss how they had been surprised with the focus on professional reading and theory in recent job interviews they had been having. Their perspective was their experience, not recent educational theory or fashionable books were more important to their ability to excel at the role applied for.

I could see their point of view. Especially when they had suggested they had used Tom Bennett as an example of his professional reading in the area of behaviour in UK schools. Someone I had not heard of, but when I checked their philosophy on behaviour, someone on first reading that I was almost diametrically opposed too.

However as an avid professional reader (apologies see the scrolling list on the homepage) I obviously disagree. I professionally read around my great passions in life: education, architecture and technology. Simply because I want to know different perspectives and be able to critically analyse and if necessary change and alter my viewpoints. And this is why, however much I may disagree with Tom Bennett's approach, the reading of some articles and peer reviewed research enabled me to look and reflect, and question. This links to one of my key tenets regarding the educational world we live in as highlighted by the article on TIE The International Educator below -reading and understanding different perspectives is key!

"The problem of not reading..."

"Next time you read a newspaper headline, or a tweet, a post, a statement, especially one that goes “viral”, ask yourself what the source is and who has read the research. The truth might not be as exciting to read as a dazzling affirmative or damning soundbite, but it needs to be respected." - Conrad Hughes

I also teach Theory of Knowledge and Digital Society at IB Level and it does not take too much for us all to agree the necessity for our students to be able to read, analyse and critically evaluate sources in todays misinformation, social media led world.

This however takes me back to Professional Reading for teachers.

"How much should a leader expect teachers to read?" "How much should senior leaders professionally read?"

Well I suppose like many things each school needs teachers and senior leaders that like to professionally read and then support them in the dissemination of the reading to improve learning within the school.

So I would suggest not everyone needs to read quite as much as I do maybe, but every school should have mechanisms in place to enable this reading and current evidence based findings to be shared in a simple and efficient way to all teachers within the school. One such way is the idea of sharing key texts for those interested by the Senior Leadership team, currently "Making Good Progress: The future of Assessment for Learning by Daisy Christodoulou" is doing the rounds at my school. Another is the dissemination of some great professional reading lists - such as Edutopias 2023 best articles end of year list. Number 8 is a gem, especially as an IB educator surrounded by inquiry sceptics who as all of us need to read before they think!

I recently created this online Curriculum Vitae, mainly to simplify my ability to communicate experiences for future career opportunities. But in so doing created a WordPress weblog as you can see - and immediately felt split in whether I should begin to blog and write again as I had done previously.

Don't get me wrong in the past I have been an avid blogger for courses that I have taught in Information Technology in a Global Society (now Digital Society), alongside being involved in Facebook/Twitter accounts on my professional areas of learning. I even tweet regularly on aspects of my coordinator role, my role as TOK teacher etc.

So why so divided?

This then led to a bigger question that presented itself - as my new blog had a crafty and simple feature to link to my LinkedIn account, then I should ensure to publish to LinkedIn as well. In one way I have learnt so much from LinkedIn over the last few years - in fact I would be confident in saying it is where I have learnt most professionally anywhere (and I have also recently completed my National Professional Qualification of Headteaching Certification.)

So I should obviously share my thoughts and ideas. A recent LinkedIn post also made it seem an easy decision from the Corporate Rebels shown below.

"Don't think your article is good enough, publish it anyways." - Corporate Rebels

The argument against, is simple in many ways I find especially the LinkedIn community and educational school accounts as simply a way of self marketing. I know it is obvious, but it does in some ways rankle. I remember a recent colleague whispering to me - 'that teacher tweets all the time, no wonder he is such a poor teacher he has no time to devote to his students.' I disagree, but understand the comment as it is true whatever I or anyone else writes on a weblog, twitter (now X) or through LinkedIn does not validate how good you are as an educator.

So with misgivings equal to my desire to share and publish my ruminations and reflections on education,  you can obviously see what I have decided. Not to publish to begin with!  Thanks to the Corporate Rebels and the Duke of Wellington for leading the way, but I will get there in the end and at least forgive me this is my first post - Rumination No 1!

"Publish and be damned" - Duke of Wellington maybe?