Master Class
The Mindful Teacher
Topic: The Mindful Teacher
Trainer: Professor Dennis Shirley, Boston College
Date: 26 March 2019 Tuesday
Venue: To Be Confirmed
Time: 9am to 5pm
Note: This workshop is cancelled.
Workshop Fee:
S$350.00 per participant. If 2 or more participants from the same school/organization attend the same workshop, the discounted fee will be S$300.00 per participant for that particular workshop.
S$200.00 per participant if the person has registered for Global Educational Leadership Conference 2019.
Fees include all training materials, 2 tea breaks and a lunch.
Other Information: Registration is on a first-come-first serve basis. No refunds will be made for cancellations or in the case of absentees. The Academy accepts replacements for registered participants who are unable to attend for whatever reasons.
About the Workshop
Like it or not, schools around the world are judged on the basis of their test scores by parents, policy makers, and students. Even in systems in which ministries of education withhold test results from the public, new technologies are often exploited by parents and the public to rank schools, regardless of official efforts to defuse pervasive competition amongst them. These kinds of systemic and apparently inescapable pressures create enormous difficulties for educators and students, with important ramifications for their subjective well-being.
So, an inevitable question arises: As academic achievement becomes narrowed into a single-minded obsession with test scores, what possibilities remain for ethical, caring teachers to hone their craft and inspire their students with the joy of learning? One answer increasingly popular with educators around the world is the establishment of “white space” zones for the pursuit of deeper and more transformative kinds of teaching and learning. Drawing upon his book entitled The Mindful Teacher, Dennis Shirley will share his international experience with teachers in this interactive workshop about these and other new ways that teachers are recovering the grandeur of education by providing students with opportunities for generating their own research questions into areas of personal interest and social significance.
In the process of these transformations, educators are finding that there are many things they can do to help their students to overcome adversity and to flourish. From providing “climbing walls” for students with fetal alcohol syndrome, to “quiet corners” for students with anxiety disorders, and peer support groups for students suffering from depression, education rapidly is changing around the globe to bring more fulfillment, balance, and meaning to the work of educators and the students they serve.
In this workshop Dennis will share new international research to show how teachers around the world are finding the “sweet spot” in which they can fulfill their professional responsibilities while at the same time deriving meaning and purpose from their work. He will provide teachers with practical strategies that have been found successful in other contexts that they can use to integrate more reflection and awareness into their busy, everyday classroom lives.
Dennis brings a nitty-gritty, classroom-level appreciation of the multiple challenges facing teachers today. His presentation will provide core principles and strategies for the renewal of teaching as a vocation and for the flourishing of students and educators in all of our schools.
About Professor Dennis Shirley
Dennis Shirley is Professor of Education at the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. Dennis dedicates his life to the improvement of teaching and learning for students so that they may flourish wherever they may be. He is Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Educational Change, an indispensable resource for change leaders at the school, state, or national levels. A peripatetic presenter, Dennis has conducted research and led professional development workshops for school leaders in six continents and his work has been translated into many languages. Most recently, he has authored a second edition of The Mindful Teacher and his newest book entitled The New Imperatives of Educational Change: Achievement with Integrity.
With co-author Andy Hargreaves and a team of Boston College doctoral students, Dennis has just published a report entitled Leading from the Middle: Spreading Learning, Well-being, and Identity across Ontario. This new report illustrates the ways in which Dennis works with educators to help with clarifying their challenges, identifying promising strategies, and implementing and assessing change. He is skilled at breaking down ill-defined problem sets into winnable goals that can be attained with persistence, creativity, and dignity. Combining cutting-edge research findings with sensitivity and compassion for the educators charged with teaching the young on a daily basis, Dennis is highly sought-after because of his respect for teachers and administrators and his engagement with students and their learning.