Is teaching a vocation or profession?

A reflection for the Open Content Licencing for Educators mOOC

Is teaching a vocation or profession? - It’s not either/or, rather – both/and.

Vocation assumes a call, being called for doing something. In the world where there are better paid jobs and much more comfortable and prestigious trades – this will differ from society to society, of course – teaching hardly ever is the most attractive option. However, some people do feel the desire for sharing their own knowledge and wisdom, for being nurturing towards others. People engaged in activities to which they are called transcend a mere work for reward exchange: they engage fuller, can be happy to go extra mile and bring in more than their knowledge and experience, but “a heart” – a certain caring-for-the-cause and imaginative attitude. That’s what we normally associate good teachers with – someone who doesn’t give up easily, who sees in learners more than said on the tin, who is passionate about what s/he is talking about.

Teaching is a profession in a sense that it requires rigor as related to science, art or trade; hence professional knowledge, growth, ethics. In that sense, profession is not in opposition to vocation – both may come along. Therefore it is perfectly possible to say: teaching is my real vocation and I am glad I’ve chose this profession; I feel passionately about it, but it is not the only reason why I am a good teacher – I also know by subject extremely well.

When people ask me whether I enjoy my job, I often say that librarianship is a wonderful profession and my college – a very good place to be at. When training I had no idea that librarians were also educators; my focus then was on arranging data, promoting causes, creating spaces, finding information gems. Now it’s different: meeting users’ needs and even developing their hunger for more is what really excites me. We all have been indoctrinated to think about books when we hear a word “library”. In reality, the most important thing in the library is people. The more I realised that, the more I have been enjoying being a librarian; and a better librarian I was becoming. Vocation and profession are two sides of the same coin.  

Open content licensing for educators

I'm about to begin a micro open online course (mOOC), Open Content Licensing for Educators - my first online-only learning programme; and this is the first time I'll be using my blog to support my learning - after many years helping others to do it.

I've had this blog for three or maybe even more years. There are two things I'd do differently if I could go back in time: I wouldn't use Blogger and I'd commit to writing regularly. The first thing isn't an option really - moving anywhere else would mean leaving behind the content. The second one ... I imagine writing a short post on Friday afternoon is doable. I'll give a shot after the course is over.

For me blogging has two main aspects - reflective practice and creating a repository of wisdom and experience I (we all) generate; I return to this repository quite regularly when need to fish out from there something useful for sharing, discussing or refreshing in my mind. I'm less inclined to think blogs are fit for creating/supporting communities, unless these are distributed and loose communities.

What is my blog for? by Ihar Ivanou is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Best protection is education

This is my article for the CoLRiC Newsletter, issue 59 (December 2013)

Last summer, a suicide of a 14-year old girl took place in Leicestershire; apparently, it was provoked by cyberbullying. Following the tragic event, tabloids demanded from the government to censor Ask.fm, a Latvia-based website extremely popular among teenagers. ‘Our children must be protected from irresponsible adults’, the message was. Among that storm, very few sober and reasonable voices were heard: the best protection is education.

By no means, this a controversial thought – to educate, not to ban. In 2010, Ofsted published a report, The Safe Use of New Technologies (Ofsted, 2010), based on research about schools’ engagement with the internet, emerging technologies and safeguarding. One of the key findings of that report sounds very much up to date now: Pupils in the schools that had ‘managed’ systems had better knowledge and understanding of how to stay safe than those in schools with ‘locked down’ systems. Pupils were more vulnerable overall when schools used locked down systems because they were not given enough opportunities to learn how to assess and manage risk for themselves.

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My new desk

Few years ago, I read an interview with the Swedish ambassador to Belarus (my country of origin) who, among other things, described his working environment, including a desk with the adjustable top: in the morning, the ambassador would start working standing, then he would sit when he got tired. I thought then it was so cool, so Scandinavian - a small difference making life and work easier and more comfortable.

I remembered about that interview when few months ago I realised that long bus commute, in addition to hours sitting at the desk in my office, had started affecting my well-being. I used boxes with paper reams to raise the computer screen and keyboard - to work standing - until I spotted a purpose-made desk in the college store room. It was used by a member of staff who needed it for health reasons; now I have inherited it.

I love my new desk (I keep the old one too - in the afternoon, I sit down now and then), I certainly have developed an emotional affinity to it. I don't waste time on sitting dawn and standing up, my conversations with colleagues don't involve sitting around the table as often as it used to be and we've even had few formal meetings by my desk and computer. Needless to say, I feel physically better than used to too.

I wish all office furniture catalogues had those "Swedish" desks and employees could request them if they wished or needed so.

On not assuming we speak the same language

For last six weeks, I've made a point of asking college newbies whether they've heard an expression "a library catalogue". Very few, certainly fewer than one in ten, said they did. They were surprised, and I am surprised too: it has taken me seven years to appreciate an obvious fact that I speak a different language, than my library users do.
As part of library sessions, I now ask whether people have seen Argos catalogues; virtually all have. I ask what is the purpose of those catalogues; with no exceptions learners correctly say: to show what the shop has to offer and how to get it.
Exactly the same is true about the library catalogue which is not on paper, but online, - I say - just like a search box on the Argos website.
And then we dive into the deeper waters of locations, shelfmarks, accessions, reservations... - I wonder how many of those words cause cognitive dissonance in our users.

Textbook piracy in FE

Publishers are missing on income by not making their textbooks as easily downloadable ebooks via college libraries. I hear from learners and tutors that they download illegal copies of textbooks and share information where to get them from. Tutors boast they have collections of textbooks on their computers. Why do they do it? - For the same reason why people use pirated music: it's easier than getting the same content legally. Not just cheaper, but easier too. What makes the situation worse is ever decreasing funding of further education. Tutors are complaining their managers refuse to buy copies of the core textbooks for tutors' use... And many of our learners or their parents are on benefits, in serious financial difficulties. JISC is doing a good job with its E-books in FE programme, but the list of the titles is extremely limited and the ebrary platform usability is really bad. The environment for textbook piracy in FE is perfect.

On information skills, facts and opinions

At library skills sessions, when asked why colleges and universities encourage use of books, Access students often repeat: because we have to rely on facts, not opinions. If this was said only once, it’d be ok as a somewhat limited interpretation of what, perhaps, the student heard in the classroom.
Unfortunately, this is repeated again and again without qualifying: reliable facts, unfounded opinions. It appears learners hear in our classrooms that facts are in opposition to opinions.

It is not true, of course, that facts are in opposition to or better than opinions. Facts themselves are interpreted knowledge: what we regarded true a century ago may not be true for us now. Knowledge develops; at the same time we, individually and collectively, develop biases or get rid of them and so on. Opinions not resting on sound knowledge are useless. At the same time, it is not difficult to see that what we call facts, at large extend are underpinned by values and opinions; at the same time, facts inform those values and opinions.

By giving simplistic answers to students, we confuse them: they can’t make sense why what is found on the internet may be less reliable than what is found in books (do we, educators, really believe that either?); they can’t explain the value of blogs, they remain suspicious and sceptical about us, educators, and about their own abilities to make sense.

Ask.fm for enquiry service and classroom interaction

While I was reading the tragic news on bullying on ask.fm, it occurred to me that the site might be used as a virtual enquiry desk - for healthy communication with library users. It certainly has all the necessary basic functionality:

• optional registration (questions can be posted very quickly, without a prolonged registration and login)
• immediate notification of the posted question by email (currently the notification emails from ask.fm don't reach my college email boxes; I have raised the question with my IT colleagues)
• RSS output (a widget can be created to display the questions and answers on the library webpage)
• a widget - a bit too inflexible to my mind, but very easy to use - for embedding the query box anywhere on the internet.

I imagine, this may be handy for teaching too: learners can post their questions and comments; the tutor then will respond to them or ignore as appropriate.

In students' eyes, there is nothing unusual about utilising Twitter for learning

Three years ago, I invited James Cunliffe, a photography tutor from the same college I work for, to write a guest post (http://nwhc-librarian.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/facebook-in-fe-tutor-on-pros-and-cons.html) on his use of Facebook for teaching. That was the time of confusion: after consulting with tutors and managers, Facebook was blocked on on-campus PCs and tutors were told they could not communicate to learners on Facebook. Neither awareness campaign, nor training preceded the consultation, so the terrified voices - Facebook is evil! - were the loudest. Photography tutors’ experiment of using Facebook has survived and developed into the best example of utilising social media in our college I am aware of. Three years later, I learnt that something new and equally exciting has appeared – James and his colleagues have adopted Twitter for their practice. Here is what he told me recently:

Twitter can be time consuming. Have you heard about the fear of missing out? There is always something out there, which you want to gather and share. In the beginning I was checking Twitter every day, posting, re-tweeting… I was doing it on the train during my 20-minutes journey. Recently, I’ve deliberately stepped back a bit and take it more casually now.

My colleagues, Andy and Hazel, are helping to look after the NWHC Photography Twitter feed (@nwhcphotography). For now, we don’t have any special arrangements who is going to reply or re-tweet. Perhaps, we will develop a strategy in that respect eventually.