Vietnamese Teacher Day 20 November

Teacher day is a an important part of the Vietnamese calendar. Teachers are held in high regard and teaching is appreciated. In accordance with this Vietnamese custom, some of my Vietnamese students have written cards and bought gifts to school for me. British International School gave all the teaching staff and teaching assistants bouquets of flowers on Friday. Today a group of students in one of my year 4 classes signed a card and gave me a bottle of wine. Another student wrote me a card and bought in a scarf / pashmina, and the parents of another child sent along a box of chocolates and a bottle of wine. While the gifts are lovely, the cards and the thoughts are the bits I treasure.
There are certain parallels with New Zealand and children bringing along gifts at Christmas time. This causes me to question the practice and reflect. I ask myself am I REALLY doing the best job I possibly can for each and everyone of these students in the 1 hour they are in my class? Am I extending them individually, or am I teaching on masse? Are they learning? How do I know? What opportunities am I creating within that hour for them to demonstrate their learning, and talk about their learning?
As I get the feel for each of the classes I am tailoring the planning and the activities so those that have skills are able to extend, and share their knowledge. So yes my teaching is improving. I am doing a small amount of skill teaching and then constructivist activities to allow the students to extend and develop and co-construct. I grapple with ideas to do the teaching component better. I am sure the ICT integration and activities I have planned for next term will be better than this term, which has been a settling in time. I am providing opportunities for the older students to self access and to peer access. However I'm sure I'm not the absolute best teacher I possibly can be for my students. I need to know more about their individual learning, assessing that learning and having learning conversations. Like my students, I too still have things to learn, to be better at my job. I am inspired by a quote from Doug Blocher "learning is not a spectator sport".
Another interesting aside is that I have been given 2 bottles of wine. I know I have been Emeratised.