Asking for help.

Do you as a teacher do this?

Do you feel confident to do it without being judged? We expect our students to always ask for help or advice but as teachers are we role modelling this enough in ourselves?

I will admit, I ask for help but only with those I feel will give me constructive feedback that will help me. And sometimes it's not just those who I teach with, more often I will ask my PLN and head to Twitter to find my answers.

One area that I have learnt to ask for a lot of help is Reading. After spending a year with year 2/3's I began to see a whole range of readers and what worked for one didn't necessarily work for others. I was lucky enough to work alongside two teachers who were trained in Reading Recovery.

I used their expertise a lot and was for ever asking questions and pondering about how I was going to 'move students on' who were 'well below' or 'below' according to national Standards. I actually learnt a lot from both of them. There was so much I hadn't thought about and a lot of skills they used for Reading Recovery that I had never seen that were ideal for my students. I have continued to utilize their expertise even though I am now teaching in the senior area.

Recently I asked our Reading Recovery Teacher if they could give me some feedback about two of my students. I was stuck. I couldn't see how I was going to make changes if previous teachers couldn't. I had exhausted all the strategies and ideas that in the past I have used and in my reflections I wasn't seeing progress.

I didn't see it as failure, I saw it as wanting the best for my student and asking someone with more expertise than myself in this area.