I see my role as a teacher, really as a facilitator to provide the space and environment for my students to embark on their own journey of discovery; to create their own itinerary. My skill as a practitioner and my ability to translate it into accessible digestible language, examples, tasks, and processes with meaning and reason, allows my students to come to their own conclusions when constructing their knowledge. I guide and direct my students to attain higher levels of competence and development by providing base theories and concepts in an applied way and embedding these to move from simple to complex, from different knowledge bases and contexts. The language of learning is always the same just the dialect of discipline changes. I bring my students to places of knowing by piecing together their intuitive learning and actions, and giving them a scaffold of terminology to attach it to. I do this through a Socratic Method using open questions that challenge their held ideas and positions, provoke them to articulate why, and make links to existing knowledge to synthesize higher order learning and critical reflective thinking and practice. I do this because I live to see the light come on in their eyes when they ‘get’ it... As my students progress in their learning and through my subject, incorporating my learning objectives into their practice, my job is done when they no longer need me as a guide, but as a peer or mentor.
