Dig, if you will, a picture ...

Yestereve, at the tail end of a CAT session in which we had shared some good practice, sought pupil voice in the white noise of the feedback cycle and generally patted ourselves on the back for what we are doing well and skulked - like a shamefaced pooch accused of raiding the dustbin while pleading innocence despite the tinfoil blizzard that has beset the kitchen - in the face of indepth scrutiny that might reveal us for the charlatans we really are, we cast a weary eye over a chapter or two of a book in which it was mentioned that, if learning is to happen, volition and motivation need to converge.

This got me thinking ...

I've always said, somewhat facetiously, that when I was at school my teachers would try and goad me into action by suggesting that if I didn't extract my proverbial finger, I'd be lumbered with a B for my efforts.  

My silent but subconscious retort was always - contrary to that which I outwardly displayed to my concerned parents, academic tutors and anyone else with a vested interest in my education - "What's wrong with a B?"  I almost wonder whether I'd have accepted the B then in return for fewer classroom hours and less agro on the homework front.

Through every exam I ever did, up to and including my undergraduate degree, I coasted.  I did what I had to and no more.

Aged 32 I signed up to do my PGCE and there and then it was that the volition/motivation lines crossed.  I loved what I was doing, I wanted to do well.

32.

Thirty two.

I have 26 children in my class at present.  

Since qualifying as a teacher I have taught upwards of 200 primary aged children.  Some of them will undoubtedly follow the same trajectory as I did and for some it will take even longer.  Some will have peaked already and others will peak just when current assessment strategies demand that they should.

What does it all mean?  No idea.

As I said, it made me think.