{"id":2796,"date":"2013-08-21T00:30:24","date_gmt":"2013-08-21T00:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/?p=2796"},"modified":"2013-08-22T00:31:55","modified_gmt":"2013-08-22T00:31:55","slug":"connections-and-influences-barry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/2013\/08\/21\/connections-and-influences-barry\/","title":{"rendered":"Connections and Influences – Barry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shankly and Me – by<\/b>Barry Jameson<\/h1>\n

\"Barry<\/a><\/h1>\n

“The socialism I believe in is everybody working for the same goal and everybody having a share in the rewards. It’s how I see football, it’s how I see life.”<\/i><\/p>\n

\"BARRY<\/a><\/p>\n

The above quote is by the late, great manager of Liverpool Football Club, Bill Shankly<\/a>.\u00a0 Shankly was one of those special characters that transcended sport.\u00a0 You can find websites dedicated, not only to his football achievements, but to his quotes<\/a>.\u00a0 Strangely, when I think about teaching, he is often the person I think of.\u00a0 It is hard to have heroes in modern football.\u00a0 It is full of overpaid prima donnas, cheating, diving, and commercialism.\u00a0 Shankly reminds me of the purity of sport, the purity of human beings working together to achieve mutual goals.<\/p>\n

His beliefs mirror my own about life.\u00a0 Socialism without politics.\u00a0 It is a way of life, working together.\u00a0 Shankly used his beliefs to inform his approach to football.\u00a0 His influence shapes my teaching.\u00a0 I would simply change the last line to, \u2018It\u2019s how I see teaching, it\u2019s how I see life.\u2019 \u00a0Few (if any) of us become teachers to become wealthy.\u00a0 From my experience of connecting with teachers around the world, there are common traits.\u00a0 A willingness to share, to help others reach their goals, whilst also trying to achieve our own.\u00a0 It truly is a case of sharing the rewards.<\/p>\n

Football and teaching are similar in many respects.\u00a0 Teamwork, dedication, and commitment are needed to reach the heights.\u00a0 When players step over the white line there is little the manager can do.\u00a0 It is enough to support, to guide from the side-line, and hope that they do the job.\u00a0 Teaching, for me, is similar.\u00a0 Ultimately, the students are the ones who have to learn and develop by themselves.\u00a0 All I can do is try to guide, support, facilitate and prepare to the best of my ability.\u00a0 You try to give them the tools to succeed.\u00a0 You train, coach, inspire as much as you can and hope that, in the end, it is enough.<\/p>\n

When it works, the rewards truly are shared.\u00a0 I am sure we have all felt the immense pride when we see a student reach their goal.\u00a0 All the struggles, the blood, sweat, and tears to get to that point are briefly forgotten as you bask in their achievement.\u00a0 The satisfaction for me comes from knowing that I gave everything to help them.\u00a0 I can take no glory, as they are the ones who put in the real hard work, but I can feel satisfied that I may have played my own small part in their success.\u00a0 Sometimes we make a deep connection with students.\u00a0 Sometimes we don\u2019t.\u00a0 The important thing is that we act in an honest way and do our best for each and every one of them.<\/p>\n

Another quote of Shankly that I often think of is:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to think that I have put more into the game than I have taken out. And that I haven\u2018t cheated anybody, that I\u2018ve been working for people honestly all along the line\u2026\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

\"Barry<\/p>\n

Reading the thoughts\u00a0of Shankly changes how I approach teaching.\u00a0 If I succeed, if I fail, at least I try. \u00a0I never cheat a student.\u00a0 I try to go home each day knowing that I\u2019ve given my best, even though my best is sometimes not good enough.\u00a0 Work together, succeed together, fail together, and improve together.\u00a0 These are the principles that I attempt to follow.It seems fitting to end on another quote from the great man:<\/p>\n

“I’ve been a slave to football. It follows you home; it follows you everywhere and eats into your family life. But every working man misses out on some things because of his job.”\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

This is how I see teaching, and I would have it no other way. \u00a0– Barry Jameson<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read more work from Barry Jameson on his always interesting blog<\/span>\u00a0All Things ELT<\/span><\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0and as Barry is an<\/span>\u00a0iTDi Mentor<\/span><\/a><\/strong> you can connect with him and other iTDi mentors from around the world by joining the iTDi Community.<\/span> Sign Up For A Free iTDI Account<\/span><\/a><\/strong> to create your profile, connect with our community, and get immediate access to our social forums and a free trial lesson from both our<\/span> English For Teachers<\/span><\/a><\/strong> and<\/span> Teacher Development<\/span><\/a> <\/strong>Courses.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Shankly and Me – byBarry Jameson “The socialism I believe in is everybody working for the same goal and everybody having a share in the rewards. It’s how I see football, it’s how I see life.” The above quote is by the late, great manager of Liverpool Football Club, Bill Shankly.\u00a0 Shankly was one of … Continue reading Connections and Influences – Barry<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":1082,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-summer-sampler-3","category-summer-sampler-4"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}