In life, nothing is perfect. In education, we cannot achieve a perfect curriculum, nor can we achieve a perfect pedagogical approach. Inevitably, there will be some compromise, some trade-offs, depending on what a teacher chooses, and what he/she excludes in his/her practice. You win some, you lose some. But in my opinion, consistency in one's pedagogical practice aligned to one's teaching philosophy and professional knowledge bases is something that all educators should strive towards so that we can achieve the intended outcome better. And it begins with a deliberate effort in trying to solidify our professional knowledge bases to shape our pedagogical practice.
In the last few months, I have been challenged by the students at NIE in several occasions. For instance, some of them would ask... why do we use a short racket if the game badminton uses a certain type of racket? Why place 2 goalposts when a game of floorball only has 1 on each side? Why use a beach ball in the teaching of volleyball when a regular ball is used in competitive games worldwide? Why use a polo stick or a hockey puck when teaching floorball when we have regular sticks and balls? Why defend with the stick inverted in floorball when noone does that in a floorball game? The irony is, the same people have no problems teaching dribbling by asking students to move around cones when this is never needed in a game. The same people would tell students to pass the ball from point A to point B, and then do skill C in a prescribed drill, when the game almost never require this exact same movement solution in a game. The same people would also have no problems teaching one way of shooting, dribbling or kicking although a player hardly ever use only one technique of shooting, dribbling or kicking in a game.
My point is... alignment is key, otherwise, it is hard to make sense of why we do what we do, why certain things work, and why some others just don't. Food for thought.
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