I didn’t know Welby when I enrolled at AUT design school, but it didn’t take long before I was overhearing stories in the corridors.
Welby is a legend. A story teller extraordinaire. They came to AUT for him. To learn & experience what this man had to offer about creativity. Every week the lecture theatre was packed full of enthusiastic ears. I would see people flooding in with only room left in stairwells & they kept coming, right up to & beyond the dimming of lights.
These lectures became legendary, some of the most valuable learning experiences I’ve ever had in a classroom (structured learning environment). His style was refreshing, down to earth and honest. He understood how we experience learning & engaged us in thoughtful ways.
So – 17 years later, Welby came up on on my radar again. This time with a Ted Talk “Disobedient Thinking”. A few YouTube searches later & I found more talks. This was another paradigm shift for me. With the mist of earlier studying days cleared, I could now see exactly what he was saying & teaching.
AUT Professor Welby Ings has always been a rebel. He was expelled from school and later suspended from teachers college, it’s no surprise he wrote a book about disobedience. But his book “Disobedient Teaching” is about turning the negative into a positive.
He believes our schooling system stifles the creativity of kids, he also encourages teachers to be disobedient by going against the curriculum.
So if you’re a well seasoned teacher or are just at the beginning a teaching career, this is a must read. It reminds us to take responsibility and stand up for the ideals that may have guided us in the early days. This book is about disobedience. Positive disobedience. Disobedience as a kind of professional behaviour. It shows how teachers can survive and even influence an education system that does staggering damage to human potential.
Get it, read it and pass it on.
