tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48037129751910349362024-03-21T11:00:24.413-07:00Tread softly because you tread on my dreamsnrjshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05275856635305161110noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803712975191034936.post-9619758995860918332019-09-23T02:12:00.003-07:002019-09-23T02:12:57.054-07:00The Winner Takes It All (except they don't - everybody loses)<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">I haven’t written a blog for a long time. That’s because I
genuinely couldn’t think of what to say in response to the chaos that is
unfolding all around us. However, I think I’ve finally realised what is causing
the chaos, and now feel compelled to share my insight: everything is wrong. Education
is wrong. Politics is wrong. Football is wrong (although for different, less
systemic reasons than the other two). We’ve created a culture obsessed with
winning. An all or nothing society in which the winner takes all, and the loser
is, well, a loser. And it’s breaking us.</span><span style="color: #222222;"><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="background: white;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">I decided in the middle of last year to stop being a classroom
teacher. The job, which many people love, had stopped making me happy; it had stopped
giving me the sense of satisfaction I had hoped for and, frankly, deserved
given the amount of work I was putting in. At the time I couldn’t put my finger
on why. The workload was high, but I wasn’t unduly stressed. I’d been doing it
for 8 years and, if I wasn’t getting any quicker at planning my lessons and
working out how to give feedback most effectively to my pupils, I’m pretty sure
that I was getting better at it. But, after a summer off, and some time at the
start of this academic year to think about things, I think I have started to
understand. Teaching had stopped being satisfying for me because our education
system is broken. However hard I worked as a teacher, what I was pedalling was
still a handful of GCSE grades which I no longer felt were a valid currency for
the children I was teaching. And, more than that, due to the bell-curve approach
to allocating grades, many children are condemned to “fail” regardless of how
their performance compares with that of children in any other year. This
bell-curve allocation of grades, in fact our whole education system, is built
on the concept of winners and losers. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Stop and think for a few seconds about the fact that a child
can go through 11 years of formal schooling and then “fail” education. Thanks
for coming, but bad luck. You couldn’t write it. Or, rather, you wouldn’t write
it (unless you were Margaret Atwood). It’s too cruel. Plus, it’s horribly
inefficient.</span> There’s no reason for it as far as I can see. I appreciate
that there should be something a child can point to at the end of their time at
school which expresses in some way what they have achieved. But that is the
point: it should express what the child has achieved; what they can do. Not just,
essentially, what they have failed to do. However, the system is designed by
people who won at education, and perhaps it is hard to understand, from that
perspective, what is wrong with a system which allows people to lose.<span style="color: #222222;"><br />
<br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="background: white;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">The same thing goes for the idea that market forces are a
sensible way to determine the success (or not) of schools. Does anyone
genuinely think it’s ok, in a supposedly civilised society, for a school to
fail. The notion is absurd.</span> I suspect that there is some merit in
allowing competition between businesses on the basis that it might inspire
efficiencies (as opposed to just inspiring ruthlessness and corner-cutting),
but I’m not an economist. The point is that the education system is not a
business. It’s not ok for market-led “parental choice” to create a situation
where, for most people, it’s impossible to buy a house anywhere near a “good”
school, while schools elsewhere are allowed to decay, to lose.</span><br />
<br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="background: white;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">I think that a big part of the problem is that this obsession
with winning and losing reflects almost all of our society. We preserve with an
antiquated adversarial legal system which prioritises “winning” the case ahead
of actually finding out what really happened. We have an election system which
is designed to create a Parliamentary dictatorship, regardless of the actual
breakdown of votes. Only 40% of people voted for you? Never mind – you win! And
you get to be in charge. Of everyone. Not only that, but once the election’s
over, a huge amount of time is given over to trying to “win” exchanges at Prime
Minister’s Questions as opposed to sitting down and trying to work out what to
do about anything.</span><br />
<br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="background: white;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">And, of course, Brexit. Forget the absurdity of reducing one
of the most complicated and far-reaching decisions in our history to a binary,
coin-toss, Yes/No lottery. The fact is that the referendum process has allowed
vested extremist interests to polarise the entire debate into a slogan-shouting
contest. There is no room for compromise. You’re either leave or remain, and that’s
it. Sticking with two strictly defined teams is sensible when you’re playing
football in the park. It’s ridiculous when you’re talking about geopolitics.
But, we’re opposed with winning. Listen to Boris Johnson’s ridiculous martial
language. He wants to beat the European Union. He wants to win these talks. Or
he’s going to Hulk-smash them until he does win.</span><br />
<br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="background: white;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">I think that a lot of this attitude comes down to an inaccurate
understanding of the survival of the fittest. That doesn’t mean survival of the
strongest, it means the survival of the entity most fit for its purpose. Survival
of most adaptable. Boris Johnson seems to think that the trick is to act like a
top predator, and simply overwhelm everyone else. I worry that, if he gets his
way, very soon there’s going to be a very skinny, starving lion, weakly opening
one eye,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>looking round at the carcasses
surrounding it thinking, why did I eat <u>all</u> the wildebeest, all at the
same time?</span></span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="background: white;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">I don’t know what it will take to change this obsession for
winning and losing. To the extent that I can, I’m going to try and remove
myself from these pressures where it just doesn’t make sense. I mean, I’m not
against winning and losing as a concept. I can get really quite cross when Viki
beats me at scrabble. But education isn’t scrabble, it’s much more important than
that.</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
nrjshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05275856635305161110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803712975191034936.post-39257861962065836952018-12-08T11:32:00.001-08:002018-12-09T00:22:04.802-08:00The Core of the problem<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><font style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" face="Arial"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Recently I would say I have been suffering from </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">pretty poor </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">mental health. Feeling stressed and a bit overwhelmed by how much </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I’m</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> not able to do in the time there is, and upset at how much better a job I wish I was doing. Which, dear reader, has made me somewhat reflective. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">And</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> this is something which has stared back at me: I don’t think that teaching English should be stressful. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">It’s</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> about stories. About love conquering all. Good overcoming evil. All that stuff. Good, fun, positive stuff. I love it! Why is it stres</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">sful? D</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">o you know what I think the problem might be? I think it might be because English is a CORE subject. </span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font face="Arial"><br></font></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font face="Arial"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Being a core subject, for anyone unfortunate enough to have to teach anything else, is not simply an excuse to lord it through the corridors, pushing less important subject teachers out of the way in your haste to get to the next intervention class (pupils unilaterally removed from [insert any other subject here]), it’s also an invitation to take on the full burden of the school’s performance, and to squeeze all of the joy you once had in your subject out onto the educational chopping board and have it pummelled with a data rolling pin.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">But</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> why does English have this status? Why does this status exist at all?</span></font></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font face="Arial"><br></font></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font face="Arial"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Presumably, the core subjects are considered core because somebody decided that they are more important than the other </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">subjects</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. More relevant somehow to the betterment of society. Which, honestly, at least in the case of English anyway, is just not true as far as I can see. A good proportion of teaching English is about discussing and (over-)analysing bit</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">s</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> of writing, and speculating about why a writer might have chosen this or that particular word. Which I obviously think is awesome, but </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I’m</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> not sure it is more important, or intrinsically more relevant, than knowing how to cook a decent meal or why William was a Conqueror. What is more important than all that, and vastly more relevant, is being abl</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">e to read and write confidently. H</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">owever, as </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I’ve</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">written before, teaching English is not teaching reading. The conflation of English with literacy is a fallacy which is limiting our potential </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">to succ</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">essfully teach</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> both</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, and which is failing too many of the children in our schools. English teachers </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">don’t</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> have time to teach children how to read properly</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">:</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> we’re too busy planning our </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">twice-weekly, two-hour, 6am Year 7 </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; font-style: italic;">Christmas Carol </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">quotation memorisation booster sessions (one hour for non-PP pupils). Everything is so focused on how well they do in their exams, that </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">there’s</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> no time for love conquering all; it’s all about whether you can get them to memorise another 4 synonyms for </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; font-style: italic;">shows</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> before the next practice paper steam-rollers in.</span></font></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font face="Arial"><br></font></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font face="Arial"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Ensuring that children leave secondary school able to confidently read and write is a fundamental moral obligation which everybody involved in education needs to support, but, at the moment, the system just isn’t set up to ensure that it happens for everyone. For too many (i.e. more than zero) children, English lessons (and, most likely, all their other lessons as well, but I’m not in those) are boring and hard because it’s almost impossible to take part in what’s happening because they don’t really understand what it is they’re reading. There needs to be an accepted literacy benchmark, which schools need to ensure pupils reach before they leave. Really, it should be the only (academic) thing schools are judged upon.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">And</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> “Literacy”, as a stand-alone subject, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">should be </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">compulsory for e</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">veryone, until they meet that benchmark. For some people, that might be when they’</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">re in Year 7;</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">f</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">or </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">others, that</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> might be the last thing they ach</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ieve before they leave school: i</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">t doesn’t matter, as long as they do achieve it, and they receive the support they need to make sure they achieve it. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Which, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">at the moment</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, lots of children do not. The ones who </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">can’t</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> read well are being made to learn enough about how Shakespeare uses the weather (“Who can remember what it’s called? Path…</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">.?</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> Anyone…</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">.?</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">”) </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">to</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> get through their exam, and then being sent off into a world they can’t hope to fully understand, although they might (maybe) smile ruefully to themselves as they walk miserably down the street in the rain. “How Shakespearean!” </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">they’ll</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> chuckle to themselves.</span></font></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font face="Arial"><br></font></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font face="Arial"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">If we did end up with a dedicated literacy </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">curriculum, that </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">would mean English could become like other subjects. We could maybe take ourselves a bit less seriously.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> We could</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> try to teach children in Key Stage 3 so they actually liked our subject, so </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">they’d</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> choose it as an option. We could maybe teach them some stuff that </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">wasn’t</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> on an exam specification somewhere. And, maybe, it wouldn’t be so stressful for everyone. Unless it’s just me...?</span></font></span></p><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font face="Arial"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><br></span></font></span></div> nrjshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05275856635305161110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803712975191034936.post-19716295832528242842017-10-22T07:51:00.002-07:002017-10-22T07:51:41.323-07:00Once upon a time: starting at the beginning<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. First of all,
I should start by saying that I’m certain that what I’m about to say is nothing
revolutionary or new. In fact, I almost decided not to write about it because
it seems so obvious. However, it wasn’t obvious to me before, so perhaps it
will be of interest to someone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Last year, we started Year 7 with a great reading scheme of work based on a
fantastic book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“The Graveyard Book”</i>
by Neil Gaiman. Similar to every other year of my teaching career, we got
straight into reading the book, making inferences about the characters and
considering the effects of language and structure. By this time last year, our
pupils were able, with heavy modelling support and sentence starters, to write
about these things. But, round about June, it occurred to me that we’d actually
done them a disservice. In preparation for their end of year exams, we created
a set of revision resources which really went back to basics, starting off with exercises focused
on meaning, writers’ purpose and effects. As we did this, it occurred to me
this is how we should have started at the beginning of Year 7: at the
beginning.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This
might be an issue that is quite specific to our school, but I have realised
that the vast majority of our pupils just don’t understand stories. Many of
them have not been brought up with stories, not had stories read to them as
young children and don’t really understand the point of stories, which makes
developing a genuine understanding of what people are trying to do when they
write difficult. Pupils could diligently learn all the different language and
structural features and sentence starters, and churn out versions of the model
answers we’d worked through, but did not have a real feel for why any of it was
important. As a result, there were often moments when I would ask, “Why
has the writer done that? What effect does it have?”, and be faced with a room
full of blank faces. As a result, I decided to completely change our scheme of
work for Year 7 Term 1 and start with a very basic breakdown of what stories
are, and what the point of it all is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For no very good reason, other than me getting carried away
with beginnings, I decided to avoid the pressure of trying to get through a
whole novel, and chose to use a range of extracts, also starting at the
beginning with Hesiod and Homer, moving through to Beowulf. The rationale for
this was to try and plug some of the gaps in cultural capital which our pupils
have, while trying to build an awareness of how and why the stories have been
put together. The lessons involved a repeated focus on making sure the pupils
understood the meaning of the texts, borrowing an idea I picked up from Chris
Curtis about getting them to focus on what they don’t understand. We spent a
lot of time insisting that pupils didn’t simply ignore difficult words, but
used a range of techniques to decipher what such words mean. We also repeated
ad naseum the idea that the texts did not appear by magic, but were constructed
deliberately and methodically by the writers (one brilliant teacher in our
department, who is an MFL specialist, had his classes choral chanting, “Because
the writer chose it” in response to any questions about why anything happened
in the stories). We spent time discussing writer’s purpose, explicit and
implicit meaning and considering why the writers made the choices they did, as
opposed to any of the multitude of other choices they could have made. And only
towards the end of half term did we finally start to talk about what effect
these choices had on readers, and what inferences we could make about the
characters. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Being totally honest, it did feel at times like we were
moving very slowly, and having to cover some quite basic concepts several
times. In this regard, I was reassured by Shaun Allison and Andy Tharby’s
brilliant book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Making Every Lesson Count</i>
that it was better to persevere with something worth learning until they’ve
learnt it, rather than simply moving on because that is what my Medium Term
Plan dictated. In the end, we’ve moved lessons looking at Chaucer and Milton
and the use of language and structure into Half Term 2, rather than rushing
through them. And I think it has been worth it. I teach two Set 3 classes, and
I am confident that they are all now aware of what stories are and why they are
written, which I believe puts them in a much stronger position for the rest of
their study of literature. I’m also confident that they are now aware of at
least two culturally significant Homers, which is, in itself, no small thing.
The next step is to try and put this awareness to use: in Half Term 2 we are
going to focus more on their own writing, using a similar range of “classic”
extracts to inspire and inform what they write. I believe that, by going back
to the beginning, we’ve given our pupils a better start to KS3 and, ultimately,
a better chance of really engaging with their GCSE texts. Fingers crossed
anyway. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></div>
nrjshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05275856635305161110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803712975191034936.post-12527196731236929442017-08-19T07:10:00.000-07:002017-08-19T07:10:28.509-07:00On being afraid<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">I am a white man, racing headlong towards middle-age. I grew up in a stable and loving home, did well at school and went to a good university. My parents are still married, I still have a living grandparent, a happy marriage, a child. My mum and dad were both teachers so we always had enough money. I'm now a teacher and Mrs Shaw is a lawyer, so we both have good jobs and earn good salaries. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">I am privileged. I know.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Last night though, I experienced something which brought home to me just how privileged my life is. For the first time I can remember, I felt afraid to speak my opinion. And the fear came from the colour of my skin and my background. I wanted to get involved in a recent Twitter debate, but was afraid of the response I might receive if I did. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not equating me not wanting to receive some mean replies to a comment I make on Twitter with the fear that many people feel on a daily basis through no fault of their own. But it gave me a small insight into what it might be like to feel I had no voice. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">The reason for this is because, over the last couple of days, there has been a huge amount of vitriol thrown around on Twitter about racism and comments made by David Didau in a recent blog. I don't know if there is a link, as the blog suggested, between race and IQ. I don't even know whether there is a link between race and "success" at school (the tiny amount of research I have done seems to suggest that being eligible for Free School Meals is a more relevant measure). I also don't know whether any link which does exist actually has anything to do with genetics, although I hope that it doesn't.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">All I wanted to say last night was that, for all my own ignorance of the research and complete lack of any experience of prejudice, the attacks on Didau (and Tom Bennett) seemed wildly over the top, and the response (including accusations of a witch-hunt) equally so. I understand that 140 characters doesn't allow for much nuance, but we are teachers and should be aware that words are important. I have met Tom Bennett (briefly), and have never met David Didau (although I've heard him speak and read a lot of his work), but I can say with confidence that I don't believe either of them are racists. </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Didau's blog (as I read it) was about being aware of a possible link between race and performance in IQ tests so we can improve the life chances of people who often, and deeply unfairly, have fewer chances than others. And I don't know about anyone else, but that is why I became a teacher in the first place. Disagree with Didau if you like; question the validity of the research he quotes; argue with him (he appears to not be afraid of that). But what happened in response to his blog made me afraid to share my own opinion, and that made me angry. Angry enough to write most of this blog at 4am. Probably I should have been angry already. Angry about the lack of social justice in the world. Perhaps it's time I was shaken out of my privileged safe little world. But I didn't like that feeling, and it has made me even more committed to helping stop other people feeling that way. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Reading what Didau wrote, and some of what Benjamin Doxtdator has written in response, has raised my awareness of issues, my own ignorance and I'll keep reading. The reality is though that, whenever you look at data in relation to large groups of people (whether that's based on gender, race, favourite ice cream flavour, whatever), you can lose sight of the people themselves. </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">I'm in a fortunate position to teach people, not statistics. I read as much as possible so I am aware of trends that might be relevant to the children I teach, but I don't forget that they are all individuals. When I teach someone I think might be the victim of prejudice in their life (which, by the way, is pretty much all of them), I try to think what that means to them as an individual. There is a Chinese girl at my school. She might be the most committed, hard-working and dedicated pupil I've ever taught. Should I assume that she has pushy parents and might be stressed out? I teach the eldest son of an Indian family who is underperforming. Should I assume that he is indulged by his family and is perhaps a bit lazy? I refuse to do so. Just as I will always refuse to believe that anyone in my class room is genetically disposed to fail. I'll try and be aware of any research which suggests that certain groups of children are likely to face particular challenges, but I won't be slave to it. I won't think about how to motivate "Chinese girls"; I'll think about how to motivate this particular girl. I won't think about how to motivate "eldest Indian sons"; I'll think about how to motivate that particular boy in Period 6 on Friday. I won't think about how to teach "black children"; I'll think about how to teach each child in my room as well as I can.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">I tell all the children I teach not to be afraid, so I won't be. I tell them to challenge things they think are unfair, so I will. I don't know if there's a link between race and IQ (I don't even know whether I think IQ is a very good measure of anything very much, other than the ability to do IQ tests), but I do know what racism is and what bullying is and, as teachers, we have a duty to challenge one, but without resorting to the other. </span></span></span>nrjshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05275856635305161110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803712975191034936.post-76710816805804737202017-07-03T11:15:00.001-07:002017-07-03T11:15:51.873-07:00More dove, less hawk<span style="font-family: "uictfonttextstylebody"; font-size: 17px;">I'm 6'2" and weigh about 90kgs. I've got a shaved head (ok, I'm bald). In poor light (to hide the goofy grin), give me a black puffa jacket and a clip board and I could run the door at one of Tom Bennett's club nights. I thought this would help me when I started teaching; my stature, I thought, would lead to instant respect and painless behaviour management. It didn't. And I'm still trying to work out why. Here's what I've come up with so far. </span><br />
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Firstly, although I am big, I'm not tough. I've never been in a fight, and I have a tendency to cry at the slightest mention of a heart string. Nevertheless, I tried to play tough in my first weeks, have tried to play tough at the start of every year since and was still trying to play tough last September. I remember once (and I've only done it once) almost squaring up to a Year 11 boy with whom I was having a difference of opinion over his presence in my room (bizarrely, now I think about it, I wanted him to stay). It's embarrassing to recall, but I thought I had to have physical dominance to earn their respect. There has been quite a lot written recently about this, and, if you haven't already read them, I'd encourage you to check out <a href="https://allearssite.wordpress.com/2017/06/02/blogs-about-boys/" target="_blank">Mr Pink</a> and <a href="https://becausememories.com/2017/06/24/on-teaching-boys-and-violence-and-aggression-and-masculinity-and-assertiveness/" target="_blank">Thomas James</a>' blogs on the subject. My view is that, in my case, going for physical dominance is pointless. For a start, it's not genuine, and I suspect that's obvious. Secondly, the pupils know how powerless you are. And thirdly, and sadly, for some children, even if I was genuine, and was able to do something about it, I still wouldn't be the scariest person in their life. The truth is that s<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">ome of those pupils have more inclination, more ability and more reason to use violence than I ever will. </span>So, I've decided, why bother; it's exhausting and, more importantly, a waste of time (for me, anyway). I've decided that I'm no longer going to care about being physically dominant in the classroom. </div>
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Probably more important than this is the fact that I'm increasingly of the opinion that children, and some boys in particular, need to see that male role models come in all different flavours. I tell them that all I want is for them to be themselves, as hard as they can, so I need to model that. So I don't bang desks anymore (still get teased for that), and I try to not raise my voice (I'm trying to get quieter and quieter the more challenging anyone's behaviour becomes). It helps that my school currently only has Years 7 and 8, and that behaviour is generally fabulous anyway, but it seems to work at least as well as the tough guy approach, and is much easier for me. Plus, I think it's probably good for the children to see a big guy who's not tough, and doesn't seem to want to be. In Thomas James' wonderfully honest story, he got his respect partly through his power (although the guy is clearly a deeply committed and passionate teacher which I think is probably more important). I'm trying to get mine through a kind of relentless affability. Just as a very basic example, I now try and sit down if I'm going to tell someone off, rather than purposely tower above them. </div>
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It saddens me to feel like I need to make clear that this doesn't mean I've lowered my expectations in terms of behaviour. Perhaps you weren't thinking that, and it says more about what a way I still have to go to prove to myself that I haven't gone soft by being less tough. But I'd be lying if I said that I felt no pressure to be tough. Whether we like it or not, it seems like to me that there is a serious problem with the portrayal of maleness and masculinity in our society. People may point to role models like Obama and ... well, certainly Obama anyway, but, while he may be a fabulous example to us all, the former President may be a little far removed and rarified to be really meaningful for lots of children. All around us "real men" are presented as fighting things, winning things, sacrificing their emotional souls for victory at all costs. I think I'm pretty enlightened, yet I spent most of my pre-teens pretending to be Han Solo, a man with such stunted emotional intelligence that, when the women he loves says she loves him (as he disappears to what they both believe will be his certain death), his reply is, "I know". Part of me still thinks that's cool. What a dick (me I mean; he's a fictional character, after all). Google "boys toys" and Marvel at the array of superhero figures and a jolly multicoloured arsenal that could take out North Korea. I'm sure things are better than they used to be, but boys especially are surrounded by images showing them how they should be, and I'm actively conscious about raising my son to reject it. If there wasn't a problem, then would I take him to the swimming pool with his pink goggles and Barbie mermaid? Or maybe I'm just trying too hard? </div>
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In any case, I'm pretty sure that the last thing my pupils need to see is me desperately acting like a tough guy to try and earn their respect. In the end I think the boring truth is that I think all I've discovered is that it's best to just be myself, and, if that means waging war (a good manly metaphor) on stereotypes of what it means to be a man, then so be it. Huey Lewis had it right I think: The Power of Love is a curious thing and, amongst other things, turns a hawk to a little white dove. So that's the power I'm going for now: more dove, less hawk. </div>
nrjshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05275856635305161110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803712975191034936.post-56142601913013910902017-06-25T07:25:00.002-07:002017-06-25T07:25:33.298-07:00A marked improvement<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In November last year, my school was kind enough to let me go, along with our Deputy Head, to visit Michaela Community School. On the way down, we talked about what we were hoping to get out of the trip, and I told him that I was interested to learn more about their claim that they didn't mark books. Our Deputy Head is a PE teacher so, after I'd explained to him what marking was, he smiled politely and then carried on talking about behaviour policies or Pupil Premium funding or some such. The visit was overwhelming and incredibly thought-provoking - so much so that we didn't really talk much about the marking (or, rather, feedback) policy on the way home and I figured that would be the end of that.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I was wrong.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A couple of weeks ago, my school embraced the future. While it isn't quite the golden utopia of the greatest marking policy in the world ever (written, incidentally, by me: </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“There should be clear evidence that pupils and teachers have considered, and taken action on, pupil work on a regular basis”. S</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ee <a href="http://softlytreading.blogspot.com/2016/11/what-college-of-teaching-should-do-for.html" target="_blank">here</a> for more on that), it is pretty close. Essentially, each department has been told that we can develop a policy of providing feedback which best suits our subject and our classes. There are some general, best-practice guidelines, but they are not prescriptive, and we have been encouraged to be as creative and flexible as we can. The guiding principle is that, whatever we do, it needs to be sustainable for teachers, and make a tangible difference to the pupils we teach. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Honestly, it's brilliant. Our Head of Department was part of a pilot scheme involving a small number of teachers working on different ideas, and her approach, which she has adapted over a term, is the one we have adopted. And, the funny thing is, it's very similar to the way they approach feedback at Michaela (on this, read Joe Kirby <a href="https://pragmaticreform.wordpress.com/2015/10/31/marking-is-a-hornet/" target="_blank">here</a> and Jo Facer <a href="https://readingallthebooks.com/2016/03/19/giving-feedback-the-michaela-way/" target="_blank">here</a>). We read the pupils' work, make notes and then, in the next lesson, tell them what they have done well and what they can do to improve. Making comments in their books is not forbidden, so if a pupil is making a particularly idiosyncratic mistake, I'm at liberty to provide more detailed, individual feedback but, generally, written comments are at a minimum (handy if your handwriting is as bad as mine). It's simple, and, as far as it's possible to tell after a couple of weeks, really effective. I also take photos of excellent examples of work and talk through them in the follow-up lesson to break down why they were so good. I tend not to announce whose work it is on the screen and the pupils love trying to guess who produced it, and the looks on the faces of the authors is priceless. It has created a lovely atmosphere in the room as we talk about what makes a good piece of work and they then have a go at improving what they have done. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Marking a full set of books used to take me at least four hours. Some of the other teachers in my department have been completing a full set of books, and the prep for the response lesson, in less than an hour and a half. I haven't quite got down to that level of efficiency yet (see <a href="http://softlytreading.blogspot.com/2017/04/sorry-marking-its-not-you-its-me.html" target="_blank">here</a> for evidence of my marking problem), but I think that is partly due to the fact that we have been preparing for our end of year tests, and we have been covering a wide range of material. Nevertheless, last week I read the book of every pupil I teach, which I don't think I've ever done since I started teaching. And it was clear that, as I walked round my classes during their response time, they had a much better idea of how to make their work better than has been the case previously. It really does seem to be a better way to do things.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Although it is early days, I am confident that this approach will improve the quality of response work my pupils do, as well as making a fundamental change to the quality of my life and teaching, such is the reduction in the time is takes to complete my marking load. Having more time for myself and my family will make me a better teacher. Having more time to read up on my subject will make me a better teacher. And I believe that, by focusing more on what I really want the pupils to know, and planning for these regular feedback sessions to assess whether they know it, I will become a better teacher. I am excited about structuring schemes of work next year so they build to one of these feedback sessions (weekly, fortnightly, whatever makes sense); I am even more excited about getting more sleep, reading more books, doing more exercise and spending more time with my family.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I don't know what exactly prompted our Deputy Head to rethink the way we approach feedback, but I'm very glad he did. If you are still struggling under the load of a more prescriptive marking policy, I'd encourage you to mention it to whoever is in charge: there is another way.</span>nrjshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05275856635305161110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803712975191034936.post-3670828055502778112017-05-31T15:09:00.001-07:002017-05-31T15:09:09.295-07:00Can you teach language analysis by playing?<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I recently read <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/27/play-learning-work-lego-professor-cambridge" target="_blank">this</a> interesting article by Tom Bennett on the limitations of learning through play. I immediately (and sycophantically) responded to say that I agreed and thought play wasn't essential in order to teach language analysis. And it isn't. I'd go as far as to say that there is often no fun had by anyone in many of my lessons. Which, if I'm honest, does trouble me. Am I really as mean as Tom? Isn't he Government Overlord of Telling People Off or something? I started thinking about how I could use play. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Which made me think about YuGiOh and how brilliant lots of the children at my school are at it. YuGiOh is an essentially indecipherable card trading game played at impossible speed involving intricate, multi-faceted analysis of your own cards, and those of your opponent. I've watched it. It's been (very patiently) explained to me. I've got no idea how it works. But the children do, and they use complex analysis skills, the kind I despair of them ever showing in my classroom, effortlessly, automatically. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Which made me think about Daniel Willingham and the research finding that "poor" readers who knew about baseball understood text about baseball better than "good" readers. Willingham says that people are, generally speaking, pretty good at understanding things they know something about. David Didau has made a similar point <a href="http://www.learningspy.co.uk/learning/trouble-transfer-can-make-learning-flexible/" target="_blank">here</a>. Analysing isn't all that hard; it's knowing what to think about that's hard. I can analyse a piece of text because I know lots about what makes a piece of writing good, not because I'm great at analysing. I used to be able to analyse the flight of a cricket ball because I knew what was required to execute an elegant, graceful cover drive (so successfully that I regularly produced such masterpieces once, or even twice a season). But, despite these great analysis "skills", I can't analyse Beethoven's symphonies (or, if I'm honest, anything in the Little Mix discography) because I don't know anything about how music is put together or any of the vocabulary to explain it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So far, so dull. I then read another brilliant blog by Fiona Ritson (seriously, all her blogs are brilliant - read them <a href="https://alwayslearningweb.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">here</a>) about preparing students for Lang Paper 1 by using and deconstructing model answers. Then I went swimming. And while I was swimming I thought: I wonder if they could play YuGiOh with model answers? Trade different pieces of text based on the relative merits of their use of language? "My Dickens scores 5 stars for use of complex sentences!" "Beats my Orwell: 2 stars cause he never uses more than 5 words per sentence!" I mean, even writing it out is fun!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx_NpAISratvaxyObEeHMe6pVCDwH5bDLl3B-bLvZL1QieboqwlcSxwbBKXQM0CWkCkPTmWqK8EN3UF33X1LzEi6k_s2T2_rJ18I5eYV6CLqgAxZ1A4oc48oKi-N-1MXlfLuUB4anEUOcv/s1600/image1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx_NpAISratvaxyObEeHMe6pVCDwH5bDLl3B-bLvZL1QieboqwlcSxwbBKXQM0CWkCkPTmWqK8EN3UF33X1LzEi6k_s2T2_rJ18I5eYV6CLqgAxZ1A4oc48oKi-N-1MXlfLuUB4anEUOcv/s320/image1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, as I admitted earlier, I have no idea how YuGiOh works, so my game is basically Top Trumps. I'm going to write (or find) short pieces of text and, initially, rate them on their use of writing techniques (see the picture for an example - I just did this very quickly, so would appreciate some feedback on the categories! I think that it will be better with more specific categories). The children can have a few each and will play, trying to acquire as many cards as possible. At first I think I'll give them the ratings, so they'll only really be analysing the scores. However, they'll need to read and analyse the texts in the event of a tie. Nevertheless, they will be using the language they'll need to know to analyse the texts themselves when we get to that. When they're comfortable with that language, then I think I'll get them to rate (and write) the pieces of text themselves. Not only can they play, but they could also write up some of their classic plays (like those people who kept diaries of their Risk games): <i>My extract from Henry V was able to defeat the extract from <a dir="ltr" href="x-apple-data-detectors://0" x-apple-data-detectors-result="0" x-apple-data-detectors-type="misc" x-apple-data-detectors="true">Diary of a Wimpy Kid</a> because....</i> I mean, seriously, who isn't having fun in that lesson?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At this stage it's just an idea, but I'd appreciate any thoughts or ideas from anyone who has done something similar. Does it work?</span><br />
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nrjshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05275856635305161110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803712975191034936.post-69470126345895417492017-05-07T13:14:00.001-07:002017-05-07T13:14:14.603-07:00Education: more than just a numbers game<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Before he became the world's favourite football pundit, Gary Neville actually played football. Quite well. And I remember reading an article in which he said that, the morning after every game, he always looked in the papers to see what score he'd been given. If you're not a football nerd, you might not know that sports journalists often rate player performance in a game out of ten. And Gary loved it. Even though he knew it was nonsense. He knew it was impossible to look at his performance over 90 minutes in one match and come to a definitive conclusion as to how good he was at football. Yet, still he was desperate to know that score. He knew it was weird, but he couldn't help it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, arguably there's no meaningful comparison to make between this and educational assessment. I mean, football is a complex, multifaceted endeavour, requiring, as it does, players to not only run, but also kick and even occasionally head the ball. It's understandable that someone might question the validity of reducing that to a single digit score. However, let's indulge the conceit and pretend that the charge of oversimplification can be applied equally to 11 years worth of formal education as to a football match, and think about what that means. Gary Neville knew that score out of 10 didn't validly represent how well he had played in that game, let alone how good a footballer he was. It was no use to him as a means of understanding his strengths or weaknesses. It was of no benefit to an opposing manager who might be interested in buying him: "I need someone who's really good at heading a ball, I'm not so bothered about running. How about Gary Neville?" " He's an 8." "What does that mean?" "He's an 8. Or, at least he was in one game, last week."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is time to be honest: it is stretching credulity further than I'm stretching this nonsensical football metaphor to think that a list of numbers on a piece of paper represents somebody's education. It is of no benefit to the child, to a university or an employer. It says nothing about what a person knows, what a person can do or what a person could perhaps do. Yet we can't let it go. Read any research into assessment and you'll see: as soon as a teacher puts a grade on a piece of work, the child ignores any comment, despite the fact that it's the comment which will actually help them improve. It's almost as if it's impossible to imagine any other way. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But there is another way. My son is two and a half and goes to nursery near where we live. The wonderful people who look after him there have a sheet they use to tell us how he's getting on: the EYFS standards. I don't know much about it, but it seems to broadly set out a load of things under different headings which he should be able to do between 12-36 months. They colour in boxes when they see him doing stuff and they give us a copy and, because I'm a pushy middle class parent, I force him to do all the stuff they haven't coloured in at home, colour in my copy and tell them they need to update theirs. It's awesome. And, when he wasn't walking at 15 months when heaps of babies walk much earlier, it calmed me down to see his sheet had lots of coloured in boxes in other areas. It also meant that they could say to me that I shouldn't worry, that everyone develops in different ways and at different speeds and that he'd work out walking in his own time. Which is lucky because, if they'd told me he was "below target" or "working towards target" in walking, I might have renounced a lifetime of pacifism and punched someone on the nose. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm not sure it is such a stretch to imagine each subject area coming up with a sheet of things you need to know to understand that subject, or to imagine a way you could use that to assess people. You don't need a number to know what you can and can't do or what you do or don't know. We need to change the focus of our system from one obsessed with numbers to one obsessed with what children know and what they can do. To stop it being an examination system and start it being an education system. Until the question stops being what did I get, and starts being what do I know and what can I do then the system is doomed to gaming, stress and hysteria. Gary Neville knows, but he isn't going to be Secretary of State for Education any time soon. So we need to find someone to do something about it. Only, it can't be me: I'm off to find an 11+ tutor who doesn't think it's too late to start training my son. </span></div>
nrjshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05275856635305161110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803712975191034936.post-11254681112731165082017-04-11T16:09:00.000-07:002017-04-12T06:43:12.287-07:00Sorry, marking: it's not you, it's me.<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Wherein our hero, trying to make a change, starts with the man in the mirror.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I have a problem: I
am addicted to marking. I'm not proud, and I fully appreciate how wrong it is,
but, when I get that purple (has to be purple) pen, green highlighter and
orange highlighter in each hand, I can't stop. And, I've only just realised,
that is the problem: it's me. I'm the problem. (</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The absurdity of such a simple task requiring more tools than I have hands is for another time.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It might be that I'm the only person with this problem, and, if you're lucky enough to not suffer then there's no need to read any further. However, I suspect that I'm not the only one so, here are some thoughts which have inspired me to deal with my marking problem. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Causes</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I've realised that I have this problem for a number
of reasons, and none of them are particularly good reasons for maintaining the status quo. The main one is a</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> desperate need for praise or validation or something to cling to when I feel like a dreadful teacher. When I was
training someone once told me, most likely because there was nothing good to say
about the lesson they'd observed, that my marking was good (or, actually, if
I'm honest, they said it was "Good", which, at the time, seemed very
important). I'd spent hours on those books. So, I kept spending hours, because
I'd been told I was good at it, and I really wanted to be good. I still do, but I should know better what that means by now.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It has also occurred to me that I mark the way I do because of guilt. Or, more accurately, as a preemptive strike against possible future guilt. What if correcting that particular their/there
error is it? That's the one which convinces that child that it's important that
it's <b>their</b> coat over <b>there</b>? If I ignore it, will they forever be trying to get
over their? Over their what? Over their disappointing exam results directly
caused by their lazy, good for nothing teacher who didn't correct every SPaG
error?!?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That fear is almost certainly completely misplaced. But, it isn't the only fear driving my over-marking. I'm also afraid of work scrutiny. Of someone whose job title involves an acronym walking into my room, flicking through a book and not seeing clear evidence of hours of my work. Now, I've been teaching for five and a half years and I'm only really just beginning to realise how ridiculous that fear is. Why should they be looking for evidence of my work? Surely they're not, and, if they are, surely they're not doing whatever it is they are doing when they scrutinise work correctly? If anyone looks through the book of a child you teach and comments about that child's progress or the quality of their work by reference to what you have written, then consider very seriously whether you spend much of your time listening to what they have to say. The focus must be on the stuff the children write in their books, not what I write. If their work appears to be better half-way through the year than it was at the beginning, then maybe (although I'm afraid it's no better than maybe) whatever feedback strategies you're using are effective. If their work seems to be getting worse, then take a look at what you're doing and think about how to try and make it better. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Reasons to change</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A lot has been written about the effectiveness, or not, of marking and I don't plan to go through that here (other than to quote this from <a href="http://www.learningspy.co.uk/leadership/rounding-corner-back/" target="_blank">this</a> recent David Didau post "<i>no one knows whether marking is particularly effective and they certainly don’t know the best way to go about it</i>")</span>. <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">However, and this</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> is the really
embarrassing bit, I actually know for a fact that most of my marking is a waste of time. I wrote my
Masters dissertation on the effectiveness of written feedback. I did action
research on actual pupils which showed they hated responding to my comments.
The only time they did like it, was when it happened during the process of
their work, not afterwards (sometimes days afterwards) when they'd mentally put
that piece of work away. So, why am I spending so long writing comments which I
know they won't read? Aside from the causes above, I honestly don't know.</span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What I do know though is that it's important to be clear about one reason not to change which isn't a reason not to change at all: my school's feedback policy. These policies get a lot of stick and often that is perfectly valid. I set out my idea about what a sensible feedback policy would be <a href="http://softlytreading.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/what-college-of-teaching-should-do-for.html" target="_blank">here</a> (spoiler alert: it's one sentence which does not contain any words describing colours). However, m</span></o:p><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">y
school's feedback policy (unnecessarily rigid though it might be) is not the
enemy here. Marking is not the enemy. I am the enemy. I am the one writing all this stuff in their books. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Marking books can be a positive, even uplifting process, and I am certain that, at least some of the time, some of the children actually do benefit from reading some of the comments I write. However, s</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ome of the children benefiting some of the time from some of the comments is not a great return on the time I'm currently investing. I have a family, a social life (barely) and a place in a ludicrous sporting event in June for which I must start training properly. Moreover, my teaching will be better if I spend less time marking, more time
planning/reading/sleeping/doing other things. The pupils won't learn any less
if they receive one thoughtful, useful, relevant piece of advice they can
immediately put into practice than if I make them search for multiple comments scattered through their
book which they'll need to remember in a week's time when we do a similar task
again. Most likely, they'll get more from it. So, I'm going to train myself to
mark less. To focus more. There are lots of things which could be improved
about the education system to make my life as a teacher better, but I need to
remember that one of those things is me. Hopefully, it is the easiest thing to change. Make that change. </span></div>
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nrjshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05275856635305161110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803712975191034936.post-38457246400336636882017-04-02T15:36:00.000-07:002017-04-02T15:42:44.762-07:00Teaching English is not teaching Reading<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">First, an anecdote. There was once a rich and highly successful man, who enjoyed a fabulous lifestyle afforded him by his well paid and very glamorous job. He was, however, troubled and unhappy because he knew that, behind all the glitz, his life was a shallow and unfulfilling one. The reason: he was a poor reader. He never really understood what was going on around him. Determined to help children avoid finding themselves in a similar position, this man decided to use some of his money and fame to set up a school. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's a charming and heart-warming story, made only slightly less charming and heart-warming by the fact that it's made up; it's a story about a character called Derek Zoolander, and his school was the Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can't Read Good. Now, the reason for telling you that, or reminding you about it, is because I thought about Derek Zoolander today. I was thinking about teaching reading after spending a brilliant day at the ResearchEd English and MFL conference on Saturday. It occurred to me that a lot of the answers my pupils give to reading questions are a bit like Derek: they look great superficially, but the Blue Steel exterior masks insubstantial and feeble foundations. And it's because many of those pupils can't read good. I scaffold and I model and I give them sentence stems and quote banks and, eventually, with practice, they can produce answers which are decent. But, when that is all taken away, and it's just them and a piece of text, they can't do it. They can't understand what they are reading, so they can't make sensible inferences. They can't analyse the language. They can't tell me what the effect on the reader is (or, they could, but they don't want to hurt my feelings by writing: "nothing").</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As a secondary school English teacher, I can honestly say that I have little or no idea how to teach basic reading skills. I'm skeptical, and a bit baffled by, phonics (despite volunteering for some basic training on it earlier this year); I'm very old, and I don't remember how I learnt to read, but I know it wasn't like that. Nevertheless, I am staying open-minded and am happy to believe those more qualified and experienced than me who say that it does work. However, that doesn't mean that I'm currently in a position to teach someone who is struggling to read how to do it. Most teachers I know across different subjects will happily acknowledge that "literacy" is a whole school responsibility, and will commit to including reading in their lessons. Nevertheless, I suspect that they believe, really, that the English department are, or should be, teaching the pupils to read. But we're not. We are teaching them English, not Reading. We have specific subject knowledge and content to teach them, the same as every other subject. We have exam practice to do, the same as every other subject. We have exactly as much time as every other subject to teach children to read: none. And I think it is time that we recognised that no amount of literacy across the school initiatives, expectations that pupils read at home and repeatedly telling them to read for pleasure ("just keep trying different books - you'll find one you love!") is going to teach pupils who can't read how to do it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Talking about this dispassionately is hard because it often seems to degenerate into a blame game between primary and secondary teachers, ending up with an exchange you might hear in a nursery school: secondary teachers whining that "it was broken when I got it" and primary teachers responding, "it was fine when I left it. And anyway, you touched it last". But these children aren't damaged toys to be thrown away. This is too important for us to not work together to try and help them to read better. Because, and I don't claim any evidence of causation here, people who are poor readers die younger. They have diminished life chances. And that isn't fair. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So, although I can't speak for anyone else, here is a promise: primary school teachers, I don't think it is your fault if a child comes to my Year 7 class and can't read. There could be multiple reasons why that has happened. But, the fact remains that they can't. So, I need some help to teach them. If phonics is the best way to teach children to read, there should be phonics specialists in every secondary school. Children in Year 7 (and beyond, if necessary) need to have timetabled Literacy lessons, which are separate and distinct from their English lessons. If children come to secondary school as good readers, does anyone seriously believe it will harm them to also have a dedicated Literacy lesson? There was apparently a wonderful session at ResearchEd, which I didn't manage to see, on teaching Latin to improve literacy, so perhaps they could learn that?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There is a bit in Zoolander when Derek, looking at an architect's model of his proposed school, flies into an apoplectic rage because it is too small: "It needs to be at least three times this big!". When I first watched that film, before I was a teacher, I thought it was funny. Thinking about it now, it really isn't. It's really sad. But it is a decent metaphor for many attempts to improve literacy in secondary schools: they need to be bigger! At least three times as big! Making sure that everyone who passes through our schools can read confidently and accurately should be a fundamental obligation on all teachers, school leaders and government ministers. We should stop pointing fingers at each other and start trying to get this right. It is too important for us to keep getting it wrong. </span>nrjshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05275856635305161110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803712975191034936.post-40692134404113424792016-11-27T13:21:00.000-08:002016-11-27T13:21:04.837-08:00Can you hear the people sing, singing the song of angry men?<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Wherein our hero goes
to wrestle a tiger, and realises that it might actually be Tigger.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I went to Michaela Community School on Friday, and attended
their conference, “The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Teachers”, the following day. I
wrote down my reflection on my way home, and will perhaps publish that when I’ve
had chance to think it all over a bit further, and decide whether I’ve got
anything to say that Doug Lemov and Tom Bennett haven’t already said in their
excellent posts following their visits. Suffice to say, it is a remarkable
school, with remarkable people (pupils and staff). But when I woke up this
morning I’d been thinking about something else. I dreamed a dream: does it have
to be a battle?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If you’ve followed the social media output relating to
Michaela even vaguely, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the school was some
kind of Victorian work house, presided over by Gradgrindian ogres wielding canes
and destroying dreams (with a strong undercurrent that they are doing it for
their own gain). You’d also be forgiven for thinking that the staff were
defensive, short and, occasionally, provocatively opinionated. Some of the
conversations I have read on Twitter have genuinely shocked me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’ll be honest, until a few months ago I wasn’t aware of there
being “Progressive” teachers and “Traditional” teachers. But it turns out that
there is a battle going on, and everyone is supposed to take a side. The title
of the conference, the language used by several of the presenters, and the
attitudes exhibited by edutweeters on both sides, screams that a war has broken
out. In this context, Katherine Birbalsingh referred to Michaela being “on the
right side of history” during her opening address. And it made me think: we’re
teachers. All of us. Didn’t we all try and pick the right side when we decided
to do this, rather than something where you got paid decent money and didn’t
have to speak to teenagers all day?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Maybe I am just too soft for Twitter. Maybe all these
conversations are just locker-room banter. But they do upset me. As does the
implication that I’ve found myself on the “wrong” side of history because I
occasionally think my pupils might learn something from doing some role-play,
or talking about an issue with more than one other child. As does the fact
that, when I met and spoke to them, all the Michaela teachers were warm,
friendly, and open. Yes, deeply passionate and committed to their school and
their pupils, but so am I. Yes, confident and proud of what they’ve achieved,
and are achieving, but rightly so - I have never been in another school which
radiated positivity, love and the dedicated pursuit of excellence as much as
Michaela. To be honest, the enthusiasm, the love and the energy was more Tigger
than tiger. So why not show that face to the world? Why do we have to fight
about whether being a Progressive or Traditional is the only way to teach
children?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Cause here’s the rub. While we were all in the Michaela
dining hall laughing about how people used to think children had different
learning styles, and making me feel daft for making pupils put on different
coloured hats to have a group discussion, Rome is burning. We are bequeathing our
children a world of Trump, and Brexit, and child refugees, and ISIS. And while
good and smart and passionate teachers waste their time arguing with each other
about the right way to teach, children are simply not getting taught how to
deal with it. We are in a battle. I agree with Katherine Birbalsingh: we do
need a revolution. But, despite the strong words and robust discussions, I’m
sure that most teachers are more similar than we are different, and that we’re
more likely to create the revolution in education, and in social mobility and
in social justice, that Katherine wants, that we all want, if we work together
to find out what works best, rather than spending time searching for
differences and fighting about them. Katherine quoted Russell Crowe in
Gladiator yesterday (“What we do in life, echoes in eternity”), but he also said,
“Whatever comes through these gates, we have a better chance of survival if we
work together”. There are enough people who are ready to bash teachers, let’s
not spend time bashing each other.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So, I will follow Katherine onto the barricades and do what
I can in my own little way (as I said yesterday, after her barnstorming address
I would have followed her into Mordor. If you weren’t there, find it on the
live feed; whether you agree with her or not, it was quite something). But I
would like Debra Kidd and Tim Taylor to be on that barricade too, because I
agree with lots of what they say as well, and I think we all want the same
thing, and if you keep on telling people they are wrong they aren’t going to
want to come and visit you and find out what you’re doing and that will be a
shame because I think lots of what you’re doing probably is the way to win this
war. But I don’t know if it’s the only way. And I’d like for everyone to be
able to talk about it, without getting distracted by all this right/wrong,
good/evil, prog/trad stuff. And I think, now I’ve met you, that you maybe think
that too. We’re all the good guys. We need to remember that. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
nrjshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05275856635305161110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803712975191034936.post-14676075218563790172016-11-20T12:10:00.000-08:002016-11-20T15:54:20.602-08:00Talkin’ ‘Bout A Revolution…<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Wherein our hero bares
his soul to the reader and single-handedly saves the education system.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This time last year I was ready to quit teaching. I was
working hard, sacrificing time with my family and friends, not exercising and,
despite all this, I still felt that I wasn’t doing a good job. I wasn’t doing
enough. Some teachers I know, people I like and respect, told me that the trick
was to care a bit less. Which didn’t seem particularly satisfactory. So I
stayed lost for a while, and even tried to get another job. I was saved,
believe it or not, by Twitter. By Doug Lemov and Joe Kirby. By Debra Kidd and
Ross Morrison McGill. By all the other wonderful teachers and educators who
made me realise that the trick was not to care less, but to care more about
what really matters. So thank you, you’re all awesome.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Now, apart from providing a charming anecdote to engage the
reader, and displaying a pathetic level of sycophancy in a desperate attempt to
gain acceptance from some Twitter titans, what is the point of that opening
paragraph? And what has it got to do with Tracey Chapman? And, in fact, with
saving the education system? Well, as I was reading about Finland scrapping subjects
this week (which, of course, they are not doing; read <a href="http://www.teachertoolkit.me/2016/11/12/phenomenon-based-teaching/">this</a>
if you don’t believe me), I remembered something I thought about this time last
year as I stared into the abyss, but which I had forgotten because it seemed
too crazy. Seeing as, since this time last year, crazy seems to have become
more mainstream, I thought I’d share it:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Let’s scrap exams.</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Now, before you stop reading and start shaking your head at
the absurd naivety of such a statement, let me explain. I don’t mean that we
should stop teaching pupils the traditional subjects. I don’t mean that we
should teach them with any less rigour or passion, or that we should not hold
them to account for actually working hard and improving their skills and
knowledge in these subjects. What I mean is that we should start thinking about
what really matters, and to start caring more about that. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Ask yourself this: what is stressful for about school?
Remembering which pen to mark your books with, you might say. Remembering to
mark all your books, full stop. Planning lessons which stretch and engage all
pupils, all the time, taking account of the different (and sometimes
contradictory) needs of your PP, EAL and SEND pupils, perhaps. All of these
things are stressful, but they are all stressful mainly because, in the back
(/front) of your mind, is the knowledge that, at some point in the future, the
smiling, innocent darlings in front of you are going to walk into an exam hall,
turn over an exam paper and be expected to provide sufficient evidence that
they have made at least the same amount of progress over the previous five
years of schooling as the average pupil (whoever that is). And, moreover, if
they don’t, it’s your fault. And it isn’t
just stressful for teachers. Many, many pupils, under our current system, are
essentially told at the age of 16 that they have “failed” school. How can that possibly
be right? A great teacher I know, George Stroud, said to me earlier this year:
we have an examination system, not an education system. How can that be right?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">However, that doesn’t get us very far. What will pupils
leave school with, if they don’t walk away with a set of exam results? I think that
we could do a lot worse than this: at the end of Year 11, all pupils take a
test which assesses them on a varied set of skills which can actually be
translated to things which will be useful to them in the future. I don’t profess
to know exactly what this set of skills should be, but it might look something
like:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<ul>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Creative thinking</span></span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Analytical thinking</span></span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Literacy</span></span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Numeracy</span></span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Communication skills</span></span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Teamwork</span></span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You might disagree, or argue about what each of those things
mean, but that level of detail can be ironed out. The important thing is that
the set of skills is non-hierarchical and is reflective of who the pupil is and
what they can do. It focuses and celebrates what they are good at. A 16-year old
would know that they were pretty good at working in teams and being creative,
but that they weren’t so great at analysing and communicating. And, equally as
important, colleges, universities and employers would understand that too.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At this stage, you might very well ask why you should listen
to any of this at all. I’m just some English teacher in Manchester. But, I did
work for 4 years as a lawyer and for 5 years as a recruitment consultant before
I became a teacher, and I sit on the Student Support and Access Committee at my
old university, so I know something about the way people in the real world (or what
constitutes the real world in the spheres of law, recruitment and higher
education) thinks about exam results and how useful they are when making
decisions about whether to admit or recruit someone. Which, frankly, is not
very much. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So, just imagine with me for a minute. Imagine that you
could teach the subject that you love, in the way you want to teach it. Imagine
being able to focus on giving pupils the knowledge and skills they need to
actually really understand and be good at your subject, rather than just be
good enough to get through an exam. Imagine if the focus of the entire process
was on the individual pupil and helping them to become a better, more mature,
more knowledgeable, more self-aware version of themselves, with an
understanding of the meaning and value of the things they are good at. Imagine
if no-one “failed” school. Imagine if large groups of pupils didn’t have to
spend huge chunks of Year 11 being intervened upon because it looked like they
might not make at least “average” progress. Just imagine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It's probably just madness. But, as I said, it
is in the air. Tracey knew, revolutions start with a whisper. Well, I’m
whispering. Feel free to ignore it.</span></span>nrjshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05275856635305161110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803712975191034936.post-2071577701359033942016-11-11T15:24:00.000-08:002016-11-13T13:04:53.467-08:00What the College of Teaching should do for me<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Like Jose Mourinho, the College of Teaching needs some goals.
The College has talked a good game and, I’m sure, has put in a lot of honest
toil in pursuit of…well, whatever it is they’ve been pursuing. But the results
have been, as far as I can see, pretty limited. The College’s stated aim of “championing
higher standards” by “promoting the wider professional use of evidence to
inform teaching practice and policy” is laudable, but this need is already
being filled by bottom-up initiatives like ResearchEd and Northern Rocks which
continue to go from strength to strength. So, I’ve got an idea: the role of the
College of Teaching should be very simple – to make my life (as a teacher)
easier. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A major problem with being a teacher is having to do lots of
things which I’m not sure really make much positive difference to the children
I teach, but not being in a position where I feel empowered enough to refuse to
do them. And, I suspect, this goes for people in actual positions of power.
Things get done so they can be seen to be done. Accountability has become king
and being able to provide evidence for something has replaced a focus on
actually doing the thing. Properly. On more than 4 hours sleep. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So, this is what I’d like the College of Teaching to do: </span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Give the teaching profession a sense of itself and an understanding of its
importance and power in society. Instead of giving teachers access to information
which we can access ourselves in 10 minutes on the internet, teach us how to
get our hands on the means to shape our own destinies, our own lives. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There should
be training for teachers, people who have actually been an adult in a
classroom, to develop political or advisory careers so more people with
experience of doing the job are making the decisions about how to do the job. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There should be pressure brought to bear on the people who make those decisions
to ensure that the education system is recognised as being too important to be
left to blow in the wind of the political storm. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There should be someone trying
to make sure that there’s at least one newspaper headline a week along the
lines of, “Teacher works really hard, quite often in their own time, trying to
improve the lives of people other than themselves”, rather than the endless
barrage of reports about falling standards and recruitment drain. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There should
be a celebration of the brilliant work which goes on every single day, in every
single school, for which the people doing the actual work barely get a thank
you (of which more, perhaps, another time). </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There should be a body working to
make teachers feel good about themselves. And that body could be the College of
Teaching.</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And here’s one thing they could do to make a start with that
immediately. Most schools have a marking and feedback policy which specifies
how and how frequently books should be marked. Certainly the schools I’ve
worked in all have. The College should announce a recommendation that every
school’s marking and feedback policy be changed to this:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>“There should be clear evidence
that pupils and teachers have considered, and taken action on, pupil work on a
regular basis”.</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I know why I mark books. I understand why it’s important. I
want my pupils to get better at what I’m teaching them. I suspect that most
teachers are the same. And I suspect that most teachers would appreciate being
trusted to provide feedback to their pupils in the manner which best suits
them, the work being studied, the current workload of the teacher (and the
pupils) and the nature of the feedback. Sometimes I’d like to give whole-class
structured feedback on a piece of work. Sometimes it might make more sense to
give detailed individual feedback to each pupil. I’d like to have the choice.
What I do know is that, every time I read a piece of work, in fact practically
every time I ask a pupil a question in class, I reflect and take action on it
and try to do something about the mistakes and misconceptions I notice. And,
because I understand that it is important that I am accountable for what I do,
I’d be happy to provide evidence for that, because it would be easy: “Dear HoD,
none of my class used quotes in their recent piece of work, so I’m going to
focus on that next lesson. That ok with you?”. My teaching would improve and, I’m
sure, my pupils (and my family) would benefit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I don’t have anything against the idea of the College of
Teaching. Quite the opposite in fact. If I hadn’t been so worried about how
much time it would take up, I would have applied to be a Trustee over the
summer. But, College of Teaching, there it is, my request to you is simple:
your goal shouldn’t be to point me in the direction of some research papers; it
should be to change my life. As anyone who has had to watch Manchester United
play this season will tell you, Jose spent £200m and, essentially, has no idea
where his goals are coming from. College of Teaching, I’ve just given you one,
and it’s not cost you anything!</span></div>
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nrjshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05275856635305161110noreply@blogger.com0