I am trying to get through a year without shouting.
It's hard work because I'm good at shouting. By that, I mean, I'm very good at commanding a room with my voice. I should have had a career in the military really. Apart from the fact I'm a cowardly pacifist with no discernible fight mechanism I'd have fitted right in.
Anyways, where was I? Tuesday. Oh yes, I was talking about not shouting. It's not like I shout AT learners. No one has done that since at least 2008. Ever. Fact. It's more that I shout over them. My voice is like a klaxon at the end of the shift so to speak. So, I'm trying the 'teacher puts their hand up and the class raise their hand in response thing' as it's officially called in all good education textbooks.
For the following reasons:
1: I use a lot of discussion and group work. It's probably best that tasks come to a gradual halt as opposed to me yelling 'RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!!!!' and clapping my hands like a maniac and expecting the students just to stop thinking and talking the moment I decide time is up.
2: For a long time my teaching style was built on manic enthusiasm but I've learnt to reign it in and apply it at the right time. I think this is just an extension of that.
3: My voice. My poor voice.
4: The learners who are deep in concentration must jump out of their skin as I bellow at the top of my lungs.
5: I like to try to model a sense of calm and focus.
Why am I even blogging about this? I think simply to record that I've committed to it and also reflect that after a week or so of doing it, even the students who know me and my style have happily conformed. It also pains me to say that it works because I seem to recall learning this technique a few years ago in a CPD session and dismissing it on the basis that whoever was delivering the session spent an hour explaining it like it was alchemy. In a way, I wanted it not to work. But... it does. So far. Can't really see why it will stop.
Also Google has a timer. That still thrills me.
Tuesday, 13 September 2016
Monday, 12 September 2016
Digital Lobotomy. Bearded tits and the exam system.
So, you get asked to do a presentation on something. Anything really. It could be the pollution of the seas by plastic, a history of theatrical stage design or an evaluation of the branding possibilities of paralympic sportspeople. Whatevs (as young people said a few years ago)
You go (or at least I do and reckon you probably do too) for the internet.
You start to research, looking for zippy phrases, interesting reading, nuggets of useful information, particularly striking photographs, maybe a whole series of youtube documentaries or even, if you are feeling particularly researchy and need hard serious sources quickly, an ebook.
You don't think twice. You're not cheating, you're living, you're planning, you're constructing something from the ether, the collective thought, surfing the wave of knowledge so to speak.
You're not cheating. Lets be very, very clear. You are not cheating. Perhaps, you could, if you wanted wait till you have a free Saturday, go down to your local library, order some books, wait another 2 weeks for them to arrive and then spend hours reading no doubt fascinating information, sifting the information for the salient points.
You'd probably be a wiser person, but I doubt your presentation would be ready on time.
The internet is basically brilliant. I can find out anything I want. Look, I'll go and find something new out now. t's 20:54. I'll be back in a minute...
20:56: There's such a bird as a bearded reedling. You can see them on the Norfolk coast. This is news to me
20:57: I wonder if Bearded Reedlings are rare?
You go (or at least I do and reckon you probably do too) for the internet.
You start to research, looking for zippy phrases, interesting reading, nuggets of useful information, particularly striking photographs, maybe a whole series of youtube documentaries or even, if you are feeling particularly researchy and need hard serious sources quickly, an ebook.
You don't think twice. You're not cheating, you're living, you're planning, you're constructing something from the ether, the collective thought, surfing the wave of knowledge so to speak.
You're not cheating. Lets be very, very clear. You are not cheating. Perhaps, you could, if you wanted wait till you have a free Saturday, go down to your local library, order some books, wait another 2 weeks for them to arrive and then spend hours reading no doubt fascinating information, sifting the information for the salient points.
You'd probably be a wiser person, but I doubt your presentation would be ready on time.
The internet is basically brilliant. I can find out anything I want. Look, I'll go and find something new out now. t's 20:54. I'll be back in a minute...
20:56: There's such a bird as a bearded reedling. You can see them on the Norfolk coast. This is news to me
 |
| A Bearded Reedling (probably unaware of it's place at the heart of this polemic) |
20:59: I'm not entirely sure how rare they are, but I do know now they are also found in Belarus and Azerbaijan
21:00: Still not sure how rare they are, but I've discovered they are sexually dimorphic. I've connected this to other things, like mallards and pheasants as it means difference in character/appearance beyond the sexual organs. This is a phrase I've either never heard of or have erased along with almost all of my GCSE biology. Exploring further and using my brain I've realised many things are sexually dimorphic and that sea mammals tend to display the biggest size differences between gender. I'm on a roll.
21:03: I'm pretty certain they are what is also known as the Bearded Tit (insert hilarity here) and there's between 1/4 and 1/2 a million pairs of them in Europe.
21:06: Ok, controversy hunters. It seems the reedling is a tit, but not a tit. It seems it was placed with the tit family before then being catagorised as a parrot bill but then (get this!) it wasn't one of those either and it was placed in it's own category entirely... called 'Panuridae'
21:08: Further research suggests that the 'Panuridae' family is an umbrella term which includes Parrotbills and the bearded tit.
I could go on. I really could. But this blog started as a process of self reflection and a chance to air my thoughts in the hope somebody would respond and subject them to lavish praise and promote me to shadow education minister , critical rigour. I'm not sure further delving into the world of small birds will hasten this process.
The point is, I can turn raw information into knowledge. I can research and find things at the drop of a hat. So can young people. It's quite a feature of my job role at work as I'm sure it is in yours. I've found it's had an effect on things like my short term memory. Who really needs one of those eh? I've learnt new ways to improvise round this. Google Keep is a godsend. Alarms on my phone.
Sometimes I even wonder if I'd like to put the genie back in the bottle. It doesn't fit though. The genie got fat and used to living a free range live and me and the genie just need to learn to co-exist.
The young people need to learn to live with him too. He's a scary genie sometimes. He can grant wishes and not all wishes are good. Some of the wishes are though. Some of the wishes are amazing. Some of the wishes could change the entire face of life and learning.
Yet we send them into rows of drafty, echoing halls, year after year, armed with a pen and a piece of paper and then wonder why they are disconnected from education. We wonder why they roll their eyes and sigh at endless 'technique' classes and being drilled to remember stuff half of which is going to be outdated by the time they have picked up the exam certificate.
We tell them 'it proves you can learn' or 'it's what employers want' as if the only reason to get an education is for someone else. It's not about teasing threads of enquiry or following a trail of curiosity. It's so 'you can get a sticker which proves you can learn'
We chastise them for 'being bored' then rush to the staffroom to check social media and I think we're threatened. We're threatened by a world that doesn't need us to learn things.
It does need us to learn to learn things though. We could do a such an incredible job if outside the idea of the 'connected classroom' we also had 'connected exams.'
Lets start by introducing a new GCSE - we'll call it GCSE Information Synthesis.
It's going be a 3 hour long exam. The question paper will be as follows:
"Take a topic of your choice (or choose one from the list below) and present your learning on that topic in the form of an engaging presentation which demonstrates knowledge of the subject and of any debates or arguments surrounding it
- You should use your own words and clearly cite the sources of any quotes you use in support of your argument or explanations
- You may link to webpages to support your work, alternative you may choose to screenshot any data, images or statistics you wish to use"
We'll make the mark scheme up another day. I'm bored of writing the paper now. You get the idea though. You get a U for trying to hack into a VPN so you can look at porn. That much I've decided.
There's no earthly reason in my mind that can excuse the failure of the exam system to even acknowledge the 21st century. It makes me angry. It shapes my lessons. That makes me angry.
We don't even think of giving learners the chance to showcase the kind of skills they'll actually need to possess in the 21st century.
Sunday, 11 September 2016
Can you be both a perfectionist and a teacher?
Let's be clear. I'm not a perfectionist. Far from it. There are things I have very high standards about and other things I'll let slide. I think that's as true in terms of my attitude towards myself as it towards others.
During the term, their are many aspects of my practice and many aspects of my life that leave something to be desired. Be it the confusing mess of half finished ideas I call paperwork or the fact my partner and I sometimes talk for about a total of 20 minutes in a week.
I'm sanguine. This is the job. My resources are good. I'm focussed in the classroom, I try new things. I use objectives and criteria for success, AFL and I'm approachable and calm. I help colleagues plan, I create things for our department marketing, I run visits, I run CPD, I cover lessons, I attend union meetings, I am working parties and I offer strategies for issues college wide. I run extra curricular activities. I write lengthy and personal comments on work with literacy guidance and strategies to improve. I read with my child, I run around the house with a hoover, I cook food and freeze portions of it. I even sometimes go for a walk in the countryside or read a book. I almost never, ever, never, ever have a day off.
Were I to really dedicate myself to being any better at any one of the weaknesses (personal or professional) that are not directly focused on my classroom practice I'd probably keel over. I'd have days off. I'd not get the marking done. My partner would leave me (justifiably). My child wouldn't get his book read to him and the house wouldn't get hoovered.
That's OK, because my standards aren't so high that I can't cope when things aren't perfect.
It makes me laugh when you hear rhetoric about hiring 'only the best people' into teaching as if there isn't already a load of great people walking away from it.
I do wonder if the fact it's almost impossible to get a sense of a job really well done, or perhaps more accurately, a sense of 'completeness' is one of the reasons for the high turnover of teachers. It would be interesting to do some sort of survey about how NQT's saw themselves at the outset of their career and how they saw themselves now.
I'd be surprised if many of them remained 'perfectionists'
During the term, their are many aspects of my practice and many aspects of my life that leave something to be desired. Be it the confusing mess of half finished ideas I call paperwork or the fact my partner and I sometimes talk for about a total of 20 minutes in a week.
I'm sanguine. This is the job. My resources are good. I'm focussed in the classroom, I try new things. I use objectives and criteria for success, AFL and I'm approachable and calm. I help colleagues plan, I create things for our department marketing, I run visits, I run CPD, I cover lessons, I attend union meetings, I am working parties and I offer strategies for issues college wide. I run extra curricular activities. I write lengthy and personal comments on work with literacy guidance and strategies to improve. I read with my child, I run around the house with a hoover, I cook food and freeze portions of it. I even sometimes go for a walk in the countryside or read a book. I almost never, ever, never, ever have a day off.
Were I to really dedicate myself to being any better at any one of the weaknesses (personal or professional) that are not directly focused on my classroom practice I'd probably keel over. I'd have days off. I'd not get the marking done. My partner would leave me (justifiably). My child wouldn't get his book read to him and the house wouldn't get hoovered.
That's OK, because my standards aren't so high that I can't cope when things aren't perfect.
It makes me laugh when you hear rhetoric about hiring 'only the best people' into teaching as if there isn't already a load of great people walking away from it.
I do wonder if the fact it's almost impossible to get a sense of a job really well done, or perhaps more accurately, a sense of 'completeness' is one of the reasons for the high turnover of teachers. It would be interesting to do some sort of survey about how NQT's saw themselves at the outset of their career and how they saw themselves now.
I'd be surprised if many of them remained 'perfectionists'
Saturday, 10 September 2016
Exam boards: Could do better?
A fairy routine workout tonight. In a way I'm writing for the sake of writing here. It's been good doing this and I don't want to lose the habit.
Ok.
Exam Boards. No one likes them, they don't care.
I've never met a teacher or a student who has said 'I really like OCR/WJEC/AQA/the other ones - I feel they really make the role of being an educator or learner as easy as possible'
So, here's a few thoughts about how they could be different.
1: Do we really need loads of them? I don't really understand why they exist when you could easily build variation into one national exam board by offering options in terms of which papers were sat. It all feels a bit like privatised busses - the choice for the actual consumer (the learner) is notional and they just catch whatever bus turns up at the bus stop/classroom they are sat in.
2: Why do they do so little? Specifically, why do they offer so little to learners? I can only go from the subjects I've taught and the discussions I've had with colleagues, but when you visit the exam board website, there is nothing especially helpful to learners. This is particularly galling when they write criticisms of the way teachers prepare learners but leave teachers guessing for the exact content the examiner has in mind or the depth required in a question. Try impression marking based on bands with a single assessment objective. 'A good knowledge of context...' - What context? 1940? Where to we begin/end? National, international, political, social, fashion, economic etc etc.
Exam boards could easily offer some useful resources online to help student build skills related to the exam or to help explain the nuances of exam criteria, but they don't. At best there's a few half arsed attempts at modelling an A grade and often these are in a 'secure area' for teachers where it takes 20 minutes to navigate through various documents just to find out what the criteria for different units actually are.
3: The criteria themselves. This one is the big one for me. As a reasonably educated adult, who has attempted to continue his education through reading, not watching X-factor and sometimes listening to programmes with Melvin Bragg in them, I would hope to be able to understand the criteria for exams for people more than half my age. The thing is, I sometimes don't. It's the way they are written. IT makes me yearn to be a science or Maths teacher. I sit with the criteria, thinking, 'what exactly do they want?' It's not that I don't understand the words, it's just like they've come out of the mouths of a lawyer or something.
If I can't understand them without reference to exemplar material, I really wonder if my students (who often have the added barrier of not understanding some of the individual words) have any chance at all.
The thing is, learners are pretty good at writing criteria. In a class, I'll say 'we're going to do a thing, how are we going to judge it?' and they'll come up with a perfectly serviceable definition of outstanding, acceptable, not good enough or 'gold/silver/bronze' or whatever labels we apply to the criteria for success.
If a group of young people can come up with some plain English definitions that often inspire really excellent work, why can't the exam board who presumably don't have the distractions of adolescence and more than 10 minutes in groups of 3 to do so?
- I'm not a teacher who tries to 'play the game' especially - I sometimes think I should push learners more to apply for remarks and enforce more B grade students to resit in the hope of boosting value added. God knows, the affluent do. However, having had a lousy set of grades on one exam unit I have harangued managers and students into shelling out cash that neither the learners or the institution has on a set of remarks. (hoping to trigger a full review of the paper.) What galls me is the learners don't really need the higher grades or extra UMS points. I do though. I do because my performance management is based on it. I do because my own planning is based on experience and evidence.
As it is, I am deeply baffled. With a similar set of learners our centre (which is me) destroyed the same unit last year. We (I) changed little, tweaked the bits we thought could make things even better, up the A's, get a few more A* etc. I had no days off, no particular issues with the groups felt reasonably confident based on in year performance of at least respectable results for the learners who broadly expressed that they felt well prepared for the exam and expressed gratitude that I'd been thorough and rigorous.
So - what do I do as a teacher in this situation? I have to be the translator of the criteria. If I trust previous years experience I understand what the language means and am capable of conveying a broadly accurate sense of what is required to achieve success. If I trust this years results for the unit I am not fully understanding their meaning and should be saying something different. Do I tear my course apart and remake it, or do I trust my previous judgement and stick with the broader structure and just do the usual updating/review of activities?
The answer is, in search of clarity I bung the exam board £40 a time for 15 minutes work. That really, really, really annoys me. I know if I throw a tantrum and demand to speak to someone they'll suggest 'why not be a marker again?' for which they'll pay me considerably less than £40 per script for the privilege of spending even less time doing anything of human value and I'll be expected to mark an insane number of essays in my spare time, whilst still teaching and writing CPD and making links with feeder schools and everything else, like it's the equivalent degree of importance as hanging out the washing or walking the dog or attending an introduction to mindfulness (aka - not thinking about the shit that is shit and makes you want to put you fist through a wall).
- Finally, how expensive is the photocopier at these exam boards? I thought all these papers were digitised and there was a revolution in online marking? Why is it £10 a go just to look at why the grades are what they are?
So - solutions?
1: Make them far more student facing. Teachers can spend more time on the subject material - teaching improves.
2: Make them update their student facing material every year based on their impression (they do mark all the papers for heaven's sake) of student's skills gaps. Again, helps guide teachers and gives them more time to motivate, engage, assess individually and all the good stuff.
3: Radically overhaul the exam marking system. If there was one exam boards, all teachers could be given inset at a point in the year and mark a much smaller sample of work. Everyone get's the CPD of examining, the exam board isn't crawling around desperately looking for anyone with a pulse and a passing interest in the subject. The exam boards could still employ outside markers to ensure the sample sizes small.
4: Don't send an entire centre to a single examiner. People's career's depend on this. People's mortgage payments. Really. I once got a paper back and discovered moderation by a team leader had altered the grade by five levels. That's the entire range of grades available for that particular exam. That's like going to a football match and mistaking a 5-0 win for a 5-0 defeat.
5: The criteria again. If they were so well written, how does this happen? If they were more clearly expressed, either more explicit or just expressed in plainer English then it couldn't be much worse.
This is the least invigorating or interesting blog I've done so far, but we live in an accountability culture and I have to be able to account for learner's performance in exams. If I could trust the exam board a bit more and if the learners could get a bit more clear info directly, I'd probably spend less time doing 'Easter exam camp' and more time teaching the actual stuff of life.
Ok.
Exam Boards. No one likes them, they don't care.
I've never met a teacher or a student who has said 'I really like OCR/WJEC/AQA/the other ones - I feel they really make the role of being an educator or learner as easy as possible'
So, here's a few thoughts about how they could be different.
1: Do we really need loads of them? I don't really understand why they exist when you could easily build variation into one national exam board by offering options in terms of which papers were sat. It all feels a bit like privatised busses - the choice for the actual consumer (the learner) is notional and they just catch whatever bus turns up at the bus stop/classroom they are sat in.
2: Why do they do so little? Specifically, why do they offer so little to learners? I can only go from the subjects I've taught and the discussions I've had with colleagues, but when you visit the exam board website, there is nothing especially helpful to learners. This is particularly galling when they write criticisms of the way teachers prepare learners but leave teachers guessing for the exact content the examiner has in mind or the depth required in a question. Try impression marking based on bands with a single assessment objective. 'A good knowledge of context...' - What context? 1940? Where to we begin/end? National, international, political, social, fashion, economic etc etc.
Exam boards could easily offer some useful resources online to help student build skills related to the exam or to help explain the nuances of exam criteria, but they don't. At best there's a few half arsed attempts at modelling an A grade and often these are in a 'secure area' for teachers where it takes 20 minutes to navigate through various documents just to find out what the criteria for different units actually are.
3: The criteria themselves. This one is the big one for me. As a reasonably educated adult, who has attempted to continue his education through reading, not watching X-factor and sometimes listening to programmes with Melvin Bragg in them, I would hope to be able to understand the criteria for exams for people more than half my age. The thing is, I sometimes don't. It's the way they are written. IT makes me yearn to be a science or Maths teacher. I sit with the criteria, thinking, 'what exactly do they want?' It's not that I don't understand the words, it's just like they've come out of the mouths of a lawyer or something.
If I can't understand them without reference to exemplar material, I really wonder if my students (who often have the added barrier of not understanding some of the individual words) have any chance at all.
The thing is, learners are pretty good at writing criteria. In a class, I'll say 'we're going to do a thing, how are we going to judge it?' and they'll come up with a perfectly serviceable definition of outstanding, acceptable, not good enough or 'gold/silver/bronze' or whatever labels we apply to the criteria for success.
If a group of young people can come up with some plain English definitions that often inspire really excellent work, why can't the exam board who presumably don't have the distractions of adolescence and more than 10 minutes in groups of 3 to do so?
- I'm not a teacher who tries to 'play the game' especially - I sometimes think I should push learners more to apply for remarks and enforce more B grade students to resit in the hope of boosting value added. God knows, the affluent do. However, having had a lousy set of grades on one exam unit I have harangued managers and students into shelling out cash that neither the learners or the institution has on a set of remarks. (hoping to trigger a full review of the paper.) What galls me is the learners don't really need the higher grades or extra UMS points. I do though. I do because my performance management is based on it. I do because my own planning is based on experience and evidence.
As it is, I am deeply baffled. With a similar set of learners our centre (which is me) destroyed the same unit last year. We (I) changed little, tweaked the bits we thought could make things even better, up the A's, get a few more A* etc. I had no days off, no particular issues with the groups felt reasonably confident based on in year performance of at least respectable results for the learners who broadly expressed that they felt well prepared for the exam and expressed gratitude that I'd been thorough and rigorous.
So - what do I do as a teacher in this situation? I have to be the translator of the criteria. If I trust previous years experience I understand what the language means and am capable of conveying a broadly accurate sense of what is required to achieve success. If I trust this years results for the unit I am not fully understanding their meaning and should be saying something different. Do I tear my course apart and remake it, or do I trust my previous judgement and stick with the broader structure and just do the usual updating/review of activities?
The answer is, in search of clarity I bung the exam board £40 a time for 15 minutes work. That really, really, really annoys me. I know if I throw a tantrum and demand to speak to someone they'll suggest 'why not be a marker again?' for which they'll pay me considerably less than £40 per script for the privilege of spending even less time doing anything of human value and I'll be expected to mark an insane number of essays in my spare time, whilst still teaching and writing CPD and making links with feeder schools and everything else, like it's the equivalent degree of importance as hanging out the washing or walking the dog or attending an introduction to mindfulness (aka - not thinking about the shit that is shit and makes you want to put you fist through a wall).
- Finally, how expensive is the photocopier at these exam boards? I thought all these papers were digitised and there was a revolution in online marking? Why is it £10 a go just to look at why the grades are what they are?
So - solutions?
1: Make them far more student facing. Teachers can spend more time on the subject material - teaching improves.
2: Make them update their student facing material every year based on their impression (they do mark all the papers for heaven's sake) of student's skills gaps. Again, helps guide teachers and gives them more time to motivate, engage, assess individually and all the good stuff.
3: Radically overhaul the exam marking system. If there was one exam boards, all teachers could be given inset at a point in the year and mark a much smaller sample of work. Everyone get's the CPD of examining, the exam board isn't crawling around desperately looking for anyone with a pulse and a passing interest in the subject. The exam boards could still employ outside markers to ensure the sample sizes small.
4: Don't send an entire centre to a single examiner. People's career's depend on this. People's mortgage payments. Really. I once got a paper back and discovered moderation by a team leader had altered the grade by five levels. That's the entire range of grades available for that particular exam. That's like going to a football match and mistaking a 5-0 win for a 5-0 defeat.
5: The criteria again. If they were so well written, how does this happen? If they were more clearly expressed, either more explicit or just expressed in plainer English then it couldn't be much worse.
This is the least invigorating or interesting blog I've done so far, but we live in an accountability culture and I have to be able to account for learner's performance in exams. If I could trust the exam board a bit more and if the learners could get a bit more clear info directly, I'd probably spend less time doing 'Easter exam camp' and more time teaching the actual stuff of life.
Friday, 9 September 2016
Grammar schools (and faith schools and while we're at it private schools) can get in the sea
I have a lot of time for Paul Mason.
1) Because he's from Leigh.
2) Because he's one of the few vaguely mainstream thinkers who has noticed that we are facing more than a downturn in the economy and are in fact actually facing a major change in the structure of society.
3) Because he's from Leigh.
Any way, his latest article on grammar schools is exactly right. I just thought I'd add to what Mason says with a few arguments of my own.
- Without comprehensive education how do people learn to interact with a wide spectrum of intelligence types? Even if you are destined to be a captain of industry full of psychotic zeal and disdain, it might be beneficial to learn to talk to us oiks from a comprehensive system in order to understand a little how the lesser minds of the common folk work.
- This wider appreciation for the fullest range of people can only be understood in a broad way. It can't be measured by a simple test.
- Failing to understand (or at least ever mention it ever) that education is about socialisation is one of the biggest failings in current thinking.
- The pressure on children is already leading to misery. I'll post at length my opinions and experiences regarding mental health and the education system at some point in the future but it surely can't do much to relieve the pressure on young people by offering further selection and more tests to pass.
- Has no-one noticed that in a 21st century secular society that faith schools have been gifted greater freedom to select their intake based on faith? That because I've decided to base my ethics and outlook on the evidence of my experiences my child will potentially be barred from a reasonable proportion of the local high schools. Add this to grammar schools and your average child of sceptical parents is not really looking at a wide range of options. I honestly can't see any rational argument for state education being provided on the basis of faith. I'm not really sure what religious faith has to do with education which at it's heart is to do with questions. It might seem like the liberal braying of a guardian columnist but why has no one seriously questioned the right of a parent to impose their faith on a child?
Sure, you've got the right to believe in what ever nonsense you like, but to make your child perform the rituals of your religion? To base their entire education on your faith principles seems odd to me. I'm not convinced that several major religions don't have some pretty dodgy/frightening aspects at their core. Beliefs and messages that have no basis in evidence or fact and don't really go very far in explaining the world. Let me be clear, I've absolutely no objection to religion being taught as part of philosophy and no objection to someone having faith or living their life accordingly, but to ghettoise their children to protect them from the wider sinful world seems a backwards attitude. To actively encourage this seems at best nostalgia and at worse downright dangerous.
- If you were serious about equality of opportunity you'd offer everyone access to the same system. You'd do away with all grammar schools, faith schools and private schools and you'd build a state system which offered the best things from those systems. The best things from those system isn't the fact that by their nature they take from the most motivated (parent supported) young people and from my limited knowledge, it isn't the teaching in the main (I don't know that many privately educated people and in general those I know report that it was nothing special) - it's that to some extent they offer a degree of choice for young people who may struggle in a larger less personal 'factory sized' comprehensive.
Having witnessed two seemingly perfectly adequate smaller local schools in my local area close (probably because they were more profitable as building sites), I can only conclude the government aren't planning on following my advice any time soon and opportunities will continue to narrow if you can't afford an alternative to a vast multi academy trust run by a super head who is on site occasionally. My first school was a smallish comprehensive primary run by an eccentric, deeply caring lady with cats in her office, an open door to anyone and a mission to get to know everyone, parents and children alike.
It is that sort of educational manager that seems to be driven out of the state system by an invasive corporate culture which hides the drive for efficiency behind an agenda of standards and yet private schools seem to revel in (and receive lavish praise from government) precisely the sort of eccentricity and personality which has become unimaginable now. When I'm not in full blown 'first against the wall' mode, I don't blame affluent parents for seeking green fields, small classes, long serving staff and a convincing veneer of character and charm over a huge intake, a raft of NQTs and a 'purpose built' box straight from the big book of PFI designs where character runs as deep as the marketing agency who designed the identikit logo and new mission statement (which is probably about the fourth mission statement in as many years)
- If the SATs are so good, why aren't they used for grammar school selection? Why do they have a different test which is more like something from a bumper book of puzzles from the 1950s?
- If this policy doesn't unite the Labour party then what will?
1) Because he's from Leigh.
2) Because he's one of the few vaguely mainstream thinkers who has noticed that we are facing more than a downturn in the economy and are in fact actually facing a major change in the structure of society.
3) Because he's from Leigh.
| Some children in Leigh. |
Any way, his latest article on grammar schools is exactly right. I just thought I'd add to what Mason says with a few arguments of my own.
- Without comprehensive education how do people learn to interact with a wide spectrum of intelligence types? Even if you are destined to be a captain of industry full of psychotic zeal and disdain, it might be beneficial to learn to talk to us oiks from a comprehensive system in order to understand a little how the lesser minds of the common folk work.
- This wider appreciation for the fullest range of people can only be understood in a broad way. It can't be measured by a simple test.
- Failing to understand (or at least ever mention it ever) that education is about socialisation is one of the biggest failings in current thinking.
- The pressure on children is already leading to misery. I'll post at length my opinions and experiences regarding mental health and the education system at some point in the future but it surely can't do much to relieve the pressure on young people by offering further selection and more tests to pass.
- Has no-one noticed that in a 21st century secular society that faith schools have been gifted greater freedom to select their intake based on faith? That because I've decided to base my ethics and outlook on the evidence of my experiences my child will potentially be barred from a reasonable proportion of the local high schools. Add this to grammar schools and your average child of sceptical parents is not really looking at a wide range of options. I honestly can't see any rational argument for state education being provided on the basis of faith. I'm not really sure what religious faith has to do with education which at it's heart is to do with questions. It might seem like the liberal braying of a guardian columnist but why has no one seriously questioned the right of a parent to impose their faith on a child?
Sure, you've got the right to believe in what ever nonsense you like, but to make your child perform the rituals of your religion? To base their entire education on your faith principles seems odd to me. I'm not convinced that several major religions don't have some pretty dodgy/frightening aspects at their core. Beliefs and messages that have no basis in evidence or fact and don't really go very far in explaining the world. Let me be clear, I've absolutely no objection to religion being taught as part of philosophy and no objection to someone having faith or living their life accordingly, but to ghettoise their children to protect them from the wider sinful world seems a backwards attitude. To actively encourage this seems at best nostalgia and at worse downright dangerous.
- If you were serious about equality of opportunity you'd offer everyone access to the same system. You'd do away with all grammar schools, faith schools and private schools and you'd build a state system which offered the best things from those systems. The best things from those system isn't the fact that by their nature they take from the most motivated (parent supported) young people and from my limited knowledge, it isn't the teaching in the main (I don't know that many privately educated people and in general those I know report that it was nothing special) - it's that to some extent they offer a degree of choice for young people who may struggle in a larger less personal 'factory sized' comprehensive.
Having witnessed two seemingly perfectly adequate smaller local schools in my local area close (probably because they were more profitable as building sites), I can only conclude the government aren't planning on following my advice any time soon and opportunities will continue to narrow if you can't afford an alternative to a vast multi academy trust run by a super head who is on site occasionally. My first school was a smallish comprehensive primary run by an eccentric, deeply caring lady with cats in her office, an open door to anyone and a mission to get to know everyone, parents and children alike.
It is that sort of educational manager that seems to be driven out of the state system by an invasive corporate culture which hides the drive for efficiency behind an agenda of standards and yet private schools seem to revel in (and receive lavish praise from government) precisely the sort of eccentricity and personality which has become unimaginable now. When I'm not in full blown 'first against the wall' mode, I don't blame affluent parents for seeking green fields, small classes, long serving staff and a convincing veneer of character and charm over a huge intake, a raft of NQTs and a 'purpose built' box straight from the big book of PFI designs where character runs as deep as the marketing agency who designed the identikit logo and new mission statement (which is probably about the fourth mission statement in as many years)
- If the SATs are so good, why aren't they used for grammar school selection? Why do they have a different test which is more like something from a bumper book of puzzles from the 1950s?
- If this policy doesn't unite the Labour party then what will?
Thursday, 8 September 2016
Incentives and collective will.
Sometimes things require collective effort.
It might not suit broken budget Britain where the nation's favourite pastime is watching competitive bun baking and trying to force confused people on zero hour contracts into making spurious insurance claims about PPI they didn't know they had but I do think it's fairly self evident.
Musicians don't really get very far if they all just decide to play their own thing. (Citing jazz at this point doesn't make you clever, it just shows you don't understand jazz.) Imagine the Apollo Missions had they been built by a team of people set against each other working on some kind of league table system as opposed to working for one common goal. Hell, even the England cricket team get to boot out Kevin Peterson for wanting to do his own thing and not being helpful enough around the house.
I think education is probably one of those things that works better if we help each other out.
Having got back in the swing of things I have already reached a point where writing this blog seems a work of effort as opposed to the natural channelling of thoughts swirling in the ether just waiting to be conducted directly to your brain via the conduit of my rhythmic typing fingers.
In short, I've got a lot to do. I'm battling with the desire to truly self reflect and try and work out my issues with my own practice and the system I work within and marking some diagnostics or in a dangerously self indulgent twist, go to sleep and have a normal night's sleep in the hope the cough goes away. I'm not going to recount to recount the many other tasks in some kind of competitive misery porn style but you get the idea I'm sure. Jesus loves you little martyr that you are.
Having covered for a colleague today at short notice and written a (moderately successful) lesson on the back of a metaphorical fag packet I was later faced with a second cover session with the same group. My other colleagues tried to convince me to 'give the kids something to do' and let one of them baby sit but I was conscious that I didn't have anything to give them other than what was in my head.
This led me to wonder why, in a world of such connectivity and creativity we haven't managed to make this job easier yet? Why we haven't yet created a national bank of resources, a central repository of lessons, objectives and resources? I'm grizzled and battle worn and I would use it. I can only imagine what a boon it would be for cover staff and N/RQT's.
There are various banks of resources on social media sites, on privately owned forums and some things produced on a national level for core skills but given the sheer number of teacher doing what I've spent the last few weeks doing (hammering on a keyboard, creating templates, writing ideas and plans down) it seems astonishing that I couldn't quickly find a useful resource to teach a fairly basic topic.
Here's my idea. A national bank of resources (publicly funded) which in which crowd sourced resources are placed. A rating system is employed and resources which are deemed successful and engaging are highlighted and perhaps somehow in a system I haven't quite worked out yet, the author of the resource is rewarded financially.
Resources which do not quite meet the standard are marked 'in need of some revision' and if they become successful resources then the proceeds are split between the various revisers and the original uploader.
We could call it 'wikipedia' (lol) - I'm tired, this isn't my best work clearly.
I think it's a thin end of the wedge to be honest. As a fairly experience but flawed practitioner I have much to share and much to learn. I know there are at least 5 or 6 other experienced practitioners in the exact same specialism in the immediate area around my workplace.
Do we meet, share ideas, compare approaches, swap battle stories, critique each others resources and observe each other's lessons to truly learn to master our specialisms and craft?
No, do we hell. We suspiciously eye each other, judging our achievements and struggles, not on their own merits but in the light of the relative outcomes. Their good results aren't a cause for celebration but a reason for melancholy. Yet we claim to 'serve the local community.' We all want to be top of the class, to brag about our pass rate, high grades or the progress of our learners to red brick universities. We spend half the time working out which learner will trigger the biggest improvement in our value added score and talking about the school down the road as 'a threat' like it's a dream and we're all market traders.
Just stop for a moment.
Reflect on the unknowable enormity of the universe.
Deep calms breaths.
Imagine a world of possibility. A world made of licorice allsorts, a whale swimming through the air, a glass of blue milk. Think about the sound of angels serenading you, the sound phasing back and forth, filling the air, filling forever like a reflection in two opposing mirrors.
Breathe again.
Imagine if that school down the road wasn't a threat but an opportunity.
Maybe you wouldn't feel so lonely. Maybe you wouldn't feel you had to work quite so hard. Maybe you'd feel like part of something bigger, something that meant more than the corporate mission statement and the shite logo that cost more than you'd ever spent on resources for actual learners in your entire career.
Perhaps the learners would benefit.
Just a thought.
It might not suit broken budget Britain where the nation's favourite pastime is watching competitive bun baking and trying to force confused people on zero hour contracts into making spurious insurance claims about PPI they didn't know they had but I do think it's fairly self evident.
Musicians don't really get very far if they all just decide to play their own thing. (Citing jazz at this point doesn't make you clever, it just shows you don't understand jazz.) Imagine the Apollo Missions had they been built by a team of people set against each other working on some kind of league table system as opposed to working for one common goal. Hell, even the England cricket team get to boot out Kevin Peterson for wanting to do his own thing and not being helpful enough around the house.
I think education is probably one of those things that works better if we help each other out.
Having got back in the swing of things I have already reached a point where writing this blog seems a work of effort as opposed to the natural channelling of thoughts swirling in the ether just waiting to be conducted directly to your brain via the conduit of my rhythmic typing fingers.
In short, I've got a lot to do. I'm battling with the desire to truly self reflect and try and work out my issues with my own practice and the system I work within and marking some diagnostics or in a dangerously self indulgent twist, go to sleep and have a normal night's sleep in the hope the cough goes away. I'm not going to recount to recount the many other tasks in some kind of competitive misery porn style but you get the idea I'm sure. Jesus loves you little martyr that you are.
Having covered for a colleague today at short notice and written a (moderately successful) lesson on the back of a metaphorical fag packet I was later faced with a second cover session with the same group. My other colleagues tried to convince me to 'give the kids something to do' and let one of them baby sit but I was conscious that I didn't have anything to give them other than what was in my head.
This led me to wonder why, in a world of such connectivity and creativity we haven't managed to make this job easier yet? Why we haven't yet created a national bank of resources, a central repository of lessons, objectives and resources? I'm grizzled and battle worn and I would use it. I can only imagine what a boon it would be for cover staff and N/RQT's.
There are various banks of resources on social media sites, on privately owned forums and some things produced on a national level for core skills but given the sheer number of teacher doing what I've spent the last few weeks doing (hammering on a keyboard, creating templates, writing ideas and plans down) it seems astonishing that I couldn't quickly find a useful resource to teach a fairly basic topic.
Here's my idea. A national bank of resources (publicly funded) which in which crowd sourced resources are placed. A rating system is employed and resources which are deemed successful and engaging are highlighted and perhaps somehow in a system I haven't quite worked out yet, the author of the resource is rewarded financially.
Resources which do not quite meet the standard are marked 'in need of some revision' and if they become successful resources then the proceeds are split between the various revisers and the original uploader.
We could call it 'wikipedia' (lol) - I'm tired, this isn't my best work clearly.
I think it's a thin end of the wedge to be honest. As a fairly experience but flawed practitioner I have much to share and much to learn. I know there are at least 5 or 6 other experienced practitioners in the exact same specialism in the immediate area around my workplace.
Do we meet, share ideas, compare approaches, swap battle stories, critique each others resources and observe each other's lessons to truly learn to master our specialisms and craft?
No, do we hell. We suspiciously eye each other, judging our achievements and struggles, not on their own merits but in the light of the relative outcomes. Their good results aren't a cause for celebration but a reason for melancholy. Yet we claim to 'serve the local community.' We all want to be top of the class, to brag about our pass rate, high grades or the progress of our learners to red brick universities. We spend half the time working out which learner will trigger the biggest improvement in our value added score and talking about the school down the road as 'a threat' like it's a dream and we're all market traders.
Just stop for a moment.
Reflect on the unknowable enormity of the universe.
Deep calms breaths.
Imagine a world of possibility. A world made of licorice allsorts, a whale swimming through the air, a glass of blue milk. Think about the sound of angels serenading you, the sound phasing back and forth, filling the air, filling forever like a reflection in two opposing mirrors.
Breathe again.
Imagine if that school down the road wasn't a threat but an opportunity.
Maybe you wouldn't feel so lonely. Maybe you wouldn't feel you had to work quite so hard. Maybe you'd feel like part of something bigger, something that meant more than the corporate mission statement and the shite logo that cost more than you'd ever spent on resources for actual learners in your entire career.
Perhaps the learners would benefit.
Just a thought.
Wednesday, 7 September 2016
Why do we have to wait till 21 to set our own questions?
You were a child once. (deny it all you want Trunchbull, but you were)
You were full of wonder and fear. The world was a strange place. You took awe inspiring beauty for granted and shrugged at sunsets and works of art, choosing instead to stare for hours at a tiny plastic toy from the pound shop, trying to work out what the shadow it cast looked like, talking to it or breaking it (taking it apart) to discover how it worked. You put batteries on your tongue to get that zap of electric current and if you were lucky, you got an old microscope from somewhere and magnified things until you learnt that most things look a bit like sludge. Insert any dross drawn from a meme or your own image of childhood curiosity here if you want this paragraph to be longer. It's nice to wallow in your own filth sometimes.
You asked questions, guessed answers and challenged rules, tested boundaries. So what. It was just a phase. You grew out of it. You got cynical and learnt to appreciate sunsets and Ikea prints and the way things are is the way things are. The facts of life sunshine.
You became a teacher.
It pays the bills. It's better than working for a living. Better than clinging desperately to your job, just working for the man. Making some one else rich. You're a little tiny bit like Bob Dylan aren't you? Just on the edge of things, making money but not sucking corporate teats for the milk of life. Well, you tell yourself that, but you know its a lie. At least you are inspiring minds eh?
How many times a day do you say - that's not the topic, that's not on the specification, we're not here to talk about that? How many times a day do you ask people to 'stop daydreaming' or 'look at me' or 'read the actual question?' or 'if you don't learn to sit still and listen, you won't get anywhere, I'm sorry, that the way it is' and so on and so on and so on.
When did you last actually just indulge the innate natural curiosity of children?
I know. You're not allowed. Neither am I - I'm not pretending that my lessons are free flowing workshops which swing between restringing a piano with various types of metal and making Skype contact with NASA. I've got a specification to follow and a performance management process to fulfil. That commodity fetish doesn't pay for itself. You can pretend if you like. You can pretend that your lesson is full of 'buzz' and 'sparkle' and 'discovery' and you probably do manage that from time to time and you feel it. Viscerally. It runs down your spine. This is IT. This is why you do it. You're probably a better teacher than many if you at least try to find the freedom between the lines and manage to see the world through the eyes of someone who isn't you and make it interesting for them. Keep doing it. Don't throw your career away on data analysis and marketing. Teach some kids well.
But it all makes you think a bit. Why do we have to wait till 21 to be allowed the treat of paying some elitist self selecting institution to give us the grand gift of asking our own (approved) questions?
Why does war happen? Why is the queen the queen? Why can't I fly? Is dreaming like being alive but in a different place? Can you build a ship out of that? What would win in a fight between a lion and a tiger? What happens when I die? Do people HAVE to have a job? Why do grown ups get sad when they can do whatever they want and stay up all night and have midnight feasts? Why doesn't cordial work in milk? What is a car horn anyway?
I heard recently that primary teachers rarely have the time to do extended story writing any more. It makes me wonder what the point is. Why don't we just switch off the internet and live forever in diluted weaker more miserable version of 1993?
You were full of wonder and fear. The world was a strange place. You took awe inspiring beauty for granted and shrugged at sunsets and works of art, choosing instead to stare for hours at a tiny plastic toy from the pound shop, trying to work out what the shadow it cast looked like, talking to it or breaking it (taking it apart) to discover how it worked. You put batteries on your tongue to get that zap of electric current and if you were lucky, you got an old microscope from somewhere and magnified things until you learnt that most things look a bit like sludge. Insert any dross drawn from a meme or your own image of childhood curiosity here if you want this paragraph to be longer. It's nice to wallow in your own filth sometimes.
You asked questions, guessed answers and challenged rules, tested boundaries. So what. It was just a phase. You grew out of it. You got cynical and learnt to appreciate sunsets and Ikea prints and the way things are is the way things are. The facts of life sunshine.
You became a teacher.
It pays the bills. It's better than working for a living. Better than clinging desperately to your job, just working for the man. Making some one else rich. You're a little tiny bit like Bob Dylan aren't you? Just on the edge of things, making money but not sucking corporate teats for the milk of life. Well, you tell yourself that, but you know its a lie. At least you are inspiring minds eh?
How many times a day do you say - that's not the topic, that's not on the specification, we're not here to talk about that? How many times a day do you ask people to 'stop daydreaming' or 'look at me' or 'read the actual question?' or 'if you don't learn to sit still and listen, you won't get anywhere, I'm sorry, that the way it is' and so on and so on and so on.
When did you last actually just indulge the innate natural curiosity of children?
I know. You're not allowed. Neither am I - I'm not pretending that my lessons are free flowing workshops which swing between restringing a piano with various types of metal and making Skype contact with NASA. I've got a specification to follow and a performance management process to fulfil. That commodity fetish doesn't pay for itself. You can pretend if you like. You can pretend that your lesson is full of 'buzz' and 'sparkle' and 'discovery' and you probably do manage that from time to time and you feel it. Viscerally. It runs down your spine. This is IT. This is why you do it. You're probably a better teacher than many if you at least try to find the freedom between the lines and manage to see the world through the eyes of someone who isn't you and make it interesting for them. Keep doing it. Don't throw your career away on data analysis and marketing. Teach some kids well.
But it all makes you think a bit. Why do we have to wait till 21 to be allowed the treat of paying some elitist self selecting institution to give us the grand gift of asking our own (approved) questions?
Why does war happen? Why is the queen the queen? Why can't I fly? Is dreaming like being alive but in a different place? Can you build a ship out of that? What would win in a fight between a lion and a tiger? What happens when I die? Do people HAVE to have a job? Why do grown ups get sad when they can do whatever they want and stay up all night and have midnight feasts? Why doesn't cordial work in milk? What is a car horn anyway?
I heard recently that primary teachers rarely have the time to do extended story writing any more. It makes me wonder what the point is. Why don't we just switch off the internet and live forever in diluted weaker more miserable version of 1993?
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