My life in books Part 1 (0 -18)

This month’s blogsync is a lovely concept: an exploration of the books that shaped a person’s life. There are more entries here, but here’s my effort. Well, part of it.

 

I love big books and I cannot lie. I love them in every shape, colour and form. I am drawn to Waterstones, Amazon and Oxfam like a magnet. I could, in fact, spend weekends reading and looking for books. The family, and real life, thankfully get in the way of things. If it wasn’t for my family, I would feature in a Channel 5 documentary on someone that hoards books that they can’t wash. My daughters and their exponential need for space means that there is a healthy culling of books every few months. 

 

But, where did this love of reading come from? Was it borne from a family steeped in books? Was is it borne from an awe-inspiring English teacher? Was it borne from a special book that hooked me for life? Sadly, it was none of these. In truth, I can’t pinpoint what made me love reading – just as much as I can’t pinpoint the exact moment I loved red wine. It just happened. I like to think of the ‘reading bug’ being something that happened gradually over night. You never saw it happen during the day, but it hit you when you were quietly or nosily sleeping. My reading habit can only be described as eclectic.    

 

Well, at the tender age of seven I was hooked on reading with the book ‘David Copperfield’ by Charles Dickens – I am joking. My childhood memory of reading concentrates on some special books. In a dark dark village and in a dark dark house and in a dark dark room I was read to by my parents books such as ‘Funny Bones’ by Allan Ahlberg and ‘Meg and Mog’ by Helen Nicoll. And, if I am honest, that’s where my odd taste for books that make no narrative sense stems from. Both books defy logic at times, but the beauty of the writing and the simplicity of ideas is that they stay with you to this day. Plus, the drawings are another part of the special magic. It is no surprise that Julia Donaldson is so popular at the moment. She combines all three with aplomb.  Now, all these books are read to my daughters.

Another early memory of reading stems from primary school. Mrs Glasson was my teacher and a regular routine for us was to sit down to read Enid Blyton's ‘The Enchanted Woods’. I can vividly recall sitting down to read the story as a class. Each time we read a different student sat with Ted – a teddy bear with green dungarees. Nothing says childhood like dungarees. I recall feeding Ted (myself) sweets as I listened enrapt in the story. Often, when I teach a novel I think back to this moment fondly. If only I could recreate it with a group of Year 11s. Come on, Tom, feed Ted as we read ‘Of Mice and Men’.  It was the collective reading and shared experience I loved so much. Even to this day, I often ask people in conversations what they are reading so I can share the reading experience more.

When I was eight, my family moved to Cyprus for two years. It was an idyllic experience with school for a few hours in the morning and the rest of the day spent exploring the beautiful and untouched island. It comes as no surprise that later in life I would come to adore ‘Captain Corelli’s Mandolin’ by Louis de Bernieres and Gerald Durrell’s ‘My Family and Other Animals’. I would often find snakes and strange creatures in the garden and scrub land at the back of our house. Sadly, there was very little to do there when it was cold, so I started reading ‘The Three Investigator’ books by M. V. Carey. They usually amounted to a group of boys investigating rum goings which usually amounted to unmasking some form of smuggling. Smuggling was ‘rife’ in Cyprus in the 1980s, so I could clearly identify with things. It was pure escapism and I swallowed them up. Added to this escapism was my pure joy of Greek myths. Little did I know that this fascination would help my literature degree. I had my own copy of Greek myths and I would read them daily and copy out the stories in my own little books. Things were made real by the constant visits to various places associated with the legends. I swam where Aphrodite was born and visited the numerous temples to the gods on the island. This led to me reading about Egyptology, which then led to a visit to Egypt for a birthday present.

We moved back to Wales for my first year of secondary school and the world changed in many ways. I stopped being the adventurous child and became a sulky teenager overnight. There are very few photographs that show me smiling at this time. If I am honest our move to Wales, was not the best of experiences for me. I moved from a country where you can do anything to a small parochial village in Wales where you couldn’t do anything. The nearest city was an hour away. It felt like a slow death to a teenager. The whole universe was growing up, having fun, and I was left out, in a village of about 200 people. In truth, they were not having fun, but it didn’t help me at the time. It would explain why I enjoyed ‘Hamlet’ and ‘The Duchess of Malfi’ as an A-level student. They taught me how others saw ‘the skull beneath the skin’. I like reality. Real things happening to real people. I didn’t want happy things. I was sad and I wanted to read sad stuff.  

During these depressing times, I retreated into ‘pap’ reading, as I like to call it. I read and read ‘Doctor Who’ novels. I would constantly read the books by Target publishers. They were simple and quick descriptions of the television stories. The prose was sparse, but I lapped them up and read them all, if not most of them over a couple of years.  By the time I was 15, I had amassed a massive collection of books, which I have only recently sold. It was also during this phase that I started reading Doctor Who fanzines and magazines. In fact, I was a regular writer to a fanzine and if I am brave enough one day, I might share them on here.  

The library became my haven. It was a small library and it seemed, at the time, to hold copious amounts of ‘Mills and Boon’ books and large quantities of large print books on cowboys – must be a welsh thing. It would seem that I enjoyed science-fiction books; I didn’t. Even to this day, I don’t. I really struggle with fantasy and science-fiction books. I have tried and the ones I have enjoyed are the classics ‘Day of the Triffids’ and ‘The War of the Worlds’. My mother is an avid reader of fantasy fiction, but I would rather walk on hot-coals than read one of her books. Too many dragons and silly names for my liking. I, in my attempt to be contemporary and of the moment, bought the complete set of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ in the vain attempt to read them. I couldn’t get past the dwarf songs. That was my limit. Oh, and the talking, walking tree people. The endless discussions I have had about how I couldn’t stomach the tree people. Nah, I don’t buy it. Magic rings and small people with hairy feet I can stomach. Talking trees are just too much for me.

 

Anyway the library was a regular haunt at weekends. I would borrow loads of book, but I’d often be drawn to other sections. For some strange reason, I was drawn to the true story section and especially the haunted / ghost books. The ‘Ghost Sightings of the British Isles’ book and various others on a similar theme became my new addiction. I became hooked and read all the different stories and tales. At that time, my English teacher was reading ‘The Snow Spider’ by Jenny Nimmo, which focused on some of the myths of Wales and some extra magic for good measure. It is sadly the one book I can actually recall from my English lessons, which is sad as I must have read some other books. But, alas all I can remember is this one.  Worse still, I can't even remember my GCSE texts.

 

Then, I started my A-levels and enjoyed them. My love of Victorian literature stemmed from this time. In particular, my reading of ‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Bronte and ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ by Jean Rhys. Yet, like most students, I didn’t dive into literature at this point; I was on the outskirts. I waited to be told what to read. I thoroughly enjoyed ‘Jane Eyre’ and read and discussed it openly, but I didn’t do anything else. I felt that I had really engaged with a book for the first time. However, like Jane’s journey in the wilderness, I was lost metaphorically with reading. I read Doctor Who books in my free time and nothing else. I was a bit directionless with reading.

 

It was a bit surprise when I took it on myself to go to university. And that’s where I learnt to read ‘proper’ books with big words and fancy titles. Oh, but that’s another chapter….

Thanks for reading

 

Xris

Blogsync: The Klingon Phonics Test

This is my response to this month’s blogsync:  

What is the best place for testing in schools?

Testing is a key aspect of formal education, but can this be taken too far? Are our current tests fit for purpose? Should progress testing alone be used to define school performance?


There are more responses to this topic here.

My daughters are in that lovely pre-test stage. They are awaiting to do their phonics test. The test that has fuelled several ASBOs on Twitter. Their school has sent home some flashcards of words to help them. So, most nights I come home and I work through the Klingon list of colours, I mean, these words that are absolute nonsense. My daughters are good, but I can’t see the point of it all. It is just a funny measuring stick to judge students.

In discussion with other primary teachers, they have told me that the testing and preparation for the phonics test doesn’t help able readers. In fact, according to them, it forces good readers to go backwards. My daughters generally sight read words, yet the phonics test is focused on blending sounds, which is something my daughters do if they don’t recognise a word. Whilst I have been reading most nights with my daughters and helping them increase their reading speed and word recognition, I find that now they are preparing for an assessment that is regressive. One teacher even said that the most able students do badly because of this sight reading and blended sound issue.

The problem I find with this testing is one that occurs across most schools. It is the form of testing that follows this mantra: We all know it’s silly, but we have to do as the government has told us to do it. I admit that I have said that to students, meetings and parents. The test process is not for the teacher’s benefit, but for a politician’s benefit to show improvement.

I love tests. I adore them. In fact, test me on tests – I’d love you to. I think testing is an important part of my life as a teacher. I test. I am tested. I comment on tests. I advise on tests. I predict tests. Everywhere I look, there are tests. Yet, what I don’t like is a test that has no value at all to the students or the process of learning.

Step forward the KS3 English test. Oh the joys of that test. There may be NQTs reading this thinking how lucky they are that they don’t even have to consider this assessment. But, it was a hilarious experience. Students were prepared for the test. They worked hard. They sweated within an inch of their life. They were told the assessment will really ‘help’ them in life. They then got the results in the next academic year, when they were using a new grading system and working on the GCSE. For them, the value of the SATs had disappeared overnight. It became meaningless. Why the KS3 SATs never started a riot I’ll never know. The realisation that the test was not for their benefit. They got nothing out of it.

It is only right that a maker of things should test the produce they make. A baker should taste or check his bread to see if it meets to a high standard. But, should a baker check the bounciness of his bread by throwing it on the floor? What value has this to the consumer? They never throw their bread around the room. It has no value to them at all. Yet, it is something that they must do, as their Head Office has instructed them to do it. But, at the same time, I baker will not take the bread out of the oven during the cooking stage. They might peak through the window, but they don’t cut a bit off and taste it. They wait for the bread to be ready.  

But, the testing that goes on in schools is dictated by a system outside of education: politics. I test students all the time. At the beginning. In the middle. At the end of learning. However, the testing structures we have are assessing at the end of the learning - KS2 and GCSE.  That timing warps learning and education. It is seen as a ‘do or die’ moment. Students, teachers and schools ramp up the pressure because everything rides on this. This one single measure. This one single test makes a school a good one or a bad one.

What if a school was allowed to enter a student when they wanted to for the KS2 test? What if our system for assessment and testing was based on the child? The child takes the test when they are ready. After all, when a child is ready they are ready. Politicians want to see progress, yet the systems hinder those making progress. What if a child is ready before Year 6? The same goes with GCSE. I am not talking about modular exams – yuk! I am talking about terminal examinations. If a student is ready, surely they should do the exam. Having students tread water is not a sign of an effective education system.

Visitor: So, what have you been doing in Year 11?

Student: Well, I have been doing stuff that I have been doing in Year 10 because some students didn’t get it, so we had to do it all again.

Visitor: Interesting, but you did get some revision out of it?

Student: Yes, I did, but it was pretty boring.

Because, we have years and years of data, using the current model of assessment, we are never going to change the exam structure. There will always be a KS2 test. But, what would be nice is if the child, rather than the government and the school, were factored into the process. A politician wants students to leave school with a certain level of proficiency. Let’s assess them when they are proficient and not when it convenient for a statistic. You take a driving test when your driving instructor thinks you are ready. Not, at the same day every year across the land.

Hopefully, a model like this would avoid the dreaded teaching to the exam that exists for several terms a year. Because, we all know it happens. Real teaching goes out the window and drilling the students for the exams take place.

Right, must dash, I have bread to test and some more Klingon words to go through. Splage. Crooge. Brack.

Thanks for reading,

Xris

 

P.S. This blog contains 40% fairy dust and it is purely a hypothetical exploration of something that will never happen.

Blogsync 8: This marking is killing me

Be assured that the title is not something I have said. It was, in fact, something a colleague said to me a few years ago. The teacher of a different subject turned to me and painfully said that the marking they were doing was killing them. They said to an English teacher that they had too much marking to do. I casually replied: ‘Yes, it might be.’

I never get into a debate about marking and who has the most to mark, as it always ends in bloodshed or death. For years, I have always stood back. There is always somebody worse off. I might have to read the termly equivalent of three ‘War and Peace’s a term, but the poor PE teacher has to spend most of their day in the rain outside. Yes, it might get warm in the summer, but rarely does it stop raining. The Drama teacher has to run after school sessions and the Science teacher has to prepare for an experiment. It is all relative, but just one day I’d love an English exam paper that was made up of simple right and wrong answers. Instead I get bucket loads of writing and I spend the time sifting for gold. Like those in the Gold Rush, there is a lot of effort and it rarely produces gold. Too many times it produces fool’s gold.

The problem I have with marking is time. The time it takes to mark it. The time left of my free time to do it. The time I have left over to call my life.  When I became an English teacher, I held a copy of the complete works of William Shakespeare and swore the following oath:

I, Chris, pledge my allegiance to all things related to literature. I swear to use well known quotes from books at any opportunity to show that I have read a lot. I promise to obsess over apostrophes and homophones used in Christmas cards.  I assure people that I will spend at least half of any free time I have marking or worrying about marking I have yet to do.

It is half-term for me and I am worrying about the marking I have yet to do. I have seen on twitter that people have spent days marking and I have just, well, done nothing. I know: I will write a blog about marking to avoid marking. I find that I have loads to do in the holidays, because there is very little time during the term to do it. I feel that we are constricted by an old framework. The PPA time, which is great, is based on an old model of teaching. A model that was very relaxed. It was based on a time when schools weren’t so data orientated.  Marking has changed over the years, but have the working practices of schools adapted to it as well? We are now expected to mark more often and more consistently over the term, yet there hasn’t been any extra time to support this. Look at NQTs and teachers in the first few years of teaching and you can see this. They are usually the last to leave the school; even then they don’t get everything done.  If established teachers even find the marking demands tough, then how will the younger members of staff find it?

So, what is my method of marking with impact? It is very ‘old school’ and I think it is very obvious, but I think it is occasionally neglected because we insist on doing something all the time.  I have tried some snazzy ways of spicing up marking, but I think there is no getting away from it: you have to read and write a comment on work. All the ‘verbal feedback’ stamps in the world do not replace the experience of reading and writing on work. It might emulate it a bit, but it doesn’t replace it. And it is a questionable substitute, in my opinion. Ofsted praised my marking at the last inspection we had and there was not one reference to verbal feedback in my books. I think it is a gimmick and a time saver, but not a strong tool, unless I am missing a key point.

Anyway, what is the method?

First you will need:

A table
A chair
A red (green if your school has gone P.C.) pen
A classroom full of students

 I did this last week and it works as a great way to show impact and to push students. Students were set the task of writing a description of a creepy room. They busily wrote for ten minutes. Then, I called students up to my desk one at a time, or, if they wanted to come me. I read the work and then scribbled some comment on their work. They then carried on writing or restarted the task. They could only write the work out in neat if they had passed my strict quality control procedures. Like a flowchart, they had to produce a certain quality before they could move on.

The instant nature of the feedback meant that students got a clear reaction immediately rather than three weeks later, when the teacher had final got around to marking things. It also meant that I could support students then and there and clarify things if they didn’t get it right. It was humorous too, as I said I felt sick if I saw work without full stops or a homophone error.  The student rushed away as they knew I wouldn’t even look at it without the basics of full stops and capital letters present.

Doing this last week meant that I marked every exercise book in the class and pushed and developed several students along the way. It also meant that I had one less thing in mark in the holidays. Furthermore, it has clear evidence of progress. There was a clear pattern of work, intervention and evidence of intervention in work. All this I did with a bottom set and the students improved several sub-levels because of the intervention. Students who normally forget full stops were now using them because the teacher almost vomited last.

Marking doesn’t have to be a disembodied or separate part of teaching. The lesson was great and the marking was at the heart of the learning taking place. This is something that we need to strongly work on. It looks like we are starting to get a bit smarter with how we mark. The recent comments about DIRT and MAD time embody this notion of putting the marking smack bang in the middle of the learning, not in the boot of my car waiting for me to mark it.

For more of my thoughts on marking, read this blog. There are other blogs about marking here on the Blogsync website.

Thanks for reading,  

Xris32

P.S. Verbal Feedback from my daughters

Lots of big words, but it would look better if it was pink.

Blogsync 6: Pinging the elastic band of tension

Warning: no students were harmed in the making of this blog. Sadly, the same cannot be said for teachers.

This month’s Blogsync is an interesting one: it is about explanations and, in particular, the best examples of effective explanations used in the classroom. I have found this quite a hard thing to write about, as I do spend most of my time explaining things in the classroom. This experience is a bit of navel gazing: explain a good explanation. Is there one explanation that is better than another? I suppose if I am honest, I use several different methods to explain the same thing. I don’t just rely on one single approach to explain ideas. I should know; I am the father to two 5 year old daughters. Fatherhood, at this stage, is permanently explaining things to children. Why do dinosaurs eat meat? Why do we die? Why do cats poo in our garden? Why do you have a hairy nose? Why is that man over there really fat? Why are we leaving the shop quickly? Why have you got that angry look on your face?

I think, in response to the topic, I am just going to walk through a lesson about explaining tension. As with some parts of English, you enter ‘the clouds’ when you explain some ideas and concepts. Some parts of English are just naming concrete things like a technique. Yet, as soon as we look at things like the effect and the feelings created by a text, we fire our rocket to the stars and start to talk about woolly, ethereal things. We start using abstract nouns and adopt tentative phrases like ‘it could be’ or ‘perhaps they mean that’. It is the part of the lesson where the firm ground disappears and we are flying from one cloud to another. The clouds are indefinable and they constantly change and move and they often become something different.  Of course, this I used to refer as ‘the shades of grey’ aspect of English teaching. There are no clear yes or no answers, only better ways of answering questions. Sadly, ‘shades of grey’ has taken another meaning and now I daren’t mention the phrase unless I want a cacophony of sniggers and a set of awkward questions. The lack of concrete foundations in English is its strength and its weakness. The greyness, or abstract nature, is pure poison to the wannabe scientist or mathematician in the class, but to the creative and artistic child it is pure elixir.  Grammar and techniques give students this concrete foundation for the literal minded. They like the answers , the rules to things and grammar offers that to them. Personally, that’s why I prefer the bringing back of the explicit teaching of grammar. I love the English language, but I know there are students that need something concrete to work with. We had shifted too far to the abstract way of teaching and neglected some of the concrete aspects. Thankfully, we have moved to more concrete aspects in teaching. But, like most things we need a combination of the two. We need a balance.

The Explanation

Equipment:

A large rubber band
A pair of scissors
DVD of Jaws
Extract from the novel of ‘Jaws’
A teacher
A student
 

I think part of explaining things for me is making things ‘real’ or making things enter a student’s reality. I know I am, in effect, talking about Vygotsky and  his ‘zone of proximal difference’ here, but I feel that is so important when teaching. That is what I think Youtube was invented for - just so a teacher can quickly find a clip to highlight a point or show something as being real. 

 

Tension in texts is one of those abstract things. It is about the reader and their relationship with a text. Basically, tension is saying how scared you are about things in a text. But, sadly, this doesn’t always equate well when students write. I have read hundreds of essays with students saying things are really tense or that things aren’t tense. Tension just gets lumped with interest. The more tension, the more interesting a story is.  The less tension, the less interesting it is. The explanations from students are simple and might be explained further with a ‘because’ but they are on a losing track when they think tension is either on or off. A graph can help develop this further, but sometimes something else is called for.

Enter the humble elastic band. Make sure it is one of those thick ones. The thicker the better. Cut the band so it is a single strip of elastic. Ask one student to hold one end of the band, while you hold the other. I find it helps to pick a student that hasn’t always been helpful in class. Explain to the student that they have to hold on to the band very tightly. Then, I talk about tension. I ask the class what would happen if the student lets go of the band. The student does and it is not very interesting. This is when it starts gets interesting. I then spend the next 10 minutes playing a hilarious game with the class.

I play around with their expectations. They secretly want the teacher to be pinged by the elastic band so I play up to this. I make the student move away, so the band becomes strained and stretched.  The class love it as they are waiting for the pain to be inflicted. The student holds the power. I create more tension by adopting a ‘Who wants to be a millionaire’ bank of phrases. Are you sure you want to let go now? Sure? You could walk away now and be a happy person… Then, we try to stretch the piece of elastic as far as it will go. (Dear reader, I have never let go. I wouldn’t.) The class are then shouting for the student to let go. One student calls out: ‘He won’t do. Sir’s bluffing’. I then tease them further by moving closer to the student and a move away, again. Finally, with a little nod I indicate to the student that he can let go, when he/she wants to. Ouch!

We then, as a class, explore how tension was created and how we felt when watching the incident. They start to use words like ‘less’ and ‘more’ when describing things, because it is real. The band is a metaphor for the tension and you can see visibly what the result is when tension is increased or reduced. I had a colleague who taught tension with the idea of a toy car. The car would be wound up and then let go. It worked for them, but toy cars are not as cool as elastic bands and inflicting pain on a teacher. I certainly earn respect points by using this method. Finally, we look at a tense moment in text or in Jaws and relate the tension of the rubber band to it.  

When the lesson is finished, my tough manly exterior crumbles as I nurse my throbbing finger.

I do similar things with dramatic irony or suspense; I make them a real experience. I make them a transparent or a shared experience, which we can all comment and discuss. Each reader has a different experience when reading a book, so it is hard to explore tension and our reaction to a text as there are so many shades, perspectives and ideas.

 

Dramatic irony
This idea is stolen from ‘The Merchant of Venice’. I kick a student out of the classroom. Then, I put three boxes on a table at the front of the classroom. In one box, I put in a chocolate bar and in the other two I put a lunchtime detention or five demerits. The class all know where I have placed each item in the boxes, so when the student is invited to the room, they are hoping he/she gets the punishment. Is that your final answer? Are you really sure?

Suspense

Three empty boxes with nothing in them. Don’t say what is in or isn’t in the box and get a student to bravely put his hand in each box.
 

Teaching is about explanations, explaining what the student needs to do, explaining what the student needs to know and explaining a student’s progress. Effective explanations aren’t about dumbing down and using teenspeak. Effective explanations are about reality and making things real.

Follow this link to read more effective explanations.

 Thanks for reading,

 Xris

Blog Synch 5 Why I idolise Henry VIII

This is my entry for the latest blogsync project. See more here.

What would do most to improve the status of the teaching profession? Privatise education.

Let’s privatise education! There’s a phrase I never thought I would ever say or write, but nine years in teaching has changed me beyond all recognition of my former self. I have lost the naïve glow of youth and found the tarnished cynicism of old age. The face of education has changed completely in my time teaching. Time will tell if it has changed for the better or the worse, but it has changed nonetheless. Each week, month and term brings something new or a new idea or initiative to do or integrate into lessons. Like Henry VIII, you look around and see something better and you try to look for a solution or do something different with the current wife. Henry’s choices were divorce, death or behead. Sadly, the middle one wasn’t and isn't a choice, but it just sits well in the sentence. So, it is just divorce as the other  one isn’t appropriate either. Learning the History through rote methods must have some benefit.  

I think a divorce, in theory, from the public sector would be the best thing to happen to education, because, while it is in the public eye, education is owned by the public and therein lies the crux of our problem. As it is the property of the public, every man and woman and his or her dog feel they have a right to dictate how education should be led and how lessons should be taught. The ludicrous situation is that almost every news story links back to education, because education is seen as the key to solving all the problems in the world and in society.  Education has become reactionary to every event or speech made. In fact, if you are a business and you want a few pages of free publicity, all you have to do is criticise the education system and make some suggestions of how you want children to be taught. Bang. Free publicity.

I foresee a future where our education system will be dominated by this constant line of publicity inspired comments:

·         Tescos will want us to teacher people how to shop better.

·         Thomas Cook will want us to teach students more about countries that they fly tourists to.

·         Typhoo will want us to teach students how to drink tea more effectively than coffee.

• Radox want teachers to show pupils how to wash effectively so they use more soap.

Teachers are told they need to do this or that they are not covering enough of something endlessly. The problem is, is that everybody has an idea of what should be taught and what shouldn’t be taught and that there is no common thought or direction. There is very little status in teaching because it is so confused. How can parents feel secure that teachers are doing the best, when the 'best' changes every minute? The exams change every year. The syllabus changes on a whim.

I hear endlessly about the NHS being in crisis, yet I cannot fathom a way to improve things.  The main reason being is that I am not in the NHS. Just because I can put a plaster on someone, doesn't mean I am an expert in the NHS. Just because you have been through the education system, doesn't make you an expert in what should be taught. As long as education is in the public eye, it will always be questioned and challenged. At the moment, there are no breaks or pauses. It is a sea of changes. A bumpy ride that it is hard to keep on track when there is a new storm every week. No wonder teachers are leaving, when the landscape of education isn't consistent.

The people who are in charge of education have their direction and that too is not free from public scrutiny. The politicians want votes, so their views are coached so that they reacting to public opinion. Furthermore, politicians need to be seen to be doing things. Imagine a world where politicians say that they are going keep things the same, like the last party did. It is never going to happen. That’s because underlining everything a politician says is the notion that they are going to do it better than the other party. So, politicians change things ‘for the better’ and this involves making major or radical changes, because these will improve things. All this meddling makes education a dizzy merry-go-round. It never stops still. No sooner has one thing been introduced then another contrasting one in unveiled. I want better, but improving things every 5 minutes doesn't make real improvements. You need to see the benefits of those changes and time is important for you to see that happen.

I want to see a divorce between the education system and the public. I don’t want to hide it; I just want it away from the public in terms of direction. It should be led by some clever people and free from political motivation and radical elements. Being directly accountable to the public hasn't helped us. Look at the league tables. Too often schools are judged outstanding through a series of tick boxes. One of those is linked to results. If you get the results, no questions asked. There are some outstanding schools hidden in the system, because from a public perspective they are failing because X and Y don't hit the national target. The tick box doesn't take into account several factors that are out of the hands of teachers. Like Henry VIII’s relationship with the Pope all those years ago, the relationship we have at the moment is not a happy marriage. In fact, it isn’t even a marriage. It is one of pain and mood swings. You can’t even predict where things will go or what will happen.

I agree with some of Gove’s ideas, in principle. His idea of raising the academic rigour of education is one that I wholeheartedly agree with. I have often struggled with students spending more time on a subject other than English because it was the equivalent of five GCSEs. However, his agenda is politically motivated. He might say he wants to improve, but you know part of his speech and rhetoric is designed to win voters. It isn’t completely focused on improving education. It is about winning the next election and convincing floating voters that his party is doing the right thing. His ideas are thoroughly conservative in education terms so he will appeal to those people who prefer it to how it used to be. It is about spin. But, education shouldn’t be linked to or part of any form of spin. It should be about providing the future with the tools for life.

Furthermore, his actions are about keeping him in the job too. If he sits and does nothing, then he will easily be replaced or reshuffled with someone who will do something. We supposedly want people of action not people who think and wait. Gove political strategy seems to be based on mentioning one controversial idea a week. It makes him look like he is doing a good job. Plus, there isn't really anybody to argue back. He is great at getting publicity. Even though there have been very few changes in education recently, his publicity machine makes you think there has been. You think the landscape is changing. 

Politics is always about change. Changing things to make life better. Changing our manifesto so that it appeal to real people. Changing the policy on this and that. When politics is obsessed with change, that has an affect on other aspects. The public services cannot keep up with these changes, because mainly change happens on a whim or an idea. They are never really grounded on real things. Change is good, sometimes. Change for improvement is good, but not when they don't stay around long enough to see the effects.

This whole idea of privatising education doesn’t sit well with me as I like to think of myself as ‘working class’. In fact, I am so working class that I never used to go on holidays abroad as a child. I am so working class that my parents always worked during the holidays. I am so working class that I used to wear second hand clothes as a teenager. For me, education is so important. Education provides social mobility. It allows the poor to become rich. It allows us to improve. Yet, the problem with our system at the moment is that is flawed by a lack of clear direction and an agenda based on several million people’s agendas. Everybody should have free education. However, the way that people view education is tainted by a consumer view of it. Education is a product today. It is something that can be marketed, rebranded and adapted to improve profit-margins. I don’t think for a second that by going private these things will disappear. But, I think that education will be removed out of the public sphere and it will stop it being something that people think they have a right to meddle with.  No more silly comments like: ‘I pay for your wages, teacher’.  

Finally, that would lead me to the difficult question: Who would run it? Let the tender begin. My personal favourite is ‘Group 4’. Hang on, isn’t that who is running it now? Yeah it is. They’ve lost something. Yet, we don’t know what it is.

Thanks,

Xris


P.S. I don't really idolise Henry VIII. I just thought it would hook you in. If you are reading this, it did the job.

Blogsync 4: Progress - It's all about STEPS

Progress is the new swear word in schools. It is used frequently to describe everything. Often, you will hear phrases like 'this is progress' or 'I progressing happy', or even 'Oh progress'. It may sound like it means something positive; however, it means the opposite. Worse still, some teachers are spouting 'PROGRESS! PROGRESS! PROGRESS' like some Dalek determined to rule the Universe.

This is entry of this month’s blogsync entitled ‘Progress in my classroom? How it is made and how do I know it?'. Check out here to see more entries. I have decided to use the band STEPS as the inspiration for the blog. And, in particular,  one line:

Wanna make you mine better get in line
5-6-7-8

 
Because that is what is happening in education. We are too obsessed with the numbers 5,6,7 and 8. And students have to get in line.


I find this idea of progress a very puzzling and confusing concept. For me, progress is about the steps to improving and going up those steps. I have progressed from a C to a B. It seems on one level that ‘progressing’ has replaced the verb ‘learning’ completely in schools. It is not what they have learnt. It is all about what they have improved on. How much have they progressed?  I worry for the good, old plenary. No long will students be asked: ‘What have you learnt today?’. They will be asked how much progress they have made in a lesson. Lots. Some. None.  Progress and learning are linked, but they are separate things at times. The learning supports the progress. Not the other way round. The progress, in my eyes, does not support learning; it is the result of the learning and too much focus on it distorts the learning. On another level, our expectations of progress has become distorted. We are expecting all progress to be exponential and continually improve in every minute or hour in a day.

I do have a big issue with this idea of progress. Not because I am ‘a leftie’ and I prefer students to learn things in a more organic way, but because I think we are looking for ‘fool’s gold’. Our obsession with students making progress could do more harm than good. Our point of comparison is weak. In one lesson, a teacher could be teaching students some facts. In another lesson, a different teacher is teaching how a student can shade a piece of art to reflect the natural lighting of an object. Are the levels of progress the same in both lessons? Will there be more progress in the fact based lesson? Or, will the rate of progress be at a different pace with students and their shading as it is developing a skill?   Progress varies from subject to subject, lesson to lesson and task to task. There should be a clear measurement for progress in lessons as, after all, it is a measurement of how good a lesson is. Is there more progress in the fact based lesson because students can do more than the art students at the end of the lesson? Or, is the progress in the art lesson of a better quality because it is refining an existing skill? Knowledge vs skills, again.  There is learning in both, but the nature of one subject makes progress transparent and the other not so clear. Furthermore, what about subjects like English that are recursive? How easy is it for students to make visible progress in something they have done before? It is easy to show progress, when it is something new, isn't. Yesterday they couldn't. Today they can.

Underlying all this discussion is learning. We shouldn't be focusing on the progress in a lesson, but we should be concentrating on the learning - after that it is what teachers are about. I help students to learn. The progress a student makes is a result of teaching and the student's learning.
 

To make things worse, this progress has to be boiled down to twenty minutes of observation. There must be some element of progress in those twenty minutes or you are not teaching the students correctly. Oh, and it has to be rapid. How can I show progress in twenty minutes? This twenty minute focus is meaning that we are focusing on short, superficial learning rather than deep, long-lasting learning. The learning is going back to this ‘fast-food consumerist’ culture we are fostering. The learning has to be quick. The learning has to be visible.  The learning has to rely on the consumer being satisfied.

I have learnt several things over the years and each time I have learnt something, whether it is Spanish or how to scuba dive, it has been slow. It has also been repetitive.  My scuba divining lesson did not involve a quick starter about the use of an oxygen task. I was not then thrown into the ocean. The instructor did not then measure my progress by checking if I was alive or not. In truth, real learning can vary. You might pick something up quickly like the colours in French. Or, it might take you several lessons to understand something like quadratic equations – it did for me at school. Yet, this constraint of a 20 minute of lessons is constricting us and focusing us to reduce the teaching so that students can make visible progress.

Description of classroom action

So, how can we show progress in a lesson? Or, more importantly, how do I show progress in a lesson?

Doing it wrong

Get students to start the lesson completing a task, knowing that they will do it badly. Then, spend the next 10 minutes teaching students how to improve. Finally, they redo the original task. The new version will be better than the first and you can clearly say that there has been progress made. This can be restructured to focus on prior knowledge and then retest them.  In the words of STEPS, 'One for sorrow and two for joy.' Redoing things shows students going up the steps.

Marking

My exercise books are exhibit 1.A in the metaphorical trial of my teaching abilities. It is the source of progress. If I was an Ofsted Inspector,  I would look at the books, because I’d know that what the buffoon(me) is doing in the class might not always be what they normally do. The books would tell the full story. It would say if the teacher is obsessed with worksheets, grammar tasks, peer marking or film reviews – I hate ‘film reviews’. A quick glance says it all. If Ofsted want to look at progress, then the books are the key to this.  Two basic principles must be applied to this idea:

 

1.       Work in the book now should be better than work at the start of the book.

2.       There must be some clear progress between marked pieces of work. There must not be repeated targets.

Reflection on effect 

What does this all mean for me and my marking? Well, any time I mark a piece of work in a student’s exercise book I look at their previous target or advice. At that point, I draw a smiley face or a sad face and I write progress or no progress. Then, when I write their new comment, I make sure that I acknowledge what they have done before. I am impressed with how you followed my advice and varied the length of your sentences, Martin. By doing this, I am feeding the progress into what I do. It isn’t all about levels; it’s about making sure I don’t repeat the same targets again and again. I am showing the progress in my marking. I am showing the steps up to the next stage.  Therefore, each piece of work in their books is about the student’s progress and shows how they are slowly getting better. I am moving away from the correct or wrong approach to work and moving towards meaningful feedback.   

My last blog argued how one sixty minute block is not a true reflection of the learning in a classroom. Twenty minutes is not enough. That’s why the books are so important, in my eyes. Progress isn’t a twenty minute thing. It is an on-going thing. You can learn something in twenty minutes, but that could or could not help you to progress. Progress is the bigger picture on the learning. Learning is judged in lessons. Ofsted judge the learning in the lessons and progress through the books and data. That is why our exercise books are important to showing students the steps to progress.

If all fails, I might have to adopt some of the following to make sure that there is clear and rapid progress in lessons. Warning: these have not basis for sound pedagogical learning and they will lead to 'Tragedy' if used. Just a bit of fun.   

·         Teach a list of facts.

·         Teach students an obscure literary term, so they can at least name it after 20 minutes.

·         Read a bit of a book they don’t know. Well, they didn’t know who the characters were before.

·         Train them to write inaccurately and terribly at the start of every lesson, so that they know that after 20 minutes they have to write it better. Then, at the end of the lesson they have to write even better than that. 

·         Don’t put any effort into their work, unless I say so. Then when I mention the phrase ‘This will show me your progress’ that is when they show me their best efforts.

·         Get them to pretend they don’t know a technique, so when it comes to looking at the work it looks like they have made outstanding progress.

Thanks for reading and check out my other blog on progress here. Please feel free to comment if you think this is a load of old progress and think I should progress off.

Xris32

P.S. A big thanks to Helene for her opinions about the blog. Her blog can be found here.

 

Blogsync 3: A candle in the darkness or a forklift in the library

Why do so many teachers leave after a few years of training?

This is my response to this month's blog synch. Check out more here.

A doctor’s job is finished when the patient is healed.
A chef’s job is finished when the meal is cooked.
A detective’s job is finished when the criminal is arrested.
A mechanic’s job is finished when the car is fixed.
A shop assistant’s job is finished when the shop is closed.

A teacher’s job is never finished.

 

Before some people reading this assume that I am reducing the whole of these valuable occupations to a mere point, I am not. I know how important these roles are and how complex they are. I also know how they are swamped by bureaucracy. But, generally, when these occupations finish work, they finish work. The doctor doesn’t go home and write a letter to a patient saying how impressed they were with how they behaved in the surgery. The mechanic doesn’t go home and then write a report on how hatchback cars generally underperform in relation to other cars. The shop assistant doesn’t go home and plan a new layout for the clothes as some items are not selling because customers cannot see them. Most occupations leave work at work. Teaching doesn’t. There, I think lies one of the problems for people entering the world of teaching.

What about the holidays? In truth, the holidays are great, but what most people forget or ignore or don’t know about is that the job extends outside of the classroom. On average, I will work past nine o’clock most nights. I will work for a large part of a Sunday planning and marking. It isn’t because I am a slow worker; it’s because the job demands it. If a set of books are not marked, I can’t push the students further. If I don’t plan the lesson carefully, then the class could miss out on a valuable learning opportunity. The holidays are great, but they are where I can get back my ‘down-time’, my relaxing time. Or, the holidays are just another chance for me to do some more work. I’d love a camera crew to follow me for a term and watch what teaching involves. Most people when they have a two week holiday will not do any work. It is a break. It is a chance to refresh their batteries. A teacher will have some marking to do. A teacher will plan. A teacher may even go into school to sort some resources out. This isn’t something that people in other occupations do. They have that mental padlock. It locks as soon as they leave work.

You could be reading this thinking that I have no understanding of ‘real work’. Sadly, I do.  A friend at school once said to me, ‘Is there anything you haven’t done?’. I did not leave university and start a PGCE. In fact, I saw quite a bit of the business world. In fact, I spent years in it. I worked in a call centre for a year, selling insurance. I spent just under three years working for a building firm on a graduate programme. I even spent time in a factory, making boxes. The common thing in all of those jobs was that when the job was done, it was done. I could walk away and live to see another day. I can vividly recall watching the clock tick away with my coat on ready to go home.

Psychologically, the job’s demands are taxing on established teachers let alone anyone new coming into the job.  They don’t know the ropes. The ropes have no end and they are knotted and constantly moving. Some will leave for this reason alone. Another reason is for the benefits. I have friends who earn more than me, and they work at home some days. Furthermore, some of them have something called ‘flexi-time’. They can leave early on a Friday if they need to. Gosh, the grass does sound greener on the other side. Plus, they might get paid a bonus if they do really well. My brother-in-law often gets bonuses of more than £1000. Yeah, but I’m not in it for the money. But, if you are a young career minded person, then all these factors will influence you. It is a difficult job that you rarely get on top of and there aren’t that many perks – unless unlimited supply of lined paper and pens are perks for you.  

So, there are no perks and you have very little free time during term time. You can live with that. The money isn’t that bad compared to some jobs. That is true. However, other jobs have a consistent daily routine. John goes for his daily toilet break at 10am. Jenny always pops out at 11.15am to visit the bank and get sarnies for lunch. In schools, there is a routine, but real life interrupts it. I don’t have a steady day. I know what I am teaching and who I am teaching, but there could be a number of things that stops the flow of the day. There might be a fight a lunchtime. There might be a student crying over something at home. There might be a student being bullied. There might be a fire alarm.  In other jobs, there has been a consistent day. Life didn’t get in the way. So when you are new to teaching, getting used to the ebbs and flows of life in a school is hard.  Wind, snow, rain, sun and hail all have a dramatic impact on teaching and the behaviour of students. Sadly, Ofsted don’t take these factors when judging teaching, as all of these can change the simple routine of a day.

Yeah, but then you have other people with you and it is the people that make the job bearable. I have been at my loneliest I have ever been in teaching.  For twenty one or less hours a week, it is you on your own in the classroom. Yes, you have the students to teach. But, some days you may never see an adult. A like minded person.  When people apply for a job as a teacher, the skills they show off their skills of working with people. Yet for most of the week they will not work with people.  They will work in isolation and separated from other teachers by classrooms. I think humans can deal with most things, if they can whinge or moan about it with some friends. I have in the past. You often have a bad day and you need to offload it somehow. That’s where friends come in. However, you need to find them. Some big schools are so big that these friendships are rarely formed and people don’t feel comfortable because of the pecking order in their department.  If I moan, it shows weakness.

 

Being on your own isn’t that bad. You always have the students to talk to. As long as the whole school is supportive, you can live with this. But, sadly some are not. There does seem to be a train of thought about ‘sink or swim’ with some NQTs. It is tough. You have to learn the hard way. Speaking from experience outside education, this is one of the most flawed ideas in education. You never give Year 1 students a copy of ‘War and Peace’ to read, because you are separating the wheat from the chaff by doing that. However, I do think in some schools there is this train of thought is going on in some of the decisions. Some of these decisions are made by people who escaped the classroom as soon as they could and became member of 'management'. (Note: I don't think this is the case of all and most people in management) All the nice things are kept for the experienced and established teachers and all the ‘difficult’ things are given to the newer members of staff. How many NQTs are given the low sets? How many NQTs are given top sets? Top sets at times can teach themselves, yet the low sets need several suitcases of tricks for behaviour, engagement that a new member of staff will not always have. I walked out of my job in the building industry because the man in charge of me treated me in exactly that way. Rather than nurture my talents, he gave me every terrible job possible. He sat on his bottom getting fatter and fatter while I did all of his work for him. I left and I have a sense of pride from doing that.

In my seven years of teaching, I have been shouted at, ignored, isolated and insulted by teachers. Thankfully, none of these have taken place in my current school. The teachers may have all been under some pressure. Maybe, they were having a tough time. But, surprisingly, I was too, and their actions never helped me, as a young teacher. The strangest one is the teacher that insulted me. I had just returned from a funeral of a relative, when one of the students in my tutor group told me about the teacher who covered my registration. The students asked where I was. The teacher replied that I had been, ‘involved with something to do with sheep’. Gobsmacked, I stormed straight to SLT, who fudged up the incident by trying to defuse the situation and telling me he meant that I was ‘feeding sheep’.  I got my apology from him (the idiot), but with colleagues like that who needs enemies. There have also been times in teaching where I have witnessed fallouts over sharing cupboards, display boards and the use of set texts.

Why do people leave teaching?  The workload? The perks? The constant changes? The isolation? The management? Very little rewards? The staff? They all may have some influence, but the biggest is about ‘making mistakes’. It is ironic that this blog is called ‘learning from my mistakes’, because I think NQTs and new teachers should be embracing mistakes. Yet, the culture that we have is about producing perfect teachers from day one. I was not perfect when I started. I don’t even think I am perfect now. I am better than I was then.  That is progress.

Sadly, I have been in situations where I have been scared of making a mistake because others would frown at me. They would tut verbally or mentally. I have heard so many times the follow phrase, ‘I wouldn’t do it like that’. When there is a culture of perfection around you it is so hard to think logically.  You start by feeling inadequate and end by feeling inadequate. This is then exaggerated by the fact that you don’t see the other teachers teaching from one lesson to another and see the pratfalls that happen to all teachers. Then, all those other elements I have talked about kick in. The isolation makes it worse. The workload means you can’t see the end of things. The perks of other jobs seem more tempting. The staff are too busy to help and support – one is just plain rude to you. The management dictate a new initiative for you to do. All these then make you ask that one question: Is it really worth it?

Let’s change how we treat new teachers. Share in our mistakes. Explain how becoming excellent teachers takes time. Share the idea that you cannot be outstanding every time and right from the start of your teaching career.  We don’t expect students to master a skill the first time they use it. The GCSE course is a two year course. The idea being that students progress over time. Let’s treat NQTs as being a course. A three. A four. A five year course. At the end of that time, they should be good, excellent or outstanding.  And it seems that I am not the only one to think that as this other blogsync agrees.

Oh, dear must go. Mr Ofsted has arrived:

Mr Ofsted: Hello. I am just going to ask you a few questions. What level are you working at?  

Me: It depends. Sometime good. Sometimes good with outstanding features. Sometimes outstanding when you are not breathing down my neck.
Mr Ofsted: What’s your target?  
Me:  Outstanding. No, ignore that. Brilliant.
Ofsted: Do you know what to do to improve?
Me: Umm, not really.
Ofsted: Ah, let me mark down your teacher as being a bad teacher. This clearly can’t be a good or outstanding lesson.
Me:   Actually, in a way you are the teacher in this case. You tell me what I need to do.
Ofsted: Ummm. Errr. Ummmm.
Me: That’s the problem, is it? How do you quantify something that isn’t concrete?
Ofsted: Ahhh, you haven’t put any PE into this lesson. I will now mark you down.
Me: This is an English lesson.
Ofsted: Yes, but we think you need to have some aspect of PE in your lesson for it to be an outstanding lesson.

 

I love my subject and that is why I love teaching and I try to put a lot of 'the crap' in a box in my head and just get on with things. From time to time, I do ask myself, ‘Is it really worth it?’. Most days it is, but there is the odd day when it isn’t and that is usually a day when Mr Gove speaks.

Thanks for reading,

Xris32

 

P.S. Why a forklift in a library? I think I must be one of the few English teachers that has a licence to drive a forklift truck. Part of my training for being in the building industry was using a forklift. I am still waiting for the moment when I need to step up and use this unqiue skill for an English teacher.

Les Misérables - Blog Sync 1

Blog Sync 1: The Universal Panacea: The number one shift in UK education I wish to see in my lifetime

Outlawing politicians? Criminalising being a politician? Extraditing politicians? Money? Time? The list is endless. But for me, I want something created.

At the moment, the teaching profession is like a choir. Everyone is concerned with making music, or as we like to call it, education.  Yet, some are singing intune. Some are singing out of tune. Some are singing the wrong version. Some are singing the old version. Some are singing a song that they made themself. Some are contemplating giving up singing. In truth, there’s a lot of singing, but it isn’t harmonious. That is the beauty of teaching. That is the problem with teaching.  The problem is: when you have a song being sung all over the place, it is ripe for someone to come in with the hope of conducting it.  Step forward, Mr Gove. He has come forward with a baton and is making / forcing us to sing to a song that was sung a long time ago. We, as a profession, let this happen. Our lack of consistency allowed this opportunity for someone to step forward and take the reins. Before people go all angry and think I am implying that all teachers are teaching badly – I am not. Far from it. I think the fact that we haven’t got a consistent direction or focus that is the cause of our problems.  

We all know the ideologies of the current Government are based on monetary value and wealth. My grandmother worked for British Rail for several years; something I was and am very proud of. My mother works for the NHS and I work for the education system. It all makes me proud that we serve our society. We are about improving things and serving our community.  Sadly, British Rail was privatised to make the Government more money. Now, we have a pretty awful state of affairs with the train system, and it looks set to get worse.

Now the ideologies of the Conservatives do not sit naturally with education. Education, at heart, is about improving the individual.  However, with the Conservatives, education has become about value for money. We see this in performance related pay. We see this in regional pay brackets. We see this in the disbanding of the PGCE programme – I know I have been a critic of this, but I did not want it destroyed.  The focus at the moment is on money. The focus isn’t on improving the individual. In the rhetoric used by them, they refer to standards and improving standards, but in reality it is about getting staff cheap. The recession was the best thing for the Conservatives as it gave a reason for all cuts. We have to do it or we will be in an even worse situation. We have to reduce the benefits given to disabled people or we will be in an even worse situation. The intelligent question is: where are they not making cuts?

That might seem like a big digression, but here is my point: we need a think tank. We need an organisation that is focused on improving education. An organisation that advises staff of how to teach things in the best possible way. An organisation that isn’t politically biased. An organisation that is full of contrasting people that challenge, argue and agree on the best song sheet for us to follow. An independent organisation that is not worried about scoring political votes, securing financial backing from large companies and pleasing old established members of  an organisation.  Basically, I want an organisation that conducts the teaching profession’s singing, making Mr Gove’s battle for the baton difficult and possibly impossible. 

My think tank would be the ones who made the major changes and proposals for teaching moving teaching on. They would be responsible for:

·         Examinations

·         Subjects

·         Subject content

·         Curriculums

·         National strategies

·         Spreading best practice

·         Improving learning across the country

·         Supporting underperforming schools

The Think Tank (now in capitals as I am starting to believe it could be real) would be the buffer that stops all the unnecessary rubbish that politicians force on schools. Oh dear, the newspapers have highlighted a bad thing. I know – let’s force it on to the teachers. They must teach our students how to hold mobile phones correctly. The Think Tank would be the advanced guard. They would stop the crazy ideas that the latest politician has. They would be our defence. Furthermore, it would give schools more of a direction and save people endlessly going to courses searching for the missing nugget that is going to solve all their problems.  Schools spend loads of money on the latest text books, endorsed by an exam board, or a couple a hundred of pounds on a one day course that may or may not be useful. The Think Tank would have the ideas and the right direction. They wouldn’t be proscriptive as to the way you teach, but they would be the ‘go to guys /girls’ as to how to improve teaching.  

I know that I have my head in the clouds, but a guy has got to dream, hasn’t he? Who would staff this? Teachers and head teachers. I am privileged to share time and conversations with some brilliant teachers and head teachers and through Twitter I have met more. The recent GCSE fiasco has been a call to arms for some and the formation of the ‘Heads’ Round Table’ is the seed for this idea.  We need people who have the experience of the classroom mixed with the knowledge of the big picture. Some perfect examples would be Geoff Barton, Zoe Elder, Phil Beadle, David Didau and Lisa Jane Ashes and many more. Often we have too many people who have no experience of teaching telling us what to do. I have been taught something; therefore, I am an expert of teaching. Sadly, this isn’t really true. I have been a patient of a hospital, but I would not have the knowledge or the understanding to offer advice to doctors on how to operate or cure an illness. In fact, I have eaten lasagna several times, but I don’t think I am an expert on cooking them or telling people how to cook them.    

Now, my Think Tank would be full of intelligent people who teach. They would know that you need several ways to crack a nut and they wouldn’t be proscriptive as to how things are taught. They would lead the way in ideas, methodology, and resources. You often hear how other countries have an education that is far superior to our own. Yes, they probably do, because it is organised better. Some of my colleagues have more organised classrooms than me because they have a system to organise things. They don’t have a mug with a collection of pens that students leave behind. They have pristine drawers where things are organised and placed in their right place. The pens know their jobs and their place and what to do. Maybe, people could stop all this talk of comparison with other countries, if we had this structure. Yes, it looks greener, but that could be because it looks more organised.

Furthermore, the Think Tank would put a halt to this constant changing of education.  Every year there is a major change in the education system. An average child will see several changes in their life of education, yet we never really see the benefits or problems of those changes because something else eclipses it. Before we could see the benefits of the new English exam system, it has been scraped and changed to a terminal exam system. That too, in several years, will be scraped and replaced by something altogether different.  The Think Tank would oversee the changes made and analyse the success of them based on data and results. Things wouldn’t be changed on a whim or a passing idea. Things would be changed based on knowledge, experience and based on discussion.  

I know I am talking about something that is never going to happen and is quite impossible.  In fact, we have something in place that could be our ‘Think Tank’: Ofsted. Ofsted is at the centre of teaching these days. They should, and rarely do, advise teachers what to do. Their current agenda is: you are not doing that right. Maybe, politicians should relinquish their hold on education and give it over to Ofsted.  As if politicians are going to release their hold on the education system? It gives them their content for their speeches. What would they have left to talk about? Taxes!  We all know that a politician will always try to include the words ‘education’, ‘raise’ and ‘standards’ if they want to get votes, because people ‘think’ it is not as good as it was in their day. However, it is good; it just needs a little reshaping.  

 
Now, all together folks… sing!

Do you hear the people sing? Singing the song of angry men…

Thanks for reading and check out more blogs like this at Blogsync.

Xris32

 P.S. These thoughts are all my own and, as far as I know, nobody else shares these views.