Take me to the river ...

As a vocal supporter of state education and an employee of the state to provide such a service, I feel that when it comes to opinions about where things are going right and where they’re going wrong, I’ve got a pretty good idea of what I’m talking about. I don’t know everything but i like to think I’ve got more than a rudimentary grasp of the facts.

In schools at the moment, there is a lot of talk about the impact of inclusion whereby there’s is a presumption of mainstream and every child should be catered for in their nearest school unless there is a well documented reasons why not. As the parent of a child who will almost certainly require more support than many, I’m delighted as I think that she will benefit greatly from being in a mainstream environment and, let’s face it, the opposite of inclusion is exclusion and that doesn’t sound great.

There are children in our classes who battle daily with all manner of issues. Crappy home life, poverty, hunger and who make it into school each day. Old Mr Maslow would rightly point out that they’re not  going to be in the right mental space to learn but as spaces go, the structure, consistency and safety of a school classroom is hopefully better than the shitstorm of the rest of their life. They may not behave as the majority behave and they may have huge gaps in their learning but I strongly believe that a mainstream setting is what they need.

But I have an issue with the word, or indeed the perceived definition of the word ‘mainstream’.

I’ve seen mainstream defined as the middle ground between full inclusion and special schools which is about as broad a definition as you can give. To my mind, however, I feel that this mainstream has been made to be more like a canal than a river.

A canal is a solitary channel down which everything flows at the same speed. Calm, still waters carrying their load from one end to the other: a picture of Victorian ingenuity and industrial efficiency.

A river, on the other hand, meanders it’s way through the landscape, skirting obstacles, speeding up, slowing down and, more importantly splitting and braiding. The rushes and rapids, the pools and islands don’t stop the river being the river. They provide alternate routes to the same destination.

The state has a duty to its children’s to provide them with an education but that doesn’t mean a one size fits all solution. For some people, canals are blissful, serene, idyllic and rivers are unpredictable and wild but why do we all have to to travel by canal?

Could we not create mainstream solutions that contain the channels and islands of rivers?

Best laid plans

You know those days when you've had a great idea and in your head it's going to be brilliant.

The children are going to love it. 

You're going to love it. 

Learning can't help but happen, be it incidental, accidental or wholly intentional - and, in your head, trumpets trumpet, klaxons klax and the whole orchestra soars upon a crescendo of awe ...

... and then you do it.

The trumpets don't turn up. The klaxons are on strike and the whole orchestra has been replaced by a solitary party whistle with a hole in the end.

Yep. Had one of those this afternoon.

We've been looking at maps. Talking about cities. We went outside. Opened the Loose Parts container and constructed a city using what was there.

In my head this was 
a feast of tower blocks,

winding rivers of blue plastic. 
Tarpaulin parks,

and Guggenheim-esque edifices.

One group built a miniature skyscraper (so far so good). Another built Arthur's Seat. Another built a canoe and all climbed in ... some others built a bench and sat on it.

STOP! STOP! STOP!

Did I not mention "SCALE" ... Ah. OK. So. "Imagine you are giants and humans are the size of your thumbs ..."

All it took was that and they were off. We had cranes and canals, footbridges and fountains. We even had a Statue of Liberty.

They stood back. Admired their town planning skills and then I got them to draw a map of it. 26 bird’s eye views drawn to some sort of scale.

Sound the trumpets. Klax the klaxons. Bring out the kettle drums.

We got there. We all learnt something.

Let's flip this thing.

The Scottish Government takes great pride in the fact that A Curriculum for Excellence is one of very few curricula in which both Outdoor Learning and Learning for Sustainability are carved into the very bedrock of everything that it stands for.

Outdoor Learning will almost certainly be discussed (again) later on so Learning for Sustainability is to be tonight's focus.

Learning for Sustainability. It's a huge, nebulous mass of stuff that, much like a Magic Eye image, can only really be seen if your eyes go a bit fuzzy. There's so much in thrall to its gravitational pull that its hard to get your head around.

The phrase for starters is brilliantly* nondescript. It alludes to something but can anyone say exactly what? It seems to encompass everything but consist of nothing. To my mind it has all the hallmarks of an excellent basis for any kind of curriculum planning.

Take, for example, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Sustainable_Development_Goals.jpg

The children in our classes need to know about these. As someone said in a room I was in somewhere recently, "there will be 1.8bn young people globally by 2030, whose fires have already been lit regarding the SDGs; we need to feed that fire."

Why are they (the SDGs) not at the heart of our planning? A sustainability-based curriculum that would be able to incorporate all other aspects of the curriculum. Maths, literacy, science, health and well-being, art, social studies and a whole heap more.

Lots of us are doing lots of things to do with lots of them anyway but we get blinded by the need to focus on numeracy, literacy and health and well-being.

Let's flip this thing. Flip it and start with these and see what we can do with them?

Just a thought.

*read 'frustratingly'

The Definite Article

A Curriculum for Excellence.

What can I say?

I like it.

There. I've said it.

In the OECD report of 2015, it was advised that the Scottish Government needed to continue to be bold and to strive for the "full conclusion of a curriculum that is to be built by teachers, schools and communities."

How awesome does that sound? A curriculum built by teachers, schools and communities. Not a constant storm of excrement from On High but a curriculum tailored, by teachers, to the needs, interests, aspirations of the community it serves. What's not to like?

I first engaged with A Curriculum for Excellence in 2014, full of enthusiasm and excitement. It took about a term before I'd been told by almost everyone that, and I paraphrase, most people wanted to go back to the old 5-14 curriculum. They wanted their hands held. To be told what to teach and how to teach it.

Four years later, the naysayers are still braying for the "good old days" when teaching was a "turn to page 17" type of affair. When the diligent did and the disenchanted didn't. When children were angels to a person and a stern look and a talking to from the head teacher was all it took. When handwriting was immaculate and everyone knew their times tables to 29 by the age of 8.

The cynicism that greets the arrival of anything new is understandable. Most people don't like change. Most people like the status quo. Most people like the comfort of the unbroken. Particularly if you've only got a few more years before you can retire ... what's the point in changing?

Well, the world has changed and education needs to move on.

I like A Curriculum for Excellence. I like its promise and the trust and opportunities it affords me as a teacher. I like that it treats me as a professional with an opinion. I like its flexibility.

What I don't like is how its been constrained by well-meaning but ultimately misguided attempts to, er, guide it. What I don't like is the fact that, despite the promise it appears to show, it's being coralled into a one size fits all box.

Let's embrace THE Curriculum for Excellence. Let's revolt and bring it back under the control of those who are at the coal face.

Once more unto the breech ...

Everything below this post was before.

Everything after this post is after.

I am the same me.

These opinions are mine.

Feel free to join in the discussion with my inner monologue.

Stuff and Nonsense

Sitting in assembly the other day, I suddenly became aware of the self-righteous and utterly ridiculous twaddle that schools forcibly stuff down the collected maws of those of us who otherwise have the pleasure to work there or are incarcerated therein, against their will, on a daily basis (their implication, my words).
"As you all know," said the deputy, "we are an anti-bullying school [...]" and so she went on.
And that was where the twaddle became so eminently clear: Are there any pro-bullying schools out there? Or how about schools that don't respect rights? What about schools that don't espouse healthy eating and instead feed their pupils on saturated fat and carbonated soft drinks through an intravenous drip?
How about schools that have a ritualistic tyre burning ceremony to kick off every day before serving a lunchtime menu of deep fried panda, rather than recycle?
Who are we fooling and, more to the point, why do we spend so much time jumping through these well-intentioned hoops.
Just a thought.

Outdoor Learning v. Learning Outdoors

At the turn of this new school year I made a promise to my class and, in so doing, a challenge to myself: To spend at least one session a week outside.  The grand intention behind this seemingly simple pledge was to fill the hollow words of good intentions with some substance.

As a self-professed 'outdoorsy' type I realised that, in spite of so much bluster, the number of outdoor learning sessions I had planned and delivered was woefully small.  By endeavouring - and making public - my outdoor intentions it meant that I felt compelled to consider ways and means of stepping out of the classroom.

In order to better engage the children in the process I also mentioned to them that I'd be asking them which sessions they thought could be delivered outside.  This required that I be much more organised than has previously been the case.  Presenting the children with the Significant Aspects being delivered the following week and asking them which ones they thought could be delivered outside and then seeing which day was the most appropriate has meant that I have needed to be flexible in my planning and in my delivery, aware of when I have support and ready for anything from a weather perspective.

Children and their parents / carers have been advised that we would be going outside each week and, therefore, to come to school prepared.  In these balmy September days when the weather is still clement, outdoor learning can and often is fairly spontaneous, but as the nights draw in and the temperature starts dropping, that spontaneity evaporates.  By being organised and checking weather forecasts the hope is that there will never be a week when we cannot go outside.  I even made the most of the free waterproof ponchos on a recent open top bus tour in order to ensure that rain didn't get in the way.

So far ... so dry!

As mentioned in a previous post, I feel there is a link between the great outdoors and the SAMR model although I feel that we are, at best, prone to convincing ourselves that outdoor learning is happening when we are simply learning outdoors.  To my mind, there is a step change required in our approaches if the outdoors is to enhance the learning and not simply act as a surrogate or substitute classroom.  Yes the children love being outside and so any lesson is going to be more memorable as a result, but I do think that there's much more to it and much more that needs to be considered if such lessons are not to be contrived.
Has my teaching changed as a result of my outdoor yearnings?  Only marginally.  Why?  For the simple reason that simple substituting of "in-" for "out-" is just that, simple.  Transformation of the teaching side requires a re-imagining of the structure of the curriculum; a re-imagining in which the outdoors takes the lead.
Has learning changed as a result of my outdoor yearnings? More so.  Why?  In part I think this is due to the removal of the pressure to learn.
The classroom itself is, for some children, a highly stressful environment in which learning is expected of them and failure a grave concern.  In the medium of the outdoors, the lack of walls, desks, chairs - the lack of confinement in general - gives them headspace and takes away the usually implicit expectation that they will learn or, if not then they have failed.
Children who fear failure in the structured environment of things as simple as multilink cubes, lose their inhibitions and trepidation when said cubes are substituted for leaves or sticks or a combination of both.  They are able to apply a looser definition of what is right or wrong and, as a result, exhibit less consternation for the learning.
It's early days but watch this space!

Here be monsters

In the mi(d)st of the background reading for my Masters, I stumbled across an article (http://www.livescience.com/18678-incompetent-people-ignorant.html) that suggested that the less intelligent you are, the less intelligent you realise you are and, as a result, when asked to adjudge how you have fared in a piece of work, your lack of intelligence leads you to believe that you've got everything right.  Those with a modicum of nous will recognise that they can't possibly have got everything right and so will demonstrate said knowledge by giving themselves less than full marks. 

In the dog eat dog world of primary state education, pupil voice is one of a multitude of buzzwords currently swarming in, on and around every classroom.  Involve them in the planning, the marking, the feedback, running the class, running the school and choosing the headteacher.  As a teacher I can just sit back with my feet up, dunking chocolate Hobnobs (other brands of chocolate coated oaty biscuits are available) into mugs of freshly brewed tea.

Or not.

The fact remains that however much voice we give our charges, the above appears to hold exponentially true for them ... And even for those deemed to be more able.

Self-assessment in the primary classroom - below a certain age, perhaps - is an exercise in futility.  Their naive self-belief is unfathomably brilliant but we shouldn't try and convince ourselves that it's doing anyone any favours.  If they think they've done amazing work then that's great until such time as they get feedback that underscores their entirely understandable mediocrity.  Is that of their peers any more valid?  I'd be inclined to say no; it's as unintentionally misguided as their own and similarly blind to said mediocrity.

Should we celebrate mediocrity?  Of course not but I think that there's a threat that, at times, we do.  All with the best intentions, of course: the hallowed Grail of increased self-esteem and/or confidence.  As mentioned herein -  http://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/self-efficacy-and-learning/ - monsters lurk in the shallows of well-meaning praise; the depths are a different matter entirely in this world of ever increasing accountability.

I'll continue to seek the assessment views of my class as I'm hoping that practice, on their part, makes perfect, but I'm not going to be holding my breath or basing any judgements on what they tell me.

Dig, if you will, a picture ...

Yestereve, at the tail end of a CAT session in which we had shared some good practice, sought pupil voice in the white noise of the feedback cycle and generally patted ourselves on the back for what we are doing well and skulked - like a shamefaced pooch accused of raiding the dustbin while pleading innocence despite the tinfoil blizzard that has beset the kitchen - in the face of indepth scrutiny that might reveal us for the charlatans we really are, we cast a weary eye over a chapter or two of a book in which it was mentioned that, if learning is to happen, volition and motivation need to converge.

This got me thinking ...

I've always said, somewhat facetiously, that when I was at school my teachers would try and goad me into action by suggesting that if I didn't extract my proverbial finger, I'd be lumbered with a B for my efforts.  

My silent but subconscious retort was always - contrary to that which I outwardly displayed to my concerned parents, academic tutors and anyone else with a vested interest in my education - "What's wrong with a B?"  I almost wonder whether I'd have accepted the B then in return for fewer classroom hours and less agro on the homework front.

Through every exam I ever did, up to and including my undergraduate degree, I coasted.  I did what I had to and no more.

Aged 32 I signed up to do my PGCE and there and then it was that the volition/motivation lines crossed.  I loved what I was doing, I wanted to do well.

32.

Thirty two.

I have 26 children in my class at present.  

Since qualifying as a teacher I have taught upwards of 200 primary aged children.  Some of them will undoubtedly follow the same trajectory as I did and for some it will take even longer.  Some will have peaked already and others will peak just when current assessment strategies demand that they should.

What does it all mean?  No idea.

As I said, it made me think.

Once SAMR unto the breach, dear friends.

In recent weeks, I've found myself being continuously professionally developed in Gaelic, the Outdoors and Tablets; a satisfyingly broad range of topics designed to itch the scratch that is intellectual intrigue and global fascination.

Leaving aside the glottal assault course that is Gaelic for the moment - although I feel certain I will address its idiosyncrasies at some point - the latter two appeared to overlap in ways in which I hadn't dreamed they would.

The SAMR model, should you care, identifies 4 stages in the implementation of new technology moving from Substitution through Augmentation and Modification to Redefinition (https://sites.google.com/a/msad60.org/technology-is-learning/samr-model).

I'm not going to pretend that I'm any kind of expert but it struck me during the session on outdoor learning that a similar model could be applied to the outdoors.  Simply taking the learning outside - substituting the classroom for the great outdoors - is a noble endeavour in itself but redefining the way something is taught through the opportunities afforded by the world beyond the classroom windows I something else entirely.

Exactly how to do this I am not yet in a position to explore, but I will be and I can't wait.  Anything thoughts, suggestions, ideas and the like are more than welcome either here or @alwiello ...

A return to the measuring of school efficacy?

In their most recent diktat, the DfE in their self-assumed guise of Knowledge Tsars, would appear to be deliberately poking an already irked education profession with yet another stick labelled Assessment ("Reception children to face compulsory tests from 2016").  Poking, beating, whipping, flogging, whatever you want to call it, the time in which we teachers can actually do what we're trained to do is being increasingly worn away by the relentless desire to measure: Foundation Profiles, Phonics Screenings, SATS ... by the time they're 11, our little people have been poked, prodded and measured in a manner more befitting the innumerable residents of Hungtingdon Life Sciences than the youth of the 21st Century.

But ...

The baselining proposed in the above article does, hear me out, have its merits.

If we take the DfE at their word and they do do away with KS1 SATs, if schools and progress are to be measured at all* then there needs to be something to measure against.

To my mind, any baseline test should aim to establish basic levels of knowledge - in this case, what a small person knows.

Small people know lots of things and know how to do lots of things.  Some of them know more than others and can do more than others.  Some can read, tie their shoelaces, colour in neatly, recognise their letters, count to 20, say please and thank you, dress themselves and so on.  Others are equally adept at playing with their own poop, chewing things, falling over, sticking everything in their mouths and the rest.  Baselining of each would inform us of where they are starting.

But - yes, another one, and this is perhaps the biggest of all - such a thing in no way indicates what the child is likely to achieve in their life either academically or otherwise.  It is a mark in the sand and no more.

If a child ends up leaving primary school still eating their own poop and falling over then either there are issues with the child or the school has really not done what it's meant to do.   If, however, progress has been made in any way shape or form then well done everybody.

Baselining is not and should not be a measurement against a prescribed standard; it should be a starting point against which to measure progress:  See what the children can do, celebrate it for what it is and then let them develop, grow and learn.  When they leave school (secondary, preferably, but the assessment obsession is a strong one and I can't see that happening!) see how they're doing; see if they can do what you'd expect an 11 year old to be able to do, be it a handstand or the x times table.

So how does this affect school efficacy and its measurement?  Ignore the baseline and celebrate the progress the children have made and how many of them can do what an 11-year-old (not a 13 or 16-year-old) should be able to do.

I suspect that the intentions behind the proposed assessment of small people is just that, suspect.  It would be nice to be proved wrong.

*I'm assuming here that the likelihood of schools not being measured is slim to non-existent.

Mapping an uncertain future

At the recent lgfl conference, Stephen Heppell (@stephenheppell) used the following allegory to describe the contemporary approach to assessment and prediction: If we hold a rock in our hand whose mass we know, and throw it with a known amount of force, physics will tell us exactly where that rock will land. If we replace the rock with a bird, no amount of physics can help us predict where it will land if we throw it (assuming, of course, it's neither flightless not dead).
Are our children rocks or flightless/dead birds? Or are they unpredictably unpredictable bundles of potential? Who are we to map their futures when we have no idea what that future may be?

Who wants their future mapped on the basis of how they performed in a test aged 7/11/16?

When I'd finished my GCSEs, back in the dark ages of the 90s, I did a thing called the Morrisbey Test. It took the number of s's I could write backwards in a minute, multiplied it by the square root of my blood group and extrapolated from the outcome that I'd be an excellent army officer, architect or binman.
I considered the first, studied to become the second then, after some years spent drinking and getting fat (aka working in finance), travelled the world teaching English before becoming a primary school teacher. I'd been given a "map" but life was a far better guide than any teacher, parent or exam result.

What am I saying? Well, we should be providing the diurnal residents of our classrooms with the skills and knowledge with which to navigate the worlds they encounter,not mapping it out for them. Point them to places they might want to see, but let them get there on their own accord.

Send them on their way with a sturdy stick and a spotted handkerchief brimming with "Well-done!-You're-good-enough-for-anything."

Every day's a school day ...

One of the reasons I love this job is the sheer unpredictability of each and every day.  Sure there are moments when you feel plagued by déjà vu, when you just wish that you didn't have to reproach a child for the fourth time that lesson for doing the same thing as that for which they were reproached the three previous times.  Then again, that's one of the things about working with children.

My current class had a pretty terrible time last year.  They were mauled at the hands of innumerable supply teachers who exhibited abilities ranging from the mediocre to the abysmal, and were victims of the kind of stability that only Italian renaissance architects would have considered as suitable for building upon.  They came to me unsure of themselves, unsure of each other and undoubtedly unsure of me.

I've worked hard with them and at the end of last term they were beginning to exhibit the behaviour I'd usually witness at the start of Year 5.  Furthermore - bonus point for a hopelessly outdated and seldom used connective - one of my colleagues, who takes my class for ICT while I teach his French, recognised a significant improvement which is always reassuring.  We're getting there.

This room is littered with what Bill Rogers might refer to as black spots.  Sometimes it feels like those black spots abhor a vacuum and fill all the surrounding white space with their disruptiom; other times, when one of them fades to grey, a symphony explodes between your ears that would make G. F. Handel's famous piece sound like muzak.

You always hope for those moments and you think of every possible way of doing it and then the smallest thing makes all the difference in the world.  "Tuck yourself in.  Do up your top button and straighten your tie."  If I'd know that was all it took!

As I've already said, we're getting there!

During this on-going Microsociety project, there are moments when the children unwittingly underscore so much of what we as teachers pencil in the margins of our minds; information that, during the handover process, becomes another layer of complexity daubed on the paisley print wallpaper and lead-filled paint of a bygone school year.  Information that a chance meeting would never reveal and which the children themselves often don't know exists.

On other occasions their idiosyncrasies burst on to the scene with the guile and subtlety of an out of control Mardi Gras float.

Today, following some sage business advice on the things to consider when setting up a business, the children had to answer a series of questions, the scores of which indicated - vaguely - whether they were more suited to starting their own business or more suited to working for someone else.  Of the 30 children in my class, 27 of them fitted into the first category ... and I was not in the least bit surprised.  In the other class, it was a half and half split.

While I was not surprised by the outcome my class presented, what was interesting was that, despite knowledge of the outcomes and what they implied, there's not a single person who has decided that they want to set up on their own.  It seems that, in spite of the bluster and swagger, there are some serious insecurities.  At the moment it is all friendship groups (with one notable exception) and it's going to be very interesting to see how they actually fare when we get around to trading and sorting out the nitty gritty.

I'm hoping ... I don't know what I'm hoping.

Part of me wants this whole experience to help them develop as conscientious individuals who look out for each other and don't revert to the bickering and "she told me to do it" attitude that is still so prevalent.

Another part of me wants the whole thing to go for a ball of chalk: not because I don't think it's a worthwhile project, because I do - I think it's amazing!  But, and it is quite a powerful but, the debrief stages of this project are when the real learning is done; when ideas are shared and opinions voiced and everyone has their say.  In the words of Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame, "Failure is always an option" and I think there's more to be learnt about them and by them from their interpersonal and social failures than in their successes, particularly from the neutral perspective of Microsociety.  Things which in the playground are raw and real can be dealt with in the abstract but with reference to real life.

This class has so much to learn, and so much potential in so many ways, but their highly self-centred view of life, the universe and everything has tied their shoe laces together. 

I am reminded of the story of the visitor to heaven and hell who noticed that there were few differences between the two and that the residents were provided with very long chopsticks with which to eat.  In the former they had worked out that they could feed one another and so be nourished.  In the latter, they were so focused on themselves that they forever went hungry.

http://ifindkarma.tumblr.com/post/14953420087/kittie-heaven-is-mousie-hell

Here's to the end of hunger.

Microsociety Week 2: Currency to Current-cy

“This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.”  

Adams, D.N., The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Apostle Paul recognised it and pulled no punches in one of his numerous letters to people who didn't know him (in this instance, Timothy): "the love of money is the root of all evil."  Such a sentiment may be stretching things a little, but in this possession-laden society in which we live, it certainly has some clout.

This week in Microsociety we were looking at currency and some of its key aspects.  We considered what could be used as currency, what was necessary for a currency to work and some of the features - such as divisibility and the ability to save it without it spoiling - that made some things more suitable than others.  In light of last week's /un/successful scarcity session, the children were much more alert to the aims of Microsociety and, with some curriculum tweaks, the buy-in was further enhanced.



It just so happens that we are finishing up a unit on persuasive writing.  We've written adverts and looked at the language of persuasion.  Time to move on.

It was very kind of the Secretary of State for Education to be quite so fecund in his outbursts over the Easter holiday and so it was we got on to the topic of the proposed lengthening of the school day.  We wondered what we could do to let our feeling's known.  We cogitated over the arguments for and against such a change.  We sought evidence to support our arguments.  We wrote our letters to Mr Gove outlining the way we felt (with a strong emphasis on the children writing their opinions, not mine!) ... we became active citizens.

The letters will be going in the post later this week once they've been proofread, edited and typed up nice and official, like.

"But, Mr L..., what happens if:

• Mr Gove doesn't read our letters?"
• he reads them but ignores them?"
• he reads them and answers all of our concerns?"

What indeed ...

Pascal's wager states that it's better to believe in [insert supernatural being of choice] than to not; In this instance, sadly, Mr Gove is all too real, but - and this was the key point - by taking the initiative to write, by making their views heard, by being active citizens, whatever the outcome, they have taken an element of control of their futures.

It was one of those moments that, without the backdrop of Microsociety and the little societal aspects upon which we touch each day, could so easily have been lost.  In fact, from now on, during this unit, we're not just going to write to the head teacher trying to persuade her to change something in the school, we're going to find something real and become real activists, not just playground ones.

P.S. Just as an aside, I'm not in the business of politicising the children in my care and so have taken great pains to ensure my neutrality: I don't find fence sitting particularly comfortable, particularly when oxidisation and barbs are involved as they are in this albeit metaphorical instance, but for reality's sake, I wanted them to feel free to give their opinion.  

I apologise, now, should school days be lengthened in light of the letters received from any of my children!

Suspicions Confirmed! - Microsociety Week 1

On Tuesday, as the new term rubbed the sleep from its eyes, stretched its sleep-addled limbs and picked up almost exactly where it had left off two and a bit weeks earlier, my class set out on a journey under the guidance of My Voice London; a journey into the world of Microsociety where, in the words of My Voice, "Pupils create their own society and set up the institutions required by that society - government, a civil service, an economy, businesses, and a legal system."

The first of twelve sessions introduces the children to the concept of scarcity, something which, in my class at least, is understood but the global impact of which is not really grasped.  In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's not grasped at all.  Through the medium of an imaginary world called Justenuf, the children consider how resources are best shared and the different ways in which this can be done.  Cue a wealth of the kind of responses that the children know that they know that the teacher wants them to say. 

All very much as expected ... to now.

What followed I personally could have scripted knowing the children as well as I do.  It was slightly depressing, in many ways, but utterly intriguing in so many others.

There is a well-established Christian Aid Trading Game that My Voice London have adapted for a younger audience; a game which I had previously played as part of my pre-departure training for a VSO placement.  The premise is simple: each group is given a varied selection of resources and set the task of producing perfectly proportioned products in order to earn points: A 10cm diameter circle scores 10 points, a 10cm square, 5.  The team with the most points, wins.  Simple.

But ...

The resources that each group starts the game with are wildly different: some groups (A + B) have all the tools needed to make the products but no raw materials, while others have the raw materials but not the tools (E + F).  Another group have a bit of everything (C + D).  The idea is that "trade" happens between those who have the raw materials and those that have the tools for manufacture.  Each group is also given a small number of counters worth a fixed amount (5 points).

As I said, the idea is that, recognising the imbalance, "trade" happens.

My current class are an intriguing group of children who had a pretty torrid time last year with no stability at all, and have only recently begun to resemble the Year 5 classes that I usually have at the start of the year.  If you had asked me to predict what would happen over the course of this game, you would have found little difference between my prediction and the outcome.

Groups A and B realised that they had no resources and, for the most part, sat at their tables saying, "We haven't got any paper.  We can't do it.  It's not fair."  One child in one of the groups suggested trading with one of the other tables but her team mates told her that then they'd lose the resources they had.  Eventually both groups arrived at the conclusion that by handing in their counters they could score points without manufacturing anything at all, and so they did!  25 points to both teams.

Groups E and F both set about the manufacturing of the products with gusto, but without any means of measuring or indeed cutting, they both resorted to tearing and folding their paper in increasingly varied and haphazard ways.  Individuals did their own thing without consulting any of their group members and eventually ran out of resources.  Both teams handed their counters in and so scored at least some points. 5 points apiece.

Groups C and D had enough resources and tools to not need to rely on anyone else.  That said, their fortunes varied massively.  Group D were unable to measure or cut accurately and so didn't manage to make any 'saleable' products.  One of their number did try to borrow some of the manufacturing tools from Group A but the latter did not consider trading.  Group D ended up handing in their counters to save their blushes. Group C, on the other hand, not only managed to manufacture products that were precise enough to score points, but also handed in their counters and, therefore, won. Group D: 10 points; Group C: 30 points)

The conclusion of any Microsociety session consists of a team-based, in role debrief and feedback, followed by a more generic debrief, out of role.  There was a great deal of discussion about the unfairness of the distribution of resources, tools and 'money' and it was during this part of the session that the concept of trading reared its ugly capitalist head!  Interestingly, the two children who had suggested trading didn't, at any point, raise this during the debrief.  In discussion with my colleague who was doing the same in the other Year 5 class, the concept of trade had come up during the Q and A session before the game began; a question that was asked by probably the most able child in the year group.  Trade had happened in their class.

I have to say, from my point of view, sitting back and watching the children play this game, observing them doing what they do, listening to the conversations they were having and their very self-centred approaches was utterly fascinating.  I wish, in some ways, I'd done it at the beginning of the year but, then again, they are a very immature group and I don't think they would have gained much from it.

It will be very interesting indeed to see how their approaches to life and one another, as well as the way they interact with the world around them changes as we proceed through the project.  Session 1 one was amazing; I can't wait to see how the rest pan out.

If ...

This first week of the Easter break has been intriguing.

The final week of term and the seemingly incessant stream of I don't know what that streams from the Union's annual conferences in its crude form and in the, ahem, refined, sensationalist manner that is typified by the popular - and, indeed, unpopular - press has irked.

The irking is largely, apparently, of my own doing.

At least it is if the press are to be believed.

Teachers have featured quite heavily in various articles launching themselves off the back of, in particular, the NUT Annual Conference, with which I have little* (* read "nothing") to do.

I was, until relatively recently, a member of said union but their rhetoric has been standing more and more at odds with my own beliefs and so it is I moved elsewhere. And yet still I am, in the popular conscience, tarred with the same brush as my more militant peers.  People - by which I mean the general public, they whose taxes pay our salaries - will see the word "teacher" and think that that means all of us.

I don't know how many delegates there are at the NUT and NASUWT conferences but whatever they're saying or voting on isn't what I think and I don't think it's what a lot of my colleagues think either. I think many of the headline's are daft - and probably apocryphal - and the hot air could be better used winning parents over to our side, as outlined by Peter Wilby here.

If parents were to march on Gove Towers demanding that he stop assessing their toddlers and children and just let them be just that then he might listen. Our duty as teachers is to educate and not just the children in our classes but their parents and carers; teach them, tell them about where our concerns really lie.

I think that the draft National Curriculum is over-stuffed with boredom.  I think that the creativity and enjoyment of learning is being squeezed out by perpetual assessment and unreasonable expectations.  I think that parents are as guilty as government in their excess of said expectations: Level 4 in English and Maths is no longer good enough; we want some to be achieving level 6.  I think there is a lot that we can learn from other countries but I think the mantra of "learn less better" should hold.

I also happen to think that we're paid a perfectly reasonable salary.  I didn't enter the profession for the pension nor for the holidays.  I didn't enter it through some misguided desire to change the world.  I became a teacher because I wanted to teach.  I've done numerous things before this and it is, without doubt, the most absorbing and engaging thing I've ever done.  Sure it has its frustrations but what doesn't.  I'm sure we'd all love to neither mark nor assess nor do the 101 other things that we do because we care.  Juggling the roles of teacher, phase leader, PE Co-ordinator, Teacher Governor, husband, colleague, friend, sibling, son, etc was never going to be easy but, guess what, I knew that, yet still I manage.

I don't think I'm alone in this and I think parents have a right to understand if and why we grumble.  Pension based grumblings hold little water in a community where work is casual and pensions generally non-existent.  Grumbling about marking, planning, assessing and the umpteen other things that we as teachers are contracted to do ... erm, it's part of what we do.  Grumbling about a curriculum that steals children's childhoods and defines a child as failing when they're 4 years old, that's worth a grumble I'd have thought.

You may well be asking yourself, "Why the peculiar title?" Well, as I was gathering my thoughts I toyed with tweaking Kipling's classic but upon reminding myself of its words I realised that I didn't need to; everything I wanted to say, he's already said.

Be Less Helpful.

The definite article Internet - sometimes I feel like someone out there brought it into being just for me.

To perpetually graze on the verdant pastures of what could only be described as 'stuff' and to mindlessly window shop - and irrationally split infinitives - along the thoroughfares of the world's minds is a very modern pastime but what a pleasure it is. Some streets are richer than others and TED is up there with the best of them.

Be Less Helpful ... a maxim by which teachers should live?
This man is vaguely persuasive.

A change of tack

Once upon a time this blog was 'adorned' with the mental meanderings of one whose corporeal self was prone to much the same.

The body has settled - as well as any body might - but the mind still wanders in perpetual search of insight and inspiration. Inspiration and insight into the world of education and the wonders found therein. A picture may tell a thousand words, but sometimes words are the most powerful tool we have and these are mine.

My literary sustenance this week has been - how do I say this without sounding sycophantic? - inspiring.

I consider myself very lucky to be working in a school in which I am able to do pretty much exactly as I want and am permitted to develop as the teacher I want to be with the support and encouragement of some very experienced people. In such an environment I have been allowed to try things out myself but also try them out in other classes, albeit indirectly.

This week it has all been about creativity prompted and encouraged by the words of Ken Robinson and the results have been surprising in the best possible sense of the word. By narrowing viewpoints in art and design the children in my class achieved the most complete folio of work that I have yet witnessed and by widening the viewpoints in maths, the children were able to play to their strengths in a way that I never thought possible.

It has been truly inspiring to witness and hasn't stopped there.

Sugata Mitra's presentation on the work that he has done has similarly inspired and made me rethink what many people perceive as an ICT deficit at school. We don't have a deficit, we're just not very good at using it properly and we're neglecting the broader skills that collaborative working, even in front of a computer, necessitates.

There's so much I want still to do, so much to try and I haven't even started on the uniquity file.

The show has only just begun and therein lies the excitement. For the children in my first ever class, much of what we're doing is un-school-sual. They are only the beginning ... who knows what next year may bring.

Blatantly Brilliant

I'm not going to lie; I am addicted to English. There's something about it which is so utterly, mind-bogglingly brilliant that I pity those poor souls upon whose cluttered brains I inflict myself in the vain hope of encouraging a similar amount of excitement.

Perpetual whingeing on their part as to the complicated, convoluted - and frequently ignored - grammar rules, of the third person 's', of the lack of any agreement and of the intricate but fascinating mysteries of the present perfect - they with their stri/uctured tongues, condemned to a life of unvolution where rules and words must be approved by bearded 'experts'*.

Their frustration is borne of jealousy of a language which does what it likes, without let or hindrance. It wanders hither, thither and whither it so wishes - rules are obeyed but they are simply the toys with which we play. A vocabulary between whose walls lie words from almost anywhere you can think of; the words themselves probably do little more than doff their hats to their progenitors but they're ours now and we'll do with them as we please.

It's an accepted maxim that 'you are what you eat' but I personally think you can tell a lot more about a people by what they say. Take for example the brilliant lunacy of the phrase "wouldn't say boo to a goose".

Has anyone you know, have known, knew, met, heard about, ever in your life, lives past or throughout the convoluted tracts of history ever actually said 'boo' to a goose?

"My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, Commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, Spooker of the Canada Goose , loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next ... "

"... we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and we shall say boo to their geese, even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old."

Let's face it, it's hardly a great measure of courage. Then again, maybe it is.

New Year's Resolution #28: Say 'boo' to a goose

---

* expert /'ekspɜ:t/ n. ex- a has been; -spurt a drip under pressure

Tintin and the Brazilians

It's Monday. It's just gone three. School is done for the day and I'm mid seizure. Nothing about which to get concerned as I am the doer as opposed to receiver and the seizing is of nothing more dramatic than a few moments respite before returning to the chaotic fold of the teachers' room to prepare for the weeks ahead. A macchiato and a slice of something calorie laden to goad the brain into something resembling life.

Around me are fragments of the population, serenely going about whatever it is they do: A brace of Chinese girls nursing their lattes; a brace of Chinese guys sharing a coffee but not a conversation. A nervous looking girl of possibly Irish descent, grabs her belongings and scuttles for the stairs in the manner of someone who arrived early, has been killing time and is now convinced that they're more than a thirty second walk from where they're meant to be in half an hour's time.

A sullen pair of ladies ignoring each other and a Japanese guy engrossed in his Crackberry, his English grammar book, lying spread-eagle on the table; an anxious lady of Asian origin but of blatantly suburban England fashion sense plays a gentile game of musical chairs with herself while she waits for her matronly companion to return from the barista's hallowed realm bearing caffeine based refreshment and smackerel of something indulgent.

A scene much like that being played out in coffee shops across the world.

Or is it.

Sitting at the back of this scene of global homogeneity, of intra-urban cosmopolity (yes, I made it up, but it works and so it's staying), of 21st Century socio-ethnic down-turn down-time is an incongruous bespectacled figure. His colouring and dress sense mark him out as being of northern European origin.

If I were a gambling man I'd say he was Belgian given, that is, the style of his eye-wear and his tailoring. The bottle of sparkling water underscores his irrepressible mainland European heritage; the paper he sits before bears all the outraged hallmarks of the outraged harbingers of outrage that are the outraged journalists of the Daily Mail.

A comfort-abetting shuffle in his seat, a cursory glance around, and so, without further ado, to the nudes.

For yes, there, twixt the pages of portentious doom-mongering, of middle-English, middle-class, middle-aged whinging and uber-Conservatism lies a panoply of visual titillation. A wide - in every sense of the word - cross-section of female society rubbing shoulders and everything else with the good and the great, if only from the stapled security of print.

Were you inclined to purchase of the top-shelf, would Costa Coffee on Shaftesbury Avenue, the heart of the West End, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon be your chosen reading venue?

Clearly it would if you were Tintin.