Assessment - What does it really tell us?

Every August the youth of the country - their parents and teachers too - await the results of public exams.  Some are lucky and get the results that they need to set them on course for a university degree and a successful career.  Other students are not so lucky and have to start looking at options that they had not considered.  They may still achieve success in life but their path may well not be as easy as for those students who got the results that they needed.

Students, parents and teachers celebrate the success of students.  School managers scrutinise results and there will be a headline on the television news about the percentage of students achieving A grades rising again.  A politician will condemn falling standards and say it that it used to be better 'in my day'.  This is all so predictable but what do our public methods of assessment really tell us about our students and their performance?  We like to think that a student who gets an A grade in physics, for example, is far better at the subject than a student who achieves a C grade, but is this really the case?

I have taught countless students at both A level and GCSE and it is notable that often students who are able to articulate similar levels of knowledge and understanding in class get very different grades in exams.  I would contend that the same level of knowledge and understanding is required for a C grade and an A grade.  The difference between the A grade student and the C grade student is often in the way that they present what they know.  The A grade student will be very explicit in what he writes and include all the steps in his arguments.  The C grade student will write down those points that he thinks are important.  His arguments may be a little less coherent because they may make leaps from one point to another.  The A grade student essentially gives the examiners what they want and answer the questions in the way that the examiners required; the C grade student didn't.  And this decides their futures.  But it may not tell us who is 'better' at the subject being studied.  Exam success really only tells us how good students are at taking exams.

Coursework or controlled assessment is even more fraught with difficulties.  Many people have rubbished coursework arguing that parental input can be important; that students can receive feedback and refine their work on a seemingly endless cycle; that it disadvantages those from deprived backgrounds.  All of these criticisms are more or less valid and certainly the government has reduced the amount of this style of assessment in recent years.  I am convinced that the biggest factor involved in coursework achievement is actually none of the above; it is the understanding that the teacher has of the assessment criteria.  Often a student will produce a decent piece of work that the teacher knows will achieve poor marks because the student has overlooked particular things that the moderator will expect to see.  There is no possible way that the student could know what these vital things are without the input of the experienced teacher.  A prerequisite for coursework success is how well the teacher understands the moderator's requirements, it does not simply reflect how well the student has responded to the given stimulus which is patently unfair on the student.

Recently I was on the interview panel for a head teacher's post.  I asked a question about safeguarding and the candidate did not answer the fully.  If this had been an exam the candidate would be achieved less than half marks for the question.  If I had not been able to ask supplementary questions the interview would have been terminated at that point; the answer was not good enough and safeguarding is a vital part of a head's job.  I was, however, able to ask targeted supplementary questions that probed the candidate's understanding.  His answers showed that he was aware of all the issues involved and that his understanding was in fact perfectly adequate and he stayed in the process.  Because the assessment was interactive the candidate was able to show his true capability rather than being limited by the assessment method.  I am convinced that a significant proportion of our students would achieve far better results with a more sympathetic method a of assessment.

Research tells us that success in one field is a poor indicator about potential in another field but the country is still fixated by grades in public assessment.  Success in public assessments tells us one thing and one thing only: how good a student is at dealing with public assessment.  The trouble is, success in public assessment is used as a proxy for success or potential in so many other areas.  At best this practice is lazy and at worst, it is damaging to the young people who are subjected to it.

Teach Like the All Blacks

The All Blacks are the most successful international rugby team ever, and they have sustained their success over a very long period of time.  They have always been the team that others measure themselves against and they have just won the World Cup for the second time running.  I'm sure that teachers and schools can learn a great deal from their approach.

The All Blacks are not the most flamboyant or entertaining side, the French team of the 1990s would probably earn that title.  They lack the shear power of the South Africans.  They do not have the invention of the Australians.  What they do have is a winning formula that has been honed over many, many years.  In the rugby world of 2015 Australia are probably the best outfit at the breakdown where many international matches are won and lost - but the All Blacks are not far behind.  Argentina are probably the best scrummaging nation - but the All Blacks are not far behind.  The trouble is that both Australia and Argentina have weaknesses elsewhere that other teams can exploit.  If the All Blacks are not the leading team in a particular facet of the game then they are close to it.  The All Black team has no real weaknesses that other teams can exploit.

The All Blacks are relentless.  They make fewer mistakes than other sides.  Their weakest players would probably walk into many other international sides.  In short, there is nowhere to hide against the All Blacks.  In teaching this translates into all teaching being no less than good.  It means that there should be no lessons when learners have a chance to slack.  They are constantly challenged to do their best.  There is no place in lessons for those students who want an easy life and do not want to be challenged.

If you were to put together a tape of the greatest tries ever scored, I am fairly certain that the tape would be dominated by scores from France and Australia.  The All Blacks do not set out to entertain; they set out to win.  It is their relentless approach that leads to their winning formula.  There are no weak links but equally there is little flamboyance.  The lesson here is that the lack of poor lessons is far more important than pulling out the occasional outstanding lesson.  It is the irresistible nature of their play that brings results and so it can be in the classroom.  Equally, an entertaining lesson may not be an effective lesson - the aim is for the children to progress rather than enjoy your lessons.

The All Blacks are also known to kick more than other teams.  They don't mind letting the opposition play but they do pressure them and work very hard for each other in defence.  I read this as teachers allowing space for the learners to learn.  Teachers must be giving constant and effective feedback to all learners.  Teachers need to cut down on the space that learners have the opportunity to slack.

The All Blacks are not perfect, and they would be the first to acknowledge this.  They are very good across the board but they are always looking for ways to improve.  They are unfailingly honest with themselves even when they are successful.  They won the 2011 World Cup but looked vulnerable even in the final.  In 2015 they did not look like losing a single match.  Even though they were the best in 2011 they did not sit on their laurels but set out to become even better.  This should be a lesson to all schools and to all teachers.  No matter how good you are, there is always a way of getting better.

The All Blacks have a superb record and are often at their peak between world cups.  They have a culture of excellence at all times.  There is a message here for schools and teachers - why chase outstanding observations or OFSTED inspections?  If you know that you are doing an excellent job all the time and are always looking to get better, then what's the point?

Engaging Learners

I recently went to a really interesting CPD event that was presented by Peter Marshman.  The course was about delivering my subject, computing, more effectively but some of the insights that he shared should be used far more widely.

We often design tasks with a particular objective in mind.  We decide what we are going to teach during a series of lessons and we make this very clear to our students - communicating the objectives.  Then we will get our learners to understand how to put this objective into practice - using commas correctly or manipulating the equation, speed = distance/time.  Finally we might focus on why this is important and how it can be applied in wider contexts. In fact, too often this step is missed out because the objective has already been (apparently) achieved.

Too often we hear children saying, "Why do we have to do Shakespeare?  It's boring!"  Or, "Quadratic equations, why do we bother with them?"  I am sure that they either haven't experienced the why part of the sequence, or it hasn't registered.  The learners have not connected the learning experience to anything that they care about and so the learning is not valued and is shallow at best.
Learners and their needs have to be at the centre of our planning and it must always be learning must informs the way that we choose to teach the young people in our classes.  Certainly, in the examples above, teaching has taken precedence.  The teacher has looked at what needs to be taught and how can I put it across to the students.  Little thought put into why the learners should engage with the material.  I know that I've fallen into this trap too often.

I have previously argued in this blog, that if teachers can tap into their learners' emotions they are more likely to be successful than if they only tap into their learners' intellect.  Turning the sequence of what, how, why on its head will make it far more likely that learners' emotions are aroused and they will care about their learning.

Pete was an advocate of starting from why.  If there is an initial stimulus that outlines a situation and students have to work through this scenario and decide on a way forward then they are likely to become immersed in the task.  This initial stimulus needs to be carefully thought through so that it leads naturally to the how and the what that the teacher would have been aiming for anyway.  The chances are that the learners will be more engaged in their learning because they have a real reason to learn the new material as it will help them with the situation that they have been confronted with.  The actual objectives for the series of lessons will be exactly the same as they would have been but the engagement of the learners will be different.

Rugby Coaches in School to Build Grit

Regular readers of my blog will know that I am a teacher and I am also a qualified rugby coach.  Recently the Department for Education announced that coaches from 14 of the top rugby clubs in the country will be coming into schools to coach 'grit'.

Rugby is one of very few sports to have core values, which are Teamwork, Respect, Enjoyment, Discipline and Sportsmanship.  They are outlined and described on the England Rugby website.  From the nature of the game of rugby it is fairly clear that the sport could not function without the whole rugby community buying into these values.  In fact, coaches are trained to include a least one of these core values into each of their sessions.

Another point that is emphasised during coach training is that the aim of coaching should be to develop young people through rugby.  I commented in an earlier blog post that I have never heard anyone advocate developing young people through, for example, geography, although I would argue strongly that this should be encouraged.  The main emphasis is in developing the young person, and rugby is secondary.  In practice this means that coaches have to encourage the behaviours, attributes and attitudes that make players coachable and able to improve.

Coaches go through an exercise where they are ask to describe the qualities of their ideal player - you could do the same for your ideal learner in your subject.  When we had finished we were asked to group these qualities into two sections: those to do with rugby ability, and those relating to personal qualities and attitude.  We all found that there were very few, if any rugby related qualities but many relating to personal qualities and attitude.  I am sure you would find a similar thing with your ideal learner.

My coach training also touched on the work of Carol Dweck and her work on mindset.  We looked at feedback and what to praise.  I have to say that I was very surprised and very pleased that this was part of the course.  It is clear that the RFU do take note of developments and include then in their coach education.

Jerry Collins, who played for the renowned All Blacks, at the height of his career, turned out for Barnstable 2nd XV.  In many way this behaviour tells us a great deal about what the sport of rugby is about.  The video below tells the story:

So far, you might be thinking that I support the DfE's idea of putting rugby coaches into schools, but as Alex Quigley points out on Twitter:

I strongly suspect GRIT can only be developed with your teacher/s who understands subject specific learning hurdles etc & not rugby coaches.

— Alex Quigley (@HuntingEnglish) May 31, 2015

This could well be the problem.  I have already outlined that rugby coaches through their education and training are far more clued in than those outside of the sport might imagine but they are still rugby coaches and their expertise is in developing young people through the demands of that particular sport.  There is no doubt that rugby does require a large dose of grit if someone is to be successful but it remains to be seen whether rugby coaches will be able to transfer their development of grit into the realm of school subjects.  Certainly, before I trained as a rugby coach I was an experienced teacher, but I needed to train specifically so that I could 'teach' rugby.  I rather suspect that coaches will find that the reverse is also true.

Learning Flowchart: A Diagnostic Tool

I first mentioned my learning flowchart in a blog post nearly a year ago.  I am pleased to see that it is now proudly on display in my classroom.

This flowchart gives a good representation of the learning process.  Certainly, a year on from creating it, I cannot think of a way of refining it.  It certainly cuts out all the surrounding fluff that can interfere with any learning experience and only shows the essential features.

When I was putting the display on the wall and indulging in some 'cut and stick' a new revelation hit me.  Obviously, as it is now on my wall, I intended using the flowchart with my learners so that they can easily see where they are in the learning process.  My thinking went a little deeper than that and I realised that this flowchart can be used as a diagnostic tool to find out where learners are having difficulty and where they are not engaging with the task effectively.  It could well be - and often is - that they lose direction at the very first step, understand what you need to do.  Overcoming this was the subject of my recent post, Will They Really Answer The Question?  It could be that the quality of feedback from their fellow learners or from their teacher is simply not good enough for them to improve.  Or it could be that they are unwilling or unable to refine their work.  Having the flowchart will make it easier and clearer for me to find out where learner's difficulties really lie, and, equally importantly, it will allow me to communicate this to my students more easily.

Mise en Place

Mise en place, is a term used in professional kitchens that refers to having equipment and ingredients organised and arranged in their correct places in order to make the preparation of a dish efficient in a busy kitchen.  The term means, "putting in place."

This is something that teachers should take seriously too.  I'm not talking about a tidy classroom, that is an entirely different matter.  What I am talking about is setting up your classroom so that you can conduct an impromtu discussion, or use the visuliser at a moment's notice, or carry out any one of a range of pedagogical techniques while the lesson flows seamlessly on.

Plans are essential for effective teaching but we all know that no plan survives first contact with a class.  Plans should be flexible and reactive if the objectives of the lesson are to be delivered.  A lesson based on the same plan could be delivered to two different classes and the lessons could take on quite different courses depending on how the learners react to the plan.  A perceptive teacher should be able to react to the learners' needs and use whatever pedagogical technique is appropriate - even if it was not on the original plan.  Having the correct equipment to hand, in the right place will make this really easy to achieve.

If teachers follow this idea through they will find it very easy to move from one teaching technique to another, because they have all been thought through before hand and resourced appropriately, and the necesary resources will be available at any time.  The down side is that a teacher will be very efficient in their own classroom but they could well be lost in another room because they will not know where things are - or even if the required resources are in the room at all - and will therefore not be able to move effortlessly through their pedagogical repertoire.

Professional cooks know that having things organised and in the right place before starting to cook is essential.  Equally, teachers should do the same so that they have their whole pedagogical arsenal on standby at all times.

Will They Really Answer The Question?

I have seen answers to GCSE mock exam questions similar to the one above for many years.  No matter how many times I tell my learners to read the question, a substantial number of them don't recognise the important words in the question.  I've used samples, including the one above, to try to persuade learners not to make the same mistake, but it hasn't had much impact.  This is important as it costs learners many marks because they answer a question similar to the one that was actually asked, rather than the one that really was asked.

Thanks to John Tomsett, I think I might have found a technique that will make this more explicit to learners.  The idea is to model your approach to an exam, from your first sight of the exam paper, going through the process of understanding what is required in the exam from reading the information on the front cover until just before answering the first question.  This technique goes further than just highlighting key words in the question, in the words of my colleague Heidi, "It shows pupils what we are thinking in order to carry out the steps that we teach them in order to approach a question. We tell them to read a question carefully and highlight key words. But this method shows what we are thinking as we read the question and how we decide which are the key words. This is written evidence, that pupils can take time to process visually, of adult metacognition."  You can read more about Heidi's experiences with this technique here.

I've tried this technique with my Year 11 GCSE group, going through a past paper, highlighting key words and instructions, and making notes on the paper to illustrate my thinking.  I was really pleased when, a few lessons later I gave them another set of past exam questions to do and the first thing that many students did was to get out their highlighters and mark up the questions showing key words, and making notes to help their thinking.  Interestingly, the learners who struggled with the questions were those who had dived into the questions straight away without taking the time to really understand what was required.

I also tried this with my AS Level Computing class.  Again, a few lessons later I gave them another  past exam paper to do.  I asked them if there were any questions that they wanted me to go through with them.  With the one that they chose, the first thing I did was turn on my visualiser and pick up my highlighter.  Once I had gone through the question itself and explained my thinking to them they were far more confident in answering the question - without me actually going through the answer with them.

My AS Level Applied ICT group have also been victims of this technique!  Earlier this week I was in their real AS exam as technical trouble shooter, to sort out any problems that might arise with the computers that they were using.  I was really pleased to see that the first thing that the vast majority of them did when they started the exam was get their highlighters out and start marking up the paper.

So perhaps this technique is having some impact.  In the future I will introduce this to my learners earlier.  For example, I would use it with my Year 11 GCSE class when they are preparing for their mock exams in the autumn.  This would give them an opportunity to try out the technique in a real exam situation and it would give them longer to embed the technique before it really mattered in the summer.  Certainly, this is a technique that I intend to grow.

[I would like to thank Heidi for her continual support and challenge.  Without colleagues who are willing and able to listen to our ideas and experiences it is difficult to grow as a teacher.  Heidi certainly offers that for me.]

Poles Apart?

A few days ago I fell into a conversation with a hospital doctor who happened to come from Poland.  The conversation covered a wide range of topics but it touched on education and his perceptions of education in this country and in Poland.

He said that in Poland every child is pushed.  The children from the poorest backgrounds are pushed as hard as those from more affluent homes.  It is possible for poor children to 'make it' because of the push that they get.  He was very clear that the this idea of valuing achievement was ingrained in Polish culture.  The push came as much from parents as it did from teachers.  He was equally clear that high achieving children were pushed just as hard as lower achieving children.  Children were always made aware that there was another level to be conquered.

He contrasted his understanding of the Polish system with his experience of his own children going through the English system.  He said that in England no one was pushed.  At parents' evenings everything is sweetness and light and achievements are celebrated but there is no apparent aspiration for the next level and there is little recognition of children's faults.  He did finish off by saying that despite these differences, it is the Anglo-Saxon (American) culture that has 'conquered the world'.

I was very interested in these opinions from someone who obviously achieved highly throughout his education.  The obvious question is, should children in England he pushed more?  Should they be more aware of the 'next level' and how they can reach it?  And more crucially, does English society as a whole value education?

Another whole area is opened up by this conversation: the difference between perception and reality.  A conversation with one Polish doctor is a pretty poor foundation for research.  Equally, this man's view of each education system may be wide of the mark.  He may have thought that he was telling me about the education systems but he was really telling me about his perception of the education systems.  Perception is reality filtered through our experiences and preconceptions.  In fact, for all practical purposes, it is our own personal reality.  In many ways, perceptions are at least as important as the underlying reality.  The only problem is that two people may have different perceptions of the same reality.  This relationship between perception and reality has many implications for teachers in the classroom, and for schools in general.  For instance, one learner my perceive a task to be hard, and another may perceive it be to easy.  One learner may think that a sanction was harsh and another think that it was lenient.  These perceptions will be based on differing previous experiences and preconceptions.  It is important for teachers to remember this.

Justifiable Workload ?

The start of the Spring Term is always a busy one for me.  As a Computing and ICT teacher, my subjects have a great deal of controlled assessment and coursework.  Long assignments certainly have a part to play in assessing these subjects.  There is no other way of assessing the learners ability to analyse and break a large problem down into smaller parts that themselves can be solved.  This is the time when the learners need to get their tasks finished with as many marks as possible.  Once the learners have done their bit, I need to get a sample of their portfolios prepared to send to the exam boards.

Recently I was talking to a friend who is high up in the international construction business - I think he spends as much time flying as he does with his feet on the ground.  He was saying that if he saw a workload bottle neck coming he would rearrange tasks and organise it out of the way.  He saw immediately that in my job that organising the bottle neck away was not an option.  Preparing these controlled assessment and coursework portfolios is certainly one of these workload bottle necks that cannot be organised away.

Over the last few weeks, at a conservative estimate, I have spend 50 hours getting these portfolios together.  The work needs to be marked, and the marking annotated to explain it to the moderator so that I can justify the marks that I have awarded.  The portfolios need to be put into the format that the exam board demands.  Then the portfolios can finally be sent off to the moderators.

Certainly, the exam boards need this task to be completed on time in order for their systems to function and for the results to be available on time in August so that universities can issue offers and students can start their courses in the autumn.  But...should this be the job of a teacher?  As I have said, I can see how this benefits the exam board but I cannot see how it benefits my learners - at all.  This is a terminal assessment and there is no time for the learners to make any improvements to their work - the exam board deadline looms.  Effectively I have used 50 hours working solely for the benefit of the exam board, that time could have been used profitably to benefit my learners in many different ways, through lesson preparation, formative assessment, development of new courses, arranging out of lesson experiences, etc, etc, etc.

I will never get those 50 hours back - and neither will my learners ever benefit from them.

Stress - You Bad?

Stress!  The teacher's enemy.  How many times have we heard that teaching is a stressful profession.  The workload is stressful.  The children's behaviour is stressful.  New initiatives are stressful.

Ross Morrison McGill recently wrote a blog post about stress and teaching.  It read as though stress is necessarily bad.  It read as though stress is something that should be avoided and that there might be some stress free utopia out there - abroad.  The implication of the post was that stress is bad with a capital B.  I have some news for you - and Ross.  Stress is not all bad.  You read it right. I'll say it again - stress is not all bad.

We all need a certain amount of stress in order to function.  A certain level of stress gets us out of bed in the morning.  This is why some long term unemployed people don't get up in the morning.  They've lost hope and they have little stress; they really don't have a reason to get up.

Have you every wondered why the vast majority of people work to deadlines?  It's stress.  Most people have a certain level of stress that will spur them into action.  Until that level of stress is reached they won't do anything, but when that crucial level is reached then they get on with the task.  It is stress that makes them do the task.  It takes time for this system to be calibrated which is why young people need help with this.  Also, if the task is not perceived as important then is won't trigger a stress response and the task will not get done - sound familiar?

As you can see, stress is unavoidable and it can be seen as a good thing and a call to action.  Having said that, some stress can be very difficult to deal with.  There have been psychological studies that show that the level of stress at the top of an organisation is far lower that at the bottom - the reverse of what many mangers think.  The reason is control.  Those at the top of an organisation have complete control over what they do.  If there is a task that they'd rather not do or is too difficult for them, it gets delegated.  Those at the bottom have no such luxury.  They have to do all the tasks given to them.  This problem gets worse when that person has several bosses (head of department, head of year, etc) who are all loading tasks onto the lowly individual.  They have no control over the tasks that they have to complete and they can easily get overloaded.  This lack of control leads to real stress as it cannot be avoided.  (Perhaps this is one of the reasons why so many young teachers leave the profession.)

In fact, if an individual experiences too little stress, little gets done and what is achieved probably won't be done that well.  As stress increases to the trigger level I mentioned above, actions get more effective and efficient.  You will be performing at your optimum level and probably feeling really alive and happy with life.  When stress gets too far beyond this optimum level then performance drops off again and this is when people feel 'under stress' and anxious.  They don't know which task to do next and the tasks that they do perform will not be completed very well.

Interestingly, there has been some work done looking at how stress affects health, and it may well change your attitude to stress.  Kelly McGonigal has recorded a TED talk about this.  One of her main arguments is that stress itself is not bad for us; it is the belief that stress is bad for us that damages our health.  It is not stress itself that is unhealthy; it is our response to stress that can be unhealthy.  This is not at all self evident but it does in fact make biological sense.  If you want to know more, watch the video from the link above, it really is worth the time.

We need to acknowledge that stress is a necessary part of life and we need to train ourselves to better deal with the stress that we are under.  We need to accept that stress is a necessary part of live and that it is preparing our bodies for action.  Also, we need our bosses to acknowledge that overloading people leads to poor performance.  In fact, a good manager will be ensuring that their charges are at optimum stress levels most of the time to give the best results.  This would also mean only one person managing each individual in the organisation, and the management structure of most school being redesigned.  I'll leave you with that thought!

The Principles of Teaching - Part 2

I hope I've whetted your appetite with part one of this series.  The first principle of teaching that I'm going to propose is relationships.  I am certain that cultivating a mutually respectful relationship with each of your learners is a key to success.

When learners are younger they do not do their work for themselves, no matter how hard we might wish that they would; they work for their teacher.  They might like to learn new facts and acquire new skills but very few will value the work necessary to embed these facts and skills.  During this time the students will be working for their teacher and so the relationship really matters.  I am certain that learners who feel that their teacher really cares about them will do more than learners who feel that teacher is indifferent to them. Note that this is about the learner's perception of the teacher.  It is perfectly possible that the teacher cares deeply about the learner but the teacher may not have communicated this effectively to the learner.  It is communicating this caring and building the relationship that is important.

You know that it really makes a difference if someone connects with you and talks to you about things that are important to you.  It makes your your day a little better and helps you to tackle the next task.  It is the same with the learners in your care.  I know that in my classes there are certain people who love football, others have a passion for horses.  I could name the favourite bands of several of my students.  There are many other interests that individual learners have that are important to them.  Sometimes, it is worth a few words about their interest; it fosters a connection and it makes them think that they are important to you.

Some of you may well be thinking that you don't have time for this, that the time spent cultivating these relationships would be better spent delivering the curriculum.  I would strongly argue that the time spent on these relationships is an investment and you get it back several times over because the learners will be more involved and so they will get through tasks more quickly and with deeper participation if they know that they matter to you as people.

As we know, it is important for learners to fail and to bounce back form failure if they are to progress.  It is the willingness to try things out and take risks, allied with the response to failure that brings real progress.  Learners have to feel that they will not be judged as failures if they 'get it wrong'.  There needs to be a climate in the classroom that failing in fine providing that the failure is a step to future progress.  Part of building this climate is building relationships with the learners in the class.  When we are with strangers, or with people who we feel will judge us, we are reluctant to try things out that may not work as we fear being judged as failures.  Maintaining respectful relationships with learners is a step along the way to creating a culture where failing is alright.

There are times when we as teachers need to deliver difficult feedback, "Jack, that really was not good enough."  We have heard of 'two stars and a wish' and the 'jam sandwich' technique for burying critical messages.  No matter how hard we try, many people take critical messages as a personal criticism and not simply a criticism of their work.  I am sure that the teacher who has a genuine relationship with the learner will be more willing to deliver the message and the learner will be more willing to act on it and make the necessary changes to progress.

Put yourself in your learner's shoes.  Who would you rather have as your teacher, the one who makes you feel that they know you and care about you, or the one who does not even know your name?  And which of those teachers would you work for?

The Principles of Teaching - Part 1

“If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself,” Albert Einstein.

I think that Einstein was exaggerating, but not by much.  If you substitute a well informed 18 year old for the 6 year old, then I am sure that he was pretty much spot on.

I am certain that if human beings are capable of carrying out a task then that task must in essence be fairly simple, despite the appearance of complexity.  I would argue strongly that if someone tells you that a task is complex then either they don’t really understand it, or the complexity it there as a cloak to either put off those who are not one of the initiated, or the task is fatally flawed.  I have no doubt that the trading that brought down the banking system falls into this category.

Einstein himself was very good at cutting through surface complexity to the heart of the matter.  Before he came up with Special Relativity, people believed that there was a universal clock and that time passed at the same rate everywhere.  Einstein’s radical idea was that there was no universal time and that time passed at different rates depending on the speed of travel.  He also proposed that the speed of light was the same for all observers.  All the consequences of his theory come from these simple ideas – in fact, the first idea is a consequence of the second.  There you have it: Special Relativity explained so that an 18 year old would understand.  Of course, it’s another matter whether they accept it as the ideas are not intuitive.  Also, the consequences of the these simple ideas can be fairly complex but, fundamentally, the ideas behind the complexity are in actual fact very simple.

When teachers start out on their journey, there is an awful lot thrown at them including reporting, differentiation, assessment for learning, the national curriculum, mixed ability or setting, mindset, marking and feedback, behaviour management, equality, homework, SEN, summative assessment, cross-curricular themes, safeguarding, classroom management, pedagogy, and many, many more.  It is very easy for teachers who are new to the profession to get bogged down with all of this and it is difficult for someone will little experience to sort out what is really important, to extract the essentials from this seemingly endless list.  It is all too easy to fall into the trap of believing that teaching is an endless, unbelievably complex task.

I am certain that this is wrong.  I am certain that there really are relatively few fundamental principles that underlie successful teaching.  There are a few stones of truth that successful teachers cling too and these inform everything that they do.  I am also certain that if teachers – especially new teachers – really understand these fundamental principles then their ideas will have more clarity and their job will be easier.  So, my question is, what are these fundamental principles that underpin successful teaching?  What are the principles that cut through the surface complexity and underpin the actions of a successful teacher?  What are these fundamental stones of truth?

Mindfulness - Is it Really new?

There has been definite trend for mindfulness over the last year or so.  Certainly, last summer it was difficult to read a newspaper or listen to the radio without some mention of mindfulness and its use in many contexts.  I was interested enough in its potential benefits that I started studying and practising mindfulness about six months ago.  I have really enjoyed the process and I am certain that it has helped me.

In a nutshell, mindfulness is designed to root you in the moment by being aware of breathing, especially the outward breath, and being aware of your own body and how it feels.  This can be achieved through consciously moving through various positions that lead into a period of peaceful sitting; or can be achieved through repetitive movement.  No matter which way it is achieved, it leads to a sensation of being rooted in the moment with the future and the past left to look after themselves.

Recently, I have been reflecting on the nature of mindfulness and wondering if it really is so foreign to westerners.  I have never understood why grown men get up before dawn to sit and watch a a little float bobbing on the surface of a lake.  I know that some of these men do it to escape the family situation for a while and get some time to themselves.  But I am now fairly certain that a substantial number of anglers will be attaining a state of mindfulness, really being aware of the moment and their relation to it.  I am sure that many of them are unconsciously very competent exponents of mindfulness and this is probably one of the reasons why they come back to the lake side week after week.

Many sportsmen talk of being in ‘the zone’, when the ball appears to be far larger than it really is and their skills are executed faultlessly.  Again, I am sure that the experience of being in the zone is a manifestation of mindfulness.  When an athlete is in the zone there is no conscious thought, the athlete is using the reactions that have been built up through countless hours of training and the actions are the results of the programs that have been written into the brain through hours of practise; it really is being in the moment.  I could make a similar argument about musician who are ‘in the groove’, and interestingly, often when a musician realises that he is in the groove, he drops out of it because conscious thought takes over from the automatic processes that have been embedded through rehearsal.

I really do wonder if people continue with these pastimes- and there are many more that I could mention – at least in part because of their relationship to the experience of mindfulness.  Many many pastimes require the participant to be absorbed in the activity and to really live in the moment.  Perhaps the active study of mindfulness is a metacognative realisation of this and allows those who practise mindfulness to really get under the skin of this process.

I am certain that western culture includes many opportunities for mindfulness, and being in the moment, within activities that are not labelled as mindful.  Mindfulness is not alien or a bolt on for westerners, it is implicit in many areas of life although many people could benefit from the process being made explicit.

What was the Point?

The morning after the Charlie Hebdo murders I wrote on the board #JeSuisCharlie before any of my students entered the room.  I asked them why I had done this and many of them realised that it related to the events in Paris the day before.  We talked about what Charlie Hebdo was and why it had been targeted. We discussed the possible motives for the murders and we talked about why the hash tag that I had written on the board had been trending worldwide on Twitter, and why that hash tag had been chosen.  Finally, I showed a selection of cartoons that had been drawn in response to the murders and talked about the imagery in the cartoons.  There was hardly a curriculum subject that we had not touched on. Most learners had been engaged in the session, even those who are not usually motivated by 'tutor' material.  At the end of the discussion, one student asked, "What was the point of that?"

I could not help but reflect on this comment.  This was the biggest news even of the decade but an articulate seventeen year old could not see the point of discussing it.  Had I presented the topic badly?  I don't think so.  As I have said, I had succeeded in engaging people who weren't usually engaged.  Or is this a deeper problem of detachment?  I would love to know.

Have Fun!

When I say good bye to people I often say to them, "Have fun," and I really mean it.  We only have one shot at this life so we might as well enjoy the ride.

A little while ago I taught a particular sixth form student who would come into lessons on a Friday afternoon and declare, "I don't want to go to work tonight."  He did this week after week until eventually I said to him that he didn't have to go to work.  He replied that he did have to go to work or he would get sacked.  So then I told him that he really did not have to go to work, it was his choice to go and he went because he did not like the alternative.  He had a choice to make.  I can't remember him complaining about his Friday evening shift ever again.

I think it is important that if someone is not enjoying something that they stop and reevaluate.  Sometimes the thing that they are not enjoying is unavoidable - washing up, for example - but often it is avoidable.  Sometimes with a small tweak it can be eliminated, although sometimes a lot more than a small tweak is needed and it might require a lot of upheaval to effect the change and it might require a lot of soul searching to decide if the upheaval is worthwhile.  But my point stands, why continue to do something that is no fun, or perhaps positively draining?

Obviously, this can apply to all aspects of life, but it certainly applies to our life as teachers.  Teachers are great at filling their days with tasks that are not strictly related to teaching and learning.  For example, the football team that you've been running for the last four years even though your subject specialism is History.  Perhaps you feel that your coaching is getting a little stale and you could do with a break, but who will take over?  Actually, this is not your problem.  You may well be, unwittingly being taken advantage of - Fred always does that team.  If you give sufficient notice that you will no longer be looking after the team then their is no problem.  But what about the children?  What if no-one else steps up?  Don't guilt trip yourself.  The chances are someone else will step up, perhaps there is a new teacher who enjoys a bit of football coaching, or perhaps an established member of staff will take over.  But more importantly, what about YOU?  It's your life and it's your choice.  There is no point in living your life just to please others.  The choice that you made several years ago that was right at the time may not be the right one now.

We all have choices.  They may not all be pleasant or easy, but we have them nonetheless.  It is important that we use good judgement in making then and we weigh up the different options sensibly before we exercise our choice, but it is our choice to make.  And we certainly have a choice to have fun!