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!

Who's it For?

Workload is always a hot topic for teachers and I have just come through a particularly tough time myself.  I really love my core job.  Teaching young people is great.  Being with youngsters day in day out may not be everyone's cup of tea, but they have enormous energy and they do not have the cynicism and world weariness of so many adults.  Young adults so often live for the moment and enjoy life and being with them is a real privilege.

Introducing them to new ideas and new skills is an enticing challenge. Thinking through a way of introducing a difficult concept and then leading learners through a well planned and resourced sequence of lessons is what I enjoy; it is why I am a teacher.

Unfortunately, during the last few weeks I confess, I have taken by eye off the teaching ball and I have been concentrating on admin.  If I don't complete admin tasks on time I will get it in the neck from someone, but if my lessons are a little below parr when I am not being observed, then no-one will notice - and that's my core responsibility.

The main problem I have been dealing with is completing different tasks for different people - all in the same time frame.  I am sure that some of you are already thinking that with a little better time management I could have spread these tasks out.  Actually, if the documents that I have been working on are to be current and valid, I could not spread out the tasks; they all really did need doing in the same time span.

Teachers do not have one boss, as most people in other industries do.  For some tasks I am responsible to my department, for other to my pastoral team, for others to the senior leadership team, and for others to outside agencies such as the local authority or exam boards.  Nicky Morgan, the current Education Secretary, recently ran a workload survey in conjunction with the TES, which was certainly a step in the right direction.  I am certain that one of the main drivers of teachers' workload problems is that we all serve several bosses.  If each of these bosses demands a time limited task to be completed at the same time, the candle gets burned at both ends and the teacher in the middle gets burnt out.  Each of the tasks will probably be very valuable but the different bosses do not liaise with each other and coordinate the work, and in some cases this would be impossible, but it is still the teacher who is left to square the circle of demands on his time.

It seems to me that despite schools' best intentions - and my school really does prioritise teaching and learning - it is too easy for the teacher's core activity to be superseded by admin that come from too many sources, which cannot be right.

Too Late?

In another time and in another place, I used to be a physics teacher.  Everyone in the department had dreadful problems introducing simple formulae, such as speed = distance/time, to GCSE classes.  The resistance to the idea that we could use mathematical techniques in science lessons was immense and deeply rooted.  It was very clear that in the learners' conception of science, there was no place for calculations.  Of course their view of science and what it included had been formed by their experience in school over the previous nine years.  Let's face it, if they hadn't encountered formulae in science in all this time, then perhaps they had a point.

All those years ago, we came up with a radical solution.  Despite the fact that the vast majority of GCSE learners found using formulae too challenging, we decided that learners in Year 7 should get to grips with these same simple formulae.  These Year 7 learners, who where still forming in their minds a picture of science and what it included, could easily do the calculations that GCSE students couldn't cope with.  They could manipulate the formulae so that they could work out distance traveled given speed and time - those GCSE learners certainly would not do this.

I am certain that this was nothing to do with 'ability'.  I am sure that it was more a case of learners closing their mind to things that they did not want to do, or to things that they perceived had no place in the subject.  By introducing the concept as early as we could we broke down these barriers and learners accepted that the concept had a valid place in the subject and that it was something they should embrace.

In the last couple of months I have encountered something similar.  As you will no doubt know, ICT is no more in schools and it has been replace with Computing.  For all of our Key Stage 3 learners this is new, although we have been teaching aspects of Computing for a considerable time.  In Year 9 we are teaching all sorts of concepts that will probably end up in either the Year 7 or 8 curriculum, once things settles down.  One of these concepts is binary.  I have devised a series of lessons to take learners through the basics of binary.  When I taught these lessons to Year 9s including 'top set' learners, I met a great deal of resistance.  Many of the learners had the opinion that concepts of number had no place in their lessons with computers.  Several learners really struggled with the work.  This was a big contrast to the way in which the Year 8 learners tackled the exactly the same work.  Almost without exception, my mixed ability Year 8 learners tackled all of the work quickly, accurately and without complaint.  The only explanation can be that the Year 9 learners, who were on paper 'higher ability', had created barriers to learning in their minds.  I am certain that it was more a case of digging their heels in and not engaging with the task as well as they might.

So, what can you take away from these anecdotes?  Learners construct their own vision of the limits of a subject, which may be different from the teacher's conception of the subject.  These limits are set by experience and their experience needs to be broadened out while they are still creating their idea of the content of the subject.  Also, don't under estimate younger learners; they are often capable of more than you might imagine.  So, if your exam classes are struggling with a concept or idea, try introducing it to them when they are younger when their ideas are still developing.

What's The Point?

As any experienced teacher will know, being crystal clear about the objectives of a lesson is vital to success.  But an even more vital question is: what should those objectives be?

We all have national curriculum programmes of study or exam specifications to cover and rightly, if we don't get these covered in the allotted time then we will be pulled up for it.  Most schemes of work are devised with the idea of covering the material in a given specification and the scheme will ensure that everything is covered in a given number of lessons.  There will also be time allocated to completing any controlled assessment or coursework, if there is any for that subject.

This is all very well, but inevitably, some learners will not make the progress that they should and some will be frustrated when they don't 'get' things that they think they should.  These learners can be in danger of their progress stopping altogether and they can become stuck.  Once learners are stuck, as any teacher knows, it can be a really difficult job to get them progressing again.

If learners are to progress at all they need certain attitudes.  Some learners come to us with these attitudes fairly well embedded and others come to us without them.  There has been a lot written recently about Dweck's growth mindset and encouraging students to adopt a growth mindset.  To an extent I am thinking of the attitudes that learners need in order to display a growth mindset, attitudes such as perseverance, reflection, risk taking, independence, collaboration, and realising that they are responsible for their own learning and that learning is not inflicted upon them.  I am certain that learners will not make the progress expected of them unless they are at least aware of these characteristics or even better, they have them embedded in their actions.

It is clear that lower achievers, and in fact some higher achievers, do not have these characteristics and progress for them, at least in some areas is difficult.  I firmly believe that for this group of students it is worth having lessons where the objective is to improve an attitude to learning, such as perseverance or risk taking.  The lesson can be successfully delivered through the medium of the subject that the learner is studying.  This is one of the occasions where displaying the objectives at the start of the lesson would make the lesson less effective.  It is important they the learners believe, at least initially, that they aren't doing anything out of the ordinary.  The lesson will be more effective if the objective emerges naturally from the tasks that the learners are engaged in during the lesson.

In my subject, computing, it is vital that the learners are risk takers and will persevere in the face of failure if they are to progress.  It is vanishingly rare a programmer working on a program will only meet success.  The usually experience is that a programmer will meet a series of setbacks - failure - that need to be overcome before the program works properly.  Recently I gave my Year 9 class a series of programming tasks of increasing difficulty.  The first ones they could do without too much effort, but when they were attempting the later ones they were experiencing more and more failures - increasingly they needed to persevere and take risks.

At the end of the lesson I asked the students how they felt when they were doing a task and failing repeatedly.  They could describe this really well; they talked about anger, frustration and annoyance.  I then asked them how they felt when they had completed a really difficult level.  Once more, their replies were excellent - elation, ecstatic and overjoyed.  I asked them to relate these two feelings and they soon realised that there was a direct relationship: the more they suffered the greater the feeling of success.  I then related this to perseverance and risk taking.  Most of them took on board the idea that these too attitudes are a requirement for success in programming.

I am certain that this experience will help the learners when we go on to more complex tasks.  At the very least I will be able to say to them, "Do you remember how you struggled and how you felt when you were successful?  You need to persevere and take risks on this task too.  Then you'll feel the success."