Category: Banda machine

Rubbishing resilience!

Key expressions in school

When I first started out in teaching in 1980, there were several key expressions doing the rounds. ‘The photocopier’s on the blink again’, is a polite form of what I regularly heard on teaching practice. ‘Where’s the banda paper?’ was another refrain as was a line from a Riding Lights Christian sketch about the Prodigal Son – a Social Worker from Camden Town saying (as she dragged on her cigarette), ‘I really care about the kids’!

I certainly did (and do) ‘care about the kids’ and for me a buzz-word in education was ‘holistic’. I wanted to involve pupils outside of the classroom with activities and sport as much as I wanted to inspire them academically inside. (I still do.) As the 1980s moved on into the next decade, a key educational term was ‘cross-curricular studies’.  I remember teaching History and English at a rural boarding school in Scotland (Glenalmond): we re-enacted Shakespeare’s Macbeth among the trees and paths of the school drive before returning indoors to research Medieval Scottish monarchs and their wars whilst plotting their campaigns on large-scale maps before going into the wonderful Episcopal Chapel and trying to imagine how they worshiped. It was an incredibly creative time and, I think, great fun for all concerned – but this phase didn’t last the early 1990s.

Differentiation – for all

Next we were on to ‘differentiation’ and this seemed much more challenging. The core subjects of Maths, English and Science – as well as Modern Foreign Languages and the Classics – were safe from interference as they stuck rigidly to their setting. Humanities’ teachers, however, had a challenging time devising ‘hands on’ lessons which allowed pupils of all abilities to access the curriculum and be stretched accordingly. This emphasis definitely had the advantage of ensuring teaching material and approaches were always being re-examined. I remember one priceless lesson with a mixed-ability Year 9 Religious Studies class. We were considering the run-up to Easter and I happened to point to a picture on the wall which was a reproduction of Leonardo’s ‘The Last Supper’. Quick as a flash, one boy blurted out: ‘Ah, sir, that’s the one with Jesus’ wife in it’. The Da Vinci Code has a lot to answer for!

Resilience and relationships

In more recent years much has been said about ‘resilience’ as part of the character-building we pride ourselves with in schools (and that’s not just for the pupils). Many school ‘Mission Statements’ now contain this word and in my last school (Ballard in New Milton, Hampshire) we put it into our list of pupil expectations. I happen to like the word and the grit and determination it tends to inspire. Recently, however, I read an article by Andy Wolfe (Deputy Chief Education Officer for the C of E @mrawolfe) in the TES, in which he calls on us to re-think the concept of resilience – and I warm to his reasoning.

Resilience as a word has Latin roots and from there to an old English word, ‘to resile’, which means variously ‘to return to the same place’, ‘to spring back’ and ‘to return to normal’. Considering these definitions, the word is much less inspiring than we would wish. Andy Wolfe quotes from a recent conversation with a Headteacher which rather sadly sums this up: ‘Resilience for me means coping until I retire’.

In the New Testament (and the book of Romans), St Paul (who knew a thing or two about opposition, heartache and struggle) wrote this: ‘We know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; character, hope’. Andy Wolfe argues: ‘Re-thinking resilience offers a different lens to re-imagine our present situation. It can help us move beyond the idea of just getting through or coping. In the most difficult situations we face at school, it is primarily the formation of character (as opposed to technical competencies) that defines our response and shapes our relationships’. Andy quotes another Headteacher who uses a telling phrase which I like a lot: ‘I need the courage to tell a more realistic story’.

The courage to tell a more realistic story

Staff, pupils and parents need to see that we, too, have struggles and don’t have all the answers. If we endeavour to let times of difficulty shape and mould us positively so we emerge all the stronger; then our pupils (and others) will see that the teacher is also learning and not simply doing and repeating. Learning and Teaching rather than Teaching and Learning – I feel a new expression emerging!

 

 

Back to basics and ‘chalk and talk’?

‘No evidence’ that enjoyable lessons help pupils?

At a time when there is so much Brexit ballyhoo in the Press, I very nearly missed the article last week in the ‘I’ newspaper with its beguiling headline: ‘No evidence’ that enjoyable lessons help pupils learn.

The age of the Banda machine

I am immediately suspicious when I see something in single inverted commas – clearly the ‘school sceptics’ are at work (see what I did there?). My educational antennae are set all the more aquiver when in the first line of the article I find the word ‘myth’ not now inside single inverted commas but within two sets of these over-used indicators! Richard Vaughan writes: The belief that lessons should be made enjoyable for pupils to boost academic achievement is based on a “myth”, according to research. All of a sudden my efforts over the past 38 years to produce coloured Banda worksheets and maps (aka a spirit duplicator invented in 1923), in my best handwriting, to relieve the tedium of monochrome Gestetner copies (first used in 1879) are deemed to be a waste of time. Those hours I spent carefully substituting coloured ink sheets, one after the other, and then reproducing sheets with that delicious smelling lubricant (just heavenly for pupils) were actually null and void. I should have given my hours to honing my most commanding voice, improving my blackboard writing skills, and choosing my nattiest ties to ensure my captive audience sitting in their bare-walled classroom would at least keep their eyes fixed on me.

Computer games, apps and online resources

Gone, too, should be the industry of computer games and apps, whiteboards and video clips in the face of the research carried out for the Centre for Education Economics. (I wonder if the clue is in this imposing title?) A more traditional approach to education, championed by Michael Gove, Nick Gibb et al since 2010, is being giving top marks. The author of this research, Gabriel Heller-Sahlgren, pours much chalk dust on child-centred approaches: The idea that positive emotions and achievement go hand in hand has become deeply entrenched within the education system. Indeed, it is still commonly believed that it is necessary to make learning ‘invigorating’ (there we go again – those pesky inverted commas) for learning to take place at all. Yet our research has found that there is little rigorous evidence in favour of this assumption.

Engaging lessons

Ah! A small chink in the research appears: ‘rigorous evidence’ (sorry, my emphasis this time). My mind flits to the Modern Languages’ classroom next to the Head’s study in my last school where the pupils were invariably excited and interested as the IPads came out, the headphones went on, and the individualised learning started to engage them. (Surely ‘engage’ is the key word here?) Having been so absorbed, the pupils would then chant their vocabulary, practise their pronunciation and even enjoy having a Skype conversation in a language other than their own with pupils in far-flung lands.

My memory now stirs as I recall several ‘learning walks’ (sorry for those pesky commas – I want you to notice this modern? term) during which I come across a diminutive History teacher standing on a desk brandishing a ruler as she led Harold’s doomed forces to quell the Norman invader, the chemistry class in the corridor having exploded yet another test tube leaving their lab filled with green smoke and the English teacher re-enacting scenes from MacBeth outside in the woods complete with mock battles, mysterious blasted heaths and haunting sleep walks. Whatever the research seems to suggest, these pupils were engaged, excited and enthralled by their learning.

Chicken pox

I have just returned from my four-and-a half year old grandson’s house. He was home from school with chicken pox. In amongst the chasing games, the imaginative Lego pirates and the football, I was amazed at how easy it was to engage him in reading using a variety of online and interactive programs, and how effective a booklet on writing skills was in helping him form his letters. Snakes and Ladders was great fun and also hugely useful in learning his numbers and, moreover, this and other games helped him understand the importance of rules, winning and losing. (I was more often than not having to learn how to lose gracefully.)

All I can say, therefore, is that whilst the Centre for Education Economics has no doubt carried out some very useful research, I do hope that it is understood alongside the wealth of attested evidence from hard-working and creative teachers within schools today which more than amply demonstrates that interesting, informed and interactive lessons enable pupils to engage with their learning and to succeed where a diet of chalk and talk teacher-centred lectures will not so readily enable them to do so – even if they sometimes do have their place in today’s classroom.