Tag Archive for ‘teaching’ at dougbelshaw.com

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The Vortex of Uncompetence

Published

on 5 November 2008

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I had Monday and Tuesday this week off school. I had a cold, felt lousy, and felt my recently-self-diagnosed SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) kicking in. Just as I didn’t believe that children were born with personalities before we had Ben, I used to think that ‘disorders’ were ways to label avoidable abnormal behaviours. I don’t think that any more.

In schools and businesses we pay very little attention to the fact that it is human beings involved in these institutions and who, as such, fluctuate, change, and are affected by external factors. As I’ve blogged about before, one disorder I suffer from is migraines. There’s no way that those who don’t suffer from these can know what they’re like, of the way fluorescent lighting affects the way I see and think sometimes, and the ‘fuzziness’ associated with it. Likewise, those who don’t suffer from something I’m labelling SAD for convenience can understand what it’s like for a usually energetic and enthusiastic person to completely lack all motivation.

The stimulus for this post came from reading Dan Meyer’s blog post Wherever You Can Find It, signposted on Twitter by Darren Draper, who stated, “I’m telling you: 5 years ago, I was @ddmeyer. Absolutely no doubt about it” - linking to this comment in particular. The first part of it reads:

And maybe that kind of leadership is enough to staunch some of this new teacher blood, but it isn’t enough to staunch mine.

Because I came here to do a job, just a job. I wasn’t “called” here but I knew that job was essential to the future and polity of our country. That job was too hard. I failed. Then I learned. Then I started blogging. I torched a lot of terrible personality defects on the altar of better teaching. I sacrificed a lot of time to improve. Now I’m good at this job.

How many other professions would tie that kind of growth to zero extrinsic (and particularly financial) reward?

There is no promotion. There is no pay raise. There is no bonus. And lately, most obviously, there is nothing to compensate me for the time I spend elevating student achievement, time which other teachers spend throwing frisbees on the beaches of Santa Cruz with their wives.

As I commented on Dan’s blog, I’ve suffered burnout, depression and the effect it can have on the relationships with those around you whom you love. My advice to Dan and to all young teachers working all hours for the benefit of students is to beware of the Vortex of Uncompetence. It goes a little something like this:

If you can’t see the above clearly (it’s meant to be a little trippy), then here’s the stages:

Identify deficiency - you feel as a teacher that there’s something not right with the system.
Discover community - either in school, socially or online, you realise you’re not the only one to feel this way.
Attempt to remedy situation - you decide to do something about it, working hard to make your lessons and the learning experiences of students, different.
Face barriers - there are problems regarding student behaviour, assessment schemes, line manager comments, or you’ve not got enough time to do what you want to do.
Work at solutions - you work harder and harder, trying to convince others, meanwhile attempting to be radically different.
More barriers - becoming almost zealot-like, you meet a lot of resistance.
BURNOUT - unable to take on the might of the educational system, your physical and/or mental health suffers, along with relationships with people who matter to you.

Some may wonder why I’ve included the ‘discovering community’ part in step two. It’s a case of wanting to be seen to ‘walk the walk’ as well as ‘talk the talk’. When you’ve committed to something, staked out your claim as a believer, you’ve got to act in a way that’s befitting. Sometimes, this can engender more problems than if you’d slowly tried chipping away at things over time - evolution, not revolution.

Why Vortex of Uncompetence? It’s a tongue-in-cheek term I’ve made up, probably after reading too much Dilbert. Teachers who go down this road are not incompetent - far from it. But then, they’re not competent in the ways expected for traditional teachers. They’re uncompetent: they refuse to be held to the standards set by the majority view in education. It’s easy to get sucked into the vortex and, as a husband and father I can’t afford to be pulled into it again. I’m trying to position myself as a catalyst for fast-paced evolution. Almost everyone resists revolution - the status quo is just too comfortable…

Do YOU recognise yourself or anyone else entering the Vortex of Uncompetence?

(the Vortex of Uncompetence is based on an original image by ClintJCL @ Flickr)

More on Teaching as a Subversive Activity

Published

Doug Belshaw

on 3 November 2008

in Education

As part of my ongoing research for my Ed.D. thesis on the concept of digital literacy and what it means to be ‘educated’ in the 21st century, I’ve been revisiting musings on the purpose of education.

One of my favourite education-related books of all time is Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner’s Teaching as a Subversive Activity. Whilst some of the examples in the book are no longer so culturally relevant, the main thrust of it was so ahead of it’s time that today, nearly 40 years later, we’ve still not caught up!

Here’s my paraphrase of one of my favourite sections. It comes towards the middle of the book in a chapter entitled ‘New Teachers’. Postman and Weingartner set out to ‘put before you a list of proposals that attempt to change radically the nature of the existing school environment.’ (p.137):

1. Stop buying textbooks

I’m absolutely with Postman and Weingartner on this one. As they put it, ‘texts are not only boring but based on the assumption that knowledge exists prior to, independent of, and altogether outside of the learner.’ The authors were writing in 1969, before the Internet. How much more is this the case in 2008? Of course, as with most things discussed here, such a move would have to be done en masse - either whole-school in the case of an independent school or academy, or local authority-wide in the case of state schools.

2. Get teachers to ‘teach’ subjects other than those in which they are ’specialists’

I like this one. I teach ICT, although I don’t particularly enjoy teaching it. I’ve also taught English and Geography in my four-and-a-bit years of teaching. My degree was in Philosophy and my MA in Modern History. I think it’s really important for teachers to see the ‘bigger picture’ and not develop a parochial attitude towards their subject.

Postman and Weingartner talk of ‘the desire of teachers to get something they think they know into the heads of people who don’t know it’ and how teachers teaching subjects other than their specialism would put a stop to this. I think there’s less of the lecturing and narrow-mindedness these days due to there being more of a focus on skills, but I still think things could be shaken up a bit.

3. Transfer all primary school teachers to secondary schools and vice-versa

This would be great! Not only would we get much more of an insight as to what goes on, but we’d get a chance to experiment with different approaches. I read the blogs of a few primary school teachers (including Tom Barrett’s) and my wife teaches part-time in a primary school. I have somewhat of an insight, but I’d love to have an opportunity to teach, say, Year 5 or Year 6 for a week. I think that’s all it would need to be to still be an eye-opener!

4. Make every teacher who thinks they know their ’subject’ well to write a book on it

Thankfully, I don’t think this is necessary in the 21st century. Those who feel like they need to force their opinions on others can just blog…

5. Dissolve ’subjects’ and ‘courses’

Hmmm… not entirely sure about this one. I can see the reasoning behind it - it would potentially ‘free [teachers] to concentrate on their learners’. As I was reading recently, the lack of trust of teachers has led to a situation where anything that can’t easily be measured and assessed isn’t valued. That needs to stop in order for us to bring creativity back into the average classroom.

6. Limit the amount of words teachers are allowed to utter in declarative and interrogative sentences

Somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but I can see the point.

7. Prohibit teachers from asking any questions they already know the answers to

This would lead to a vastly different approach to teaching and learning. To use an awful phrase, the teacher moves from the ’sage on the stage’ to the ‘guide on the side’. That is to say that the teacher wears his or her learning credentials and ability on their sleeve. With the type of (online) real-world publishing available these days, there’s no need for rote and stale learning.

8. Declare a moratorium on all tests and grades

Hallelujah! I’m forced to teach to the test. My GCSE History results were poor last year, therefore I’ve got to focus on exam skills, hammering home content as well week after week. At Key Stage 3 we have at least three tests per year for which I’ve got to prepare students. They’re very content-heavy and I see most classes for one 50-minute period per week, so I’m somewhat hide-bound.

Comment-only marking and fewer, lower-stakes tests would liberate me. I’d really start to enjoy my teaching again, seeing it as a learning journey with students.

9. Require teachers to undergo some form of psychological counselling

At first this sounds like Postman and Weingartner having a dig at teachers. That’s actually not the case. I like to think of myself as a fairly reflective person, having studied Philosophy for most of my adult life. One does come across colleagues, however, who seem to have chosen teaching for all the wrong reasons, or have stress/relationship/other issues. As the authors put it, the purpose would be ‘to give teachers an opportunity to gain insight into themselves, particularly into the reasons they are teachers.’

10. Classify teachers according to their ability and make the lists public

Harsh! In the USA, some states pay teachers more based on the qualifications they hold. Independent schools in England certainly take it into account when employing people. Qualifications have only a tenuous relationship to ‘intellectual ability’ (whatever that is) but at least it shows a willingness to continue learning.

11. Require all teachers to take a test prepared by students

This is a great idea! It would mean that teachers would have to stay up-to-date (in some respects) with youth culture, which would in turn inform their teaching.

12. Make all classes optional and withold teacher’s pay if no students choose to go to their classes

They do this, I believe, at the controversial Summerhill School. As with some of the other points above, it would require a whole different mindset and a debate on the purpose of education which we haven’t had for a long time. It could have the negative side of making teachers who pander to the whims and fancies of teenagers the most popular. However, if there are some sort of checks and balances, I suppose it could work…

13. Require teachers to take a one-year leave of absence every fourth year to work in a field other than education

Postman and Weingartner pour scorn on those who ’simply move from one side of the desk (as students) to the other side (as teachers)’. Well, I’m one of them. I’d love to have experience in another field, but find it difficult to know where to look and feel it would damage my career (such as it is) were I to come back into teaching. Such a scheme would, as the authors state, ‘evidence, albeit shaky, that the teacher has been in contact with reality at some point in his life.’ Of course, one has to define what ‘reality’ is and I’m not so sure that the authors’ recommendations of ‘bartender, cab driver, garment worker, waiter’ are so relevant these days…

14. Make teachers provide some sort of evidence that he or she has had a loving relationship with at least one other human being

Well… I can sort of see the point. But really?

15. Require all the graffiti found in schools to be reproduced on large paper and be hung in the school halls

These days, especially given the current fad for ’student voice’, learners have lots of opportunities to voice their opinions. I don’t believe this particular suggestion would be helpful!

16. Certain words and phrases should be prohibited

The authors suggest the following: teach, syllabus, covering ground, I.Q., makeup, test, disadvantaged, gifted, accelerated, enhancement, course, grade, score, human nature, dumb, college material, and administrative necessity.

I’d add the following: Ofsted, value-added, Fischer Family Trust, performance management, and residuals

CONCLUSION

I enjoyed going through this list again. My 3 recommendations from it:

Allow more flexibility in teaching - primary teachers in secondary, and vice-versa. Teachers from one subject sitting in and team-teaching where appropriate in subjects where they are not ‘experts’.
Create meaningful assessments, ones that don’t reward regurgitation and aren’t high-stakes.
Stop schools’ reliance on textbooks. I’d plough the money into 1-to-1 netbook programmes for all students!

What are YOUR thoughts?

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Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavour.

Published

Doug Belshaw

on 1 October 2008

in Everything Else

I usually dislike it when people blog about conferences and meetings they’ve been to. I mean, as if I care if you sat around a table with some suits and drank coffee at ridiculously short intervals! I feel I need to preface the following, therefore, by saying that there’s some great links I’d like to share.

I was invited by Dan Sutch to another Futurelab-hosted event, this time on behalf of Channel 4 (a UK independent broadcasting company) to, of all places, Bristol Zoo! The quotation that comprises the title of this post came during the course of the day from a fellow teacher attending the event by the name of Alice Bigge. A quick Google search would seem to indicate it originated with Truman Capote. It’s a great one that, no doubt, will make its way onto my classroom wall. It kind of sums up my pragmatic educational philosophy.

The purpose of the day was to review from a formal learning perspective some informal learning resources produced by Channel 4. I’ll summarise each briefly and what I thought of them…

The Insiders

I thought The Insiders was a great idea. As careers advice given by schools has recently been slated by Ofsted, something like this website is just what’s needed. At present, there’s six occupations that have been dramatised and put online via videos and blogs on MySpace. These were taken and adapted (with permission) from people’s real blogs. A story about each character unfolds and the ups and downs of that career/job are highlighted in an engaging way. The six that were chosen - actress, doctor, fashion assistant, musician, policeman, teacher - are those that came top in a recent survey of UK teens as to what they want to do when they leave full-time education. I was surprised to see teacher in there!

I’ll definitely be recommending this to the Citizenship/PSHE co-ordinator at our school. In fact, I may even follow one or more of the stories with my Year 9 form group.

Slabovia.tv

I have to say that I was less impressed with Slabovia.tv. This was the one that our group had to explain to the other groups, and we did so (at my suggestion) via a glog:

Whilst it deals with more than sex education, I do feel that the conceit created to deliver the message wasn’t the right path to go down. As other teachers noted, there may be issues relating to eastern european migrants in UK schools. Additionally, it’s probably got a limited audience to which it would appeal - the type of audience that wouldn’t want to be seen on anything a teacher pointed out in a lesson. I think this one is best kept in the ‘informal learning’ space.

Year Dot

From the information I received about Year Dot:

Year Dot follows a fly-on-the-wall documentary format that cuts across both linear television and online. 15-20 teenagers over the course of a year will try to gather support from around the internet, through social networking and video-sharing services, to reach a personal goal. The story of each teenager will be told as part of two series to be aired on Channel 4 in the autumn.

There’s a diverse range of goals that these teenagers want to achieve. One of the most moving was the teenager with Asperger’s Syndrome who, after receiving lots and lots of support from his school and local community, was purposely moving far away from home to go to university. His emotional journey, heightened by his condition, would really hit home with students with whom you shared his video journey.

The goal he had set himself was to come off Prozac and to manage to live independently. Other teenagers are trying to set up a dance company, get selected for Arsenal Ladies‘ First Team, or become one of England’s youngest ever Members of Parliament. Year Dot is another resource I’ll be recommending to the Citizenship/PSHE co-ordinator at my school.

Battlefront

Finally, Battlefront was the one about which I really couldn’t make up my mind. It has the potential to be revolutionary, but I’m afraid it might have life-changing experiences for the 19 currently involved and few others. The idea is that 19 - eventually 20 - young campaigners around England try to get out there and do something to make things better. For example, there’s a girl battling against the ‘Size Zero’ culture, someone campaigning against free newspapers ‘costing the earth’, and one trying to bring back free university education for all.

As I say, it’s got high-minded ambitions, but I’m not sure. Apparently, you can get in touch with Channel 4 to get any of the Battlefront campaigners to come into your school to talk to your students. If I can be of any help pointing people in the right direction for this, just ask!

I found it at once heartening and extremely disappointing to hear that all the other teachers in the room had major issues to do with Internet filtering. The content that Channel 4 has spent money on - most of which is excellent - resides in places that teenagers already visit: MySpace, YouTube, etc. In other words, all the places blocked by school filtering systems.

There’s got to be a debate, and soon, about filtering in schools. It’s my belief that it’s holding back innovation and good practice in education. The sooner that something is done about it, the better.

I love going to Futurelab events as they are always very positive experiences. I was able to show fellow teachers about various things that they were having problems with, such as downloading YouTube videos. All in all, I found the day to be a very worthwhile use of my time, that I added to a debate, and that I met like-minded people with a real enthusiasm to move things forward. I might add that, as with many Futurelab events, the day’s ideas were represented pictorially by Dave Clark, who kindly let me use the image of the Slabovian general our group commissioned him to draw at the top of this blog post.