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American Educational Ad Hominem

Thanks to @OldAndrewUK I learned the meaning of “Ad hominem” the other day:

“an attempt to link the validity of a premise to a characteristic or belief of the person advocating the premise” (Wikipedia)

Thanks to Twitter, I see more and more of these every day. Take the USA education debate today:

“I find it disturbing that this makes sense to me: Ravitch Billed for Taxes Despite Refusing Pay - http://nyti.ms/fwNx4f”

“Bill Gates funds the education debate. Billionaire Agenda. Follow the Money. - http://t.co/xyCBr2G via @readability“

This is shameful mudslinging. Anyone with even the slightest balance of opinion will know that both Diane Ravitch and Bill Gates are passionate about educating America’s children, as are Arne Duncan, Michelle Rhee, etc. The Democratic and Republican parties are full of genuine, dedicated people who want to make the world a better place. The teaching unions are full of wonderful individuals with a vocation, and the companies investing in schools really want to make a difference.

Both sides are casting accusations and abuse, and then assuming that everything the other side suggests is intent on destruction and not debate.

Does anyone seriously think that vicious, personal, nasty attacks will open the debate up and win hearts and minds? Are the leaders on both sides stepping in to quash this nonsense? Not that I’ve noticed.

Sadly these character assassinations are cheered by both sides. They have stopped debating policy, they are undermining each other. In the process, they are undermining education itself. People will lose trust in both sides, opinions will become entrenched and nobody will be the winner, certainly not the kids.

I am, frankly, disgusted by the level it has descended to. The sensible voices are all but drowned out. I truly fear for the UK’s education system should this appalling behaviour take root here.

Go on, I dare someone to tell me:

“Yeah but they started it first, we’re the good guys here.”

 

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Behaviour, for better or for worse?

Many teachers wish that all students would arrive at school ready to learn, respectful and mild-mannered. Of course, that’s not the reality, and there is a regular cycle of hand-wringing as people claim that behaviour is much worse than it used to be.

The debate is, quite necessarily, full to the rafters with anecdote. After all, there is no standardised scale of classroom behaviour, and certainly no measurements that can be used to compare things accurately. Memory is also entirely unreliable in these matters. I suspect the lessons that will really stick out in any student or teacher’s mind would be where great learning took place, where something funny happened, or total chaos reigned. supreme. The day-to-day level of disorder is unlikely to be remembered well.

Another problem is that people reconstruct their memories to suit their narrative. A teacher who rose through the ranks and ended up consulting on behaviour is more likely to remember how they improved behaviour against the odds, whereas someone who struggled and eventually quit teaching is going to justify this as being due to kids’ bad behaviour rather than any of their own deficiency.

So what evidence do we have? @OldAndrewUK pointed out a few interesting books from the 50s and 60s which talk about life in ‘tough schools’ where the worst behaviour mentioned was certainly mild compared to stories that circulate these days. A recent ATL survey claims most teachers think behaviour has deteriorated, and another report suggests that schools are going to extreme lengths to hide problems from inspectors. Certainly there has been emphasis from the new government on problems in schools.

However, on the other side of the fence we have evidence that Ofsted, PISA, and the British Crime Survey all suggest behaviour problems are decreasing.

So is the “behaviour was better in my day” something that can be dismissed as nostalgic rose-coloured-spectacled nonsense for those with a penchant for moral panic? Perhaps the idealistically smug “well *I* don’t have a problem, I just love the kids” brigade are wilfully ignoring a deterioration in behaviour in order to self-justify their careers? Perhaps both are true, in parts.

The truth is, we shall never know, we can’t possibly measure it, and there isn’t anything that remotely resembles hard evidence – it’s layer upon layer of anecdote. What is undoubtedly true is that where schools provide clear leadership, high expectations, engaging lessons, and rigorous, caring discipline, there is good and improving behaviour.

The big behaviour debate serves very little purpose. It becomes a destructive pawn in political games that do the education sector a disservice. You can’t win this argument, and there is little benefit from taking one side or another. I strongly believe people should just focus on what works, share good practice among teachers and parents, and expect nothing but the best from every child, and for every child.

 

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Improve your tracking system with interim targets

Many schools have tracking systems set up in their Management Information Systems. These can be a real cause of stress when blunt, inaccurate information is generated leading to conflict between teachers, students, parents, and management.

In this video David explains the idea behind using interim assessments to give heads of department flexibility over the information generated by the tracking system.

This video was made with Jing and this Prezi

If you’d like more information or advice on how to apply this to your school, then please contact David at Informed Education.

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Delivering change requires a cultural shift

I’ve just finished reading Sir Michael Barber’s fascinating book Instruction to Deliver, hot on the heels of the most interesting “Learning by Doing” by DuFour et. al.

Barber describes the exhaustion of relentlessly applying pressure on a reluctant civil service in trying to drive improvement. That will be a familiar feeling to any teacher trying to bring about improvement in their class – it takes vast reserves of energy. Just as soon as an improvement appears in one place, a problem crops up in another. Take your foot of the pedal for an instant and the class/organisation backslides.

What is missing here? Culture! A culture of success, of collaboration, of listening, and of independent learning. Good schools have it – that feeling that everyone is pushing in the same direction, for the same goal.

I heartily agree with Sir Michael that other key ingredients are clear vision and purpose, simple goals with clear measurements of progress, and being held rigorously to account. However, it seems to me that there is no point building an organisation that will only drive in the right direction when you’re holding the whip. You want an organisation where everyone passionately believes in the vision, and will strive to achieve it. To coin Jim Collins‘ analogy, a flywheel is much more likely to gather momentum if everyone pushes it than if one or two people are pushing really hard and everyone else is dragging.

To be a great school, I think the four central pillars must be include this aspect of culture. If I was to have a stab at summarising these interesting books I’ve been reading and list the qualities required then it would be something like these four key principles:

  • Culture – has every teacher bought in to the school vision? Do they feel supported? Are they free to innovate, without fear of retribution, but with careful support, enthusiasm and monitoring from their peers? Is every member of staff pulling in the same direction, reinforcing values, challenging those that don’t comply, and actively seeking ways in which to make new gains?
  • Information – Does every teacher have the necessary information, at classroom and student level, with which to measure the success of their teaching? Do the senior management use this data to offer both praise and support, where necessary? Can the pastoral team spot trends happening in multiple subjects suggesting a problem with a student or group? Is variation in achievement across the school made visible?
  • Collaboration – Does every teacher and leader invite the opinions of colleagues, and feel able to lay difficulties out in the open without fear of being undermined? Do opportunities (time, money, space) exist for teachers to work in small professional learning groups to carry out research and create a positive evidence-led improvement cycle?
  • Leadership – Is there a clear vision of what the school is about? Are resources being (demonstrably) spent on the priorities of the whole school, and does the public praise reflect these priorities? Does the leadership group challenge problems head-on without making excuses? Do staff feel able to contribute ideas, and take responsibility? Do they create systems which are self-sustaining and self-improving, instead of those that require constant decisions from the top?

I’m sure this is only the tip of the iceberg, and this is my first attempt to lay out my thoughts on this. I would very much welcome any feedback, criticism or praise! I would like to develop some illustration or diagram that represents the place of culture within an organisation, and I would love to hear ways in which positive culture can be nurtured and supported.

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What is pedagogy?

I’ve just returned from a very interesting meeting at the GTCE on pedagogy, innovation, assessment and pupil participation. There was a really interesting mix of people there, with academics, union representatives, teachers, consultants and school leaders.

Something that became reasonably clear early on was that nobody seemed entirely clear what pedagogy really means. Some of the GTCE papers seemed to imply it meant:

  • Teaching and Learning, or
  • “What goes on in the classroom”

Interestingly, Dictionary.com defines it as:

ped·a·go·gy:  [ped-uh-goh-jee, -goj-ee]  Show IPA

1. the function or work of a teacher; teaching.
2. the art or science of teaching; education; instructional methods.

Not quite the same! In fact the interesting publication Professionalism and pedagogy, a GTCE commentary led by Professor Andrew Pollard of the Institute of Education, say that pedagogy is “the art, science, and craft of teaching”.

I think we can all agree that:

  • Teachers should cause learning.

However it seems to me that in order to do this effectively:

  • Teachers must constantly review and reflect on their practice,
  • teachers should collaborate and discuss their practice with other professionals, and students, and
  • teachers should be constantly creative, innovate, and have fun with their teaching.

For me, these things are at the heart of pedagogy, but there is far too much of an emphasis on just measuring learning with narrow statistical tools.

In the world of IT, programmers discovered that constant, immediate and richly detailed feedback on their work results in much better products than the old methods, where customers wrote a specification and then waited two years until something got delivered. (This is the idea behind agile development).

I think teaching should be the same. Professional collaboration would enhance teacher strengths instead of enforcing minimum competencies through tick-box inspections. It would foster innovation which would be motivating for teachers, and this would result in better learning for students.

Every teacher on Twitter knows how collaboration and discussion has enthused them. I now need to put my money where my mouth is and push this approach at my school. Watch this space…

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Prompting discussion about improvement

Effective teaching is the hot topic at the moment, and with such fantastic discussions such as those at purpose/ed and the interesting (although controversial) Measures Of Effective Teaching project from the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, there’s a lot to come.

I’ve been asked to develop my own tool to encourage some really good discussion and collaboration between colleagues, prompting a good hard look at the ways we teach, and what is going on in our classrooms. This is for a pilot project with a teacher training organisation.

So what do you think is a good set of data to prompt that discussion? I need your help! My initial thoughts are:

  • How much students test scores have improved (from initial formative assessment to final summative test)
  • Student levels/grades compared to target grades (based on prior attainment)
  • Student enjoyment survey/ratings/opinions
  • Teacher enjoyment survey/ratings/opinions (including assessments of behaviour etc)
  • Small portfolio of linked work that class are particularly proud of
  • Student self-assessment of how much independent learning went on – how would they rate their ability to improve in this topic without further assistance?

I don’t think this is exhaustive, and I certainly don’t think you’d measure all of these for every topic. However, a selection of these different approaches would prompt some very interesting discussion, and feed back nicely into upgrading schemes of work and resources for the next time it is taught.

What do you think?

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Failure is not an option

Every school is passionate about getting their students to succeed, and some are more successful at encouraging, nurturing and supporting than others.

For me there seem to be two distinct approaches to this.

Option 1 is “We will not let you fail”. These teachers will put huge amount of time and resources to ensuring their kids do well. They’ll lay on extra classes, support, and encourage. Teachers will pour in hours of time, and buckets of effort to help their students succeed. Nerves may fray as they see students taking advantage, but through sheer dedication and professionalism they’ll make it work for the kids.

Option 2, however, is “We will not allow you to let yourself fail”. These teachers will have incredibly high expectations, and put in hours with the kids. They will encourage and nurture the students to develop a work ethic. They will model the hard work necessary to break through problems. They will work hard with students to help them diagnose their own problems and learn the tools to improve. Frustration may grow as they try ever more ways to get kids to see the light, but through sheer professionalism and determination they’ll teach the kids to work it out for themselves.

I would never condemn option 1, but I don’t know how sustainable it is. I think students genuinely appreciate both, and when they’re really down they’ll need some direct intervention to pick themselves up.

Let’s inspire our students to dream, and teach the tools to realise them.

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Taking offence

I’ve heard of teachers taking offence at Jamie Oliver’s new TV show, about the British Humanist Association’s Census Campaign, and about a variety of political points.

Surely there is a line to be drawn between giving offence and taking offence? If I criticise your beliefs and practices and say that I think there is a better way to do things, that you may be misguided, and that I offer an alternative, then I have not given offence. I am engaging with you, and debating with  you. You may choose to take offence, but surely only because you are not confident enough in your beliefs to listen to debate.

However, if I generalise and abuse and say that all people of one faith are unpleasant, that all people of one sexuality are uncaring and unfit to be parents, or that a politician is evil and deliberately doing wrong, then I would argue that I am giving offence. I am setting out to be offensive to a group of people in order to appeal to others.

I welcome different viewpoints. It may be uncomfortable for me to hear them, but I should not choose to take offence if they are given in a spirit of cooperation in order to engage me in debate. If the points are made in order to belittle me, if they make assumptions about me based on generalisations about a group I belong to, or if they set out to demean me in order to make others feel better about themselves, then I would still try and either engage or turn away rather than ‘take offence’ and hide behind that, even if offence is being given.

‘Taking offence’ is a state of mind. It is something people seem to do in order to defensively draw themselves together, instead of challenging and reflecting on their beliefs. Politicians do it, unions do it, you and I both know people that make a habit from it. I suspect it relates to ego and insecurity. I can’t imagine the Dalai Lama takes offence very often.

 

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Jamie’s Dream School

I loved this TV programme. Jamie completely gets these kids. He knows just how they were turned off by their school experiences, how they have low self-esteem, and how they lack self-discipline. You could see that he really related to them, that it made him think deeply about his own school experiences.

I was relieved that, unlike Monday’s Panorama, he didn’t go over the top and cherry pick very rare examples of classroom violence and claim it was the normal everyday experience for British students. In fact, he just bluntly stated the facts, and then expressed a wish to do something for kids, as he wished someone had done for him.

These kids were fantastic people. They didn’t need, or appreciate, anyone lecturing them with what their problems were (as David Starkey discovered). Quite the opposite – they could recite their problems to each other, and were totally self-aware. What we heard were endless stories of lack of respect, lack of discipline for them leading to lack of self-discipline, and a terrible lack of aspiration, hope, and engagement.

They were given amazing people to learn from, but none of them were teachers. What you saw were fairly unruly kids being engaged but not self-disciplined. It clearly showed how these celebrity teachers lacked the understanding of classroom management, planning, and psychology, but that they did their best with genuine enthusiasm, respect (in most cases), and fantastic resources.

Of course, the average teacher has more than one hour of lessons per week. They have one twentieth of the time to reflect on each lesson, adjust their plans for the next, and recoup their energy. They have more paperwork, more assessment, massively prescribed curriculums that ensure they rarely get to follow the students’ own interests, and far fewer resources to work with.

This programme clearly shows what heroes teachers are, day in, day out. Resilient professionals, caring and engaging, raising aspirations. When David Starkey got angry and disappointed he lashed out at students, blamed others, and expected someone else to fix it. As a real teacher you just can’t do that. You have to take it all, work tirelessly to raise standards, with every child, every day.

Jamie’s Dream School has inspired me to keep challenging and engaging my students, to keep reminding them how much potential they have, and to be disciplined with them so that they can learn to discipline themselves. It’s given me a stark reminder that belittling students achieves nothing, and that they will only respond well to people who believe in them.

I look forward to the rest of the series. Well done Jamie.

PS A mini quote from me, on this subject, was published in The Guardian on Tuesday 8th March.