Posts Tagged ‘Teaching’

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Six Tips For a Happy Classroom

January 6, 2012

These valuable tips come from Professor Dylan William, the inspiration behind the BBC2 series ‘The Classroom Experiment’.

* Stop students putting their hands up to ask questions – it’s the same ones doing it all the time. Instead introduce a random method of choosing which pupil answers the question, such as lollipop sticks, and thus engage the whole class.

* Use traffic-light cups in order to assess quickly and easily how much your students understand your lesson. If several desks are displaying a red cup, gather all those students around to help them at the same time.

* Mini-whiteboards, on which the whole class simultaneously writes down the answer to a question, are a quick way of gauging whether the class as a whole is getting your lesson. This method also satisfies the high-achievers who would normally stick their hands up.

* A short burst of physical exercise at the start of the school day will do wonders for students’ alertness and motivation. As any gym addict or jogger will tell you, it’s all about the chemicals released into the brain.

* Ditch the obsession with grades, so that pupils can concentrate instead on the comments that the teacher has written on written classwork.

* Allow students to assess the teachers’ teaching – they are the ones at the sharp end, after all. Letting pupils have a say is empowering and, if handled constructively, is highly enlightening.

I particularly like tip 5. We have become far too obsessed with grades. Comments from the teacher are a much better way of helping children achieve.

What ideas have you put into place that have improved the atmosphere of your classroom?

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Posted in Engaging Students | Leave a Comment »

Education New Years Resolutions 2012

January 3, 2012

Below are some New Years resolutions I suggest the Education sector should take on for 2012:

1. Schools Should Become More Involved With Cyber Bullying –  At present schools have been able to turn a blind-eye to cyberbullying.  As the offence occurs out of school hours, schools have been only too happy to handball the problem to the parents of the bully. Whilst I believe that parents are ultimately responsible for the actions of their children, I ask that schools do more to help deal with this ongoing problem.

The reason why I feel schools should involve themselves more actively with this issue is that most cyber bullying cases result from pre-existing schoolyard bullying.  Having started in the playground and classroom, the bullying then gets transferred online. Whilst the school isn’t liable for what goes on after school, the problem is often a result of what started during school hours.

To me, the best schools are the ones that work with the parents in a partnership for the wellbeing of their students.  For a school to excel it needs to show that it cares about its students beyond its working hours. That is why a teacher or staff member that is aware of cyberbullying must be able to do more than discuss the issue with the class.  They must be able to contact parents, impose sanctions and actively change the situation at hand.

2. Governments Should Stop Pretending and Start Doing – Every time the curriculum changes I think of the movie Groundhog Day. I’ve only been a teacher for a short time, yet already I have seen the curriculum change 3 times. First it was the CSF, then it became the CSF 2, followed soon after by VELS. And the curriculum is about to change yet again!

Why do they do it to us? Just when you get used to one curriculum, they change it from another.

In my view, the Government is bereft of ideas and would rather pretend to be do something than actually making the tough decisions. They know that education outcomes are underwhelming, that there isn’t much satisfaction in the quality of schools and performance indicators are not painting a rosy picture. Yet, they don’t have a clue what to do about it. They neither have the money, vision or gumption to make any real change, so they go for the obvious alternative – perceived change.

When asked to reflect on their achievements in Education, the Government will proudly point to overhauling the curriculum. In Australia’s case, they will triumphantly declare that by introducing a national curriculum, they have been able to do what previous administrations couldn’t.

But they will know the truth all along – you can’t change the fortunes of a countries academic performance by altering and renaming a curriculum. In fact, from my experience you can’t expect any change at all.

3. Schools Should Fight Problems Instead of Investing in Worthless Programs – Every week a new program is being established for schools throughout the world. If it’s not Sex-Ed it’s suicide prevention, bullying, cyber bullying, cyber safety, hygiene, traffic safety, Stranger Danger etc.  Whilst all these initiatives have good intentions and are worthy causes (with perhaps the exception of Stranger Danger), it causes a great strain on teachers already struggling with time constraints.  The more programs undertaken by schools the harder it is to cover the curriculum.

If schools have a bullying problem in particular, they ought to be doing a lot more than relying on their flimsy anti-bullying programs. Schools have got to ramp up their responses. Programs, procedures and policies is not enough. They will not work and never have. Appealing to kids to improve their communications wont work either.

4. It’s Time To Stop Blaming Teachers For Everything – Education is supposed to be a team effort.  All parts of the system are supposed to work with each other and for each other.  Yet, it always seems to be that the teachers get singled out for blame.  Poor testing results – blame the teachers, a bullying problem – blame the teachers, lack of classroom control – yep, let’s blame the teachers for that too.

The question has to be asked: At what point do we focus our attention on the administrators when handing out the blame? It seems to me that whilst there is always going to be poor teachers in the system, nowhere near enough focus is directed to policy makers as well as those in management positions and on school counsels.

5. Stop Banning Innocent Things and Let Kids Enjoy School – From banning hugging, ball sports and cartwheeling to making play equipment devoid of anything to climb or swing from, kids are becoming even more restricted at school. What measures like these do, is transform schools which are already unnatural places for children and make them even more dreary and dictatorial.

What’s next – banning students from complimenting each other?
It’s about time we started matching school bans on children by imposing bans on schools.  I would love to ban schools from implementing rules inspired by political correctness gone wrong!

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Posted in Bullying, Cyber Bullying, Education Policy, National Curriculum, Political Correctness | Leave a Comment »

There is no Need to Sort Out the Gender Imbalance in Teaching

December 26, 2011

There is a disproportionate number of female primary teachers to males and there always will be. Instead of manipulating the numbers and offering incentives for males to join up, how about we look for teachers based on quality rather than gender? As much as it would be nice to have more men taking up primary teaching, I am not certain it is a position which men have an interest in. Many of my friends would sooner collect the dole than sign up to be a teacher. Whilst I love my job very much, most men don’t understand how why I selected my profession over the myriad of alternatives I had to choose from.

I love the position male teacher, Rocco Marchionda, takes on this issue:

Rocco Marchionda is a bit of an oddity.

At a glance, his kindergarten classroom at Merrill Elementary School in Oshkosh looks like any other song-filled, activity-oriented room of 5- and 6-year olds.

The unusual part is Marchionda himself: He’s a man. Teaching kindergarten.

“Pretty much everyone I’ve ever worked with is female. I can’t imagine what it would be like to teach with another male,” he said.

But that doesn’t seem to bother local educators as long as the teacher does a good job.”At the end of the day, the point is how the teaching is getting done and how the students are learning,” said Marchionda, who has been in the profession 13 years.

Marchionda said he became a kindergarten teacher because “in no other grade have I seen children grow so much.”

While educators want better diversity in their schools, Inda said she doesn’t believe the imbalance is a problem.”The most critical piece in a classroom teacher is not whether they’re male or female. It’s their ability to be a great teacher,”Jean Inda (director of professional education programs) said. “The worst thing we could do is encourage more males to go into elementary education if they’re not comfortable there.”

I couldn’t agree more.

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Posted in Male Teachers | 2 Comments »

Teacher Writes “Stupid” on Student’s Forehead

December 16, 2011

There is no doubt that teachers have a responsibility to maintain their calm and not give in to difficult and challenging students. Whilst this is harder than it sounds, teachers cannot afford to vent at their students.

When people ask me what are some of the most important skills required to be a good teacher, I always mention patience. To me, patience is an essential skill for every teacher. But patience doesn’t come straight away. It often requires years of practise and hard work.

That is why I think it is important to note that the teacher that wrote the word “stupid” on the child’s forehead was in his first year. Yes, he wrong to do what he did. Yes, he deserves to be sacked. But I hope he is not lost to teaching permanently just because of what he did.

A Tennessee teacher’s first year on the job could be his last. He could lose his job for something he did in the classroom.

It’s a simple school supply, but when a teacher, Alex Boles, used a permanent marker to write the word “stupid” on a student’s forehead, the director of Overton County Schools took immediate action.

“One word can break a child I mean I’ve got three children and I wouldn’t want it done to mine,” said Matt Eldridge, Director of Schools.

It happened last week at Allons Elementary. The K-8 school only has a few hundred students just outside Livingston, Tennessee.

One student had a question, and Boles responded and wrote the word on the student’s forehead in front of his classmates.

“The teacher said I was trying to joke with him and of course I’ve tried to talk to him and told him that’s not the way you joke with anyone,” said Eldridge.

Until last week, Boles taught math at Allons Elementary. He was new to the job, he just started this fall, and what many consider his lapse in judgment could cost him in the long haul.

“It’s kind of one of those mistakes that’s hard to correct,” said Eldridge.

The district will allow the teacher due process, but the director said he will insist that Boles lose his job. A big price to pay for a single significant mistake.

I still hold out hope that Mr. Boles has potential to be a very good teacher. It would be great if he was given the support to learn from his mistakes and is given a second chance in another school.  I also hope he apologises profusely to the child involved, as well as the child’s parents.

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Posted in Classroom Management, Professional Conduct | 4 Comments »

Instead of Cutting Teachers, Cut the Bull!

December 7, 2011

Teacher bashing has become the new sport of the day and nobody is better at blaming teachers than elected officials.

The latest politician to lash out at teachers is New York City’s mayor. Michael Bloomberg. He believes that only half of New York’s teachers are effective:

“Education is very much, I’ve always thought, just like the real estate business: there are three things that matter: location, location, location is the old joke. Well in education, it is: quality of teacher, quality of teacher, quality of teacher. And I would — if I had the ability, which nobody does really, to just design a system and say, ‘ex cathedra, this is what we’re going to do,’ you would cut the number of teachers in half, but you would double the compensation of them, and you would weed out all the bad ones and just have good teachers. And double the class size with a better teacher is a good deal for the students.”

If I was teaching an education course in university the quote above would be written on the board for all to see. This is what young teachers are up against. A tirade of simplistic, ill-informed, ill-considered and non sensical ideas that would, if enacted, ruin hard-working teachers’ lives without any benefit to the educational cause.

Teaching has nothing to do with real estate. Politics does. Politicians and real estate agents take it upon themselves to make the gloomy look positive and the impossible seem realistic. Teaching isn’t like that at all. Teachers know they can achieve a great deal, but are also aware that there are many factors that are involved with a child’s education.

Unlike mayor Bloomberg who thinks that education wholly rests with the teacher, teachers are aware that they are one of many stakeholders in the education system. Mr. Bloomberg should consider the following players:

1. Parents – Teachers can not achieve to their potential if parents are against them or uninvolved.

2. Administrators – If school Principals and councils are poor, then schools will be run poorly.

3. Teacher Training – If the teachers are a product of poor training, you can hardly blame them for their output.

4. School Culture – Teachers who inherit poor school cultures are bound to find it harder than otherwise.

5. School Funding – A school that is either underfunded or is a product of wasted or misallocation of funds is at a clear disadvantage.

Mayor Bloomberg’s idea of cutting jobs in half and doubling class sizes is a policy so simplistic that a ten year-old could have come up with better. His love affair with standardised tests is even more concerning.

Standardised tests cause more problems than they solve. Yet politicians love them. It’s the same reason they love to “bash” teachers – it takes the heat off them.

If Mr. Bloomberg wants to cut some thing I suggest he cut the tests.

I suggest he cut the wastage too.

I also suggest he cut the teacher bashing.

While his at it, I suggest he cut his policy advisor.

And most of all, I suggest he cut the bull!

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Posted in Education Policy | 1 Comment »

Report Writing That Says a Lot Without Saying Anything

November 25, 2011

It’s report time again, which means the long nights and deep frustrations have arrived.  Many will think I’m strange, but when I first started in  teaching, I was looking forward to writing reports. I saw it as an opportunity to inform the parents about how well I know their child. Communication with parents has always been very high up my priority list, and I saw reports as the centrepiece of good quality communication.

But since I became a teacher the rules for report writing has changed, and we are all worse of as a result.

The Government has legislated that reports all feature the same grading system and the same essential sections.  Two such mandatory inclusions include a list of skills in every area that the students need improvement in and what the school will do to address these needs.

Sounds good, right?

Wrong. Schools across Australia are so terrified that if the teacher doesn’t end up addressing the needs of the students as promised in the reports, then it will open them up to litigation. So schools have quickly searched for a loophole, a strategy designed to be seen to guarantee things to parents without actually guaranteed anything.

And out of that think tank came every teachers new buzz word – ‘encourage’.

“The school will encourage Max to underline key words when reading worded questions.”

“The school will encourage Rita to use rubrics before planning a piece of writing.”

So in the end, the school is offering no actual response to the child’s needs, just some “airy fairy” words that don’t actually mean anything.

And then there’s the “education” words that don’t make any sense to most parents.  Because many teachers are expected to leave out hard truths like, “Max doesn’t behave in class” and “Rita doesn’t apply enough effort”, teachers have employed words that the average parent wouldn’t understand.

For example, teachers love using words that start with “meta” like “metacognitive”, “metalanguage” and “metabolic steroids” (OK, maybe not the last one).  As the custom is to spare the school of angry or dissatisfied parents, teachers have become great at writing reports high on words and low on substance.

It’s actually harder and more tiresome than it sounds.

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Posted in Reporting | 4 Comments »

Does Getting Students to Apologise Really Achieve Anything?

November 18, 2011

Last week I wrote about the difficulties teachers face in finding punishments that work. Probably the most popular consequence for breaking a school law is the “apology”.  Teachers have traditionally required students to apologise to them or a classmate before that child can reclaim their privileges.

My problem with this, is it’s very rarely an honest, authentic apology.  Usually it is said under duress and the child has no alternative but give the teacher what they want to hear.

It’s just like the fight we used to have with our siblings when growing up:

“Go on!  Apologise to your sister!”

How many times did we actually mean it when we said sorry?

And that’s what teachers face on a daily basis.  It’s like pulling teeth!

“Sorry …”

“What are you sorry for?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well you can’t say you’re sorry and not know what you’re sorry about.”

For even worse infringements the apology is ramped up to a public apology.  This is when the student is made a spectacle over so as to show the others that there is a penalty to be paid for overstepping the mark.  Again, is it really worthwhile if the student’s apology isn’t genuine?

Sometimes I feel like we impose the apology so we can close the chapter and get on with life. The chid has made the apology, I dealt with it and now we can move on. It’s more about seeming to do something rather than actually doing something.

The problem with this is that mistakes that haven’t been learnt from get repeated. Chances are, the apology will not mean much weeks later when the child breaks the same rule again.

Whilst I understand the “apology method” and have personally subscribed to it more times than I feel comfortable admitting to, perhaps it should be the last step in a more extensive response.

For example, in the case of an argument between two students, perhaps we should spend more time mediating the kids and letting them exchange view and clearing the air. Some do this already, others are reluctant to use the time (and go for a quick apology instead).  Only when it seems that both sides can appreciate the other’s point of view, should we request the apology.  That way it will be genuine and longer lasting.

Elton John once sang that “Sorry seems to be the hardest word.”

It’s only hard when the person saying it, actually means it.

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Posted in Classroom Management | 3 Comments »

Do You Remember When Learning Wasn’t About the Test?

November 14, 2011

Students across Australia, and dare I say it worldwide, are sick of constantly being graded.  Gone are the days when a child can learn to love a given subject through observation, experience, discussion and self-evaluation.  Now every learning focus leads to the ultimate test of nerve – a test.

Standardised tests have absolutely ruined the enjoyment of learning.  They reinforce a pecking order which is not beneficial for children.  The constant grading of children make kids who try hard but struggle to perform, feel dumb and useless.  It has taken over classrooms, with teachers too worried about the implications of their class doing badly to teach the curriculum the way it was designed to be taught.  Instead, they are forced to teach to the tests.  This involves months of practice exams.  How inspiring!

Our children deserve better.  They deserve to go to school without having to constantly sit for preparation tests followed by real tests followed by another set of preparation tests etc.  They deserve to have their education untainted by political point scorers.

I love the backflip contained in the first paragraph of a recent editorial in the L.A. Times:

The high-stakes measurement of student progress through annual standardized tests has, in many classrooms, restricted creativity, innovation and individuality. It has emphasized the skills involved in taking multiple-choice tests over those of researching, analyzing, experimenting and writing, the tools that students are more likely to need to be great thinkers, excellent university students and valued employees. But, by pressuring schools to raise achievement, it also has ensured that more students reach high school able to read books more sophisticated than those by Dr. Seuss — which, sad to say, was a major problem a decade ago — and tackle algebra by ninth grade.

Once you have taken the “creativity, innovation and individuality” out of education there is no “but”.  There is no good way of rationalising those vital missing ingredients.

Sure it’s good to have data on the quality of teaching and learning in our classrooms.  Of course, assessments are a staple of education.  But these dry, monotonous, pressure-ridden tests can get too much for kids looking for more enjoyable ways of learning.

If these tests have as I suspect, a negative effect on our students’ enjoyment of learning and self-esteem, is it really worth persevering with?

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Posted in Standardised Testing | 6 Comments »

Scaring Our Children Senseless

November 9, 2011

It is the responsibility of parents and teachers to protect children and educate them on the dangers that exist in the ‘real world’.  However, in attempting to prepare children for incidents and scenarios that are unlikely to happen we have seemingly created a fear and paranoia that has proven quite destructive to the same children we are trying to protect.

A surge in reports of men acting suspiciously near schoolchildren has triggered urgent talks between schools and police, who fear the ‘‘stranger danger’’ message has gone into overdrive.

Police say heightened fears of children being stalked on Gold Coast streets are unfounded, and the increase in reports is the result of people jumping at shadows after a rash of incorrect media stories.

Regional Crime Coordinator Dave Hutchinson says some incidents are made up, and others are cases of children taking fright for no good reason.

I am a bit concerened at how scared and anxious our children are becoming, and teachers are slightly to blame.  Besides stranger danger and other programes that inhabit fear in students, many teachers in Australia have been scaring children with doom and gloom predictions about global warming.  No matter what your position is on this issue, it is important that teachers instruct, educate and empower children, instead of frighten or demoralise them.

There is a huge difference between helping students become perceptive, instinctive and responsible and helping them to  become fearful and paranoid.

At the end of the day, the importance of the message is lost when it inspires an irrational and overpowering fear.

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Posted in Child Welfare | 3 Comments »

Addressing Teacher Burnout

November 4, 2011

Teacher burnout is a significant problem that strike even the very best of teachers.  Even the most passionate and dedicated of teachers struggle to see out a term out without getting sick or feeling extremely fatigued.

The question is, how do we address this problem?

Research shows the teaching profession has the highest burnout rate of any public service job. What can we do to keep the best and the brightest teachers in the classroom?

In April, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the American Institutes for Research (AIR) released the report, “Workplaces That Support High-Performing Teaching and Learning: Insights From Generation Y Teachers.”Gen Y teachers—that is, those under 30 years of age—account for at least one in five teachers in US classrooms today. They start out intending to make teaching a lifelong profession. However, according to the report, young teachers leave the profession at a rate 51 percent higher than older teachers and transfer to a different school at a rate 91 percent higher than their older colleagues. Studies also show that the national teacher-turnover rate costs school districts approximately $7 billion annually.

In the AFT/AIR report, young teachers say they want:

  • Feedback on their performance and to be evaluated in a fair way
  • Time to collaborate with their colleagues
  • Differentiated pay for high performance
  • Technology to provide engaging and effective lessons, as well as to support collaboration with other teachers through, for instance, videos and conferencing technology.

I agree with every point, but have a problem with the third one.  Whilst I believe Governments should look into a differentiated model of pay for high performers, I don’t believe such an initiative would have any bearing on cases of teacher burnout.

The list of proposed changes by young teachers above is most fair and reasonable.  If responded to, the outcomes could be quite positive all around.  It’s certainly time to better address teacher burnout.  It’s an issue that cannot be dismissed and will not go away.

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Posted in Teacher Welfare | 1 Comment »

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