Why I love teaching…

In the last few days I have been reminded why it is that I love teaching, and why I think my work as a teacher educator is important.   

Yesterday I had the good fortune to come across an ex-student who is now working in a high school in our local area.  I was excited by her presence, and loved hearing her stories of what she is doing in her class, and what her plans are for the future.   A high achiever, she won an academic award at the end of her degree, and a state award for teaching at the end of her first year of teaching.  How lucky are the students in her classes?  How wonderful for her that she is living the dream of teaching and learning in her daily life.  While I had very little to do with her achievements, a little part of me can live vicariously through her experiences.

Today I read a student’s assignment that demonstrated not only a very high level of knowledge and skill, but a real passion and interest for the subject.  Reading her words, I was moved by her insight, and the articulate way in which she demonstrated her knowledge, justifying it intelligently and honestly.  I am truly excited that someone with her knowledge, skill, zeal, and attitude will be teaching in the near future, and I feel quietly chuffed that I may have played a very small part in her development.  How wonderful for her to have the capacity and motivation to learn at such a high level, and to be already thinking like a teacher.  There are some very fortunate primary or secondary students out there who will have the benefit of her knowledge, skills and attitude to learning in the future.  How wonderful for her that she has chosen a career in which she has the opportunity to teach and learn every day.

In my work I have the opportunity of impacting on the minds and hearts of many preservice teachers, and I love that constant challenge.  Sometimes, even often,  I feel their resistance… sometimes (even often) I feel like a woodpecker pecking at an impenetrably thick trunk of the thickest oak, one of many from a dense, thick thicket.  At other times, wonderful times, I feel like the restraints are off, and I have been emancipated, that I have been allowed in through a chink in their armour.  I feel like I am blazing a trail, showing fellow travellers the way to the light with miner’s helmets ablaze and torches burning brightly, with the fire in our collective spirits shining from within and lighting our way.  I hear happy, chattering voices, alive with the possibilities of the learning and teaching to come (should I be saying publically that I hear voices?).

I hope tomorrow is one of those days.  I hope the students come to class with their little flames already ignited ready for me to fan into a fabulous fury. 

And if not already ignited, I hope they’ve remembered their matches or flint.

And if they haven’t remembered their matches or flint, I hope they’re awake.

And if they’re not entirely awake, I do hope they are still breathing. 

Hmmm… I wonder what tomorrow will bring… it’s the thrill of the chase isn’t it?

 

Flummoxed about Facebook and Phones in Class

My transition from teaching at primary school, then high school, and then university has been reasonably seamless.  It is fair to say that a good deal of the pedagogy used to facilitate the learning of young children and teenagers may also work with adult learners, although of course the level and breadth of the content varies.  Students of all ages respond well to discovery, guided discovery, scaffolding, inquiry, cooperative learning, modelling, hands on activities, guest speakers, and authentic tasks with real purposes and audiences. It has been most rewarding applying tried and true pedagogy, and contemporary and creative methods in the adult arena, and for the most part good results have been achieved.   However.  And this is a big HOWEVER.  The most difficult transition I have faced is in coming to terms with the level of responsibility I should adopt in managing the classroom, and as part of that, in managing the behaviour of adult learners in particular. 

For the most part I have nothing but praise for the education students that I teach.  They truly are motivated and committed to be the best teachers they possibly can be.  In fact, in my time I have come across many inspiring and brilliant people who will be, or have recently joined the ranks of inspiring and brilliant teachers.   But every now and again, I find myself in a situation where I question a student’s commitment to excellence purely because they have had the temerity to use their laptops or phones to post a status on Facebook, or check their emails, or text their friends in the middle of a class.  As preservice teachers I believe they would expect their students to follow ‘expected levels of behaviour’ or exercise good manners at all times and yet they do not do this themselves and this contradiction baffles me.  If I see a student on Facebook in class should I say something to them?  Should I chastise a student for texting, or making a phone call?  Should they receive the ‘hairy eyebrow’, or be the recipient of one of my clipped ‘tut tuts’?  Is it my responsibility, or is it none of my business?  This conundrum is responsible for my current state of flummox. 

In my very first year I dealt with what I perceived as errant behaviour in various ways, all of which were notably groan worthy.  On signalling that a lesson was coming to its natural conclusion with the words “just before we go…” the students immediately started to pack up, wriggle on their chairs, and looked likely to bolt through the door without further ado.  Incensed at what I perceived as bad manners at not actively listening to my final words of wisdom for the day, I very curtly and assertively chastised the whole class for ‘being rude,’ and informed them that I would tell them when they could go.  To this day, I can still feel my cheeks burn with a mixture of both indignation at the students’ behaviour and sheer embarrassment and shame at my autocratic outburst.  I can still see the look of open mouthed outrage of one of the mature age students in particular who clearly wondered what the hell I thought I was doing.  As I said, it was groan worthy. 

Taking on board the philosophy of Dr William Glasser, rather than scrutinizing the behaviour of the students, I have looked to my own pedagogy and attitude.  As a result, I have modified my approach and developed a style which seems to be much more conducive to the tertiary environment.  Naturally this is an ongoing process.

Today, I felt my cheeks burn with indignation again. 

In a tutorial of twenty five students, sitting at the front of a group less than two metres from me, a student was captivated by the ‘draw me’ app on her mobile phone and was enthusiastically outlining her given word with her finger on the screen.  One week ago, before my 22 year old son asked me to help him work out the weird scribbling on his iphone4 screen from a fellow player, I may not even have known what she was doing, and I may have even ignored it.  But today – today it incensed me.  In the middle of my lecture, and midflight in a sentence (of no doubt great import), I asked her to stop what she was doing as it was distracting me.  My cheeks tingled with that same indignation that hit them some years before.  I also started to feel that same tingle of embarrassment that I had felt before because I had told an adult learner off, and then I started to stammer, and then I forgot what I was saying.  It was horrible. 

I have looked to what I was doing and I don’t know what else I could have done to ensure her complete engagement in the lesson.  I had spent nearly three days crafting a mixed media presentation with rich visuals, integrated video clips and animations, and had already had the class involved in a variety of cooperative learning activities, and some reading and writing tasks.  I used all the tools in my toolbox. 

In these heady days of global communication where you can literally communicate with someone or a group, or an internet site via twitter, blogs, vlogs, facebook, Skype, texting, or an old fashioned phone call, instantly; it begs the question for me, about etiquette.  Is my age catching up with me? Instinctively, I think it is bad manners to play a phone game in the front row of class in front of the lecturer.  For some reason I think it reflects a lack of commitment to be the best teacher one can be.  This may well not be the case at all.  Again, I believe that when this student is on her teaching prac, she may well be incensed if one of her students were to get their mobile out on the mat, and start texting or playing a game.  But maybe she wouldn’t.  Perhaps it’s not bad manners.  Maybe she’d get her phone out and text the student with a request to Bluetooth the new exciting app to her so she can join in too.   

Either way, I know it feels wrong to chastise an adult student and I don’t like it.  It’s made me feel stupid.  And as the navel gazing gets deeper, and I look to what it is that made me instinctively react, I have to ask myself what it really was that was most upsetting.  Could it be that I am just upset that she found her phone game more interesting than me?  Maybe that’s it.

Fertilising Poppies for Harvest

What is it about elements of our culture that we seem to feel the need to cut those down who are reaching the pinnacle of achievement in one field or another?  Whilst we are encouraged to, and indeed encourage others to strive for excellence it seems that there is also an invisible threshold somewhere on the way to ‘the top’ where it is deemed appropriate to stop, and even unwise to go beyond.  It’s not quite at the point of mediocrity, but you can certainly see the signs of it as you hover around it, and perhaps push slightly past it, if you dare.  It would seem to be polite and even necessary to those around you to flock with them at a shared level of expertise (and in some cases ignorance) rather than to extend your knowledge or skill to a more dizzying height where it may be perceived that you are ‘looking down’ on the rest of them. 

The dilemma of striving to reach your full potential and avoiding the fallout if you succeed is rife in the world of education, particularly if you are a female teacher, and there are a range of unspoken rules you must adhere to if your achievements in the form of promotions, or awards, or accolades are made public.  For example, to avoid the rebukes or criticism of those bearing the poppy sickles, one must be well in tune with the appropriate strategies to calm the restless slayers.  The so called ‘overachiever’, (a term used derogatorily to label a certain type of high achiever as someone who has deliberately put themselves above everybody else by fanatically and selfishly going to unnecessary lengths to complete a task or learn a new skill beyond that which would ‘normally’ be called necessary – whatever that is) must learn to placate the critics by downplaying or denying the level of achievement.  This may be by offering a form of apology; by naming all those around you who really had a vital role to play in it, and for which the achievement would have been impossible without (whether this is true or not); by suggesting some sort of mistake or misinterpretation; or even by suggesting that the achievement was only possible at the cost of something else very important in your life, and hence may have been unwise or unhealthy.  Humbleness is key to survival, but it is no guarantee that you will remain unscathed.

In the world of teaching the backlash of achieving highly and being recognized for it comes in a variety of forms ranging from subtle and slightly irritating to overt and cruelly debilitating.  Consider the brilliant teacher who was a finalist in the West Australian Teacher of the Year awards, whose critics suggested that of course she had time to put into her career as her and her husband where childless and she ‘didn’t have a life.’  Or the inspirational teacher with a husband and four children who was also a recipient of a teaching award to whit the naysayers suggested that it was at the expense of her own children who always seemed to waiting around after school for her and were bordering on being delinquents because of her perceived neglect.  Other high achievers are pilloried for less than perfect performances in other areas; for the way they dress or look, the ‘state’ of their classroom, their apparent ‘laissez faire’ approach to classroom management, the time they arrive at or leave school, what they do on the weekend, or who their friends or family are.  Their professionalism may be questioned with regard to their relationship with the supervisors, deputies or principals, parents and students, and they will almost certainly have been accused and found guilty of ‘sucking up’ to all of them at some stage. 

Often, these kinds of attacks are put down to ‘sour grapes,’ or jealously, but it cannot explain or excuse the depths of mental cruelty or bullying that the offending high achiever inevitably suffers.  Whilst much of it is ‘behind the scenes,’ so that the high achiever may be oblivious to some of it, at other times it is publically palpable.  Picture the award winning teacher dressed professionally and getting her morning coffee who has to endure the suggestion from her male colleague that she seems to be dressed to impress today and chides “is the director general coming to visit?” Imagine the same teacher on an excursion with her teaching colleagues and students who, at the sight of flames licking the tops of trees less than a few kilometres away and with the heat of the smoke setting the fire alarms off and hardening the bread of the sandwiches, suggests that everyone should get back on the bus and promptly leave, being called ‘a chicken’ with the accompanying cluck cluck noises and animated actions for added effect, by her ridiculing colleagues.  Imagine that this ridicule, and the new nickname of “Steggles” (as in a brand of chicken) becomes part of the daily repartee in the staffroom, and there is little escape from the bawdy laughing and constant retelling and embellishment of the original story.

In 2006, 27 year old Susan Ward was named the UK’s outstanding new teacher at an awards ceremony in London.  Kevin Schofield reported in The Scotsman (2006):

The judges praised innovative methods she used at Edinburgh’s Juniper Green Primary School, including music and puppetry, to motivate her pupils in class 1A. However, 24 hours later she was stunned to discover some fellow teachers were lining up to criticize her achievements.

An internet chatroom used by the teaching profession was inundated with negative comments, some criticizing the way she teaches and others decrying the awards themselves.

One described a television report on Mrs Ward’s achievements as “vomit-inducing”, before adding: “Getting the five-year-olds to tidy up to the Mission: Impossible theme tune – how cute, but how long before the novelty wears off?” Another said: “What about all the teachers who have been doing the same for years?” The comments prompted Mrs Ward to post her defence aimed at her “hurtful and cruel” critics.

She said: “To be insulted and judged – based on a two-minute edited news report – on a site dedicated to promoting positive communication between teaching professionals has saddened me deeply. I returned home from London today having been named Britain’s outstanding new teacher of the year. I hope that I am now able to use this title to highlight and promote the brilliant teaching happening in Scottish schools and bring some much-deserved recognition to our teachers. Surely that can’t be a bad thing?”

While many teachers have now posted comments congratulating her on her success, she admitted the negativity of some of the views expressed had saddened her. “I was surprised and really shocked,” said the teacher, who entered the profession only a year ago. “It’s not nice to have been so excited one night and then to come home to something like that the next day.”

She added: “It doesn’t take away my sense of achievement. The award will be good for me and good for my school.

“I’m trying really hard to do a good job, but it’s just another example of the tall poppy syndrome we have in this country, where people feel the need to criticize success.

“I just think it’s very unfortunate, especially when we’re trying to instill in children a sense of pride in their achievements and the achievements of others.”

Although this was six years ago, unfortunately the contradiction of encouraging students to reach their full potential and actively avoiding the flack if you publically manage it yourself as a teacher or lecturer is alive and grimly well.  This conundrum will be complicated further with suggestions that teachers in Australia may soon be paid according to their skill level and the achievement of their students.  Apart from the obvious problems with how such data could be validly and fairly collected, how will teaching colleagues treat each other in these competitive workplaces?

Schools winning awards are also fair game to the knockers.  Principal Cheryl Doig reported that after her primary school was awarded NZ School of the Year status ‘there were people who were really pleased for us but others that put reasons why we were singled out.  They looked for faults rather than recognizing what we’d done” (Ross, 2000).  Hogan (2008) reports that gifted students in our schools are also often treated poorly, with many seen as “the products of over-ambitious middle-class families rich in social capital.”  La Trobe lecturer in gifted and special needs, Michael Faulkner, believes that most people have a notion that giftedness is elitist; and in a 2001 Senate report on the education of gifted children it was reported there was a “widespread suspicion of the term ‘gifted’, with its anti-egalitarian connotations”(Hogan, 2008).  Geake and Gross  (2008) contend that the attitude of teachers towards gifted children is intensified by the stereotypic view that they are “arrogant, overconfident and self-centred.”  In a study of the attitudes of teachers toward student giftedness they discovered that teachers had far less opposition to providing special provisions and programs for students gifted in sport or music as this was seen to be a talent that could be developed for the enjoyment of the whole community, whereas providing support for a student with high intellectual ability was perceived as having a benefit only to that student in the form of a passport to a higher education, prestigious and lucrative employment, and a desirable lifestyle (Gross, 1993). 

Whilst most schools and universities would claim that it is their aim for all students to strive for excellence and to reach their full potential there are also many signs of an institutional and cultural reluctance or inability to actively support this.  Arbitrary limits on how many students can be awarded distinctions or high distinctions, scaling of marks, acceptance and encouragement of pedagogical mediocrity, excellence awards which rely on the teacher or lecturer nominating and addressing the selection criteria themselves, low status of teaching staff, a disproportionate amount of support for low achievers over high achievers, and a preference of sport and music skills above the science and humanities all contribute to this caustic incongruity.

It seems that this inequity and prejudice towards outstanding academic achievers is endemic in our culture, our community, our education system, and our own psyches.  So what part can we play in making a difference to those within our field of influence?  

In order for teachers to truly inspire their students to reach their full potential and to strive for excellence teachers must be seen to do this too.  Learning and teaching environments must by necessity evolve into active communities of learners where all participants support each other in their mutual aims to do the best they can, and celebrate each others’ progress and achievements; students and teachers alike.  Howard Gardner (1983, 1999) acknowledged the multiple intelligences we all have; perhaps now more than ever, it’s time for all of us to acknowledge our areas of strength and look to developing those that we have some challenge with.  Most importantly, we should look to our own interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences as an area to continually hone, develop and draw on in our quest to develop our own and our students’ linguistic, mathematical, spatial, kinaesthetic, naturalist, musical and existential intelligences.  Adopt the Golden Rule and treat others the way you would like to be treated; empathetically, generously, respectfully and with genuine care.   Aim to make worthy contributions, to be helpful and to encourage and inspire others. If we use our own intelligences to fertilise and celebrate the growth and development of ourselves and others, perhaps we’ll find less need to cut the poppies down once they’ve bloomed.

Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of Mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books.

Gardner, H. (1999). Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century. New York: Basic Books.

Geake, J., & Gross, M. U. M. (2008). Teachers’ Negative Affect Toward Academically Gifted Students:  An Evolutionary Psychological Study. The Gifted Child Quarterly, 52.3(Summer).

Gross, M. U. M. (1993). Exceptionally gifted children. London: Routledge.

Hogan, B. (2008, 16th June). Too clever by half. The Age, from http://global.factiva.com.ezproxy.ecu.edu.au/ha/default.aspx

Ross, T. (2000, 8th March). Principal leaves School of Year. The Press, from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.ecu.edu.au/docview/314286960/fulltext?accountid=10675

Schofield, K. (2006, 21st Oct, 2006). Perfect teacher splits the profession. The Scotsman, from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.ecu.edu.au/docview/327267459/fulltext?accountid=10675

Reflecting on Reflecting…

Having long been an advocate of the power of active reflection in all aspects of one’s life, and having been stimulated by the passion and curiosity of fellow pedagogues Rebecca and Hayley, today I find myself intently reflecting on reflecting.  Dizzy with ideas in my metacognitive state, my mind is abuzz, and a grounded starting point for a concerted stream of analysis seems elusive.  I wonder if my students in the two undergraduate units that I am currently teaching, and for whom I have set the task of formally reflecting weekly in some type of journal format, are having the same problem. 

The why of reflecting seems self-evident; one cannot hope to develop as a continually evolving soul without thinking about one’s experiences or discoveries in some depth: considering the good and bad things, thinking about how they could be repeated or avoided, thinking about how it felt, thinking about how the experience might have been or could be in the future if only some aspects of it were changed in some way.  For many, indeed for most of us, the process of reflection is purely cerebral, existing only in the machinations of one’s mind.  Increasingly however, particularly in our professional lives, the power of reflection through some other medium is proving to be increasingly useful, and at times cathartic. 

It is this aspect of reflecting that I am particularly interested in.  How many alternative ways are there to gather your thoughts and interrogate them?  The most obvious way is in writing it down, and happily, there are exponentially increasing amounts of formats to embrace, the more that you experiment with.  The simplest form of written reflection comes in the form of a diary, where historically, the writer recounts an event or series of events or thoughts or feelings as if they are writing to an anonymous (and in reality non-existent) confidante.  Whilst valuable in some ways, and for some purposes, this method does not provide many opportunities to explore underlying assumptions, alternative points of view, or indeed address the ‘so what?’ factor.  The key to getting the most out of writing your experiences down lies in going beyond the documentation of facts, that is, going beyond a retell of events or collection of thoughts to choose aspects of it to delve into.  Truly critical reflective thinking lies in the ability to analyse different aspects and points of view of an event or notion with the ultimate aim of making sense of it and using your insight to positively impact on your own or someone else’s life in the future. 

To reflect critically it makes sense to apply one or more critical thinking strategies or frameworks to support and enable the process.  Simple strategies that support reflecting dichotomously are good starting points:  constructing a two column table and listing the pros and cons, or the good things and bad things, or the red light and green light things, or the yes examples and no examples, or the possibilities and threats, or the strengths and weaknesses, or the realistic and unrealistic, or the illegal and legal (to name but a few possibilities). It is from lists such as these that patterns may emerge or focus areas may surface which can form the foundation for further interrogation and analysis.  For example, imagine reflecting on a lecture you’ve just sat in on, or a lesson you’ve just taught.  In a two column table with red light and green light as the headings consider which parts of the experience made your learning or your students’ learning stop, falter, wane, or fade; the parts that bored, unmotivated, confused or angered you or your students.  Record these aspects in the red light column.  Consider the parts which kick started and encouraged you or your students’ learning; those parts that encouraged, supported, inspired, motivated, pleased or enlightened.  Record those aspects in the green light column.  As you complete the list, you cannot help but start to synthesize the results, and to begin to form conclusions as to what aspects stifled or supported learning and to what extent the learning experience as a whole was more or less successful.  It is from this point that the active reflector can make use of their data to choose elements to address in more depth, to explore underlying beliefs or assumptions or to address the vital ‘So What?’ factor. 

Moving on from dichotomous thought where opposing notions are considered, sometimes using a comparative approach is also useful to kickstart or further develop both critical and creative reflective thought.  It is here that some of Tony Ryan’s Thinkers Keys come into play.  Consider the Thinkers Key – ‘The Picture’.  Given a particular picture or symbol compare in what ways they relate to each other.  Often the more abstract a picture is, the more creative the response may be.  For example I might choose to compare a lesson I taught last week with the picture to the left.  It was the first week of semester and it was this class’s first day together.

• Like the liquorice allsorts, all of the students were very different in appearance, shape and form, although they all very clearly belonged together.   
• One liquorice allsort stood out from the rest, wanting to be noticed, tempting fate in some ways.
• Just like the liquorice allsorts, the students were in a close environment and interacted with each other through a variety of cooperative learning and icebreaking activities. 
• Some students huddled in the back, obscured by those in the front.  The conditions of the classroom were a little crowded, and it was difficult to move around without being in someone else’s space.  Towards the end of the lesson some students were exhausted and looked more dishevelled than when they had first arrived. 

From these abstractions I can consider the “So What?” factor and plan to have the lesson less hectic next week, to set the room up so that the students are sat next to different people and in different places in the room, and I can give them more breaks or down time to talk with peers and reflect themselves.  Similarly, the Thinkers Key ‘The Commonality’ could also be used where the points of commonality between two unlikely concepts are found, often with creative or unusual results; for example: comparing a lesson to a banquet, mathematics to a food, a discipline policy to gardening. 

Moving on from thinking strategies that promote the comparison or identification of two main concepts, there are critical reflection thinking strategies that encourage a trifold or fourfold focus for reflection.  The graphic organiser known as a Y Chart supports the would be reflector to consider the senses:  What something looked like, felt like and sounded like; the Thinkers Key ‘The Bar’ leads the reflector to consider how something could be made bigger, how something could be added, and another to be replaced; and a Venn diagram supports us in identifying what is fundamentally different between two concepts or objects and provides the space for us to perceive and document what the two has in common.  Three separate entities can be compared in a TriVenn diagram.  A SWOT analysis leads us into reflecting what the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are in a chosen area and supports looking at an issue or subject from different points of view from which the thinker may then apply the ‘So What?’ question and set about coming to appropriate and informed conclusions.

One of my favourite reflective thinking tools is the versatile DeBono’s Six Thinking Hats.  Edward DeBono directs us to think emotively (red hat), positively (yellow hat), negatively (black hat), factually (white hats), creatively (green hat) and metacognitively (blue hat).  I cannot think of any situation where the application of the six thinking hats would not elucidate new appreciations or understandings of an experience, concept or notion. I’m also excited about using Debono’s Values Medals.  This structure invites us to reflect on the innate values of the concept or experience.  The gold medal invites us to consider inherent human values including pride, achievement, a sense of belonging, hope, trust and growth.  The silver medal asks what matters to the organization or institution.  What are the goals of the organization or institution and how will a proposed action help or hinder?  The steel medal asks what are the implications for quality and how might any course of action or decision impact on the quality of what is done?  The glass medal represents fluid, functional and colourful shape; it helps us consider aspects of change, innovation, simplicity and creativity.  The wood medal focuses on ecological values – is there a positive or negative impact to the environment and sustainability.  Lastly the brass medal, a metal that looks like gold but is not.  Embracing brass medal thinking encourages us to examine appearances and perception – how will this action be interpreted?

As well as reflecting in these formats, of course there is the long honoured tradition of reflecting through story telling.  For those of you who know me well, you will recognize this as a favourite method, both orally and through writing.  I plan to complete my PhD by writing an autoethnographic novel which is in essence my reflections on my schooling and teaching through story.  Donald Schön (1988) suggests “…storytelling is the mode of description best suited to transformation in new situations of action…. Stories are products of reflection, but we do not usually hold onto them long enough to make them objects of reflection in their own right…. When we get into the habit of recording our stories, we can look at them again, attending to the meanings we have built into them and attending, as well, to our strategies of narrative description.”  If you haven’t tried reflecting through this medium yet, I suggest you give it a go sooner rather than later.

Reflecting through visual means is also very appealing.  Labelled diagrams, Mind Maps, a collage of photographs, drawing or painting can also provide a wondrous medium in which to explore the parameters of one’s mind and explore possibilities, and may provide the scope and depth of thought not easily written or verbalised.  Increasingly, reflecting may also be realized through multimedia modes: PowerPoint, Web2.o Prezi presentation tool, verbal streams of consciousness or rehearsed soliloquies recorded on webcam, digital voice recordings, interactive cogitations through social networking sites and chatrooms, blog posts, comments on websites and blogs, the recording of musical meditations, videoed roleplays, or animations. 

When it comes to reflecting, there are many theories as to the place it has in our lives.  In teaching we are very familiar with the cyclical ‘plan, teach, assess, reflect’, or the ‘reflect, plan, act, observe’ models.  Rather than seeing reflecting as a part of an action process which prescribes a set or predictable pattern, I see reflection as being a much more organic and spontaneous phenomenon which occurs at point of need, and when one reflects on the times one needs to reflect on, it is hard to conceive of a time when some part of your thought processes is not at some level reflecting on something.  At times these reflections can be explored and elucidated further through the application of specific critical or creative thinking strategies, and written, drawn, acted or recorded in a myriad of formats.  So, on reflection, I believe it’s our capacity to constantly reflect using the methods best suited for the specific purposes that determines the extent to which we can make real sense of the actions of ourselves and others, and of our world itself. 

References:

DeBono, E.  http://www.debonothinkingsystems.com/tools/valuemedals.htm

Ryan, Tony. http://www.tonyryan.com.au/blog/wp-content/uploads/Thinkers_Keys_Version1.pdf

Schön, D. (1988) “Coaching Reflective Teaching” in P. Grimmett & G. Erickson (1988). Reflection in Teacher Education (pp. 19-29). New York: Teachers College Press.

The Joys of Teaching Practicums

It’s been very quiet in the hallways of uni lately, and musing on this I got to thinking about how many students are out doing a teaching prac of one sort or another at the moment. In my undergraduate years I tackled a total of five pracs, and many incursions to schools for day visits. I remember all of these times very fondly, and for a variety of different reasons.

In my second year of university I was on prac in Capel in a year six class. I was about six months pregnant with my third child and had arrived for my first day at school in new clothes and a cane basket loaded up with all the teaching essentials – lunch, stationery, files, stationery, programs, stationery, rewards and stationery. School buses were arriving full of students, parents were dropping children off at the front of school and I was well and truly in the thick of it. As I walked in front of one of the buses and stepped from the bitumen to the gravel edge I lost my footing. One moment I was looking poised, in control… the consummate professional; the next moment I was sprawled on the gravel, my upturned basket at some distance from me now with papers drifting down from the sky like some sort of ticker-tape parade. Awkward, goofy, cringe worthy. I looked down at my bloodied knees which I could now see through the large holes ripped in my new trousers and people came from all directions to gather both myself and the contents of my basket up. First on the scene was the principal who had seen the whole horrible debacle from his office window. Quickly he had gathered me up, his arm around me, leading me to the staffroom. This was not how I visualised walking through the school gates. In no time he had me seated with my feet up on another chair and was painstakingly picking the gravel from my knees, swabbing it with mercurochrome, and applying the kinds of quantities of elastoplast that would have boosted the bandaid company’s profits quite considerably. Naturally, I was also given a cup of tea and some time to recover before I started my school day. I spent the rest of the day with ripped out knees in my pants, the blood stained elastoplasts shouting out from the frayed edges like badges of honour. It only occurred to me years later why the principal was so quick to come to my assistance and was so concerned for my welfare – he may have thought he was going to be caught up in an active birth experience – he did pat my hand a lot, and continually asked if I was OK. Bless his cotton socks.

On another occasion I found myself at the small Burekup Primary School, cooking up a storm with a guided discovery style science lesson. With the aim of designing a super pikelet, groups of four all had their own electric frying pan, and quantities of flour, butter, sugar, milk, eggs, food colouring and assorted extras like chocolate bits, sprinkles, corn, and smarties. Previously we had determined what made a good recipe and now we were experimenting with different variables. The six groups of students all had their own responsibilities within the group to ensure positive interdependence and individual accountability. The safety rules had been discussed, and the safety officers within each group determined. Parent helpers loitered near their allocated groups and the time to start was nigh. No sooner had I told them to begin than puffs of flour erupted from the packets, eggs were cracked and the excitement was on. I specifically remember seeing a batter with swirls of blue and green with yellow kernels of corn gasping for air at the surface. Another mix seemed to have more chocolate bits than batter. It wasn’t long before the frying pans fired up and the misshapen pikelets were bubbling away in the pans. In fact, all of the groups had pikelets cooking away merrily when the intrepid scientists noticed that the bubbling had diminished and the batter sat stubbornly flaccid on the surface of the frypans. It also occurred to us that the lights were no longer on, and there was a hubbub on the verandah as teachers compared notes about the power being off. The fuses were checked and it seemed one had blown. It was quickly fixed with fuse wire and the lights were back on and the pikelets bubbling away again. For about five minutes that is, and then the power was out again. Same fuse, same solution, and off we went again. Well, for about another five minutes when someone put two and two together and realised that it was us that was overloading the circuits with all of our frying pans! We were responsible for repeatedly blowing the fuse and rendering the small school without power – whoops. We had to roster the students on for cooking time until all groups had cooked their pikelets and the results could be analysed. Needless to say many apologies and humble utterances were given as I backed my way out of the school and headed for home at the end of the day.

On another occasion for one of our science units we were required to design a lesson and then teach it with a small group of students at a local catholic school. We decided to do liquid layers, and as part of the lesson we thought that paper marbling would be a great idea. All that was required was some oil based paint and some water. Our lesson plan was well constructed, but our contingency plans were not. When we got to the school the students were eagerly waiting for us, resplendent in their beautiful uniforms. Very quickly we realised we had forgotten a container to put the water in and I spied the students trays underneath the desks. They were perfect for putting water in, and an A4 sheet of paper fitted inside very neatly. We asked our students to remove all of the contents of their trays and then we went outside. It wasn’t long before we had half filled the trays with water and had the lids off several different pots of colourful oil based paints. Scientifically, we were trying to demonstrate to students how different densities of liquids could result in a layering effect, and oil and water is a very simple way of showing this. We demonstrated how to dribble the oil paints onto the surface of the water and then how to gently float a sheet of paper onto the water and remove it to reveal a wonderful marbly pattern. Well that was all easy, and the kids loved it. And then the wind came up. We hadn’t thought about where we would put these marbled prints to dry but decided resting them on the ground with small stones on each corner would be a good idea. No. No, it wasn’t a good idea. With one great gust of wind the dozen samples the students had made were suddenly kiting their way around the quadrangle with splashes of vibrant red, bold blue and glorious green emblazing everything the papers touched. The students ran around after the marbled paper, collecting them all roughly. Having collected the artworks there the students stood in front of us, looking like that been caught up in an explosion in a pizza factory. Thick globs and streaks of oil paint shouted out from their uniforms, their shoes, and from the bitumen beneath, and the school verandah posts and pathways. In fact there seemed to be paint absolutely everywhere. Oil paint does not come off. We had no mineral turps or means to clean up. We were in serious kaka. I limped away from this school too, apologising, with my head down, and tail between my legs.

Unfortunately, I have many stories like this. And, what’s more, I still do daft things from time to time. Luckily, there has always been someone around with more experience, and a lot of patience, and a good deal of care and understanding to support me, counsel me, and forgive me. No doubt you’ve got some stories to tell too about your own pracs, and I would love to hear them. Perhaps it’s not a tale where you have single-handedly destroyed a whole school’s power system or caused thousands of dollars of damage, it might be a funny, sad or thought provoking story. Would love to hear from you whatever emotion it effuses, so please do share!

Does the spelling fairy shine on you, or has she taken extended leave of absence?

Being able to spell appears to be the kind of writing skill that people believe they either can do, or they can’t, in much the same way they believe they can either do maths or they can’t, or can run fast or can’t. I have always prided myself on being a very good speller, and the times that the reverse has proven to be true remains deeply embedded in my memory as a low point. The first time I was consciously aware that I had misspelt (or misspelled  ) a word was when I was in year one. Our task had been to draw a picture of ourselves and write our name underneath. I can see the whole sorry poster like a living holograph in front of me. I drew a stylised image of myself with a big happy smile, with my dark hair parted in the middle and flowing down to my shoulders, turning up at the bottoms in a new ascent skywards. There was a sparkle to the big brown eyes that looked out beyond the page. And underneath, in my very best printing, was my name: J E E N Y. I was very chuffed with myself until the realisation hit me that I had not spelt my own name correctly – I knew that there were double letters in the middle there somewhere, but with a 50/50 chance of getting it wrong, I got it wrong. I felt humiliated then. Now, I still feel a little silly about it but can reason that it’s all OK, I was only 5.

The next time I was really consciously aware of not being as brilliant at spelling as I thought was when I went to university to begin my undergraduate education degree. Even though it was not that long ago (well, twenty years ago), an electronic spell-checker was not in sight. Most of my writing was done on an electronic typewriter which typed with the ferocious intent and noise of a cache of Gatling guns. When typing, the words would not imprint on the page until a whole line had been entered and on the hit of the return key the rapid fire assault would occur and the words would erupt single file onto the page. My husband still recalls this disconcerting racket jarring on his nerves in the middle of the night. If I noticed spelling mistakes or “typos” as I typed, the typewriter had the facility to backspace and go over the mistake with correction tape allowing for the correct spelling to be manually amended. I still have many of my original assignments from that time, with all the spelling mistakes I made pointed out by the lecturers with an indiscrete ringing of the whole word, or an angry underlining, or an exclamation or question mark positioned querulously in the vicinity of the offending article. It came as a shock to me that I wasn’t as good at spelling as I thought I was. I discovered that I was especially poor with apostrophes, and clearly didn’t grasp the difference between effect and affect. I couldn’t spell ‘definitely’ and more often than not spelt ‘correspondence’ incorrectly. One of my lecturer’s (sorry Carol!) corrected my assignments in a very supportive way, by not only pointing out the error of my ways, but also by teaching me the rules of apostrophe use by writing them on the back of one of my pages. (Addendum written 5 months after this was originally posted – Please note, and also at the bottom of this blog, more than 20 years after she tried to reteach me the rules – the statement I made about owing my newly found skills in apostrophe use to her are groaningly ironic when I have inadvertently put an apostrophe in the word lecturer where it obviously doesn’t belong!)  It would have taken her some time to do this, and it was a turning point for me. I felt I owed it to her to learn how to use apostrophes correctly, given that she had gone to the trouble of explaining it to me. I also really liked and admired her, and I really didn’t want her to think I was inept.

It has only been in my adult years that I have learnt how-to-learn how to spell. Previously, I believe I have relied on my visual recognition of the way words looked and on the way they sounded (phonetics), and this had supported me up to a point. What I have also come to realise is that when you misspell a word, and you repeat this misspelling, it becomes embedded in the dendrites as correct if it is not pointed out that it is wrong. For years I wrote definitely ‘definately’, and might still be misspelling it thus if it hadn’t been pointed out to me by my lecturer. I recall writing the word ‘dreckly’ in my TAE English exam and thinking to myself that it didn’t look right. I couldn’t recall seeing it written before, so I did not have that to draw on. It was some months later when my boyfriend told me he would be coming to pick me up ‘directly’ that his perfect enunciation of the word shocked me into realising why ‘dreckly’ looked wrong. Now, any errors I might make are picked up by the spell checker in my word processing software, and sometimes are automatically fixed as I type without me even realising it. These days I revel in the excitement of being able to spell difficult words and go out of my way to try and learn them. I have learnt how to spell onomatopoeia by singing it letter by letter to the tune of “Old MacDonald”, spell haemorrhage by breaking into chunks – ‘hae-morr-hage’ and saying it in a broad Scottish accent, and remember the spelling of correspondence as there are three ‘e’s for envelope (or email) in the word. I know there is a ‘nite’ in definitely, and I think of two lots of caravans and motels in the word accommodation.

In primary school I remember being taught spelling by word building – with My Word spelling books. Each week there would be a list of base words, and then adjoining them were the same base words with prefixes or suffixes added to them. There would be a page of cloze exercises and finding smaller words within words, and some synonym and antonym work, and putting some of the words into sentences. We would be tested on the words at the end of the week and then we would go onto the next list. Everyone in the class did the same list.

 These days primary school teachers understand the developmental nature of spelling. Just as we learn to walk by first rolling, then crawling, then standing, then taking our first steps; we learn to spell in stages.

• Stage 1: Preliminary Spelling. At this stage children first become aware that print contains a message and they experiment with writing like symbols.
• Stage 2: Semi-Phonetic Spelling. Children show a developing understanding of sound-symbol relationships and may represent a whole word with one, two or three letters.
• Stage 3: Phonetic Spelling. Children spell words on the basis of the sounds they hear, and usually represent each sound of the word.
• Stage 4: Transitional Spelling. Children are moving away from the heavy reliance on the phonetic strategy towards visual and meaning based strategies.
• Stage 5: Independent Spelling. Children have become aware of the many patterns and rules that are characteristic of the English spelling system; they try a multi-strategy approach to spelling a new word and have the ability to recognise when a word doesn’t look right and to think of alternative spellings.

In supporting the students at all stages, teachers attack the teaching of spelling in a variety of different ways, including: teaching spelling within the context of real writing, word study (etymology, common patterns, the discovery of spelling rules), immersion in subject specific vocabulary, teaching how to spell words through a variety of strategies to suit different learning styles and multiple intelligences, and focusing on spelling as a social responsibility of the writer for the reader. And in some classrooms the My Word spelling book is still used, rightly or wrongly.

Having to teach children how to spell has increased my own capacity and understanding of this wondrous world. So, the spelling fairy is with me now, but may well have been on an extended vacation in my latter years of secondary school. Where is your spelling fairy at? What is your experience of being taught how to spell at school and which words do you still have trouble with?

Would love to hear your thoughts!

For you information I have also added a link to a PDF with relation to Word Study – A New Approach to Teaching Spelling.

P.S.  I still can’t completely confidently use the words effect and affect, no matter how many times I’ve tried to learn!

Playing Sheriff – For Better or Worse?

Recently I was marking a pre-service teacher’s mathematics program.  It was an excellent program – it linked appropriately to curriculum guidelines, to the developmental level of the class, considered elements of diversity, immersed students in real maths experiences and provided many opportunities for concepts to be taught, practiced and reflected on both cooperatively and individually.  I was really quite excited about it.  And then.   And then the dreaded words sprung from the page – “Play Sheriff.”

Playing Sheriff has been around in Western Australian schools for as long as I can remember; indeed I played it as a primary school student myself, and many years ago had my own primary school students play it in class.  Whilst there are as many variations of this game as there are classrooms that partake of it, the version I remember is the teacher dividing the class into two lines, with the people at the front of the line closest to the blackboard.  The teacher would call out a maths problem – “six nines” and both students would have to write the answer on the board as fast as they could.  The person to write the answer first would win and be proclaimed to be the sheriff – the one with the fastest hand in the west.  The losing competitor – either by virtue of not being fast enough or not knowing the answer was relegated to the back of the line where they would wait for the next opportunity to front up to the board.  It was perfectly conceivable that students behind the student with the rapid fire reflexes and the knowledge of tables under their belt, wouldn’t actually get a turn.  This may or may not have been a relief to them. 

I loved this game as a primary school student because I knew my tables, was confident, and was (and still am) competitive at heart.  I cannot recall how other students felt about it at the time, and don’t recall feeling sorry for those that continually lost or were humiliated or frightened by the experience.  The success made me feel good.  In my second year of teaching I taught my own year four students how to play Sheriff – and that’s when I saw for myself the damage that could be inflicted on some students.  At worst, playing Sheriff is soul destroying for those who constantly and publicly lose and contributes to heightened levels of maths anxiety.  Repeated failure also reinforces to the student/s that they “are no good at maths,” which can develop into a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Whilst I was feeling bulletproof in year five at my public display of mental maths it was at the expense of others who may well have been feeling shattered or embarrassed.  Conceivably, the reasons for playing Sheriff could be sited as being to practice the speedy recollection of number facts in a fun way and to motivate students to learn their tables.  However, there are many more superior ways of successfully doing both these things.

I personally liken the public exhibition of setting up unlike opponents in a maths game of Sheriff to compulsory aged based running races at school sports events.  It’s been done for so long now that many people don’t even question it.  Empathy is the key to understanding the damage and anxiety that may emanate from either running races or Sheriff.  What is the educational point of pitting students of the same age but unlike ability together to see who can run faster?  There are certainly many reasons why students should run and exercise and be taught how to actively participate in a healthy lifestyle.  But this is not what compulsory aged based running races are about.  Perhaps one has to have repeatedly run last in all of their school races to really understand the pit of humiliation one finds themself in, or perhaps it is up to us as sensitive and thoughtful teaching practitioners to consider the possible negative effects of our teaching strategies and review them or modify them appropriately.  For me it ultimately comes back to the Principles of Teaching and Learning (as cited by the Curriculum Framework) which I have found to be a wonderful yardstick to use when considering the merit of any pedagogical strategy or approach.  For example…

Does the strategy/approach:

• Provide the students with an Opportunity to Learn?
• Provide a Connection to what they already know and can do and Challenge them to go further?
• Cater for and respect their Inclusivity and Difference?
• Happen within a Supportive Environment?
• Have real Motivation and Purpose for all of the students?
• Provide them with opportunities to demonstrate their Independence and Collaboration skills?
• Provide them with opportunities to engage in Action and active Reflection?

Upon critical reflection it soon becomes apparent where any gaps may lie, which provides the teacher with the perfect opportunity of modifying the approach or applying another. 

I happened upon a short paper written by Greg Fiore entitled “Maths-Abused Students: Are We Prepared to Teach Them?” which explores his experience of teaching students with maths anxiety.  It is a very worthwhile read which I wholeheartedly encourage you to partake in.    In coming to appreciate the uniqueness of his learners and their experience he adopted an approach recommended by Raymond McGivney in his article “Knowing your Audience.”  Fiore asked his tertiary level students to complete a reflection of their previous mathematical experiences which included the following questions:  

• What topics in mathematics did you like, and which did you dislike?
• Who were the people who played a positive role in your mathematical life, and why?
• Who played a negative role, and why?
• Describe your good mathematical experiences and the bad ones.
• In what environments do you learn the best?
• What environments hinder your learning?

In a year 8 class I remember being taken with a poster created by then year 10 student Gail Bracanin. The class task has been to create a poster of a mathematical concept and this image has remained with me for life.

You’ll have to read his article to find the results of this, but they are worthy questions that you might feel you could respond to, and /or use yourself in your own classrooms.  Please feel free to share your thoughts on Sheriff, aged based compulsory running races at school carnivals, or any of the questions that Fiore raises in the comment section.  It is only be engaging in such conversations that we can really develop our own understandings.

The Juniper Crusades – Chapter 3

Having noted that many people have now read chapters 1 and 2 of the The Juniper Crusades, herewith please find Chapter 3!  This chapter is dedicated to our protagonist’s foray into MiniSKOOL where she first meets the document of all documents…

Please email Jennifer for the password if you would like to read Chapter 3

Which utterances do you idolise? (or what’s your favourite word?)

Steven Fry is to the ears as popping candy is to the mouth. Last night his address to an audience of two and a half thousand at the Sydney Opera House was telecast on the ABC, and what a delicious treat it was.

Gargantuan in stature and dendritic capacity, this perambulating lexicon of convivial perspicacity entertained the audience with his stories; rich with references to the letter W, adorned with a myriad of wonderful words and dripping with shameless name dropping.

In an interview afterwards, Jennifer Byrne asked him what his favourite word was. My interest was arrested immediately, as this is often a question I ask of my students; mostly I suspect as an excuse to tell them mine. Snetterton is Fry’s favourite word, not because it is his favourite place in the world, or that it is necessarily a place he even wants to visit – it is because of the way it sounds – its joyful musical cadence and the way it rolls off the tongue. “Snetterton,” he says, almost sneeringly and most certainly playfully. He repeats it three or four times and describes how he would drive his mother mad, just by saying it, for no other purpose than getting the required reaction.

My favourite word is chihuahua. Not because I like this miniscule breed of canine; I don’t even like dogs. The pleasure comes purely from the way that it sounds and the wonderfully complex way it is written. I have been known to have an English class recite the word in unison in a range of different accents and at different speeds. I’ve been known to have a class of fifty Chinese students recite it with the kind of rapid fire harmony and eloquence that can only be produced by such a cohort.

My interest in words has a long history. The first word I learnt to read and write was ‘we’. I remember the moment vividly, just like I was still in the room with my cousin Graeme and his handheld blackboard and chalk. Aged four, I already sensed the power of the written word – I was excited and scared simultaneously. Excited because this would be the first word I was to write, and scared because I was convinced that my normally mischievous cousin was teaching me the slang for urinate and not the personal pronoun it turned out to be. I really wanted to write it, but I really didn’t want to get caught with the offending expression on my person either.

Two or three years later on a holiday road trip Graeme and I found ourselves in the back of the car playing a game. I would say one sentence of a story and he would say the next, and so on. I started: “Once upon a time there was a damsel in distress.” His rebuke was quick – “Whoa! Hold up, hold up. What’s a damsel?” Everyone in the car laughed, including Graeme. This was a defining moment for me although I’m sure I did not realize to what extent then. Words had the power to confuse, bemuse and amuse.

In highschool, I adopted the word ‘cavernous’ and at university ‘verisimilitude.’ Today, in addition to these words and chihuahua I revel in the sight and sound of many others. My mother likes the word ‘preserves’ (not of the jam variety), my husband habitually uses the word ‘snodger’ to describe a nose or large dhufish, and my son describes anything unsavoury as ‘filth.’ Incensed by something I had done, at the age of two my daughter Hayley accused me of being a ‘booby-headed farter,’ and at a similar age Georgina was overheard admonishing the lackadaisical rocking horse with ‘come on ya bloody ninnygoat.’

In recalling other favourites I have adopted Tony Ryan’s The Alphabet Thinker’s Key, which I have found to be a wonderful tool to focus and support a brainstorming session. The idea is to list the letters A – Z and simply come up with a word for every letter. The letter may be used as the initial letter in the word, the last letter or one from the middle.

• Anaphylactic
• Bravado
• Circumspect
• Dickensian
• Elephantitis
• Fortitude
• Garrulous
• Harangue
• Intrepid
• Juggernaut
• Kissability
• Loquacious
• Miasma
• Nonsensical
• Onomatopoeia
• Palaver
• Quarrelsome
• Rancour
• Soporific
• Tumultuous
• Unctuous
• Vernacular
• Wordsmith
• Xenophobic
• Yokel
• Zooxanthellae

So, what’s your favourite word? Do share!

The Juniper Crusades

The Juniper Crusades is an allegorical tale which is very much a work in progress.  TJC started off as an unconventional way of addressing a Masters assignment into tertiary level assessment.  I felt I couldn’t explore my findings about assessment at university level until I had reviewed my understandings and experience of primary and secondary school assessment.  Writing my reflections in a formal report format held little excitement for me, and then I considered an allegorical approach.

The Juniper Crusades follows the life and teaching career of Karen Clacker, born and bred in Faraway Kingdom.  Her story will be presented on this blog in serial form.  Please feel free to add your comments on the end of each chapter as you, and if you see fit.  I would love to hear your thoughts, whatever they may be! 

The Juniper Crusades by Jennifer Moyle

Chapter 1: In the beginning…