What is learning?
Go on, ask yourself, ask other teachers, ask some students: what is learning? It's a pretty big question isn't it? One that I might have felt hopelessly unequal to answering before reading Graham Nuthall's The Hidden Lives of Learners. This book draws together one of the most impressive attempts to find out what goes on in classrooms that I've ever come across. Briefly, Nuthall and his team wired up a [...]
What is good behaviour?
There are two schools in every school: the school of the high-status staff member, with the luxury of time and authority to cushion them from the worst classes; and the school of the supply teacher and NQT, who possess neither. Tom Bennett, Behaviour Tsar Everyone involved in teaching wants teachers to teach well. We spend a lot of time disputing what ‘teaching well’ looks like, and that’s fair enough; there are [...]
11 from 11
2011 has been a good year. Starting the blog has been life changing and after reading A Year in the Life of an English Teacher I've decided to take up the challenge and provide you with a smattering of what's been happening for me over the year. Also, it provides a useful shop window to garner votes in the Best New Blog category of the Edublog Awards. If at any point [...]
Teaching to the test
In the light of the Telegraph's revelations that, shock! horror!, examiners tell teachers how to prepare students for exams it seems an opportune moment to reflect on the past two days. The chest thumping and blood letting that's followed the 'scoop' has been as predictable as it is pointless. The Telegraph says, The investigation has exposed a system in which exam boards aggressively compete with one another to win “business” [...]
Election Fever
The last time I canvassed for votes was back in my school mock election in 1987. In typically awkward bugger fashion, I ran as a Trotskyite candidate. As I recall I did rather well and came in third which has got to be some kind of record for any kind of communist in a British election. For the last 25 years I've managed to stay out of any [...]
Some thoughts on Learning Styles
The rusting can of worms that is Learning Styles has been prised open again and the wriggling mess is crawling all over the educational twittersphere. And on that note I will stop extending the metaphor. A visual metaphor for the visual learners who didn't get my first sentence Last week Ian Gilbert wrote Learning Styles are dead, long live Learning Styles. He said: I have been in too many [...]
Why do I need a teacher if I've got Google and a granny?
NB - Having reviewed the evidence, I am now thoroughly convinced I was wrong about all this. Instead, try reading Is it just me or is Sugata Mitra an irresponsible charlatan? Over the summer I watched Sugata Mitra's jaw-dropping Ted Talk on Child Driven Education and was bowled over. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6wPHOorAkM This, I said to myself, could change everything. Mitra outlines the results of a series of remarkable experiments which began [...]
Why do I need a teacher if I’ve got Google and a granny?
NB - Having reviewed the evidence, I am now thoroughly convinced I was wrong about all this. Instead, try reading Is it just me or is Sugata Mitra an irresponsible charlatan? Over the summer I watched Sugata Mitra's jaw-dropping Ted Talk on Child Driven Education and was bowled over. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6wPHOorAkM This, I said to myself, could change everything. Mitra outlines the results of a series of remarkable experiments which began [...]
What is it exactly that we are supposed to be preparing pupils for?
As with anything, the answer to the above question depends entirely on who you ask. And, also depending on who you ask the answer may well be anything from strident soundbites to mumbled confusion. I've recently finished reading Ken Robinson's Out of Our Minds and it's pretty obvious, despite the enthusiasm of his legions of fans that SKR is no clearer than anyone else. After a shockingly lengthy introduction (8 [...]
Why aren't we supposed to teach anymore?
I read this comment on the Guardian Teacher Network recently in response to a post from Ross McGill on the wonderfully named, teacher lead questioning strategy he calls Pose Pause Pounce Bounce: This sounds great, but it also sounds rather like the kind of whole-class question-and-answer session I recently ran during an OfSTED visit, and got bollocked in the feedback because although they said they could see I'd [...]
What makes a perfect English lesson?
Click me Is there such a thing as the perfect English lesson? Well, no, probably not. At least, not that I’m aware of. There is, you may be disappointed to discover, no single lesson that you can trot out endlessly and clap yourself on the back for being a good egg. If there were it would quickly become dry, boring and you'd quickly be exposed as a fraud. [...]
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