Thoughts

Last week I was invited to present to the Ministerial Cross Sector Forum, to be part of a panel on Modern Learning Practice. The slot was 4 minutes, and the brief was to consider: what does modern learning practice look like in your context what challenges or opportunities do you see for making this the ‘norm’ across our system I presented alongside two representatives from the Ministry of Education, Barbara Cavanagh from ASHS, Lesley Murrihy from Amesbury and Karen Ramsey from Roskill South Kindergarten. ...

Technology drives South Korean ‘smart’ schools. Not much mention of learning in this video. Instead it’s all about the technology. Because that’s what makes a school “smart”. Apparently. I know it’s the job of the media to focus on the shiny. I’m not even that bothered about the hints of ‘Big Brother", or the counting of calories in school lunches. But I was a little worried. Because if you look closely and pay attention to the model of learning, and imagine that the shiny tablets are just a normal tablet made out of paper, and that the large MS Windows powered touchscreen is just a black board, it demonstrates the model of learning that exists in behind all of the hi-tech, ‘smart’ shiny on display. A model that’s largely untouched over the last 100 years. In which a person stands up the front and tells a bunch of other folk what’s important. ...

This image annoys me. To me it shows a real deficit thinking model that exists in our teaching profession. And it falls into the trap of accepting the common perception of what’s actually important in education. I get the aim of the exercise. Let’s talk to the ones doing the teaching, and find out what they think is the most important thing they need. Which is fine. But asking teachers to tell us what they need is only going to tell us what they believe they need as individuals. We can tally up all those responses and make statistically sounding conclusions, but it’s still basically what a bunch teachers want. ...

This evening I read Derek Wenmoth’s latest blog post, which highlights the McKinsey report titled: Breaking the habit of ineffective professional development for teachers I’ve not had the chance to read the report in full, and it’s only 12 pages long, so I will get around to reading it. But in summary, the report identifies these promising ideas: Base the PD program on a vision of effective teaching; Segment teachers and deliver PD strategically; Make coaching the centerpiece of PD; Move from “push” to “pull,” so that teachers get what they want, when they want it; and Only offer PD with demonstrated impact. As said, I’ve not read the report in full, but here are my initial reactions/thoughts to this summary. At first glance it seems to see teachers as working in isolation - professionals that can upgraded and who then maintain those skills indefinitely by virtue of having a patch applied. It seems to ignore the collaborative and highly personal nature of the profession. ...

About twelve months ago I started this, in part to learn myself some, in part to track be able to look back at where I’d come from. But also inspired by some words from Maya Angelou. This year, after a superb break and in the midst of a rather glorious summer, I was inspired by these words - a text this time from a good friend. Who it has to be said, is no Maya Angelou, but his thoughts made me smile and feel honoured to be a teacher. ...