16th June 2010
"I can sort this. There is a way to sort this":
(teacher fixing a problem in front of her class - the Teachers' TV clip had reset itself to the start after she'd cued it to the right place in preparation)
What's so powerful here is what she's modelling: an incrementalist (Dweck) can-do approach to life. How often do we hear (or say) the opposite when technology reminds us that it's only human: "I'm no good with computers; it always goes wrong; technology never works". Choose carefully how you talk to your digital equipment - the children are watching and listening; picking up subtle cues from you about whether life is full of difficult problems or achievable challeneges.
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27th May 2010
In Northern Ireland this week and greeted one morning by a SAT NAV first:
Programmed in origin & destination, route calculated, then it announced "No Possible Routes" (whilst displaying the route).
Choices:
a) sit there in the hotel carpark for the day, accepting the pronouncements of the authority voice
b) press on into the unknow, cutting my own route down the A24, regardless of the offical line of "No Possible Routes"
Mindsets summed up. Are you a No Routes Possible believer or doubter? Just because someone says it can't be done, do you believe them or do you go and find out for yourself? Just because the 21st C demands different skills and attitudes to the 19th, do you freeze at "no possible routes" or cut your own path....finding the possible routes in the blank, SAT NAV landscape.... |
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24th May 2010
The financial axe has swung. Education ducked at just the right time. Apart from BECTA.
Do we think, "Oh, we're OK" (schools, Sure Start, 16-19), or "Ah, we're not" (BECTA, other public sectors - especially business).
Or do we realise that the world of money is one big, interconnected organism? Damage a toe and the whole body tilts; cut one finger and you suddenly know how useful that finger was.
We need to think in an integral & wholistic way. Education is safe (for now)? No. The whole (of which education is part) has been reshaped. Leaner, fitter, more efficient? Let's see.... |
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12th May 2010
Do a quick 'educational audit':
1. How good do you feel about your job?
2. How well resourced, supported and trained are you?
3. What sort of deal do your pupils get?
4. Your overall sense/feeling about learning...
Note your asnwers then put them and the questions away.
On 12th May 2011, bring them out and answer them again.
There should be an upward, positive trend....shouldn't there? |
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29th April 2010
Major teaching unions have voted to boycott SATs. Heads, teachers, governors and parents all have their views. The government's position is clear: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/10089376.stm
Hot educational topics like this are always emotive. Feelings run high, tempers flare, hackles rise. But very few people examine why they feel so strongly. Dig deep enough and we find the personal beliefs and values that drive our feelings about testing.
And yet again, in such a significant debate, whose voices are silent (or at least go unreported)? Of course, the children. After all, what do they know about values, about learning, about school and about testing....
We would do well to listen carefully, seriously and without condescension, to our children. They have all the answers we need. They speak with purity, from the head and heart, unburdened by adult baggage, politics and fears.
Go on, take a risk, ask your Y6s what they value most. See how high 'being tested' figures on their lists. |
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20th April 2010
'Learning' mentioned in .pdf Conservative Manifesto: Twice; Labour: 20 times; Lib Dem: 3 times. Go figure. |
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20th April 2010
1. Create a grid of activities cross-referencing MI and Bloom's (e.g Visual/Synthesis = create a 6 frame cartoon strip; Naturalist/Evaluation = organise into a heirachy)
2. Still with me?
3. Set homework objective
4. Send grid home
5. Parents & children choose homework task
6. Wait a bit
7. Receive diverse homework tasks back in (each one meeting the same learning objective though)
8. Photograph each piece and display under MI categories:
9. Results: more engagement with learning (through diverse tasks and choice); informal class MI profile built up; parents on board.
10. Extension: Each level of Bloom's attracts a different number of points - do activities to make up points target.
11. More details: Leanne Chambers, Nettley Abbey Infant, Hants. |
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30th March 2010
In my slowly emerging, erratic manifesto of learning I propose the abolition of the title 'Headteacher', to be replaced with the more appropriate one of 'Headlearner'.
Vote for me!
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