tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28723806530306682522024-03-08T06:41:32.614+00:00Things Behind the Sun
It's an outletThings Behind the Sunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14073862394425819895noreply@blogger.comBlogger98125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2872380653030668252.post-63831455535906042672015-03-10T10:42:00.000+00:002015-03-10T10:42:12.995+00:00My morning with Michael...<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Unless one counts educationalists as celebrities, I rarely come across celebrities in my day to day life. I used to teach Alison Moyet's son, and very clever he was too. Rowan Atkinson used to turn up to watch his son's matches in a McLaren F1 and I've talked all things English cricket with Mick Jagger as he came to watch his son make a first ball duck one pleasant sunny afternoon circa 2000. We had fun-sized mars bars at cricket tea that day and it is one of my life's greatest regrets (thus far) that I didn't at least raise an eyebrow as he tucked in - so many witty asides to choose from, and I chose none.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I recently spent a few days with my wife in Tel Aviv, and I managed to run in to Michael Gove and family not once but three times during the course of our first full day there. The fact that we saw no more Gove during the next two days are probably the result of him avoiding his one and only stalker. We had the chance to chat briefly (I cornered him in a gift shop) and I told him what a fine job I thought he had done as education secretary. He was very pleasant (as one might expect when receiving a compliment) and though I expect he was slightly disappointed that I teach at a selective 450-year old Boarding School and not a City Academy, he didn't let on.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Whether one agrees with Gove's approach/ideas/philosophy or not (and it is inevitable there will be members of both camps), I don't think anyone can argue to hard that the man is able, displayed integrity as education secretary and left people in little doubt of what he was trying to achieve (perhaps a hollow compliment, but not one that can be applied to many politicians). I can't have been the only person to note the irony of DC choosing to replace Gove with Nicky Morgan at the same time as declaring a 'war on mediocrity' in education. Gove clearly believed in the transformative power of education; the fact that cultural capital is not the preserve of the wealthy; that great works of art and literature are for all, not to be whisked away from 'kids like these'; that by focusing so much attention on the C/D GCSE boundary for English we adopt an overly-reductionist approach to the teaching of the subject; that it is important to pass on an educational 'tradition' that is strong in the key academic disciplines; that not all subjects offered at GCSE are equal and that chasing grades by offering a slew of non-academic courses does not represent valid educational practice; that attempting to gain grades by multiple re-sitting of the same papers at the expense of spending time on teaching and understanding is educationally corrupt. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I have no idea whether literature from the C19 is beyond many children, but I do know that it is the job of teacher and parents to foster a sense of intellectual curiosity in their pupils/children and to make sure they retain an ambitious approach to learning. I prefer to believe that you can teach virtually anything to anyone, at least at some level. If the child is enthused, they are more likely to become an auto-didact, and learning doesn't just take place in School. My experience of teaching tells me that rarely are children (or adults) working at capacity, and that when the bar is raised, most people are able to jump higher. I have been amazed at the response of 13-year old pupils to T S Eliot this year - they may not have loved <i>The Wasteland</i> or understood all (much?) of it, but they've gained plenty from the text and all of the connections (Classics, History, Art) one can make to it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Gove clearly failed to bring the vast majority of teachers on board with him. He will be remembered at least as much for his utterances about 'enemies of promise' and 'the blob' as he will about the rhetoric that was supposed to empower teachers and to encourage them to be ambitious personally and ambitious for their pupils. In the end, tone matters, and lots of teachers didn't much care for his. It is unusual that so many teachers who can object to his combative logic consider it reasonable to launch personal attacks that are little to do with educational philosophy and more to do with their own emotional. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I doubt that our paths will cross again, and certainly not any time soon, but the last I saw of him was enjoying a lengthy quiz with his children. In half an hour over a family lunch, it was noticeable just how much knowledge was absorbed by the kids, and just how much they enjoyed it. Each question from the top of his head was connected to the last, and a subtle build-up of of connected 'grammar' (in the <i>Trivium</i> sense) was palpable. Maybe we're all guilty of thinking the world right in front of us can be extrapolated further and applied well beyond our immediate sphere, and admittedly they were his own children, but if he ever wanted a teaching job, I'd hire him like a shot. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>Things Behind the Sunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14073862394425819895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2872380653030668252.post-4992655118577367512015-02-01T10:02:00.001+00:002015-02-01T10:07:33.560+00:00FHM Knowledge and Loaded Skills<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the 'New Lad' heyday of the mid-90s, when cigarettes, alcohol and football were all you needed to be a 'ledge', one was presented with a binary choice for lad-based news: 'Loaded' and 'FHM' were the clear market-leaders. Nuts and Zoo were a little too low-brow, aimed more at the 13-year olds lacking the confidence to buy pornographic magazines in their local WHSmiths and GQ was a little too high-brow, not to mention that fact that it contained fashion shoots involving men.</span><br />
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FHM and Loaded contained a glossy mix of supposedly true laddish tales, a 24 page glossy shoot of a lady whose first name ended in 'i', some sports and some music that it was ok for a lad to like (Oasis, Cast, Space etc). A 'dilemmas' feature occasionally made an appearance, presumably to massage the grey matter of the readership. This would include questions such as:</span><br />
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<b><i>'Would you 'do' The Coors if you had to 'do' the bloke too?</i></b></span><br />
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<b><i>Which would you prefer, a mermaid with the top half of a woman and the bottom half of a fish, or the top half of a fish and the bottom half of the woman?</i></b></span><br />
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<b><i>If you could have ten points to spend on women, and supermodels were 10, women you knew were 2 and 'lucky dip' was 1, how would you spend your points?</i></b></span><br />
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If these aren't actual questions from FHM, they are close enough to the brain-teasers posed by the mag, and they make for a brand of rather tasteless sexism. I think we've moved on.</span><br />
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However, these needless and pointless questions aren't so very different from the question of 'Knowledge v Skills'. We have admittedly move into a more highbrow line of questioning (perhaps even beyond GQ's remit), but I don't think the dilemma is any more valid as a question. It is surely desirable to have both. It is even possible to possess 'skills' in isolation, without background knowledge? It is certainly possible to hold in one's mind a large collection of disparate facts, which may be useful when it comes to questions of pure factual recall (pub quizzes) for example, but does this even constitute knowledge? No-one articulates better what I mean than Richard Feynman - here he is talking about the difference between 'knowing the name of something, and knowing something':</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is clear that the people Feynman criticise possess a certain degree of knowledge, without the skills of analysis to make that knowledge useful. However, how can you begin to use your skills of analysis if you don't even know that it's a bird making the noise?</span><br />
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Knowledge and skills have little in common with the 'traditional v progressive' debate, though some may argue that the method of direct instruction favoured by those in the former category promotes the importance of knowledge and the pupil-centred approach favoured by the progressives promotes skills-based learning, but to look at things in these terms is too simplistic and binary (almost in the mold of an FHM article writer). </span><br />
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Every teacher must agree that the passing on of knowledge is to some degree their raison d'etre - this is evident in the quote from Joseph O'Neill, who states that 'the human race refreshes itself in complete ignorance'. However, no teacher would ever intend to pass on that knowledge without making connections between the material being delivered. I watched the marvellous BBC4 series 'A Tale of Three Cities' last night, which focused on Paris in 1928. The series moved effortlessly around the Culture, Politics, Art, Architecture and Music of the City, all placed in clear historical context. I can't imagine how one could have appreciated the programme without knowledge of how these things came to be, but it takes a certain degree of skill to understand how these things are connected. 'Only Connect' has been the theme of my Third Form teaching this year, and I have tried to prove that connections can be made between seemingly disparate things.</span><br />
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I cannot imagine anything more dull than skills-based teaching - the passing on of knowledge is one of the most joyful parts of being a teacher. Having said that, to think that I was merely preparing pupils for a tilt at the 'Eggheads' would be pretty disappointing too. In much the same way that Baddiel and Skinner will always be linked to the laddish mid-90s through '3 Lions' and 'Fantasy Football', it's impossible to de-couple knowledge from skills. It's not an either/or question- if it's those you're after, stick to your back-copies of Loaded.</span>Things Behind the Sunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14073862394425819895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2872380653030668252.post-28223511895519460512015-01-11T14:25:00.001+00:002015-01-11T14:28:40.818+00:00Manners maketh man...if I could give you just one gift ever for the rest of your life it would be this. Confidence. It would be the gift of confidence. Either that or a scented candle.<br />
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So says smug posh-boy Dexter Mayhew to mousy Emma Morley in David Nicholls' One Day. Emma is the talent-rich Northerner with self-esteem issues and Dexter is the Southerner with swagger. Emma is state educated and Dexter is a product of the hallowed halls of one of England's foremost centres of learning. He is part of the '7 percent club' and we are led to believe that at least part of his innate confidence and bravado come from his formative education. He has presumably developed such an advanced sense of social confidence through multiple visits to Hunt Balls, sailing at Salcombe and a few cans of warm Stella at Hunstanton tennis week.<br />
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I thought of this particular quote when reading one of the many blogs on character, grit and resilience that have sprung up like Japanese knotweed in recent months, threatening to strangle dialogue on virtually any other topic. To read many of these blogs is to suggest that such ideas are new and that Schools have been myopic in ignoring such an obvious facet of each child's education.<br />
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Do I believe that my School develops character and encourages grit and resilience? Yes, certainly, but they are not taught explicitly and neither are the words mentioned (at least in any 'official' capacity). These are basic human qualities that are desirable, but they cannot be taught, in much the same way that kindness and happiness cannot be taught - especially as one person's version of what it means to be happy may well bear little resemblance to that of another. 'Teaching explicitly' and 'developing through the educative process' are two very different things. The latter is not quite subliminal, but it is something that goes on throughout the pupils' time at School, and as such, becomes embedded over a number of years.<br />
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For 'character' to be developed, it is important to give first pupils the opportunity to display their character. We place significant emphasis on competitive team sport; on playing a musical instrument in various ensembles; on treading the boards in both School and House plays; on attendance at various clubs and societies; on taking responsibility in a School and House context; on undertaking academic challenges that last months rather than days, giving one the sense of real expertise and achievement over a significant period of time; on serving the local community in a genuine and meaningful way; on learning the need to rely on others and have them rely on you through the CCF; on a significant engagement with charitable pursuits, both at home and abroad.<br />
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To quote just one example, I have coached my current football team for just two sessions and one fixture, but it has already given me insight into aspects of character of many of the individuals. I can see whose head goes down quickly when we concede, who looks to blame others when things are not going well, who is the first person to congratulate a team-mate for doing something good, who values their own milestones over that of the team, who is scared of the physical side of things but puts their feet in where it hurts anyway and who wants to win more than anything for the duration of the game but recognises that is is nothing more than that: a game. Tiny things - the boy who asks if he can help at the end of a session, the boy who thanks you at the end of every game, the boy who shakes the hand of the opposition coach win or lose - these must always be noted and fed back (usually in a subtle manner) if the team ethos is to develop.<br />
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It is important as educators that every one of the above behaviours that is commendable is celebrated and every one of the above that is undesirable is challenged. We must adopt a rigorous commitment to setting the highest standards of behaviour and we should never deviate from these standards. All teachers need to buy in to this approach across the entire range of School-based activities. In general, pupils like to know what is expected of them. They value high standards that are applied consistently. Trying to teach 'grit' is impossible; presenting pupils with ample opportunity to display this behaviour, identifying and praising such behaviour where it is apparent and ensuring that the educative body is committed to developing such behaviour through a wide range of activities should be possible in every School.<br />
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I conversed on Twitter recently with an academic at the university of York who was bemoaning the imbalance of resourcing in the independent and state sectors. He had a point, but character, grit and resilience cost, just like good manners, nothing.<br />
<br />Things Behind the Sunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14073862394425819895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2872380653030668252.post-67056942362466659322014-10-23T16:32:00.001+01:002014-10-23T16:32:40.000+01:00Teachers' Workload?<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This is the latest (to quote Alan Partridge, or at least his radio jingle)...Hot...Topic...doing the rounds. New-ish Education Secretary Nicky Morgan (I expect she'll stop being called 'new' when she actually does something) is keen to hear from teachers for practical ways to reduce their workload, thereby increasing their workload in the process. Far be it for me to suggest that all this talk of workload has something to to with next year's election, but the two major parties do suddenly seem to have become the parties of care. Whether a workload is light, heavy or excessive is very much in the eye of the worker, and I have worked in day Schools and boarding Schools, single-sex and mixed Schools, City Schools and rural Schools and I can say with some certainty that the definition of hard work varies wildly from teacher to teacher. People vary in levels of efficiency and capacity and to talk about 'teacher workloads' as a catch-all term makes no sense. I have worked in the same School with people who worked extraordinarily hard and didn't seem to bat an eyelid and others who did precious little but still found time to moan (the sort of people who don't actually say hello in the corridor, but raise their eyes just a little as they pass you, just to let you know that the weight of some globe or other is still fixed to their shoulders).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Managing workload is a collective responsibility, jointly held by the individual and the School's management. It seems reasonable to expect that teachers will work long hours during term time. The job affords around 3 to 4 times as much holiday time as other professions and the job security could be said to offset the relatively meagre financial rewards. It is sensible to start with an expectation that days will be long during term time, whilst remembering that you're rarely more than six weeks or so from at least one week off. I don't know if teachers feel that they have a monopoly onlong days and hard work, but I don't remember many of my friends who worked in the City coming home on the 5pm train. They may have earned far more than I did, but they sold their souls in the process!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">But lest this blog become a 'back in your box' message for teachers, here's some ideas about how the individual and School management can come together to make life easier (or at least more effective):</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Ofsted/ISI</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This should not inform all that you do. This should not hang like a Damoclean sword above your head. You should rarely (if ever) ask yourself whether Ofsted like this. You should never get in trainers who talk about what Ofsted like. Inspections happen</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> once every few years or so and you will teach several thousand lessons in between ones that are observed during inspection. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Concentrate on these lessons, do things that you find work, the things that allow the pupils to learn things. Ofsted don't know your pupils, you do, and you should have the courage to teach the best way that you can, not with some manual in the background. Being in charge, feeling empowered to teach the best way that you can is a pretty good feeling.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Marking</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">It's really important, but it's not *that* important. You can set work that takes 3 hours to mark and the pupils won't have learned any more than if it took sub-1 hour. Don't be a martyr. Multiple choice questions are great for many subjects and can be marked quickly. Occasionally (very occasionally) pupil marking is fine. Pupils need time to read; give them that time. Give good feedback, but make sure that the time you spend marking isn't so excessive that that feedback gets lost in a mass of ticks, crosses and marks out of 300.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Reporting</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This is really important too, but it has to be worthwhile. Anodyne reports that say very little are often worse than no reports at all. Move away from an 'end of term' model where teachers need to mark exams and then write 150 reports. They will end up sounding generic. Stagger your reporting throughout the year so that teachers only have to write a maximum of half that number each session. 'No-one grew taller by being measured more often' is certainly true, but make sure you </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">space out your sessions appropriately. Too often and people are writing reports almost every week, not often enough and you'll drop the baby. Not all reports need to be sent home; try short, pithy (and honest) internal comments on pupils.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Data generation</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The data that you generate should be valid, understandable and must lead to worthwhile things happening. Being able to praise colleagues where the raw data doesn't show anything special is important, likewise being able to support colleagues who are struggling. Setting appropriate targets for individual pupils, being able to treat pupils as individuals, not as merely a part of a top or bottom set - data can help with this. Make it someone's job to produce and present the data - teachers then only need to read it to help their understanding of the pupils they teach. Don't use data to beat people - use it to support and enhance professional judgement.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Activities, worksheets and powerpoints</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">These can take ages. Make sure that any time you spend designing activities or producing worksheets is worth it. A fantastic lesson is not characterised by the number of different activities </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">you have going on. Starters, Post-Its, white-boards, plenaries might all be useful at certain times, but you don't need them every lesson! especially if planning time is tight. Too many teaching strategies these days seem to be less about teaching and more about engaging the reluctant learner. If your delivery is dynamic, if you're the most interesting thing in the classroom and if you can transmit enthusiasm for your subject, you won't have reluctant learners. If you ever hear yourself say that you need to create a ppt for every lesson because then you've got them forever, the profession just might not be for you.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">It's supposed to be enjoyable</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Most teachers will be delivering the subject in which they have a degree, certainly in the world of secondary School teaching. This was the subject for which you rejected all others. This is the subject you may have studied for nigh on 15 years at School, then at university. You may even have a doctorate. You now get to communicate all that knowledge and enthusiasm to a captive (for some of the time) audience. When I'm making gunpowder, synthesising paracetamol, extracting capsaicin or eugenol or just live-following the announcement of the Nobel prize in chemistry, I feel this is the best job in the world, and no amount of paperwork, books to mark, stroppy parents or Saturday night pub duties will disabuse me of this fact. And then I get to coach football in the afternoon. What's not to love? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Workload? If it all feels like work, I think you're missing the point.</span><br />
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<br />Things Behind the Sunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14073862394425819895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2872380653030668252.post-41919501657481027152014-09-14T10:41:00.000+01:002014-09-14T10:48:29.502+01:00Working out what works?<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The title of this blog is almost exactly the same as the website address of ResearchEd, Tom Bennett's education site, festival and behemoth. ResearchEd has mushroomed in the last couple of years, and the many hundred teachers that packed the rooms of Tom's School were testament to his energy in putting educational research somewhere near the heart of the education debate.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Only the question mark at the end is added by me. I attended ResearchEd 2014 last week, and found the whole day confusing and ultimately rather unsatisfactory. Maybe this is at least partially the point - education research is so full of complexity, counter-intuitive findings and uncertainty that I would have been foolish to expect the opposite. However, I spent several hours at Raine's Foundation School, and I don't think I took away anything that could be used practically in a classroom.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I deliberately stayed away from the usual suspects - Smith, McInerney, Didau etc. I have heard them speak before and felt that it was healthy to diversify. I did listen to Dylan Wiliam (he's the conference equivalent of crispy pork belly - if it's a choice on the menu, you have to make it) and he made most sense on the day, explaining why teaching will never be a research-based profession. The usually reliable Rob Coe followed him up, in part as counter-argument, but he seemed miffed that so many people had evacuated the hall post-Wiliam and failed to convince. I have seen the Sutton Trust Toolkit graph (plotting effect size vs cost per pupil for various educational strategies) on multiple occasions now, and much of it makes sense and tallies with my experience. Points that go against our instinct are useful discussion starters, and it's always wise to approach an educational conversation with an open mind.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I find it difficult to explain why ResearchEd was so frustrating. The quality of the presentations I watched were poor, but maybe I was unlucky. There was much reading from PowerPoint (one presented in Comic Sans) and several of the presenters had moved so far away from the classroom that I even felt their anecdotes were out of date. The presentations I watched in the afternoon didn't really have a beginning or an end - it was as though I has stumbled upon lecture 5 or 6 of a 12 part series. The whole concept and title of ResearchEd appeared to be constrictive, with people skewing their presentations to fit in with the theme. This was quite unlike the Education Festival at Wellington College back in June, which gave speakers the freedom to present on far-reaching issues in education and was more inspiring as a result.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Many of the pertinent questions went unanswered: should teachers undertake their own research; should Schools employ a Head of Research (or Research Champion); can one apply with confidence research findings of 'what works', and if so, how does one look to embed this on a daily basis? These for me are the key questions, but I never felt that the conference got to the real meat. We skated on the surface and oft-quoted the phrase about things being a bit more complicated than that. The strategies that 'work' only work if done well, and if not done well, they actually have negative effects. I was also left wondering if many of the teachers who undertake their own research have simply reached that point in their career where they needed something else to occupy them; intellectually curious people looking for a project.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The aim of the conference is noble; all teachers should be interested in improving their practice. Finding out what works and committing to that. Teaching as a profession does need to improve, and the best way of doing that is to know what improvement looks like. Questioning what it is that we do, and how we can do it better, should be central to the profession. Teachers shouldn't be made to feel under pressure from above (or anywhere) but striving for 'good enough' is under-ambitious and a culture of improving through training or otherwise is healthy. Teachers should be supported in their wish to improve, and an awareness of research is just one part of that. In teaching, all strategies should be evaluated in terms of time spent vs measurable outcomes. Using educational research to work out what works seems to be nigh on impossible, given the occasionally conflicting evidence and the possibility of positive and negative effects of the same area of focus. Dylan Wiliam talks about 'loving the one you're with', and states that all teachers can improve, whilst taking care to note that it's not because they are not good enough in the first place. I do agree with this, but I also feel that raising the quality of those who enter the profession in the first place is important. Teachers are not regarded with the same distrust and loathing as bankers, but it is not a profession with the status it deserves.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The characteristics of excellent teaching are hard to define, but a non-controversial short list </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">should include subject mastery, ability to communicate that subject at all levels, application of consistently high standards for one's pupils, a willingness to work hard and a level of intuition that is palpable. How much of this is innate and how much can be trained? To what extent can an interest in education research help to improve teaching in these areas? I suspect the answer is not much. Willingness to accept training is a key part of improvement and without mentioning growth mindset, an understanding that we can all get better and should look to do so is vital. You cannot expect the same level of performance from everyone, but appointing clever, talented people in the first place is always a good start. We should not be looking for minimum competence, but to appoint teachers that will have a positive impact on those around them. Sharers, not hoggers; subject experts, not those a few pages ahead of pupils; confidence, not arrogance; making people feel better, not worse; making people's lives easier, not harder; giving people the support they need to improve, not setting targets without showing teachers how to attain them. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I'm not sure it could ever be possible to evaluate the impact of ResearchEd on those that attended, but it did very little for me. I'm delighted that so many of my colleagues across the country display an interest, but you'll get a lot more from a nice summer day at Wellington College.</span><br />
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Things Behind the Sunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14073862394425819895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2872380653030668252.post-45357909840839726162014-08-15T11:07:00.000+01:002014-08-15T11:07:18.421+01:00The case against AS<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">24 hours after A level results were released to pupils, so the dust begins to settle. Maths overtakes English as the most popular A level (re-tweeted with glee by Liz Truss), A* is up, A is down, overall passes down for the first time since 1982, many girls did a lot of jumping, someone got 11 A levels at A*/A and said their time-management was poor. There are probably some twins who got identical results, and an 8 year old who got an A level in Computer Science, but these stories must have passed me by, at least for one year.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The legacy of Gove is being celebrated by some and damned by others. Entries for facilitating subjects (for the uninitiated, this means hard) are up at AS, A grades are down for the A level, a record number of students are likely to go to university. But in fact, the changes are statistically pretty minor, and that is to be expected, because the only real change this year was that pupils were not able to take/re-take their AS levels in January. They still had the opportunity to re-take AS modules at the end of their Upper Sixth, but they didn't have the opportunity to take some AS modules four times, which was the case previously. The true legacy of Gove may well be noticed in a year or two's time, when the first cohort of pupils on linear courses receive their grades in 2016.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I don't care for modularity. I don't think the introduction of AS has offered breadth. I don't think the AS enables pupils to decide which subjects they wish to take to full A level. I don't think exams at the end of the Lower Sixth help to focus or to motivate. I don't think AS exams enable pupils to bank marks <b>with the long term goal of higher overall grades</b>. I think it is patronising to suggest that pupils cannot cope with linear courses and that the material needs to be boxed up bite-sized for them. Tristram Hunt's popular political statement to re-introduce AS (if elected) is anti-educational and a retrograde step. In any case, Gove never 'banned' AS grades, he simply de-coupled them from A levels, following consultation with universities.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I experienced linear courses when I studied in the Sixth Form, and when I first become a teacher I taught linear A levels. I taught though the introduction of modular courses in 2000, and the new re-vamped modular A levels in 2008. I have taught the linear Cambridge Pre-U for the last 3 years. I have taught in four different Schools. I do not state a preference for linearity and then seek to justify; it is evidence that bring me to this point. I do not think this is an exact science, and there are certainly some pupils for whom a modular approach is best. Some subjects are perhaps more modular than others, and some do not suffer so much by the compartmentalisation of knowledge. However, in a utilitarian world, linearity wins for me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">To make a case against AS, here's a de-bunking of the commonly quoted reasons for keeping them:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Pupils need to bank marks</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Pupils in their GCSE year are well capable of learning two or three years' worth of material for terminal examinations. In ten subjects. Quite why they have become unable to cope with three (or four) subjects over two years is beyond me. It is precisely those pupils who do not need to bank marks (the top academics) who end up doing so, and those pupils who should be banking the marks that end up sitting linear A levels anyway, given their need to re-take everything.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">No pupil will be more linguistically developed at the end of the Lower Sixth, compared with that same pupil a year later. No pupil will have a more advanced problem-solving ability. Complex ideas need time to bed in, pupils need time to mature and adapt. Starting a School at 13 means that each pupil will have around 150 weeks of build-up to their GCSEs. Starting in the Sixth Form leaves you with just over 20 to get the AS syllabus completed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>The 'bad day'</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The likelihood of such a 'bad day' is directly proportional to how well prepared you are for an examination. The likelihood of said bad day can be nigh on eliminated by being very well prepared indeed. All Pre-U linear courses involve four assessment modules, one of which is usually a coursework assignment. Even accepting the fact that a pupil might mess up one of the questions (or even a whole paper), there are still three further chances (one different days) to atone.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Pupils are focussed/motivated by the AS exams</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This is a fairly lazy argument, offered by the sort of teacher who attempts to gain the attention of pupils by stating that the current topic is 'popular with the examiners'. 'This is a question that often comes up' might be used as a way to raise Lower Sixth Formers from their slumbers. But these pupils should be motivated by the subject material, after all they have rejected over half their GCSE subjects to study your course in the Sixth Form. I want my pupils to be interested in the work for its own sake, to build up knowledge, to gain an interest (and facility) in solving problems. I don't want them to feel that everything is building up to this examination, occurring just 25 School weeks after they started the course in the first place.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Options are cut off</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I have no problem with pupils studying four subjects through the Lower Sixth, and then dropping one at the end of the year. They just don't have to take an AS in that subject. I read an article in <i>The Independent</i> yesterday stating that without the AS exam, the pupils will not know which subject is their weakest, and which they should drop. Surely after 30 weeks of study, any pupil can tell which subject they have struggled with the most/enjoy the least. You can also still give them an internal exam (which might even be an AS past paper), just in case they couldn't tell from the 200 lessons, numerous pieces of marked work, reports, feedback etc. How many university courses require an extra AS, on top of three grades, when that could be made up with an EPQ anyway? Some require four grades, and an extra AS wouldn't count towards that anyway. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I encourage pupils to make positive choices - this is a subject I am good at, this is a subject about which I want to learn more, this is a subject I wish to study for two years. The presence of AS can lead to a more negative mindset - if you're asking the question: what if I want to drop it after a year, there's a good chance you shouldn't be picking it in the first place. If there's a course call <i>Literature in English</i>, it's best to pick it only if you like reading books.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>The pupils have nothing to show for a year's study</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Learning is generally more fun when there's no exam at the end of it. If a pupil has studied Art, Economics, English or Physics for a year, they have gained plenty from that year. The fact that they have no letter on a piece of paper to show for it does not make the year's learning worthless. The existance of necessary knowledge (that which appears on a syllabus) and useless knowledge (about which no questions will be asked) is a fallacy. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>AS and A2 papers are completely different</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This seems to be a flaw in the chosen syllabus. If all the easy ideas are crammed into the Lower Sixth, pupils may well gain a false idea of their progress within that subject. Incorrect information is worse than no information at all.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">And if results are still all-important, and trump everything else about the educational experience, it's worth noting that where we have moved to linear assessment, results have improved. In every subject.</span><br />
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<br />Things Behind the Sunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14073862394425819895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2872380653030668252.post-39809862875713390122014-06-25T15:37:00.001+01:002014-06-25T15:37:34.429+01:00#educationfest<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Toilet roll: check. Glow-stick: check. Rock of weed wrapped in cellophane: check. DM boots with band names marked in tippex: check. Girl in bikini top on shoulders: check. This is my imagined festival essentials list from 1993, the last time you'd have seen Kurt Cobain on the circuit and probably the last time you might have seen me packing for a real festival.</span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">My festival essentials list for Wellington College last weekend were very different: map (to assist with locating the 'Spiritual Room', list of Twitterati I wished to meet, iPad and name badge (in the vain hope that someone bounded up to talk about this blog). More festival nerd than festival chic, but I was excited for the event nonetheless. The promise of 'freshly brewed organic beats' for the Friday night entertainment (presumably some recent Wellington leavers playing ukuleles whilst dressed in red cords) made me glad I was heading into London for the evening, but it was the daytime treats I was most looking forward to. And here's what I did:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Day 1</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Christopher Waugh</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Donnie Darko disciple and wearer of double denim, Chris gave his excellent talk 'Deus ex Machina' about pupil choice, pupil voice and the co-creation of curricula. He is certainly high up on my list to visit at the London Nautical School next year. An idealist but also a realist, he draws you in with his enthusiasm and clear love of teaching and of his pupils.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Tom Sherrington</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Predictably good. I have read his blog for some years now, and he writes with great clarity but also humility - his gravitas comes from the fact that he is so able; he is collaborative and open to ideas without forcing them upon you. I felt the talk was a little rambling, but maybe that was the purpose - look for a conclusion yourself rather than having it rammed down your throat.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Keiron Sparrowhawk</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">How could you not go to this talk? He sounds like a cross between a fast bowler from the Leeward Islands and an LAPD traffic cop. Sadly, he was neither. His talk was on 'what makes a great leader' and during the 30 minutes I managed to stick it, I learned that pupils often thought MLK and Gandhi were great leaders, that I needed a mixture of luck and hard work, and I should drink only in moderation and eat my 5-a-day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Laura McInerney</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Laura is very sharp; her writing on education is perceptive; her Twitter feed is excellent. I am sure that she gives excellent talks for the majority of the time. This was not one of them. Probably the most disappointing thing I saw because I know how excellent she could have been. Instead, in her talk 'what makes a great education secretary' she presented a data-trawl on numbers of children, months of birth and time spent in the job, all to no obvious end or conclusion. The more time in the job, the more they got done (and the more loathed they tended to be) and most of them were born in the summer. Er...that was about it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Dylan Wiliam</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This man is superb. He talks with articulacy, clarity and when he says 'research shows...' you know that he has read it, and really understands it. Some teachers have chosen to trivialise AfL, but that's hardly his fault, and his embedding formative assessment materials are excellent. He is interesting, inspirational and forces you to reflect on practice. His 'debate' with David Didau was more 'Brokeback Mountain' for educationalists, but did provide for high-quality musing on some philosophical points of education. When intelligent able people get together to talk education, it's a privilege to be able to sit back and watch. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Day 2 </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Andrew Adonis</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Lord Adonis spoke impeccably for 40 minutes without notes. His talk ranged from School governance to apprenticeships and though perhaps of limited relevance to me, here was clearly a man with a fine moral compass and serious ability. The former 'thin controller' makes one wonder what might have happened had he been given the chance to push on his vision.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Ian Leslie</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The find of the tournament for me. There's something of the Gareth Malone about him, but far less irritating. He spoke about his book 'Curiosity', and curiosity in general. I love this word, and it has yet to be bastardised in the same way of 'passion' and 'engagement'. With just the right amount of certainty, conjecture and whimsy, I found myself taken in by his calm manner. Note to self: book him in for next year.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Kris Boulton</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I liked him a lot, and clearly so do a lot of others, as room 1 of the Mandarin Pagoda was packed to the rafters. All the gang were here in support: Daisy, Andrew Smith, Katie Ashford; just don't call them the 'new traditionalists'. Kris is very likeable and earnest, and talked a lot of sense. I got the feeling (as I get with a lot of the relatively inexperienced teacher bloggers) that his ideas are in the process of being formed rather than fully formed and that he is reacting to the circumstances in which he has found himself, rather than extolling some deep educational philosophy. It felt a little as though I was in some sort of clandestine 'cell' a la Hans Fallada/George Orwell, where people of like mind felt able to express themselves without fear of Ofsted and/or progressive reprisal. I agreed with pretty much all he said, and expect that he's an excellent teachers; I just don't recognise the system he's railing against.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Geoff Barton</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I expect that he's given this talk (or something similar) many times before, so polished it was. However, he could power the College with his enthusiasm, and the message is just as impressive as the man. When I check Twitter at 6am, there's always some Barton to read already that morning. He makes me want to read more, he makes me feel like a grammatical ignoramus and he does it all with plenty of jokes and being genuinely likeable. What a star. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Keith Vaz, Katie Hopkins, David Starkey, Claire Fox</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Drivel from start to finish. Keith quotes abstract soundbites (we need to give our children the best, it's not all about A* grades), Katie sounds like a rabid right-wing housewife (some people are failures and need to go into catering), David says f*ck and praises Brighton College and Claire says little, probably bemused by the directionless shambles of D-list celebrities with whom she's having to share a stage.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>David Baddiel and Cosmo Landesman</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">David Baddiel was excellent, as always, but was let down in a huge way by his interviewer. I had never heard of Cosmo, but he was very poor, with no research, no ability to sit and listen and seemingly no idea that people hadn't come to see him. Even David was struggling by the end, resorting to telling a feeble anecdote about Gove just to get off the topic of pornography.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This was an outstanding educational occasion. The opportunity to be inspired, to discuss, debate and to network was a great privilege and this is surely the gold standard by which all educational meets can be judged. And the toilets were fragrant.</span></div>
Things Behind the Sunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14073862394425819895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2872380653030668252.post-81005562338767388722014-06-24T07:45:00.003+01:002014-06-24T07:45:39.693+01:00Numbers and memory<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This
time last year I talked a lot about numbers. I talked about the number of small
prizes won and commendations awarded. There were over 2000 academic awards made
last year; the number this year is similar.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Our
lives are dominated by numbers. Sometimes
we are bombarded with so many numbers, they become tangled and lose meaning. Understanding the meaning of numbers can help
us to understand the progress we make at School, but in order to understand
progress, we need to understand the numbers – is 65% good, or disappointing? It
can be both, seen through the eyes of two different people. Here’s an example, and I’d like you all to
have a go: how long is a million seconds?
I haven’t given you very long, but if you said 11 and a half days, well
done. Now have a go at a billion
seconds? If you said 32 years, well
done. That’s how long it would take you
to count to a billion, one number per second.
Translating those initial numbers into a more understandable format
helped to give them meaning.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">What
are the numbers that are relevant to you this year? Commendations gained, runs scored and wickets
taken, exam percentages, netball results, A* grades predicted, Twitter
followers, Facebook friends. These are all
numbers. Some matter, some are meaningless. Make sure you concentrate on the ones that
matter. The number of A and A* grades
achieved matters, number of Facebook friends doesn't. I am not suggesting that
your number of actual friends doesn't matter, merely the number of Facebook
acquaintances, which is hardly necessarily a measure of real friendship. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">You
need to make sure that certain numbers are going up - exam scores for example,
and others go down - pink cards. Human lives can't be measured purely in
numerical terms, but they give you a good idea of how that life is going. Of course this relies on your being able to remember
your numbers from last Quarter, or last year.
If you don’t remember anything from the past, it’s difficult to gauge
how you are performing in the present. I
am always amazed by what pupils do and don’t remember. We can't always control what we take away
with us from days, but days are where we live. Some advice that I give and I really want to
stick gets forgotten immediately (it will happen during this assembly), and
other throwaway comments are remembered for years. Sometimes pupils ask me years later if I
remember saying this or that to them, and even if someone did say it to them
once, I'm pretty sure it wasn't me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">R
S Thomas, in his poem Abersoch, touches on the nature of memory:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">There
was that headland, asleep on the sea, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The
air full of thunder and the far air <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Brittle
with lightning; there was that girl <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Riding
her cycle, hair at half-mast, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">And
the men smoking, the dinghies at rest <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">On
the calm tide. There were people going <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">About
their business, while the storm grew <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Louder
and nearer and did not break.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Why
do I remember these few things,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">That
were rumours of life, not life itself <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">That
was being lived fiercely, where the storm raged?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Was
it just that the girl smiled,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Though
not at me, and the men smoking<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Had
the look of those who have come safely home?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I wonder how many of you will remember this poem,
its sentiment, its name and the name of the poet?</span><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Things Behind the Sunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14073862394425819895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2872380653030668252.post-10250358969951756422014-06-01T13:23:00.001+01:002014-06-01T14:04:47.461+01:00It's the process, stupid<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I came across the following quote, linked from a link from a link. It's a quote from Saracens Rugby chief executive, Edward Griffiths:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://twitter.com/mrocallaghanedu/status/473001203685920768">https://twitter.com/mrocallaghanedu/status/473001203685920768</a> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I think this can apply to Schools, at least in some ways. Appointing clever, hardworking people, who have a broad range of interests themselves and are able to communicate with the pupils they teach is the most important part of my job. If you get it right, your School will develop organically into an effective institution without very much tinkering from the top.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Treating people well is important, but it is perhaps more complex in a School than in a rugby club. The players in a premiership rugby club are all men, and will be aged between about 20 and 35. The Oktoberfest (and similar) trips might be the stuff of dreams to lads in their 20s, but the thought of transposing my common room to Bavaria in the autumn doesn't sound like a very good, or realistic idea. People certainly need to feel valued, but being thanked at the end of a lesson by the pupils you have just taught is enough for me. I want management to give me a decent space for teaching, a reasonable timetable, a variety of classes and a sensible extra curricular load. I also want to feel supported in the sense that if I need help, I know who to ask. They should be able to help me, and won't judge me for asking. Beyond that, the rewards of the role are obvious: when pupils understand something that they didn't understand before, when they enjoy a book you have introduced them to, when they ask a question that makes you think about a topic in a whole new way. These are the daily rewards, and they have nothing to do with finding note-cards in your pigeon hole thanking you for something that was part of your job anyway. Small gestures, such as buying a colleague a drink at the end of a long day, are likely to be more appreciated than financial rewards, or timetable allowances, which lack the personal touch.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Perhaps where the Saracens approach most closely mirrors that of Schools is in the need to build a community. It is perhaps easier at a Boarding School, but if the majority of your common room treat the School as an office (enter at 9, leave at 5 - and yes, I know everyone marks and plans at home), it's hard to build that community. Helping pupils before or after School, having a drink with your colleagues at the end of the day, speaking with parents at Saturday sports fixtures, these all help to build a community where pupils, teachers and parents feel welcome. Never ask what your community can do for you. Communication can be effective over email or social media, but your community is easier to build if it has firm foundations - it must be centered.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The other point I think is worth emphasising is results being seen as outcomes of process. If you get the process right, you don't really need to worry about results. Again this is different for Saracens and Schools. Saracens play a lot of one-off 'winner takes all' ties, certainly in the cup competitions. In the latter stages of these competitions, all of the teams are good, and any team can beat any other team on any given day. One of the joys of sport is its unpredictability: the bounce of the ball, the Schoolboy error, the moment of genius that can decide games at the highest level, and Griffiths is right when he says that judgement on results alone is futile. The concept of 'deserving' in sport is often mentioned, with managers bemoaning the negative result when they had the majority of the possession and chances. You certainly don't always get what you deserve in top-level sport, but when it comes to examination results (at least from a whole-School perspective), you do get what you deserve. You are not competing against anyone else; one moment of genius from another pupil in the exam hall does not take away your grade, nor does another pupil not reading the question boost you to a higher level. You are in control of the situation, more like a snooker player in the balls than a rugby player scrapping to secure possession.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Schools need to be brave enough to ignore the quick fix. Don't start with the results and ask 'how can we improve?' Start with your process of education, start with your philosophy of education - and then question this. Exams are simply a celebration of knowledge gained up until that point. You might have two years with this set of pupils. How are you going to create the best set of chemists/geographers/mathematicians/linguists that they can be? A few weeks before the two years are up, you can then prepare them assiduously for an examination, but don't let the examination drive you. If you want to create pupils with a serious interest in literature, introduce them to everything you think is worth reading, don't simply plough through the ponderous <i>Of Mice and Men</i> (sorry, couldn't resist) because it represents the quickest and easiest route from A to B. You are not really doing the best for your pupils.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">In summary: concentrate on process and results will be the glorious byproduct; look to build a community that includes everyone connected with the School; small daily rewards provide all the job satisfaction that most people need; working with talented and committed individuals day in, day out is something we should all be grateful for.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">And if you do decide on Oktoberfest, remember to pace yourself and don't go for your first wee too soon.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Written for @edutronic_net #blogsync June 2014</span><br />
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Things Behind the Sunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14073862394425819895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2872380653030668252.post-34386940784395644172014-05-29T15:11:00.001+01:002014-05-29T15:11:46.217+01:00That's Rich<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.bookwormroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/DaddyWhatDidYouDo400.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://www.bookwormroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/DaddyWhatDidYouDo400.jpg" height="200" width="128" /></a></div>
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I remember this image from my School days. It's certainly quite powerful. Given the likely scale of the 100th anniversary celebrations (books, magazine articles, newspaper columns, historical dramas, things starring Benedict Cumberbatch, programmes beginning 'The Real...' on Channel 5), it may well be the case that in twenty years time children will be asking their fathers what they did during the Great War festival of remembrance. It may go on for so long that you'll get trench foot sat in front of the TV or neuralgia from squinting at Max Hastings' latest tome.<br />
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I wonder if anyone in years to come will ask the question 'What did you do during the great <i>Of Mice and Men</i> debate?'. Twitter has been pretty red hot on this issue since the published changes to GCSE English Literature were made public last week. Hashtags so ridiculous they would have made Robin Thicke wince were developed such as #govekillsmockingbird and #getgovereading. Celebrities as well as us normal folk jumped on the bandwagon, without bothering to read up on the detail of what was actually happening; the bandwagon swiftly gained momentum and wild assertions followed that books from outside the UK had been banned. Familiar Gove-bashing themes such as his (supposed) obsession with C19 literature, the Little Englander mentality etc didn't take long to be trotted out. It is amazing how quickly things snowball when people know what they want to believe. Even when people had the good grace to apologise later, it still came with a but...<br />
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If you were unfamiliar with the texts under discussion, you might have believed that <i>Of Mice and Men</i> in such an essential text that it trumps all others. Once you've read this book, essentially you're done, because no book encapsulates racism/sexism/economic hardship and cultural change in the way that <i>OMAM </i>can, and all in around 100 pages too. Hey, there's a film too, and a stage play, and if you're really lucky, that chap from <i>Stars In Their Eyes</i> might be playing Lennie. <i>OMAM</i> is very good; it's relatively easy to read (and short); the characterisation is strong; it deals with fundamental human issues. I can see why people would want to teach it, but surely it has become something of a crutch if around 9 of every ten pupils studied <i>OMAM</i> for their GCSE English Literature examination last year. This can't be right can it? <br />
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I remember reading the book as a double-header with <i>Cannery Row</i> and I found the latter to be far more powerful, in particular with its depiction of maintaining dignity despite poverty and the strength that can be gained by being part of a community. <i>OMAM</i> is not the only book that allows pupils to explore the issues it touches upon. A widening of the texts to be studied, an appreciation of the great literature produced in this country, with no text from anywhere being banned. Not that controversial, surely?<br />
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The problem of teaching time was cited by many as a key objection to the new syllabus - there simply isn't enough time to cover the material, they say. Given that many Schools took advantage of the modular approach to GCSEs by sitting exams in year 10, thus voluntarily diminishing teaching time, this argument is specious. The other main argument was that the changes to the syllabus would harm the 'lower grade' pupils, or as I also had it put to me, the 'disadvantaged' pupils. Now I suspect that the latter comment referred to pupils who are less rich, economically speaking, though I was assured that it referred to the 'disadvantaged reader' (you may work out for yourself what that means). I believe that is it the most common and most dangerous fallacy in education that cultural capital is the preserve of the wealthy. Education should be the greatest driver of social mobility, but as long as well-meaning though misguided individuals continue to perpetuate the myth that great works of literature, Art, music are for 'Them not Us', we will continue to preserve this schism in education. We should be ambitious and expect our pupils to show ambition. We should not shy away from the seemingly difficult texts just because the language isn't modern. After all, <i>Twilight </i>has a larger vocabulary than <i>Sense and Sensibility</i>.<br />
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Bank account wealth does not equal cultural wealth, but education can be the key to both. A weekend in Dubai will set you back a four figure sum. A weekend spent reading Orwell won't cost you any money at all, but your eyes will be opened that bit wider. I noted a petition with 50,000+ signatures demanding a volte-face on the new GCSE specification. It is these petitioners that will hold back pupils, through a lack of ambition and a misguided sense that academic education isn't for everyone.<br />
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<br />Things Behind the Sunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14073862394425819895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2872380653030668252.post-74033623219744274572014-05-19T15:11:00.002+01:002014-05-19T15:11:16.707+01:00Some reflections at the end of the School year<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Writing this on 19 May will undoubtedly irritate some people. <i>It's not even close to the end of the School year</i>. In my defence, the Upper Sixth and Fifth Form have gone (gone into exam overdrive, certainly) and the sun is out, which means that it is summer. I have also taught 26 Saturdays this year, so in terms of days taught, my 19 May is your 1 July.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The end of the School year approaches, and this means cricket and exams. Some other things happen at this time of the year too, but these are the most important. There are just over 1100 pupils at my School, and as each pupil group shifts up a year, the current Upper Sixth will drop off the end and are let loose into the real world. Around 10% of the 155-strong teaching body will spread their wings and fly (or fold back their wings and retire). So the School prepares for its 459th new year, and everything changes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I play a part in the lives of others, and I neither under nor over-estimate my impact. My abiding sense of guilt means that I try to ensure that I could have done no more to help any pupil that under-performs. When such a poor performance occurs, I like the line (delivered to the pupil): <i>I suppose it is fair to say that we have both failed. I, at least, have tried</i>. I've never used this line of course, and I don't suppose I ever will. Taking responsibility for the performance of those you teach is one of the fundamental parts of <i>getting</i> teaching. There are teachers who trumpet the part they played in the excellence of grades achieved, but explain the poor results with a <i>they get what they get</i> shrug of the shoulders. I like the approach which involves stepping into the shadows when the result is excellent and stepping forward with a comforting arm when the result is poor.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I was 17 years old when I left School and I am 37 years old now. This is my 20th year out of Schooling from a pupil perspective, though I will complete my 16th year of teaching in June. I have been hanging out with School pupils for roughly 30 of 37 years and the longest time I've ever spent not in School was the first four years of my life. Maybe I should find out what the real world is like some time?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Can one ever become friends with pupils they have taught? I think it depends on the nature of your dealings with them. As a senior manager, it is hard enough to make genuine friendships with colleagues let alone pupils. Many of us like to put people in boxes and from a pupil perspective I think I'm well and truly in the <i>person who tells you how hard you should be working all the time in assemblies and there's no way I want to listen to that any more than I have to </i>kind of guy. Perhaps the thought of a drink with me the year or two after leaving School isn't all that appealing. We can't turn our perception of people on and off like a switch, and I don't resent that italicised perception. How I really like to be perceived is summed up quite neatly here:</span><br />
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<img src="http://imgc-cn.artprintimages.com/images/P-473-488-90/60/6069/VLYD100Z/posters/zachary-kanin-i-want-to-be-feared-as-a-tyrant-loved-as-a-father-and-revered-as-a-god-new-yorker-cartoon.jpg" /><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">In every year group there are a select group pupils in whom I take a real interest - these are the ones I wonder where they will end up in years to come. They are sometimes the ones who don't quite get it right at School and you want to know whether the extra freedom will allow them to shine. Open the cage door and some fly, others fall and some can't seem the leave the perch. Or they happen to be the pupils I think have genuine deep human qualities and I hope that others allow this to be realised. I stay in touch with some, but it should be more; after all, it's easy not to lose contact, but I'd quite like them to want to stay in touch too. Maybe I should teach the last lesson with my Twitter handle and Facebook address on the board, but then suppose no-one followed or added? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I think many friendships are a matter of convenience. How many friendships survive because of geography or dwindle because of the hassle of keeping them going? Many friends are quite tangential - brilliant fun to play cricket with during the summer but put back in their cricket box come September. Anyway, it's possible to have fun with almost any individual for a short amount of time: most people bring out their best stories upon first meeting.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I think I'll post this now, just as it is.</span><br />
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<br />Things Behind the Sunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14073862394425819895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2872380653030668252.post-74383897756656305252014-04-16T10:51:00.002+01:002014-04-16T10:51:17.492+01:00Do we really need to know this?<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Questions form a large part of the educative process. Teachers ask a lot of questions and are asked many in turn. Most of the questions are welcomed, but the one in the title never falls into this category. I have never answered the question with a straight 'no' (I tend to employ my best withering stare), but I wonder what the response to this answer would be? To pack up one's books and leave? To tune out until the material becomes more relevant?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">What the pupil is really asking is whether they are likely to be directly questioned on this material in an examination. This implies that all knowledge can be categorised as necessary or unnecessary. The necessary stuff is to be found on the GCSE or A level syllabus, and the unnecessary stuff, well, that's simply unnecessary. Why would you ever want to know anything that you weren't going to be tested on?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Examinations are important, or at least doing well in examinations is important, but examinations are best seen as a celebration of all knowledge gained up to that point. The examination syllabus guides the teaching and revision process, and in the run-up to examinations, it becomes an almost biblical document. But for most of the educative process, we do not find ourselves in the run-up to public examinations, and it is important to realise that not all great literature is to be found in the GCSE English syllabus and one cannot find all that is worth knowing about philosophy and ethics in the GCSE RS syllabus.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Teachers tend to blame the syllabus and to use it as a crutch in roughly equal measure. If the pupils aren't finding the work interesting, laying the blame at the door of the syllabus is a standard strategy: 'we have to get through this, it's in the syllabus'. Highlighting work that 'comes up on the exam all the time' is another tried and tested method to perk up the reluctant learner. I do think it's important for pupils to know why one topic leads on to another and to be aware of how the subject is structured, but this shouldn't be done simply because section 3.1a of the syllabus leads into section 3.1b. I wonder how many Lower Sixth lessons go by before exams, coursework, modules and syllabus are mentioned?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">A simple philosophy for all Sixth Form teachers is this: you have two years to allow pupils to become the best Physicists/Historians/Hispanists they can be, and at the end of this time, you need to assiduously prepare these pupils for the examinations that will allow them to access the Higher Education institution of their choice.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Going back to the concept of necessary and unnecessary knowledge, can it be argued that any knowledge is unnecessary? After all, even the most trivial fact might help you win some money in a pub quiz. But it's far more than that, and I firmly believe that knowledge enhances your life. Knowledge of the painter El Greco makes a visit to Toledo far richer; driving large distances when in the US is more pleasurable having read works by Kerouac and Steinbeck; knowledge of the Hillsborough disaster makes the recent Liverpool surge to the title far more poignant. None of this knowledge will ever help you pass an examination, but without them, Toledo is simply a pretty town, a long drive in the US is simply necessary to get from A to B and Hillsborough is just a football stadium in Sheffield. Knowledge means interest, knowledge means context and (in some cases) knowledge means power. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Absence of knowledge can never be a good thing; this point I feel is unarguable and some fault must lie with the approach taken by teachers. 'Extra' knowledge, that is knowledge beyond the confines of the syllabus, is too often seen as being the privilege of the academically able, with academic extension something that is laid on for the scholars, the bright and the interested. Of course this is not true; academic extension is for everyone, though it is inevitable that the nature of that extension will differ from pupil to pupil. It is fundamentally wrong that any pupil should fail to interact with material that raises them from the bare bones of a subject. A certain academic liberation exists when learning is done for its own sake. Improving one's knowledge is an enjoyable process and in turn this leads to greater enjoyment of the world around us. We need to get away from the mentality that all learning is simply a means to an end; I often hear pupils stating that they 'have to read this book as part of preparation for Oxbridge'. If this is literally true, and it is simply being read for some necessary progression up the academic ladder, is the enjoyment of the book not removed, or at least seriously diminished?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">And just to be clear, if any doubt remains: yes, you really do need to know this. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
Things Behind the Sunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14073862394425819895noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2872380653030668252.post-60736795469682269762014-02-20T11:39:00.000+00:002014-02-20T11:39:29.555+00:00Nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I spend a fair amount of time reading education blogs and interacting with teachers on Twitter. It is very clear that outside my sector the spectre of Ofsted looms large and the fear is genuine. Ofsted's directives of 'progress every 15 minutes' and preferred styles of teaching are used as sticks with which to beat teachers by those in power in Schools. Teachers cower before their SLT and the members of the SLT are beholden to do the will of Ofsted. Ofsted knows what outstanding teaching looks like, and woe betide any teacher who does not fall in to line with the wishes of Wilshaw. The difference between 'outstanding' and 'requires improvement' often seems to be whether one is willing to play the game and show Ofsted what they want to see. This week's #SLTchat is an Ofsted special and @learningspy 's blog on his visit to Ofsted has broken viewing records. It seems that the whole teaching fraternity in the maintained sector has an unhealthy obsession with the 'O' word. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">But I feel very much like an outsider on this one and the sensations I have described come only from the written experiences of others. I don't know of any member of the teaching staff at my School who feels compelled to teach in a certain style nor any member who lives in constant fear of having their lessons graded. We had a trainer in recently to deliver a PD session on 'outstanding teaching'; he spent a fair amount of time talking about what Ofsted like to see, and after a while people switched off, considering this to be less than relevant. Gimmicks were high up on the agenda - all techniques designed to engage the reluctant learner - starting from the principle that no pupil is interested in working hard or learning about stuff. They would all appreciate an easy way to memorise the names of all 20 teams in the Premier League, however. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I felt more part of the gang when we received notification 23 days ago that our School was to be inspected (by ISI) 7 days later. The inspection lasted for around 80 hours; it involved 15 inspectors, 154 teachers, support staff and 1100 pupils. Here are a few things I learned from the experience:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">1. <b>The inspection process is very stressful.</b> It's been a while since I felt the need to justify (over an extended period) what I do and how I do it to anyone, but inspection week felt like nothing else. We were last inspected in 2008 and it felt as though 6 years of progress was being put to the test. Would the inspectors see where progress had been made? Would they understand our vision and ambitions for the School? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I had four separate meetings (though they felt like interviews) and by the end my preferred approach was limit the talking (Ofsted would have liked this) and to simply feed each inspector a diet of paperwork comprising exam analysis, value added data, pupil voice mechanism and appraisal process. Clearly the documentation could explain things better than I could.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">2. <b>An Inspection brings people together. </b> Pupils are proud of the School. Teachers are proud of the School. Both groups take a pride in the role they play in making the School successful. A deep sense of 'caring' was palpable during inspection week and this had the effect of knitting the community just a little more tightly together. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">3. <b>It doesn't take long to go out of touch. </b> I took up my current position in 2009 and when I think about how I (and my surroundings) have changed, it's by a factor of plenty. Changes in the educational landscape take place quickly, with change dictated both by the Government and by technology. Some of our inspectors had been retired from the front-line from around 2009 and have been retired from the classroom for even longer. The excitement with which one of them greeted a ceiling-mounted projector suggested that the impact of Moore's Law had rather passed him by.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">4. <b>Common ground is important to inspection success. </b> It seemed that often the things picked out for being examples of particularly good educational practice were related to things being done in the Inspectors' Schools, or things that they were looking to embed soon. If an initiative is to be embraced, it requires teachers to be on-side. Little is different for the Inspectors.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">5. <b> Inspection is a good time to reassess your own priorities. </b> All I really wanted to do when I entered the profession was to teach really well (actually, I think moderately competently was the ambition in the early days but I can pretend that I set my sights higher). I am proud of all the paperwork, policies, tracking, reporting etc but it isn't the reason I became a teacher. I still teach a 60% timetable and I think I will find it hard to reduce this any time soon.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">6. <b>After it's over, does anything change?</b> I don't know any School that is perfect. There are always things to work on and to improve. If a team of inspectors could unearth significant and systematic weaknesses that you were hitherto unaware of during the 3 days they spend with you, it suggests that your School management is highly deficient. It's good when no far-reaching recommendations are found, but this is accompanied by a slight sense of anti-climax. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">And following on from point 5, what happened during my lessons in inspection week? I thought they were pretty good, as it happened, but the inspectors wouldn't know that; no-one came to see me.</span>Things Behind the Sunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14073862394425819895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2872380653030668252.post-87604585692440911452013-11-25T13:34:00.001+00:002013-11-25T17:41:18.900+00:00Clarifying roles and responsibilities<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I've been lucky in my teaching career that I have never had a complaint about the quality of my teaching. This is not supposed to be false modesty: I know of some excellent teachers who have been the subject of complaints and some pretty lousy ones who seem to go beneath the parental radar. I have been challenged over things I have said when discussing the academic progress of individual children (sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly) and I have defended the teaching competence of colleagues, firstly as a Head of Department and latterly as Director of Studies (mostly because the accusations were baseless, occasionally because it was simply the professional thing to do, whilst all the time trying to solve the problem behind the scenes). In the vast majority of cases, the expectations of parents are wholly reasonable; they understand their children, their interests and capabilities and will play the Wenger role to perfection, meaning that they will defend their offspring to all outsiders in public whilst giving them a proper going over in private when the situation demands. I don't respect those individuals who feel that paying a large sum of money for an education somehow guarantees enhanced grades and places at 'top' universities and I think that the triangle of child, parents and teacher should be close to equilateral at all times. It certainly shouldn't be the case that two sides of the triangle ever gang up on the other side. I have experience of all three possibilities here, but the most common side to get a bashing used to be the child, and now seems to be the teacher. When a parent looks to strengthen their relationship with their son or daughter by picking a fight with a teacher on their behalf with no evidence of need, it is unfortunate.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">In terms of education, both parents and teachers (and many other people besides) have some responsibility. Clearly the two mentioned above are the key people, but authors, journalists, TV presenters, documentary makers, musicians, sportsmen etc will end up playing some part in the education process, whether they like it or not. I don't think I have ever been explicit when it comes to defining my role as a teacher in the education of the pupils I teach. No parent has ever asked me to define my responsibilities in their child's educational development. It's as though there's always been a tacit understanding of what was offered and expected. I suppose that my role as a teacher of chemistry would have involved (in no particular order):</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">1. Teaching the contents of the exam syllabus so that it was understood</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">2. Preparing for examinations to ensure a pupil's grade represented the best of their ability</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">3. Exploring areas of interest and relevance within the subject</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">4. Preparing pupils for challenges beyond School, which has usually meant university</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">5. 'Sowing seeds'</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">There isn't much crossover between what I would do as a teacher of chemistry and how a parent would be involved in the education of their child and I have deliberately left out the pastoral care aspect of boarding education (where I have spent 13 of my 16 years as a teacher). The area of commonality across all Schools is the academic side of education. The point where I think that teachers and parents cross-over is number 5: when it comes to sowing seeds. This is also</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> maybe the point at which parental responsibility trumps that of a teacher.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Why do I have deep interests in Art, science, cricket, music, food, wine, travel and literature as a 37-year old man? It is because I was exposed to them as a child, and not in a manner where they were rammed down my throat. I was taken to Lord's (when the day was sunny), the Science Museum (when it rained) and many places far from these shores. I was read to and it was expected that I would read. I used to devour books on holiday but when I wanted to watch TV at home I was never forced to pick up a book instead. I was taken to concerts and I asked to be taken to more - I remember one time my father asking if I really wanted to come. I didn't think parents asked questions like this. When I considered it, I wasn't sure what the answer was, but I thought it was my choice and this was important to me. I was taken to art galleries, but not dragged round art galleries, and there would usually be a nice lunch or a picnic to make the memory of the day a good one. I was encouraged to be adventurous with food (even though I was naturally very cautious) and I was given wine which made me feel grown-up. Each and every Welsh castle had an interesting and different story associated with it, even though they all tended to look the same. And again, there would always be a picnic to have somewhere in the grounds. Put simply, whereas I think that all the interests I have now are ones that I have come to myself, the reality is that the seeds were sown years ago, mostly by what happened in the holidays rather than by what happened at School.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">That's the role of parents when it comes to educating children. Leave the syllabus, exams and subject extras to the teachers. Don't complain if the teacher is boring (children can still learn a lot from boring people, and they'll have plenty of boring lecturers at university and boring bosses later in life). If the teacher is incompetent, that's the time to complain. Children need exposure to books, films, walks, music, art, theatre, food and conversation. Sow the seeds and then stand back and watch your child reap the benefit. Some seeds will germinate immediately, some will take years and others will never see the light of day, which is inevitable. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">As a final point, it is worth remembering that financial richness does not necessarily equal cultural richness and it's a modern fallacy that art is elitist and football is the game of the people. Last time I looked, it never cost £60 to visit an art gallery. Some seeds take to ground that may appear stony and lacking depth; fling enough quantity and type of seed and something will come of it, be sure of that. </span>Things Behind the Sunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14073862394425819895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2872380653030668252.post-37051755006532727182013-11-13T09:38:00.003+00:002013-11-13T14:54:04.186+00:00Desert Island Discs<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: #fafafa; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333;">1.
Dayvan Cowboy - Boards of Canada</span><span style="color: #333333;"><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa;"><br />
Few songs are truly epic. On a day like this by Elbow isn't epic, but
Davyan Cowboy is. BoC write music for the films that were never made -
most of their songs have an air of foreboding, like the soundtrack to a Hopper
painting, but Dayvan Cowboy is one of the few that are uplifting. I like
to think that it was the music going through Felix Baumgartner's head when he
made his jump from space.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa;">2. Waterloo Sunset - The Kinks</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa;"><br />
Reminds me of my parents, who met in London in the late 1960s. I hope
that they met at Waterloo station on at least one occasion and I hope they
walked across Waterloo bridge together, arm in arm, listening to the Kinks.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa;"><br />
3. 3 Hours - Nick Drake</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa;"><br />
His only song with a personal friend named in the lyrics (Jeremy, who I think
was a friend from Marlborough). Voice and guitar have been done to death
but Nick Drake makes voice and guitar sound like this is how it should be done.
You feel like you've already heard the songs, you feel like you know
where they are going and you get a strong sense of the kind of person he was -
quiet, introverted and sad. A man not for this world.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa;"><br />
4. Clash - Caravan Palace</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa;"><br />
If you could be a member of any band in the world, wouldn't it be this one?
The nearest thing any of us will get to the soundtrack of the hedonistic
20s. I like the fact that Baz Luhrmann went for the obvious choice of
Jay-Z for his overblown Gatsby re-make. Caravan Palace have a bit too
much class for that.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa;"><br />
5. The Age of the Understatement - The Last Shadow Puppets</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa;"><br />
Arctic Monkeys meets David Bowie, and what's not to like about that? It's
the music I think Alex Turner would produce more of were he a solo artist, it's
got a touch of the epic about it, a very silly cold war video and one the best
titles. We live in an age of perpetual over-statement, at least where
social media is concerned, and I think I wish that the title were an adequate
description of Britain today.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa;"><br />
6. Requium - Mozart</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa;"><br />
Ok, it's a bit like choosing 'Catcher in the Rye' as your favourite book, and
it looks like it's making a rather obvious nod to all things classical, but try
watching Amadeus as a ten-year old and not being taken with the Confutatis
Maledictis. It's even better than Falco.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa;"><br />
7. King of Carrot Flowers - Neutral Milk Hotel</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa;"><br />
Reminds me of my favourite person - musically spare, mostly lyrical nonsense
but these two things some together to make something that is beautiful, and
seems profound, even though it's probably not.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa;"><br />
8. Entertainment - Phoenix</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa;"><br />
A band that makes you feel like you know them. They don't try too hard to
make perfect pop music and their 'Take Away' set of videos for La Blogoteque is
the best thing you'll see on youtube.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa;"><br />
9. Sugar Kane - Sonic Youth</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa;"><br />
A song that you notice more things about the more you listen, musical
arrangement-wise. It's about Marilyn Monroe's character in Some Like it
Hot and I think she'd have liked the overall feel.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa;"><br />
10. A day in the Life - The Beatles</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa;"><br />
Ahead of its time. Lennon's finest hour. Meaningless and sad.</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Things Behind the Sunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14073862394425819895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2872380653030668252.post-13432868909635777742013-10-30T09:19:00.002+00:002013-10-30T09:47:34.355+00:00Russell Brand's Televised Revolution<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The modern form of political activism, involving sharing or liking on facebook, has gone into overdrive since the appearance of the darling of the unthinking classes on last week's Newsnight. The 'Brand makes Paxman look ridiculous' youtube clip keeps appearing in my timeline, and Twitter pages roll over and over with platitudes for the man. It seems as though the nation has finally found a champion, someone who speaks up for them against the villainous disingenuous politicians. It's quite clear that Russell Brand exemplifies a modern form of style over substance, but mention this on Twitter and you can almost hear the boing as many leap to his defence. The standard line is that he's raising important issues that get glossed over by politicians, but this goes against fact and reason. The news is full of copy about exactly the issues he raises: fracking, social mobility, drug crime etc. Maybe politicians aren't doing enough, but he's doing nothing. He's not even suggesting anything concrete. I'm pretty sure that Kennedy didn't rely on the use of long words and antiquated English to make his point, but RB certainly does, and he's taking the country with him, onward toward revolution. One other difference is that Kennedy had some ideas to go along with the multiple sexual encounters.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">How has RB managed to win over so many? His message is simplicity itself - "let's be compassionate", "let's share the wealth", "let's stop killing the planet". So far, so reasonable. But these are vague utopian ideals, hard to argue against, but rather harder to implement. It's akin to saying that gassing innocent people in Syria is bad therefore I am against it. Cue liking and sharing. No need to do anything about it, because 'awareness' has been raised. We're all about raising awareness these days, less keen on actually doing anything. The most obvious question is "what do you suggest we do Russell?" but on that point he goes rather silent. Apparently thinking through solutions to complex political and social problems and inequalities is a little more tricky. Never mind that - just tell people that a revolution is coming (and it's already started in his head remember) and that'll be enough for the moment. Like and share.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">But it's not really RB's fault that the public has taken to him. It's not really even the fault of the unthinking masses - we live in an age where most people are so busy with modern life that getting them to use a quarter of their brain to think about issues such as these is asking a lot. I blame the BBC. The BBC has some in for quite a lot of stick in recent months, and here's how they are to blame for the rise of Brand's brand:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">1. Paxman's performance on Newsnight was surprisingly lacklustre and when his opening salvo of "you don't vote, so you have no right to an opinion" didn't seem to work, the fight seemed to go out of him, leaving Brand to dominate the rest of the interview. Brand is certainly articulate - no ums from him, nor pauses for breath - but Paxman let him go on, streaming verbal diarrhea at the camera without offering serious challenge.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">2. The BBC put him on Newsnight last year as an antidote to Peter Hitchens. I'm pretty sure you could put Fred West on the other side of the table from the Daily Mail version of Hitch and at least some people watching would come down on his side. He's intelligent (Hitchens) but lacks any noticeable humanity so that RB looks like a saint simply by disagreeing with him. Their debate on sentencing for drug use was childish and go no further than "lock them up"/"show them compassion". Ever since Ian Katz (he of the "innit" tweeting) took on Newsnight it's been noticeably downgraded.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">3. The BBC put him on Question Time regularly. Similarly to the point above, he never has any genuine competition. Just like that chap from the Beautiful South used to be wheeled out as the antidote to complicated political ideas, now RB is that Messiah-like figure (to use his own modest description). He is never going to need to prove himself in the political arena so he is the one with the license to make broad political statements about how we can improve the country.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Put simply, the BBC put Brand on a platform so low that he is unable to fall off. Why not give him a genuinely challenging platform, or better still, ask for some substance to go with the style people seem to like so much.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The hipocrisy is self-evident. Happy to hawk HP tablets but rails against big business. He's disgusted by the inequality of wealth but happy to shell out $6.5M for a Hollywood Hills mansion. I'd start to look a little closer to home Russell, when it comes to looking at distribution of wealth, because we really didn't need to re-make Arthur, and so badly. And if you really think that Hugo Boss "make the Nazis look ****** fantastic", how about you don't attend the GQ Man of the Year Awards, which they sponsor.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Russell Brand is on tour tonight in Newcastle, just in case that had escaped your attention. No doubt the show will lay out his manifesto for political and social revolution. Or maybe he'll just speak like a child from a Hogarth etching and talk about his penis. I know which one my money is on.</span>Things Behind the Sunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14073862394425819895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2872380653030668252.post-52142968772253991892013-10-16T11:51:00.000+01:002013-10-16T11:51:43.203+01:00A few thoughts on passion, motivation and inspiration<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Passion: possibly
the most overused word. From personal
statements to the Great British Bake-off, it seems that everyone is has a
passion, whether it be for the works of Sartre or the contents of a muffin
tray. I don’t consider myself to be passionate
about anything. I am simply interested
in lots of things and I suspect that most people substitute the word <i>interest</i> for <i>passion</i> simply because it sounds more impressive (in the same way
that <i>inn</i> sounds more spooky and
foreboding than <i>pub</i>).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Inspiration
is another word misused on a regular basis, because admiration and inspiration
are two different things. I was recently
asked for some advice from a friend who is a consultant to an ‘inspirational
speaker’. This speaker was keen to
expand his repertoire to include Schools.
He has only recently become an inspirational speaker and the catalyst
for his new career was having his leg blown off below the knee whilst serving
with the British Army in Afghanistan. I
have great admiration for the British Army and I admire him as a person, after
all it can’t be easy having your leg blown off.
Putting admiration to one side, I was unsure how such a background would
be ideal preparation for a career in inspirational speaking? He’s got a good story, but surely we could
tell how it began and ended even before he got up on stage? A comment from one School was that
“previously pupils had complained that their History coursework was hard; now
they know that it’s nothing compared to losing a limb in a roadside explosion”. They are right of course, but simply being
presented with a worse thing than the task with which you are currently struggling
shouldn’t count as inspirational. It
could be argued that one’s own struggles have been put into perspective, but we’re
generally aware of the natural order of things (losing a limb > troubles
with coursework) without having it spelled out.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">People who
have been successful in one career can generally rely on a ready-made second
career as an inspirational speaker.
Former Olympic athletes are a good example. The general message seems to be that if you
have a good amount of natural talent (at running or swimming, for example) and
you nurture that talent for many years, often to the total exclusion of other
pursuits, you have a chance at becoming good enough to challenge the people who
are the best in the world in that field.
It’s difficult to disagree with the logic, but I’m not sure how
inspiring I find it. Essentially I’m being
told that natural talent plus hard work plus single-minded determination gives
good results. It is logical but is it
inspiring?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Would we not
be better advised to take inspiration from people closer to home? To quote a simple example, every year sees
wild fluctuations in the academic performance of the Houses, despite similar
exposure to all the external inspiration that the School can muster. We are inspired (either in a positive or
negative way) far more by our peers than by former Olympic middle-distance runners,
war-hero amputees and even our teachers.
Our peers don’t tend to have the catchy back-story, but their attitude
to work and life impacts upon us on a day by day basis. No man is an island; the effect of those
around us on our performance is significant.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">We can take
inspiration from a variety of people, but I much prefer the idea of
self-motivation to motivation from an external source. It is our duty to be self-motivated. We should take a pride in being motivated to
be the best we can be in all that we do.
I often hear that grade predictions act to motivate or demotivate
pupils. But motivation comes from
within. If you are demotivated you
should look inwards to find out why rather than blaming external factors. If your predictions are high, you’ve got high
targets to aim for. If your predictions
are low, you’ve got something to beat to prove the doubters wrong. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">So, to
summarise: be inspired by those close to you; have admiration for those who are
successful; be self-motivated; be passionate (if that’s really what you mean)
and be interested (because that’s what you probably mean). No-one should really be passionate about
bakery products, unless you’re Marcel Proust.
</span></span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Things Behind the Sunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14073862394425819895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2872380653030668252.post-50542767519541476922013-08-20T09:06:00.001+01:002013-08-20T09:06:52.360+01:00How Twitter ruined your life<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Twitter replaces an awful lot. It replaces live sport, breaking news, your actual friends. It's great for connecting you to people and events and it's true to say that almost everything in which I have an interest (museums, galleries, sports teams, newspapers, travel destinations) has an associated Twitter feed, in many cases a better start-point for information than the website. I always try to explain Twitter to people as an information-filter: it's about the information that you gather in, not the information that emanates from you. Twitter is for your eyes, not your mouth. My own use of Twitter has changed over the 5+ years I've been a user (phrase deliberate). I now use it in a far more professional context, which may explain why I've become more dull over time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">A recent study shows that over 70% of Twitter users check their feed within 3 minutes of waking up. Leaving aside this most obvious way that Twitter can ruin your life (addiction), there are several more subtle negative aspects to Twitter. Guard against them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">1. Only following people whose opinions you agree with.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Being open to ideas and opinions is important, but following only people who agree with you is likely to cement your position even before a discussion has started. I've had the misfortune to work with one or two people whose confidence in their right-ness was astounding. If at any point you disagreed with them, you were either an idiot, or someone who had simply not thought enough about the argument: think it through again, and I'm sure you'll agree with me. If you are going to argue, it's important to be open to persuasion. It's the discussion that should be important, not the 'winning'. It's also hard to 'win' an argument in 140 characters, especially against someone with a long-ish Twitter handle. For every person who agrees with you fundamentally, try to follow one who doesn't, unless the first person you followed was the Anne Frank house, for example. You'll find your feed has far more balance and you might even come to respect the opinions of those who disagree with you.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">2. The over-thought Bio.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Changing your profile picture on a regular basis is just about acceptable, but changing your Bio is odd. You are not David Bowie and you don't need to continually re-invent yourself. I'm not even sure what the point of a Bio is, and if you're trying to crow-bar some comedy into what you write, stop it. Stop it now. There are some things that shouldn't need to be written: if you have kids, we take it as read that you think they are 'wonderful'. If you work in IT, you do not need to state that you have 2.0 kids (that joke became obsolete around the same time as the ZX Spectrum). Stating that you are 'partial to the odd glass of wine' does not make you sound like a lot of fun, just someone without any genuine interests. The Bio is meant for people to see at a glance if they wish to follow you or not, but reading the top 5/10 Tweets from someone's timeline is a far more reliable way of telling what you're getting. It didn't take me long to find two examples of bafflingly pointless Bios:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i>
<i>'Editor and professional procrastinator. Massively confused by the whole thing'</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i>
<i>'Curmudgeon. Neither in School, nor of school, but by school. Brace yourself - there may be a kerfuffle'</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i>
No, I've no idea either.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">3. Your dinner.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">No-one cared what you ate for dinner before you were on Twitter, and nothing has changed. Did you ever take a polaroid photo of your evening meal and pass it round the office the following day? (note: this is rhetorical, I hope). By all means post photos of your culinary creations, but to avoid a false sense of over-importance, you must first assume that no-one is going to view them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">4. Being proud to be blocked.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Blocking people is fairly unusual. The only people I ever block are generally spam sex-bots with alluring names like @ej35xxx80. Famous people with lots of followers seem to have endless reserves of patience and will generally threaten blocking before actually doing so; you've actually got to be pretty offensive to have people hit the block button on you. Being blocked shouldn't be something to be proud of, but I've seen lots of Bios where people are delighted to state that they've been blocked by someone they disagree with, which strikes me as wrong.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">5. Protecting your account.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Twitter is public. It's pretty much the whole point of Twitter. If you want to protect yourself from everyone but your nearest and dearest, that's what Facebook is for, your real friends. People with 7 followers and a protected account might just be missing the point. I'd understand if what you're writing is top secret (maybe you're working towards who really killed Kennedy), but then Twitter is probably not your ideal medium.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">And now I'm off to make some truffled eggs. Photo on Instagram in 5.</span>Things Behind the Sunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14073862394425819895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2872380653030668252.post-20808169997167291242013-07-26T15:35:00.001+01:002013-07-26T15:35:50.101+01:00Outside In: Education, Twitter and the Herd Mentality<a href="http://michaeltmerrick.blogspot.com/2013/07/education-twitter-and-herd-mentality.html?spref=bl">Outside In: Education, Twitter and the Herd Mentality</a>: During my teacher training, Twitter proved an essential tonic. Sat at the back of the latest class in which some daft idea was ‘offered’ (I...Things Behind the Sunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14073862394425819895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2872380653030668252.post-14537033016361932232013-07-26T11:05:00.001+01:002013-07-26T11:05:54.621+01:00False dilemma<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I am no expert on critical thinking, but the title of this blog post refers to a standard argument fallacy, that of the false dilemma. It's a technique beloved of low-grade arguers, where in order to promote their line of thought, it is presented as one of only two possible alternatives, with the other option usually picked for the reason that it's totally inappropriate.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Here's a good example, about global climate change: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ</a> in which the presenter limits our options for dealing with climate change as 'do something' or 'do nothing'. Whereas I understand that 'do nothing' is a stand-alone option, a myriad of possibilities lie within the 'do something' heading. If I were to donate £1 to climate change research, we would still be doing something, just nothing very significant and I'm not sure that many climate change advocates would consider this to be doing enough to allow them to rest easy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Twitter is a good forum for educational debate, though as @oldandrewuk and @toryeducation proved yesterday, it's tricky to win an argument on Twitter. It's also good for providing links to education blogs that are worth reading. The problem with many of the blog posts, though probably not the bloggers themselves, is that the majority can be placed firmly on one side of the argument or the other.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The argument goes something like this:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Blog A: teachers are meant to teach. There's nothing wrong with tried and tested didactic methods. Pupils aren't in the class to have fun, they are there to learn. Learning is characterised by good teacher subject knowledge and hard work from pupils.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Blog B: teachers are facilitators. Pupils should work in groups as much as possible in order that peer teaching can take place. Education is more about skills and problem solving than merely acquiring dry facts; all information can be found on google anyway.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This will generally be followed by all those who agree with Blog A re-blogging it to their own blog, re-tweeting its existence and complimenting the writer for telling the truth about education. All those who agree with Blog B will do something similar with Blog B and will challenge (usually on Twitter) those who agree with Blog A (with the reverse also being true).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">But this argument isn't black and white. Blog A is no more true than Blog B and vice versa. To see the debate as one with only two answers is a false dilemma and if the answer needs defining at all it's more of a continuum than a right/wrong. Every teacher should feel happy placing themselves at one end of the continuum or the other, depending on the subject, topic, year group, ability of the class, time of day or just for the need to experiment. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Sometimes I teach lessons which are characterised by an awful lot of teacher talking and other lessons involve pupils finding out things for themselves with very little input from me. Sometimes the pupils walk out and I know they possess far more knowledge than when they entered the room and other times we've just had some fun (though I feel sure to be corrected on this one if any of the pupils I teach ever read this). There isn't a right way and a wrong way to teach - I've seen superb lessons that bore virtually no resemblance to other superb lessons I've observed. I've also seen dire lessons dominated by the teacher and dire lessons where it was difficult to know if a teacher was in the room. One of the greatest things about teaching is the flexibility it affords and yet some people are keen to be hamstrung by their own certainty that their method is the one that 'works'.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Much as I like Twitter, some people spend so long defending their own method and attacking others that it seems as though that's all they do - defend and attack. There are other alternatives; it's what one might call a false dilemma.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>Things Behind the Sunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14073862394425819895noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2872380653030668252.post-23856083576268521682013-03-27T11:05:00.001+00:002013-03-27T11:05:26.687+00:00Sorry seems to be the hardest word<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Actually, espresso seems to be the hardest word, at least to pronounce and if you happen to work as a 'barista' for any major UK coffee chain, it's nigh on impossible: hashtag eXpresso.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The need for an apology has been highlighted several times in recent months, with David Cameron's apology being the most in demand. He's been asked to apologise for the British massacre at Amritsar, for the Bloody Sunday shootings, for the police errors and subsequent cover-up at Hillsborough. Each time the significance of the event seems to have been lost in the desperate clamour for apology, which is unfortunate but inevitable given the need for a simple banner headline. The events (in 1919, 1972 and 1989) have nothing to do with Cameron personally and therefore he is in effect being asked to apologise for the faults of others. I don't think anyone would argue that British people in authority were at fault in each of these cases, and given that few if any of them are around to apologise now, it seems that if an apology is required it must carry most weight when delivered by the man at the top. Not even the most ardent Cameron-haters would suggest that he's apologising for any wrong-doing on his part, so what's the problem?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">We all apologise multiple times every day - when we hand over a £20 note to pay for a single stamp to when someone barges into us in the street - we simply can't wait to apologise. Maybe it's because we'll never see these people again, or because we feel that it's merely customary to apologise, or because it's simply a learned reaction. We're not really sorry of course, and maybe that's why it's easier to get the word out.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">An apology should make everyone feel better, or at least make a person on one side of the apology feel better. It's a way of drawing a line under things; it signals the time to move on. I hesitate to use the dreadful word 'closure', but that's what I'm hinting at. However, in too many cases it's seen as a sign of weakness to apologise; one is handing the initiative to the other person and providing them with back-up ammunition to be brought out during a later argument. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Problems tend to arise because we feel the need to categorise apologies under so many headings, some of which are likely to inflame the situation:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">1. I'm apologising for something I have done wrong and feel that it's right to say sorry.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">2. I'm apologising even though I don't think I've done anything wrong. This tends to be used as a way of diffusing an argument one wants to get out of.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">3. I'm apologising because you're upset with me even though I don't think I did anything to upset you. This is usually delivered as an apology which isn't really an apology at all: 'I'm sorry that you feel this way' i.e. it's actually mostly your fault that you feel this way.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">4. I'm apologising for the situation, even though it's clearly someone else's fault. I shoulder overall responsibility and therefore it's reasonable for me to apologise.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I'd suggest that 1 is a pretty good reason to apologise and 4 is not someone we should shy away from. I do a fair amount of 4 in my job and it's surprising how often it catches people off-balance when they demand an apology and you give it to them. They often seem disappointed and had hoped they would be able to get in a few jabs before the knock-out. It's as though there's something disconcerting about the immediacy and unexpectedness of an apology.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Maybe a few people in power could learn from bogun Aussie PM Julia Gillard. Her recent adoption apology was well delivered and fully appropriate. It didn't make her seem weak, merely reasonable. It may not have provided 'closure' to many, but I'm sure it increased the collective 'feeling better-ness', and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. </span>Things Behind the Sunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14073862394425819895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2872380653030668252.post-81157370035093626532013-01-02T11:49:00.000+00:002013-01-02T11:49:11.764+00:00The Stag Do<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I am getting married in April. I'm also in the middle of planning my stag. This should be one of the easiest things to organise, bearing in mind that (at least technically) I have a free-rein to do whatever I want. The main problem here is that when I have the freedom to do whatever I want to do, one of the last things I would choose is to spend an evening/weekend in all-male company, with various friends from different stages of my life. This is the eternal quandary of the stag-do, namely that if they're so amazing, why don't we do exactly the same thing more often? There's nothing stopping us after all. This is of course also known as the 'Christmas pudding dilemma', bearing in mind how many people claim to love it and yet only eat it once a year.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The first thing about the stag is that we are no longer in our early/mid-20s. When men gather for stag-dos, they tend to regress into the person they were when they were about 21, which for most of my gathering is about 15 years ago. When we were 21, we were keen to drink any sort of filth that would get you drunk cheaply, we thought shots were a superb idea (yes, even Goldschlager) and we went to dance in fairly gritty London clubs (please do not mistake gritty for 'cool' - we were firmly in the Loop/Oxygen/Crazy Larry's end of the market). The reasons that none of us do this any more are simple and complimentary. Firstly, no-one wants to see a group of fat, balding 35-year olds dressed in chinos and a 'party shirts' attempt to chat to women around half their age whilst dancing like Geography teachers at the end of term disco. On the flip-side, we don't really want to put ourselves through this shame either, and this suits us (and those that have taken over residence in Embargos) just fine. Until the stag that is, where it becomes compulsory to make this part of the evening's entertainment. For every married man with 2 young kids who chooses to go mental at the opportunity to do a Jagerbomb, there's about another 15 looking about as awkward as those at a trappist monk convention in Vegas.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The evening entertainment of course has to follow on from the day's <i>activity</i>. The word 'activity' is one to be wary of. It generally tends to mean one of four things - off-roading, clay pigeon-shooting, go-karting or paint-balling. These are all quite manly, but they're also things that no-one ever chooses to do unless they're on a stag. When was the last time you saw a group of grown men go go-karting or turn up at laser-quest? It's worth pointing out here that this is still better than the hen-do mentality, where women mentally regress even further (to approximately about age 9) and do arts and crafts stuff such as plate-painting and decoupage.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The other thing is the dynamics of the group. Unless you've kept all your friends from School (and have made none more) you're likely to have a pretty diverse set of friends with diverse interests, few of which have even met each other. Has anyone ever said that their best night out recently was in a single sex-crowd, where each person knew only about 20% of the gathering, but really really well? Somehow I doubt it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Anyway, we're going to eat a pig and if this doesn't sound like fun to you, you're not invited. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> </span>Things Behind the Sunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14073862394425819895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2872380653030668252.post-36117874359318211862013-01-02T10:47:00.001+00:002013-01-02T10:47:36.237+00:00Dead Pool 2013<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">First post of 2013, and pride of place goes to the Dead Pool. Here are my predictions of those well-known faces unlikely to see out the year. I've taken a scientific research-based approach this time round since none of my picks for 2012 did the honourable thing and all are still alive and well as of today. Fingers crossed that we haven't seen the last of the cold weather this winter. Please remember that this is all tongue-in-cheek.</span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">1. Hugh Hefner. Lorded in the 90s as some kind of new-lad favourite, it's difficult not to feel a sense of nausea as the 86-year old Hef married one of his Playmates this week, who happens to be 60 years his junior. Going on the plot of the terrible Madonna film 'Body of Evidence', the plot of which involves her marrying older men (though they'd need to be well into 3 figures now for any re-make to be possible) and sexing them to death to claim the life insurance. Maybe this is the plan of Hef's new bride (the rather standardly named Crystal) as I can't imagine how keen she is to rub up against something with the texture of a leather briefcase.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">2. Michael Winner. Surely a shoo-in? He's already been on the phone to Dignitas since doctors told him in mid-2012 that he has approximately 18 months to live. Stoic and unapologetic to the end, he's burgled a career out of making several poor films in the 70s, some truly execrable movies in the 80s and re-inventing himself as an uber-snob food critic in the 90s. Will probably be remembered as some sort of loveable British eccentric, but don't expect a season of films at the BFI - it's strictly channel 5 if you're lucky.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">3. Margaret Thatcher. She's in hospital more often than Price Philip and looks a darn sight worse. Deserves a proper tribute when she does pop off. She's done far more for women than the Spice Girls ever did and yet she's likely to be pilloried by a load of dim folk that don't even remember her from the power days. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">4. Clare from Steps. Not sure if her exponential weight gain continues apace, but this chubby-chaser's dream went from size-Moss to size-Adele pretty quickly and far beyond. She's projected to weigh more than a Caribbean island by the end of 2013.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">5. Ricky Hatton. During his career he displayed the ability to lose (before a fight) and gain (after a fight) huge amounts of weight (a bit like Clare, only with the losing bit too). Now that he's finally packed up from the ring, it looks like nowt but chips and diabetes for RH. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">6. Shane McGowan. How is this man still alive? Does he buy a new defibrillator every Xmas when the fairytale of NY royalties come in? He made the skeletal chap from the Stereo MCs look healthy, and that was over 20 years ago. I've not done my research here, so maybe he's calmed down, moved to the country and is now growing his own organic veg and championing the benefits of pilates, but it seems unlikely. I can't bear to google him to find out, lest I get a look at the teeth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">7. Woody Allen. Midnight in Paris was one of the most horrendous films I've ever watched, and his output diminishes with every flick made. Extrapolating from MiP, he's likely to be making films that even Winner would disown at some point soon. Maybe this one would be for the best.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">8. Clint Eastwood. Shame to think that Gran Turismo wasn't all that long ago, but in those few short years Clint's gone from being hard-man Grandfather to utterly mental rambling codger. Of course everyone's seen his 'invisible Obama' speech to the Republicans:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIBGIXLDrAk</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">which at least proved that there's one more insane Republican than Mitt Romney. It would be a shame if Clint ended up being remembered for this.</span></div>
Things Behind the Sunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14073862394425819895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2872380653030668252.post-24610543458953027782012-11-06T12:10:00.002+00:002012-11-06T12:10:30.691+00:00Movember, Mo problems<span style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img height="141" src="http://cache1.asset-cache.net/gc/88637512-ron-mael-of-the-amercian-band-sparks-performs-gettyimages.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=X7WJLa88Cweo9HktRLaNXogTperP6VjPWWEJBC3DCY0Fr%2BMgbFauNLnMPLsBFtxYAcEgrCipMRJtCmh8a%2F40mg%3D%3D" width="200" /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">November means Movember and Movember means facial hair. Adults and elder Schoolchildren alike will spend the next month becoming more hirsute and the national statistics for number of goatees, handlebars, droopers and the caterpillar-lip moustache that usually only the chap from Sparks (see left, though it looks rather Adolf-esque here) and John Walters cultivate will all increase. I assume that the number of Hitler-taches will remain at pretty much zero.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I know this is for a good cause (apparently to raise awareness for male cancers such as testicular and prostate and also men's mental health) but I had to look this up (maybe this proved the point about awareness) and it's not exactly prominent on their website. There's far more detail about the rules (are these strictly necessary?) and examples of the most impressive facial hair to be developed over the 30 days of November.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I like the fund-raising side of it, though I think I'd rather give money to someone who's run the London Marathon than someone who simply hasn't bothered shaving for a month. The bit I really don't like is the increasing number of people who simply grow a bit of bumfluff because November means Movember and that's what people do these days. The charity element of Movember hasn't registered with them. It's akin to standing outside Sainsbury's with a plastic model of a lifeboat because you saw someone else doing it and thought it would be fun.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The health-awareness message of Movember is in danger of being lost when it is no longer original and I'd like to think that all the new David Brent look-a-likes I see wandering the streets over the next month are all looking that way because they're doing something for charity and not that they're jumping on a bandwagon to have a bit of personal fun for one month each year. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">How about simpy persuading men to give money to appropriate charities without the need to prove via a furry top lip the effort they're making (ie not a lot, and possibly zero)? Isn't there somthing just a little tacky about displaying to the world just what a good guy you are; it's not so very different from the over-enthusiastic silver-top who rattles the plastic charity jar in your face outside the supermarket. Charity shoudn't need to have a fun side - it's just morally the right thing to do.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Anyway, charity begins at home, and that's just where you'll find your razor.</span><br />
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Things Behind the Sunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14073862394425819895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2872380653030668252.post-42968280041021664952012-10-24T15:52:00.000+01:002012-10-24T15:52:31.746+01:00The New Socialising<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I went to a party on Saturday. I don't often get invited to parties. It was a perfectly good party: in a bar, with food and drink and company and though I didn't know many of the people there, they all seemed nice and friendly.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">The day after the party I finished the book 'The Teleportation Accident' by Ned Beauman, where the narrator of the tale states:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;"><i>"Compare the Venice of the late renaissance … to the Berlin of Weimar … to whatever city would turn out to be most fashionable in 2012, and you would find the same empty people going to the same empty parties and making the same empty comments about the same empty efforts, with just a few spasms of worthwhile art going on at the naked extremities. Nothing ever changed. That was equivalence."</i></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">If that's his definition of equivalence then Saturday's party gave me a sense of equivalence. It was very similar to parties that I used to attend in the days when I attended more parties than I do now. I wouldn't suggest that any of my parties bear much resemblance those that went on in Isherwood's Berlin, but they certainly bear a great similarity to each other. The parties haven't changed much, but the people at the parties have changed quite a lot. I used to go to parties with other teenagers when I was a teenager myself. I then went to university parties, then parties for people in their mid-twenties. I am now more likely to attend Christening parties, 40th birthday parties or divorce parties.</span><br />
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<img height="133" src="http://teachers.web.cern.ch/teachers/archiv/hst2000/teaching/expt/wavesand/image39.gif" width="200" /> <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">If one defines parties by a rather all-encompassing definition that involves a reasonable number of people who get together at a specific venue for the purpose of eating, drinking, chatting and perhaps dancing, then this is what I mean by the fact that the parties haven't changed very much, certainly from when I was a teenager and probably from way back in the days of the Weimar. A graph of time (x axis) versus change in party-style (y axis) would look very much like a flat-line. If I plotted a different graph of my age (x axis) versus suitability for this kind of socialising (y axis), it would look more like the parabola above. The far left-hand side would be me at School the far right me now aged 36 and the peak represents me around 25.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">School socialising was terrible. I knew it at the time and I know it now. Being at a Boarding School meant that Saturday night was the only night with potential for socialising. The pressure one felt on a Saturday was acute. Add to this pressure a lack of funds, lack of any real social skills (especially where members of the opposite sex were concerned) and a likelihood of not being served alcohol in any decent establishment and you created a potent cocktail to guarantee social failure. It's not a though it was just pubs that wouldn't serve us; we were lucky to get served alcohol in one of the local curry houses. An order of 5 poppadoms and 5 pints of lager was common and there wasn't much chance of making contact with the opposite sex in the window table of Amran's in Bedford. Likewise a lack of funds meant that one had to nurse each pint for around 90 minutes to make sure you weren't left dry by 9pm. The second half of the pint tasted how I imagine the dregs of lager being poured down the sink the morning after a party would taste if one were curious or desperate enough to take a sip.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">By my mid-20s, I was at party peak. Funds were no longer an issue, getting served was no longer tricky and with the 'Loaded' version of the New Lad dead by 2002, it was fine to wear fitted floral shirts out in public. Many contemporaries remained incapable of talking to members of the opposite sex, instead employing the tactic of 'separate a girl from her group of friends and then grind like there's no tomorrow'. It wasn't successful. But doing what we were doing felt about right. Quaffing a bottle of absinthe before taking a bus to Loop bar felt like the right thing to do, with all problems associated with youth, finances and shyness removed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">But I've come out the other side now and I'm nearing the bottom of the parabola again. The parties are the same but I've changed. Frankly I feel a little embarrassed doing the same kind of socialising that I used to do (albeit unsuccessfully) aged 17. I know this is my problem and few other people seem to have similar concerns, but it still leaves me pondering: What's next? What's the new socialising? Is it only canapes, dinner parties, kitchen suppers and Burial on the ipod if one wants to socialise in groups? Or can I spend my time walking round Victorian graveyards on my own without feeling weird?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>Things Behind the Sunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14073862394425819895noreply@blogger.com0