JUNK MAIL FIRST YEAR #8 PUBLISHED: 3 February 2009

RAISING THE STANDARD

When I originally wrote the key theme of this JUNK MAIL and the attached material on study and exam techniques we had senior mid-way through term 2. In 2007 we trialled yet another initiative where, instead of the usual series of senior exams in the middle to term 2, we set aside an ‘assessment week’ (which may include exams, or not) late in the term. I won’t go into the logic (or otherwise) of this move – many teachers claimed there was not enough to examine so early in the year – but the end result is that our seniors will only full-scale internal exams once, around about October (in the past they sat two sets of internal exams, May and October). Soon after the October internals they will face the external exams. Consequently, the key theme of this JUNK MAIL is out of step with the school’s timetable. I still believe that teachers need to teach and repeatedly practice revision and exam skills well before the real thing!

One practice is hardly enough?

Now on with JUNK MAIL proper…

hat, another JUNK MAIL? And soooooooo soon after the last one…, which you haven’t digested yet! Aah, such is the fast pace of life in a secondary school! Anyway, as we head into the exams/marking/report season (how many study nights to go???), raising the standard (read: marks) becomes a key focus for all our classes but especially our senior ones (the attached sheets give you some ideas to ponder in your spare time… ). In fact, to raise THE standard (marks) we have to keep ALL our standards high. Top netball player Anna Rowberry has skills to burn, vast court experience, tactical acumen, supreme physical fitness etc, etc, etc, etc all of which would largely count for nought if she played in jandals or regularly missed training sessions! One low standard lowers the end result, lots of low standards lead to failure. The point I am trying to make here is that as you beaver away in your classroom endeavouring to raise the standard in your subject, be aware that you are but a cog in the machine (yes, yes, an important cog) and that ultimate success depends on all the cogs working together, which, in general terms, means the student, her/his parents, you the teacher and the school together with its community.

And as a cog (yes, yes, an important cog, how many times do I have to say this????) you can only affect the area that your cog touches. Most of us don’t have an effective influence on ‘society’ or the ‘education system’ or ‘home life’ or on ‘the meaning of life in the new millennium’, but we DO have considerable direct influence in our own classrooms.

As you read the accompanying notes, you will be aware how much more there is to do in order to raise the standard and that you only have control over a very small part of the process. Moreover, key elements like recording content, doing revision and effective study skills, no to mention exam techniques, all have to be taught (they are neither hereditary nor instinctive!!!) and practiced over and over again, and then some more. And a bit more after that too…

Take a look at some of your students’ exercise books/folders where supposedly they have recorded all those precious gems of information over the year so far. In some cases, the record is so thin that essentially the student is sunk before they even sit the exam! Many students have no idea how to lay out their notes (and in some cases, teachers are less than helpful by not being sufficiently directive on this matter; how many exercise books are monochromatic for example!) and junior students often cannot keep a loose leaf folder in any sort of order and should be using an exercise book!

This is an on-going process, a work in progress. Yesterday was a good time to start, hence the early arrival of this JUNK MAIL.

§ ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING

‘The most important thing you can bring to my class is a positive attitude’

After just a few years in the job you will develop and retain a collection of ‘stories’ (and jokes) that you trot out with gay abandon at the appropriate time. Often these deep and meaningful stories are used to emphasise a particular point. One of my favourite ‘stories’ addresses the issue of attitude that is very pertinent to raising the standard. Many past students have told me this story had a major impact on their thinking which is humbling because it doesn’t have the makings of a best seller, or a Hollywood blockbuster!

In an attempt to underline the importance of attitude I start my (their?) story by highlighting that

(a) anything is possible if you have a goal, preferably a written one

(b) repetition is the key to successful learning but it takes a lot of time

(d) success comes in ‘cans’, not ‘can’ts’!

My story simply reflects the pupils’ own experiences and I challenge them to check back with their mother to verify my (their?) story… I state that all of us once stopped, a loooooong time ago, and wondered why, as we were crawling around the floor on all fours, others around us seemed to be walking upright on two legs. This had some appeal to us (the goal) even at that tender age, so we decided to try and give walking a go. We tried to stand up. And we immediately ‘failed’. So we tried again. And again we failed to stand upright. So we tried again, and again, and again and again… and failed (repetition). We tried different tactics (learning from one’s mistakes): we tried to hold ourselves upright by clinging to the walls (too smooth), we tried holding onto the table cloth (not a good idea, mum said, as she picked all the plates, glasses, food etc), we tried to hold onto dad’s knees (too hairy), mum’s mini-skirt (too high up), the dog’s back (too unstable) but while all these led to failure there was progress in that we were able to ‘stand’ for increasingly longer periods of time, albeit in a wobbly manner. Success, independent standing, still eluded us and thankfully our ability to verbalise our frustrations at this time was limited to grunts and gurgles. One wonders if we had been able to

scream, “I CAAAAAN’T do this!!!” at the time whether we would all still be down on the floor crawling on all fours. But we couldn’t verbalise our frustration and we didn’t in those days seem to much care about failure (success comes in ‘cans’) as we continued to try again and again until one day, after innumerable ‘failures’, we finally stood up and made our parents proud and put a huge smile on our own face. Success! End of story.

By way of extension, I challenge pupils to ask their parents if they can remember just how many times their child failed before she/he succeeded (good consolidation here…), and to think about how each failure brings us closer to success and that repetition takes time… all valuable lessons for students who are facing exams. It does make them think, which is a major success in any lesson!

I then remind them of a famous saying (I can’t remember who actually said it but I suspect it was and anthropologist) which goes like this…

‘Man stands alone because he alone stands’.

Now that’s food for thought…

§ Feedback/FEED FORWARD

Teachers give feedback every day, lots of it. As we wander around the room monitoring students work we catch them working well and say, “Good to see you working today, Michael.” Or, “That’s a very striking coat of arms you’ve created there, Jane!” or, “Andrew, you haven’t lifted your pen for the last 5 minutes!!!” Feedback tells a student about what they are doing, or have done. Feedback has a historical perspective, it is looking backwards.

Feedback, and forward, can be positive or negative.

Feed forward on the other hand not only informs the student about what they have are doing but adds a prompt aimed at moving the student forward or explaining the why or value behind what they are doing. Feed forward encourages the next level of thinking. For example, “Sarah, it’s good to see you start this work right on the bell.” is pure feedback. “Sarah, it’s good to see you start this work right on the bell, which means you’ll have a real chance of completing the task this period.” Is feed forward. Sarah now realises the ‘why’ of starting on time! Similarly statements like, “Now Gordon, tell me why your anti-smoking advertisement has these striking colours…” or “Where is this line of thought heading…” are statements that prompt further thinking or analysis, which is really smart teaching. Work feed forward into your daily ‘patter’ and watch the students develop academically as you are ever so gently pushing them to seek the heights.

Here are some examples of mainly positive feed forward questions or prompts…?

Have you done… today? How about trying…?

Have you considered…?

Can you predict what would happen if…?

Tell me why…?

You’ve done… What are going to do next?

What is your next step?

I’d like to know what you intend to next.

How will you show/illustrate/demonstrate this that?

Can you analyse that a little more for me…?

Mmmm, that really good. Now expand that thought a bit more…

What conclusions can you draw from…?

How would you test that…?

How did you get that answer/come to that conclusion?

What do you need to in order to solve/understand/find the next…?

Would else could be useful here?

How would you relate that to our topic?

Where else does this apply…?

What is this?

What do you know about xyz in relation to our topic?

Can you propose an alternative here?

Is there a way to…?

How could you…?

How could you explain…?

Where might you look for…? (Eg further information)

How would we go about checking this?

What are you looking for in terms of the next step?

That’s a great thought/question. Write it up on the board for later.

How could you synthesise these ideas?

What questions would help tom clarify this?

Can you list the most important aspects…?

What questions do you still have?

How can you justify your conclusions/ideas?

What process could you use to prove that?

How could you paraphrase those ideas?
Some examples of negative feed forward comments.

If you continue to waste time then you will not finish this task by the time the bell goes.

It looks like this line of thinking is going nowhere; is it worth pursuing?

This work is so messy it is nearly impossible to read. How will this affect your exam marks?

Wasting just 5 mins a day in my subject is a waste of over three weeks of lesson time in a year.

Adapted from the Te Kotahitanga Training Manual Draft August 2006

§ TEACHERS FORCED TO CONCENTRATE ON BAD BEHAVIOUR

The NZ HERALD dated 30/4/04 carried this headline: ‘NORMAL’ PUPILS AT RISK GROUP, SAY PRINCIPALS. The article went on to explain: Growing numbers of unruly primary school children are destroying teachers’ resolve and paralysing the education of their better behaved classmates. Teachers are spending an increasing amount of time and energy dealing with “crowd control;” and behaviour management, rather than teaching and learning, according to the Principals’ Federation. Larger numbers of emotionally disturbed children are taking up a significant amount of teachers’ attention, the federation says. And that impacts on the rest of the students, whom the federation president Kelvin Squires said now made up a new ‘at-risk’ group’. The article went on to say that: Every primary school principal contacted by the NZ HERALD agreed that there had been a significant increase in anti-social behaviour, particularly among younger children beginning school.

Sounds familiar to me! Does it ring a bell with you? Scary stuff!

While the article deals with primary school students (when will this group hit our secondary schools?), we already have the same problem here and now. So if things in your classroom are not conducive to a sound teaching and learning environment, then please be proactive and religiously follow the school discipline systems especially with respect to the RTP room and the buddy room system for older pupils. Make sure you have a paper trail for each and every misbehaviour so that a clear record exists for the Deans to work on when you decide that you aren’t making any further headway with a pupil, and hand the problem over to them. Give the students who want to learn an uneven break; they shouldn’t be the ones ‘at-risk’ and being penalised for doing what we expect of them!

§ POSTERS FOR YOUR CLASSROOM

If you like the posters I attached to previous editions of JUNK MAIL then look in my pigeonhole and you’ll find a plain brown envelope that contains a large collection of educational/motivational posters that you can photocopy. Please make sure you put my originals back into my pigeonhole. Enthusiasts should consider taking those posters that they fancy to the Resource Room and getting them printed on coloured paper. If you have some sayings that I could add to my poster collection or some motivational quotations then let me know and I will circulate them. Beats staring at blank walls!

§ WHAT HAVE THEY ADDED TO THE DRINKING WATER?

There seems to have been a recent spate of aggression both in the classroom and outside. No one is quite sure why and overdosing on testosterone may explain it for the boys but doesn’t explain why
some of our girls are being physically and verbally aggressive. Such aggression can flare up spontaneously and when it does, you will be caught unawares and possibly be shocked by it. Unless someone is physical danger do not intervene between fighting students as you may well find that one of both students will spontaneously turn on you for spoiling their ‘fun’. Repeating a simple command like “Break it up, guys!” in your firmest voice is usually effective. Send someone to get reinforcements… if senior management are far away the teacher next door is a better and quicker bet. Out on the school grounds look for prefects to assist you. Once the threat has subsided, write down what you witnessed, as a detailed report will greatly assist the investigating senior managers.