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The worst thing about schools are...

teachers. Of course! I have a new theory that 99.9% of teachers are unlikely to agree with. When a lesson goes horribly wrong, the first thing we do is blame the kids. Joey Bloggs did this that and the other. The lesson was disrupted. His fault - as usual. End of story. The sad fact (wavering fact that may change in a week!) is that when a lesson goes wrong, it is usually 99.9% something to do with the teacher. I think educators need to trace their steps more closely. Write honest incident reports, that really -and I mean really -track the incident to determine the trigger and the cause. Teacher - were you well prepared? Were you in a good mood? Were you enthusiastic and motivated about the knowledge you wanted to enthuse and motivate the pupils to learn about? Did you do something - however small -to make a pupil react unfavourably? Did you come across rude, controlling, angry? Did you focus on the good? Did you expect the best of them? Did you lay out ground rules (for behaviour) as well as learning objectives - at the start of the lesson? Are you emotionally stable? Easily provoked? Prejudiced? Unwilling to really help? Did you want to even be there?

All I know is - when I'm unprepared, in a foul mood, unenthusiastic, unmotivated, judgemental, rude, controlling, angry, suspicious, highly-strung, emotionally weak, easily provoked, prejudiced, bored, unhappy, effectively only standing there because of the monthly cheque.............my lessons don't go so well. That's what I know for sure, and that's when I put myself on the hook and let every single Joey Bloggs out there off it.

What's Right or Our Rights?

Schools are notorious -like any other place of work I suppose -for overworking and underpaying. Or so every other teacher in the profession will tell you! Recently a member of staff "resigned" leaving a number of lessons untaught. What did the school do? Well, initially they made do with cover teachers but last monday -quite out of the blue -I was told (very politely of course) that I had acquired another lesson, in place of one of my PLAN/PREP's (Free periods, as they are elsewhere known). There was no explanation provided except for the fact that the class needed a specialist teacher and there were no specialist ICT teachers turning up for cover! My first reaction was to bawl (inside). There's nothing, nothing, nothing worse than giving up a free period (coffee and biscuits in the staff room -and the occasional chance to catch up on some marking) for more work. What made it worse, was that no one had the courtesy to actually ASK me about my opinion on the matter. I was just told and that was that. Now, technically, it is within my RIGHTS to protest this, in fact, to point blank refuse. But that's when I went home and was confronted by Mother Teresa. A friend of mine had sent me a copy of a book about Mother Teresa's innermost thoughts and her 'secret' life. (including letters, diaries, and letters about her). Part of her responsibility during those early years was caring for and teaching the students in a poor Indian boarding school. The part I happened to read was a letter from a young girl -a student of Mother Teresa's. It read:

"During WWII, there was no teacher from class 4 to class 10. Mother took ALL the classes and she kept us busy to make us forget and overcome our fear"

And there were still more stories. Once she (Mother Teresa) stayed all night and all day, for several days, with some pupils that had been left alone. How on another occasion she braved the blood bathed streets of the city to find food for her starving girls....

Didn't the Loreto sisters have rights? What about health and safety? What about the complete and utter unfairness of having to cover ALL classes from 4 to 10, let alone one or two.

I should clarify that sometimes standing up for one's rights, may indeed be the right thing to do. But other times, shouldn't we always -without hesitation -lay aside our rights, to do what is right? Perhaps our situation here in the UK differs slightly from the one in Calcutta, in that our school can most certainly afford "cover" teachers without squeezing every penny's worth out of existing teachers. But still, how foolish our stupid rights seem in light of what is really important. And how interesting to think Mother Teresa started off her early career as a teacher!

Homosexuality in a Church School

I need to read more on the subject, but apparently the law that Maggie Thatcher-back in the days that the Tories were in power -put in place prohibiting the promotion of homosexuality in schools has been scrapped. As usual, it's all about the wording. Notice it doesn't necessary say anything about the necessity of the promotion of homosexuality in schools. Rather, it forbids anything that could be perceived to be against the promotion of homosexuality in schools. You may have heard of the famous (or infamous?) children's book "Heather has two mommies". An instance of the scrapping of this law coming into play is best demonstrated in the fact that this book cannot be banned in primary schools.

The world is changing, and even though Einstein's wonderful statement about the only constant being change, is absolutely true, I wonder if it is changing too much. I am beginning not to recognise it. Maybe the world is ending? One can only hope....

I work in a church school and it was one afternoon that a group of pupils came in whispering about an 'incident'. Without going into too much detail about it, and certainly protecting the identity of the pupils in question, I can tell you that the incident was regarding a 'lesbian' relationship gone sour. What was odd, odd to me at least, is that students were talking about the 'slap' (someone had cheated on someone - I'm still hazy on the details) but the actual gay relationship itself didn't appear to be a matter of interest. I questioned the girls in questions, and they openly admitted to being gay. Their friends openly supported them. I didn't say a word.

Now, I know homosexuality is a controversial topic, even within the church, but going by the word of God -the Bible -it remains a sin, and that is that. Seeing homosexuality in a school -amongst young children -was a different scenario altogether. We love children and want the best for them. I certainly wouldn't want any child -gay or not -to feel discriminated against or bullied because of a choice. Yet, does this mean I am not allowed to express the christian view -in a christian school -that their choice, according to christian doctrine -is wrong? More on this later...

What makes a good speaker?

School teachers, every so often, have the distinct pleasure of being the participants in what we call INSET days. Children have the day off and teachers get to come in wearing their jeans –bearing some resemblance to normality. INSET days are usually led (or facilitated) by members of the SLT (Senior Leadership Team). If however, the school is particularly lucky (and sufficiently up on funds for that particular academic year) it is graced by the presence of a guest speaker. In one such INSET (one that was entirely irrelevant and useful only for private contemplation) I got to thinking about what makes a good speaker. What engages an audience? What is that we want to hear?

I decided that there were two things to consider. One, people wanted to hear things that they hadn’t heard before or they wanted to hear what they knew, but didn’t know they knew –if you get what I mean. Let me explain, by listing the sort of responses (mental or out loud) that an audience (that was engaged) might say.

“Ah…that’s interesting. I never knew that!”

Or

“Ah, I totally relate to what he/she just said, and just didn’t know, that I knew that!”

When the response is simply: “I knew that”, you know that the speaker is being patronising or irrelevant or both.

In exactly the same way, I thing the same goes for pupils and their reactions (mental responses or perhaps more verbal ones!) to us. If we bleat on about something they know and they know they know, what on earth is the point of that? The response, and understandably, would be utter boredom, defiance, or bad behaviour as a result of a growing lack of respect. Instead, the key is to package the things they know they know, in a way that they relate to, but didn’t quite see in that context.

The key to controlling behaviour

It begins with the realization that it is impossible to control an individual’s behaviour! The only thing we can do is influence behaviour and it is this that we should set out to do. Another thing that came to me was derived from the simple analogy of a peripheral device connected to a computer. Perhaps I am stating the blatantly obvious, but it is impossible to ‘influence’ or ‘talk to’ something that you are not connected to. The computer would not be able to communicate with the peripheral device (like a printer, or scanner) unless it was physically connected via cables (coaxial, or even better –fibre optic –yes I’m an ICT teacher!). In much the same way, it is impossible to communicate (in a way that would be beneficial) with someone who you are disconnected from. Or, to put it another way, you have to be connected to something or someone in order to control it in anyway.

The relationship between teachers and children is comparable. We try to influence or control the behaviour of X without knowing a thing about X or indeed even being sure of his name! The sort of positive communication that we desire as teachers is often only achieved as the result of a well established connection. How, you may ask, do we make a connection with a pupil? (Particularly with one we want to make anything but a connection with!). The key is finding some common ground, something to laugh about, something personal and human, something real, something unconnected to how well they are (or are not, as the case may be) achieving.

Communication is never neutral

Communication –with a pupil –is never neutral. It is only ever either positive or negative. If you aren’t being positive, you are probably being negative, and an understanding of this rather obvious, but unconsidered fact, is crucial to become a more effective communicator. You might be simply telling Joe Bloggs to do something pretty standard, like “Log off, and tuck your chair in”. Even something as mundane and routine as that however, isn’t neutral. Tone of voice, body language and other factors come into it. Communication is never neutral.