Knowing then what you know now

I am actually quite fortunate in that I went to two "quite good"  secondary schools.
When we moved to Australia I went to Whyalla Technical High School
But in those days country schools had no conception that  "country students" might do more than work on the land, or at the steelworks, or in the shipyard.

Let's face it ...this was never going to be my fate!
I came from England with two other languages in tow....French and German....but could only pursue French.  ( I can just get by in both...,.this is a case of how 'education' may well have destroyed a native talent!)
The Science and Maths was Ok and the English was OK.  Music was virtually non-existent,  
as a mediocre cellist there was no-one who could take me to the next step. 
As a quite reasonable singer, there was no one to train my voice.
I didn't even really realise this was happening....I was too busy learning how to smoke!
I lament these things. But life's like that
Whitehaven Grammar School was a classic school of the English Grammar School tradition.My French and German would have been cemented and I would probably have got a grounding in Russian.
I learnt only later in  life that I have  a bit of flair for languages.
I can now struggle by in Hebrew, NT Greek ...and my German and French are still OK.
I lament the lack of Russian!
Soooooo....today, as you do,
I have had a little contact on Facebook 
with former school contacts.
I remember that  
I played the Cello in the orchestra for Trial by Jury in 1967, 
that I was a policeman & a pirate of Penzance. 
That I had been H. Higgins in Pygmalion along with Lynn Breuer (formerly Raymond...and speaker of the Legislative Assembly....who was much better than me !) 
That I had been a Duke both in Merchant of Venice,  and in Twelfth Night. 
That I had conducted  B.Britten's Let's Make an Opera!.....so I can't complain.
Just sort of wish I'd known then what I know now!

Disturbing trends

I am not really sure whether or not this is a 'trend' or not; since it has been going on for at least 20 years. But I was having a chat with one of our excellent teachers from the State education system who was expressing some disquiet about work practices in schools.

I find it deeply sad that someone who has been a teacher for 25 years should feel that the 'system' continues to get worse.

Her particular little story related to her interview with her 'line manager'.

I find this terminology interesting any way...why should what once was a senior teacher, or deputy head now be termed a line manager. Does no one actually seem to realise the use of such terminology actually betrays what is, at least part of, the problem.

ie. That industrial/management procedures seem to have replaced educational practices and understandings.

Schools are not 'workplaces' or 'factories' and indeed one might have thought the 'system' should be working against describing them in such a way.

She did not however bring her objections to that terminology that was my silent observation...what she was ropeable about the fact that this young 'whipper snipper' ("Who does he think he is I have been a classroom teacher for over 20 years?") was telling her that she noiw implement the WOW program.

Yes, the inevitable acronym.

And WOW would stand for.....?

Watch Others Work.

The idea being that you should pay closer attention to how your colleagues get it right (or I suppose wrong) and copy it (or not).

Now this is just facile stuff. And deserves the derision this teacher was giving it. Any teacher who works in a corporate environment has done this from day one. It's a survival strategy, a learning tool, not a new management program.

One can imagine that it might be useful to share with very junior teachers this crass strategy, but my impression is that teachers in our excellent schools are very attentive to their colleagues and watching to see what works.

No wonder the teaching workforce is demoralised if this is what passes for staff development.

Right and wrong

Teachers are both wrong and right about the standardised testing. (here and here for example).

Both sides of the present discussion no doubt agree that it is important that we focus on our children.

If you don't ask evaluation questions (And in reality teachers do this all the time) like "has Johnny's spelling improved?" or "Can she do long division?" then you are doomed to go round and round in circles. .and just guess at what is happening.

However nothing is more certain than the fact that this information also will be often only crudely analysed. It will be misunderstood and even abused by some with other axes to grind (this would seem to be the core of the teachers' objection).

Part of the reason for this conflict is that there does not seem to be any agreed purpose for the testing.

I mean "so that we can weed out dud teachers" is a fear-driven goal...and probably misplaced. (but it lurks there).

In reality we need to get rid of this fear & blame based stuff and state that the purpose of evaluation is to identify weakness and throw more resources at it.

If we don't do the evaluation then the identification of weakness is just intuition and guess work. Some may be good at this, but it is not the smart or prudent way to do it.

The solution should be to state the clear positive goals of evaluation and what responses might be made. I don't hear this at the moment. Even from Ms Gillard.

"The parents right to know" is not sufficient rationale. "To know what?" and "What is going to be done as a consequence?" are also consequent questions.

In theory, there can be nothing wrong with identifying areas of under-performance and making the connection that more resources need to go in that direction.

In theory there is nothing wrong with identifying areas of excellence (here for example) and suggesting that we promote that.

We can and should do both.

The perversity of our system is that often the connexion is made that we only see what areas are doing well and say "This is where our money is best spent".

So the rich get richer!!, and, The poor get poorer!!

Let's not do that

Julia's journeys

The Deputy P.M. is in India at the moment trying to shore up the rising tide of panic about violence against Indian students, particularly in Sydney. You would wonder why it requires such high level governmental representation until you hear that the foreign student revenue is something like 15 billion dollars a year.

And the whole service delivery appears to be a bit suspect (Four Corners exposed this a few weeks ago)...chefs who use an electric frypan, accountants who never count a bean...aand so on.

Amidst all this is the fear that we all have, that the genuine education system (perhaps the schools, TAFE and the Universities) has actually been sold out to economics of the paying students. And they are now so dependent upon the revenue that their actual service delivery may be compromised if they can't maintain student numbers.

The economic rationalists call this the dictates of the market and that this is the reality of the world.

Meanwhile the educationalists bemoan that there is no longer any learning for its own sake. Where is pure science and unbridled research? Where is the opportunity for genuine philosophy and scholarly (rather than political) history? Where is the exploration of classic and modern literature, of ancient text.....and dare I say it....theology

The Prose and Konns of Grammar (i)

I will try not to make any grammatical mistakes in this post, but these days my fingers rather do what they want!
I have mixed feelings about the current focus on the reintroduction of intensive grammar into the curriculum.
First, as a former teacher of English, I am conscious of the fact that much of what is said is true about kids not having a clue about grammar. This may not matter much, as long as the common or plain meaning is clear.
I became quite obsessive about the apostrophe, but I think now (if signwriting is anything to go by) that is a lost cause. The rule now seems to be .... if in doubt put an apostrophe in just in case!
What about things like this quickly gleaned from the web:
Ladie's Restroom; Christian's Love Sarah Palin;Your invited; You're car; Your fat!...well its/it's a never ending list. Sometimes meaning is ambiguous but not usually life threateningly so.
Second,I know ( and was talking about this to someone of the same age the other day) at least half of our English time in First and Second Year Grammar School (year 7,8,9) was spent 'parsing' sentences. We used to rule up columns like the modern day spreadsheets and parse "The cat sat on the mat"
Subject: The Cat, verb: sat (past tense) Predicate: on the mat
This could be more complex the predicate could be understood to be in the accusative case, there was a preposition 'on' which governed the accusative...
The point of my conversation of days ago was that never....and I mean NEVER...since I was 14 have I had cause to parse a sentence.
Even those people who never really got parsing, apparently manage to communicate quite well.
Third, though, my principle reservation is about the teaching of LOTE (Languages other than English).
How on earth do you begin to teach a language if you can't have a super-structure?
I shall blog on this later.....

Calling prison home

Number 3 came home today full of the case study they had done in 'extension'. It was about the Stanford Prison Experiment. Those who like me are involved in minor acadmeic research will be intrugued what you could get away with in the name of psychology in 1971.
S was fascinated by an academic experiment which had gone both horribly wrong, and intriguingly also exposed some very important truths.
I didn't really know very much about it; some volunteers are invited to play prisons. Half being the prisoners and half being the guards. It is a fascinating study of how we seem to intuitively know what to do when we imprison people...it's worth spending ten minutes to buzz through the slides. But pretty frightening really. (here)
What is of great interest to me is how my little girl is growing up!
I remember when K first started to tell jokes what a sign that was of intellectual growth, now the baby is critiquing the ethics of psychology experiments.
It's good isn't it?

The widening gap

One story today about the widening gap between the brighest and the dimmest students, and/or the richest and the poorest schools (here), should come as a surprise to no one.
There would seem to be little doubt that the general gist of this is true.There is a certain sadness about the fact that a country that has had, in the recent past, a well-functioning public-sector school system is allowing it to go to rack and ruin.
The article cited here states that state governments whilst needing to be committed to the state systems nevertheless sometimes prefer the private system.There are many and complex reasons for this.
I well remember (for example) M, the founder of a relatively new SA school (now schools), saying of the need for Governments to continue funding private schools..They could not afford to stop funding them. This would seem to be true. And as more and more parents have fled the state system, the need to continue funding private schools has become even greater.
I have no particular problem with this. Other than the rather serious one that, no matter what, some parents will never be able to afford to pay for their children's education , no matter how cheap.
And as long as there continues to be a skimming off of high quality teachers to the private system, either by higher pay or just be better conditions; the state system will continue to be run down and down.
By way of a side issue (but relating to the skimming) , long term teaching colleague-D- who recently retired from over 30 years in the state system to a smaller job in a Lutheran School.
He sighed as we were talking, because his commitment to the State system is profound, you know it is just nice to have a level of enthusiasm and respect from the students, with politeness.
There was a sense in which he felt he shouldn't be saying that. But we both knew it was true.
Bit sad really

Mind your feet

As I reflect on the idea of faith footprint (it proves a little harder than I thought), I am thinking a bit about the footprints I, and we, made last week. Some of it seems Ok, some of it seems indifferent, and some of it seems well just wrong.
I felt OK, but sad by my visit with my declining friend. I tried to cheer him up by helping him to connect with the outside world...sometimes he would try, but other times he wouldn't
I enjoyed talking with someone who is thinking about what it means to be a priest, and another who is having some real difficulty on the ministry front. I had a fruitful time talking to someone who will be ordained quite soon about some of the contemporary issues of ministry.
I tried to pray and meditate with some quality each day.
I prepared a couple of sermons, and various entries for my weblog, and my preaching site.
I said the Eucharist three times
I had a couple of snappy exchanges
S & I went to the pictures to see Knocked Up
I drove up and down to school umpteen times
I read a whole lot of material on Jung
I visited my sister
I went to a 2 year olds birthday party
I baptised two children
I had more than a few moments when I felt depressed

What all this means and what sort of picture it begins to paint. I continue to reflect on

Making homework work

At the end of my first year of being a teacher I had so many unmarked piece s of paper to return to students that it was impossible to make any sense of it. I learnt an important lesson, homework is not just work for the student, it is work for the teacher. Since becoming a parent I have learnt also that it is work for the parent. [At one stage at a previous school, I think when our eldest was in year 5 or 6, they were given a project {projects are another story too} and there really was a competition between parents to see whose would be the best...I felt vaguely embarrassed as I had refused to do K's project, other parents were less bashful..but to what avail]
And so the debate rages on, what is the point of homework?
An interesting summary of a recent article in The Age goes like this:

HOME STUDY - THE GREAT DIVIDE
The academic
There is no conclusive evidence that homework leads to higher academic results, or that encouraging children to study at a young age leads to good study habits in later years, says Jacinta Cashen (left), who has just completed research on homework at RMIT University.
Parents groups
Tasmania: "If homework is not beneficial, I don't think we should be having it," says the president of Tasmanian State School Parents and Friends, Jenny Branch.
Victoria: Supports homework so long as each school has a policy, developed with parents, teachers and students, says executive director of Parents Victoria, Gail McHardy.
The US author
Reasons given for homework, such as higher academic achievement, are not substantiated by research, says Alfie Kohn, author of the new book The Homework Myth.
The principal
Homework develops attributes such as self-discipline, planning and the ability to work independently, says Shelford Anglican Girls' Grammar principal Pam Chessell.
The classroom teacher
Homework is quiet, contemplative time that is great for reviewing work away from a class full of other noisy students, says Camberwell High School year level co-ordinator Richard Geddes.
The psychologist
Homework instils a sense of resilience and responsibility, says Evelyn Field.
The student
Homework can be tough, but is mostly fun, says Rachel (right), in year 6 at Toorak Primary School.

I well remember, too, a colleague of mine (both poarents trained and practicisng teachers) complaining to their uppper-bracket State primary school teacher that their Year 3 kids(7-8) were getting too much homework. The reply of the teacher? "I agree with you, but for every one of you who complains there is too much, there are 10 who say there is not enough!"

This about says it all, teachers by and large don't believe in homework they rather bow to public pressure!
The only argument that seems to have any force for me is that it may encourage individuals to work independently, though I am inclined to believe that it is probably better to encourage them to have a hobby, or a sport, or music which is largely self-directed than to impose something that seems like exactly what they have been doing at school.

The major factor against is the sheer weight of stuff that a 13 year old has to do. S is both musical and interested in science and technology. She likes sport and is a real team player.
School starts at 8.30-8.45 and finishes at 3.40. So she already has a 7 hour commitment in formal time.
This is before you count the fact that she catches the bus...on a normal day she does this at 8 a.m. and gets home at 4.30 so add another hour. So that's 40 hours just to get there and back each week.
BUT remember I said she likes music...so 3 days a week she has choir which means she starts school at 7.45...so add another 3 hours. She has a cello lesson during school (45 mins) and Bell Practice (45 mins)...so she give up 90 mins of her free time. And she only manages orchestra by alternating one of her choir rehearsals. This kid is no slouch.
AND YET MORE... she would go to Science Club (45 mins before school) but now it clashes with a choir and orchestra.
AND SHE DOES GO ... to IT Club for 90 mins after school on the worst day of the week (yes it's Thursday when she should go to Orchestra/Choir and can't go to Science Club) so she has stared at 7.54 and finished at 5.15.

REMINDER! REMINDER! REMINDER! She is 13!

Thank goodness that we don't have cows to milk at home!

This week she is having an easy time as she is on camp on KI. This only meant being at school at 6 a.m....she will not be back till Friday at 3.30 p.m.

And they want to give them homework!!!