Tag Archives: education

The #1 Reason To Use Tech In ELT

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Number One** Not your ordinary, endless list – just what’s number 1.

                              Differentiation

I have thought about this long and hard. I’m not a big proponent of using “tech for tech’s sake” or just because it is there and students like it. I sympathize with the argument that we should use technology because it is such a ubiquitous part of our life/living (or that of our student’s). However, I still think we need a reason, a rationale for its use.

In general, technology is valuable for what it does to the continuum of space and time. Technology allows us to access knowledge like never before – the library doors are wide open and so many can enter. There is no bottleneck and no 9 to 5 access. So I did consider the #1 reason to use tech as being “time on task” or “connectivity”. Students have more access to language, the distinctions between ESL and EFL are blurring, they can have more contact with language through online immersive experiences and contacts. Still, I’m voting for differentiation when it comes to “teaching”, when it comes to the typical language classroom.

Technology allows students to encounter language in control. It provides levels and support so the language learner won’t be bewildered and overwhelmed. Think of our typical language classrooms and be honest – 70 – 80% of students are usually tuning out after the first 5 minutes because there second language brain just gets too hot and they can’t cope. Technology makes the chaos of authentic language manageable and can provide students with material at their own level and pace. This is, if it is used correctly and in a self directed fashion not just as a one size fits all thing on a screen. Here’s a wonderful example of a school in South Carolina.

No matter how good your placement test, you are going to have so many students with such different levels and knowledge in your language classroom. It is impossible to cope, to find a common space. Technology solves this problem and gives learners the tools to learn what they want, at the right time and moment. This is why I’m working hard and so excited about the video corpus and suite of tech tools for language learning we are creating on EnglishCentral. Learners can acquire language in a safe, controlled environment. They can practice and repeat, review, rewind, rerecord, redo, respeak until they feel ready to speak and test themselves in the town square that is life.

Differentiation – so important in language learning for language is a type of knowledge that is so personal and so close to us.

Low Impact Teaching

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Over the last 5 to 10 years, I’ve been developing new ideas about how we should be teaching in our classrooms.   These ideas have changed as the possibilities and promises of educational technology have become reality.

The most fundamental of these ideas are always revolving around learning and the student. The possibility to differentiate and deliver personlized study to students is the most important possibility before us teachers. Technology allows us to tailor curriculum, materials, delivery to and for each student. It allows us to correct the most horrid feature of schooling – that everyone learns the same thing, at the same time, at the same rate.

Here are three approaches that I espouse and have worked to develop.

SCC, student created content    Students create the content that will be the basis of their language learning. We start from the students’ world and understandings and build on that. A teacher elicits language from the students, forming a material. This material is the basis for further language activities and practice. The teacher is the facilitator and organizes the language practice and learning of students – there is no direct instruction.

The Flipped Classroom for ELT    Students can learn and practice the structures, vocabulary and content of our language classrooms through mediated self directed learning. Either in a computer lab or BYOD class at school or as homework.  No longer do classes need a teacher in the front, leading the whole group.   Classroom time is taken up with actual production and the teacher having direct time with the students assessing, getting feedback, engaging.  The teacher no longer has to spend time (usually wasted), teaching infront of the class a language point or eliciting language for a group on a topic probably only 2 or 3 students are interested in.

Low Impact Teaching     I’ve long had a big interest in the work of Sugata Mitra and especially his concept of MIT – Minimally Invasive Teaching.  Now, he’s developed it along the principles of allowing learners maximum autonomy in the class and to allow for “self organizing learning environments” (SOLE).  I go a little further and more broad with my concept of low impact teaching (and I highly recommend Kevin Gidden’s DNT – Do Nothing Teaching approach).

Low impact classrooms are classrooms where a teacher is not the dominant focus, the central power and puppeteer. EFL has always been for better or worse, led by a teaching model where the native speaker was the primary source of authentic language/input.  Nowadays this shouldn’t be so and needn’t be so. Students in most parts of the world have access, immediate access to all kinds of spoken English, even at an appropriate level.   So now, the role of the teacher shouldn’t be one that dominates and talks but one that organizes and disappears.  The best teachers are invisible, just like the best use of technology is.

Low impact teaching is about organizing the environment in which the students will learn and then, as I’ve referred to Sugata Mitra’s approach – “going away”.  It is about driving back into the learning environment organic, intrinsic student motivation, curiosity and independent learning.  And that is the end goal of all education, helping to create a learner that will learn when we are not there, when nobody else is looking …… Low Impact Teaching is “I’m going away now” teaching – where the teacher doesn’t tell the student the answer but teaches slow and allows the learner to learn for themselves. It is about putting students back in control. Low impact  teaching but high impact learning.

It’s so energizing to be involved in education at this moment of time. Beyond opportunity, we teachers must realize there is a heavy responsibility on our shoulders to not let things get hijacked and to push for change, be disruptive and enact approaches like Low Impact Teaching or the Flipped model in our classrooms.  Once we’ve changed the existing cultural paradigm of teaching, I’m sure we can then take school out of the walls it inhabits and into the wide open world where it will best flourish and nurture students.

 

What is your metaphor?

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Metaphors are powerful things for teachers.  They are the very building blocks of thought and allow us to see what isn’t there, to connect on a higher level to hidden realities.   Cynthia Ozick in her timeless essay, “Metaphor and Memory”  talks of metaphor as

“inhabiting language in its most concrete. As the shocking extension of the unknown into our most intimate, most feeling, most private selves, metaphor is the enemy of abstraction. “

Think of how powerful this famous metaphor of Shakespeare allows us to understand what life and the world we live in, is.

“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players.”

Metaphors can help teachers see who they are and where they are going, they are a driving force in our professional development. In my own teaching, I’ve borrowed an idea from Finney Cherian, asking my teachers to bring in an object that they believe represents themselves as a teacher. They explain to classmates how the object represents themselves as a teacher. I’ve had students bring in baseball gloves, Q-tips, medals and even toilet paper!  What’s crucial is that this becomes a metaphor around which they can clearly see themselves as a teacher. It helps them begin their life as a teacher on solid ground.  The object I chose was a chalkbrush.  It represents what I feel is the ephemeral, ever changing nature of teaching. Also, that we can begin each day with a clean slate, ever hopeful. We don’t accumulate but are in the act, we teach in the here and now.

What is your metaphor? 

 


As I mentioned, metaphors are the building blocks of thought, as argued by George Lakoff. He outlines how our thought and conceptual systems would break down without the concrete stickiness of metaphor. They link the real and the ideal. They are what makes us human, so human. His “Metaphors we live by” is a great read.  Metaphors have been the basis of all great inventions and breakthroughs in knowledge. With the proper metaphor, things become clear and what was hidden, revealed.  Think of Einstein imagining a man running through a telegraph wire and keeping up with the message. Think of Farnsworth plowing a field back and forth and imagining how an image could be scanned as a series of lines for transmission, the basis of electronic broadcasting and TV.  Think back further of Archimedes and his Eureka! in the bathtub as the water rose (and arriving at a way to measure the mass of an intricate object).  Think of  Faraday and his vision of lines of force which led to the invention of the electric motor.  Lastly (but we could go on forever concerning great advances and thought) Kekule who gave us the greatest discovery of organic chemistry ( that organic compounds are not open structures but chains or “rings”) after seeing a snake bite its tail.

Metaphors allow us to link “like to like”, to make x=y, to give a name of one thing to another. It is magical and like some kind of thought full homeopathic cure, we can build from two “likes”, a healthy, new, greater idea.

I think linguistics, education, learning how we learn language, needs a metaphor. A metaphor that will allow us teachers to understand how language takes birth and grows in a person.  Chomsky comes closest with his use of “growth” and that language isn’t built but is organic and grows like a plant. But we need more metaphors in language and about learning – metaphors to help us understand what we do and guide us teachers.

Michael McCarthy uses the geographical metaphor of “confluence” to suggest how two speakers engage in conversation and negotiate meaning (confluency). A wonderful way to understand this complex process, by analogy to two rivers meeting and mingling.

We might also ask how we could use metaphors in our own teaching, how they might allow students to conceptualize language and understand that which  is foreign. Metaphors are the means by which we organize information and we might ask how a knowledge of semiotics and metonymy might inform teachers and help learners in their study of English.  Imagine a course of English study where language was not just thematic but properly metaphorical?

I’d like to have more metaphors about teaching, about learning, about language acquisition …… do you have any to share? 

Here is a nice article detailing various metaphors about school/schooling

 

Reformation not reform

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Last week I watched the “Reinvent Learning” roundtable with Howard Reingold. As I walked and ran on my treadmill (got in a good 14 k), I listened to the pronouncements of all the experts about what is happening or should happen in education right now. Lots of food for thought but two things really got me questioning this leadership and that despite their great ideas – they don’t quite “get it” and live in a little bit of a plastic bubble.

1. Communication. I was struck by their “lingo”. Now, I’m well versed in it but even I had a hard time following each person’s plethora of terms and labels. If you can’t communicate in a simple fashion, what should be done and why – it doesn’t stand a chance of ever getting done. We have to get rid of all this “educationalese” before any substantial reform will happen in the constituency that counts – students, parents, the common man. We as educators have to speak simply, commuicate the essential of what education really is and its importance.

2. Power. There seemed to be a pink elephant in the room that nobody wanted to talk about – namely “who has the right to tell anyone what they need and must learn?” The point was touched on ever briefly but I feel it is central to what is happening in the present learning revolution. Also, who has the right to tell a person, even a child, they must go to school?

We need a real reformation in education, not just reform. Having read my Erasmus, the reformation was all about challenging the powers that be, decentralizing and making it about the people and not pronouncements and power.  The reformation had a profound effect and a reformation in education could have the same. It could take the power to certify, to graduate, to say “who passes Go” out of the hands of the academic watch towers and into the hands of the community and the people actually teaching and learning.  It would give value to learning and not just “doing time”. This to me IS the issue and focus of change these days. Everything revolves around it.  Technologies allow access to knowledge/learning for pennies to all – how we handle this, just like the Reformation eliminating intermediaries between man and god, is what we’ll be judged by. Not whether we are  for or against digital learning etc ….

We need to begin making our schooling our education (to paraphrase and reference Twain’s famous quote). That process begins today with all of us tearing down the walls, the authority, the ivory towers that stand between the student and learning.

The #1 issue facing teachers around the world ….

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Number One** Not your ordinary, endless list – just what’s number 1.

                              The Freedom To Teach

I haven’t done much with the #1 lists of late however I’m restarting my engine and will be updating the ebook and this post is a good blast off.

I truly believe that what education anywhere needs is more freedom for its teachers, more independence.  Much has been said about Finland and why it is so successful at educating its citizens.  My own conclusion, PISA results or no PISA results is that the success of Finland is directly related to how much freedom and control its teachers have in the classroom.  Teachers in Finland are given the freedom to teach (read more at Pasi Sahlberg’s portal site).  They can put their own selves into each classroom lesson, change and adapt lesson material based on students’ needs. They don’t “teach by numbers” or by flipping pages or turning to exercise 4, page 26.  We need edupreneurs in the most strict sense of that word. We need to trust our teachers as professionals (as Diane Ravitch points out in this must read) , we need to liberate the curriculum from the bondage it is now under, we need to give our teachers the freedom to teach as they best see fit in their classrooms.

My own travels, witnessing different teaching cultures and teacher training has led me to this conclusion.  I can even frame it as a “law” – call it David’s law.  The greater the freedom of teachers in an educational system, the higher the corresponding achievement by students as measured through long term results (not short term standardized scores). 

Too often, we see talented teachers frustrated by the inability to practice their own trade. They are tied up, imprisoned by requirements to cover x material in y fashion. Frustrated by having to teach z when they know students are only ready for y.  Teachers are stressed as the human factor is sucked out of their daily teaching day.

I find it incredulous that the greatest freedom in most educational institutions is given our early childhood educators AND that they are paid the least.  All teachers should have the freedom to teach and part of that freedom is a commitment by society that they will be free of financial duress and paid appropriately.

Hand in hand with the “Freedom To Teach” is the notion that teachers should be well trained and supported in their professional development. All freedom requires a matching responsibility.  Both teachers and administrations need to commit to being well trained and progressive (in the wide sense of that word).  Better paid AND better educated teachers are needed in our schools so that the freedom we promote is realized.

Now you are probably saying to yourself, “What exactly is this – freedom to teach?”  Well, here is my short list defining the conditions required for the blossoming of this most precious right. Call it a mini manifesto and I hope its flag blows across the world and becomes a standard oath, a wind blowing us away from the monstrous restrictions most teachers presently face when teaching.

The Freedom To Teach

1.  Teachers should be free to enact the curriculum as they see best.  Teaching shouldn’t be about following but about leading, leading students.

2.  Teachers should be allowed to take detours and personalize instruction. Teaching should not be an objective and distant, abstract activity.

3.  Teachers should be able to teach from their own set of teaching beliefs and with their own teaching style.  Teaching should not be a one way delivery system.

4.  Teachers should be free to set their own teaching day and vary it as they see fit.  If they need to spend a whole week on a novel, they should be able to. If they need to skip music so students can finish math, so be it. The teaching day shouldn’t be set in stone – no longer should the Minister of Education be able to look at his/her clock and know what a grade 4 class in Lyon is studying.

5.  Teachers should be judged by how well they get students involved and engaged, by the thought and feeling that is happening in their classrooms. Teaching shouldn’t be about short term scores or outcomes nor should any teacher be judged by a number alone.

6.  Teachers should be able to use any and all materials that will help their students learn. Teachers shouldn’t need approval to use x book or talk about subject y. Teachers should be treated as professionals that understand students and are sensitive to students’ and the wider societal needs.

7.  Teachers should be free from financial stress and paid at a rate that is appropriate for their highest importance in the society. Teachers shouldn’t be at the mercy of  needing to stay in a job because they can’t pay the bills any other way. Teaching should be a free choice and not one based on financial necessity.

This is just my short list. I’m sure you can think of many more parts to this “Freedom To Teach”.   We also might flip this and together look at it from the students’ side – The Freedom To Learn.  Students don’t have this freedom and so many, too many, spend days of boredom, trapped between walls.  Just as teachers need the freedom to teach, we need to give our students’ a voice and the freedom to learn.

 

It’s About Relationships

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I’ve been spending a wonderful Christmas with family and friends in Canada over the holidays.  Lots of activity, birthdays along with parties and the regular Christmas meetings and greetings.  It got me really thinking about life and especially the glue that keeps all life together – relationships.

In our teaching we get so zoned in, too consumed and absorbed by the particular.  I mean, we are overwhelmed by minutiae and in a way “the devil is in the details”. Marks, assignments, rules, methods, readings, certification, textbooks, attendance, discipline, theory, materials, homework, paperwork mask and distract us from  the core of what teaching is all about – relationships.   The people we meet, the students we help, the colleagues we learn from and are inspired by ….

I won’t belabor the point. Just want to wish all my teaching friends – online or off, having met through my few words I offer now and then or having met flesh and bone – just want to wish everyone a very Merry Holiday and send along the message of how important relationships are.  Treasure them, they are the glue that holds everything together and makes everything we do “work”. Teach with an open heart that lets others in and the learning will happen.

Holiday Greetings and peace and goodwill to all.

David

You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.  ~Frederick Buechner

Opening up our schools

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The one thing I have always wished about school – that it was a marketplace of ideas/learning where all in the community could come and go as they please. A doors open, windows blowing fresh air through policy.

This is far from how it works. Going to school is mandatory for students, a criminal sentence. Many or most parents have to book an appointment to go to their child’s classroom. Invite guests into your classroom? Be prepared for reams of paperwork and forms to be approved. Grandparents in the classroom? Forget it – what if they had a heart attach, god forbid we have children learn that people die!

I’m not joking. We need to do everything in our power to get our schools to be OPEN. To use the resources, especially the human resources of our communities. Teaching is not just the domain of the teacher – this is where we have to begin.  The biggest factor dragging down our student achievement is the system itself, how it is set up. Ira Socol writes eloquently about this, “System Effect”.

Sugata Mitra for English language teaching has his “granny cloud” – grandmothers in the UK teaching Indian students via skype. And here’s an innovative practice in the states – “Foster Grandparents”. The elderly going to classrooms, rolling up their sleeves and helping out. Wonderful! Now let’s get working on the other stuff to make our classrooms a marketplace of learning and ideas…. there are a lot of customers out there.

If you liked this post, you may enjoy - Student Learning and Trust.

Student Learning and Trust

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 One thing that I’ve concluded after a few decades in school systems is they operate with a profound distrust of students. Distrust that left on their own students would want to learn something, even choose to learn.

It’s true.  Even the most well intentioned teachers I speak with have a belief that children need to be cajoled, pushed, prodded and controlled – all so they will do the work and learn something.

This pessimism pervades our profession.  I say it without disrespecting the profession and the hard work that is done, day in and day out by teachers who “are there”.  Doing more than most in our society to help the future.  But a truth is a truth and it is what it is.

Children are the only segment of our population confined against their will. We call it “compulsory education”. I believe the problem begins there, caging our children and making school into a punishment rather than a place you want to go to.

It is sad and based on my own experience I reject this belief, a belief that rests too much within the domain of “power”.  You see, if you give the powerless any sort of power, of course, in the short term, they’ll run with it . Students will loaf and be at ease, do little and cruise.  But give it time, trust them and show you trust them – they’ll show you what they are made of.   It’s true and I’ve seen it.

What we lack in our educational system is patience.  We are so, so, reactive. Myopic.  And trust is not a short term relationship but something that like faith, lasts and endures. We need to trust students and let them do of their own and follow the path of self-direction. If we don’t, we create widgets, we create citizens who can’t think for themselves, who just follow the leaders ….. and we know where that end – blind obedience.

Do you trust your students? REALLY trust them?  I hope so……     I hope we start to give students the freedom to be their own method rather than have them follow our own. Learning is always a path trodden by just one.

I’ll end with a fav. song….. about luv but also about teaching (which is but luv in another dress)

Thinking About Schools: some resources

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illychI’ve been teaching a course to pre-service B.Ed. students – Schools and Education.   I basically have a lot of room to “do my thing” and really just get students to challenge their set values, beliefs and preconceptions about what is school and what is an “education”.  I can rant and rave but more often challenge them with questions that they find their own answer to.

I thought it would be useful to share some of the links I recommend to students through the blackboard we use (admittedly many are Canadian since that is where I teach). So here you go. Lots of great pickings to get your own brain, your own juices thinking differently about school and education. And we must, we must never become entrenched and cornered into a set idea, a set paradigm. Education itself is always moving, always changing. We need teachers who realize this and act with this in mind. Never stay still, keep moving ……..

General Reading

Freire – The Future of School http://www.papert.org/articles/freire/freirePart1.html

Freire – 4th Letter / Letter to my teacher. Qualities

http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/legacy/research/freire/pk.html?cms_page=freire/pk.html

Summerhill, O’Neill, Forward by Eric Fromm.

Teaching As A Subversive Activity, Postman and Weingarten.

After Deschooling, Ivan Illich

James Baldwin – A talk to teachers. Race. http://richgibson.com/talktoteachers.htm

Law: Myers vs Peel board of ed. Negligence. http://scc.lexum.org/en/1981/1981scr2-21/1981scr2-21.html

Brown, A., Legal handbook for educators, 6th ed. (Toronto: Carswell, 2009)

Watkinson, Education, Students rights and the charter. Chpt 5.

Negotiating power in the classroom: Briskin http://pi.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/cws/article/viewFile/8766/7943

http://www.ucalgary.ca/dtoolkit/bibliography

The Unbearable Lightness of Being a Teacher: Selected Writings.

http://www.youblisher.com/p/118604-The-unbearable-lightness-of-being-a-teacher/

 

Links/blogs/online references

Advice for teachers L.Ferlazzo list - http://t.co/PGHlRjv

Mike Rose graduation speech -  http://bit.ly/nXvFZ0

How to prevent another da vinci - http://wanderingink.wordpress.com/2007/05/23/how-to-prevent-another-leonardo-da-vinci/

Kyle. My education poem - http://community.eflclassroom.com/video/my-education

Cosby Speech - http://community.eflclassroom.com/video/bill-cosbys-life-lesson

Teacher Talk Best posts: http://ddeubel.edublogs.org/2011/08/29/bests-posts-2010-2011

Ira Socol: http://speedchange.blogspot.com

Uninspired Teacher - http://uninspiredteacher.blogspot.com

Stephen Dowes http://www.downes.ca/

Joe Bower http://www.joebower.org/

Clay Burrell - http://beyond-school.org/

Larry Ferlazzo – Best advice to new teachers. http://bit.ly/pFo2Jj

CEA - http://www.cea-ace.ca/blog

David Wees - http://davidwees.com

David Warlich – 2 cents worth - http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/

George Couros – Princples of change - http://georgecouros.ca/blog/

Chris Wejr - http://mrwejr.edublogs.org

 

Social Networking

Can Educators on LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=4052478&trk=anet_ug_grppro

Canadian Educators on Twitter - http://twitter.com/#!/davidwees/canadian-educator/members

Unplugged Cnd Educators - http://www.unplugd.ca/index.html

Podcasts:

The purpose of education: CBC roundtable.

http://www.cbc.ca/informationmorningns/2011/04/the-purpose-of-education.html

John Taylor Gatto – Letter to my granddaughter. Unschooling.

http://huffduffer.com/eflclassroom/33588

What makes a great teacher? How to know?

http://ddeubel.edublogs.org/files/2010/11/What-makes-a-great-teacher-13p3zjh.mp3

 

Videos:

Ken Robinson: Your Element http://vimeo.com/9842035

Benjamin Zander: Ted. http://www.ted.com/talks/benjamin_zander_on_music_and_passion.html

Viktor Frankl http://community.eflclassroom.com/video/mans-search-for-meaning

Krashen: Poverty and education http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLcootlU9lc

Hall Dennis revisited. http://bit.ly/phfYNS

TVO roundtable-one size fits all? http://bit.ly/oCK5pz

Yourvoice – Is school essential to your child’s learning? http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/tvoparents/index.cfm?page_id=483&event_id=1485

Your Voice – The Classroom Mirror. Do schools reflect reality/diversity?    http://bit.ly/npLimf

Africentric Schools? - http://community.eflclassroom.com/profiles/blogs/africentric-culturecentric

Finne Cherian: Best University lecturer Ontario – Reflections on Schooling. Unbinding baby elephants

http://www.tvo.org/TVOsites/WebObjects/TvoMicrosite.woa?video11429 – reflections

http://www.tvo.org/TVOsites/WebObjects/TvoMicrosite.woa?video11066 – lecture

TVO : What makes a great teacher. Roundtable.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXaLGt460e4
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If you liked this post, you may like – Self Directed Learning Part 1

Commencement. Commencing What?

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Tomorrow my students are graduating with their B.Ed. There will be the usual big ceremony, the speeches, the dinner and so on and so on….. Each year over and over like a giant gristmill.

I’m happy with my students. So happy. Also very proud of this bunch of new teachers, they kept their idealism and passion all year and no doubt will bring this energy into teaching, into education. I’m so happy they are graduating. However, I’m not going to be there.

More and more, coming to the realization (for me) that graduation isn’t celebrating the right things. Rather, it is celebrating completions rather than beginnings. Or rather beginnings rather than continuings. It is all about “getting them out the door”. Schools and higher education especially, have become depersonalizing exercises and experiences. Big business. I’m generalizing of course, I know there are programs out there that keep more community after graduation than just sending an alumni donation request and a reunion appeal. I know there are schools out there who are more about fostering lifelong learning than making the time students spend there into a competitive 100m dash. I know. However, it’s summer and again I’m discontent, so I’m not going.

A few commencement addresses this season (yeah, it is a season, kind of like sports, a lifting of the cup and then it is a whole new go around) have tried to be honest about what school is. Michael Lewis stirred things up by bluntly telling graduates they were “lucky” and there (at Princeton) because of luck, not merit. David McCullough looked graduates straight in the eye and told them “you’re not special”. Hard realism and though it has good shock value, it is not the message I would give. I’ll let you guess what I’d do (if you’ve read this far) but it would be similar to the exhortation of my fav. graduation speech by Bill Cosby.

I’m not making much sense and now talking to myself, about why I’m not going to commencement. Usually the truest things are those you are least able to describe…….


Find more videos like this on EFL CLASSROOM 2.0
If you liked this post, you might enjoy – Teaching is …

The #1 ….. factor effecting teacher performance

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Number One** Not your ordinary, endless list – just what’s number 1.

 
  $$ Teacher Salary and Benefits $$

The Gates Foundation is pouring money into “better educational outcomes”. Lots of money. But little of it is going into the pockets of working teachers. In fact, most of it is going into designing tests, creating standardized curriculum and what I call, “fudging”, designing a system that will give improvement by the book but hides an underlying lack of learning and preparation for the future. The Gates foundation preports to know what makes a “great teacher” and thus can judge teachers, fire the bad ones and make the whole system better. Their constant refrain is that the most important factor in improving student outcome is the teacher. Very true. However, you aren’t going to do it without paying teachers well. That’s the bottom line.

The only direct factor across the board that makes an educational system strong is the support of teachers through respectable salaries, job security, benefits. The ONLY thing that works. It is the prerequisite to any reform of the system. All the nations that truly have great results according to PISA are all paying their teachers VERY well, giving them job security and benefits to rival higher income earners in their own country. As the saying goes, you have to “put your money where your mouth is”. That there is no talk of dramatically increasing teacher salaries – really speaks to how hollow their good intentions are.

You don’t need piles of fancy curriculum and glossy textbooks or blinking technology to get great student results. You also don’t need fancy buildings and an Ivy league look. Nor draconian school environments which control students behavior through brainwashing regiments of school discipline and “school pride”. You don’t need fervent testing and longer hours of study. None of this. What you do need is to pay teachers well and make them happy in their job. Attract the best – you’ll get great outcomes. It’s that simple and any other fix for education is just snake oil.

Some background. I’m a capitalist at heart. I love the fact that money created “common ground” and value where none existed before. Money, along with the wheel and the printing press (widespread literacy) is a human invention without equal. But we so often tend to think other things are causing problems and it isn’t “money” – we get sidetracked.

I began teaching as a steelworker. I “fell” into teaching, literally. Spent weeks in the hospital and woke up to become a teacher. Lots of accidents in the steel erecting industry and a lot of people trying to fix it and make it safer. But these fixes won’t work until steelworkers are paid a living, a good wage. Then safety will come and good outcomes. The metaphor works for teaching too. I watched this Frontline program last night and the metaphor hit me. In this documentary, they explore why hundreds of workers are dying while building towers so our cellphones work. Governments have been trying to do many things to stop these deaths. But they keep happening. And why? Well, these tower erectors get paid $10 an hour that’s why. No regulations will work until you pay the workers better. You’ll attract a better tower climber, one with experience and who knows how to do the job safely. Companies will have an incentive to keep the employee too. You’ll have better outcomes, less deaths – its the same with teaching. I urge you to watch the program and see how the metaphor works for teaching too.

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If you enjoyed this post, you might enjoy – The Freedom To Teach

The #1 ….. thing a teacher needs to succeed.

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Number One** Not your ordinary, endless list – just what’s number 1.

                          The Freedom To Teach

There is one thing I always wish for the teachers I’ve trained and taught and shown the door into the big wide world of teaching – the freedom to not follow a script, to not teach to something but for something, the room to explore, to take the road less traveled. I know that I benefited from this kind of environment in my early years, in the newly minted uncommunist Czech Republic, I know it will work for all teachers, for all students at any place and  time. Too often though, more often the case, teachers are shackled by textbooks, programs, tests, standard curriculum and set agendas/schedules. Why can’t we have a field instead of a factory?

If I wish for anything this Teacher Appreciation week – it is for us to trust teachers and give them the freedom to teach.

You see, teaching is an art and it depends upon the freedom granted a teacher. If there is no freedom on the part of a teacher, there is no trust in the teacher. And without trust, the social contract is nil – there is no investment by any part other than to pass/fail. Learning is left in the ditch, real inquiry is but a distraction. Without trust in a teacher, we suck the life out of teaching.

A lot has been written recently about Finland and why they have such success in education. It isn’t rocket science though. It isn’t a matter of masters degrees or small class sizes. It is all about freedom, the freedom to teach that Finnish teachers have. The trust their society gives them and has in them.

I came across this quote from a blog recently, it asks the right questions we should be asking ourselves about teaching;

How many teachers have the legal and moral authority to determine the materials their students read, watch, listen to or produce? How many take the initiative to design “curricula” based on broad but common goals? How many see change as the only constant and take calculated risks for the benefit of their charges? – Another dot in the blogsphere

She was writing about Finland and how teachers there are asked to be creative, to teach from their heart not just their head. The most achievement in the least number of hours. They are edupreneurs with the freedom to teach, with the freedom to fail. It’s that failing that counts. Here’s an nice video overview.

This freedom is the number one thing we can grant teachers, if we care about our children’s education. Our trust will pay off. Alas, especially in TESOL, there is so little of this. Seems the higher up the food chain a teacher marches, the less freedom a teacher has. Isn’t that strange? But thank god for those younger teachers given freedom, a classroom, a closed door and all that potential and possibility! Ah, I wish I could have that again ….. maybe that’s why I love doing things online, this sense of freedom and potential – things in my own hands, the teachers own hands.

Let’s hope we as a society have the guts to give teachers the space and time to be. To be edupreneurs and to speak from their hearts that beat the same sound, the same rhythm of what the future ought to be.

To end – a fav song – It’s A Matter Of Trust, Billy Joel. This goes out to all the teachers out there, struggling towards freedom on Teacher Appreciation week.

Teachers Talking About Teaching

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I just finished up my school year, sending off a new group of teachers into the possibility that is teaching / education.

This year in my course, my students did some reflective journal writing using my book Zen And The Act Of Teaching.  I spent many happy afternoons reading their amazing entries about their lives in the trenches (while watching sports – got to be honest!).  I was truly inspired and proud of these groups of young teachers- each bringing to the profession,  their own kind of reflectiveness, sincerity and thoughtfulness.

I asked some teachers to share their reflections and share with other teachers their writings. To my surprise, many stepped out and we’re willing to share.  So here it is – a slim volume of their reflective writings on many topics contained in the book.  I hope you enjoy dipping into this now and then.  My BIG thanks to all my former students!

Download and read the Zen Reflective Journal PDF ebook. Also get a POD hard copy, see below.

The #1 …… article about teacher development

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Number One** Not your ordinary, endless list – just what’s number 1.

                          The Making Of An Expert

 

I’ve been involved in teacher training and professional development for a long time. A lot of the time, I’m trying to keep up the good fight against so many preconceived notions about what makes a better teacher. Right now, we are having an energetic conversation HERE about the issue of whether certification/degrees make a better teacher. Despite my own career, I’m convinced that certification actually hurts teachers and detrains them – especially language teachers. There is nothing but a lot of perpetuated misinformation about what makes good teaching.

I am not going to outline them all here but rather want to point those interested to a stellar article that I’ve often returned to and digested for thought – What Makes An Expert. Though not directly related to teaching, it focuses on what makes someone rise to the top of their profession/interest. So many valuable lessons for teachers all revolving around the notion that “teachers are made, not born” (another big myth we have out there). Please read at your leisure and comments welcomed.

To end, here is my own list of the myths that exist about – “A Better Teacher”. I’ll refrain from commenting on them and leave this for another post.

1. Teachers are of a certain character type/personality.
2. Professional development always is beneficial and teachers never “get worse”.
3. There is a relationship between increased subject knowledge and increased teaching effectiveness.
4. Teacher pay has no bearing on how effective they will teach.
5. Teaching is an academic subject and there is a set body of knowledge all teachers should know.
6. What a teacher thinks about their student’s abilities does not influence their teaching or educational outcomes.
7. A degree represents a better teacher than one without, all other things equal.

If you liked this post, you’ll be interested in this one: The #1 teaching factor effecting student success.

 

To The Unknown Teacher

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These few meager, to the bone words, go out to all the teachers who are “unacknowledged”, under the radar in their magnificence.

I’m sure we can all name many of them. They support us, encourage us. They don’t make a big splash, aren’t particularly memorable but they “get the job done” – the job being to nurture the diamond in all students, to polish it, to make it believe in itself and make it shine.

I just came back from a hospital visit to a former “unknown teacher”, Mr. Worth. I’ve written about him previously in the post, “In praise of praise“. Mr. Worth, just understatedly went about doing his miracles. He wasn’t ever in the limelight. He never sought it. Instead, he was about the students, helping, going that extra mile and was a teacher 24/7, 8 days a week.

It wasn’t easy seeing him on his last legs, frail, fighting cancer and near death (but still transcending this monster). We always think of “our” teachers as strong, confident, in control. Yet life/death has its way with us all – even great teachers, teachers who are “unknown” and keep the lights on and hope alive.

Mr. Worth, Doug, my thoughts are with you and your family. You’ve done what only most teachers could ever dream – you’ve touched eternity in a thousand ways and made this world a much better place than if you hadn’t been.

EFL 2.0 Gems – Our Podcast Library

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I’m a major “junk” collector and when I first started using Huffduffer, just couldn’t resist collecting all the best education/teaching related podcasts on the web. And I think I’ve achieved that, bar none.

You’ll enjoy searching with handy tags and you’ll be sure to find some “gems”. My favorite podcast has to be this one Aldous Huxley – On Language – but I’m sure you’ll have your own.

Follow the whole “gems” series HERE. If you like podcasts, you might also enjoy our Linguistics series on EFL Classroom 2.0.

It’s Not A Box – Synectics

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My university recently hosted the ICE (Imagination / Creativity / Education) Conference. Instead of giving a presentation and being all concerned with that – decided to join many of my student teachers and enjoy a day of attending the workshops and gathering ideas. So glad I did!

The highlight for me was an Art workshop: Exploring Your Creative Process Through Reflection, Dialogue and Art Making. Basically, we explored the concept of Synectics. We used the book, “Not A Box” (see video below) as “a trigger” to get us risk taking and creating. Something language teachers can do too. I k!now Ken Robinson has made creativity a bigger issue in education (video) but are we doing enough? This lesson really engenders and promotes creativity!

Basically, after reading the book together, we were put into groups and each group given a box. Each group had a box that was of differing sizes, some huge, some tiny. Then, we were asked to say, “This is not a box but this is a …….”. Then, redesign our creation and talk about what principles of Synectics we used while creating.

Synectics is a way of promoting creativity in any kind of class, not just art. Take a look at this wordle and think about how you could use these principles of Synectic design, to “redesign” your own lesson, activity, curriculum into something more creative and “thoughful”.

My group's creation

Not a box. It's a fridge!

Not like the others is a game I made that does the same. Also, this activity is much the same. Basically, we ask our students to think “outside the box”. Try it – you’ll really have a fun, engaging lesson!

Find more videos like this on EFL CLASSROOM 2.0

Guess the Educational Thinker

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I recently created for teachers and professional development, a directory of videos and readings on “Educational Thinkers”. It’s interesting to think of these “crazy ones” and get inspired by their own enthusiasm and dedication. Let’s celebrate them, as this famous video does. Take a look below while you are here and “Can you guess these educational thinkers”?


Philosophy of Education at the Movies

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Click to take the quiz about your own philosophy of education

I’ve written lots about philosophies of education. How important they are to develop and sustain.  A lot of what is “stress” in today’s teaching world, derives from teachers working in settings that conflict with their own underlying philosophy of education – often, the teacher not really even knowing that this conflict exists!

I’m teaching philosophy of education with my students and one thing I had them do was to watch some film clips and try and match the “stylized Hollywood teacher” with a particular teaching philosophy. A great activity and I offer a simplified version here, to challenge you.

There are many labels and “types” of educational philosophies. Here are 5 main ones.

The challenge is – view the film clips below and match them to the philosophy of education. The films clips are from: Dead Poet’s Society | Stand and Deliver | Dangerous Minds | School of Rock | The Emperor’s Club . Match them to the correct philosophy of education: Perennialism | Essentialism | Progressivism | Existentialism | Social Reconstructivism

Put your answers as a comment and I’ll be awarding a free copy of my Teach | Learn techbook to all who get it right… Good luck! (click on the thumbnail of the movie to view)