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| A More Informed Vision |
I was recently asked
what lessons I had learnt over the years – as a result this blog - A More Informed Vision
For over five decades
I have had the privilege of working with primary teachers as an adviser both in
science and art, as a teacher, a school principal and as an independent
educational adviser until 2011. Since the 1970s I have expressed what I called A More Informed Vision (MIV) – a vision combining the best of
primary student centred ‘learning how to learn’ approach with the more
traditional secondary school values of
effort, perseverance and depth of content – a best of both world approach
avoiding the counterproductive either/or argument.
Early influences
In my first decade I was inspired by the
writings of pioneer creative teacher
ElwynRichardson, local teachers who
were developing similar integrated curriculums, the work of
art advisers who were led by their
director
Gordon Tovey, and the
developmental language experience teaching of junior school . During this time teachers moved away from fragmented subject teaching to integrating learning areas around themes, topics, or studies
. Behind such developments was the leadership of Dr Beeby the then director of Education. My last influence were the
child centred English primary schools
which I taught in in 1969. This decade was an exciting time to be a teacher.
During the 1970/80s, as an adviser, I worked with a group of local Taranaki teachers
to implement them
– in particular Bill Guild, John Cunningham and Robin Clegg, all now well retired, but the ideas they helped develop live
on.
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| Elwyn Richardson |
teachers
Now it seems to me
the insights gained through such experience is all but lost as school
programmes are more determined by those
distant from the reality of the classroom – in particular the imposition of
National Standards which are causing an
inevitable narrowing of the curriculum and the spread of formulaic teaching (
so called ‘best practices’). League tables and performance appraisals, if the
government is returned, are on the horizon. Then all will be lost.
A belief all
can learn
The teachers I worked
with all believed, given the right environment, relevant tasks (to the
learner), sensitive help and time, every student can learn. Every student can
be, as it states in the all but side-lined 2007 New Zealand Curriculum, their
own ‘seekers, uses and creators of their own knowledge’.
It is as simple and
as hard as that.
Unfortunately far too
many students lose their innate (default) mode of learning as they move through
the school system. It is not that are not learning they are learning the
wrong things, gaining power through disruption and counterproductive behaviour.
Worse still many students enter schooling unable to take advantage of
opportunities due to difficult home circumstances. By secondary schooling far
too many
students have all but given up and for such students school is an
incredible waste of time.
Importance of relationships.
The key to progress
is the importance of the establishment of respectful relationship between
learner and teacher/mentor/adviser. A long retired local educational
adviser, Howard Wilson (one of my ‘gifted’
mentors) used to say ‘teaching is not so difficult; all you need is thirty plus
kids, good relationships and to do worthwhile things.’ Others talk of
redefining the ‘3Rs’ as relevance, relationship and rigor.
If all students are
held to the highest personal standard and given the appropriate help to achieve
their personal best all can achieve quality results – when this is
achieved, even with learners who have never experienced success then behaviour
problems dissipate in the process. To ensure all students experience such
success became important to all teachers I worked with.
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| Developing talernts |
What I believe doesn’t
work is sorting, grouping, streaming and grading students all of which, it seems,
is on the rise due to National Standards.
Instead of standardising learning, in the process creating ‘winners and
losers’
what is required is a
personalising of the learning process so as to build on and extend the gifts
and passions of all students.
I have learnt that it
is possible to develop positive learning habits in all students but only if
teachers change their minds about teaching first. Recent writing by Art Costa (‘Habits of Mind’) and Guy Claxton (‘powerful learning’)
provide teachers with ideas to develop such life-long learning dispositions. A
recent book ‘Mindsets’ written by Carol
Dweck is a must – her research shows that if students think their ability
is ‘fixed’ (born ‘smart’ or ‘dumb’) then their learning is limited but if they
see their ability as able to ‘grow’ through effort, or as other writers have written
‘grit’, then their learning ability is unlimited. Understanding the effects of
such mind-sets has real educational power.
The most important realisation
we all gained was the centrality of inquiry studies to provide the energy to
integrate many aspects of the curriculum.
True inquiry studies/projects/challenges need to be open ended enoughto allow the personal interests of students to be encouraged or taken advantageof. Today there is a lot written about inquiry/project based learning but
the vital thing is for students to, as the
2007New Zealand Curriculum states, to be ‘seekers, users and creators of their
own knowledge’.
Teachers in this process
have a vital role to: provide
resources, to value students’ prior
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| A sidelined curriulum |
ideas, to point students in the right
direction, to ensure all the appropriate skills are in place and most of all to
challenge students understanding.
For the teachers I
worked with the morning language (literacy) and mathematics (numeracy) blocks
provide the opportunity to introduce such skills as required. Important
research for us all in the 80s was the Waikato University School of Education’s
Learning In Science Approach (LISP).
Essentially this required teachers
placing
their students in an engaging or provocative situations to
gain their questions (and from these their
prior ideas/understandings) and then to help them
experiment/research to gain the best answers they can
concluding with an
exhibition, display or assembly/parent presentation This approach is often called
guided discovery or constructivist
learning - really
co-constructivist
learning with students and teachers learning together. Such an ‘emergent’
approach makes current pre-planning of knowledge to be gained problematic.
Teachers I worked
with, even they stuck to ability grouping, did their best to integrate language
and mathematical learning in realistic situations.
My advice to teachers today is to ‘reframe’ their literacy and numeracy
programmes to contribute skills and knowledge to the current inquiry study (ies).
Obviously not all language/mathematical
tasks directly contribute to the afternoon studies – many will be stand-alone
inquiry studies in their own right.
Although in my own teaching I refused to use ability
grouping I did use grouping with students working in four
rotating collaborative groups in language and maths times with one
day to finish tasks
. The inquiry programme we also arranged in
collaborative groups. Studies usually lasted three to five weeks with the
first week introducing tasks through shared experiences, the second ( and often
a third) defined group work, and during the final week students worked independently
to complete tasks. As with the language/mathematics block teachers worked with
identified groups or individuals (to challenge their thinking and to provide
personalised help) while other groups worked independently.
To ensure such
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| Jerrome Bruner |
independence all tasks were
defined on the white board/blackboard. Defined tasks were a mix of
individual assignments and group tasks. By Term three students had enough skill
and responsibly to complete work of quality.
Such teachers put into practice the words of Jerome Bruner that
teaching is ‘the canny art of intellectual temptation’. Teachers, where
possible, introduced all studies (including maths and language studies) by
means of ‘tempting’ displays. The learning environments developed were a subtle
mix of a workshop, an art studio/ museum and a science laboratory with the room
environment reflecting well displayed quality work.
The need to do
fewer things well.
A key idea we all
held was to do ‘fewer things well’ – to ‘uncover rather than cover’.
Through involvement in rich generative content, as well as producing quality
work (by students being taught to ‘seek, use and create their own knowledge’)
students also acquired learning how to learn skills; we all believed product
and process were equally important. Over the year teachers ensured students
were introduced to content drawn from, or integrating strands, from across the
learning areas. A particular emphasis
was the exploration of the immediate man-made and natural environment.
A vital appreciation
we all had was the need for every student, particularly those who had had
little experience of success, to complete work of personal quality. We felt the need to celebrate the
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| Creativity - edge of Chaos |
smallest
success for learners recovering from previous poor experiences at home and at
school. Such teachers understood educationalists Jerome Bruner’s simple advice,
‘people get good at what they get good at’. This required providing those in need with
appropriate feedback and ‘scaffolding’.
Such
personalised assistance we saw as the artistry of a teacher – the ability to
provide help but to still leave the agency for learning with the learner
resulting in work expressing the diversity of the learners.
Slowing the
pace of work.
Developing such a
creative learning environment takes time. One important phrase we all used was ‘to slow the pace of work’. Too
many students arrive in our classes thinking that ‘first finished is best’ and
spoil many good starts by rushing their work.
Teachers I have
worked with have developed a range of ways to slow the pace of their students and
in the process gaining the time to help students in need.
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| Observation age 10 |
The use of a range of
art
processes in one way to slow the pace of work so as to develop a sense of
quality and pride through creative achievement – it takes time to develop an
idea to a realisation. Pace of work was
equally slowed through a process to develop a
quality piece of writing. Learning to value personal experience was a
valuable activity – student
personal
experience books, and their
study
books, were excellent ways to demonstrate growth of quality writing and
presentation from February to December. Another means to slow the pace was
observational drawing – an activity
that contributes to art as well as science studies. So many students we found
see but don’t look. Such
observational
and associated sensory awareness also contributes to the development of language
as well as providing time for questions and ideas to emerge.
As work of quality develops
the teachers celebrate students’ achievements, processes, and finished work, by
carefully arranged displays. Such
displays featured provocative headings, key questions, and often, prior as well
as researched ideas. A visit to rooms following such an approach shows the
importance the teachers give to their students’ ideas.
The artistry
of the teacher
What I have observed
in all the creative teachers I have worked with over the decades is that they are
always in motion, working with students, singly, in small groups; briefly
addressing the class as a whole, inviting , explaining, explaining, gently
correcting, and sincerely affirming. As Elwyn Richardson has written ‘I learnt
as much from my students as they learnt from me’.
Learning
from the students
The ideas above
reflect the teachers’ artistry but creative teachers also learn as much from
the behaviours of their students as from each other. A few students come to my
mind all now in their forties!
Roger, Phillip and
Grant were active boys with poor ability in literacy and numeracy but all
have done well in life by tapping their innate skills
. For these students, school, particularly secondary school was more
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| Phillip's lino cut |
endured than appreciated. From my own experience such boys, with a history
of non-learning, needed at least eighteen months to recover their confidence
indicating the importance of ‘family grouping’. At least they escaped the
demeaning labelling of National Standards will suffer under in the future.
Grants mother recently told me he still remembers the piece of writing I helped
him with about killing pigs.
At the other extreme was
Charlotte, who never applied herself to spelling, times tables or bothered
with neat writing (much to the displeasure of her accountant father), but was a
wonderful poet, dancer and empathetic to others needs. Now wife
of a New Zealand Ambassador she is a well-recognised artist. She recently wrote
to me to say her art career was motivated by my teaching and that now her dad
is proud of her achievements!
A couple of boys,
Geoff and Roger, traveled overseas. On their return their parents said
jokingly they were sick of my name – at every experience the boys told their parents
‘Mr Hammonds would like this!’ We all influence our students in ways we can’t
imagine as we all often discover at school reunions.
One young lady Tracey
entered my crowded class of 38 at midterm. I was too busy with our current
class study to pay much attention to her. I sat her with a powerful group of
high achieving girls -
Jane, Sharon and
Jan. After three weeks the principal informed me Tracey’s parents were
visiting to talk about her reading progress. After a short panic, and my first
ever running record, I worked out she was reading about
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| From observation to imagination |
her chronological age –
the other girls were several years ahead of their age. Before I could explain
to Tracey’s parents they told me how pleased they were with my reading
programme (almost non-existent) and that Tracey now really enjoyed school. I
was somewhat confused but later discovered the other girls, who liked Tracey,
realised she was well behind them in reading and, while in the library, picked
out books for her that they had read years before and helped her progress !
There is a lesson in this story? The
best teachers are often other students. Tracey, now a teacher, said she knew I
didn’t have the programme her parents imagined I had when I visited her school!
I had to agree.
A couple of very
bright girls Jane and Megan (who would score highly on National Standards!)
were coasting and I had to tell their parents they ought to be working harder.
The parents were somewhat confused but, with time, appreciated that I was
right.
Classrooms
as learning communities
The best classrooms
are true learning communities of scientist and artists, something we all learnt
from Elwyn Richardson all those years ago. All students have different
passions, gifts, needs or
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| Room environments |
talents to tap into. And all involved can learn off
each other.
Cultures count for
better or worse. We have moved from
cultures of collegiality and sharing to one where schools are being encouraged
to compete with each other – a trend that will be amplified by school
comparisons based on narrow achievement data.
The past creative
cultures are now at risk in the current standardised conservative
surveillance culture teachers have to comply to.
There are some that
are predicting we are entering a new age of creativity – a second renaissance this time on the back of
modern information technology rather than the invention of the printing press.
It would be a shame if our education system, through political interference, is facing
the wrong century.
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There seems to be a worry about the language deficiency that
many young enter school with – the technocratic solution is to test students
and then assist students achieve accordingly – this often involves imposing
phonic lessons on underachieving children. If are interested in where we might be taken by John Hattie visit this link.
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