It was a three-day residential conference during which some 60 headteachers were exploring the significance of new research into learning to find ways to improve classroom practice.  By the end of the second day some people were obviously flagging, and their attention was wandering.  Rather than pressing them too hard late in the afternoon, I gave them two pieces of reading to do overnight in preparation for what would happen the following day.  The pieces were not long – one was four sides, the other five.  The following morning it was obvious that significant numbers of them had not done the reading, but rather had enjoyed the social experience of communal living.  So I delayed the start of the conference and suggested that I would provide everybody with a 20-minute reading period to catch up on the material we needed to work on for that day.  To my amazement six of the headteachers left the room.  When they came back 20 minutes later they gave me a short note.  “Reading is not our preferred learning style, that is why we did not do what you suggested last night.”

I was dumbfounded.  Western society depends not simply on people who can read, but upon people who know how to deal with what they read, and turn it into ideas which help make further sense of other things.  In recent attempts (all highly laudable) to make school more attractive to those youngsters who come from homes in which the concentration needed in the classroom is not practiced in their informal lives, teacher-trainers have emphasised to would-be-teachers the need to understand different forms of learning – some people learn visually, others verbally; many do better when they are working in teams, while others are at their best when curled up in a corner with a book.  So teachers have been encouraged to fill their lessons with a variety of activities so that pupils will move on to the next task before getting bored.

But for people holding responsibilities within schools to use this research to suggest that, because reading is not their preferred learning style, they just don’t have to do anything about it is just obviously absurd.  Successful writers from Dickens through to J.K. Rowling have always had to discipline themselves so that, on bad days, they force their pens to draft and redraft before they can recover the sense of flow of their good days.  Good teachers intuitively understand this.  By and large good teachers don’t bore their pupils, but that is because they are people of deep understanding.  Unless teachers learn to be such proponents of deep understanding then they will inevitably end up boring their pupils.

I had hoped that that experience was only a blip, and that few teachers thought like that.  But I was dismayed only a few weeks ago to meet a man whose main job is to act as mentor to newly qualified teachers.  He also organises conferences for some local authorities.  We fell into conversation and he was interested in what I was doing.  I suggested that he should take a copy of the book.  He smiled and said he would oblige me by buying a copy of the book, but the chances of ever having the time to read it was almost negligible.  “After all,” he said, “I’m not really a reader.  And because of that I don’t find time to do it.”

When I remonstrated with him that only by knowing what we are talking about would we know how to change and improve the system his response was stark.  “But I never realised why we do need to change the system,” he said.  “We just need to get people to be more efficient and work harder.”

See Action 6 of the Briefing Paper

Related posts:

1. Suggested Reading List 2: Evolving Ideas about Learning
2. Suggested Reading List 1: The Biological Roots of Learning
3. Suggested Reading List 3: The New Economy’s Impact on Learning

William Hogarth’s set of four satirical cartoons, Canvassing for Votes, published in 1758, showed prospective parliamentary candidates pouring beer down the throats of their constituents in the expectation of buying their votes.  We smile tolerantly at such stupidity, and reassure ourselves that nothing so stupid could happen nowadays, thanks to the rules that apparently govern parliamentary elections and electioneering expenses.

But we are not that clever, nor are we above making false promises.  Regrettably we are no more honest, it seems, than in Hogarth’s time as was shown earlier this year in the Cash for Honours scandal, and more recently in the abuse of parliamentary expenses.  Every generation needs a Hogarth to show up the shallowness of political sound bytes as we prepare for the final sprint to the 2010 Election.  Elections are won or lost by a party’s ability to capture the floating voter.

Consider education.  Do the politicians need the votes of the teachers or the parents?  It is simple if you do the sums.  There are probably 20 times as many parents (an average of say 1.25 parents to every child) as there are teachers/teacher assistants/administrators and other support staff.  It is all too obvious.  To say something that appeals to parents which might reduce their level of anxiety and lighten their consciences, would win many votes, but to remind parents about their responsibility to prepare their children for school, and then to consistently back up the agreed and stated policies of that school, would make a massive impact on who gets the teacher’s vote… but it would probably have relatively little impact on the parents.  At the time of a general election to be critical of teachers wins votes: to suggest that schools should take on ever more of what earlier had been the responsibility of parents, wins still more votes.

At the State Opening of Parliament on the 18th November the Queen declared “Legislation will be brought forward to introduce guarantees for pupils and parents to raise educational standards.”  The proposed Bill claims to provide guarantees for parents and pupils, and will set out what they can expect from a twenty-first century school system.  It is said that families will be made more aware of what they are entitled to expect from the schools.  A new school report card will be introduced.  But, of course, there is very little about what school teachers have the right to expect from parents.  There are few votes in that.

And that is the problem.  Twenty-first century politicians are no better than their eighteenth century predecessors in failing to recognise that what the country needs of its elected leaders is leadership.  Leadership requires moral courage to do the right thing in the long-run, and does not fall for the offer of a free drink.

See Actions 3, 4 and 9 of the Briefing Paper and
Chapters Eight and Nine of Overschooled but Undereducated

No related posts.

The Labour Party it seems is to go into the Election with a proposal that schools will in future be organised into Federations with a single Superhead responsible for six or more schools, with only a Deputy Head left on site.  The Conservatives, mindful of their often stated explanation for failing schools as being stifling local authority bureaucracy are proposing to create five thousand Swedish-style, parent-run, Primary Academies.  Both Parties seemed confused as to how schools should actually be run, and what is the role of the headteacher.

A good Head makes an extraordinary difference to the quality of a school because they draw around them staff who, united behind a common vision, give of their best.  I was fortunate to have been appointed Head in 1974 of a comprehensive school in Hertfordshire, a well-run authority that had enthusiastically built many new primary schools following the 1944 Act.  Twenty years later Hertfordshire (a Conservative Authority) had embraced comprehensive reorganisation. Reorganisation had preceded relatively smoothly because the Authority saw its key role as supporting the constructive autonomy of every Head to do what each knew was in the best interest of their children in their community.

On the day I was appointed I was told, in no uncertain terms, that “Your job is to be the best teacher in the school.  Your teachers have to admire you for your classroom skills.  Administration has to take second place.”  For its part the Authority shouldered the lions’ share of the administrative load, so enabling me to run a school of some nine hundred boys with only two secretaries and a part-time bursar.  And to teach a one-third timetable.  It was an immensely satisfying job.  It depended upon my trusting County Hall to do their bit of the bargain, and give me the support of specialised staff when I needed them.  I did comfortably what I had to do, and still had the time and opportunity to see the forthcoming implications of the new technologies so that, in 1979, we opened what was to become England’s first ever fully computerised classroom with a terminal for every child.

Other Heads didn’t see the job in such terms, and progressively lobbied County Hall to delegate more of the administration to themselves.  They enjoyed that administration, but it reduced their teaching load.  When in 1983 a new Education Minister, Keith Joseph, made a speech about cutting the fat from the educational bone, I suggested that we should band together and write to tell him how wrong he was.  Few of my colleagues accepted that this was part of their job, and were fearful that this would upset the County Officials.  However, believing that it was my responsibility to speak up for the needs of children and teachers, I wrote personally to the Minister, and copied the letter to The Times.  Three days later I had a phone call from his office: “Sir Keith is interested in your views and would like to visit you at your school next Friday.  I hope that is convenient to you.  We already checked that out with your Chief Education Officer who is agreeable.”

That was more than a quarter of a century ago.  The enthusiasm of my colleagues to be seen as effective managers has turned into a Faustian bargain; every year Heads now receive from the Department documents equivalent to all the words in the King James’ Bible, for which they are now held personally accountable.  In the process they have lost their professional responsibility to be leaders.  Leaders and managers are fundamentally different; managers, it is said, do things right, but leaders do the right things.  The Labour Party see Superheads as being managers, but unless the Conservatives balance their enthusiasm for primary Academies with a reinvention of central support facilities, the Heads of these Academies will become so immersed in administration that they will lack the professional zeal to stand up and lead their schools in the right direction.

See Part Nine and Action 6 of the Briefing Paper

Related posts:

1. Paul Fisher, Teacher
2. Martin Pritchard, Educational Consultant, former Secondary School Assistant Head
3. Article written by Kevin Hawkins, Head of the Arusha campus of the Moshe International School, Tanzania