The Times online education blog, the School Gate, has recently mentioned my blog as one of the 7 best teacher blogs. I was really chuffed when I read this, and thought I’d share my chuffedness (if it isn’t a word then it should be) with you. I did also make me feel a little guilty, as my updates have been rather sporadic recently. I should be better from now on, as my lectures have provided me with food for thought, and I’m going into school for the first time later this week.
Just in case anyone’s interested, I’ve recently updated my pages on the right – I’ve added more links to the existing pages and created a couple of new ones. I will be updating this regularly, as it is a useful place to store links that I need access to. I hope you find them as a helpful as I do.
It’s a big part of every teacher’s practice, there are so many books around on the topic, some spouting on the theories underpinning behaviour management, and some, more useful, giving practical tips. For assignment purposes, and for my own interest, I’ve been reading Bill Rogers, Sue Cowley and Herbert Grossman. I also plan to read Lee Canter. The general consensus is based on having clear rules, a hierarchy of sanctions and less sanctions than rewards. There are a variety of techniques, such as using proximity, learning the power of names and using tactical praising. Use of praise is a very common idea – ‘catch them being good’ and praise them for it, praise the students behaving well, especially if they are sitting near students not on task, and give plenty of specific praise for desired behaviours.
I’m a bit cynical, however. I think I generally agree with Canter (even though I haven’t read it yet) – who argues that the rewards culture (a reward or praise for all positive behaviour) is damaging for children and that they should learn to be self reliant. Of course I agree with praise, everyone likes praise, but you have to be sparing with it. It seems to me that by rewarding pupils with praise for demonstrating expected behaviour it devalues the reward for when it is genuinely deserved and makes them overly reliant on external reinforcement, when they should be learning to regulate their own behaviour.
I’ve got more reading to do, and I need to test out my ideas in school – I’ll keep you updated.
Well, I should be working on my primary school report, but I’m not. I’m writing this post. I’m aware, and sorry, that I’ve been neglecting my blog, and my readers (if I still have any after such unforgivably interrupted posting) but I do have an excuse – limited internet connection. I don’t have any internet at home and for some reason my laptop refuses to connect to my university wireless – even the computer geeks in IT services couldn’t fix it. Anyway, no excuse. I promise to be better (yes, I know, you’ve heard that before).
Well, university has well and truly begun. I’m getting back in the swing of lectures and seminars as if I’ve never been away. I’m reading this, and this, chapters from this and this and getting myself familiar with this. In preparation for my first assignment I need to think about reading this and this and in order to improve my language competence I’ll be making a start on this and this. There’s no way you can say that I’m not working hard!
I’ve also been assigned my first teaching placement, and I was intrigued to see that I’ve been placed in an all boys grammar school. A grammar school is excellent news for me, as a new teacher it’ll be nice to be eased in with relatively able students and I’ll get a chance to teach post sixteen. These boys aren’t allowed to do the A level in Modern Foreign Languages unless they have a B at GCSE, so this should make for lovely classes. However, boys and languages…. It should be interesting.
I thought I’d share with you some of my thoughts about my week at primary school. Although I’m there mainly to observe, I’ve been involved in some of the teaching, such as working with small groups, helping with problems and questions, and even telling off the class for misbehaving in the teacher’s absence.
As part of my assignment for this course I’ve been asked to write a reflective journal, and the main thing that I’ve realised through the writing of this journal is that I DEFINITELY couldn’t teach primary school. The Year 6 classes are nice enough, but then they’re a well behaved group who will soon be year 7s. Today with younger children I really realised that small children often can’t sit still, are always telling tales (please miss, so and so is doing it wrong) and take loads of time and fuss to do anything! I know that teenagers may well not be any better, but at least I can then say “year 8 I’m very disappointed, with behaviour like that I’d think you were still in year 3!”. I also know I’d find it frustrating teaching children to say ‘bonjour’ and ‘mon frère’ over and over again.
What I did find satisfying though, was kneeling next a child at their table and explaining a maths problem to them and watching them grasp it. That is lovely, but I can get that in secondary. What I won’t get is the happy little children who are sad when they hear I’ll be going somewhere else the next day. Teenagers do not ‘like’ their teachers, are not happy to see them, don’t wave at them in the halls and don’t sit with their fingers on their lips when asked to.
What I am learning are some very effective behaviour management techniques, including stopping the class to repeat instructions, giving lots of praise and rewards and being consistent in following the school’s sanction policy. I can also see the benefits of not being too friendly. As soon as the children stopped seeing me as a lady in the back of the class (they thought I was from the local secondary school) and started seeing me as ‘Miss’ they were much better at doing what I told them to. I believe that this is a very important thing to grasp and that it’s important to grasp it early on. I’m sure some of the teachers who read this blog could have told me this, but nothing beats learning it for yourself.
Small people are quite nice really. A day with a lovely 6th year class has restored my faith in the youth of tomorrow. These kids were so good, I could hardly believe it.
I’ve witnessed some excellent teaching today, and I was pleasantly surprised with the sophistication of some of the concepts they were taught – such as narrative structures, grammar, design and technology and a pretty sophisticated French grammar, such as the difference between ‘en’ and ‘au’ before a country. This is a pretty fine distinction. The problem here is that the teacher not only had gaps in his knowledge, he didn’t really speak french. I think if they really want primary schools to cover MFL properly it would be a good plan to get some subject experts in to teach it.
As I write this I’m sat at my parents dining room table preparing to do my first round of observations, a week in a primary school. I’m actually going to my own former primary, and I don’t know if that makes the nerves better or worse.
My first day at University was interesting and tiring, lots of lectures, much of it centred around the report I’ll be writing at the end of this placement, but it made me feel comfortable. At uni I know what to do, how to behave. I know what’s expected of me and I know how to succeed. Small people, on the other hand, are another matter entirely!
I’ll check in with you later today.
Tomorrow I begin. Registration and inductions, tour of campus and meetings with Unions. After that is a trip home and my primary school observation. I must admit, I love my new place so much I am extremely reluctant to leave it and go back to my parents’ house. I’ve only just got here and it is just so great!
My feelings are the same as they usually are the night before a new year at university, or a new job. Nervous and excited all at the same time. I have the usual panics, mainly that I won’t find the lecture theatre in time, that I’ll get lost, that the train will run late…. It’s all based on not getting there on time. This is one reason why I’ll be such a good teacher, I have a terror of being late – terminally early in fact!
