openminds planb

so andy is doing the official open minds

which we may consider to be planA

which will probably go ahead

we are just playing

however important it is

the vitality of this opportunity

let's consider it a game

after all

if we don't do it lightly

what's the point?

essential elements:

key points for teachers

presentation ideas

encouraging teachers to play

to at least imagine an ideal

and the overcoming critical mind objections

teacher presentation:

1

a little about me and my experience

a little about system thinking and the positive cycle around self-discipline

2

enough objections in people's minds will probably have arisen

and are invited to write these down on red cards...

3

talk about standard implementation:

top-down and by tried and tested systems

and how they fail generally

since they are not context-specific

so

we approach it completely different

if we believe the real learning is child-centred

then so

the real system change comes from within each teacher

and the idea of what it was, is and the ideal

the trick is

to give enough space for the mind to consider an alternative

without getting dragged down by current conditions

that is

invite teachers to let go of realism

to recall their idealism when they were starting off

imagining potential

imagining a dream

the more realistic the better of course

for those who wish to give the exercise a certain edge of...

realism

invite teachers to consider these for a few minutes

some bullet points

then share with partner

then as a group

hear some

share some of ours

again

if negative mind comes into play

just make a note on the red cards

4

so

i deal with these red cards now

live

as it were

5

introduce the gordian solution

classroom co-ordinators

6

introduce the next step

which is to go away and let things mull over

and consider if people are open enough to allow this thing to grow

there is no point thinking beyond the next step

apart from having a general trajectory:

time-table for introducing it this next september

putting together a funding scheme

those interested defining a clearer job spec

probably getting ok from board of governors

does this sound ok...?

phew

well

friday was more interesting

for some reason my energy was pretty high

and i conducted classes with uncharacteristic aplomb

out of the six people i have talked to who responded positively

four turned up

which is nice

with an additional two...

also

there were three students who were teacherless

and so i introduced them to my ideas too

they found it pretty interesting

with one girl engaging with discussion

and this guy listening attentively

and since i allowed them to stay when the adults turned up

he said he thought it was unusual

to hear adults talk that way...

i couldn't get any more words out of him

after all

how could you describe a real mind-buzz when you are only 15/16

we talked about radical ideas

changing education

in fact

society as a whole...

about social dynamics

awareness and how it changes from child- to adult-hood

very interesting

yup

that's what i remember about supply

being able to introduce interesting topics with people

whatever their age...

god i miss it!

and then at the end of the day

i ended up having a bizarre conversation with darren

the boss

who seemed surprised when i said i did not have many strategies to deal with disobedient kids

things like

threaten to phone their parents

that kind of thing...

how could i control classes then

over the last ten years of my teaching

especially doing supply?

and i told him

i seldom if ever relied on invoking authority

it was all about catching minds

drawing attention to things that were interesting

waking them up...

i admit it

i am terrible at discipline systems

terrible!

i have never been good at implementing them

and though i looked forward to this new one

i think it has proven what i first thought:

it is not so much the system

but how it is implemented

there is something about my manner and being

that make its implementation

unfeasible

i gotta laugh

i am just terrible at it

perhaps my mood has also been influenced by listening to russel brand

comedian with his radio 2 podcast

and i laughed out loud

crazy antic

crazy and yet fast...

a hurlyburly of linguistic flight-of-fancy

and it reminded me a little

of the kind of thing mike and i did

though of course not quite so manic...

hmm...

i wonder if this will carry into classes...?

i have wanted to several times

but it has never managed to get into the classroom

it also means

that i have to maintain that energy level every lesson

for months....

and it is a lot easier just being the walking dead

and conserving energy for...

for playing computer games...?

hehehe

defcon is an addictive game

oooh

and armagetron is now on the school server

so we'll see if any of the kids might be interested in forming teams...

the bad and the good...

hmmm

well

for the first time in my career

i got shot down by a parent...

i remember mc telling me how she dreaded some parent-teacher evenings

and i never understood why

and when she told me

i couldn't really sympathise...

well...

now i can...

a parent just laid into me

she had every right

since i have been sending her daughter off to detention regularly

i was slightly surprised

again

i should probably prepare for such events

but by doing so

one clogs up one's naiviete or innocence of clarity

and i listened attentively

i made the stupid mistake of allowing her to continue without stopping her

and in fact

i directed some attention to her daughter

who broke down

a harrowing experience

and now the parent thinks i am some kind of monster

and the daughter is being pulled out of my class without my say

and the bizarre thing is

even before term

we were fine together

at least

she seemed happy to produce some christmas decorations...

my impression is

if things start going pear-shaped

they go pear-shaped fast

my hit rate in schools was about 80-90%

and by hit rate

i mean we had superb classes

with only 5% being disasters

with little neutral ground

i have got a little older

more stable

and so the intensity of my presence is not as strong

and so i should settle for more mediocre results...

anyhoo

the good thing is

i had an excellent chat with anita who is a teacher assistant last week

and she really resonates with the classroom co-ordinator

and a brief word with david

oh a good conversation with julie who is the head's pa

(or have i mentioned that already?)

and with judith who is head of special educational needs

in fact

that conversation brought tears to my eyes

since she was kind enough to share her insights and her values wrt social dynamics

honestly

my best experiences seem to be with adults

these days

which is very odd...

had a reasonable engagement with david

who is learning to teach here

and how is the teacher representative at the governors meetings

who happens to be an incredibly well-adjusted person

and gets my vote for being on-the-ground

i believe i could work with this man

he is really good

however

today

i ended up chatting with a few members of staff

and i knew i shouldn't have

since i had a sense they would not resonate with the ideas...

and sure enough

they couldn't see beyond the limitation of the jobs on offer

or they thought it was wasn't in their sphere of influence

or they didn't think they were empowered enough to effect change

and sadly

i don't think i am going to get any support from my department --

if only i could produce the goods in my classes...

only then would i receive the respect needed for them to trust some of my ideas...

rightly

i have no evidence that my ideas and skills and practice actually come together

but

if anything is going to come of this

it will be because of the resonance in others

that is

it shall not be led by me

but rather carried by the insight and belief of everyone involved...

the chances of this growing are very slim

a lot worse than when i was queen anne's

with the kids doing amazing things

staff resonance

and even the head being interested

when it was stopped due to a union-management clash

preventing a restructuring of year 7's and subsequently putting an end to our run of enthusiasm...

bottom-up growth is very difficult...

it didn't work when all the people were positive...

will it work if there isn't much evidence in my classes

and indeed there isn't much resonance in the school...?

we will see who turns up at the informal meetings on friday...

the responsibility as to what happens next

will fall squarely on them

hehehehehe

be well

all

and thanks for reading my posts...

love

d

coming to terms with...

not being a teacher...

it is becoming clearer

only three days in and i am getting left right and centre with my failures:

a parent has written in complaining about homework, or the lack of it

i got talked down to by a colleague because i couldn't remember some simple things

the entire staff were confronted with real paper sorting task, and i had to chase this up

and the only thing i vaguely looked forward to was group work

and i left the school after two hours with half-prepared ideas

it's not good

in fact

it is pants...

i am daily confronted with my lack of skills...

inability to find things

to remember where things are

and certain organisational blindness...

i have managed to survive

no

enjoy and do well

in schools

for up to 6 months at a time

for a few reasons:

concentrating on the kids engagement

making boring work interesting through our engagement

drawing attention to the skills and contributions of students

and calibrating myself for months in order to be as present as possible

the balance was fine

when doing supply

but with all the admin i have to do

and all the invisible memory games

i am finding it ludicrously difficult

it is like a whole set of skills i don't have

need to be of a reasonably high standard...

and if i wanted to be a superlative maths teacher

i suppose i would put in the effort to be one

but i am not the age of sean

or at the beginning of a career like steve

and so

i lack the resolve to push through the work needed...

i have suggested to the team

alternative ways for us to share the workload

to be of service to one another

for our skills to compliment one another

as opposed to

forcing us to have the same skill set...

but it has not taken

probably because i have not been able to produce the goods i am accustomed to...

i had to work so hard at trying to enthuse the year 11's

and their work output was...

pretty poor

compared to what they are capable of...

/me sighs deeply

this troubles me deeply

and i hope this experience does not sully my enjoyment of working with kids

to the extent that i am not able to be a classroom coordinator

even if there is confluence of hds staff...

still

i had a nice resonance from steve

a teachers assistant in the english department

and jenny who is the pa to the head

looks like

i live to engage the adults

oh

had a run in with a truculent year 10 i think it was...

he was in my classroom to do study support

he refused to budge from my seat

i told him to leave the class

and then he ends up being all annoyed

giving yet another indication to darren that i can't sort out simple relationships...

anyhoo

i ended up talking with him for about 7 mins

at first he was not hearing any of it

and after a while

by pointing out how he wasn't listening to anything outside his own reality

how he kept talking about the past

about right and wrong

and soon enough

we started to get on the same wavelength

talking about misunderstandings

about dealing with people with respect

about being present to the people who are in fact in front of us

and he couldnt help but eventually break into a smile

finally

my persistence wrt respect

paid off

and i look forward to seeing him again...

it doesn't change much

since he isn't in any of my classes

and there is probably more bad talk about me than good

is it enough to inspire me...?

nope

it's more like a gasp of air

before another wave hits you...

looks like i am still in the process of being dumped

still

i will continue to work at producing some kind of starter

stick to a test day

work day

and group work day

and see if it settles

and remember to emphasise

praise

laughter

and celebration...

unexpected inspiration...

i was dreading going into work on monday

which is unusual for me

i had had a difficult time with sophia till the early hours

and it brought up the problems i have been facing last term:

too much paper and virtual work

learning new systems and methodologies

and fitting in to the excellent mathematics department practice --

by the time i got my head around that

i had lost most of my classes

first day was ok on the whole

and ok is not really enough for me

otherwise i would be doing this as a job

rather than vocationally

i had just finished welcoming the class and giving instructions

and a student asked if i was ok...

which was heart-warming

another student

unexpectedly

seemed to respond to the respect i paid him

and the year 11's accepted getting back to work well

though a few seemed a little reluctant

i hope they manage to sustain themselves

and i will do my best to inspire them to their best

we have a lot of work ahead for all of us...

i had another blow-out with my year 8's

and though they did extremely well with conducting the mental test

their results ranged from 4/25 to 22/25

and they still break down into chatty groups at every opportunity

the most inspirational thing out of school for the first two days

did not come out of a kid

which is what sustained me through supply work over so many years

nope

it came out of an adult!

after the 24week project last summer

i am starting to think that i would rather work with adults now

i spoke with andy after the whole school meeting

which happened to be about discipline --

and my ideas were again reinforced

when the presentation blatantly pointed out the emphasis on discipline

the defined system that deals with a feedback loop which spirals out of control

eg students feels bad, student behaves badly, teacher feels bad, teacher behaves badly, etc

whereas the positive feedback loop is left for teachers to work out by themselves!

it was so obvious that a positive feedback loop could produce the social dynamics any teacher would kill for!

heheh

anyhoo

andy informed me about what his plans were regarding open mind

and i had the opportunity to talk about my ideas

and it was nice to have such engagement

but what was moving

was when we talked about the last day's assembly and the student's response to him...

i didn't know if it was something which happened regularly

something which he liked and used as part of his personality in the school

but he revealed that he did not appreciate it

and i felt

for a moment at least

that we connected

this gave me courage to present my ideas

since it is all about putting people first

we left it fairly loose

he is going to go ahead with his plan A

the open mind initiative in year 7

and i am going to pursue plan B

which is to introduce classroom coordinators in year 7

both of which use restructuring of timetables

his approach is formal

since he is in a power position after all

whereas

i shall approach people informally

see if anyone is interested in the ideas...

i am not sure who to approach

possibly the learning mentors

dave?

teachers doing cpd

james?

and the learning support people too

steven?

teacher assistants

imogen? no... can't place a name to the face...

staff support

linda or jenny

time will be an issue

for sure

but i hope i can track them down sometime during this week and next

i'd like to approach some open-minded teachers next week

david rob and there must be a lot of others i don't even know

if there is enough positive resonance in my initial contacts

i need to speak to darren to see if he'd support my initiative

since it would have serious repercussions within his department...

i've also started pulling out feelers for potential funding

since the chances are

the prospective post would not be consider a proper teaching position...

only if it starts picking up momentuum need i ask darren if he'd support my initiative

first post

not only first post of the blog

but first post of the new year!

hopefully

i will be writing my education experiences

and my work with the confluence model

or pulse

as we are starting to call it

the year 2008 could be fun

it would be nice to see if any of my projects grow into some form of social existence this year:

tbd, the book might end up in publisher's hands at least

failing the system, the book might get into agents' hands, and who knows from there

the confluence model might get programmed, and we might find it useful

classroom coordinators might be introduced at humphry davy music college september

jaxing might catch the minds of a few bods, for self use and better clarification of the problems facing humanity

on a smaller scale

it would be nice to introduce a funny story or two in classes

paralleling the golden compass, wrt familiars

some time-travelling with madmathmax and farty-bum-splash

the further development of a social body within maths classes

maths jigsaws

useful revision techniques, including the maths tree

what i hope to do

is just write up some experiences

on a daily if not weekly basis...

could be amusing for kids and their parents

as well as for colleagues and interested parties

the themes for this year are:

praise, laughter, celebration :)