New beginnings

It’s hard to believe that it was 3 years ago I moved to Sweden, a completely unplanned future ahead of me, and hard to believe how much has happened in those 3 short years. It feels like forever ago and only yesterday at the same time.

When I moved here I was completely disillusioned with the teaching profession and certainly couldn’t see myself teaching again. On top of that I couldn’t even imagine being able to speak Swedish fluently enough to actually teach a class so they understood me. I was quite content to get a job in a supermarket or restaurant, to do something completely different, but life had other ideas.

2 years ago I started working as a fritidspedagog (think teaching assistant/lunch supervisor/afterschool club leader and you’re on the right track) at Tystberga skola. I helped out in lessons, played with and supervised the children at lunchtime and did activities with them after school had finished. It was hard at first with the language but I soon got quicker and quicker at understanding and speaking. I was planning to continue as a fritidspedagog a while longer but things don’t always go the way you planned and after the Christmas holidays I got 2 days notice that I’d be taking over the year 5-6 class with another colleague since their original teacher wasn’t coming back. I really didn’t have much of a chance to say no (which was probably a good thing!). All I can say is a massive thank you to Susanne, my headteacher, who had more faith in me than I had in myself!

It was a massive learning curve with many challenges, lots of ups and downs and I know the kids found my pronounciation hilarious on more than one occasion but we managed to survive the rest of the year together.

This year I have had my own class of year 4 children and finally found my passion and confidence for teaching again. It hasn’t always been easy, but where’s the fun in that? But it’s been full of challenges which have made me grow as both a teacher and a person. I don’t really believe in fate or god but I do feel like I ended up in Tystberga for a reason. I felt a bit sad when I drove past the sign for Tystberga the other day that I won’t be going back there this year but that’s because new things await.

Tomorrow I start working at a completely newly built school which couldn’t really be more different from Tystberga – size, location, catchment area, layout to name just a few things which are different. And we will be working a lot more flexibly with year groups instead of individual fixed classes within a year group area which has different rooms/areas for different purposes. I can’t wait to get started! I am really looking forward to getting to know new colleagues and new children and all the possibilities and challenges that are coming. Who knows what the next 3 years hold!

http://quotesgram.com/funny-quotes-about-new-beginnings/

 

 

Fair is not equal and equal is not fair!

Every single person on this planet is different. Everyone we meet has a different story behind them and a different future in front of them. I am very lucky that I get to meet lots of little people with a little past behind them and a lot of future before them. And it is my job to try and make sure that every single one of those little people get the best they possibly can so that they can have the best future possible. However, I cannot do this if I treat them all equally. To treat them all equally is to not recognise the myriad of personalities that sit before me, the short but very important variable backgrounds they have behind them, the infinite levels of sensitivity they have for sound/light/touch or the immeasurable differences in what they all know and can do.

Unfortunately we as human beings seem to have a natural propensity for wanting things to be equal and claiming things are ‘not fair!’ if we don’t all get the same. I’d like to argue however that equality is not what we really want at all, because equality by it’s very nature leads to a very large group of people being disadvantaged and discriminated.

 

http://www.hplyrikz.com/

What we really want is fairness so that everyone gets what they need to succeed. That means that the children in my class will be treated differently based on their needs. If one need more support than others in a subject that’s what they get. If they need more support than others with friendship groups that’s what they get. If they work best laying on the floor instead of sitting then so be it. If they need to sit apart from their best friend to get any work done then that’s what they get, even if they’re not particularly happy about it. The important thing here is to explain why so that they understand. That natural propensity is soon calmed with a simple explanation in most cases. Understanding goes a long way. That is how we build tolerance for differences between people. It’s when the explanations are missing that mistrust and suspicion have room to grow. I believe that if we explain why people are treated differently then we will build a more tolerant society than if we teach children that everyone should be treated equally.

A lot of this is written with those children in mind that in one way or another have greater needs, be that behaviourally, emotionally, socially or cognatively. It was in fact a comment I heard the other day that got me thinking about this very subject. I work in a school with quite a large number of children with special needs and the comment went along the lines of that we are too tolerant of behaviours that don’t fit into societal norms and we need to teach the kids how to fit into these norms by treating them as all the other children, in other words children with special needs get away with too much. I really don’t think it is this simple because if they could they would. Treating them equally often puts too many demands on them so that they can’t succeed. Treating them fairly, understanding that they maybe have a different set of rules to follow is treating them and everyone else fairly. I know full well that if I treat all my kids equally then I am likely to invoke a massive meltdown that disturbs the whole class. As much as possible I try to avoid this and sometimes that means different rules for different children. My class are very tolerant because they understand why.

Yes, we need to give children skills to survive the outside world, a world with certain norms which is less tolerant than our little school bubble. But what’s more important is that we create a new generation of people who are more tolerant than the last. One that understands that equal and fair are not synonymous and that an equal world is a vastly unfair one.

Mitt sommar lärande

Jag är inte så bra på att vara långledig så sommarlov är inte min favorit del av skolåret. För att försöka undvika för mycket tråkighet bestämde jag mig för att plugga. Jag hade redan pluggat Svenska som andra språk 1 (gy) på 100% medan jag jobbade så jag trodde att samhällskunskap 1 skulle ligger runt samma nivå och att jag lätt skulle klarar det- hur fel jag hade!!

Men, men, jag lärde mig ganska mycket både om samhällskunskap (så småningom), min egen process när jag lär mig och om viktiga saker när man undervisar utifrån en elevs perspektiv, saker som jag redan visste men nu inser jag precis hur viktigt vissa saker är. Vissa saker som betonar vikten av skolor och lärare, varför vi verkligen behöver skolor och lärare, inte bara distans ‘undervisning’.

Modeller och exempel

När jag började kursen hade jag inte en aning om vad behövdes för att uppnå de olika betygen. Jag hade kunskapskraven men vad egentligen är skillnaden mellan ‘viss säkerhet’, ‘säkerhet’ och ‘god säkerhet’ eller ‘utvecklad’, ‘välutvecklad’ och ‘välutvecklad och nyanserat’? Var går gränserna? Under kursens gång klurade jag ut vad alla betydde men det var inte enkelt och jag tänkte (igen) varför är kunskapskraven så subjektiva? Varför inte konkreta med exempel? Och om de är så subjektiva hur vet jag att alla lärare har samma förståelse för vad de olika orden betyder? Nu vet jag hur viktigt det är att ge elever exempel innan de börjar arbeta och se till att de förstår vad olika ord betyder. Min lärare var lite konstig med exempel och sa att hon inte kunde ge mig exempel för det var för mycket stöd! Är det inte vad lärare skulle göra?

Feedback

Feedback och återkoppling är så oerhört viktiga, det var feedbacken jag använde för att klura ut kunskapskraven, men mer än bara feedback är det snabb feedback som är viktigast. Tyvärr fick jag ingen feedback förrän vecka 3 av en 5 veckor kurs så mina första tre uppgifter hade jag ingen aning om vad eller hur jag kunde förbättra. Så snart jag fick feedback blev mina betyg bättre. Om jag hade haft tidigare återkoppling skulle jag nog inte behövt  kämpa så hårt för betyget jag ville uppnå i betygssamtalet.

Begränsningar

Här hade jag mest problem! Varför har vi begränsningar bara för begränsnings skull? Alla uppgifter hade ordbegränsningar och jag kände att det var mycket viktig information som jag lämnade ut på grund av detta. Och när jag fick feedback var det mest att jag behövde fler detaljer. Då frågade jag min lärare om ordbegränsningen och hon sa att det var så att elever inte skriva onödiga saker. Hon sa också att det var inget avdrag om man skriver för mycket och så snart jag visste att jag kunde skriva fritt ökade mitt betyg för då blev mina svar utförligt och ‘nyanserat’.

Tidsbegränsningen var också ett stort problem för mig. Varje uppgift tog mig ungefär 14 timmar från att börja läsa, tänka genom allt jag läst ordentligt och sedan skriva en uppsats som diskuterade och analyserade allt jag läst för att besvara frågan (det är inte så lätt i ett andraspråk!). Så när jag  hade en tidbegränsad uppgift på sista dagen var jag lite osäker för hur det skulle gå till. Jag blev så arg när jag öppnade uppgiften och såg inte en utan tre uppsatser jag måste skriva inom 7 timmar! Jag hann knappt läsa något om de tre olika ämnena och jag var så himla arg jag vet inte ens hur jag klarade skriva någonting. Varför begränsar vi tiden för elever att bevisa vad de kan? Återigen fick jag verkligen kämpa för att bevisa min lärare att jag kunde allt de ville inte bara det jag hann skriva. Det blev ett väldigt långt betygssamtal, det kan jag säga!

Betyg

Jag hatar betyg, det har jag skrivit förut. De är inget bra, inte på den ena änden eller den andra tycker jag. Första uppgift som jag inte fick feedback på förrän vecka 3 fick jag E. Jag hade missförstått politiska ideologier och därför skrivit uppsatsen ur fel perspektiv. Då undrade jag om det fanns något skäl att fortsätta, det var inte så kul längre! Det blev en kamp och jag brottades dagligen med mig själv om det var verkligen värt det. Jag var så nära att meddela min lärare varenda dag och avbryta kursen men jag är också ganska (väldigt) envis så jag fortsatt trots jag inte längre ville. Men om jag inte visste betyget och hon hade istället bara berättat vad jag behövde göra för att förbättra skulle det aldrig har blivit så svårt att fortsätta.

Tråkiga uppgifter

Varje vecka fick jag 3 uppsatser plus en källkritik som handlade om allt möjligt, varje uppsats tog ungefär 14 timmar och var mellan 1200-1500 ord. Sedan fick jag tre till i fredags. Det är 18 uppsatser och 5 källkritik i 5 veckor. Cirka 30000 ord. Det är helt galet. Och tråkigt! Jag blev så uttråkad av att skriva källkritik att de blev sämre och inte bättre under kursen! Och sedan hade jag ett betygssamtal som visade att jag kunde mycket mer än det jag skrivit i alla fall. Att kunna presentera saker på olika sätt skulle ha gjort kursen mycket mer intressant och gett mig mer lust att fortsätta. När man vet att man måste skriva 3 uppsatser och en källkritik varje vecka är det svårt att hitta motivation!

Diskussion

Diskussion är kanske det som saknas mest när man plugga på distans och varför jag tycker att riktiga skolor där man kan samtala med lärare och andra elever är så oerhört viktiga. Jag vet att jag skulle ha förstått vissa saker (politiska ideologier!) mycket snabbare om jag hade haft någon att diskutera och samtala med, någon jag kunde ställa frågor till och inte behövde vänta flera timmar/dagar innan jag fick svar (och förmodligen skrivit klart uppsatsen då).

För mig handlar det mest om snabb återkoppling och lätt tillgång till lärare så att jag lär mig. Distansundervisning öppnar upp möjligheter där de inte fanns förut men skolan är bäst! Skolor och lärare behövs ju!!

#Varförskola

Hashtaggen #varförskola dyker upp väldigt ofta på mitt Twitterflöde och det verkar få många att bli väldigt upprörda. Jag ser långa ‘samtal’ om att den är en dålig fråga och jag kan förstå hur det kan tolkas så men finns det ett bättre sätt att formulera frågan? Det har inte samma betydelse som ‘varför bildning?’ eller ‘varför lärande?’. Och ibland måste man vara kontroversiell för att väcka samtal och diskussioner. Det är viktigt att ifrågasätta system. Annars sker ingen utveckling.

Så, varför just skola? Det är någonting som finns i vartenda land så det måste vara bra. Eller…? Vad händer om vi alla har fel?

Systemet som vi nu har växte fram när de flesta människorna arbetade på gårdar och barnen behövdes vara lediga under somrarna för att hjälpa till med arbetet. Om vi skulle uppfinna skola idag skulle vi fortfarande dela upp året så? Är det bra med 9-10 veckors sommarlov? Var finns beviset för det? Det finns mycket bevis emot ett långt sommarlov men traditioner är starkare än forskning ibland.

Om vi skulle uppfinna skola idag skulle vi fortfarande dela upp alla barn enligt deras ålder och ge betyg till alla vid ett och samma tillfälle? Var finns beviset att alla lär sig saker samtidigt? Var finns beviset att betyg är bra? Även bebisar lär sig gå vid olika åldrar. Tänk om vi delade ut betyg vid ett års åldern: A – välutvecklad förmåga att gå, E – kan går med stöd, F – kan inte gå över huvudtaget. Jo, det kanske låter löjligt, alla lär sig gå så småningom, men det är det vi gör egentligen.

Om vi skulle uppfinna skola idag skulle vi fortfarande ha prov? När i verkligheten behöver vuxna sitta och skriva allt de kan om ett ämne under en tidsbegränsad period utan att använda sig av hjälp? Bör inte skola fokusera mer på att ge barn förmågan att hitta lämplig information och granska den källkritiskt än att testa deras arbetsminne under press.

Om vi skulle uppfinna skola idag skulle vi fortfarande dela upp kunskap i de olika ämnena? Ser verkligheten ut så? Och var finns beviset att det är bättre att undervisa i ämnen? Hur ser jag då hur musik påverkas av matte som påverkas av natur som påverkas av människor som påverkas av konst som påverkas vetenskap osv?

Frågan är skulle vi idag egentligen uppfinna skola som det ser ut nuförtiden? Det har jag lite svårt att tro. Så varför fortsätter vi göra saker på grund av traditioner, bara för att vi alltid gjort så?

Det här är varför jag vill ifrågasätta, diskutera, samtala om just systemet ‘skola’. Jag ifrågasätter eftersom jag brinner för lärande, jag brinner för möjligheter och för att ibland  man måste våga riva sönder allt man en gång trodde på för att hitta nya, bättre vägar.

Circus films

In my school we usually swap classes for different lessons, I take English, art and history/geography with years 4-6 and other teachers take Swedish, maths and science. However, I really wanted to do a project so when we had a circus theme for the last two weeks of term we decided just to work with our own classes for the two weeks.

We started off by watching the film Worlds Away: Cirque du Soleil. Although the film has a week storyline the actual performance and acrobatics is amazing. After watching we discussed and reviewed it and then got to planning. The brief was to create their own circus film based aspects of the Cirque du Soleil film. They had a bank of images to edit and make into their own using GIMP, had to create circus-themed music using Soundation and put it together into a video and record a voice over/sound effects using WeVideo. Typically on the last day our wireless network went down so they didn’t all get finished but I thought I’d share the ones that did.

Video 1

Video 2

Video 3

(ps they are in Swedish)

Do grades really have a place in 2015?

I’m sitting here tonight filling in grades in our online reporting system and really struggling with the point to it. Numerous studies claim that grades lead to a fixed mindset and don’t help children learn. I have witnessed first hand how grades can destroy a child’s confidence and willingness to even try and achieve something. And not just with those children who get the low grades; often those who get the top grades suffer just as much with the ‘what if I don’t get an A?’ syndrome.

I am just baffled as to why we continue to label something which is so hard to define with a single letter or number. How can the sum total of all our knowledge be defined in such a flippant way? Why do we as educators allow it? Why do parents get so hung up on grades?

To me learning is a continual process that cannot, and should not, be so easily labelled. It can have such long-lasting, devastating repercussions on someone’s self-belief. Everyone has different skills and everyone develops at different rates. I bet if you look at most adults you would not even be able to guess what grades they got in school. We all reach a fairly similar standard in the end.

My classroom next year will be a grade-free zone but that doesn’t mean it won’t be a learning, progress-making, what-are-the-next-steps zone.

Also published on Staffrm.io http://staffrm.io/@squiggle7/uTdi7jCb7M

The dying art of writing?

I would consider myself a good writer. I would even consider myself a fairly good writer in my second language. However, when I was 9 years old I remember vividly that I had a thorough hatred for writing and that I had a recurring daydream when it came to writing things in class. My daydream revolved around inventing some sort of machine that could magically take all the ideas I had in my head and write them for me without me having to actually exert myself with the enormous effort that writing often takes.

Fast forward till 2015. Now we have all manner of technology which can do all manner of things and one of those things is my 9-year-old self’s dream: speech to text technology. But, it has left me wondering: would I be as good at writing today if I had chosen never to write things down but to use some sort of speech recognition software instead? Or is the skill of formulating oneself to be understood not actually dependent on the physical act of writing/typing?

Currently, these softwares are not so amazingly accurate yet we have introduced it to our classes as a support tool which all children can choose to use if they wish to. However, I have some concerns. The fact that they are so inaccurate means that children need to go back and edit the writing afterwards and I’m left wondering if this is actually even more of a demanding skill for children who most need support with writing in the first place. Are we doing children a disservice by allowing them to not ‘write’ in the conventional sense of the word or is it the skills of how to express oneself more important regardless of the method used?

Will the skill of physically writing/typing actually die out in our lifetime?

Mindset: How you can fulfil your potential by Carol Dweck

Mindset by Carol Dweck is not my usual read but I have heard a lot about it over the years so when it was available for 99p on the Kindle the other day I thought I’d give it a go.

It’s a popular psychology book where the author has spent a long time studying people’s thoughts and beliefs (or mindsets) on intelligence/talent. It’s actually a much easier read than I anticipated (I read the entire thing in a day) and very easy to understand.

The book discusses the fact that people have one of two mindsets:

Fixed – a belief that intelligence/talent is something you are born with and no amount of learning will change things. These people have a sense of needing to prove their intelligence constantly and fear criticism and not being the best. These people will often not try something new for fear of being shown up or failing at it.

Growth – a belief that intelligence/talent is developed through effort, hard work and challenge. These people are willing to challenge themselves and try new things. They want to make themselves better but understand that mistakes will help them improve. They often tend to be more motivated to carry on with something even if it is not going well.

It also discussed that all people are a mixture of the two and that you can have a fixed mindset in one area eg belief about your maths ability, and growth mindset in other areas.

The bit of the book that influenced me most was the discussion of several studies into offering praise to people for something they’ve done and the outcome this has on their future choices. In the studies they gave two groups of people the same test. After the test one group they praised how smart they were eg Well done, you got 80%, you must be clever! and the other half they praised their effort eg Well done, you got 80%, you must have worked really hard. After that they offered another harder test; those praised for effort in the previous one showed much more willingness to challenge themselves to have a go at the harder one. Many praised for intelligence chose not to take the harder test. They also showed that when asked to discuss their results with others those that were praised for intelligence were much more likely to lie about their results to make themselves sound even better. I find this really interesting as a teacher as clearly this has implications about the language used to praise children. Schools, particularly primary ones, are usually very focussed on praise, but perhaps we need to be careful about how we word the praise so that it encourages a growth mindset rather than a fixed one.

The book goes on to discuss fixed and growth mindsets across sports, business and education. As a teacher you could just skip out the chapters on sports and business although I think there are interesting messages within them to think about. The final chapters plant the seeds about how you might change your own thinking to more of a growth mindset, basically by encouraging you to think about the way you approach things.

It’s definitely a book I would recommend to get teachers thinking about intelligence and talent, how learning happens and what prevents learning, and especially the barriers people (including young children) put up to protect themselves.

Oops! Helping children learn accidentally – my thoughts.

The Oops! book is an inspiring read with a focus on taking a creative, thematic approach to engaging (or luring and tricking as described in the book) children in learning and provides lots of excellent ideas that can be easily taken away and implemented in the classroom. I found myself reading it and having lots of ‘Ah!’ moments, easily coming up with ways to add them into my planning.

It is written by Hywel Roberts, an Advanced Skills Teacher of Drama, and as such, has lots of ways of incorporating drama techniques across all curriculum areas, even subjects like maths. But it’s not all about drama, more about finding interesting and engaging hooks into learning that the children will find meaningful. Many examples are given of how the author has used the ideas in a context relevant to the children’s lives to teach many different subjects and the book is written in a quirky, informal style. I particularly love the use of slightly eccentric lists, slightly eccentric opposite lists and humour to help explain thoughts and ideas.

The author is also a big fan of Mantle of the Expert (something I would love to try more of) where the children are given some sort of task and they assume a role and develop their curriculum from there (this can last from a week to a term depending on how far you/the children want to go with it and what you want them to get out of it). This is something I’ve tried in little short bursts but would love to develop more of a knowledge and understanding of. There is a website http://www.mantleoftheexpert.com/ with lots more information that I really need to take the time to look around properly.

Allowing the children to guide and develop the learning is also a major theme of the book although this is one I struggle to get my head round more, especially when working in a large primary school where all classes need to follow the same curriculum. I don’t know how you could ensure that all children would get the same entitlement and experiences this way. This is maybe easier in a small primary or with individual secondary classes.

Anyway, I’d definitely recommend this book, even if it’s just to remind you about techniques you might not have used for a while or have heard of before but forgotten. It’s definitely one that can be dipped into time and time again for ideas. And if you’re quick, it’s only £1.79 on Amazon Kindle (Aug 2012) or rather a lot more if you want the real version.

MathsJam

Last night I went to my first ever MathsJam in Northampton and had an excellent time. I heard about MathsJam just over a month ago when @TeaKayB announced that he was going along to one but to be honest I was a bit scared that it would be a bit beyond me: they’d all done university degrees in it and I’ve done up to A level but that was 10 years ago. But when he came back and said I’d be ok I decided that I’d go along to the next one with him.

The premise of MathsJam is similar, although slightly more informal, to a teachmeet, of which I am a well-known lover. The events take place in pubs up and down the country on the second to last Tuesday every month with the idea being that you can bring along a puzzle or game or anything maths related if you want to  (you don’t have to bring anything) and sit and play/chat/drink etc. The great thing about them all happening simultaneously up and down the country is that different MathsJams can set challenges for everyone via their twitter account @MathJam and it makes it easier for different groups to collaborate/send messages/challenge, or whatever you want to be achieved, with the help of mobile technology.

Last night there were six of us, well up on the three from last time (the first one in Northampton so doing well number wise!) and we played with various things: Pass the Pigs (plastic pig shapes with the ability to land 6 different ways like dice); Sicherman dice; a couple of iPad games – SET and Torus Games; how to make an Enigma machine out of a pringles tube; 3-player chess boards; the game 24; and those annoying metal puzzles that you have to try and get apart and back together again. There was no order or agenda to things; the puzzles and games were just shared and you dipped in and out of what you wanted and when.

Our messy maths. Picture courtesy of @rathematician

I’d definitely recommend going along to one if there’s one near you; they’re really not as scary as they sound. There’s a map to find out current MathsJams that take place or you can request to set up your own if there’s not one nearby:

Website: http://mathsjam.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MathsJam