Diagnostics

Sometimes teaching year 10's you get so caught up in your lesson you miss the bloody obvious.

Today we were looking at distance from origin, Perth to Meekatharra, Perth to Newman and so forth using trip counters and odometers. My students were finding it hard to find the distance between two locations (I forget the real distances so please excuse my made up ones)..

They could understand that the 259km and the 1600km indicated distances from Perth but could not understand how to determine the distance between Meekatharra and Newman. So I tried something similar but with smaller numbers.

When asked the distance between Mary's house and the shops, this time students were able to say 1km. I asked them how they did that and they gave me the answer 9+1=10. I asked if they could think of another way. A sea of blank looks from the new kids in the class. I think to myself OMG. No wonder these kids couldn't do the previous problem. I showed them that subtraction could work and they were able to complete the exercise finding distances between various destinations. By the end it was obvious that they could learn the pattern for solving the problems but did not have an understanding of the underlying maths - thus had forgotten the method by the next problem.

So I went a bit further and used my favourite diagnostic tool. I wrote the following on their page.

10
99
109
119
1109
1229

And asked them to add one to each number. Thankfully only one student couldn't do this. Then I write 10526 and 52679 at the end of the list and moved to each asking them to say the numbers quietly to me. This was not as successful. This was the trigger to split the class (again) and start these kids on a different programme of work.

The integration of low ability or underschooled students into the mainstream and removal of dedicated remedial classes has meant that many students are falling through the cracks. It is no wonder that some of these kids can be disruptive, disheartened and are having confidence issues. Students that cannot read numbers above 100, can't identify simple operations or understand place value have little chance in mainstream classes. It's enough to make you physically upset and reminds me why I originally intended teaching year 7 rather than senior secondary. The impact of intervention is greater at an earlier age than now.

I have many of these kids next year and have identified areas of focus, we're designing entry tests for new students and aim to improve numeracy with low performing students. It's frustrating the amount of time that it takes to find these issues and detect the underlying factors behind avoidant behaviour. Time will only tell how much success can be made of it.

Building a better future for our kids

Getting kids to see opportunity rather than negativity is a key objective for 2009. As times get more difficult and unemployment rises, it is ever so important for kids to use their education for a new start in life and bring hope not only into their lives but into their families.

There are inspirations in every year group, the child with a terminal illness that strives for A's, the child that works every spare second to send money home to parents in Africa, the student that couldn't read two years before and now is able to contribute to mainstream classes.

Once an opportunity is presented to a student we get limited opportunities to demonstrate that effort leads to success. Any success with some kids needs to be celebrated, even staged to ensure that they get on the right road. If they are going to fail at a task (and they must learn how to cope with failure) they need to be supported, prepared and lead by the ear to see the achievement gained in failure. The learning of resilience is important beyond any skill.

We need to believe that they can do things. They have enough doubt in themselves, it does not need to be reinforced. Push them hard, see what they can do - it will always surprise you. Work to drive them to a better place - a good work ethic is an an achievement in itself.

The little darlings need to learn that boundaries are ok and are there to protect them. The world may not be fair or cheering them on, but generally it's not against them. All of us old folk fight for a better future for them. Learning the rules is a precursor to learning how to interact with others and the community - simply modelling polite language can save them from being instantly judged the minute they open their mouths.

Value systems now that religion is no longer impressed on kids are lacking. Without a value system kids lack a knowledge of right and wrong. In a world where everything moves so fast and knowledge is valued over experience, it is hard for them to see that there is wisdom in older folks. This is of course every generations fate - but with the rapid pace of the information age it is being exacerbated. They don't believe in our values (what would we know!) and lack a better system themselves.

Parents, rather than argue at the end of a hard day at work, just give in to an argument - kids do not understand no as an answer being used to the last word. At least until they do something that has a consequence that cannot be overlooked. When this happens, the gentle leading of them to their errors is a hard task that requires patience that I need to develop further.

We need to protect students that have good qualities from students that are developing them. Once an academic student is identified they need to be driven forward. Students developing good qualities need to have champions that mentor them through and help them through difficult times.

Reflecting on streaming

We streamed the year ten mathematics classes this year. To our mind it was a success. Other learning areas had heterogeneous classes and had a lot of difficulties with behaviour management issues that streaming helped us avoid. We have our 3A, 2C, 2A and 1B classes for 2009 where many doubted whether they would occur.

The success that we have had has put some pressure on the lower school to stream classes to better cater to our more capable students. There has been some regrouping in lower school classes and teachers have reported improvements in the ability to teach mathematics topics.

The start of the Maths/English streaming debate started this week. Should we stream on mathematics results or English results? Being a mathematics teacher, to my mind it requires little consideration. English teachers on the whole don't want to stream - after all English is a subject that lends itself to the heterogeneous approach - an essay can be assessed on many levels. Mathematics on the other hand tends to be hierarchical with a concept impossible to learn without the building blocks before it. Therefore stream on mathematics.

It doesn't need to be that black and white either. Some clever timetabling was done for us and now Maths, English, SOSE, Science can use a good compromise. We have grouped all yr 10 students into two bands, an upper ability band (class A & B) and a lower ability band (class C&D). A&B's are timetabled at the same time and C&D's are timetabled at the same time.

So for the situation above, in the first example maths students in period 1 are streamed into four classes (movement of students between A&B or C&D can be done freely for each learning area). In period 2 for English, the upper ability group is mixed into two classes and the students from C&D are mixed.

The main issue occurs when students in the C are not streamed correctly (eg. maturity raises their output, students are not assessed correctly etc.) and need to be promoted to the upper ability block. This involves the changing of many classes. All four areas have to be flexible in the promotion of students and the consideration of who can move to the upper band. We try to avoid movement by setting entrance tests before the start of the year and re-examining students after four weeks at the start of term 1. New students are to sit the tests before entering an ability block. The main advantage is the reduction of the level of teaching diversity required - there is less gap between the top and bottom student in each class.

It is not perfect as students may not settle into classes as well as they constantly encounter different student configurations (as typically happens with options classes).

Furthermore, it would be interesting to know if our success would have been the same if students had been streamed in all classes. Maybe the novelty of the streaming process is a factor in the success itself.

The undeserved power of gossip in the staffroom

Gossip is one of those things that is rife in most staff rooms. It always makes me laugh how people assume something is true just because they heard it from someone or multiple people - especially from those in the know (wink... wink...).

I hate gossip. Most of the time it creates cliques where being in the know becomes an important part of the job and increases your status. The easiest way I've found to diffuse the power of gossip is to disseminate absolutely ridiculous gossip to all and sundry. It is hilarious to hear your own make believe come back as fact.

The most irritating type of gossip is the talk about such and such. Her clothes.. his hair.. his attitude to students... the voice.. what the students think.. what such and such said. Everyone has their own idea about the perfect teacher. A diverse culture is the best thing for students.. creating teachers in thy own image is not only short sighted but is detrimental to a school.. Type A personalities take note!

Discrediting gossip has three key effects.. firstly no-one believes any gossip that you have and stops commenting or asking your opinion on things that have little relevance to you.. secondly it makes people think twice before they believe any gossip going around.. and finally by laughing at how gullible people are with gossip, it reduces the ability of those "in the know" from influencing decisions by creating a ground swell of support via the silent network - especially prior to unpopular concepts being implemented or popular concepts being discontinued.

Avoiding staffroom gossip is usually quite simple - avoid the staffroom during lunchtime gossip sessions as much as possible and be known as a little preoccupied with your own learning area. Have interests outside of school to talk about. Most of the time gossip just creates angst, undue tension between staff members, can blow up otherwise controllable situations, creates conflict and is generally just unnecessary for the job.

Time is needed to develop, implement, analyse, continue or discontinue processes within an organisation. Anything that can undermine legitimate organisational processes and structures should be discouraged. Gossip as an undermining influence is number one on my hit list to be stopped wherever possible.