Children are not clients

When in business, the client or customer always comes first. This makes sense as the customer requires a product or service and is paying to receive it. A client is "someone that a professional service is rendered for". To say a parent is a client makes some sense but a child is not a client. We do not render services for a child - they have no money to pay, are unable to contract and do not know what service they want. Children are not our clientele.

It makes even less sense to say a child is a client in a low socioeconomic school. The child is not a willing party to the transaction. They have no choice in choosing the vendor (school) or method to which they are taught as financially they have few options available. Generally, they would rather be somewhere else. Having few goals and little ability to see past the moment, someone else decides what is best for them and puts them on a pathway. This is usually the school itself, sometimes the parent has involvement.

A child in a low socioeconomic school has basic intrinsic motivation (of course there are exceptions, but they are not the norm). To use a child-centric model and increase student involvement in the process is to invite low performance as the happy child will focus on "the now" to the detriment of the rest of their lives. The prevalence of the child-centric model creates a struggle to interpret the needs of an immature mind and turn their attention to what they need to be done to interact successfully post school.

At present schooling is becoming more like product development. If we consider a child as a product, a school lives or dies by the products it produces and the reputation of these products in the marketplace. The quality of the product is important. The standard of the original materials gives us an idea of the products that can be produced, the unit cost of production to a reasonable standard and the time required to do so. The scope of the project (syllabus/curriculum) is important as it guides what is possible to do in the timeframe allowed. If we consider a child as a product, individual plans start to make sense. If a child is a product, we have decided what is possible and get on with the job.

In a world of myschool, national curriculum, ratemyschool, performance management, social engineering, back to basics and independent schooling we need to consider what we are doing with children.

It's a chilling thought, as child-as-a-product seems to fly in the face of encouraging a pursuit of excellence.

Week two of action research cycle

1st report is due in this week and little to report. Students are settling into class and punitive measures for homework are starting to show results. Most students now know that not doing homework means being kept in.

Improving of teacher-student communication has also started with students realising that "I couldn't do it" is not an excuse and that they have to try and find a way to get the questions completed. They have a number of options from "finding me before/after school" to asking a friend, to copying someone else's answers.

For me, it's a way to quickly identify who is struggling.

Choral responses are improving, with students starting to use it as a way of communicating during class. Off-task communication is still a problem but there is slow improvement, with students completing a full exercise out of the book - something not done since the class changeover.

Student letters are taking a while to get out and I still haven't had a good look at the NAPLAN results for last year. I need to move on this soon.

First survey responses are in, I will need to examine these this week too and collate all the student/parent responses.

In class reward scheme has also kicked back in now that I have found the secret stash of rewards points. It will be interesting to see how that impacts on student responses.

First week in action research cycle

Finally approaching my first action research cycle. I've navigated the ethics hurdles, sent out permission slips and finally can get started.

I'm looking at ways of improving effective on task communication between the teacher and the student in order to improve performance.

Communication is set at six levels:

• School/Administration/Counsellor/Youthworker->Student
• Teacher->Student
• Mentor->Student
• Peer/Friend->Student
• Parent/Guardian->Student
• Student Introspection

My task is to identify ways a teacher can successfully add to each communication layer. I am looking at how to get students to communicate how far they are down a learning path for a particular topic. I'll measure success by examining the effects on student self esteem and enjoyment of mathematics. I am particularly interested in how student group dynamics can be manipulated to improve my performance.

To establish benchmarks I plan to run a motivation and career survey and then check their ability to work independently through a task observation. I will also need to speak to their yr 9 teacher about each student, identify student NAPLAN yr 7/9 results, student yr 10 entry exam results and student grades in year 8/9.

My first tool is aimed at student->teacher communication, re-introducing choral responses (Eg. "The answer is... I can't hear you... that's better!!). For the whole class to respond requires the whole class to be paying attention. It also makes it fairly easy to identify students that are not responding. By ensuring students are vocal (during on task behaviours) I hope to increase risk taking in the class. It's also a great tool for waking a class up!

My second tool will be at the Student->Parent level with a letter home to parents about homework and then setting online homework with MathsOnline and Matheletics. Homework is a teacher->student communication as it can inform the teacher about student motivation and their current performance level if it is closely tied to current classwork. Their completion and performance is easily monitored and I can bop a few students for not doing their homework, whilst reinforcing that upper school classes require homework done on a regular basis to ensure retention of materials for exams. It is also aimed at improving parent->teacher communication through regular email communications with parents (although out of scope of the research project).

Let's see how the week goes!

Dr Constable and the national curriculum

Dr Constable, our state education minister has been conspicuously absent from public education debates with the exception of this week when I read her reply regarding national curriculum impact on WA in The West newspaper.

It was a measured response that outlined the three years of implementation time being allowed, the need for an extended implementation (an extra year) in WA due to the variation between NSW, Vic syllabus and the current WA OBE based curriculum. She also raised issues with year 7 primary vs yr 7 high school, student entry ages in preschool/kindergarten, the lack of specialist teachers in primary and the need for training above normal 'PD' allocations requiring the sourcing of an additional budget for WA.

WA, with a smaller population and different educational requirements, will always have varied results and requirements to the eastern states. Competing with the Eastern seaboard is not statistically possible under the current measuring system.

It was encouraging to see an education minister that at least understood some of the issues faced by national curriculum and someone willing to make an attempt to avoid a head long rush into it. The challenge will be to address some of these issues and prevent these issues being swept under the table along with the children of Western Australia.