Sunday, January 18, 2009
Emancipate Yourselves From Mental Slavery!I’m back! For contractual reasons I stopped blogging in December 2007. Sadly the sales of ‘How Not To Teach’ weren’t exactly in the JK Rowling league, as a consequence the retirement plans are on hold. So what’s happened since I ‘retired’?
In April we had the one-day NUT strike over pay. The one thing it did demonstrate is that unions are still a force to be reckoned with, thousands of schools closed down for the day. In many schools where the union had lain dormant for years, crushed by management dictate, there was a revival, the ‘green shoots of recovery’. Lively marches and meetings were held in towns and cities across the country. Unfortunately the union leadership didn’t follow it through, left the pay campaign on hold, as a result when they re-balloted in October there was a slim majority for action but the turnout was much lower.
The Knowsley Building Schools for Finance (BSF) ‘Learning Centres’ are almost up and running. Shiny new buildings, state of the art computer facilities… shiny new buildings, state of the art computer facilities, so that’s everything sorted, what else do they need? Ah… of course, teachers! Two years ago when the BSF process began Knowsley called all the secondary teachers together for a meeting, the unsubtle message was poor results = crap teachers. All the schools would close re-open, as ‘Learning Centres’ and teachers would have to reapply for their jobs, ‘we’re only interested in appointing ‘good’ teachers’. Or, ‘most of you losers needn’t bother applying’. Needless to say, ‘challenging’ classes, relentless pressure for results, there hasn’t exactly been a long queue of applicants, (after national advertising 8 people applied for the 5 ‘Learning Centre Managers’ posts – a.k.a. ‘Head teachers’) one school failed to get any applicants for the Head of the English Department. So many teachers have applied for redundancy money that the bar has been lowered to any mammal with a teaching qualification.
The creationist academy in Norwich has opened – courtesy of funding from Graham Dacre, the second hand car salesman, turned Pentecostalist preacher. I can’t wait for the science lessons – was the Earth created 3,000 or 6,000 years ago? Maybe they could employ Sarah Palin as a teacher?
The same predictable suspects spewed forth their crazy ideas, Ofsted that fount of joy, creativity and imagination, declared that there were ‘too many boring teachers’. Yes, I’ve met so many ‘inspiring’ Ofsted inspectors. The General Teaching Council wanted to know why more teachers hadn’t been sacked. This from the organisation that arraigned a teacher before one of its disciplinary panels for failing to return library books and calling a pupil a ‘waste of space’. There but for the Grace of God…
The big news from me is that I’m publishing a second book ‘I 8 Skool’, it’s the usual mix of incisive analysis, humour and rage.
Why go through the pain again? Simply because the education book market is so dire. There is Ofsted throttling the life out of schools and what have we got to read? The market is dominated by the comfort read, whimsical, heart-warming, homespun tales from a retired teacher musing about life in their old village school, carpet slippers on, cardigan zipped up, a handy cup of Ovaltine by his side. I haven’t tried to write a ‘warts and all’ account of teaching it’s more a view from the trenches gazing in horror at the gaping mortal wounds through which the lifeblood pours out.
Teachers? In ‘Redemption Song’ Bob Marley opinions that black people in Jamaica, before they can do anything, have to ‘emancipate yourselves from mental slavery’. It’s worrying the number of teachers that can’t imagine life without Ofsted, league tables and testing. At best we have become functionaries, uncritical automatons; at worst, dehumanised, demoralised prison warders patrolling an overcrowded, discredited penal institution.
Just how grim, how dire, how utterly joyless is the primary curriculum? Let me put it this way, if I had a ten year-old child ready to enter Year 6, that grind of revision, mock exams and testing, I would give up my job, live on baked beans for a year and home educate.
I read an interview with a head teacher in which he declared, ‘I admit we are an exam factory and I’m not going to apologise for it’. Like many children I’ve become increasingly school phobic, I no longer see it as a place for learning more as a venue for testing and assessment. We need to keep asking the question - what the hell are they doing to our children?
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Telling the Inconvenient TruthCynic or sceptic? I’ve come under attack in the TES Staffroom as the former. For the record I’ve never had any time for teachers who just whinge, in my time as a teacher I’ve always tried to ‘walk the walk and talk the talk’. If you want to judge my record – read the book.
It’s just that I don’t think I have to justify myself with reams of planning and to me testing children to death is a waste of time and effort. I didn’t come into teaching to ‘fill the pail’ but to ‘light the fire’.
As ever the TES Staffroom is the home for tedious pedants, one of them picked holes in my writing. Well I don’t profess to be the greatest writer and by its nature blogging doesn’t always give you the time to reflect, revise and edit. Strange though, they never offer any pearls of wisdom themselves.
If people want to correct me on factual errors that’s fine (thanks for the correction – it’s Higher Level not Higher Learning Teaching Assistants) and challenge me on ideas any time, that’s part of the process of genuine debate.
And while I’m on genuine debate, thanks to the Teaching Assistants Forum posters for their constructive comments. To mention the TES Staffroom again, most of the longer threads involve two people exchanging insults – haven’t they got anything better to do with their time, like marking tests?
Thanks for a great comment from Beckton Boy about my post on CPD, he’s written a tremendous piece on ‘training’, more please.
This is all coming round to this announcement - I’m suspending the blog for a few months, I’m involved in another project that will take all of my time, no it isn’t illegal and I haven’t been sacked… well, not yet anyway.
So let’s hope more primary teacher bloggers will pick up their pens and tell the ‘Inconvenient Truth’.
Labels: Writing
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Stuck for a Christmas present? Try ‘How Not To Teach’ by ‘Mr Read’I can heartily recommend this book…
‘If you thought reading Gervaise Phinn was like drinking a warm cup of tea, this book will knock you over with the force of a vodka slammer. Mr Read survives the nightmare of planning, Ofsted and an incompetent head...He also takes the class to Ireland, the House of Commons and wins a film award. We guarantee "Christmas Lights", "The School Trip" and "Stressbusters" will make you laugh out loud. A searing indictment of our joyless, exam ridden primary curriculum...'it will take a bareknuckle fight to save its soul.' Down-to-earth and outrageously funny, this guide will prove essential reading for all teachers everywhere.’
Book Outline
Amazon
Labels: Writing
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
I'm not a great fan of award ceremonies and I probably stand a cat-in-hells chance of winning the 'edublog awards', it'll go to the sort of '100 things to do with glue pots and string' blog- nothing remotely controversial. But if you've got a spare minute...
Nominations would be gratefully received for category 3 - Best new blog and category 8 - Best teacher blog.
Might be interesting if I won...
Nominations
Labels: Writing
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Google Books‘How Not To Teach’ is now on Google Books, so you can read some sections of it. There’s divided opinion amongst authors about the service, does it breach copyright and how much do authors earn? Based on royalties received so far I wont be retiring to that villa in the south of France just yet.
Labels: Writing
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Knotty Ash BlueI started writing in the Everton fanzine ‘When Skies Are Grey’ in 2004. So this is an introduction to my other alter-ego ‘Knotty Ash Blue’. It’s not just a one-club blog, I’ve widened out to write about issues like racism, ticket prices, drugs, LFC and England.
Here’s a selection of my articles-
Frontal Lobotomy – March 2004 - Coming back to football after a few years
My national pride – May 2004 – Why I’m not the greatest England fan…
Ooh the ‘ell are you? – August 2004 – Season’s end and it’s not looking good
Team game – December 2004 – Football Pundits (er… including me) are proved wrong Everton make a fantastic start to the season
Careering – March 2005 – How fans get ripped off with ticket prices
The Red Side a plea for tolerance – April 2005 – The first scarf laid at Anfield in remembrance of Hillsborough was a blue one…
Kick them Out! – May 2005 – Why the club shouldn’t tolerate racism
The pink medicine – October 2005 – Club takeovers
The Fat, Little, Badly Guy – December 2005 – Footballers should retire gracefully
The boring, boring Premiership – February 2006 – Is it any good if Man U and Chelsea have got it all sown up?
The ‘Magic’ of the FA Cup – April 2006 – Not
The Main Enemy is at Home – June 2006 – Will I be cheering Wayne Rooney in the World Cup?
Legends and Cults – August 2006 – Why Duncan Ferguson isn’t a legend but is a cult player
Bad Breath and Shrinking Testicles – October 2006 – The impact of drug taking
You Could Have Been a God… - November 2006 – A retrospective on Wayne Rooney
MOYES MUST GO! – February 2007 – Well… not just yet
You Goin? Tara then – April 2007 – Liverpool City Council aren’t busting a gut to keep Everton in the city
Do You and Rose Have a ‘your song’? – May 2007 – The LFC takeover
Dawn of the Dead – June 2007 – Your guide to diving
Labels: Writing
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Bastardstone's – an update‘How Not To Teach’ is currently available in ten branches of Waterstone’s. The publishers tell me they have tried to get it into more but they have found it ‘difficult’.
It’s sad to see the way Waterstone’s have gone, they used to stock a wide range of books and encouraged diversity. In response to the supermarkets attempting to muscle in on their market, by selling the top 100 books, Waterstone’s have gone down the 3 for 2 route, featuring massive discounts for Jeremy Clarkson, Jeffrey Archer and Jamie Oliver.
The idea is that by using loss leaders they will attract people in to buy other books, faint chance of that. In the new ‘revamped’ stores (Liverpool is one example) the number of books has been slashed. Why go in? There is no point in browsing, cut the trouble go to the Internet.
If you do have a problem buying ‘How Not To Teach’ use News From Nowhere, they are a cooperative based in Bold St Liverpool.
Long live the independent booksellers!
Labels: Writing
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
The Blog Awards!Welcome to the TES Blog Awards! I was going to book Russell Brand and organise a night of drink-fuelled excess in a classy hotel. Sadly, the budget has severely constrained any such notion.
Why blog? Our detractors on the TES Staffroom accuse of being self-opinionated, deluded, obsessives – well guilty as charged.
Of course it’s common knowledge that the average blog only lasts six months, is read by no one apart from the author and is of such poor quality that the blogger has a snowball in hell’s chance of ever cutting a book deal.
Against that there is the democracy of the Internet, your brilliant manuscript, instead of gathering dust in a musty old drawer has a potential audience of millions… if they can but find it amidst all the ephemera, junk and downright weird stuff that clutters cyberspace.
I can exclusively reveal that a new agency has been established to rigorously monitor and audit the effectiveness of teaching blogs – Ofblog. Due to my limited technical ability and low level of computer competence, I decided to appoint myself as Chief Inspector. In the best traditions of Ofsted I volunteered to stay in a five star hotel for a week whilst I was undertaking the blog inspection – sadly, the TES declined my generous offer and I’ve had to fit the inspection around writing the end of year reports, looking after my sick cat and moaning about the weather.
There are plenty of secondary teacher blogs – the infamous ‘Frank Chalk’, the slightly misnamed ‘Ranting Teacher’, the excellent ‘Life and Other Prime Numbers’ (who proves it is possible to be a young teacher and have a life, ‘Last half term I danced until I dropped’) and the slightly more political ‘Some Random Thoughts’.
Despite trawling through ‘Britblog’, ‘Sites for Teachers’ and Googling away, it’s hard to find many primary teacher blogs. There are plenty of excellent resources – Primary Teacher, Primary Resources, Primary Classroom Resources, Sparklebox, Classroom Displays, etc. But once you get beyond next week’s lesson there’s not much personal gossip or social commentary (when Unicef says we have the unhappiest children in the world some of us want to go beyond the cheapest laminates and day-glo stickers).
In the best traditions of Ofsted (once again) I’ll start by highlighting failure. Regrettably, I’ll have to single out the TES’s own Henry Walpole (last posting 17/11/06) for one of Ofblog’s infamous ‘notices to improve’. Henry, I know you’re busy writing your book and TES column but please write out 100 times, ‘I must not neglect my blog’.
‘Little Miss Teacher’ is a Year 1 teacher exiled in Bangkok, after the blog stopped in March I was going to send an e-mail, ‘please get in touch’, but thankfully she’s reappeared.
‘101 Things To Do While Teaching’ promised the ‘Definitive guide to the best things to do while teaching, if you are not so tired you could collapse in a heap in front of the whiteboard’. After seven posts (last one 12/1/07) it seems she’s done just that.
‘PGCE Blog’ again showed early promise but there was a sign of things to come in his last post (19/11/06) ‘to be honest there is just so much work to do for school I've just not got the energy in the evening!’ With all those assessments, evaluations and planning sheets I’m not surprised.
Stumbling into the limelight are this year’s survivors (a good metaphor for teaching?) and in the spirit of ‘deferred success’ I’ll leave nominating an overall winner-
‘Smoke and Mirrors’ – a.ka. ‘Aspiring Head’ is from the independent sector, but in the spirit of inclusiveness I won’t exclude him from the competition
‘Year 6 Teacher’ – plenty of advice on how to pass SATs (OK someone has to do the job, just include me out of this one)
‘Tim Rylands – the mystical adventures of a west country primary teacher and muscian’ - has some really snazzy photographs, plus he gets to visit all kinds of exotic places, the lucky so-and-so!
‘Tales from the Plain - The ramblings of a teacher living in the Cheshire Plain, hanging in there and wondering what it's all about. Frequently out of step with the rest of the world (or so it seems) I just muddle through as best I can...’ - is one of my favourites although I’m not so keen on the knitting patterns…
and… er, that’s about it. Modesty forbids me to mention too much about ‘How Not To Teach’ suffice it say that it not just the TES blogs but jokes, film reviews, walking, news and the predictable rants against Ofsted.
If there are any more primary blogs out there let me know and I’ll link to them on my blog, remembering that essential piece of blogging etiquette, ‘If I link to yours, you’ll link to mine.’
Keep on blogging!
Stumbling into the limelight are this year’s survivors (a good metaphor for teaching?) and in the spirit of ‘deferred success’ I’ll leave nominating an overall winner-
‘Smoke and Mirrors’ – a.ka. ‘Aspiring Head’ is from the independent sector, but in the spirit of inclusiveness I won’t exclude him from the competition
‘Year 6 Teacher’ – plenty of advice on how to pass SATs (OK someone has to do the job, just include me out of this one)
‘Tim Rylands – the mystical adventures of a west country primary teacher and muscian’ - has some really snazzy photographs, plus he gets to visit all kinds of exotic places, the lucky so-and-so!
‘Tales from the Plain - The ramblings of a teacher living in the Cheshire Plain, hanging in there and wondering what it's all about. Frequently out of step with the rest of the world (or so it seems) I just muddle through as best I can...’ - is one of my favourites although I’m not so keen on the knitting patterns…
and… er, that’s about it. Modesty forbids me to mention too much about ‘How Not To Teach’ suffice it say that it not just the TES blogs but jokes, film reviews, walking, news and the predictable rants against Ofsted.
If there are any more primary blogs out there let me know and I’ll link to them on my blog, remembering that essential piece of blogging etiquette, ‘If I link to yours, you’ll link to mine.’
Keep on blogging!
Labels: Writing
Thursday, June 28, 2007
The Lack of Debate‘Some Random Thoughts’ posted,
‘It’s a real shame this site doesn't get the comments that Frank Chalk does. It would be good to see some interesting debate, from educated people, instead of the mixture of religious nut jobs, and BNP members that seem to be making up the readership over there!’
After I mentioned Frank Chalk the man himself was in touch, apparently the link didn’t work, it should have gone to the review of ‘It’s Your Time Your Wasting’. I found his book a ‘breath of fresh air’ in one way. As I wrote,
‘Teachers will identify with one of the central themes, management in denial – the generals miles away from the front line whilst the Poor Bloody Infantry suffer in the mud-filled trenches dodging the bullets and incoming artillery shells.’
However, his solutions really are the ‘Daily Mail’ rant. One thing I do admire him for though, he got out of teaching and some of his ‘supporters’ who think all children on council estates are scummy chavs should do the same thing.
In my reply to ‘Some Random Thoughts’ I mused about the lack of debate,
‘What does this say about the teaching profession? Sometimes I wonder.’
Mrs D posted,
‘It says that we like to leave our work at work and chill out when at home. There is plenty of debate when we are actually at school. However, debate rarely means action which is what people actually want.’
No problem there, most days and certainly at weekends I do just want to chill out, but there’s also days when I want to ‘rage against the dying of the light’. Ofsted, SATs, bureaucracy, consultants, targets, strategies, the list is pretty endless.
As for debates in schools I don’t really know, it varies. In my school the staff all sat there and accepted tests every six weeks, I was a lone voice of protest. I’ve boycotted the staff room ever since.
I agree about action being louder than words but where is there any prospect of action? Only in individual schools i.e., TLRs. But look at the NUT national ballot to boycott SATs only a 20% turnout, partly due to apathy, partly fear and a large factor that the NUT leadership has been asleep for twenty years.
The reason I started this blog was to stir debate and even though some of the main posts appear on the TES web site there is little discussion. The TES Staffroom (over 295,000 registered users) is the only site where teachers can participate, the unions don’t do it, nor, unsurprisingly that ‘voice of the teachers’ the General Teaching Council. The only problem is that it tends to be the trivial, trite and bizarre that attract comment, here’s a biased selection from the Opinion section -
Dogs on leads - 86 posts
Joke of the Day - 365 posts
Missing Toddler Thread – 5270 posts
Girl Power!? - 8 posts
The god delusion - 601 posts
Sports cars with old drivers! – 20 posts
Why do ordinary people look so weird? – 30 posts
Yeah’ ‘All Human Life is Here’ meanwhile our children are short changed by a sterile education system and half NQTs leave within five years.
Sorry to depress anyone who is reading this, but it is the end of term so, like most teachers, I’m a bit knackered, and it won't stop raining.
Labels: Writing
Sunday, June 03, 2007
BastardstonesWhy ‘How Not To Teach’? I couldn’t find any books written by primary teachers about the realities of life in the average, ordinary urban school, so I decided to write it myself. In the front of bookshops there were piles of the ‘Village School’ series by ‘Miss Read’ (that gave me the idea for the nom de plume) but really they are just a kind of comfort read. They play on that nostalgia for some kind of lost utopia exemplified by John Major when he managed to misquote George Orwell by eulogising about the myth of, ‘warm beer, cricket grounds and old maids cycling to communion’. It would be interesting to re-visit Miss Read’s school, if it still exists, it’s probably been closed down the children bussed to a distant town and the playing fields sold for expensive housing that few of the locals can afford.
Contemporary books tend to either the list variety, ‘101 ways to …’ or the ‘Getting the Buggers To…’ true enough it’s a catchy title, but it’s a fairly bleak appraisal on how to communicate with children.
Getting your book published is of course only the start of the assault course, after that there’s the task of getting your book reviewed and selling the darned thing. The TES reviewed the book online and I can’t complain about Gerald Haigh’s piece, although I felt he over-emphasised the humorous aspects of the book.
After months of promises the National Union of Teachers finally carried a review in their magazine ‘Teacher’ (they too have been struck by the ‘dumbing down’ blight because the new editor seems to work on the premise that teachers have the attention span of a gnat, therefore no article is over 500 words). I should have kept it to quote the review in full but I just threw it away in disgust. The reviewer concluded that the book depressed her and made her want to leave teaching! My first reaction was to think of Oliver James conclusion in his book ‘Affluenza’ that depression is a perfectly logical reaction to a sick society. Then I had to question whether the reviewer had actually read the book or just skimmed through it.
I didn’t try to write a piece of ‘misery lit’, the book does question the general background with SATs, Ofsted and ‘strategies’ but there’s also material about my school, humour and lastly examples of where I’ve walked the walk and talked the talk – the TES Newsday, the film we made and the trip to Ireland. If in doubt view the book outline.
Apart from viewing the sales on Amazon it’s hard to track the sales. As for that other monster monopolist Waterstone’s, they don’t seem interested in stocking the book, it’s currently in 16 branches. I suppose that shouldn’t be a surprise because Robert Topping who ran their Manchester store for 16 years was unceremoniously sacked in 2000, he actually wanted to choose the books he stocked, he was under pressure to promote the ‘best seller’ list. There was also the infamous case of blogger, Joe Gordon, who was sacked for dubbing them ‘Bastardstones’.
Going into Waterstone’s branches is pretty depressing, all you see are the massive piles of ‘3 for 2’ offers by those great exponents of the literary form Jeremy Clarkson, Gordon Ramsey and Jeffrey Archer. Talk about ‘dumbing down’! Waterstone’s really have lost the plot, their ‘revamp’ of stores seems to have reduced the number of books by about 50%.
If you do want to buy the book online then please use ‘News from Nowhere’ they’re a cooperative and their shop in Bold Street, Liverpool is an absolute joy for the browser.
Labels: Writing
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Groucho and MeI thought it might be humble pie time because ‘Teacher’s TV’ e-mailed back to say they’d be putting my article on ‘Stress’ on their web site, they promised to “get back to me”, those fatal words, a week on and I’ve heard nothing. I don’t know anyone that actually watches ‘Teacher’s TV’ certainly not the programmes on stress, the main five programmes attracted 12 votes and 0 comments.
One thing writing my book and this blog has taught me is just how difficult it is to get your voice heard – by anyone.
I approached the Teacher Support Network, the charity that helps and advises teachers with problems at work. Back came a gushing e-mail and a promise to offer my book as a prize in one of their on-line surveys… a few days later another e-mail, 'Er, I’ve consulted with the bosses, they don’t want to upset the sponsors, we’ll get back to you.' They never did. Strange that, I thought TSN got most of their money from teachers not sponsorship. In a fit of pique I cancelled my subscription.
It probably just confirmed my views on charities, not that I’m trying to attack the motives of people who donate. It’s just that charities are very good at presenting individuals as grateful supplicants or helpless victims, but as soon as they speak out or worse still organise together, the charities are nowhere to be seen, they don’t want to upset the sponsors.
I tried that fearless ‘voice of the teachers’ the General Teaching Council, but no they didn’t want to carry any articles by teachers in their boring, colourless magazine because they wouldn’t be ‘objective’. The GTC does have a discussion forum on its web site, since its inception in 2000 it has attracted 853 comments (current forums non existent), the TES forums had 3,773 comments in 24 hours.
The Socialist Teachers Alliance is the main left grouping in the NUT. I sent a piece in to them, heard nothing, tried again, heard nothing. After moaning and complaining they put a piece up. When my book was published I sent in a second piece, heard nothing, tried again, heard nothing, this time I just cancelled my direct debit.
As you’ve probably gathered by now I’m a bit of a contrarian, a fully paid up member of the awkward squad, I probably subscribe to Groucho Marx’s theory that he would refuse to belong to any organisation that would have him as a member.
It’s quite scary the way that discussion, debate and certainly dissent has been closed down. In response you either get sullen acquiescence from teachers, denial or displacement activities – teachers rattle on for ages about dirty cups in the staff room but just ignore the larger issues.
There’s always plenty of “consultation” whenever councils want to trash education. They hold meetings, pretend to listen, look interested and write down everything that people say. But you know that even if 99% of opinion is against they will bin everything, do it, and if anyone asks them, they did “consult”. Their favourite phrase is, “I hear what you say”.
Most of my early blogs were just my articles from the TES (the one organisation that is willing to print “controversial” comments). I’ve tried to write about life at school but also the wider issues. There are some great “resources” blogs out there, but surely when Unicef says our children are miserable you’ve got to go beyond the cheapest laminating paper and day glow stickers. Or maybe resources are another displacement activity.
At times you feel like a lone voice ranting away in the wilderness of cyber space then someone stretches out the hand of friendship, so thanks to David Osler the writer of the award winning blog Dave’s Part for mentioning ‘How Not To Teach’.
Monday, December 11, 2006
YulephobicIt’s probably a sign of advancing years, but I’ve become more Yulephobic. It was different when my children were young; there was the excitement of Christmas Eve, leaving out a carrot for Rudolph and a mince pie for Father Christmas, trying to get them to go to sleep, the joy on their faces in the morning, opening their stockings and tearing the wrapping paper off the presents.
As you get older it’s really difficult to buy people presents, if you don’t spend enough you look like a cheapskate or if you do buy or receive an expensive present, it’s not exactly what you wanted - if any relatives are reading this blog all presents have been gratefully received, even the fridge magnets…
What I really hate about Christmas is the commercially induced mass hysteria that seems to infect people, there’s a lemming like rush towards shopping centres and malls. I steer clear of them at the best of times but the weeks before Christmas they become a ‘No-Go’ area. I’m more of an outdoors type of person, instead you’re all cooped up together in one room watching those horrendous TV ‘specials’ or those films that have been on every Christmas from time immemorial (it’s ‘Groundhog Day’ as the ‘Guns of Navarone’ is repeated on a loop).
The rampant commercialisation of Christmas is all pervading, as parents have to buy those sought after branded toys, clothes and games. Some of them spend hundreds if not thousands of pounds on ‘educational’ computer games when the best investment in their children’s future would be to hear them read and recite stories to them.
Here’s an idea of how far the rising tide of commercialisation and ‘brand loyalty’ has reached-
· 70% of three year olds recognise McDonalds but only half know their own surname
· The average ten year old has internalised 300 to 400 brands
· It’s estimated that the average child in Britain and America watches 20,000 to 40,000 TV adverts per year
· Walmart’s website encourages children to choose items and enter their parents’ email address so they can “help pester your parents for you”
· An American professor has found 300 girls called Armani and others named L’Oreal
In school you’re filling the sandbags against the encroaching flood as Christmas seems to advance every year a few more days into the calendar. In the juniors we used to have the pantomimes or shows, sadly this has been edged out as preparation for the SATs test invade our time. Every year we used to do a pantomime, the most memorable was when four of the toughest boys were persuaded to dress-up as the four ugly sisters in ‘Cinderella’, they absolutely loved it and one of them it wasn’t so much finding his feminine side as exploring a different sexuality.
The infants still have their nativity play, one year the star character the ‘Grumpy Shepherd’ was taken ill at the last minute, I offered to stand-in, but our ex-head Erica didn’t want anyone to upstage her in front of the parents so another child was drafted in who was really nervous and forgot nearly all the lines. The infant staff did organise an alternative show with me as the star, the children loved it and it was remembered for years.
In every school there is fierce competition for the main roles of Mary and Joseph (usually from the mothers). An interesting piece of research would be: ‘Parent Governors and the allocation of main parts in the infant school nativity play’. I think there would be a high correlation.
For some teachers there’s that expectation of expensive presents from grateful parents. One teacher used to line up presents at the front of her desk with children’s names prominently displayed, as the week progressed children would be shamed into giving something. I’m not that cruel some parents just can’t afford it.
As practices for the plays, choir performances, fairs, visits and hysteria begin to invade the timetable I always make a booklet of word searches, quizzes and colouring to keep children occupied for short time intervals between the above events.
It’s also a time to show films, but not ‘stick the video on for the afternoon’. I find that 45 minutes is about the maximum, like the old movie houses I show them in two or three episodes. There’s the old version of ‘Scrooge’ with Alistair Sim and Bill Murray’s ‘Scrooged’ – not a patch on the original. You also have to survive Dickens’ sanctimonious moralising as Oscar Wilde noted, “One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing.” My all time favourite Christmas film is Frank Capra’s ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’.
Happy Christmas everyone and if you’re short of a decent present I can recommend an excellent book written by a primary school teacher… Hell’s teeth this advertising creeps in everywhere!
Labels: Holidays, Work, Writing
Monday, November 13, 2006
Go Independent'How Not To Teach' is available online from the usual suspects - Amazon, Abe Books, Waterstones and Tesco. It's also available in some branches of Waterstones. However, if you can try to buy it from an independent bookseller. Why? Because they help to influence diversity and choice. Waterstones have just gobbled up Ottakers - leaving some towns and cities with a choice of Waterstones, or... Waterstones. If you live in Merseyside, try News From Nowhere, they are an independent cooperative and stock some brilliant and unusual books.
Labels: Writing
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Changing RoomsThe new content-lite Times Educational Supplement? For me it was akin to that moment in ‘Changing Rooms’ when that nice couple from Purley open their eyes and confront the scale of the horror – Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen has converted their bijou living room into an imitation nineteenth-century French brothel. Or that familiar old boozer you used to frequent is re-branded and acquires some ludicrous name like the ‘Slug and Parrot’ and is full of uncomfortable chairs, garish lighting and the only drinks on sale are expensive lagers in weirdly-shaped bottles.
The TES has obviously been clobbered by the ‘curse of the consultants’ and the conclusion has been drawn that there are far too many old farts like me and younger trendy hip teachers need to be recruited as readers. Yep, they’re tired of reading about early retirement, teachers moaning about pensions and trawling through all those adverts for hearing aids, stair lifts and incontinence pads.
I’ll have to concede that I liked the new lifestyle magazine, sure attract new readers, but what the hell has happened to the news section? There’s dumbing down and there’s completely losing the plot. The TES used to be a serious journal of record, comment, debate and analysis. I read it because it covered issues in the kind of detail we couldn’t get from the daily newspapers, I’m not sure this is the case any more. How much was the word content slashed? One third? One half?
The re-vamped news section was an embarrassment, like watching an old treasured maiden aunt attempting to break dance or David Cameron trying to get down ‘wiv der yoof’. Worst of all was the letters page (now re-named ‘Inbox’) with only six letters on show.
The old TES may have been a bit staid and establishment orientated with a plethora of articles from government ministers and too many pieces directed at heads and senior managers instead of the troops in the trenches, but this was a bit like waiting for your caffeine fix and getting a cup composed of vast amounts of froth instead of coffee. Or to put it another way, as the Americans say, ‘Where’s the beef?’ Will you attract a new younger audience or just lose the older dedicated readers?
This must be the most disastrous ‘makeover’ since Coca-Cola changed their recipe. If ever you wanted an example of ‘death by focus group’ this was it.
P.S. Please could you manage to find the space to review my book?
Labels: Writing
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Let's Dream of FreedomWell here it is… my book has arrived in the post, after all the waiting it’s a bit like seeing your new born for the first time. My mum (bless her) has been sending the cards advertising the book to my old schools, family, friends, acquaintances, people passing in the street and even if it’s savaged by the reviews I know my mum still thinks it’s fantastic – you can always depend on your mum.
The ‘Ranting Teacher’ author of ‘Everything You Need to Know to Survive Teaching’ wasn’t impressed with my attack on survival guides and complained that, “it's hardly sensible to be negative about somebody whose book is also published by your publisher” (Continuum). I’ve got to disagree, a writer’s loyalty is to the truth, their truth. The ‘Ranting Teacher’s’ book may be one of the better written ‘survival guides’ but in my opinion if you start from the premise that teachers’ main problems are hormonally charged pupils and feckless parents then don’t write books, find a new career.
After my comments the ‘Ranting Teacher’ advises me that he “would have plugged your book on [his] successful website and given you the publicity you so obviously crave...!” but not now. Am I bovvered? No, my website is bigger than his website!
The ‘survival guides’ for primary schools (some of them published by Continuum) are of the 101 tips variety, here’s some extracts-
Tip 59 – bring in resealable margarine tubs to store classroom resources!
Tip 64 - use a cornflake packet and measure up 5 cm from the base and cut at a 45-degree angle, this will make a handy storage unit for all that planning!
Tip 78 – plastic coffee jars are really handy for storing stationary, I’ve had hours of fun labelling them!
Yes, teachers may be leaving in droves – between 1989 and 1993, 32,500 left compared to 85,100 from 1999 to 2004 (there are now 281,200 qualified teachers who no longer teach) but as long as the margarine tubs, cornflake packets and coffee jars are utilised for full effect who cares?
Of course I exaggerate for effect but I’m sure there are some cynical secondary teachers who will have had their opinion confirmed that primary teachers are just slightly more intelligent Boy Scout and Girl Guide leaders (no letters please). The ‘survival guides’ remind me of the toe curlingly awful programme ‘Perfect Housewives’ presented by Anthea Turner on that graveyard channel BBC 3 (even the combined talents of Gervais and Merchant couldn’t emulate it) it’s a kind of Stepford Wives meets a wanabee Martha Stewart. Anthea advises bemused housewives how to store food in Tupperware dishes and where to place the ironing. By the end of it you’re shrieking, ‘GET A LIFE!’
When I find obsessively tidy classrooms it does worry me, I’ll give an example, one day after a particularly fraught wet-play the Lego was scattered it every corner, crevice and storage unit, after a Basil Fawlty inspired rage (I think it was the time of the month) I banned Lego. A few weeks later Adam approached me, ‘Sir, what’s the point of having Lego, we never use it?’ I stared back at him in wonder at the stone cold logic, what was the point? I instantly made him Lego monitor and things improved slightly but I had to live with the odd bit of Lego on the floor.
The other type of teaching books are those behaviour guides, ‘Getting the Buggers To…’ (published by Continuum again and I think I’ve just scuppered my chances of getting a second book published, but who wants to be the teacher’s pet?). In many of these books aimed at secondary schools little account is made for the selection policy that fills some schools with middle class children from supportive home backgrounds (they should erect a sign ‘No Problem Families Here’). On the other side of the apartheid wall are schools crammed with pupils with low self-esteem, bad diets, poorly motivated, from families who do not value education. You can always spot them, the headteacher lives in his bunker and senior managers, who moonlight as nightclub bouncers, patrol the corridors. In every classroom is a giant sign, ‘Coats Off, Gum Out, No Shouting, Three Strikes and You’re Out’. Welcome to the education boot camp.
I’ve decided that discretion is the better part of valour and I’m not going to tell my headteacher about my ‘close friend’s’ book. It’s not easy in this culture being a whistle blower. Recently Eileen Hunter the NUT rep at a Birmingham school spoke out against workload and was sacked, even the somnambulant NUT leadership was stirred into action (bang goes the review in the union journal but what the hell) and they sent a stiff letter to ‘The Times’.
‘How Not To Teach’ is an attempt to break through the silence, it’s not a ‘survival guide’ or behavioural manual the logic is – close the bloody concentration camp what the hell are they doing to our children?
Survival guides? If a prisoner just thinks of a tidy cell, more humane treatment from the warders and better food from the canteen then they truly are in chains, let’s dream of freedom.
Labels: Writing
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Zen and the Art of Playground DutyThe next book after How Not To Teach - any publishers out there?
Introduction
Based on the reaction to How Not To Teach, in particular letters from teachers.
Holiday in USA
Last year we went to San Francisco, travelled in an RV for a week and spent 3 days in Las Vegas (hated that bit) – it was our 25th wedding anniversary – some humorous incidents along the way.
Autumn
Closure
Welcome back - the council inform us we’re facing closure.
Literacy Training
How the training is organised by ‘consultants’, we’re marked down as an “intensive support” school. I feel like walking out.
School visitors
Some of the strange visitors we get - Mr Crabtree with his wildlife slides, Mr Cuddles who barely got out alive.
Ruth Kelly
Is she the worst Education Secretary ever? I might not have read the Da Vinci Code but something isn’t right. Why does she talk so slowly? Who is pulling the strings?
Teacher Training
Why do student teachers carry round such large files, what the hell are we trying to produce robots or teachers?
Visit to Germany
Two weeks on a British council visit to a primary school. How they organise their system. Germany efficiency? The windows get a good clean. Gifted and talented night at the secondary school I really put my foot in it – ‘beam me up Scotty’.
Closure meetings
We get the parents involved and give some of the council officials a hard time at a public meeting.
Parents’ Evening
Why every parent should turn up and teachers should try to chill out more.
MFL
Why is our country so crap at languages? Should we teach it in primary schools?
Dave and Me
Dave joins the enemy and gets a headship in another part of the country no more drinks after school.
Christmas Play
Where would primary schools be without them, the highlight of the year and what can go wrong?
Spring
I’m a celebrity
Some of the teachers who could appear.
General Teaching Council
What a waste of money! The organisation that is there to register and discipline teachers. It only makes headlines when teachers are sacked – cue tabloid headlines ‘Teacher Found Drunk in Charge’.
Observations
How observations of lessons are killing teaching – micro targets for each lesson. How peer review could work.
Writing with Stephen King
A good lesson using Stephen King’s book ‘How To Write’ the detective stories we produce.
SEN Panel
They refuse a statement for one of our children, how the system is failing SEN children.
Tesco vouchers
… and other vouchers, why I hate collecting them, cutting them out and all the free publicity.
Closure councillors
I nearly get thrown out of a meeting when I can’t use the overhead to show school numbers.
Dear Dairy
I organise a lesson about Anne Frank based on my visit to Amsterdam. All the children get a well-designed booklet to write in…Dear Dairy. Taxi!
Play ground duty
The job that most teachers can begin to hate, yes it’s Saving Private Ryan again as chaos reigns.
PE training day
An Ofsted inspector takes the training day with her silent friend.
Hightown Park
Our local secondary school in special measures for 4 years, as part of my MA I interview the teachers.
Larry Cuban
Why ICT is not an each way bet, the book that all ICT teachers should read.
School motto
Different mottoes that schools could use or not use
Summer
Staff meetings
The grind of ploughing through exam scripts, targets, assessments and government targets.
Victorians Film
We get £25,000 to make a film about Victorian times in our locality.
Faith Schools
Why should the Church of England that will close in 2050 (based on falling attendance figures) get millions of pounds for faith schools?
Closure averted
The council cave-in and we get a grudging reprieve.
Summerhill
How we could educate children.
Warrington Peace Centre
We host a visit for our Irish school and visit the Beatles Museum, the Mersey Ferry and Anfield.
Swimming
The trials and tribulations of organising swimming and some of the children who just can’t swim.
Links with secondaries
How not to do it. Why is it that there is so little contact? My scheme to involve them comes to a grinding halt. I teach a lesson and the teacher doesn’t turn up.
Ofsted
Due another visit soon – the ‘light touch’?
LEA
How the LEAs have been reduced in effectiveness.
Comic Relief
Why I hate Comic Relief, being sworn at by mega-rich pop stars.
Blackpool Trip
We visit the Tower and the brilliant circus; shame the town doesn’t match up.
Conclusion
Trust teachers
The solution is to trust and invest in teachers.
Labels: Writing
Monday, August 14, 2006
Weblog – The proofsI’m knackered! It’s the end of term and I’ve got the proofs to read through and correct. Not that I should be complaining because this term I’ve been the floating teacher, covering all the classes from Nursery to Year 6. If ever you need to rediscover your zest for teaching try foundation stage or infants – I’ve loved it! It’s really sad that only 3% of teachers there are men and yes, I’d happily sign the adoption forms.
Nursery I enjoyed the best, I got the chance to crawl round on the floor and play with construction games and re-enact the story of Goldilocks and the three bears.
In Year 1 the student teachers did a lesson on the moon landing, I could see they’d have some time to kill before playtime so I went round school on a fruitless search for a spacesuit. In an inspired moment of lunacy I told the children that they had a special visitor, the second man on the moon, Buzz Aldrin! However, Buzz was so top secret they wouldn’t be able to see him. They closed their eyes and then I tiptoed out the back and crept in with a giant piece of cardboard to hide behind. When they turned round ‘Buzz’ was ready to answer questions. I think my American accent faltered slightly and when I crept out at the end some of them peeked and spotted my black shoes…
Year 6 hasn’t been such a joy, this year it’s the girls and I’m left wondering what happened to those quiet, polite children I taught in Year 3. They spent play times winding the younger children up, spoiling games and being rude, cheeky and insolent to teachers and welfare staff. They “can’t wait” to leave school, I know it’s bravado, they’re terrified of moving up to the Comp.
I saw a TV programme about a tribe in the Amazon, when the hormones started to kick in they took them to an isolated spot in the jungle and left them with one of the village elders (this job was done on a strict rotational basis). When he was satisfied that they’d got over stropping around and exclaiming loudly, “I ‘ate this jungle!” he would bring them back to the village as responsible adults. Now I’m not necessarily recommending this, but…
Altering the proofs is more of a mechanical task, you can’t edit or re-write vast chunks of text as tempting as it is. There’s no chance to expand on points or to pose them differently. Reading through the proofs it’s back to the anally retentive, I’ve found about thirty mistakes and you notice the curse of the spellchecker i.e., ‘none’ instead of ‘nine’. After I’ve altered them a freelance proofreader goes through them again.
I’m just starting to view myself as a writer, thinking through different projects. It was hard at first a bit like ‘coming out’, admitting to being an alcoholic or pregnant. You can feel a bit ridiculous at first, what happens if I never get anything printed? Even when you get your first piece in print uncertainty gnaws away, there’s that continual state of insecurity.
Am I a good writer? Every author asks that question and continues to ask it. Zadie Smith had an international hit with ‘White Teeth’, but when ‘The Autograph Man’ was savaged by some critics she thought of quitting, happily for her ‘On Beauty’ has received critical acclaim.
The best advice I read about writing was to try and find your own style and write about what you know. One of my inspirations for writing was from Julie Birchill when she had a column in ‘The Guardian’. She was never consistent, some of her pieces about people fighting for compensation due to asbestos were brilliant (her father died from the effects) and then she’d write rubbish about Iraq, but you always read her pieces and boy, could she do savage! Half the letters in the paper were from people threatening to cancel their subscriptions. Now if only I could a ‘Julie’ on Ofsted!
Books about primary schools are still dominated by nostalgia for a lost utopia, there are interminable re-prints of Miss Read’s ‘Village School’. Despite being an overwhelmingly urban society there’s that English myth that John Major recycled with a warmed up quote from George Orwell, ‘old maids biking to Holy Communion through the mists of the autumn morning… warm beer and cricket on the green.’ The closure of Redlynch Primary School, which was written about in a TES blog by the former headteacher, was closer to the truth.
I had an e-mail from the Sales Rep, he’s visiting bookshops in August, but in one hour he has to push 150 titles! He’s recommended that I contact the bookshops in the local area closer to the publishing date in September, so I’ll spend the summer chilling out, writing my second book and visiting the Roman and Greek ruins in Turkey.
On the last day of term we had a bouncy castle for the children, one of the mothers beckoned me over, ‘You won’t recognise our Gemma now, will you?” I blinked, that skinny little whippet had undergone metamorphosis and changed into a young woman. In Year 6 she’d constantly been in trouble and would declaim at full volume ‘I ‘ATE THIS SCHOOL!’ Gemma tells me she can’t wait to leave secondary school and she wants to train to be a midwife. ‘Sir, I loved it here, the best days of my life. I ‘ated the Comp’. Yeah, never give up on them.
Labels: Writing
Promoting the bookAs a columnist you have to suffer the slings and arrows of attacks from outrageous bloggers. ‘Nervously_waiting’ has accused me of being a tad obsessive about maintaining authority over my writing. I’ll be absolutely up-front, in this aspect of my life I’m a fully paid-up, 100%, anally retentive control freak. But pray dear reader consider the following mitigating circumstances that have contributed towards this horrendous affliction:
- Most articles or book proposals disappear into the ether without even a cursory ‘thanks, but no thanks’
- You get a standard rejection letter that prompts the reaction, ‘have they actually read it?’
- They print your article as a “letter” ie, you don’t get paid for it
- Some faceless editor hacks it to bits and leaves out key phrases and ideas
- They take ages to pay up and only respond to a threatening letter
- You get a gushing reply, “super, wonderful piece, must include it”, you wait, and wait… and wait, finally in response they admit they can’t remember the piece anyway
- Then there’s the magazine that will remain nameless, that printed an excerpt, used my real name and didn’t even mention How Not To Teach…
Yes, editors and publishers they really xxxx you up.
The hardest part of writing is being your own critic, developing your own style, what works for you, is it any good? I’ll return to that in another blog.
I’ve read some advice about promoting books and one salient point is not to peak too early, the most important work is around the launch date, but I’m still trying to prepare for the day. I’ve had some business cards printed with the details of the book to hand out to family, friends and acquaintances.
My wife gave some out in her local playgroup, but they couldn’t quite get their heads round the anonymity bit, who the hell was ‘Mr Read’ and was she having an affair with him?
In the summer holidays I’m also going to visit some bookshops in the area with the Continuum rep. On the internet I’ve got pieces on the
Socialist Teachers Alliance and Indymedia web sites. I’m still debating whether to set up a web site to promote the book, any ideas?
‘Nervously_waiting’ also advises me to be ‘grateful’ that I’ve managed to get a book published. Grateful? I’m sure that when writing was first discovered 5,000 years ago during the Indus civilisation there was an editorial committee, on one side were the idealists who recognised that it was a tremendous breakthrough for humanity, would raise the cultural level and promote ideas and intellectual enquiry.
Lurking in the shadows there would be a budding Rupert Murdoch calculating the glass beads he could make and if only they would spice it up a bit with some drawings of scantily clad slave girl. No prizes for guessing which side won, or what today’s deals tell us about the publishing industry – Celebrity Big Brother winner Chantelle’s £350,000 contract and Wayne Rooney’s £12 million over 5 years. Let’s not get all sentimental. Like every other industry, the bottom line is the bottom line.
Promoting a book like How Not To Teach is tough. I had an e-mail from a leading education charity that said they were considering offering the book as one of the prizes in an online competition, a few days later I received another e-mail that basically said, “I’ve asked the bosses about this and er… we don’t want to offend our sponsors, can we read it first?”
Great, so Ofsted rampage through schools and without over-dramatising I know of instances of nervous breakdowns, failed marriages and forced early retirement, but when a teacher writes a “controversial” book everyone is running for cover. Maybe it just confirmed my opinion about charities.
On a more positive note How Not To Teach is also available in America and Australia, wonder if Continuum would consider a tour out there?
Labels: Writing
Writing the blurbAn important part of selling a book is ‘the blurb’ - promoting your book in a few sentences. When I read Continuum’s it just didn’t leap off the page, it was the John Major of blurbs – safe, boring and non-descript. No offence but what had the copywriter been working on before – the Horlicks account?
So I wrote my own…
‘If you thought reading Gervaise Phinn was like drinking a warm cup of tea, this book will knock you over with the force of a vodka slammer. Mr Read survives the nightmare of planning, Ofsted and an incompetent head...He also takes the class to Ireland, the House of Commons and wins a film award. We guarantee "Christmas Lights", "The School Trip" and "Stressbusters" will make you laugh out loud. A searing indictment of our joyless, exam ridden primary curriculum...'it will take a bare-knuckle fight to save its soul.' Down-to-earth and outrageously funny, this guide will prove essential reading for all teachers everywhere.’
I’ll have to admit that ‘down-to-earth’ got left in from the previous one, somehow it just brings up images of that Hovis commercial with the lad wheeling his bike up that steep hill, but at least ‘the blurb’ does now encapsulate the logic behind the book.
The next task is to make sure the art work will sell the book. It needs something irreverent and eye-catching. One thing I’ve learnt is while not being OCD or a control freak when it comes to your own material always check what they’re doing to it.
I read an interesting interview in The Guardian with author Malorie Blackman, when she started writing she accumulated 60-70 rejection letters. In her first year as a full time writer she only earned £800 and that was for film rights, when she saw the script the girls had become boys and the black characters transformed to white. Welcome to Hollywood! Her first seven books were all produced by different publishers because they weren’t confident her books would sell.
I’m grateful to Continuum for taking a chance with How Not To Teach but after initial enthusiasm about a second book they now want to see how ‘sales and reviews’ progress before taking a decision. I had to smile, reviews? I’ll probably be lucky (apart from the TES) if it’s reviewed anywhere and I'm sure that isolated phrases will be used to savage the book.
In our culture criticism is not tolerated, look at Ken Loach’s film The Wind that Shakes the Barley, some of the so-called commentators rubbished the film without even seeing it – incredible.
Could anyone out there give me any advice on getting your book reviewed? I’ve mailed the dailies and some of the education press and I’m still waiting for replies. Of course reviewing is a bit of an incestuous, mutual back-scratching and luvvie air kissing activity. A writes a review about B’s book, “An absolute joy that would grace any bookshelf.” B then writes a review of A’s book, “An absolute joy… (see review above)”. I’m trying to break into the magic circle here and not wanting to overdo the Uriah Heep humility touch but I don’t have Professor at the start of my name and I haven’t been in the Downing Street Enforcement Unit for years.
Some teachers have ventured into print, recently we had, Everything You Need to Survive Teaching by ‘The Ranting Teacher’, it sounded promising but it was another ‘down-to-earth endurance guide’ that didn’t ask many questions about why everyone is writing survival guides or what impact Ofsted and league tables have had on education.
Another was I’m a Teacher Get Me Out of Here by ‘Francis Gilbert’, which seemed to take as its premise that our main problems are feckless parents and hormonal teenagers. It came over to me as a toff slumming it in the state system.
My way of promoting How Not To Teach is to use the internet and in lieu of getting recommended by ‘Richard and Judy’s Book Club’ I’m going to have to rely on that tried and tested system - word of mouth. Maybe the book will become a sort of underground success, dog-eared copies surreptitiously passing around staff rooms. A similar thing happened in the Soviet Union where rebellious magazines called ‘Samizdats’ were an alternative to the official press.
An important element of writing is always to review your work. I’ve looked again at the blurb, ‘a bare-knuckle fight’ - ever since the testosterone levels began to decline I’ve become more of a pacifist. ‘Bare-knuckle fight’? Ged ouda here! It’s just too macho, you see this in politics where erstwhile Education Secretary Charles Clarke was a self-styled ‘bruiser’. What the hell does that say about the man? So I’ll replace it and finish the blurb with my final paragraph from the other week…
‘I want everyone to imagine primary schools without SATs, league tables, Ofsted, strategies, wall-to-wall planning….Imagine – you may say I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one.’
Labels: Writing
Why I wrote the book
How Not To Teach by Mr Read will be published by Continuum on September 15. The aim of this blog is to give teachers an idea of the publishing process and how to promote a book. As a first time author I’m looking for advice and help myself, too!
Why write? Reading books, newspapers and magazines on schools so few of the articles seemed to speak to me. I couldn’t relate to them, they weren’t about my reality. There’s plenty of bland, insipid, non-controversial journalism out there. Or failing that there’s pieces by worthy academics, motivational head teachers, government ministers or the great and the good, but where oh where is the voice of the ordinary teacher (no longer at the chalk face but staring into the glare of the whiteboard projector)?
In some sections of education there’s a familiar terrain that you can navigate around, a certain written tradition or record that’s been laid down. For secondary schools you have ‘Kes’, ‘Blackboard Jungle’ and most recently the TV series ‘Teachers’. For the public schools, ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’, ‘Jennings’ and ‘Harry Potter’. When it comes to primary schools all I could find was ‘Miss Read’ – a twee account of a small village school in the 1950s (that was her reality - but not just another planet, another universe away for me) and Gervaise Phinn with his whimsical accounts of schools in the Yorkshire Dales he visited as an HMI then Ofsted inspector.
Could I find anyone out there listening to teachers? The General Teaching Council is the self-styled ‘voice of teachers’. I sent in an article for their magazine that sporadically appears through our doors, only to be informed that it wasn’t their policy to print articles from teachers. Apparently they were worried they wouldn’t be ‘objective’.
So ignoring the fact that many teachers become full time writers, once again we have a teacher-free zone. Reading the GTC magazine there are some well written professional articles, but where is the hope, elation, joy or bleakness, cynicism and despair? There’s nothing about the smell of the paint pots, the sound of children’s laughter on the playground or the taste of Jamie Oliver’s chicken nuggets, just a safe ‘house style’ with no cutting edge.
There’s also that risible journal Teachers produced by the DfES or as I call it ‘North Korea Today’ because there’s always pictures and articles of the joyous peasantry celebrating the latest 5 year plan as the Great Leader endows the masses with his beneficence… meanwhile half the country is starving. Never a word of criticism seems to stray into its pages, it’s chock full of inspiring case studies by teachers working every available hour of the day. Sorry, but the usual reaction to this type of material is either, ‘we are not worthy’ or outright scepticism from teachers who want to see their families.
So… I’ve felt the compulsion to write, that need to express the human condition, to communicate and to indulge in therapy. The book is a highly personal account from a school in an “economically challenged” area – aka poor. Each school is different, one may be run by an inspiring head who values all the teachers and consequently morale is high, and another might be on the verge of mutiny in imminent peril of special measures. There are different pressures, some schools face parental indifference, in others parents want permanent coaching and testing so that their children can pass public school exams.
As for the general background the most extensive survey on morale was undertaken by the GTC in 2002 in which 70,011 teachers participated. One in three expected to leave teaching within five years in protest at the workload, government interference and poor pupil behaviour. More than half said their morale was lower than when they joined the profession and a third would not go into teaching if they had their time again. There’s also the toll among NQTs where up to half of them leave within five years.
I’ve tried to include some of the gallows humour that helps teachers to survive, but with the knowledge that humour is very subjective, one person’s belly laugh is another’s assault on moral rectitude. It’s partly a view from the trenches but I’ve tried not to just limit it to my own particular school (the danger is that it becomes trite, corny or hackneyed) I’ve raised the periscope and surveyed the battlefield to look at Ofsted, strategies, SATs and league tables. In other words the aftermath of the blitzkrieg that has reduced so much of education to a crater filled wasteland.
There are some case studies about successful practise but not the Stepford Wives type of material from the perfect world of the DfES. Included is our film project where we were short listed with the local museum for a national award, the journey we made across Ireland to the outer reaches of County Mayo to meet our partner school and the trip we made to the House of Commons to pick up a Highly Commended Award in the TES Newsday competition… and Barry ate six slices of that cake with the thick icing – let’s not go there!
I’ve written the book anonymously because in our culture it’s hard to be a whistle blower. The book is very critical of the ex-head, the LEA and Ofsted to name a few. There’s the thought of still paying the mortgage and getting the kids through university. Also the 6% royalties from the book aren’t exactly in the JK Rowling league – first rule of writing, Don’t Give Up Your Day Job. The school has also moved on since I wrote most of the material and I wouldn’t want to see it branded by the media. But what does absolve my conscience is the way teachers and schools have been vilified, slandered and dumped on from a great height by Ofsted, now as never before is the time for teachers to speak out.
After a few unsuccessful attempts I managed to get some articles in the TES for a first time writer there’s nothing like the thrill of seeing your piece in print but another rule is to develop a thick skin – ther’ll be plenty of rejections. Above all my belief is - Keep Writing, Keep Trying. I built up a portfolio of articles and posted them off to Continuum, the largest educational publishers, and forgot about it over the summer. The first day back in September was a JFK, death of Lady Di moment, just when reality is biting after that long break there’s an e-mail saying they’re interested in publishing my book. There was that element of luck, they’d already agreed a title How Not To Teach but the author had let them down. Luckily my book fitted the bill.
Continuum specialise in what you might call light academic titles ‘101 Ways To…’ and ‘Getting the Buggers to…’ as worthy as they are my book is different because I’m not trying to write a survival guide (it's depressing that the demand is for books that promote endurance not pedagogy). The logic behind the book is – close the bloody thing down! What the hell are they doing to our kids!
I’m passionate about the success of the book, not just for egotistical reasons, but because I believe that teachers have lost control of the curriculum. have become deprofessionalised, deskilled and have lost their autonomy, become slaves to the machine, have been subsumed by the waves of the national strategies, inspections and centrally imposed planning.
It’s not just the long hours - studies on stress highlight the lack of control as the key factor, that’s why in most organisations people lower down the pecking order are more prone to stress because they don’t feel valued. The result of constant stress is that workers become disengaged, disenchanted and demoralised. In schools we’ve had the discourse of derision for decades and if you tell people they are crap for long enough some of them will begin to believe it. We’ve lost that spontaneity the joy of teaching, there’s a tendency to settle for grey mediocrity to keep Ofsted happy, don’t innovate or try something different, there’s a set way of teaching. I’ll be interested in the critical reaction to the book from my peer group. Is it too bleak, too pessimistic, just a disillusioned teacher tilting at windmills? But above all I want teachers to be heard, to make their own views known.
I also write for the Everton fanzine When Skies Are Grey, one of the fanzines developed as a response to the corporate takeover of clubs and the unhealthy relationship between the clubs and local journalists who were scared to criticise in case their access to the club was withdrawn. The fanzines have been an outlet for fans to rage, rant and bluster. I’m hoping to make a breach in the dyke with this book so that other teachers will be able to follow. I want everyone to imagine primary schools without SATs, league tables, Ofsted, strategies, wall-to-wall planning….Imagine – you may say I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one.
Labels: Writing
