Skip to main content

Doing the impossible: breaking through the brick wall of low expectations



Teaching is a great job because I'm both delighted and challenged every day.  Although it's like training for the Olympic games. Every nine months.  The same cycle. Similar lessons. The same spaces.  But, with is remarkable is that, given similar ingredients, there can be vastly different experiences and outcomes.
It's tempting to do the same every single year.  To expect the same because curriculum change is so scary and huuuuuge.  However, just like the road fragment above, shaped by the waves, the application of constant force and gradual change can lead to astonishing transformations.  The force in school is us.  The impossible surface the curriculum, Government, testing.....
Today, I thought I'd hit Year 7, mixed ability with some scary, GCSE type of geography.  The lesson combined the Ice Ages, Geological Timescales, Glaciation and NO SELFIES. This was challenging enough.  However, I've found that nothing is to be achieved through setting the bar too low, so we set out to consider some IPCC graphs and look at trends and variations.
I started with the familiar, although they'd never seen this before (I'm not in there Lockyer). This produced some wonderful ideas of where this was and linked back to previous topics (Geography is a natural interleaving subject).
The rest of the lesson revolcved around the following three graphs:
The idea of the lesson was to explore the difference between trends and variation, using the banned words idea to improve written descriptions.  We also interrogated each graph, discussing what each element meant.
The class also threw in questions about how the data was collected which led us on a lovely tangent about Vostock and other such things.
The group was very mixed ability, and perhaps the terminology and concepts were too big, but no body achieved anything by playing it safe.  The lesson introduced many of the large concepts that will be explored in more depth in the next few weeks, many of the topics that fellow geographers may recoil from. I've seen the change as a learning opportunity.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What makes a learning experience profound? Personal reflections and possible implications for classroom practice.

I have recently begun a Leadership Pathways journey.  As part of the first core day, we were asked to reflect on a profound learning experience. This got me thinking about how many profound learning experiences I have both been involved in, and how many I have been able to give to others.  Our group came up with a huge long list, but these are my five. Emotional Connected Demanding Reflective Collaborative As always, these are personal thoughts and quite mixed up.  I put them here so that I can look back on them (plus they’d get lost inside my world-cup-free brain) 1. Emotional I can’t think of a time where deep learning hasn’t engaged my emotions.  From being awe inspired to that tingle feeling when a student gets a light bulb moment.  From this-is-the-happiest-day-ever, to I-think-I’m-about-to die.  How often do we engage the emotions of those we teach?  Here, I would argue that having a safe learning environment is not always conducive to profound

The danger of Teaching and Twitter conversations: poorly formed bipolar arguments.

Sometimes in life, there really are only two options.  Get the wrong one and you can look like a muppet.  Take this useful sign for the toilets in Morocco.  I successfully navigated it, choosing the right option.  The result? No egg on my face.  As a mountain leader, there are many right or wrong decisions that I’ve faced, as there are all over life.  It’s not a good idea to let inexperienced young people walk themselves down Snowdon.  They may die or be seriously injured.  If someone is showing the signs and symptoms of hyperthermia, you need to treat it fast in a specified way.  There is no real arguing with this sign: Other options are less obvious.  Take this sign recently spotted near to where I live: Now, I wouldn’t consider sleeping in a bin.  However, faced with a sub-zero night, I could see the appeal.  The danger? Being tipped into one of those huge lorries with a compactor. (by the way, I only really considered all of this thanks to questions from my four year old boy).

Banned Word Board

Today I want to share some simple ideas that I have found to be very effective in the classroom. I can't say that they are my own original ideas, although I have played around with them. The first is the Banned word Board. This is a simple display in the classroom that lists a number of words that are not allowed to be used by pupils in their written or oral answers. The effect has been an increase in the quality of written work, and I have almost made comments such as 'Sir it's simple, the stuff just affects the thing and causes people problems'. Pupils are now more able to use specific language, something that is vital especially at GCSE. I have had to make a few modifications, such as the introduction of 'Heavenly Words' This is an additional display placed on the ceiling. I found this necessary as pupils needed some stimulus in finding replacement words. After advice received after posting the idea on the SLN forum , I have also introduced semi-banned words