Don't judge me?

A lot has been written lately about lesson observations and the wisdom/usefulness of grading single lessons or chunks of lessons. There is strong evidence that suggests observation is an inaccurate method of measuring the quality of learning, if indeed learning is something that can be observed or measured in any meaningful way at all.

So even if we accept that judging or evaluating the quality of learning is almost impossible to objectively achieve in a single lesson, should we give up the notion of evaluating the quality of teaching?

If a colleague or qualified peer comes into my classroom to observe my lesson I expect to receive honest and thoughtful appraisal. I’ll listen very carefully, take criticism to heart and feel a swell of the ego when praised. And that appraisal will be in my mind when I plan the next lesson - all to the good generally. That’s because I care about and respect the views of my colleagues and still have the same decidedly uncool desire to please teacher that I had when I was at school.

But not everyone feels this way. The process terrifies some: scared or scarred by poor experiences or aggressive management. Others have a loathing for the very notion of appraisal, seeing it as an unwarranted professional insult and intrusion. I have sympathy for the former position and some disdain for the latter.

I’ve thought about this quite deeply and experienced both approaches – graded and ungraded observations. There are two reasons why I have concluded that offering summative ‘judgements’ at the end of a (full) lesson observation are probably necessary. These reasons aren’t pretty but they are pretty important.

1.     Schools need to be able to identify under-performing teachers, strongly supporting issues of capability and, when sadly necessary, disciplining if the problem is one of misconduct/malpractice. This can’t come out of the blue and is usually (understandably) vigorously challenged by the individual concerned and their professional association. We therefore need a clear framework for the identification of inadequate teaching (what won’t be tolerated) and the subsequent support and actions (how will we help and at what point the teacher be removed from the classroom). Not a pleasant topic or process but essential at times. You have to identify when the teaching seen is inadequate and also when aspects of it require improvement.

2.     The profession needs to have a defined level of excellence to aspire towards. Teachers are generally pleasers – we like our students to get high marks because we loved nothing more than being awarded an A* ourselves. We are motivated by praise and positive feedback. We therefore need to know what we mean by excellence in teaching – there ought to be a means of recognising and celebrating when what you see a teacher doing in the classroom is sublime, inspiring or exceptional.

There are, however, big problems with these as positions. Point number 1 creates fear and point number 2 breeds resentment and jealousy. This is true at both teacher and whole school level.

The table below is an illustration of why I think the majority of lesson observations (those where the teaching is generally pretty good) are not all that useful. The aspects of teaching that ‘feedback’ tends to focus upon are generally the less contentious ones, the elements arguably less personal in terms of the teacher’s own persona and actions. BUT - the elements less often addressed in feedback are the ones that I tend to find get evaluated more when identifying either inadequate or exceptional teaching.

Feedback ‘comfort zone’…	Where feedback fears to tread…
Quality of resourcing Regularity of feedback Student effort Differentiation Timing/sequencing of activities.	Quality of instruction Quality of questioning Interactions with students Teacher behaviours Teacher expectations

When trying to define precisely why something went very badly or, conversely, why it went very well you often find yourself identifying precisely the things we politely avoid when evaluating most teaching. Consequently, I would argue that when the element of summative grading or judgment is removed, too much of the observation process gravitates towards the 'comfort zone' of less significant elements of the teaching, rendering the entire process less formative.

We need two things to happen instead of abandoning the notion of summative grading of the quality of teaching in a lesson. Firstly, the element of fear needs limiting by ensuring that progression to capability or career ending disciplinary procedures cannot be the result of a single observer’s perspective or (worse) of a single inspected lesson (moderation). Secondly, we need to abandon the notion that a teacher can be dubbed overall ‘outstanding’ or to ‘require improvement’.  The most skillful teachers deliver duff lessons; even the most average practitioners have inspiring moments. Most of us operate on a spectrum of capability that fluctuates quite widely depending on a range of factors, some in our control, many not (this weeks weather looks like testing lots of us for example!).

In seeking to avoid a system that unfairly stigmatises or labels teachers we must take care not to replace it with a toothless system supporting bland, unhelpful evaluations of the quality of teaching.

Plenty will disagree with me on this one I suspect. Doubtless a fascinating and very important debate.

Twelfth Night on (almost) Twelfth Night

This post will feature as a 'guest blog' post for Cambridge University Press to coincide with the upcoming release of their new editions of the Cambridge School Shakespeare resources...

Winter must have been good writing time for Shakespeare. So many of his plays are punctuated by storms, gales and hurricanes that it seems very likely he gained inspiration from rattling windows or shutters as he laboured over his latest masterpiece. Looking out of mine now, it seems possible Feste was in fact prophesising the end of 2013 when he sang that the rain raineth ‘every day’!

Twelfth Night seems to have been stalking me this year. This January the new Cambridge School Shakespeare edition of the play I edited with Anthony Partington will be released; the final version was delivered to us just before Christmas and we are delighted with how it looks. A few weeks ago I started teaching the play to an eager group of ‘A’ level students and we had a great discussion about studying Shakespeare in which we reflected that grasping the details of the plot can be a bit like worrying about getting lost on a walk; once you have faith that you understand the general direction you’re travelling in, you can start to spot the little details around you and really enjoy taking in the views. They are beginning to feel more confident with the language and so they are picking up on more of the jokes and delicious word play that Twelfth Night is so full of. They’ve been greatly helped this term by the fact that my school put on a fabulous production of the play for the Shakespeare Schools Festival in November and that many of them were lucky enough to see a live broadcast of the sensational Shakespeare’s Globe production starring Stephen Fry as Malvolio and Mark Rylance as Olivia. This book we’ve edited is really a blueprint (a shiny, lovely brilliant one!); a map if you like, with the activities and glossary acting like a key or reference points.  The play is the thing that really counts – the enjoyment and thrill of seeing and doing Shakespeare.

So how else has this play been looming over my shoulder all year? Well, I’ve certainly felt a little Sir Toby Belch-ish at times this Christmas, having enjoyed plenty of ‘cakes and ales’! But my inner Malvolio has at times been too prominent; having become Vice Principal at my school this year, I am often the one having to assert authority while trying to avoid tipping over into self-importance. It seems so much of being a grown up is about finding a good balance between fun and excess, enjoyment and responsibility. Shakespeare knew – he always seems to know.

But I’ve also been reflecting a lot on gender and identity in 2013; with two very young daughters (Shakespeare also had two daughters – just saying!), I’ve often thought of Viola and Olivia and how they struggle to be taken seriously in a man’s world. As my daughter’s personalities are developing and shaping I hope for them a more just and equal world than Illyria or Shakespeare’s London was. I hope that they can feel love and be loved one day as deeply as Orsino does, but I also hope that they will be as witty and sharp as a Feste or Olivia. I hope that they will never have to feel that their gender is a constraint and that they will turn out to be as bright, funny and brilliant as so many of the students I teach are. My wife is a twin, separated from her other half by an ocean, and the joy they have in spending time together over Skype or during their occasional visits to each other often reminds me of that beautiful moment in Act Five when Sebastian and Viola are reunited as ‘an apple cleft in two’. That they both, like Olivia, understand the pain of losing a brother and a father adds another layer of poignancy when I watch the play and reflect on my own love for my wife.

Change and identity, two central ideas in Twelfth Night, are in so many of our minds as we make New Year resolutions and take stock of the year past – who we’ve been and who we’d like to be. Just like this time of year, the play can be immense fun but it can also be melancholy and wistful. It has so much to offer, so much joy and intelligence, but Shakespeare teaches us that good things emerge through hard work and often from struggle. So that’s what I hope and wish for from 2014 – hard work, struggle at times, but lots of joy, fun and love.

And, of course, lots of students using our book to discover Twelfth Night!

Happy New Year.

Allow me to qualify…

Allow me to qualify...

'Reputation is an idle and most false imposition, oft got without merit and lost without deserving'

Othello

The folk-image of the teacher?

1963 – Think ‘Whacko’: Moustache, sadist, alcoholic, probably a pervert.

1973 – Think ‘Nuts in May’: Beard, sandals, pot-head, probably a Communist.

1983 – Think ‘Gregory’s Girl’: Perm, highlights, tracksuit, heavy smoker, probably writing songs about his sixth-formers.

The cultural prism through which our folk-image as teachers is projected can be an unflattering refraction. We are viewed with suspicion and disdain by many, poor experiences at a formative age amplifying and rippling out much more strongly through our anecdotes and recollections as the years progress. You may never forget a good teacher, but you always remember a terrible one.

One use of the verb ‘qualify’ is to add reservations, to be tentative and equivocal - I’m going to ‘qualify’ a strong statement with shades of perspective and by perhaps acknowledging other viewpoints. A radical government is reluctant to qualify their bold statements and policy pronouncements because the first cut is the deepest and the boldest sound bite the most memorable. The more mundane business of implementation and delivery demands that ideas are qualified with details, folly and errors addressed through compromise. Similarly, it seems the more radical a department or leader, the more reluctant they can be to do this. The current mess in some Free Schools indicates that the (certainly initial) apparently very lax vetting has returned to haunt the initiative and the children unfortunate enough to be schooled in these institutions.

The debate has shifted in the last week or so towards the question of just how essential qualified teacher status actually is. Labour have seen the opportunity to place clear water between themselves and the Tories on the issue and a debate took place in parliament in which a quite stunning lack of understanding on all sides punctuated the morass of ignorance on display. All sound and fury, signifying nothing except a widespread failure to understand the reality of day to day teaching and learning.

So does it matter? Is the PGCE or securing QTS worth a hill of exercise books? It is of great value and incredibly important that the craft and practice of teaching is taught and nurtured in anyone hoping to become a teacher. Subject knowledge can take you a long way in a classroom of willing and engaged young people with their eyes on the prize and a well-developed sense of respect for knowledge and authority. Certain classroom practices are doubtless intuitive and can be picked up as you go along; after all we were all taught once ourselves and all possess some obvious empathy for learners. You will very probably be nurtured and supported by a wise, experienced colleague who may even let you come into her classroom to observe her at work. You may be fortunate enough to work in a school with a library of books about teaching and pedagogy that you can borrow and imbibe. I know that this is how some careers in the independent sector begin and develop and I’m sure that there are some for whom that is a successful path towards a semblance of CPD.

But that is an anarchic approach; a ‘crumbs from the table’, fingers crossed strategy to growing the highly skilled and respected profession we know we require and would demand for our own children. I’m happy when I see ‘Phd’ on someone’s CV when they are applying for a teaching job but there is very rarely a link or connection between this and the quality of interaction, instruction and intuition I then see in a lesson context. Truthfully, I have found that the ‘A’ level results a teaching candidate has are often a better indication of both their work ethic and fundamental intelligence than Higher education. The best performers are not always the best Drama teachers; the most knowledgeable Chemists do not always secure the best results.

It simply isn’t good enough to sneerily refer back to one’s own mixed experiences at teacher training college and blithely declare PGCE a ‘waste of time’ or, conversely, to claim that school based training is ‘lacking in academic rigour’. There are, I’m sure, too many ITE providers in Universities not giving a practical or relevant enough grounding, just as there are too many school-based schemes which do not provide a deep enough foundation in the principles of pedagogy. But I would argue that these are the exception rather than the rule and that reform is a more powerful approach than a wrecking ball. Whatever the complexion and make-up of teacher training, it should be a high quality experience and not an optional add-on. Seeking accreditation should be mandatory in order to ensure that this is the case. I don’t have any problem with gradual routes to qualified or accredited status; I don’t see any reason why a school shouldn’t have the freedom to appoint someone to teach as they gain accreditation, but gaining a qualification and the validation that should go with that, must be part of the deal.

So the answer Hunt should have given Paxman when pressed on whether he would allow an unqualified teacher to teach his child?

‘Yes. As long as they are training and working towards accreditation and qualified status’.

We want teaching to be viewed as a high status profession. We want parents and the public to have a much better folk-image of the teacher than they have in the past. We want to be recognized and rewarded fairly by those in power when we do a good job and, yes, to be challenged and provoked to do even better because standards can and should be much higher.

We cannot achieve this by allowing the job to become a gentleman’s hobby. A pursuit people can play at freely ‘first’ before going on to do something better or more lucrative.

We should offer qualified support to any politician who presents a plan that nurtures these aims. No such plan currently exists and I am getting fed up of waiting.