We can be Heroes, for ever and ever. What d'you say? (David Bowie)

Only a few more weeks of holiday remaining! 

But let's not dwell, let's luxuriate in some fine writing and analysis.

Here we go...

1 Three cutting edge schools
A look at three schools doing great innovative things. Every school is different but you can always pick up new ideas right?

2 Hollywood
This article details the Bechdel test for films - it measure how male directors and female directors treat females in their films. It's a fascinating area and data rich but that's not why I'm including it on my education blog. Oh no. 

Why then? Because it forces us to analyse the types of movies we show our students and the subtle and not so subtle messages they give our male and female students. We may not like what we find!

3 School Culture
I love studying school cultures - the peculiar way things are done about your school. This article subtitled 'school culture rewired' highlights a new book by Steve Gruenert and Todd Whitaker.

I'm a fan of Whitaker's work so I'll need to track down a copy.

4 Lesson planning
Given our experience with blended and personalised learning within an inquiry model, this article examining 'the problem with lesson planning' seems apposite. It's written from a UK perspective and the call for freeing up the timetable is always worth reading about!

5 Radical visions
Finally, this mind/shift article looks at a radical vision for new schools. Cool. I love mind/shifts!

Take my hand, take my whole life too (Elvis)

While I was writing the previous post and looking for some substantive research on whether teacher evaluations had any significant impact on student achievement I came across a great statement by John Hattie:

On the other side of this equation [the effects of the best rated teachers], having poor teachers can be devastating. The effects of poor teacher quality tend to persist for years after a student has had such a teacher.

These are the mediocre teachers that Todd Whitaker talks about in his work.

While the superstar teachers have high expectations of their students, create high self-esteem, and will be fine no matter what, the mediocre do untold damage by having low expectations and teach in a uniformly boring way to the whole class.

Why don’t we let the superstars and backbones get on with it and limit the damage of the poor teachers by concentrating on them? If the mediocre teachers can’t or won’t adapt then let’s get rid of them.

Believe me I know that’s easier said than done. I have been involved in competency meetings/decisions in NZ, England and here in the UAE. None were fun but all were a case of needs must.


Gervase Phinn includes this poem in one of his books:

Remember me?

"Do you remember me?" asked the young man.
The old man at the bus stop,
Shabby, standing in the sun, alone,
Looked 'round.
He stared for a moment screwing up his eyes,
Then shook his head.
"No, I don't remember you."
"You used to teach me, " said the young man.
"I've taught so many," said the old man, sighing.
"I forget."
"I was the boy you said was useless,
Good for nothing, a waste of space.
Who always left your classroom crying,
And dreaded every lesson that you taught."
The old man shook his head and turned away.
"No, I don't remember you, " he murmured.
"Well I remember you," the young man said.

Driving down the road I get a feeling that I should have been home yesterday (John Denver)

Haar haaaaaarrrrrrrr (a sigh is sometimes written as the far less dramatic 'phew').

I have finally (finally) finished the teacher evaluations. They have straddled two trimesters, taken all of January and first week of February to complete, and have completely monopolised the work schedules of the Principal, his Vice Principal, my translator and me for over a month.

So again - haaaar haaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Forget that we have to do this beast of a job again next trimester - at least we all have five weeks to get the students prepared for high stakes examinations in March.

My company is fond of asking the "So what?" question lately.

Now that we've all finished measuring the teachers - so what did it tell us? Did it tell us anything?

Not really. It confirmed what we knew already. I wrote a post some time ago about how the Principal knows his staff well - he can make the three groups Todd Whitaker lists in his book (Superstars, Backbones and Mediocres) without too much thought.

So what did the evaluations tell us? It gave us a rankled (sic) list of our teachers from top to bottom that we could have produced two months ago. Not roughly - exactly!

To be fair, it also gave the teachers valuable information about how they can improve their teaching and contribution to the school. Unfortunately they are not really focused on that though. And I'm mindful that continually measuring the pumpkin doesn't make it grow any quicker. Best to chuck some blood and bone around t'roots.

So what is the real legacy from the evaluations? Division and resentment - all the teachers are comparing their scores (a 100 point system provided the score) and moaning because someone in another school, who's not as good as them, got x. Lack of confidence and a dip in morale - teachers who do great work but couldn't prove it got lower marks.

And guess who it was who immediately organised themselves to make improvements based on their evaluation. Thas right - the four superstars!

All in all I think I would have preferred the rest of the teachers to have been focussed on how they can make a difference to their students, rather than having their difference measured by a 100 point score.

All I want is someone to believe (Billy Joel)

Still with the Whitaker book - he struck a chord with me when talking about autonomy and recognition.

He quotes Al Burr's discussion that truly outstanding teachers need two things to make them content and motivated - autonomy (freedom to do the things they know are best) and recognition (can be formal or informal)

Let them take chances and risks and watch them implement innovations.

The best leaders I had gave me both.

The best of the best was Colin Prentice at Macleans College. He used his Monday mornings before staff briefing to distribute his yellow bits of paper containing his personal recognition of staff. We would look forward to Mondays and the chance of getting those yellow bits of paper. When we did it was an exhilarating feeling.

Intrinsic rewards (and not extrinsic rewards) are the best drivers.

While I was there I wanted to start a media studies department. He allowed me to do so and left me to it. I really appreciated that!

Greg Taylor at Mt Albert Grammar left me alone to run the boarding hostel and gave me the freedom to make mistakes and complete innovations.

So I did - honours boards, dorm names, refurbishments and so on. It was a thrilling time.

In my current job I work with subject specialists who are experts in their fields. I aim to give them autonomy and informal recognition.

I figure I can't do their job any better than they can so why would I try?

Hot hot hot stuff (Donna Summer)

Internet frustrations are hard to deal with. We've had a couple of days where I couldn't access the internet and therefore emails.

So I had to relax, let it go/build a bridge and work on boring stuff like making an English version timetable for the school instead and breathe through the fact that I couldn't access emails from my bosses (I have a few!).

I did an English version last year when our non Arabic speaking inspectors came so I put this year's version on that.

And made lots of mechanical errors. Frustrating!

I was tired, it was a boring mechanical job, I had loads of interruptions, a headache from concentrating so hard, the computer screen is small, there are thousands of small entries to make on the spreadsheet, the sun was shining, it was hot, I was dehydrated....etc etc.

I did find it hard to concentrate on the task though. Luckily one of my errors was spotted when I published it and I did a more careful check of the document. As I was doing so I realised that I should have shared the task with someone. That way there would have been more accuracy.

Been thinking about two statements in the Todd Whitaker book (What Great Principals Do Differently):

1) Make every decision based on the best teachers (i.e. keep your superstar teachers in mind when making decisions and not the backbone teachers or the mediocre ones) and...

2) Don’t have a 'principal's pet'. As Whitaker says - our true superstar teachers don't want to be singled out for special treatment in front of their peers.

This is tricky. In my current school the Principal has go-to guys he trusts as a sounding board for decisions. Being human, we naturally gravitate to a few people whose judgment we trust.

Whitaker again - our superstar teachers will tell us the truth in a way that we can accept.

The balance is between reality (bouncing ideas off a trusted few to make better decisions) and perception (having principal's pets). As I said - tricky.

In one of my schools the Principal created a formal Advisory group that she would call upon when she needed advice on sensitive situations. Mohammed has an informal Advisory group to do the same.

I think the informal works better - it can be more flexible, people don't get upset when not consulted, it doesn't create an aura of division in the ranks and avoids the potential for the wrong perceptions to circulate.

Interesting.

I'm stuck on your heart (Tina Turner from 'Simply The Best')

Back to Todd Whitaker's book. I like the approach he has.

According to him there are only two ways to improve schools.

One - get better teachers.
Two - improve the teachers you have.

In the UAE context getting better teachers is a fluke. This is because Principals can't choose who gets terminated and who gets a job in their schools.

At the end of each year a termination list appears in the school. Last year we lost seven staff. We're not sure why. Four were of retirement age but three were not (and they were good teachers).

This year we arrived on the first day of school and met their replacements. There had been no imput by the school into their employment. By a fluke we appear to have strengthened our teaching staff.

The whole chemsitry of the staff is a fluke here. A nicer bunch of men you would be hard pressed to find. The relationships they have with each other and their students is a constant source of inspiration for me.

For us then it is a matter of improving the teachers we have.

But let's assume for a minute that the Principal could employ someone. What is Todd's advice?

Employ talent!

Simple. What does he define as talent?

Love of students. Bright mind. Positive attitude. Congenial personality. Great work ethic. Leadership skills. Charisma.

I love the list because they are mostly qualities that are inherent in a person, rather than learned.

My conviction is that great teachers are inherently great.

Dear diary

I have decided to rescue Baggy Trousers out of its self imposed hibernation.

Why?

My creative juices have been re-energised by working at Ali bin Abi Taleb School. Simple.

I have decided to operate this weblog as a kind of diary for a while to get back into it - so a weblog in it's purest form.

I also want it to be livelier.

Today is Monday in Al Ain and a normal school day. I only have a mathematics advisor here on a Monday so it's a comparatively quiet day on that front.

I'm working on material for my Principal's PD and so I'm reading a book by Todd Whitaker called What Great Principals Do Differently (15 things that matter most).

I'm up to lesson 4 - treat everyone with respect, every day, all the time. Yeah right!

I try hard to do this but when others don't do it back to you it's a tad harder to accomplish.

I hate all the hidden agendas that are often at work in a NZ school context. They exist everywhere I guess but they seem a lot less in this current place.

Mohamed is a great example because he does aim to treat all his staff and students with respect, every day, all the time.

And its got to be an aim right? No one is perfect. No one can do this every day, all the time. We all lapse.

I think the message in the book is to remember this. Treat people as you wish to be treated. And recognise when you don't.

Take a positive approach every day.

Respect. Every day. All the time.

And fix it when you don't succeed.

Recently I was interviewed for a Principal position.

I did a lot of preparation for it. Being an advisor has sharpened up my analytical skills a lot.

The interview was odd though. I could sense that the interviewers weren't really interested in my answers or my ideas for the future of the school.

Just a feeling.

I could tell. They were polite but they weren't really listening. I was telling them some hard truths about their school and they didn't really want to know.

It didn't daunt me or cause me to pause. I was paying them respect.

I didn't get the job. It went to someone whose stated reason for applying was that he owned a house in the town that he couldn't sell. That was it.

I wanted it because I wanted to help the students improve. I outlined ways I would do this. I highlighted the most important areas to focus on.

Nevermind. I wasn't a good fit for this school. They weren't looking for what I was presenting.

It's a pity but I think it's also called a lucky escape.

Respect. Every day. All the time.