Lay on, Macduff, and damned be him who first cries ‘Hold! enough!’ (William Shakespeare)

Part 2

Okay, recent posts have been considering teacher as meddler-in-the-middle, using Erica McWilliams' article as a guide.

Using a series of lessons on The Scottish Play (or M*cb**h if you're not superstitious) as an example, where students had to solve a crime (the means, the motive, and the murder of a king) prior to reading the bard's play, with the teacher acting as an interviewee by taking on all the roles within the play for the students, McWilliams shows how the meddler works.

The teacher in this example provides support and direction through 'structure-rich activity in which they themselves are highly involved'.

I really like this, and I'm glad being a meddler is not just about asking better questions (as I'd previously thought).

Erica, again:

Meddlers know that their students are smart, and they keep asking them to be even smarter.

In the example above, using The Scottish Play, the teacher, an active participant, never the sage or the guide, kept asking them to be smarter:

I divided them into about six or seven rival detective agencies, each having to come up with their version of what happened. I gave them a list of names of who they could interview, and I went into whichever role asked. If they wanted to speak to Lady Macbeth, I took that on; if they wanted to speak to the porter I did that, too. 

Now the crime of killing Duncan, and the cover-up, are quite complex, as you would probably know. It involves a number of incidents and more than one individual, not just Macbeth. So coming up with Means, Motive and Opportunity is quite complicated. They listened, got together to theorise, and then asked some more. I let them try out their ideas when they thought they had it. I would not make it easy for them. Of course they wanted to know what actually happened pretty well straight away, but I was not letting them off the hook of the work of theorising. And I wanted them to do it together—to value each other’s smarts, not just mine. I acknowledged it when they were moving in the right direction but would not give more—they struggled for every inch of the truth and it had to be right. They continued to ask to interview characters and I continued to play the parts (my emphasis).

My task is to design an action like this that involves my students in their study skills session next Monday. A challenge. Tricky, but not impossible.

Part 3 coming soon: more about what meddlers do differently.

You look down, hearing the sound of the faces in the crowd (Pink Floyd)

Heavy hitters chewing over what epistemology means.

Okay - back to understanding what a meddler-in-the-middle does.

I'm about to make a series of seemingly random points and observations (it's how my brain works) but there are links and common themes, trust me.

First things first: it appears that the original article used to introduce the meddler idea is worth returning to - Erica McWilliam's Teaching for creativity: from sage to guide to meddler.

The first time I read it was in quick preparation for our digital conference and I found the article dense and difficult to grasp.

So, back to the future we go...

Good thing too, as it turns out, as I'd missed the link to creativity first time I read it; she argues the value of meddling-in-the-middle 'in order to build students' creative capacity'.

To me, talking of creativity is akin to talking about quality. Blimin' difficult and fraught with misunderstandings and differences of opinion.

Being creative, according to Erica, is having 'a propensity for epistemological agility rather than...for artistry'.

By the looks of it, Epistemology is a concept that every philosopher worthy of a Monty Python sketch, has had a go at defining over the years.

At its widest application, it means 'understanding' and more narrowly - 'having the ability to distinguish between justified belief and opinion'.  

Epistemology addresses some really heady questions, such  as: 

• What makes justified beliefs justified?
• What does it mean to say that we know something?"
• Fundamentally - "How do we know that we know?

Erica defines creativity/ epistemological agility as 'the capacity to work productively across knowledge domains'.

Erica then applies this definition to employment in the global environment. That is - creatives contribute by theorizing, they see the big picture, experiment  and collaborate with others. Thereby innovating. Thereby saving the planet.

Erica claims that it is much more important for teachers to model how to be 'usefully ignorant' and to assist students, rather being all-knowing (even if we could be, we can't anymore - the technology genie is well and truly out of the bottle).

The meddler-in-the-middle, then, is a builder of creative capacity.

I get that.

I also like the way this model positions teachers and students as mutually involved in 'assembling and/or dis-assembling knowledge' together.

It's a learning partnership, which as Erica points out, has powerful implications for assessment and beyond!

Next post: Part 2 - the second half of this article which discusses teaching Shakespeare as an example of how to be a meddler.

Hello hooray - let the show begin I've been ready (Alice Cooper)

Photo by Gary Bendig on Unsplash

OneSchool Global NZ is a pretty complicated organisation. 

There are 17 campuses from Keri Keri (the northern-most) down to Invercargill (the southern-most) and for convenience's sake these campuses can be split into three broad regions: north, central, and south (all the South Island).

On the next three successive Wednesdays, students and their relevant Virtual Classroom teachers will journey to a representative campus to meet each other (northern students to Auckland, central to Palmerston North and south to Christchurch).

My two campuses, Hawke's Bay and Gisborne, go to Palmy on the 11th of March.

Although it hasn't been overtly stated, I believe the aims of this event were summed up by Jennifer Gonzalez, writing about how to motivate students in her blog, Cult of Pedagogy.

Put simply - students are more motivated academically when they have a positive relationship with their teacher.

Part of that positive relationship is the students feeling that they are valued by their teachers. They certainly should feel that on those days as their VC teachers are travelling to them from those 17 campuses.

All up then, this is a worthwhile and important couple of days, and I am exceedlingly glad that someone made their suggestion (I'm reading a lot of Dickens at the moment and I fear he is rubbing off on me in a multitude of ways).

Anyway: hurrah for this OneSchool Global initiative!

I will wait, I will wait for you (Mumford and Sons)

Photo by Evangeline Shaw on Unsplash

Currently, there is some lively debate happening within my school around the 'lesson' (teacher led activities) versus 'study' (student directed activities). 

Mainly we are thinking about the balance that is needed for each. What we have agreed, as a school, is that it needs to be flexible,  and it shouldn't be 100% anything.  

However, it wouldn't be teaching if everyone had the same opinion. Each teacher appears to have taken a different approach. And everyone tends to think that their approach is the right one. Interesting.

During my reflecting on all this, I remembered this useful info-graphic.

I like this and it's worth keeping in mind for a few reasons:

• The student is at the centre, with specific and individualised goals, needs and preferences
• Self paced implies a lot of student directed activities (study) rather than a lot of teacher led activities, I think
• The one on one teacher tutorials are an important part of the process
• Feedback is a key ingredient (John Hattie agrees)

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right (Stealers Wheel)

Photo by Windows on Unsplash

Meddling!! 

The current buzzword in education, and the focus of my teacher inquiry.

So far, it feels like doing stuff I've done for a while.

I'll backtrack for you: 

Meddler In The Middle is the latest craze because it builds on and/or discards two other popular sayings (the horribly rhyming Sage On The Stage and Guide On The Side).

Each of the three is presented as a model of teaching. The sage is familiar to us all from our university days, and that photo above, but I see echoes of it in some teaching via zoom - notably when a teacher talks for 50 minutes delivering content. Understandably, students hate it.

The guide model is, I guess, seen as a passive one, and that's maybe the danger.

While meddler feels more modern, and I do like it more as it continues the thrust of teaching as a subversive activity. 

Because the meddler is busy asking these kinds of questions (and yes, they are familiar - I have used them before) -

1. What do you think? This allows students to make sense of and apply new information 
2. Why do you think that? This pushes them to provide reasoning for their thinking.
3. How do you know this?
4. Can you tell me more? This inspire students to extend their thinking and share further evidence for their ideas.
5. What questions do you still have? 

More meddling to come - did I mention it's my teacher inquiry? As you will be aware, I like to unravel my thoughts via the blog. Caio.

You say goodbye and I say hello (The Beatles)

Photo by Kristina Paparo on Unsplash

Teaching is such a transitory profession: people come, people go.

I've just heard news of two colleagues in other campuses, both excellent teachers, resigning from our organisation - OneSchool Global, a private school, to head off onto pastures new.

Last week, it was time to offer a sad farewell to a staff member at one of my campuses, who is moving back into the state system. Our students and staff had emotional morning teas and a farewell assembly to see her off with style.

And yet, when one door closes, another one opens.

Staff, like me eventually, will be replaced. Fact of life.

What to do when new people come onboard the crazy train?

John Boitnott has got that covered.

Here are his ten techniques, mainly dealing with establishing good working relationships that aren't covered in the normal orientation procedure.

I've pulled out a few (is four a few? Not sure) I think are the most worthy of a try.

Get coffee

We have a great coffee machine in the staff room, but we also have The 13th Stag coffee shop nearby - great for a social quick coffee or lunch to get away from the hurley burley.

Send them on a scavenger hunt

Give newbies (or the whole staff) a list of tasks, like finding an employee who’s been with us the longest/shortest time,  or who likes to cook, or has the most Beatles records. I've used a colleague's selfie challenge a few times now and it works a treat as a fun icebreaker activity.  

Give them a meaningful gift

OSG does the company branded gift thing really well.

Set them up right

Boitnott: It might sound simple, but take the time to ensure that employees are set up with all of the right software, a functional email account, login accounts and passwords. Ideally, do this before they arrive for their first day. If new employees lack these important tools, it can lead to frustration, delays and a slow start. 

We need to lift our game on this one.

Big man, pig man - haha, charade you are (Pink Floyd)

Being back in the classroom is tremendous fun!

Today's lesson with my Year 9 English class started off with a slight growl about some immature behaviour. That settled things down and I was able to launch into a great activity that the students embraced whole heartedly.

I walked out of the class feeling on cloud 9.

I've been at this game for 36 years now, so I know it's a roller coaster. Tomorrow could be a frustrating exercise in frustration. That's the deal.

During my supervision of the Year 10 English today (yes, I'm also the Principal of two campuses and covering two Learning Centres this term = needs must) their lesson was on literary devices.

Reminded me of this great collection of 21 rhetorical devices. Suffice to say none of these 21 came up in today's lesson, but you may enjoy checking them out

Oh yes indeedy, English is FUN.