Sign o' the times mess with your mind (Prince)

This image from Eric Sheninger comes via George Couros' blog. I like a lot of George and Eric's material.

This list is worth bearing in mind when we return to 'normal' school from lock-down.  

Mr. Blue Sky please tell us why you had to hide away for so long (so long) (Electric Light Orchestra)

 

Meddling? I thought I was done with this topic, but then I read this great article about not answering your kid's questions and - there it was again - meddling.

Here's an excerpt:

Child: “Why is the sky blue?”
Parent: “Can you think of any reason why it might be?”
Child: “Umm... maybe someone colored it with a blue crayon.”
Parent: “Maybe. How big of a crayon would they need?”
Child: “A crayon as big as our house!”
Parent: “Wow! That’s really big! Do you think there is a crayon that big? Who would be able to lift it?”

Medding right?

Anyway - check out the article, it's pretty cool.

High on a threshold yearning to sing, down with the dancers having one last fling (Patti Smith)

Photo by ZEKERIYA SEN on Unsplash

Here we go then, one last fling regarding meddling!

Here's my learning reflection on what I've learnt from this inquiry:

When I mentioned the whole meddling thing to a colleague, an English teacher I've known since Woodford House days, he said - that's what I've always done - been a provocateur - i.e. someone who has engaged in provocative behaviour (without inciting criminality yunnerstan) to provoke thought and discovery in his students.

I've seen him at it, so I can confirm it as a true fact.

When I began my teaching career I was lucky enough to have some real meddlers as my English tutors at Auckland's Secondary Teachers' College. Among them was one, I believe it was Ron Martin. who told me about Charles Weingartner and Neil Postman's Teaching As A Subversive Behaviour (you can upload it here). 

It was published in 1971 and is as relevant in 2020 as it was back then (my first year of secondary school incidentally).

What the authors had in mind was - a new education that would set out to cultivate just such people - experts at 'crap detecting'.

And that, it seems to me, is what being a meddler similarly involves. Creating successful crap detectors, who think and analyse and sift and theorize and test their thesis and don't sit still.

Active and inventive meddlers have to challenge and support students on their crap detecting road.

I certainly aim to continue my teaching peregrination along that pathway, a meddling and a roving as I go (if we ever emerge, that is, from this zombie apocalyse of self-isolation to again enter our classrooms again post Covid-19).

It's entirely possible to meddle via zoom, mainly within break-out rooms, I would suggest, but there is something about the cut and thrust and informal meddling while seeing the whites of students' eyes that is lost on zoom.

Here endeth the lesson on meddling!

April was getting the mail

Photo by Doran Erickson on Unsplash

This is my beginning of the end post in the meddler-in-the-middle series: my reflections on my inquiry actions!

1. What did I do?
The purpose of my inquiry was to test out the meddler concept after absorbing the Erica McWilliams article (read back a few posts for the discoveries I've made thanks to that article).

My version of the MacBeth lesson was to pose a couple of mystery scenarios to a class of Year 9 students (I put them into groups of 3) while I toured the room, stirred the pot, and responded to their questions. This was coupled with a question sheet about how they approached their learning pit experience, and how that experience extended to their other work in a variety of subjects. All that in 40 minutes!

The first scenario: A detective who is just days away from cracking an international smuggling ring, goes missing while inspecting his last known location. You find a note -  

710 57735 34 5508 51 7718. 

Currently there are three suspects - Bill, Todd and John. Can you break the detective's code  and find the criminal's name? 

The second scenario: Shauna was killed one Sunday morning. The police have to arrest someone from this info - 

• Alyssa was doing laundry
• April was getting the mail
• Reggie was cooking
• Mark was planting in the garden.

Who killed Shauna?

Once the first group deciphered the code in the first scenario (hint: read the code upside down), others got annoyed they hadn't figured it out and kept at it. I aimed not to interfer and left them to make the discovery in their own time, while responding to any questions they had. Some great discussions ensued once the answer was revealed - one boy refused to see the 8 as a B for instance.

2. Was it successful?
Yes, it was. 

After the second scenario (discovered much quicker - hint: no mail on a Sunday), I handed out a question sheet from a Spectrum Education Study Skills booklet about how it feels to be in the learning pit and what strategies are needed to get out of it.

My students turned some remarkably mature responses about how they felt and what they do to adjust. Once we return from the nation's Lock-down I'll add some quotes from them.

My success criteria: I wanted to gauge how I acted as a deliberate meddler (as I've blogged about before - I feel this name legitimises the subversive English teacher that I've always aimed to be), what the student feedback/response would be via the question sheet I distributed.

Next post: the end of the end post looks at #3 (of 3) - What do I think?

I never know what time of year it is living on top of the fire, but the robin outside has to hunt and hide in the cold frosty shire (Roy Harper)

Right now, it's all about work stations at home, right?

Above pics show mine.

Many thoughtful decisions influenced my choice of Abbey Road 4, a.k.a. The Vault, as the location for my work from home regime.

First of all, I needed a view for a positive impact on my mental health (in this case it meant watching the rabbits queuing up outside my window during a staff zoom), and natural light is important and AR4 has a skylight as well as the window.

I decided I'd rather not be inside the house (that's Jacky's sphere of influence) - AR4 is in some outside buildings, and, as you can tell from the décor, it's all mine (mine I tell you!!).

Proximity to the kitchen was a consideration. AR4 is perfect - close but not too close.

Access to music: I struggle to work without music. As you can see my records and CDs are within easy reach. Crucial.

All up, I'm happy with my location. How about you and yours? Anything need changing?

I never know what kind of day it is on my battlefield of ideals (Roy Harper)

Photo by Science in HD on Unsplash

Part 4 - reflections on the following meddling questions put to us recently by Dr Selina Samuels:

• What is McWilliam’s argument about the central importance of fostering creativity and how does it relate to the practice of teaching (and the experience of learning)? That the creativity coming from meddling acts 'as an engine of future productivity and social dynamism'. That is, it will produce learners who have the tools to help the global environment - solve problems that relate to things like sustainability, the economy, poverty, new coronaviruses and so on.  So, like, it's, erm, like, really important. Did I say important? Nay, it is CRITICAL that we teachers move into the middle and meddle (or keep going - if you've been that way inclined for years and now know that there is a term for it!)
• What do you think are the “new ways that young people learn”? Google and Wolfram Alpha have meant teachers are no longer that sage any more (maybe 50 years ago they had the keys to unlock knowledge but those days are well gone). So - those on-line tools are givens now. Digital methods are our students' bread and butter. Aside from that I think students are still explorers of all sorts of things - learning how word combinations work, how they think, how they can impress members of the opposite sex. All those imprtant things that teenagers do!
• Do you agree with McWilliam that it is more useful for teachers to “model how to be usefully ignorant, and to assist students who fear not having all the answers all the time” rather than to be the Knower? Absolutely. Yes. Always have believed that!
• When/if do you adopt the roles of “Sage-on-the-stage” and “Guide-on-the-side”? I have found myself as a Sage style figure when teaching students about grammar. That has rules and conventions that I haven't found an alternative way of imparting. YOU try and teach what a simple sentence is/ what a finite verb is and see how you get on. Guide is more passive and so I've never been that comfortable with that role, although the SElf-Organise Learning Environment (SOLE) experience (see below) puts teachers in that position quite successfully.
• What do you think of McWilliam’s description of the “meddler-in-the-middle”? Do you think “meddling” is likely to promote self-direction? I think it's a useful description as it directs attention away from the sage and guide models. But, I think there is still room for all three approaches, given different circumstances.
• Do you ever adopt the persona of the meddler, and if so, where and when? Yes, I believe I've done this a lot in my teaching of English, and especially media studies. Right from my first teaching post I have aimed to be inventive and looked for ways in/ connections/ provocations/ things that lead to challenging thinking and supporting experimentation. I enjoy learning myself and I love being a subversive teacher (the old word for meddler). The use of Self Organised Learning Environments (SOLE) for exploring big questions is NOT a meddling tool, but can be used in conjunction, so that students learn that learning can be co-constructed with a teacher, AND they can be independent of the teacher.

Next up in this rivetting series: reflections on my deliberate Meddler lesson with Year 9 and what I learned.

Through the mirror of my mind, time after time, I see reflections of you and me (The Supremes)

Photo by Saltiola Photography on Unsplash

Part 3 (of reflections on the Erica McWilliams' article on meddling-in-the-middle)

Following the terrific example from The Scottish Play in Part 2, McWilliams makes the following five points about what meddling involves:

1. Less time on transmission and more time on working through problems in a way that puts everyone in the thick of the action
2. Less time spent on risk minimalisation and more time on experimentation, risk-taking and co-learning
3. Less emphasis on teaching as forensic classroom auditing and more time spent on designing, editing, and assembling knowledge
4. Less time spent on testing memorisation and more time spent on designing alternative forms of authentic assessment
5. Less time spent on psychological counselling and more time spent on collaborative criticality and authentic evaluation

Phew - that's a shed load of more time people!!

In conclusion, teachers wanting to be meddlers need to:

• Allow their students to stay in the grey of unresolvedness
• Be active and inventive in the classroom
• Challenge and support
• Not make things too easy
• Use process of discovery, critique, argument and counter argument effectively
• Not rush to rescue their students from complexity

Next post - reflections on all this