Here Comes the Summer! Achieving a good work/life balance!

HERE COMES THE SUMMER! – THE SECRETS OF WORK/LIFE BALANCE.

Well time is almost upon us. The time when I drive home from work with the car windows rolled down and the effervescent tones of Feargal Sharkey blasting out a classic from July 1979 “Here Comes the Summer!” I know most people opt for Alice Cooper and ‘School’s Out!’ but due to the fact I left School in ’79′ I’m an Undertones man all the way!

(Check out the YouTube clip at the bottom of the page)

Yes, my friends it’s the School Holidays! The Big Holidays! The Six Weeks Holiday! The holidays that all your non-teaching friends really hate! The one holiday they all despise you having! (I know that our friends in Australia and NZ feel this feeling later in the year.)

Little do your friends know, or even care, that by the time the holiday arrives you are physically, mentally and spiritually on your knees; especially for the first two weeks anyway. You and I know the pattern:
Two weeks to recover and become human again.
Two weeks going on holiday (if you’re lucky and can afford it)
Two weeks to prepare physically and mentally for the next term!
Yeah we really have a great time during our SIX weeks off – don’t we?

The purpose of this week’s blog is not really to really inspire or encourage but mainly to share how the Thought Weavers spend their ‘Big Holidays. Hopefully some of you will share your holiday experiences with us. Also we could explore some of the ways that we seek and find that elusive Holy Grail AKA ‘Work life Balance.’

The first thing to try and remember is that we are on holiday and school MUST come second place. As my wife once said “David it’s great being everything to everybody else’s children but remember you have two of your own!” Partners know instinctively how to make you feel special – don’t they?

So here goes with our ‘Thought Weaver Tips’ for the holiday season.

PLANNING YOUR BREAK
Now some of you may scoff at planning your time off but hear me out! Most of us are slaves to the clock/time table for 10 months of the year. For example I know exactly what I’ll be doing on the third Tuesday in June 2012 at precisely 1.30pm; my class and I will be having PE, Friday afternoon its Guitars, Monday morning Maths and the list goes on!

As teachers/lead learners we have come to accept that this is our lives (sadly) and therefore during the holiday period many of us like to go off-piste so to speak! However, the new found freedom that we all experience can cause some of us to become lethargic; we can waste precious hours on basically doing nothing. So often I hear my colleagues say, “I’ve been off for three weeks and I haven’t done a thing!” This may cause us to become a little resentful. Our suggestion is to have a basic outline of things that you wish to achieve whilst your off work, this can be as simple as fetching the newspaper, go shopping, visit the pub (visit lots of pubs) at least we’re doing something positive!

FAMILY & FRIENDS
Holiday time is a great time to catch up with family and friends that we haven’t seen for a term or two. We could meet up and have a coffee, a beer (lots of beers), BBQ etc.

Last year Lee, my son Leo, and I caught the train to Manchesterand visited the Lowry Centre. (The home of the Salfordbased painter L.S. Lowry) http://www.thelowry.com/ls-lowry/

Leo loved everything about the trip: the train journey, the big city, the gallery and twelve months later he still talks about it.

Therefore log on to obtain information about your local museums, galleries and places of interest. There will be loads of FREE activities planned for the summer; once again you’ll be super dad/mum and earn Brownie points by the barrow-full.

READING
You MUST have a holiday reading list (It’s the LAW). Whether you opt for sentimental tosh (sadly I love these), or books on special interests; why not try the latest offerings on educational research (Sadly once again a favourite of Lee and I). You may want to read the newspaper or ‘Hello’ magazine it’s up to you. But try and read as it keeps the old cogs of the brain going!

WRITING
Over the years there have been a wealth of people who tell me they have ‘a book’ lurking inside them – a book they long to write. The holidays are a perfect time to start. I have friends who have spoken about writing a book for nearly twenty years but still they struggle to put pen to paper – don’t talk about it – do it! Here’s a question for you: When do you become old?

“A man is not old until his regrets replace his dreams” John Barrymore

So don’t dilly/dally and your let your dreams become regrets when you are older – get a pack of cheap pencils, a note book, a good coffee shop and the world’s your oyster.

RE-ENACTMENTS: You must have seen the many re-enactment societies that operate the length and breadth of the country? Check out their website: National Association of Re-enactment Societies: http://www.nares.org.uk/

 

Lee and I are involved within our very own re-enactment society: it involves Rigger boots; trackie bottoms and an old football/rugby shirt and hey presto – we’re builders! Once we break up from school; we have a whole agenda of slab laying; fence erecting, shelf building – our project this August is decking out Lee’s back garden – the point we’re trying to make is that all this work is nothing to do with school/learning; basically it’s a chance to charge up the mental batteries and visit the most exquisite ‘bacon buttie’ suppliers in the land. Why not start your own re-enactment society? You could become a chef; landscaper; train spotter (Lee’s one – but it’s our secret); football coach; tour guide; once again anything that chills you out and recharges the batteries.

Well that’s it for another term! The Thought Weavers will be taking a month’s blogging holiday but we will be back at the end of August with our preparations for the new term.

Thanks for all the tweets; blog hits; comments and words of encouragement over the past few months; we really, really appreciate it.

Best wishes and have a great (relaxing) holiday.

Lee and David (The Thought Weavers)

so take it away Fergal…

‘Sorry this is where you have to pretend there’s a seamless link to the video below – you’ll have to manually click the link – our apologies! – So take it away Fergal…’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUg7OO1gZk0&feature=youtube_gdata_player

What is the point of SATs?

What’s the point of SATs?

What’s the point of SATs?

In short: Very little!

Firstly, I’d at least try to provide some balance to my argument. The main arguments for SATs are:

1. They provide the data for the ‘standards agenda’
2. They provide an objective snapshot of children’s progress.

In 2009 I sent an email to Ed Balls at the Dept of Education and below is a quote that sums up the Government’s position. (A position that still holds true in 2011)

‘The majority of parents value the information our system of testing and assessment provides to help them choose the right school for their child and to have objective information on their child’s progress.’

From this quote there is, could I add, one more argument for SATs:

The fact that the Government feels that teachers are unable to offer an objective assessment of pupils.

I’ve facilitated learning with my class for the past two years, taking the children at the end of Y4 and all the way to the end of their primary education. It may seem odd to say that ‘Standards’ are one of my lowest priorities; learning and enjoyment are my top priority, with the belief that ‘Standards’ will be one of the many outcomes of my pedagogy. Children in my class have excelled in SATs this year and the cries of, “this should keep Ofsted of our backs!” have reverberated around the staffroom. I therefore feel in a position to add my two penneth’ worth

I suppose I should be happy then, my children have done great in their SATs! Ofsted (even if they do turn up), will be drooling over RAISEonline…I am not happy though. In their current form, I despise SATs with such a passion that I’d happily see them abolished yesterday.

The simple truth is that SATs do great harm to children. They fix their ‘ability’/mindset in maths or English. The ‘level 5’ children think they’re great or clever, the ‘level 4s’ will spend their secondary education in what we call ‘an average kind of hell’ and the level 3s will feel so stupid they will want to finish school now!

From the beginning of Y1 until the end of Y6 children spend over 6000 hours learning in the classroom . These youngsters put in a lot of effort in that time; they laugh, love, cry, complain, question, find friends (and enemies), have chicken pox and lose teeth along the way. In that time we hope they have become a child with the potential to flourish now and in the future.

Towards the end of primary school, the children sit ‘Standardised Tests’, in less than four hours, the Government decide whether the 6000 hours was all worth it! Children are then pigeon holed into the ‘bright ones’, the ‘average ones’ or the ‘slow movers’. All this assessment based up on two principles, maths and English. (see our blog on Multiple Intelligences http://wp.me/p1upWt-1S )

Imagine this: Ofsted, come into a maths lesson, maybe yours (I can feel the shivers down your spine as a write this) and you decide, based on your understanding of ‘Standards’ that:

• There will be no differentiation.
• Any word problems will involve the same three people and involve sweets or buttons.
• Children will, under no circumstances, be able to talk to one another, reflect upon their learning, collaborate with each other or think creatively!
• The lesson will be 45 minutes, not a second more, not a second less
• Pupils will not be allowed to apply any ‘help’ strategies if they get stuck; if they do get stuck, the MUST stay stuck
• All learning prompts will be covered up or removed from the pupil’s desks
• At the end of the lesson each children will be explicitly told they are either

1. Above average
2. Average
3. Below average

After the lesson, you sit down with the inspector and confidently ask “Did you like the way I really focused on standards today?”…

Why assess children in a way so detached from the learning process? It’s like asking Lewis Hamilton to complete his next race in a submarine! SATs bear no resemblance to the learning process – the only thing being assessed is how good the pupils are at sitting a test, or as one little boy (Niall) said to me, “SATs only prove how well you do under pressure don’t they”

Chris, who had the highest raw score in the maths test, also happens to be the one boy who struggles most with problem solving! I also have a wonderful writer, she writes with such vivid description, creating wonderful pictures inside the minds of her readers – she ‘scraped’ a level 4 in the writing because her handwriting was poor and in this extremely unnatural situation, she failed to show the wonderful figurative language she shows day in day out in class. For the past two years I’ve shared my admiration of her writing with her, her parents and colleagues, only for the ‘Standardised’ test to inform us that she’s average! Sadly she’s not so sure she’s such a great writer now.

SATs are also used to put schools into a league tables. The only conclusion I can reach from this is that schools move from being collaborators to competitors. Teachers look to see if they’ve ‘beaten’ the nearest rivals and schools from economically challenging areas are looked down upon.

By creating league tables an ethos of competition, winning and losing, comparing and contrasting emerges; the motivation to collaborate slowly ebbs away. Self perseveration rules!

If it were a football team, the Y6 teachers would be the strikers who score the ‘goals’, they too often carry the weight of the team on their shoulders and should they miss the target, they are forced into finding excuses to save their skins. The Headteachers are the managers who watch on helplessly as the results come in, hoping they’ve beaten the school up the road for the kudos it supplies at the next meeting. And the sharing of ideas is something that can’t be done, after all why would you give your competitor the edge?

Would Chelsea and Manchester United ‘share’ players and tactics whilst performing in their ‘league?’

The Government and the media have hyped-up SATs to be the pinnacle of excellence, the gold standard for primary education, a system that gives bragging rights to some and embarrassment to others. SATs bog the education system down, skewing its purpose. The recent uproar relating to the marking of writing assessments illustrates our point; the anguish and anger caused by this cannot be good for children’s education.

It may then seem odd that we think getting rid of testing is not the answer. What we argue is that the significance attached to them is disproportionate to the data they produce. In short, good SATs results do not mean a good school and vice versa. They are the wrong criteria to use.

The ThoughtWeavers

Would you rather be clever or intelligent? A whistle-stop tour of Multiple Intelligence (MI)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Think of a bright child in your class. Chances are it came to mind relatively quickly, but what criteria were you using? This blog investigates the difference between bright/clever and intelligence.

I am blessed enough to have two beautiful boys aged 12 and 17 – two boys with very distinct and diverse personalities.   My eldest boy Ryan, left primary school aged eleven as a ‘Straight A’ type of guy;  achieving level 5s in  all subjects; academia fell into his lap as softly as a leaf in the warm September breeze.

On the other hand the little man Leo, found most of his academic studies rather arduous and soul destroying – feeling rather ‘thick’ (as he put it) because we was poor at number ‘work’ and spelling.

I was fortunate enough to have Leo at my school for the last three years of his primary education; during that time I witnessed him blossom on his learning journey; eventually leaving school with Level 4 SATs in Maths & English and a Level 5 in Science.  Despite this achievement he always felt he was not as clever as the others in his class.

Where Leo did come into his own was within his imagination, his creativity.  Even now at the age of twelve he can play the guitar, ukulele, Bodhran (Irish handheld circular drum).  He is a competent artist (winning ‘Pupil of the Month’ for his art at school)  His woodworking and practical making skills are outstanding.  However, not one of his talents or skills above can be scored within the world of SATs! – So do they count?

What the world of academia has succinctly said to generations upon generations of children “If you can’t read or write too well; or you’re poor at counting then you’re stupid!”  Luckily, Leo has a Thought Weaver for a dad and Leo knows that he is very intelligent!   He knows his strengths and his developmental areas – he knows there is a distinct difference between being clever and being intelligent!

I was pondering on the question: What is the difference between being clever and being intelligent?

After posting the above question on Twitter; we had many replies but my favourite was from our friend Mr. Gerald Haigh:   @geraldhaigh1: (Learner, teacher, writer, piano player.)  Gerald says that in his opinion:

‘Clever” is a catch-all meaning ‘owt’ (anything) from very able to deeply cunning. “Intelligent” was once precise but is now discredited.’

Is intelligence discredited?  Should it be?  Does it still have a place within the modern ‘SATs driven’ education system? Pablo Demarchi (Argentina) @PDemarci says:

‘I think being clever is an abstract ability; being intelligent means you can apply that ability to create or find solutions.’

I know that my son Leo has the ‘abstract ability’ but where he shines is within his ability to apply his new found knowledge, skills and experience to any new situations; this I feel is very intelligent indeed.  The Slideshow at the top of the page is Leo’s ‘Cigar Box Guitar’ (or in this case it’s an Old Pasta Tin Guitar).

This is what happens when you encourage youngsters to find their own intelligence.  I swear to God I had NO input in the making of the instrument pictured.

So hopefully we all can see a distinct difference between ‘Cleverness’ and ‘Intelligence.’ The piece of theory I love about intelligence and its application is Howard Gardner’s findings on Multiple Intelligence (MI).

I know that for many the jury is still out when it comes to the scientific credibility of Gardener’s work.  But I must confess that I am a true disciple and take on his teachings verbatim.  The reason I believe in this so strongly is that I know it works and I have witnessed the benefits within my classroom

Below is a brief synopsis of each of Gardner’s intelligences. It important to know that we have them all! It’s just that some of us excel/enjoy in some aspects whilst with other aspects we don’t.

Try to think of two or three pupils/people or maybe think about yourself and pick out their/your personal traits in relation to these below.

Spatial Intelligence – The artists, designers, sculptor, architects and free thinkers: These are the ones that can see and think right out of the box. These see things from different perspectives! Perhaps when a boy in my class told me he’d like to meet an Alien, he was serious!

Verbal/Linguistic Intelligence– Writers, journalists, teachers, poets and lawyers. These are the people who have a great command of language and words; they excel at speaking and are able to command an audience. Perhaps it’s not always best to ‘be quiet!’

Logical/Mathematical Intelligence: mathematicians, accountants, engineers: The number crunchers, the deal-doers. These are the market speculators of the world!  Solving problems is very well suited to this!

Body-kinaesthetic Intelligence: The athletes, fire fighters and actors of the world. These are the folk who use their body to its best ability, in the classroom the may ‘fidget’, but outside it they flourish! When was the last time you created a dance routine based on an electrical circuit?  Check out our blog on Physical Movement:  http://wp.me/p1upWt-1l

Musical Intelligence: The musicians, composers and DJs of the world. They have great rhythm, love the feel and sound of instruments and are passionate about listening to and making music! When was the last time you asked children to make up a song about triangles?

Interpersonal: These are the socialites of the world, those who can enter a room full of people and know something about them all in a very short space of time! They love talking! What does outstanding collaboration ‘look’ like in your classroom?

Intrapersonal: This is the philosopher’s intelligence. These folk are highly reflective and think very careful about things. This type of intelligence helps use to identify our strengths and weaknesses. Have you tried P4C?

Naturalistic: The great outdoors would certainly suit people who enjoy using this type of intelligence; the farmers, walkers and gardeners of the world! How do you link science with gardening?  How often do you take the learning outside?  Personification poems can be taught brilliantly by interviewing fences!  Trust me it works!

Many of the children in a typical classroom will be able to demonstrate with considerable skill a range of the intelligencesGardnerwrites about. It seems strange then that despite this they may not be seen as clever.

Lee & I had a chat about the question above: ‘What is the difference between being Clever and being Intelligent?’  We came to the agreement that ‘Clever’ is a title that someone gives you (usually after you have performed well in a test.)  Intelligence is something that you give yourself; an positive intrinsic energy from within that helps you to apply your knowledge and understanding in a way that clever people find difficult!

Ian Gilbert (The Independent Thinking) prompts us to consider the approach of rather than asking child:  How clever are you?  Why not ask them ‘How are you clever?’

The last word we leave to Mr Albert Einstein, his words sum up this blog:

“If you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will forever think it’s stupid.?”

Lee & David (The Thought Weavers)

FURTHER READING:

Howard Gardner: Frames of Mind: ISBN: 0-00-686290

http://www.abebooks.co.uk/Intelligence-Reframed-Multiple-Intelligences-21st-Century/1359596954/bd

Ian Gilbert: Essential Motivation in the Classroom: ISBN 0-415-26619-X

http://www.independentthinking.co.uk/Shop!/Books+Main/BooksWritten/144.aspx

David Hodgson: The Little Book of Inspirational Teaching Activities; Bringing NLP into the Classroom. http://www.independentthinking.co.uk/Shop!/Books+Main/BooksWritten/622.aspx