And so I have woken up at a decent enough time. My mind is feeling sharper than it has done for a long time. Having been in charge of a curriculum from inception to completion, taking responsibility for question choices and entry, moderating and sending away coursework, I sit here near the end with profound professional satisfaction.
Several emails and presents from students have proved to be wonderfully vindicating with my dedication and expertise both praised and appreciated.
So I have almost secured podcasts for several years' worth of study and though. I have good walking boots. And I am pretty much ready to leave this place.
The day will be framed with:
9am - Dubizzle, selling and organising stuff.
10am - Writing
11am - Cleaning stuff, Go to School for a Touch of Marking
12pm be around in order to secure the
All these things are procedural. The spirit of the day is not in this list.
Friday, 24 May 2019
Motivation To Educate Myself in the Humanities
My current colleagues inspire me to want to educate myself because they are so purposefully ignorant. The dearth of conversation from the top three is especially galling. In response, I want to raise the foundations of my intellectual palace. The Halls of Thought that once guided my life is a broken metaphor. It nullifies exploration. It suggests that a way to live and be is to fear outside. That outside me is broken and threatening, tedious and wrong.
The framework I speak of is to embrace an aspect worth taking to face the world. It is all the arts and philosophy. It combines all the authors and thoughts and ideas that I want to consider.
I am trying to make a podcast curriculum for myself that can be combined with a school curriculum. But, more importantly, it can be used to enrich the persona that walks in the world. It is a guide that might let me either walk with more confidence or at least begin some more interesting walks full-stop.
I want to connect the podcasts with wider tasks. I think writing on my blog would be really quite interesting. And perhaps essential. I should also combine it with walking.
Someone who is good at rugby and teaches business studies complained about academic snobbery. Seeing certain subjects as more desirable depending on the paths you want to take is true. It is disingenuous to match all subjects together. If students want to take the humanities at an elite university or medicine, it is professionally deficient to say that all subjects are fine.
Snobbery suggests that to delineate is inappropriate. To not share the ongoing conversation between subjects smacks more of making business studies teachers feel better than actually helping students.
What the IB attempts to do between the subjects is to make connections between these subjects. It compels the learning of a judicious range and (hopefully) for people to make connections between those subjects.
Monday, 20 May 2019
Discipline and diet
Discipline and diet – I am happy with what I’ve done. Two days lost in a row doesn’t need to be many days lost. Get back on when we can. Moderation in all things, including moderation. Although it seems that my diet fluctuations connect with my social connections. More loneliness leads to worse eating. Two beers and an icecream… 1500 calories! Should I consider the relationship between my present self and my future self?
It seems difficult to consider the extent to which I will resist pleasure. Food and drink…
Since Ramadan I have only eaten under the calorie count 4 times in 11 days. What is going on with that? I thought I was at least half. It is interesting to track this.
Last night I drank three glass of wine and felt myself literally warm up. I wanted to drink more. This time, at 6am, I am glad I did not drink so heavily. Too many times I have done that, especially on a school night. It is really an exploit of my future self. Instead, I ate ice cream. That was a way of enjoying the present at the expense of my future self. Food is something of a safe moderation…
Women and other things are enjoyable. Desire needs to be experienced. Order and nothing else is not enough. It can be crushing.
Again, I find myself eating an entire meal again later. What is going on with my discipline? I need to acknowledge that these desires need to be sated somewhat. In fact, I think I need to address desire full-stop…
Again, I write this later, my diet and discipline are quite weak. I am eating a large amount of icecream.
And so... at least even attempting to eat on a diet is useful. Last night I felt tremendously bored... but then I wake up today not feeling quite so disdainful. My diet fits around other stuff, including whether I have taken the time to see people or not.
It seems difficult to consider the extent to which I will resist pleasure. Food and drink…
Since Ramadan I have only eaten under the calorie count 4 times in 11 days. What is going on with that? I thought I was at least half. It is interesting to track this.
Last night I drank three glass of wine and felt myself literally warm up. I wanted to drink more. This time, at 6am, I am glad I did not drink so heavily. Too many times I have done that, especially on a school night. It is really an exploit of my future self. Instead, I ate ice cream. That was a way of enjoying the present at the expense of my future self. Food is something of a safe moderation…
Women and other things are enjoyable. Desire needs to be experienced. Order and nothing else is not enough. It can be crushing.
Again, I find myself eating an entire meal again later. What is going on with my discipline? I need to acknowledge that these desires need to be sated somewhat. In fact, I think I need to address desire full-stop…
Again, I write this later, my diet and discipline are quite weak. I am eating a large amount of icecream.
And so... at least even attempting to eat on a diet is useful. Last night I felt tremendously bored... but then I wake up today not feeling quite so disdainful. My diet fits around other stuff, including whether I have taken the time to see people or not.
I reread some of the emails I sent and read this time last year.
I reread some of the emails I sent and read this time last year. I suffered the tedious machinations of my foolish immediate managers, and the ire of an especially disappointing colleague.
When I was in those moments where I suffered their bickerings, rebellion seemed unlikely. They drained my energies, mental and spiritual. And any rebellion would not seem to change deep-set values that they have about being in Dubai and being in teaching.
One teacher, in particular, is my boss. I offered her the chance of writing a blog. I would set her up with blogspot.com, maybe even Wix. I would not give her more. But after some exchanges with her friend – a cruel man who has cheated on multiple women – she has ignored several of my messages.
I think of how she might be if she moved to Thailand or became entrepreneurial. Her parents offer her a deposit to be more than she is: to have a house. Of course, this might be a real issue. A real issue. It would involve challenging her vacuous nature. Her ‘secret hippy’ identity is very secret indeed. And her burnt out experiences… I want her to heal from that, but these eyes are in my skull. She is again being remarkably cruel – ignoring me and ready to undermine me. She lacks, and my lacking means I am unable to fill her lacking. She responds with cruelty and laziness. And she chooses around her women who are lazy and unable as well. It is a strange and weird environment.
I do not really believe what I thought a month ago – that I was grateful for how I was protected from this horrible woman. No-one protected me. Those fuckers! I realised the need for my own boundaries. I became organised and really understood how to put a curriculum together. Would I have worked hard if I was simply given a position and gentle prodding? I felt as if I was fighting for my intellectual life.
And this side of things? I feel that I have gained a level of understanding and organisation that is a happy minimum, in that it is quite good. It seems fairly objective now that many of these colleagues, especially the painful ones, are unable and dangerously…
I reread some of the emails again from the tedious woman. Constant and difficult challenging of trying to fix a curriculum. Wants to be ‘bring in the fold’ other teachers, but defensive and aggressive in response to requests for clarification of what she thinks has been decided. Repeated assertions that she has lots to give and much experience underscore a profound belief that she does not have either.
I was unprotected by Sophia, Charlotte and Marie. For that, they are who they are. I survived this, and I am stronger.
After that Year 13 exam, I will be stronger. I will have taken responsibility for the most important terminal exams, managing staff to some degree.
When I was in those moments where I suffered their bickerings, rebellion seemed unlikely. They drained my energies, mental and spiritual. And any rebellion would not seem to change deep-set values that they have about being in Dubai and being in teaching.
One teacher, in particular, is my boss. I offered her the chance of writing a blog. I would set her up with blogspot.com, maybe even Wix. I would not give her more. But after some exchanges with her friend – a cruel man who has cheated on multiple women – she has ignored several of my messages.
I think of how she might be if she moved to Thailand or became entrepreneurial. Her parents offer her a deposit to be more than she is: to have a house. Of course, this might be a real issue. A real issue. It would involve challenging her vacuous nature. Her ‘secret hippy’ identity is very secret indeed. And her burnt out experiences… I want her to heal from that, but these eyes are in my skull. She is again being remarkably cruel – ignoring me and ready to undermine me. She lacks, and my lacking means I am unable to fill her lacking. She responds with cruelty and laziness. And she chooses around her women who are lazy and unable as well. It is a strange and weird environment.
I do not really believe what I thought a month ago – that I was grateful for how I was protected from this horrible woman. No-one protected me. Those fuckers! I realised the need for my own boundaries. I became organised and really understood how to put a curriculum together. Would I have worked hard if I was simply given a position and gentle prodding? I felt as if I was fighting for my intellectual life.
And this side of things? I feel that I have gained a level of understanding and organisation that is a happy minimum, in that it is quite good. It seems fairly objective now that many of these colleagues, especially the painful ones, are unable and dangerously…
I reread some of the emails again from the tedious woman. Constant and difficult challenging of trying to fix a curriculum. Wants to be ‘bring in the fold’ other teachers, but defensive and aggressive in response to requests for clarification of what she thinks has been decided. Repeated assertions that she has lots to give and much experience underscore a profound belief that she does not have either.
I was unprotected by Sophia, Charlotte and Marie. For that, they are who they are. I survived this, and I am stronger.
After that Year 13 exam, I will be stronger. I will have taken responsibility for the most important terminal exams, managing staff to some degree.
Sunday, 19 May 2019
Telling people that I am leaving and owning it.
A few weeks ago I decided to tell people that I was leaving. There are two worries in my place:
a) That telling students I will leave dislocates me and leads to a worse experience.
b) Being present at the beginning or end of exams will lead to undue stress for me and the students.
Both of these are perhaps based upon assumptions that do not seem to hold out. Last year I was present before and after each exam and the students seemed to appreciate it. My stress levels were not overwhelming. For the second point, I told students that I was leaving recently and the reaction was sweet rather than devastating.
I read my blog over the past two years. I will read my blog to see what this was like over the past years. I intend to tell my students on Sunday, now that the Year 13s and Year 11s have gone. I will tell my students that I’m going to Asia and I will do it in as low a key a way as possible.
I read my diaries and it is literally on this date in May 2013 that I told folks that I would leave.
At the heart of it, I spoke about the need to see elements of life immediately beyond your face.
Unlike in my UK school, I do not sense any community here. I feel embarrassed to be part of Dubai. I cannot help but feel that those who choose to come here are terribly exploitative. Lifecoaches and Dubai…
For some reason, I do not wish to give my heart to this place like I did for my students in Scarborough. I will see what happens. Likely I will say that I’m leaving the Middle East at the end of the year, and everything will be sorted out for their administration. I’m going to South East Asia.
And so I told people today. I know there was some disappointment but I handled it well. Here there is not the heart as we might see in other places. Instead it was a fairly functional process. That depicts my experience here, largely.
a) That telling students I will leave dislocates me and leads to a worse experience.
b) Being present at the beginning or end of exams will lead to undue stress for me and the students.
Both of these are perhaps based upon assumptions that do not seem to hold out. Last year I was present before and after each exam and the students seemed to appreciate it. My stress levels were not overwhelming. For the second point, I told students that I was leaving recently and the reaction was sweet rather than devastating.
I read my blog over the past two years. I will read my blog to see what this was like over the past years. I intend to tell my students on Sunday, now that the Year 13s and Year 11s have gone. I will tell my students that I’m going to Asia and I will do it in as low a key a way as possible.
I read my diaries and it is literally on this date in May 2013 that I told folks that I would leave.
At the heart of it, I spoke about the need to see elements of life immediately beyond your face.
Unlike in my UK school, I do not sense any community here. I feel embarrassed to be part of Dubai. I cannot help but feel that those who choose to come here are terribly exploitative. Lifecoaches and Dubai…
For some reason, I do not wish to give my heart to this place like I did for my students in Scarborough. I will see what happens. Likely I will say that I’m leaving the Middle East at the end of the year, and everything will be sorted out for their administration. I’m going to South East Asia.
And so I told people today. I know there was some disappointment but I handled it well. Here there is not the heart as we might see in other places. Instead it was a fairly functional process. That depicts my experience here, largely.
How to frame my time here in Dubai
I spoke with a Phillipino family recently about moving my furniture. When they asked me why I was moving, I responded with aggressive vitriol, largely about my colleagues. The behaviour of my colleagues justifies such comments since just today the assistant head again tried to engage me in conversation about 'Ting Tongs'. She asked me what I called Filipinos; I said that I am not sure that I did call them anything. This is the tone of my environment now.
But to spend my time talking about this seems a waste of what I could be doing. And worse than that, my negativity of this place will rightly poison how others think of me.
How do I frame my time here in Dubai – what do I speak about? The colleagues? My ex? The difficult politicising of my closest colleagues? How does that come across? What is true?
I was reading recently an interesting book about small-talk. Its premise was rather dark, that small-talk functions on in-groups and out-groups. The desire to ignore this is only doing that - it ignores the concept. It does not deal with the dangerous inclination to form outgroups. Indeed, the thinker himself can be challenged and ostracised. Even thinking of this, I struggle to truly care and connecting through divergence, preferring instead to match myself through apt convergence the new people I will soon meet.
Will I be well-matched the people I will soon meet? Today I stood for a few moments and watched a privileged and effeminate chat in passing with an orderly and Northern colleague. Regardless of the differences on paper and in my perception, I witnessed the dynamic of these men in passing. It reminded me of my loneliness her. I am certainly too lonely here, and my lack of time with other people affects, I think, my reading and my eating in general.
A few friends and a good companion is all I need. In lieu of that, I need to reorganise how I spend my time in this place.
I do not say yes to enough things. Saying yes to things that perhaps do not interest me is a reasonably good idea, I think. I do not do this enough. I frame that time as wasteful, somewhat. And why? I should make more of a proactive effort to socialise on my terms.
I find it boring to see certain people here. Will I find the same in Manila? It will be different. That is all.
Just taking the time to see people. To create some momentum in doing so.
I really need to consider what kind of life I want mid-week. I think that doing things mid-week is necessary for a better life than I have now.
The quietness of Ramadan offers me time and space to do more. But instead I do little. I have sought easy times. The problem also comes that after the day has ended I just want to retreat to my room… or at least that is my habit. I need to instead do something else. Drive somewhere else. I don’t know where. Perhaps a podcast and driving will help me… walking and podcasts certainly will… More movement and more speaking will help.
But to spend my time talking about this seems a waste of what I could be doing. And worse than that, my negativity of this place will rightly poison how others think of me.
How do I frame my time here in Dubai – what do I speak about? The colleagues? My ex? The difficult politicising of my closest colleagues? How does that come across? What is true?
I was reading recently an interesting book about small-talk. Its premise was rather dark, that small-talk functions on in-groups and out-groups. The desire to ignore this is only doing that - it ignores the concept. It does not deal with the dangerous inclination to form outgroups. Indeed, the thinker himself can be challenged and ostracised. Even thinking of this, I struggle to truly care and connecting through divergence, preferring instead to match myself through apt convergence the new people I will soon meet.
Will I be well-matched the people I will soon meet? Today I stood for a few moments and watched a privileged and effeminate chat in passing with an orderly and Northern colleague. Regardless of the differences on paper and in my perception, I witnessed the dynamic of these men in passing. It reminded me of my loneliness her. I am certainly too lonely here, and my lack of time with other people affects, I think, my reading and my eating in general.
A few friends and a good companion is all I need. In lieu of that, I need to reorganise how I spend my time in this place.
I do not say yes to enough things. Saying yes to things that perhaps do not interest me is a reasonably good idea, I think. I do not do this enough. I frame that time as wasteful, somewhat. And why? I should make more of a proactive effort to socialise on my terms.
I find it boring to see certain people here. Will I find the same in Manila? It will be different. That is all.
Just taking the time to see people. To create some momentum in doing so.
I really need to consider what kind of life I want mid-week. I think that doing things mid-week is necessary for a better life than I have now.
The quietness of Ramadan offers me time and space to do more. But instead I do little. I have sought easy times. The problem also comes that after the day has ended I just want to retreat to my room… or at least that is my habit. I need to instead do something else. Drive somewhere else. I don’t know where. Perhaps a podcast and driving will help me… walking and podcasts certainly will… More movement and more speaking will help.
If I was to treat myself better, what would I do?
If I was to treat myself better, what would I do? I both like and dislike my present, past and future selves. I spoke with Aisha Saeed about this today. It was clear she has set situated goals to look after herself.
I do not necessarily need to ‘date’ myself to find a better way of treating myself.
What would I do if I had a partner who was willing to treat herself and me? What adventures would I lead? What nourishment would I seek?
This is a useful question for today. It is a question about self-worth.
Last night felt really difficult before I went to sleep. I wanted to eat ice-cream and to compromise my fitness (even more than it is now). I could not sleep easily. In fact, since writing this I have often compromised myself due to tiredness.
Writing more in my blogs, especially framing how I have seen my time here, would make me happier.
Walking and listening to podcasts more would be interesting.
Travelling by the heart, deciding where to go by the heart... that is part of my travelling...
Planning every last fibre of my travelling hurts my heart. It is not how I choose to operate.
I think that gaming and playing is something I want to do more of. Attending conferences and similar would be interesting.
If I start a family then my ambitions would change. But that is something that could very well not happen.
I do not necessarily need to ‘date’ myself to find a better way of treating myself.
What would I do if I had a partner who was willing to treat herself and me? What adventures would I lead? What nourishment would I seek?
This is a useful question for today. It is a question about self-worth.
Last night felt really difficult before I went to sleep. I wanted to eat ice-cream and to compromise my fitness (even more than it is now). I could not sleep easily. In fact, since writing this I have often compromised myself due to tiredness.
Writing more in my blogs, especially framing how I have seen my time here, would make me happier.
Walking and listening to podcasts more would be interesting.
Travelling by the heart, deciding where to go by the heart... that is part of my travelling...
Planning every last fibre of my travelling hurts my heart. It is not how I choose to operate.
I think that gaming and playing is something I want to do more of. Attending conferences and similar would be interesting.
If I start a family then my ambitions would change. But that is something that could very well not happen.
Saturday, 18 May 2019
TWE is it inappropriate to be passionate about teaching?
To what extent is it inappropriate to be passionate about teaching? What do I call passion in what I do? How might what I am calling passion be seen by others? How has my approach really been received in this place I am in now? Tell me…
I remember first working in Scarborough how...
My first forays into teaching were tempered by my artistic endeavours and the realities of living in a deprived North-English town.
I was passionate about writing, and less so about history and reading. Such an approach reflected my educated to that point, something that my learning since has revealed and reframed.
I taught in a small yet 'Outstanding' coastal town in Yorkshire. Those were great years. I did not teach Sixth Form, and that is something I have rectified over the previous five years or so. But my pedagogy and practice developed, and my classroom manner. I was passionate about my subject, and the Catholic and spiritual element allowed me to treat the classroom as much than just exams.
When I moved to China, I openly spoke of my desire to deliver the best education in the world. My leaders spoke to same. I spoke about the school being the 'Best School Beijing'. I recognise now how that must have come across to some. There were a range of teachers with different ambitions and experiences. All wanted to do well, but passion to be 'the best' was reframed as something. Annoying?
When I moved to Dubai, I actually engaged in conversations about passion. Every person who had worked for my immediate boss had left (some after open contention against the limited and procedural curriculum established). I recognised some of my previous practice could be useful. I was actually told to 'calm things down' in such conversations. On three distinct occasions I was told to stop talking about work. I think that talking about administration over lunch or instigating contentious conversation during preparation periods is unbecoming at best and annoying at worst. But my conversations were about the texts I was teaching and engaging with the pedagogy of what we were doing.
I am now due to work in a new school in Manila. I do not think that everyone will share my education or approaches. I think that there will be some who are quite happy with their philosophy and will be busy with family and the necessary procedures of schooling. So holding a mirror to myself, I will use this website as I did originally: for an ongoing conversation and reflection about what I am doing and why.
One philosophy that I increasingly find abhorrent and ill-fitting for education is the management approach. The thought necessary for the humanities is difficult, messy, specific and human. It requires specific and situated understanding.
When managing large departments, complexity is the enemy. Uncertainty and nuance destroy systems. Reductionism is king. If we combine this with other philosophies of aiming at a hidden middle and ensuring that pedagogy is only enacted if everyone can measure such action, then we have a place where my presence is ill-suited.
I remember first working in Scarborough how...
My first forays into teaching were tempered by my artistic endeavours and the realities of living in a deprived North-English town.
I was passionate about writing, and less so about history and reading. Such an approach reflected my educated to that point, something that my learning since has revealed and reframed.
I taught in a small yet 'Outstanding' coastal town in Yorkshire. Those were great years. I did not teach Sixth Form, and that is something I have rectified over the previous five years or so. But my pedagogy and practice developed, and my classroom manner. I was passionate about my subject, and the Catholic and spiritual element allowed me to treat the classroom as much than just exams.
When I moved to China, I openly spoke of my desire to deliver the best education in the world. My leaders spoke to same. I spoke about the school being the 'Best School Beijing'. I recognise now how that must have come across to some. There were a range of teachers with different ambitions and experiences. All wanted to do well, but passion to be 'the best' was reframed as something. Annoying?
When I moved to Dubai, I actually engaged in conversations about passion. Every person who had worked for my immediate boss had left (some after open contention against the limited and procedural curriculum established). I recognised some of my previous practice could be useful. I was actually told to 'calm things down' in such conversations. On three distinct occasions I was told to stop talking about work. I think that talking about administration over lunch or instigating contentious conversation during preparation periods is unbecoming at best and annoying at worst. But my conversations were about the texts I was teaching and engaging with the pedagogy of what we were doing.
I am now due to work in a new school in Manila. I do not think that everyone will share my education or approaches. I think that there will be some who are quite happy with their philosophy and will be busy with family and the necessary procedures of schooling. So holding a mirror to myself, I will use this website as I did originally: for an ongoing conversation and reflection about what I am doing and why.
One philosophy that I increasingly find abhorrent and ill-fitting for education is the management approach. The thought necessary for the humanities is difficult, messy, specific and human. It requires specific and situated understanding.
When managing large departments, complexity is the enemy. Uncertainty and nuance destroy systems. Reductionism is king. If we combine this with other philosophies of aiming at a hidden middle and ensuring that pedagogy is only enacted if everyone can measure such action, then we have a place where my presence is ill-suited.
Planning a lesson for interview - revealing a the philosophy of teaching and learning
These past few years I have both seen and delivered a number of interview lessons. I believe these lessons reflect the philosophy of the observer as much as they do the capability of the teacher. The stakes for an interview lesson are high: will you be given a job? Or as an observer, can you judge that that teacher's wider operation? These outcomes are pragmatically important but also reflect more profound approaches to the profession. So with this tension in mind, here are some of the ways I think about interview lessons:
1) Firstly, interview lessons reveal how people frame the subject.
As a literature/English teacher, the subject can be put together in many ways. Brian Cox's Report in the 80s gave five distinct ways to consider the purpose of the English classroom. These are listed below:
The role of English in the curriculum
2.20 It is possible to identify within the English teaching profession a number of different views of the subject. We list them here, though we stress that they are not the only possible views, they are not sharply distinguishable, and they are certainly not mutually exclusive.
2.21 A "personal growth" view focuses on the child: it emphasises the relationship between language and learning in the individual child, and the role of literature in developing children's imaginative and aesthetic lives.
2.22 A "cross-curricular" view focuses on the school: it emphasises that all teachers (of English and of other subjects) have a responsibility to help children with the language demands of different subjects on the school curriculum: otherwise areas of the curriculum may be closed to them. In England, English is different from other school subjects, in that it is both a subject and a medium of instruction for other subjects.
2.23 An "adult needs" view focuses on communication outside the school: it emphasises the responsibility of English teachers to prepare children for the language demands of adult life, including the workplace, in a fast-changing world. Children need to learn to deal with the day-to-day demands of spoken language and of print; they also need to be able to write clearly, appropriately and effectively.
2.24 A "cultural heritage" view emphasises the responsibility of schools to lead children to an appreciation of those works of literature that have been widely regarded as amongst the finest in the language.
At this time my Key Stage 5 curriculum concentrates on a cultural heritage model. Frye famed literature as a discipline balanced between history and philosophy. Literature gets its best ideas from philosophy whilst the cultural framework from which to contextualise its work must be historical. Moving my practice into an IB curriculum next year, a cultural-analysis model is needed whereby ancient and humanist ideals are tested against the power of advertising and social media.
An adult-needs model is essential; without exam and occupational success, no-one gets paid. Yet it is also the most ineffective and unimaginative framework for a curriculum. If students are repeatedly reading the same texts in a curriculum, or if they approach texts via 'question 3' or other such deadly methods, then much is being missed.
The adult-needs model seems to be matched to an English 'language' curriculum. But the idea that an English teacher can be solely a 'language' teacher does not really sit well with me. To be a linguist surely requires the understanding of several languages on a meta-level. That meta-understanding moves beyond social commentary on contemporary 'gendered' or 'power-based' language use and instead tackles wider corpus-based issues. To be a linguist also surely requires a tremendous understanding of politics and cultural-historical events in order to frame how language has developed amongst varied demographics.
Within these political and socio-historical frameworks exist forms of literature that attempt to interact with those social events. Language in such works is not functional but rather adventurous and magical. They challenge prescriptivist approaches. Language in, say, Nabakov attempts to unpick the limits of perception and to tease us with the attraction of aesthetic magnificence and unsettle us with moral questions. Such works reflect wider social ideas of challenging social norms and an increasing relativism in received morality. To not understand or even ignore the range of literary texts is a deficiency as an English teacher.
2) Secondly, how do people (especially teachers) approach learning? Is it something limited to that which can be ratified? Is learning something where difficulty been embraced and failure faced? Has personal time and money been invested in continued education? Is reading a regular habit?
Teachers who have not enjoyed teaching themselves must, I think, find it hard to make learning enjoyable for others. Such teachers are perhaps in education because it is a job. That is still an acceptable notion for there are not enough people in any profession to run that profession if we are to demand vocation. But such teachers are limited in the vision and management of their classroom. Without having experienced enjoyment of learning in themselves, how can they encourage an enjoyment in learning in others?
Firstly, let's consider how the teacher approaches the interview lesson. Are they planning a bunch of tasks? Are they selecting the tasks as interesting in themselves? Or are they treating the thoughts and ideas in themselves worth knowing? What are they trying to get the learner to understand?
For me a lesson needs to start with the ideas and implications themselves. Such ideas need to be contextualised within their ancient or at least original context. Immediate and contemporary relevance should also be found and threads found between the two. Tensions and problematisations should be identified. For example, I recently taught a lesson on 'Rising Five' by Norman Nicholson Understanding that Rising Five refers to the urgency for public success and a prioritising of rationality over sensibility activates some of its tensions. Situating the poem within the lived reality of a UK government placing children in school early, with teachers then judging those students on against more developmentally advanced peers, makes it real and relevant. Political and social questions can be raised and expectations activated.
But there is more than this. Understanding the poet's life - of his relative poverty and cynicism about institutions - allows us to consider his message, of how we should recognise his bias and reveal where he has made choices.
From this the approach of the poet can be considered in the frameworks of our own perceptions.
We can do this by bringing such questions and choices into the public discourse of our classroom. Relevance is challenged and provocative questions are raised and explored. Maybe the necessity of placing 'Rising Five' students in schools early needs to be understood within the reality of the mass-schooling system. Are there not yet feasible alternatives to place people in school at a time personalised to them? Where else do we make necessary social compromises?
After such content has been understood, questions and concrete metaphors can be formed and framed. These questions do not need to be presented in a linear fashion, but rather responsively to the perceived frameworks of the class's critical and cultural understanding. The tasks, therefore, can be largely presented as a series of questions debated publicly and leading to the consideration and engagement to difficult and real knowledge. There needs to be excitement and thought, but this excitement and thought needs to be as close to the conceptual origins of the text as possible. Engagement should become social and constructivist, with the management of the social dynamics of the class harnessed to access the content in its purest and most difficult forms. Personalisation should exist at the level of where the students engage with the knowledge, with simplified and more fundamental considerations possible for those less able. Such personalisation should look primarily towards the most-able and passionate, with extensions of lectures and books that drive such ideas without limit. We are talking Massolit and Yale Lectures and David Lodge books for all.
In comparison to this approach, I have seen lessons taught and planned that reflect a task-based approach. One interview lesson I saw aimed to excite students about Romeo and Juliet. Rather than foregrounding the tensions between desire and obligation, between parents and children, into the classroom discourse, a choice was made to employ funky and novel tasks. Artefacts in an interview lesson - such as writing ideas onto plates to make Venn diagrams - make me a little suspicious (although in themselves are not defunct).
Another choice made in a lesson was to compare the Shakespearean text to a contemporary pop star. The comparison was only possible on the basis of figurative language being present. Knowledge of iambic pentameter, or of Renaissance stagecraft, or of the patterning of classical and religious allusions would surely be more appropriate choices. Students might complete a task by filling in a table or interacting with an artefact, but are they thinking about something useful for their knowledge of drama and poetry, Renaissance or otherwise? And if not then, then when?
When teachers overemphasise the tasks they plan, believing that they have an 'outstanding' interview lesson to wheel out for observers, I am suspicious. Such lessons can be visually impressive and students can be happy and excited. A naive observer will be impressed. Yet are the students actually thinking? Don’t get me wrong – students need to be excited in their learning at many points. But such excitement should exist as close as possible to the ideals and scholarship of academia itself. Such excitement perhaps starts with the teacher’s experience. Maybe those who find the concept of Renaissance drama or Victorian Fiction tedious are themselves rather boring, especially if they express it.
3) How should an approach to a literature curriculum be considered?
I believe that literature as a discipline sits between history and philosophy. It must be recognised that literature reflects the concerns of the elite but should be understood by everyone.
Literature, especially pre-modern literature, can be challenging to the non-selective cohort. Modern populations more worried about personal success or urban survival might be less enthralled by complications of how wider society can be better organised. The forces of neoliberalism prize the newness of things and by implication their separation from what has come before, as if something being separate from the past is itself an innate virtue. I know myself that my university lecturers promoted post-structuralism as the best approach to analysing literature, perhaps knowing that a historicist approach to literature would alienate too many of the cohort.
But literature must be taught to everyone regardless of the historicist knowledge and context of that context. Any other approach is culturally, and perhaps morally, deficient.
Such a digital declaration of pedagogy is not enough, though. Young people of non-selective cohorts can suffer particular deficiencies of cultural knowledge of elite society, not to mention difficulties of formal literacy and reading stamina. To realistically learn literature in a mixed ability classroom requires compromises in the same way that to train elite footballers requires a different approach than mediocre athletes like myself. Therefore, as I will say elsewhere, I believe approaches based on both genre-expectations and text-world theory to be particularly useful in engaging all cohorts, including non-selective ones.
There are three text types when teaching literature according to conventional exams: novels, plays and poetry.
Over 15 years it has become most apparent that students will approach each text-type as indistinct, noticing only the ideas and context of the text and its aesthetic ambitions. This is a disservice, but one enforced by how sold schemes of work are put together by various bodies, both official and private.
I believe that a curriculum needs to openly teach narratology, with various choices emphasised and worked within. Within narratology, students simply identify figurative language and word order in isolation. Responses then become limited to responding to these fragmented examples.
A curriculum also, I think, needs to teach stagecraft. Teaching drama as dead words on the page is deficient. Acting choices need to be made explicit. Drama itself should be framed as conflict, with conflicting motivations and Stanislavskian ideals foregrounded for all students. Understanding how characters suffer conflicting motivations makes a Shakespeare recital far more interesting than just hearing difficult words and allusions tumble out breathlessly.
Finally, a curriculum needs to teach prosody. I have never been formally taught this, perhaps because teachers themselves have been undertaught it. I have achieved first class marks and straight As when analysing poetry without referring to choices of form.
At a recent CPD even I heard a teacher and Head of Department exclaim, without irony, that another school's encouragement of students to write poetry was naive and pointless because such a task is not directly on an exam. This comment was not even a troll as it was apparent this teacher believed their point of view was sensible and dominant, a status quo. In fact, they believe the other school needed to ‘sort out its curriculum’ because their approach was wasteful and pointless and indulged in personal growth in precious classroom time.
I could only challenge that teacher with an assertion to the contrary.
Firstly, to be able to analyse poetry for an exam requires identification of prosody. Attempting to write poetry fosters a sense, and perhaps an understanding, of meter and rhyme. Such practice, shared with by the teacher allows us to also appreciate the length of syllables, of how they often contrast stress, and how they might be matched against meaning. This is difficult.
Such appreciation of the difficulty of matching meter to meaning encourages aesthetic appreciation by the students. Aesthetic appreciation through the process of creation is part of the power and interest in the subject - writing choices are not always made consciously, and joining literary traditions, no matter how clumsy or childish the attempt, fosters an appreciation for literature's position amongst the disciplines.
Presenting poetry as something to pass solely for exams or assessments would fail in even attempting that base aim.
That a teacher believed it wasn’t farcical to critique a curriculum that required the writing of poetry is beyond my expectations. I can only think that it is because their perceived purpose of schooling is to pass exams. And that they presume that writing poetry is unimpactful on passing exams.
4) How to revise literature for exams.
The new AQA exam has a tremendous emphasis on the memorisation of quotations. I also saw teachers chanting quotations with students. Again, quotations without context, quotations without reference.
Some colleagues here have expressed awareness that quotes etc need to known in context. But they don’t have pedagogy or other ideals for this. Their own knowledge of texts is deficient: I saw them set a character log task over several weeks that saw underdeveloped and naive recordings of texts created.
1) Firstly, interview lessons reveal how people frame the subject.
As a literature/English teacher, the subject can be put together in many ways. Brian Cox's Report in the 80s gave five distinct ways to consider the purpose of the English classroom. These are listed below:
The role of English in the curriculum
2.20 It is possible to identify within the English teaching profession a number of different views of the subject. We list them here, though we stress that they are not the only possible views, they are not sharply distinguishable, and they are certainly not mutually exclusive.
2.21 A "personal growth" view focuses on the child: it emphasises the relationship between language and learning in the individual child, and the role of literature in developing children's imaginative and aesthetic lives.
2.22 A "cross-curricular" view focuses on the school: it emphasises that all teachers (of English and of other subjects) have a responsibility to help children with the language demands of different subjects on the school curriculum: otherwise areas of the curriculum may be closed to them. In England, English is different from other school subjects, in that it is both a subject and a medium of instruction for other subjects.
2.23 An "adult needs" view focuses on communication outside the school: it emphasises the responsibility of English teachers to prepare children for the language demands of adult life, including the workplace, in a fast-changing world. Children need to learn to deal with the day-to-day demands of spoken language and of print; they also need to be able to write clearly, appropriately and effectively.
2.24 A "cultural heritage" view emphasises the responsibility of schools to lead children to an appreciation of those works of literature that have been widely regarded as amongst the finest in the language.
2.25 A "cultural analysis" view emphasises the role of English in helping children towards a critical understanding of the world and cultural environment in which they live. Children should know about the processes by which meanings are conveyed, and about the ways in which print and other media carry values.
http://www.educationengland.org.uk/documents/cox1989/cox89.htmlAt this time my Key Stage 5 curriculum concentrates on a cultural heritage model. Frye famed literature as a discipline balanced between history and philosophy. Literature gets its best ideas from philosophy whilst the cultural framework from which to contextualise its work must be historical. Moving my practice into an IB curriculum next year, a cultural-analysis model is needed whereby ancient and humanist ideals are tested against the power of advertising and social media.
An adult-needs model is essential; without exam and occupational success, no-one gets paid. Yet it is also the most ineffective and unimaginative framework for a curriculum. If students are repeatedly reading the same texts in a curriculum, or if they approach texts via 'question 3' or other such deadly methods, then much is being missed.
The adult-needs model seems to be matched to an English 'language' curriculum. But the idea that an English teacher can be solely a 'language' teacher does not really sit well with me. To be a linguist surely requires the understanding of several languages on a meta-level. That meta-understanding moves beyond social commentary on contemporary 'gendered' or 'power-based' language use and instead tackles wider corpus-based issues. To be a linguist also surely requires a tremendous understanding of politics and cultural-historical events in order to frame how language has developed amongst varied demographics.
Within these political and socio-historical frameworks exist forms of literature that attempt to interact with those social events. Language in such works is not functional but rather adventurous and magical. They challenge prescriptivist approaches. Language in, say, Nabakov attempts to unpick the limits of perception and to tease us with the attraction of aesthetic magnificence and unsettle us with moral questions. Such works reflect wider social ideas of challenging social norms and an increasing relativism in received morality. To not understand or even ignore the range of literary texts is a deficiency as an English teacher.
2) Secondly, how do people (especially teachers) approach learning? Is it something limited to that which can be ratified? Is learning something where difficulty been embraced and failure faced? Has personal time and money been invested in continued education? Is reading a regular habit?
Teachers who have not enjoyed teaching themselves must, I think, find it hard to make learning enjoyable for others. Such teachers are perhaps in education because it is a job. That is still an acceptable notion for there are not enough people in any profession to run that profession if we are to demand vocation. But such teachers are limited in the vision and management of their classroom. Without having experienced enjoyment of learning in themselves, how can they encourage an enjoyment in learning in others?
Firstly, let's consider how the teacher approaches the interview lesson. Are they planning a bunch of tasks? Are they selecting the tasks as interesting in themselves? Or are they treating the thoughts and ideas in themselves worth knowing? What are they trying to get the learner to understand?
For me a lesson needs to start with the ideas and implications themselves. Such ideas need to be contextualised within their ancient or at least original context. Immediate and contemporary relevance should also be found and threads found between the two. Tensions and problematisations should be identified. For example, I recently taught a lesson on 'Rising Five' by Norman Nicholson Understanding that Rising Five refers to the urgency for public success and a prioritising of rationality over sensibility activates some of its tensions. Situating the poem within the lived reality of a UK government placing children in school early, with teachers then judging those students on against more developmentally advanced peers, makes it real and relevant. Political and social questions can be raised and expectations activated.
But there is more than this. Understanding the poet's life - of his relative poverty and cynicism about institutions - allows us to consider his message, of how we should recognise his bias and reveal where he has made choices.
From this the approach of the poet can be considered in the frameworks of our own perceptions.
After such content has been understood, questions and concrete metaphors can be formed and framed. These questions do not need to be presented in a linear fashion, but rather responsively to the perceived frameworks of the class's critical and cultural understanding. The tasks, therefore, can be largely presented as a series of questions debated publicly and leading to the consideration and engagement to difficult and real knowledge. There needs to be excitement and thought, but this excitement and thought needs to be as close to the conceptual origins of the text as possible. Engagement should become social and constructivist, with the management of the social dynamics of the class harnessed to access the content in its purest and most difficult forms. Personalisation should exist at the level of where the students engage with the knowledge, with simplified and more fundamental considerations possible for those less able. Such personalisation should look primarily towards the most-able and passionate, with extensions of lectures and books that drive such ideas without limit. We are talking Massolit and Yale Lectures and David Lodge books for all.
In comparison to this approach, I have seen lessons taught and planned that reflect a task-based approach. One interview lesson I saw aimed to excite students about Romeo and Juliet. Rather than foregrounding the tensions between desire and obligation, between parents and children, into the classroom discourse, a choice was made to employ funky and novel tasks. Artefacts in an interview lesson - such as writing ideas onto plates to make Venn diagrams - make me a little suspicious (although in themselves are not defunct).
Another choice made in a lesson was to compare the Shakespearean text to a contemporary pop star. The comparison was only possible on the basis of figurative language being present. Knowledge of iambic pentameter, or of Renaissance stagecraft, or of the patterning of classical and religious allusions would surely be more appropriate choices. Students might complete a task by filling in a table or interacting with an artefact, but are they thinking about something useful for their knowledge of drama and poetry, Renaissance or otherwise? And if not then, then when?
When teachers overemphasise the tasks they plan, believing that they have an 'outstanding' interview lesson to wheel out for observers, I am suspicious. Such lessons can be visually impressive and students can be happy and excited. A naive observer will be impressed. Yet are the students actually thinking? Don’t get me wrong – students need to be excited in their learning at many points. But such excitement should exist as close as possible to the ideals and scholarship of academia itself. Such excitement perhaps starts with the teacher’s experience. Maybe those who find the concept of Renaissance drama or Victorian Fiction tedious are themselves rather boring, especially if they express it.
3) How should an approach to a literature curriculum be considered?
I believe that literature as a discipline sits between history and philosophy. It must be recognised that literature reflects the concerns of the elite but should be understood by everyone.
Literature, especially pre-modern literature, can be challenging to the non-selective cohort. Modern populations more worried about personal success or urban survival might be less enthralled by complications of how wider society can be better organised. The forces of neoliberalism prize the newness of things and by implication their separation from what has come before, as if something being separate from the past is itself an innate virtue. I know myself that my university lecturers promoted post-structuralism as the best approach to analysing literature, perhaps knowing that a historicist approach to literature would alienate too many of the cohort.
But literature must be taught to everyone regardless of the historicist knowledge and context of that context. Any other approach is culturally, and perhaps morally, deficient.
Such a digital declaration of pedagogy is not enough, though. Young people of non-selective cohorts can suffer particular deficiencies of cultural knowledge of elite society, not to mention difficulties of formal literacy and reading stamina. To realistically learn literature in a mixed ability classroom requires compromises in the same way that to train elite footballers requires a different approach than mediocre athletes like myself. Therefore, as I will say elsewhere, I believe approaches based on both genre-expectations and text-world theory to be particularly useful in engaging all cohorts, including non-selective ones.
There are three text types when teaching literature according to conventional exams: novels, plays and poetry.
Over 15 years it has become most apparent that students will approach each text-type as indistinct, noticing only the ideas and context of the text and its aesthetic ambitions. This is a disservice, but one enforced by how sold schemes of work are put together by various bodies, both official and private.
I believe that a curriculum needs to openly teach narratology, with various choices emphasised and worked within. Within narratology, students simply identify figurative language and word order in isolation. Responses then become limited to responding to these fragmented examples.
A curriculum also, I think, needs to teach stagecraft. Teaching drama as dead words on the page is deficient. Acting choices need to be made explicit. Drama itself should be framed as conflict, with conflicting motivations and Stanislavskian ideals foregrounded for all students. Understanding how characters suffer conflicting motivations makes a Shakespeare recital far more interesting than just hearing difficult words and allusions tumble out breathlessly.
Finally, a curriculum needs to teach prosody. I have never been formally taught this, perhaps because teachers themselves have been undertaught it. I have achieved first class marks and straight As when analysing poetry without referring to choices of form.
At a recent CPD even I heard a teacher and Head of Department exclaim, without irony, that another school's encouragement of students to write poetry was naive and pointless because such a task is not directly on an exam. This comment was not even a troll as it was apparent this teacher believed their point of view was sensible and dominant, a status quo. In fact, they believe the other school needed to ‘sort out its curriculum’ because their approach was wasteful and pointless and indulged in personal growth in precious classroom time.
I could only challenge that teacher with an assertion to the contrary.
Firstly, to be able to analyse poetry for an exam requires identification of prosody. Attempting to write poetry fosters a sense, and perhaps an understanding, of meter and rhyme. Such practice, shared with by the teacher allows us to also appreciate the length of syllables, of how they often contrast stress, and how they might be matched against meaning. This is difficult.
Such appreciation of the difficulty of matching meter to meaning encourages aesthetic appreciation by the students. Aesthetic appreciation through the process of creation is part of the power and interest in the subject - writing choices are not always made consciously, and joining literary traditions, no matter how clumsy or childish the attempt, fosters an appreciation for literature's position amongst the disciplines.
Presenting poetry as something to pass solely for exams or assessments would fail in even attempting that base aim.
That a teacher believed it wasn’t farcical to critique a curriculum that required the writing of poetry is beyond my expectations. I can only think that it is because their perceived purpose of schooling is to pass exams. And that they presume that writing poetry is unimpactful on passing exams.
4) How to revise literature for exams.
The new AQA exam has a tremendous emphasis on the memorisation of quotations. I also saw teachers chanting quotations with students. Again, quotations without context, quotations without reference.
Some colleagues here have expressed awareness that quotes etc need to known in context. But they don’t have pedagogy or other ideals for this. Their own knowledge of texts is deficient: I saw them set a character log task over several weeks that saw underdeveloped and naive recordings of texts created.
Friday, 17 May 2019
A reading diet when my phone and loneliness impinges – how to read?
A reading diet when my phone and loneliness impinges – how to read? What do I want to read? Shall I set a reading expectation? A reading habit? I have some good time in the evening, three days of Ramadan now seems to promise a lot. I feel that I might plan a reading schedule.
I have been reading much better in Ramadan. My job does seem to take my mind. And I do not feel inspired by my colleagues.
A reading diet needs to be nurtured. Phones and tiredness of being in my crappy little flat will not help a reading diet. The internet being on this computer does not help. Rather then my mind wondering into apt valleys, it instead is seized by the temptations of playing a game. Well.. just one!
And after that game? Do not continue. Realise that there is a time and a habit to do these things.
I am finding the reading especially difficult at home. Without the desire to escape from others, then what? Then reading might become tricky.
There is also the desire to write a character and to see how people might react. I actually have way too much order, or at least solitude in my life.
I have been reading much better in Ramadan. My job does seem to take my mind. And I do not feel inspired by my colleagues.
A reading diet needs to be nurtured. Phones and tiredness of being in my crappy little flat will not help a reading diet. The internet being on this computer does not help. Rather then my mind wondering into apt valleys, it instead is seized by the temptations of playing a game. Well.. just one!
And after that game? Do not continue. Realise that there is a time and a habit to do these things.
I am finding the reading especially difficult at home. Without the desire to escape from others, then what? Then reading might become tricky.
There is also the desire to write a character and to see how people might react. I actually have way too much order, or at least solitude in my life.
My thoughts about lifecoaching and what it is to live a good life.
My thoughts about lifecoaching and what it is to live a good life. The guiding force of capitalism and neoliberalism is almost irresistible – they offer a moral justification for those who wish to make money etc. It is exciting. Advertising used to sell ideas, not just making money for its own purposes.
Lifecoaching attempts to decide what it is to live a good life. But those who do so charge huge amounts of cash. There is also a link between the purchasing of property and the morality underpinning it, too.
Lifecoaching also ignores thousands of years of thought regarding what it is to live a good life. It is a dislocated philosophy.
One chap who visited our school derided the students, aggressively demanding that they would cheer for his selfie. He said how he used to own nightclubs but now he thought that was vacuous. He mentioned the first part for a long time.
The narrative of lifecoaches is one of where they invest in a guru elsewhere, sometimes at great expense when they risk lots of money taking a course.
There is a disingenuous disclaimer in lifecoachers. The emphasis is entirely on the person for not trying hard enough or similar. Neoliberal freedom. Playing on people’s dreams.
Lifecoaching attempts to decide what it is to live a good life. But those who do so charge huge amounts of cash. There is also a link between the purchasing of property and the morality underpinning it, too.
Lifecoaching also ignores thousands of years of thought regarding what it is to live a good life. It is a dislocated philosophy.
One chap who visited our school derided the students, aggressively demanding that they would cheer for his selfie. He said how he used to own nightclubs but now he thought that was vacuous. He mentioned the first part for a long time.
The narrative of lifecoaches is one of where they invest in a guru elsewhere, sometimes at great expense when they risk lots of money taking a course.
There is a disingenuous disclaimer in lifecoachers. The emphasis is entirely on the person for not trying hard enough or similar. Neoliberal freedom. Playing on people’s dreams.
Needing to find wider social groups that relate to reading and writing.
Needing to find wider social groups that relate to reading and writing. I cannot rely upon teachers and colleagues for this. Instead I need to consider making these kind of groups myself.
These groups can possibly exist online. Although if I am being honest, the FB groups are not really my thing. I want something a bit more substantial… again I perhaps need to make myself.
I think I should create some of these groups, even in Manila.
Meeting a wider range of people would surely be enriching.
These groups can possibly exist online. Although if I am being honest, the FB groups are not really my thing. I want something a bit more substantial… again I perhaps need to make myself.
I think I should create some of these groups, even in Manila.
Meeting a wider range of people would surely be enriching.
Now Ramadan and time to read
I am close to the end of my time here now. I have nine weeks left. It is up to the students to prepare for their exams - I have done enough. Those who have worked hardest have the most sympathy for me. Very often, this is those who like the subject most. There are two or three students I can name who are mediocre in their responses.
I leave the Middle East with a clearer sense of what kind of teacher I want to be. Some of the teachers that I admire approach the subject in ways that I would not do myself. My teaching is a peculiar mix of punk responsiveness and intense order. But at least there is a philosophy I can respect.
There is much to disdain here. Children can detect disingenuous BS, we hope.
Two weeks has not seen me read enough. In light of such distractions, I have planned a series of posts that will drive my mind beyond the peopleless and colourless desert.
I leave the Middle East with a clearer sense of what kind of teacher I want to be. Some of the teachers that I admire approach the subject in ways that I would not do myself. My teaching is a peculiar mix of punk responsiveness and intense order. But at least there is a philosophy I can respect.
There is much to disdain here. Children can detect disingenuous BS, we hope.
Two weeks has not seen me read enough. In light of such distractions, I have planned a series of posts that will drive my mind beyond the peopleless and colourless desert.
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