New ways to the problem of living

As those who follow me on twitter will know I have been at the 16 International Reflective Practice Conference this week exploring with other practitioners in nursing and education the notion of 'Reflection in Action.' I felt that it would be useful, and possibly mildly interesting, to try and tie the ideas I have encountered together in one place. This is not a rehearsed or re-written reflection/blog and therefore it will be emotive and unpolished. However, my twitter feed has served as a value place to start to consider my personal outcomes from the conference. I will relate my thoughts the tweets I have made about my experiences to date and the wonderful keynotes delivered by Ben Okri and Jenny Moon.

Reflection is part of my role as a teacher and the TDA standards for teachers has reflection embedded within it so I do feel that this a relevant discussion to have on this blog. I realise that this might not be everyone 'cup of tea' but I also felt that it was too good an opportunity to pass up.

So what has reflection meant to me this week? Ben Okri's keynote explored 'new ways to the problem of living' (as my title suggests) and, in my interpretation sought to examine the current problems he envisioned with the life lived as a human being. However, in respect to Ben's opening thoughts i.e. brevity is the missing quality of our age, I will try to keep my ideas short.

Jenny challenged the delegates to think of reflection as a different 'thing' depending on the medium through which is presented i.e. thinking, speech, writing, drawing, poetry, performance, acting, dancing etc and that it means different things in these different mediums. However, I am uncomfortable with the notions of drawing, poetry, performance, indeed anything but writing (or typing) as a vehicle for my own reflections. I guess, naively I suppose, that this relates to Ben's profound concern about what it means to be human and to live as a human inasmuch as I have become disassociated with these other forms of expression to such a degree that I am uncomfortable with the level of ineptitude I might show in using them. Ben suggested that there has been a fundamental disconnect between the arts and philosophy, and living as a human being. These things are no longer interconnected but instead we have become concerned with being artist rather than living as an artist. In other words, art is a means to an end rather than a lifestyle choice.

Being aware of my promise of brevity I will conclude in this paragraph with three fundamental concerns that Ben expressed: Failure, actuality and listening. Failure has become an end point. When we fail we stop. However, for those who strive and aspire to something 'else' failure is not an end point but just a landmark on the road to success. Drawing on the musings around Leonardo de Vinci Ben suggested that de Vinci knew what he would achieve before he started in. Therefore, failure should not be seen as a obstacle but should instead be seen as something to learn from and use as a springboard for future, and inevitable, success. Actuality, Ben suggested, was what we see i.e. I see hundred white swans and therefore all swans are white, and subsequently remains unchallenged. Actuality is Plato's shadows on the cave wall. In contrast reality is 'how things actual are' i.e. not All swans are white. Yet it is the disconnect between actuality and reality that hampers our ability to live. Finally, Ben suggested that listening with an empty mind was more important than hearing. He felt that we could hear things but not listen to them. I guess that that relates to our own reflection. We can write (or perform) but listen to our own voices. Yet it is in really listening that we find the reasons and ability to live life like a human being.

I am not sure that I have done justice to these ideas and on re-reading these words I am sure to want to explore them again in my own private spaces but they serve as a record in time of my ideas. I will leave you with a twitter poem written by Ben a line a day on twitter in January 2010 and which he open his keynote.

As clouds pass above our heads

So time passes through our lives.

Where does it go,

And when it passes,

What do we have to show?

We can plant deeds in time

As gardeners plant roses.

We can plant thoughts, or good words too

Especially if they are noble and true.

Time is an act of consciousness:

One of the greatest forces

Of the material world.

We ought to use time

Like emperors of the mind:

Do magic things that the future,

Surprised, will find.

We could change our life today

And seek out a higher way.

The Buddha sat beneath a tree

And from all illusion became free.

And as we travel on this life that is a sea

We can glimpse eternity.

We can join that growing fight

To stop our world being plunged into night.

We can wake to the power of our voice

Change the world with the power of our choice.

But there is nothing we can do

If we don't begin to think anew.

We are not much more than what we think;

In our minds we swim or sink.

If there is one secret I'd like to share

It's that we are what we dream

Or what we fear.

So dream a good dream today

And keep it going in every way.

Let each moment of our life

Somehow help the good fight

Or help spread some light.

The wise say life is a dream;

And soon the dream is done.

But what you did in the dream

Is all that counts beneath the sun.

The dream is real, and the real is a dream

Each one of us is a powerful being.

Wake up to what you are,

You are a sun, you are a star.

Wake up to what you can be.

Search, search for a new destiny

The hardest part...

And the hardest part

Was letting go, not taking part

Was the hardest part

And the strangest thing

Was waiting for that bell to ring

It was the strangest start

I could feel it go down

Bittersweet, I could taste in my mouth

Silver lining the cloud

Oh and I

I wish that I could work it out

Coldplay released this song (the hardest part) on the X&Y album and the lyrics always struck me as poignant. I felt that they reflected of my desire to change my position within the classroom and the difficulties that I experienced in shifting from the spotlight and into the wings. If, as William Shakespeare wrote, all the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players, then in my teaching I didn't fully understand when to enter and when to exit or that there were many roles for me to play. I had always believed that I wanted to teach and teaching for me was standing in the at the centre of learning and directing it like a conductor controls an orchestra. However, the more I read and the more I did, the more my lessons look like a jazz ensemble (i.e. an apparent jumble of sounds that looks effortless , sounds great and yet takes years of practice and a huge amount of practice).

The legendary golfer Gary Player once said, "The more I practice, the luckier I get" and this was certainly the case for me. However it was hard. Letting go of centre stage and allowing the pupils to control the pace of their learning was hard. I did feel that I was waiting for the school bell to ring as I watched them work. Yet my work, although done on the periphery, was now even more important. I was the script writer planning for the actors to get involved. I designed the stage and arrange for the props. I adapted when something went wrong and I prompted when the students forgot their lines. I managed the learning environment but I didn't coach the learner. I planned meticulously and I timed by interventions and developed the ability to question not answer. Finally, as Gary Player said I practiced and my lessons (somehow) got better and the learning got deeper and the pupils got more involved.

Change takes time and yes it can be like a rest. But in the long term it is hard and it takes practice and it is hard...however, it is worth it.

The Appliance of Science

I received my iPad a couple of days ago and I keep trying to find reasons to use it. It is wonderful as a toy but I am yet to really make it work for its money. I have an idea that it will work wonderfully and make the technologically enhanced (and maybe dependant) parts of my day even more enjoyable. However, it took me an hour (and a conversation with a very helpful lady at apple care support) this morning to get it to talk to iTunes this morning and on Tuesday it took me an hour or so to get the micro SIM I needed to make it work. I have shown as many people as I can make look how wonderful it is but I have yet to make an initial decision. Don't get me wrong...I love it...but what does it do? Over the last week or so, with the mad rush to get exams and assignments marked and cross-marked before the deadline on Monday I have had other technological hurdles to overcome that have slowed my progress and frustrated me.

 

Perhaps it is the efficiency of technology that when it goes wrong it is unexpected and therefore it is frustrating. Perhaps the fact that booting up a computer doesn't take the same amount of time as making an espresso (but rather it takes less time than it takes to drink one) that exacerbates our annoyance with any hiccups we encounter. Perhaps we are so caught up in technology that we want it to better than 'old fashioned' approaches that we make it do things that it is not yet capable of undertaking.

 

In physical education we are beginning to explore technology and my involvement as a blogger and a tweeter encourage me to get the iPad to see how far I could take it all. But when I mentioned flipcams to an experienced member of a local school he wondered what their use was outside of performance analysis. I said that we were using them for Vidpods and in game-making but that got me thinking. Where do we take them? A colleague described the use of camera's in Australia a decade and more ago to film a sport 'walk through.' The concept is that the camera goes through a game with students and they use them to voice the decisions that they are making in the game at the time they are making them. Almost like 'thinking out loud.'

 

It made me wonder where the other opportunities were for technology. How do we apply the science in teaching?

 

What can I do with the iPad in my work as a lecturer and teacher educator that I couldn't do with anything else? Imagine the resource I have in my hand in a practical where I show the students a exemplar and then send it to their mobile devices to use in their work. By syncing our technology we create and use opportunities that never existed before...now that is the appliance of science.

 

Is it time for an anti-ablest pedagogy?

We traditionally have an ablest approach to teaching. We definitely have an ablest approach to teaching physical education. Those who can are encouraged to do and those who don't or won't well there just not trying despite our best efforts. But it is these 'best' efforts that encourage those who can and discourage those who can't.

Let me explain my reasoning. 'The best' and 'the best of the best' are celebrated in physical education and we teach in such a way that it allows them to massage their egos. Take track and field athletics. We teach the athlete and laud the fastest, furthest and highest while those placed other than first are left trailing in the ego of the winner. The same in cross-country i.e. everyone starts together and the first placed runner gets to watch everyone else run in behind him or her. Are we encouraging the ablest to do well and discouraging the less able? Is it time we forgot about the best and helped everyone else? Is it time to forget about the egos of those who already love physical education and who would take part in anything regardless of the activity and concentrate on those whose egos we have constantly hammered throughout school physical education? Is it time to adopt an anti-ablest pedagogy?

A bit radical maybe but would we be better encouraging the least and less able to enjoy physical education and hope that we can inspire them to lead a healthy and active life-style? Should we focus on developing their mastery of an activity that they might enjoy and follow through as a lifelong activity? Is the established player less in need of our support? Should we be massaging a different ego? These are strange idea to a teacher who came into the subject with a coaches role in mind but I just wonder now if we have our priorities wrong. Are the ablest simply better disposed to lifelong physical activity? Research suggests that physical education has concentrated on sports technique for so long that a 'one-size fits-all' approach to teaching has become the norm. This hasn't discourage the ablest but has alienated the majority of less-able students. Should we throw the pedagogy out and prioritise those who 'just CAN'T do it?'

Let me know your thoughts?

Teaching Games for Understanding

This approach to teaching put the game first. However this is not a playing games just to keep students 'busy, happy and good' this is putting the game first so as to help students become intelligent performers. Teaching games for understanding (or TGfU) was developed at Loughborough University in the early 1980s as an alternative to the 'skills and drills' approach that dominated (and many would argue still does dominate) the practice landscape of physical education. Len Almond, David Bunker and Rod Thorpe offered and extolled this alternative approach to teaching games because of the one-size fits all approach to teaching in physical education. They argued that teachers taught techniques – like the overhead clear in badminton – when they were ready but not when it was developmentally appropriate. Furthermore they felt that in any given class there might be a student who had mastered the clear years previous while others would never master the shot. Finally, Bunker, Almond and Thorpe suggested that the clear was a pointless shot if a player didn't know when to use it effectively in the game.

 

Instead of this emphasis on techniques they developers of TGfU put the game first. Badminton (like other net and wall games) is about hitting the shuttle so your opponent(s) can't hit it back and returning all your opponents viable shots. By teaching students to understand this concept and apply their skills to the achievement of this aim Bunker, Almond and Thorpe believed that thinking players would be developed. The idea, therefore, was to teach game appreciation through the use of modified games. The following example (taken from a coach sessions I lead for teachers on Saturday) helps to frame my argument.

 

Basketball

The immediate emphasis was on a hierarchy of decisions based upon the role that the player was undertaking. There were four roles: 1) on the ball attacker (the player with the ball) 2) the off the ball attackers (all the other players on the ball carrier's team) 3) the on the ball defender (the player marking the ball), and 4) the off the ball defender. Each student had priorities based upon their role:

1) on the ball attacker (the player with the ball) – Scored, passed to someone in a better position to score, or dribbled to improve either their teams ability to score.

2) the off the ball attackers (all the other players on the ball carrier's team) – found space to receive a pass in

3) the on the ball defender (the player marking the ball) – Either tries to deny the score or gets the ball for his or her team.

4) the off the ball defender – denies the attacker space.

 

With the roles established split the group into four teams we played two half court 3v3 games. The modified rules were 1) no dribbling 2) if you shot and hit any part of the backboard or ring then you scored one point 3) if you scored a basket then you scored three points 4) a ball turned over when you were defending had to be passed out of your half before an attack on the basket could be made. In between the games I used question and answer sessions to get the student teachers to develop a basic understanding of the modifications. They suggested that they were trying to score from everywhere because it was easier to score but that they were very inaccurate.

 

We played 3 games and all the while I asked players to wear different coloured bibs. These bids represented the player's ability and the level of pressure the defence could put on the ball carrier. A red bib meant fully defence (i.e. the player could defend to the very best of their ability); a yellow bid meant partial defence (i.e. defenders could not get closer than 0.5 metre and could only use their hands to block and not steal the ball); a green bib meant that the player could not be marked closer than 1 metre and that the defender could only shadow them. Every player wore a different colour in each game to decide where the pressure was most suitable for them. For the rest of the session the players then wore their favoured colour (which they could modify by task i.e. good players but poor shooters might wear a different colour to buy themselves a little more time).

 

Such a modification allows students to be fully engaged in an adapted game (we later went on to change the target for the shot to the inner black box and the top part of the hoop, and the shooting range from anywhere, down through the three point line and then to the key; and finally introduced dribbling). Throughout the session (which was 3 hours long) players played in and against mixed ability teams and yet all profited from this system. In this way players were taught to think intelligently about the game, they started to 'read' the triggers that come from match play rather than doing everything in static drills. We covered shooting as a technique, and dribbling and then put it them quickly into a modified game.

 

For more information see: http://www.tgfu.org/ and download the Bunker, Almond and Thorpe's original paper.

 

Does Continued Professional Development do anything?

I am just reading up about continued professional development (CPD) and it simply doesn't seem to achieve anything of note. Of course I am talking in general terms but the research I am reading is certainly worrying. My own CPD, well at least until I started my personal higher degree acquisition programme, was simple. Normally it was a governing body award in a sport (i.e. Rugby Level 2, Hockey Level 1) or a qualification (i.e. bronze lifeguard or emergency first aid in the workplace) or occasionally it was a course that the school wanted me to do for my professional advancement (managing from the middle or leadership in physical education). With the exception of the 'doing things' qualifications such as being a first aider these were one day courses that never needed redoing and which stayed on my every increasing CV. Yet they were everything that they shouldn't really have been and very little of what they might have been.

 

• They were fun (which isn't a bad thing but I now feel it might have skewed by end-of-course evaluation which was judged predominantly on my satisfaction)
  
• They were one day and one-off courses with no follow-up
  
• The impact on teaching and learning in my classroom or department were never checked or monitored
  
• The impact on my long-term behaviour as a teacher was miniscule (and this was certainly never checked)
  

 

Since then I have engaged in a handful of what I consider highly ineffectual courses (not because of what I learnt but because of what I have forgotten as a result of their solitary impact in my very busy working life) and two highly effectual and satisfying courses. These two combined to last over 2000 days and were regularly followed up, they had a huge impact on the teaching and learning in my classroom and their impact on my behaviour as a teacher was so huge that it is hard to quantify at this time as I am still enjoying the results. The CPD I am talking about is action research.

 

CPD as action research allowed me, in the words of Kemmis (2009), to change my practice as a practitioner, understand my practice, and explore and appreciate the conditions in which I work. It was an opportunity to become aware of the potential benefits of educational research findings and it stimulated reflection and professionalism on my part rather than simply teaching me another way of doing the same again and again. I was not conscious of the ways in which I constructed my personal and practice knowledge about and around teaching before I engaged in action research. It was only through sustained and supported research that I can to fully appreciate what it was that I did as a teacher only to find out that I wanted to change what I did. However, action research was there to support me during the change for it allowed me to understand the long term behavioural and pedagogical changes that I was enacting.

Birth of the un-modern school?

In his book Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison Michel Foucault (1977) suggests that schools adopted their current form at around the same time as prisons, factories and barracks. Foucault's chapter Docile Bodies (pp. 135-169) supported the idea that the labour process (Hamilton, 1990) was at the heart of schooling. He indicated that the innovators of the eighteenth century believed that soldiers, prisoners and pupils alike could all be constructed out of "formless clay" by turning them slowly into the desired archetype through "automatism of habit" (p. 135). The manufacture of the pupil was thus achieved, Foucault believed, through the discipline of the minute:

Gradually – but especially after 1762 - the educational space unfolds; the class becomes homogeneous, it is no longer made up of individual elements arranged side by side under the master's eye. In the eighteenth century, 'rank' begins to define the great form of distribution of individuals in the educational order: rows or ranks of pupils in each class, corridors, courtyards; rank attributed to each pupil at the end of each class and each examination; the rank he obtains from week to week, month to month, year to year; an alignment of age groups, one after another; a succession of subjects taught and questions treated, according to an order of increasing difficulty. And, in this ensemble of compulsory alignments, each pupil, according to his age, performance, his behaviour, occupies sometimes one rank, sometimes another; he moves constantly over a series of compartments – some of these are 'ideal' compartments, marking a hierarchy of knowledge or ability, other express the distribution of values or merits in material terms in the space of the college or classroom. It is a perpetual movement in which individuals replace one another in a space marked off by aligned intervals. Foucault (1977, p. 147)

This extensive quotation shows that much of the eighteenth century notion of schools and schooling survives to the modern day. There are few inventions that have had such longevity and yet the social construction and reconstruction of the school has survived. I am not suggesting that the educational space described in Foucault's book endures unchanged, but there are substantial and fundamental similarities that have survived for nearly two hundred and fifty years.

[an extract from my PhD]