Richard

From Progressive to Balanced: Why Teachers Matter in the Traditional vs Progressive Education Debate

I have been on Twitter a while. For most of that time I’ve been a lurker. In Canada, I did participate for a while in #CdnEdChat which was where I discovered what a great platform Twitter could be for CPD. It is amazing the amount of information that can be disseminated in 140 characters or less. Now I don’t have time to get involved in the same way as I did in Canada but still I always find myself checking out Twitter to see what’s current and newsworthy.

One of the debates that I find fascinating is the one between traditional and progressive educationalists and their advocates. I suspect this debate is not nearly as polarised as tweets on Twitter would suggest. In the past, I would certainly have described myself much more progressive than traditional in my outlook. I was someone who wholeheartedly embraced project-based learning but as I become more experienced the more I believe that we are called teachers for a reason. I’m not to saying project-based learning doesn’t have a place in the Primary classroom but rather that it is only one of the tools we should be using.

I love the idea of self-directed learning. Certainly, I think that by the time students leave school this should be something they are able to do. But at what point does this become possible? There are a whole raft of skills and knowledge that you need to be able to direct your own learning. These are not acquired by osmosis. Careful and purposeful teaching is needed if students are to gain the necessary skills and knowledge needed to direct their own learning. That is the job of a teacher.

As I mentioned in a previous blog the other issue I have with Discovery learning is that while it may be effective in some circumstances it’s not efficient. If memory serves I think it was Jared Diamond who pointed out that scholars believe writing was ‘invented’ independently 5 times in history. I only point this out to illustrate how difficult learning to write is and that if we left our students to discover it by themselves it would take a long time indeed for them to learn how to write.

What I do find remarkable is that there is a debate about ‘traditional’ vs.’progressive’ education. When I was a university, admittedly a while ago, I don’t recall any debate. It was a given that progressive, child-centered education was the only type of education that was worth learning about. (There is another possibility. There was a debate but I was such a bad student I missed it…) So it is interesting to me that there is such fervent debate about it today. In part, this is to be expected as our understanding of how humans learn deepens and cognitive science is able to impart knowledge that earlier theorists didn’t have access to.

The debate is an important one and one I will keep following with interest. My views have evolved over time. A combination of new information and more teaching experience is reinforcing the belief, that while there is a place for project-based learning, a taught curriculum is necessary if students are to maximise their potential as learners.

Maximizing Learning Time: Reevaluating PBL Strategies

I was reading this blog post by Greg Ashman and I had a bit of an epiphany.

Bear in mind I am a Primary teacher so my focus and expertise are somewhat different from my secondary colleagues. With that said I have always thought and believed that project-based learning (PBL) has a place in a teachers’ toolkit. When it’s done well there can be a lot of experiential learning going on that doesn’t happen with explicit instruction.

Lately, however, I’ve had this nagging feeling that I was missing something really obvious. Where I am teaching now we have more subject specialists that you ordinarily find in a UK Primary School. As a consequence, I have around 8 hours prep time a week. Which is amazing, it means most of my work is done during working hours and things like my reading and blogs get to be done at home. An unintended consequence of this is that I don’t have an as much contact time with my class as I would perhaps like or need. So when I read Greg’s article a lightbulb went off in my head.

The last project-based learning we did was based on Water, focussing on issues of water scarcity. It was a paired activity that involved some research, some design and a presentation to their classmates about what they discovered. My students were (mostly) engaged, enjoyed it and learned from it. It was a project that highlighted both the strengths and weaknesses of PBL (not the subject of this blog post) and it took a lot of time.

So reading Greg’s post was an ‘ah-ha’ for me in that the nagging feeling I had was illuminated. Time is a valuable commodity at school, especially here. PBL is great for many things but it is not an efficient vehicle for learning. There is a lot of learning by trial and error, a lot of “have you thought about this or considered that?” Great questions but they take time to pose, clarify and answer.

I’m not suggesting that there is no place for PBL in Primary School or indeed Secondary School, far from it. But I am thinking that my use of it as a catalyst for learning will have to be more judicious going forward. Time is a valuable commodity and if ‘learning-focused education’ is more efficient in helping students develop their thinking and progress their learning, then this will have to be a consideration going forward.

What’s with teachers and all the time they get off?

It’s often said that one of the perks of being a teacher in the amount of time off we get. Can’t really deny it, to the non-teachers I can see how it seems bonkers how much time we get off. But… of course, there’s a but… it’s not the whole story. Holidays are not holidays in the way most people think of them. In the same way that teachers weekends aren’t the same as an ordinary weekend.

I’ve tried the whole gamut of working experiences. Worked for someone, have been self-employed and have been and currently am a teacher. So I can comment with some authority on this subject.

As an employed person, your weekends are yours. You don’t have to think about anything except the weekend, family and perhaps how much you don’t want to go back to work on Monday, but that’s another story. As a teacher, you may get one day of that but then the other will be taken up in part, at least, preparing for the week ahead. So that’s one whole day a week to yourself or for your family. Added to that the fact you are completely knackered from 5 days with 30 students who are these days more and more demanding. (Now I have to hold my hand up here and say things here at the British School in Alexandria are much, much better than that…) Now, of course, teachers are better off than the self-employed but again that’s another story.

So when holidays do come around as they do they are a necessary part of R&R in order for teachers to be able to do what they do. In fact, it’s a pretty good indication of the state of the teaching profession at the moment, that the length of holidays is not a significant enough incentive to keep people from leaving in droves. Long holidays should be a real incentive but they are not.

Anyway, what I am trying to say in a round about way, is that I am on half term. My plans are as follows; relax; spend time with my family; learn a few things; spend time on my blogs; plan for next half term; get my energy levels back up to where they need to be for the next seven weeks.

Discretion the better part of valour

There are some things that you forget about teaching and what being a full-time teacher means. One of those things is how much time you spend ill or fighting illness. I don’t mean serious illness, (such as stress related illness) but the sort that results in coughs, sore throats, sneezes, and sniffles. Most of the time these can be shrugged off but on occasion, when it’s more than a cold you have to give in. It’s never taken lightly the decision to take a day off. So many variables, planning, cover, disruption, but sometimes discretion is the better part of valour and a day regrouping and resting makes all the difference from being just a body in the classroom to being an effective teacher.

The fact is many children come to school when they shouldn’t. But when both parents are working and there is no one to watch them then there is little option but to send them to school and hope they don’t get sent home. (And yes guilty as charged on this count!) What’s the answer? There probably isn’t one. I do know, though, that my current rate of infection and recovery means I will either end up with an amazing immune system or knackered and good for little else except the glue factory. You can guess which one I am hoping for.

A new platform for an old blog

Blogging is something I would really like to be good at. I’m not and the chances of gaining an audience beyond my friends, family, and a few lost souls are slim. But I do enjoy it and so continue on with my amateur efforts.

Since 2013 I have been using Squarespace for my blog. It’s a fabulous platform for someone who wants to create a good looking blog and not be worried about pesky code. It’s an intuitive delight to use and their customer service, in my experience, was always fantastic. That said I wasn’t using it enough to justify the cost, which although not prohibitive is more than this new platform. Not only that but for the price of my Squarespace blog I could put up three blogs by hosting them myself and using WordPress. The problem is I don’t know what I am doing with WordPress beyond the basics so everything takes twice as long as looks half as nice. I am hoping that the more I use it the easier it will become and the better it will look.

So it’s my intention to try and blog here once a week about goings on in my Classroom, or something that has occurred to me while teaching. Blogging does have excellent potential for helping with professional development. There are myriad educational blogs out there that do just that, some of my favourite of which I will be sharing here.