So after a long search, Sir Michael Wilshaw is grasping education’s poisoned chalice and taking the role of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Schools.
And his opening salvo has already begun. Following the lead of the government white paper it’s not just ‘coasting schools’ that are a target, but ‘coasting teachers’ too.
Personally, I dislike the label ‘coasting’. It seems to imply a complete lack of care, whereas I’m sure it’s much more the case that with all the personal and time pressures of teaching some can just get stuck into a bit of a rut.
Sir Michael makes the point that the ‘coasting’ teachers can often be hard to identify. So it got me thinking what is the real difference that makes a teacher truly outstanding?
Well obviously there are a whole range of professional standards for teachers that try to answer that question, and you could argue as to extent they match what your vision of an Outstanding teacher is.
But for me I think the real difference is the willingness to experiment, to try new things, to learn from them and do them better next time.
To do that you have to open yourself up to new ideas, which is one of the great things about Twitter. It would be hard to find another group of teachers as passionate about trying new things and exposing themselves to new ideas and technologies.
‘Exposing yourself’ is quite a good description – because when you’re trying new things you can be a bit exposed. What if it doesn’t work? But the truly excellent teachers take this in their stride.
There is something scientific even in the most creative of teachers. Through that iterative process of test, implement, evaluate eventually you’ll reach teaching nirvana.
I completely agree! Experimentation is a great way to encourage creativity in teaching, however many schools don’t have a culture that supports this. We’ve been working with Gloucestershire College who have been running the “Wacky and Wonderful Lesson Competition”, to encourage supported experimentation in staff’s teaching. Great project I think! (You can read the blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bnlmjwg)
I would add another feature each good teacher should have: being aware of the conditions and external elements which surround the learning-teaching activity. That is what keeps our feet on the ground when facing innovation in the class. Trying new things and being creative sometimes requires the support and implication of colleagues and/or the administration, otherwise our experimental approaches and creativity can just have an anecdotal influence in our classes or, in the worst cases, lead to chaos.
It can be quite easy to get stuck in a rut when teaching. Totally agree with your comment about time pressures. It is sometimes forgotten how much a teacher has to fit into a day. I know many teachers who give up their Sunday to catch up on their planning. marking, assessments …the list can be endless. They would like to be more creative with their lessons, but time and other pressures don’t allow it.
However, I also feel that some teachers are happy to carry on teaching in the same lessons in the same way, year in year out. They may be happy to deliver lessons in the easiest way possible – not always the most exciting!
Your comment on ‘exposing yourself’ is true. Trying new techniques and ideas can be very scary, but it is all part of teaching.
Sunita
http://www.teachmykids.co.uk
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Teach-My-Kids
http://www.twitter.com/teach_my_kids
I can’t imagine doing the same lesson over and over. There is always a better way to do it than I did it last time. There must be. I’m not a perfect teacher. So either, I wait for someone else to work out what to try, or I just get on with trying things out myself. Sometimes the biggest problem is not a reluctant school watching you, but convincing the parents that education has moved on since they were at school. “what was good enough for me…” … is different now – at least some of it.
Innovation and support from social media networks; fantastic opportunities. Many, even coasting, teachers are not necessarily standing still but swimming like crazy against the tide of influence on students. Falling work ethic, parents who think it is all a schools responcibility and peer/ media pressure to grow up before they have developed. Some recent change is bringing an overdue levelling between subjects but going back to a ‘grammar school’ curriculum is not the way forward that most of us see as progress.