One Step at a Time

If you ever want to have your enthusiasm level challenged, then spend a couple of hours with an 'Education Official' from County Hall!!! Although at the moment, I do not work on a Monday, I had been asked by the Head to go into school for a variety of meetings, to do with the setting up of the new group. So Monday saw me heading off to school at my usual time. My first meeting was not scheduled till later, but I decided to use the time to take into school even more of the things I have sorted from home, and spend time doing organising in the room which is to be the base for both of the groups.

However, at 11am I dutifully went off to meet the official for what I thought would be a nice 'chat' about the new things I was going to try with the group. To my horror, when I entered the room, I was shocked to see the lady surrounded by sheets of statistics and Department of Education documents. Now don't get me wrong, statistics and data obviously make this lady's heart sing which is why she is doing this job and I acknowledge that, as I know we are all on our own journeys. But, I have always been a little wary of statistics, as I know if you put your mind to it then you can get them to prove anything you want.

So there then followed a lengthy and I have to say rather dull discussion about levels, targets, grades, projected grades and targets, bench marks etc etc. If you are involved in Education in any way you will know exactly what I mean. I soon felt my energy and enthusiasm levels begin to plummet. I was especially concerned when she suggested that I test the children in the group every week in order to 'inform my teaching' for the following week.

At this point I think my Higher Self stepped in and made me look at things differently i.e. this is her reality, testing, testing and more testing. Whereas, I am convinced that a lot of our problems in Education at the moment are as a result of precisely this. I feel that the fun and enjoyment has been stripped away from teaching. If you are a younger teacher reading this then you may not feel the same as you have known nothing else but testing, but to us older ones, we can remember being in a classroom filled with laughter but the pupils were still all learning because basically if you enjoy something and are interested in it then you will do well too. Some of the pupils who are to be in my new group are evidence of this, for as soon as I say pick up a pen they go in to panic and say 'Oh no we are not having another test are we?'

Anyway, I decided that the best way to deal with all this was to call upon my 'acting skills' I am a Drama teacher! So I spent the rest of the meeting looking so interested and making the right noises in the right places. Yet I had realised that it was no use trying to argue with or change this lady's way of thinking as we see things so differently. Instead, I will just continue with the way I have decided to approach this and hopefully 'Teach by example ' that there are other ways of doing things.

However, I must stress at this point this is not going to be some airy fairy way of teaching kids but I am going to go back to basics in a lot of cases, because what is the point of trying to teach metaphors just because the government scheme says that is what they should be learning at this age, when they cannot remember what an adjective is? I really feel teachers have got to come out of the fear mentality that is crippling so many of them at the moment and have confidence in their beliefs when things are not working. I also thought it was interesting that a couple of the Government sites she had asked me to look at, were unavailable when I tried that evening.

Two hours later, I emerged from this meeting, only just had time for my lunch and then went off to a planning meeting with the Head and the other staff who will be involved. As soon as the Head opened his mouth to start the meeting, I knew he was having what I am starting to call a 'Wobble' about the whole thing. You may remember one of the teachers involved had one of these last week. For his first words of the meeting were, 'we cannot possibly start it when you want Louise as everyone is saying there will be too many problems!' You may recognise a familiarity here with things that were said when I originally wanted to start it on Jan 19th.

So yet again I found myself having to calm things down, as I knew this was another case of people jumping on the bandwagon and just wanting a good moan. I have to say that unfortunately a lot of teachers can be good at that and I know that in the past I have been one of them too. I decided that the best approach to this was to break it down into steps and ask him to name names for I had the feeling that the people who were moaning were not the ones who would actually be involved with it but they had just used this as an excuse. Unfortunately, I was right and as all the people who are directly involved were sitting around the table I was able to ask them about their concerns. There were a couple of things but these were soon sorted out. I am having the feeling that this whole process is like a course in Conflict Resolution.

After the shaky start, the meeting worked really well and again I feel it was as a result of taking one step at a time. We eventually want the Humanities staff to work with us in a much more integrated way similar to the teaching in Primary Schools but as they were a little unsure to begin with I decided that they should start the scheme by teaching a unit they were familiar with. There were smiles all round at this point but they almost immediately then started to see how future ideas could be taught and would you believe it, it was as an integrated scheme. We even started to plan our first trip out with the pupils which will be to Totnes. Now that's an interesting choice when you look at it on all levels!

The last meeting of the day was with two Educational Pschychologists. They had been 'Shadowing' some of these pupils that I will be teaching and they had compiled a list of techniques that work with them. There were some interesting things here but to me some of the best bits came at the end of the meeting in the informal chatting time, as they often do, when they started to say that things were beginning to change in some primary schools now as staff were realising that pupils may have heard the term Compound Noun but they could not write their name. Yes I did say Primary School. This I think takes me back to what I was feeling in the first meeting of the day, perhaps a form of confirmation here. One of them also said that it was quite horrifying to hear her 7 year old talk about what her targets in reading and writing were when she could hardly read. I eventually arrived back home at 6pm and that was the end of my day off!

Having just realised how much I have written about Monday I am going to try and summarise the rest of my week at school. Here are some of the small things that stick in my mind as I reflect.

My conversations with a rather traditional RE teacher as I try
to convince her that I want to use episodes of the Simpsons
as a way in to some of the concepts she wants to teach.

My amazement at how a group of 'supposedly streetwise 16
year olds' can so easily connect with their Inner Child when
you give them the costumes they have to wear for their GCSE
Drama exam in just over a week's time.

The realisation that I have now become more accepted by
some of the staff as I was asked to join them on a 'Girl's night
out' down at the pub. Have to say this is still like Alien
Territory to me and I have declined the offer for now, but who
knows what the future might bring?

The interesting conversations I had with members of staff
about their dreams over the last few nights. Even though they
knew I had been on local radio many times over the last few
years interpreting Dreams, they now seemed interested to
know more about it.

My wonderment at the reasons why a group of Year 7 boys
suddenly decided to stay behind at the end of a lesson even
though it was break time and start to talk to me about their
dreams and strange things they had experienced in their
supposedly haunted home.

The realisation that as I was aware there was an influx of high
level Spiritual Energy, the Teaching Assistant in the room also
commented that it had got really hot in there.

My amusement as the Head thanked me again in the staff
meeting for all the work I was doing, this was after it had also
been the first thing in the weekly staff bulletin. This could get
embarrassing being mentioned so many times. Regular readers
of the blog spiritualascension.blogspot.com will maybe
remember that it was not long ago that he had to admit he did
not even know which days of the week I was in school. Gosh
how things have changed.

All in all it has been quite a week. Time seems to have speeded up even more and yet I am getting the feeling that a lot is still being achieved. At times I am amazed that I have still managed to teach all my lessons, continue with the planning and organisation and do all the after school rehearsals too. I think this is because I am trying to see it like a light at the end of the tunnel in that I know the rehearsals will stop after next week as it is their exam on the 6th and I have only got another 30 year 9 reports to write. So on that note I will finish.