25 ways to make yourself unpopular: #1 Don’t do as you’re told

Would anyone want to make themselves unpopular? I doubt it. But there are times when one has to choose between what is going to give them a quiet life, and what they feel is right. Obviously, though, you have to choose your battles. In this series I thought I’d explore the sorts of thing which some educational technology leaders or school leaders might not like.

Strictly speaking, if a teacher declines to carry out an instruction, he can be reprimanded – even if the instruction is dreadful. In my first day at one school I had the following conversation with my Head of Department:

HoD: Regarding the Year 10s (15 years old), just spend the first couple of lessons giving them a list of terms and their definitions to write down.

Me: But the terms will be meaningless unless we explore the concepts behind them.

HoD: Don’t worry about all that; just write the list on the board and get them to copy it down.

Me: But what’s the purpose of doing that? They won’t learn anything.

HoD: No, but it’ll keep them quiet.

Sorry, but that’s pretty appalling if you want my honest opinion – on at least four levels.

Firstly, I think a lesson should be more than about keeping kids quiet.

Secondly, I’m not sure I want kids to be quiet: I want them to discuss and challenge, not sit there like sponges.

Thirdly, if by “keeping them quiet” the HoD meant ensure there were no behavioural issues, then the best way of achieving that is to make the lesson interesting, not to try to bore the kids into submission.

Fourthly, I believe in providing people with learning hooks – something they can hold on to, mentally, when learning new terminology. How can people learn things in a deep way if all they’ve done is learn a list of words by heart? But if they understand the concepts which underpin those words, they won’t even have to make a conscious effort to learn them.

Disobeying the HoD wasn’t a strategy that was guaranteed to gain me kudos or promotion within the school. But I was able to look at myself in the mirror each morning!

Related articles

• Rules of Engagement (ictineducation.org)
• Weapons of Mass Instruction (edreformer.com)
• Igniting Conversations for Learning: Librarians Leading Professional Development (theunquietlibrarian.wordpress.com)

Comments

[Julia Skinner]

I'm going to enjoy this series! We do 'follow' instructions too often without thinking about how sensible they are.

[john Hobson]

I refused to waste anytime on the KS3 ICT Tests. At LEA meetings I was forced to attend I pointed out the utter absurdity of a test which marked students down for changing their answers from the wrong one to the correct one. I had a lot of people very concerned over my stance until the useless thing was killed off.

As for the Diplomas...

[Terry Freedman, Educational ICT Consultant]

oo-er: I actually worked on that test! But I don't recognise your description of it. It must have been incorrectly set up or adminsitered or something, or was it one of the pilot studies? I always thought it would make a very useful addition to FORMATIVE assessment, to assist teachers in making their own assessments.

And I quite like the Diplomas -- but then I worked for the SSAT for a while, as a consultant, on the Diploma side of things.

There must be SOMETHING you and I can agree on!

[Terry Freedman, Educational ICT Consultant]

@Julia thx, Julia. I think I'm going to have fun writing it!

[john Hobson]

I spoke at length to one of the developers of the tests who walked off the project because it could assess above Level 5. Not much of a recommendation. The entire project was underfunded and based on a false premise thart computers can assess intelligence. As it proved, they can't.

The Diplomas are conceptually flawed. The idea that kids would go to another School miles away for a course that effectively wiped out any chance of a balanced curriculum for very dubious bag of GCSEs wasn't thought through. But then the figures of uptake speak for themselves and the atrocious pass rates. They'll be RIP in a year. But those of us at the front end could have told anyone who listened why they would fail three years ago.

But wasn't the theme Don't Do as you're told! I didn't !

[Terry Freedman, Educational ICT Consultant]

John, did you mean to say "because it could NOT assess above Level 5..."? Not sure who that developer was. I was working closely with the three companies involved, and they were all "signed up" to the idea. I don't think anyone in the ICT team felt that a comnputerised test could replace teacher's assessment, especially above Level 5, where the skills are more to do with thinking and evaluating etc. We saw the test as a means of assisting the teacher. The test was never intended to assess intelligence, but to give an indication of what level the student was PROBABLY working on. It was ideally suited to being used as a formative assessment tool, as I think was proved when it was opened up to use by schools for that purpose. It's a great shame the funding dried up, but mapping the scenarios and activities and students' actions to the Programme of Study isn't a trivial task.

I agree about the flaw in travelling between sites, but the structure of the Diploma was, I thought, pretty good in many respects.

But I admire your maverick stance: more people should adopt it!

Have a good Christmas.