Why is it socially acceptable to say: “I’m bad at Maths”?

Alys Lloyd, a Maths Teacher at Wimbledon High School, looks at society’s attitude towards Maths, what makes a good mathematician, and how you can compare the retaining of mathematics knowledge to that of languages.

Teachers do have social lives, although to our students this might be a shocking idea. A teacher being spotted outside of school, in the supermarket for example, can send some students into a flat spin. So the idea of a teacher being at a party might be difficult to imagine, but I can assure you, it does happen!

At parties and in social situations with people who don’t know me, I have found that my job can, unfortunately, put a bit of dampener on things. A typical conversation opener is to ask what someone does for a living. The most common response to my saying that I’m a Maths teacher is “oh, wow” then something along the lines of “I was never any good at Maths in school.” Then the person I was talking to politely excuses themselves. I now tend to dodge that kind of question and stick to safer topics.

Why is it socially acceptable to say you are bad at Maths? I doubt that so many people would be so upfront saying that they can’t read… So why does Maths get such bad press?

My Theory

Mathematics is a very black and white subject, with normally only one right answer, although there may be lots of different ways to get there. Many people have been put off Maths because in the past they have got stuck, had a negative experience and not known how to get to the correct solution.

This may have been because the teaching was poor, or the methods they were taught to use didn’t make sense to them, or they didn’t speak up in class so didn’t get help. I believe that by far the most common reason is that they take getting stuck personally. They believe that they didn’t get the right answer because they themselves are bad at Maths. Unfortunately, I don’t think this is something that just happened in the past; it still happens, and I see it happening with the highly achieving girls at WHS. They are not used to getting things wrong, finding something difficult, having to struggle, and they take it personally – they internalise this as a failure: they are bad at Maths.

Which leads us to the question: what makes someone ‘good’ or ‘bad’ at Maths? Who is someone who is ‘good’ at Maths? A Lecturer or Professor of Mathematics? A Maths teacher? Or someone who simply enjoys doing Maths? Is it about who you are comparing yourself to? As a Maths teacher, my level of mathematics is low compared to a Mathematics Professor. Being good at mental arithmetic is not the same as being good at Maths; possibly conversely in fact – professional Mathematicians are notoriously bad at mental arithmetic, as are some Maths teachers!

So, for people who say: “I’m bad at Maths”, they may think that those people who are ‘good’ at Maths never get stuck; never struggle to get to the answer. But I can assure you, that is not the case. I am a Maths teacher and I get stuck on Maths problems. I definitely don’t always immediately know how to get to the answer.

I believe the difference in how you feel about Maths is about what you do when you get stuck, because we ALL get stuck. Being stuck isn’t bad – it’s part of the process. It is a way of forming new connections in the brain; it’s a part of learning.

When I get stuck on a problem I don’t take it personally; I don’t take it as a reflection of my mathematical ability; I think of it as a challenge, a conundrum to be figured out, a puzzle to be solved. If I can’t find a solution quickly, I stop and try to think about it differently. Could it be thought about in another way? Can I visualise it by drawing a sketch or diagram? Is there an alternative approach or method I haven’t tried? Have I used all the information I have available? These are very important problem-solving skills and have lots of relevance to everyday life.

Use it or lose it

Mathematics in many ways can be considered its own language. When learning languages, you start with basics: hello, please, thank you, and a few important sentences (dos cervezas, por favor); and build up to be able to communicate fluidly. If you have ever tried to learn a language seriously, you will know that it is not a smooth process. You go through phases of thinking you’re doing great, then you feel like you plateau – you realise that there is a whole verb tense you had no idea existed, that you now need to learn.

Maths is similar. You need to know the basics: numbers, patterns, arithmetic, and a few important ideas like algebra; and you build up to some quite complicated Maths like calculus, proof, complex numbers. With Maths numbers and algebra are the words, and rules like BIDMAS are the grammar. They are a means to the same end as languages – to communicate effectively.

One aspect of learning a language (or learning a musical instrument) is that if you don’t practise it regularly, you start to lose the gains you had made; it becomes more difficult, and eventually you forget. I firmly believe – that like a language – if you don’t use Maths, if you don’t practise it regularly, you start to lose it.

For me, this explains why parents can struggle to remember how to do school-level Maths with their children, even if they found it easy when they were young – they haven’t practised it in years. It can seem like an alien language – it’s hard to pick something up again when you have had such a long gap.

Yet even if you, yourself, haven’t used Maths in years, you are constantly using things that have been programmed by someone using Mathematics. Maths underpins everything ‘modern’ around us: the computer at which I am typing this article, the smartphone in your pocket; it keeps planes in the air and stops them crashing into each other; it’s in our buildings, in our clothes; Maths is fundamental to our modern style of living.

We want to encourage our children to feel it is socially unacceptable to be bad at Maths. We want them to be the ones solving the problems of the future, and part of this will certainly require mathematics.

So, what’s the take-home message? I’d like to think it’s this: in Maths, as in life, we all get stuck, but the people who succeed are the ones who don’t give up. And if you are lucky enough to meet a Maths teacher at a party, please be nice!

Above: Photo by Kaboompics .com from Pexels

15th January 20217th June 2022

Friday Gem #25 – harnessing the self-reflection of Motivational Maps and R&R

Autumn Focus: Metacognition – students driving their own learning through reflection

Teaching and learning Gem #25 – harnessing the self-reflection of Motivational Maps and R&R

This Friday Gem comes from Clare Duncan

One clear example of student self-reflection is their termly Review and Reflection session, and none more so than this year with our holistic approach. Using the Motivational Maps tool, students completed a series of questions which generated a report detailing their top motivators. They reflected on what these motivators meant to them and how they could harness them to develop strategies for success in every aspect of school life: academics, co-curricular and friendships. These thoughts were captured during R&R and their report has been transferred to their profile page on Firefly.

So how can we use these in our T&L to encourage students to take control of their learning and reflect on their progress?

Well, each student reflection was captured in a report on Firefly. If there is a student in your class who you feel is not connecting with your subject, why not look at their self-reflection and discuss with them their motivators: together, plan how the student can use those motivators to drive their progress in your subject.

By way of an example:

Take Ceri, her top motivator is a Director: she has a need for power and influence. Here is her reflection:

I am struggling with finding my feet in class and in the Sixth Form. This is particularly true in Politics and English as I feel that the more confident girls always speak over me and when I do say something; they challenge what I’ve said and I am unable to speak up or share my opinions.

Through Ceri articulating this, you and she can discuss and plan an approach to her having a voice. For example, giving her a lead role in an initiative, you will be addressing her motivational need. This is a great way of using a student’s self-refection to help them to flourish in your subject.

13th January 20217th June 2022

How can studying our surroundings enrich historical enquiry?

Emily Anderson, Head of History, reflects on how the pandemic has thrown the department’s thinking about place into relief, and how this is manifest in the History classroom and in inter-disciplinary thinking.

Let’s observe, Attenborough style, the historian at work. What comes to mind as you peer tentatively into your imagination, careful not to disturb? I would be certain that, to some extent, you would gravitate towards a library, or an archive, and rightly so. For this is where the historian finds their treasure, following lead upon lead to synthesise their research into new understanding, often of people and events far removed from our own experience. Whilst the primary location for our WHS historians is the classroom rather than the archive or library (with a healthy engagement with the latter, of course), the principle remains; understanding emerges through study of the sources.

And yet, how much poorer our understanding would be if we stayed in the archive. Venture outside, and our surroundings become another historical source, there to challenge and broaden our thinking. The potential of this has long inspired me: my Master’s dissertation in 2014 considered how far the political context of the debates over Home Rule in Ireland influenced the construction of Belfast City Hall, building on both an element of my undergraduate study but also my teaching at A Level at the time. Recently, I have felt the draw towards such lines of enquiry particularly keenly, as our world has shrunk due to the pandemic and the opportunities normally available to me and my department to explore the world for ourselves and, crucially, share this with our students on trips (always a wonderful experience) have not been available. Talking with family, friends and colleagues, I know that we are not alone in this.

Within the curriculum

We can, however, still incorporate the study of places into our curriculum. At A Level, we teach a study of the British Empire from c1857-1967. It is, of course, a very wide-ranging unit in terms of geographical reach and this is one of the things which drew us to it; the opportunity, not widely available at A Level, to study global history. The uniting focus of the course is Britain, but to only study the impact and debate from this perspective would be a severe dereliction of our duty as historians. The impact of the European empires on the physical landscape of periphery and metropole alike is striking – the more you look, the more you see and traditional narratives are disrupted. In our city, Notting Hill, now a by-word for the celebration of multi-culturalism, has become so because of migration from what was the Empire. To wander the streets and museums of South Kensington is to experience, to my mind, a showcase of the imperial project. Reading the testimonies of those involved in the Morant Bay uprising in Jamaica, and coupling these with the incredible sense of place evoked by David Olusoga in his documentary work, means that even sites of memory far away and currently inaccessible to us can be explored in the classroom.[1]

At GCSE, our course looks at Berlin during the Cold War. I find the city both wonderfully vibrant and hauntingly evocative, and love taking our students there to experience it for themselves. It is the unexpected, small-scale artefacts that intrigue the most – the oversize floodlight which lit up the approach to the Berlin Wall, still on the front of an apartment block though the Wall is long gone; the first memorial to the Holocaust, barely registered by those who pass it in the suburb of Schöneberg; the American-style cinema built for the occupying troops but more at home in the Midwest. The questions students ask both on such trips and back in the classroom show how such experiences enable them to see the history they study in new ways. Excitingly, our new GCSE, which the current Y9s will study from September, gives us the opportunity to conduct a study of Spitalfields, an area shaped and enriched by the diverse communities which have settled there. Classroom and in-situ enquiry will work together to bring our understanding to life.

At Key Stage Three, we are embarking on a total overhaul of our curriculum. This gives us the exciting opportunity to reconsider how we incorporate our surroundings into historical study, and how we can use trips to their best advantage to complement it. Inspiration has abounded – one of the upsides of the past year has been the extraordinary availability of online seminars and training. We have been trialling some new enquiries with Year 9, including ‘What secrets of the past are hidden within the walls of a house?’, which uses the BBC programme and book ‘A House Through Time’ as a starting point for a study of social change in Liverpool in the 19^th and 20^th centuries.[2] Again, we have found ourselves drawing on a place – here a home – to focus and enrich our historical thinking.[3]

Inter-disciplinary opportunities

An interest in place, in all its complexities, is something we share with our colleagues and friends in Geography. You will have seen Dr Stephanie Harel’s article in October on this blog and this sparked thinking about how we could collaborate to share expertise and experience and develop understanding.[4] The Y12 History and Geography students participated in an initial exploration of themes around place during the STEAM+ event in November, and led the first joint session of Geog On, History Girls and Politics Society, sharing what they’d discussed. We are continuing our joint meetings this term.

I hope that this has given you some insight into an aspect of our current thinking as a department. We would love the wider community to be part of the conversation about our curriculum. Please do get in touch if you would like to via email or Twitter.

Further reading/ideas – along with the material referenced in the post

There are some wonderful walking tours of London which I would thoroughly recommend – some are online at the moment. Try www.open-city.org.uk, https://sixinthecity.co.uk/ and https://www.womenonthewalk.co.uk/women-on-the-march.

Brian Ladd’s ‘The Ghosts of Berlin’ – a wonderful reflection on this most fascinating of cities.

‘The Companion Guide to…’ series – for in-depth itineraries around different cities and countries.

[1] P. Gopal, Insurgent Empire, London, Verso, 2019; Black and British: A Forgotten History, D. Olusoga, BBC, 2016

[2] A House Through Time, D. Olusoga, BBC, 2018; D. Olusoga and M. Backe-Hansen, A House Through Time, London, Picador, 2020

[3] With thanks to Holly Beckwith for masterminding and planning this enquiry

[4] http://whs-blogs.co.uk/teaching/positive-geographies-covid-19/

4th December 20207th June 2022

Teaching and learning Gem #24 – questioning for students to connect personally with the ideas

This Friday Gem comes from Steph Harel, who I saw use this sort of questioning in a lesson I observed.

She frequently asked questions that encouraged students to develop their own engagement with the learning, helping them think about the broader context of their learning, but also about what that learning means for them from an individual, personal, ethical as well as academic perspective.

I found these three questions from Steph particularly effective. They can be answered from different perspectives: personal/ethical/academic:

“Why do we care about…?”
“Are you surprised by…?”
“Why does it matter…?”

This sort of questioning is effective because:

It develops a student’s personal connection with topics: what do these topics mean to them as individuals. The learning resonates with them as thinking, feeling humans?
It encourages students to interrogate their reactions to new ideas: great for metacognition.
It helps the teacher build strong a strong rapport with the class, getting to know their students’ personal perspectives.
Linking the academic work to a personal response will help the learning be contextualised for the individual. It will thus build it into a schema/network so it sticks in the long-term memory.
It prompts debate and encourages student’s to raise their voice…if this is their opinion, they are less worried about being right or wrong.

3rd December 20207th June 2022

Steam+ in MFL

Claire Baty, Head of French and Mandarin, considers how Modern Foreign Languages connect with other subjects.

“No subject can exist in isolation: discourse and community are central to the progression of knowledge and understanding”[1]. This is the absolute backbone for the study of Modern Foreign Languages. It makes no sense to learn a language in isolation because a fundamental purpose of learning a language is to communicate; to facilitate discourse between different communities, countries and nationalities in order to further our understanding of each other and what connects us.

It is easy to make superficial links between subjects; learning numbers in Year 7 by doing basic maths or practicing the imperative by giving instructions for a PE warm up in a foreign language. These lessons all provide valuable opportunities to reinforce vocabulary, but they feel like an add on, a tick box exercise. The key to true interdisciplinary learning is to stop seeing our own subjects in isolation and start seeing the themes, the skills, the whole world problems and solutions that we examine with our students.

Above: Business vector created by freepik

Take for example students learning Mandarin Chinese. Being able to recognise and write in character is linked to a deeper insight into the culture and civilisation of countries where Chinese is spoken, which in turns requires an understanding of the history of that country. This inevitably leads to an appreciation of the current economic and political climate in that country. Three key areas of study for Mandarin Pre-U overlap significantly with History, Geography and Economics. This is what is so wonderful about Steam+ as an approach to curriculum building: expertise across the school can be used to fuel a student’s curiosity and develop a passion for a subject that is not limited to one perspective.

At A Level the interdisciplinary links between MFL and other subjects are more obvious; Y13 French students study the occupation of France and German students the reunification of Germany. However, Steam+ is about creating opportunities within the curriculum for all year groups.

Consider for example our Year 10 German students who were able to explore 100 years of the Bauhaus movement by attending exhibitions and screenings in German. The language they had been learning in class to discuss their fictional interior designs gained more significance when they saw it in a real-life context.

Students in Year 7 French consider the idea of secularism and religious freedom and how fundamental that is to the French constitution and everyday life in France when they look at what it is like to be a pupil at school in France. Delving deeper into this value system, alongside others, is an opportunity to encourage tolerance and understanding and to allow students to make connections where perhaps they had not expected them.

The connections between learning a foreign language and travel are clear, so our Year 9 scheme of work is structured around a project where students discover the varied and exciting world that is la Francophonie. Using the vocabulary learnt in class to examining the geography, culture, traditional dress, culinary delights and song of different French speaking countries they are able to broaden their understanding of what it means to be French yet also begin to consider the implications of France’s colonial history.

Languages vector — Above: people vector created by freepik

Reforms to the GCSE since 2016 have meant that the study of literary texts has become an essential part of any MFL scheme of work. This presents so many opportunities for the transfer of skills between MFL and English. The sense of pride and achievement that students in Year 9 experience from being able to decode the future tense from an authentic French poem (Demain dès l’aube, Victor Hugo) is far greater than that any grammar exercise would give them. Year 11 close analysis of Maupassant’s la parure in their French lessons gave students a deeper understanding of French society in the 19^th Century, themes occurring in other French works and the literary movements of the time, all of which enhanced their ability to study the same work for GCSE English. The key here is for the departments to work together on devising a programme of study that meets all their requirements rather than teaching the same topic twice in isolation.

Steam+ creates the space for interdisciplinary thought. It is an exciting opportunity for us and our students to collaborate more intensively to explore ideas that do not fit neatly into a lesson plan. But it is also an opportunity to examine the skills that are required and developed by one subject that can support a student’s understanding, expression and ultimately progression in another. Attention to detail required for effective translation that is also needed when examining data in Science and Maths; performance techniques in Music and oral proficiency in MFL. Yes, at times we are confined by exam specifications, but by encouraging our students to make connections between subjects, they can take their learning beyond the syllabi and into the real world because that is the fun in learning and ultimately the point.

[1] Steam+ manifesto

2nd December 20207th June 2022

George Cook, explores ideas from The Culture Code (Daniel Coyle) and Radical Candor (Kim Scott)

George Cook, Head of Hockey at WHS, explores ideas from The Culture Code (Daniel Coyle) and Radical Candor (Kim Scott). These books show that it is less about the questions we ask, and more about the environment we create that enables us to ask them. Culture is everything.

Questioning is a hot topic in the world of education. What type of questioning do you use? What type of questioning should you be using?

There is no doubt that questioning allows us, as the teacher, to identify areas of strength and weakness in our classes. It gives opportunity to really challenge the most gifted, stretching and pushing the limits of their understanding. It is a great tool because in the same breath we can use questioning to give great confidence to those who are unsure or perhaps, normally, quieter and more reserved in lessons.

However, according to the two books listed above, the type of question you use and who you ask it to, is irrelevant if the environment we create is not quite right.

The Culture Code examines many high performing groups ranging from high end military task forces and airline pilots, to successful start-up companies as well as big hitters like Google. On the face of it, none of these groups have much in common. Apart from the culture they have developed, built on honest two-way communication and trust.

It was found that regular small snippets of communication within these high functioning groups allowed them to not only know each other better, but made sure they stayed on track throughout the task at hand to complete it in the most accurate and efficient way possible. The opposite of this in a classroom situation would be to wait for over an hour into a lesson before catching a pupil off guard with a challenging question to answer in front of their peers. Small and frequent two-way communication is much more effective.

Radical Candor states that if we are to have open and honest communication in our groups and teams then we must instil two key elements first. Firstly, care personally about all those in your class, and show it! As teachers we do this more often than we might expect and can be as simple as asking a pupil how their weekend was etc. The second element is to challenge directly. Challenge the beliefs of pupils directly, but also actively encourage them to do the same to us as this is more likely to build trusting relationships where more in depth and honest discussions and conversations can be had.

If we can take these lessons and implement them into our classroom and practical teaching, then we are far more likely to have open and lively debate and discussion that includes all members of the group and not just those that feel confident in the subject area. This is why I think the culture we build around questioning is equally important as the type of questions we use.

20th November 20207th June 2022

Teaching and learning Gem #23 – Socratic questions

This week’s Friday Gem comes from James Porter, Experientia Scholarship lead in the Upper Junior School and English specialist.

Experientia Scholarship forms part of the weekly timetable for all girls in Years 3-6. It is an ambitious programme which considers the contentious issues that affect our daily lives and introduces pupils to the concept of critical thinking and the art of Socratic discussion.

James’ WimTeach article brilliantly shows the importance of asking questions. He writes that “open-ended questions [are vital] as part of the Experientia programme, so that arguments are dismantled into their constituent parts which can then be evaluated, and the implications considered.”

He uses the table below, which is from ‘The Thinker’s Guide to Socratic Questioning’, to show the types of questions that are integral to the Experientia ethos.

The Thinker’s Guide to Socratic Questioning – Thinker’s Guide Library, Richard Paul (author), Linda Elder (author)
Paperback (01 Jan 2016)

16th November 20207th June 2022

Alexa Cutteridge reviews ‘The Coaching Habit Say Less, Ask more & Change the Way you Lead Forever’

Alexa Cutteridge, Head of Curriculum PE and Assistant Head of Year 7, gives a short review of ‘The Coaching Habit Say Less, Ask more & Change the Way you Lead Forever’ by Michael Bungay Stanier

“We live in the world our questions create.” (David Cooperrider)

“The minute we begin to think we have all the answers, we forget the questions.” (Madeleine L’Engle)

“Get comfortable with silence”

“Without a good question, a good answer has no place to go” (Clayton, Christensen)

–

As a PE teacher, I have spent most of my professional career practically coaching on the sports field, but I have been on a journey to bring coaching techniques to my leadership roles, and apparently, I am not alone! As noted in the book, Daniel Goleman (psychologist and journalist who popularised the concept of emotional intelligence) suggested that coaching is one of the six essential leadership styles, but is one of the least used as many leaders claim to not have time to practise it. Stanier guides you through easy ways to change your leadership behaviour, to incorporate a coaching style in a way that you do ‘a little more asking people questions and a little less telling people what to do.’ Stanier considers that it is not initially an easy concept to increase questioning and so he helpfully outlines how to change, before looking at what to change.

The seven coaching habit questions are:

The Kickstarter Question – ‘What’s on your mind?’ the way to start any conversation in a way that is both focused and open.
The Awe Question – the best coaching question in the world – ‘And what else?’ This works as a self-management tool for you, and as a boost for the 6 other questions.
The Focus Question – ‘What is the real challenge for you here?’ This question helps you slow down so you can solve real problems and not just the first problem.
The Foundation Question – ‘What do you want?’ This allows you to identify the needs of an individual and get a better understanding how you can support them.
The Lazy Question – ‘How can I help?’ This helps cut right to the request and additionally it stops you from leaping into action unnecessarily.
The Strategic Question – ‘If you’re saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?’ This allows the people you are working with to be fully committed to their yes and aware of the no’s which will create the space and energy for the yes to happen.
The Learning Question – ‘What was most useful for you?’ This works with the Kickstarter question to make the Coaching Bookends. It helps to ensure that everyone finds their interactions with you even more helpful.In the educational arena, applying the coaching habit and the simple, yet powerful seven questions, has the potential to positively transform the leadership of Teachers, Heads of Departments, Pastoral Leaders, Senior Management or even pupils on Student Leadership Team. After reading this book, it is important to highlight that I do not think we need to do away with the leaderships styles we already have, but merely bring the coaching habit questions into the mix, in a way that works for us. How does that sound?

13th November 20207th June 2022

Teaching and learning Gem #22 – 1 on 1 Questioning

Questions by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Alpha Stock Images

Teaching and learning Gem #22 – 1 on 1 Questioning

This Friday Gem comes from Dan Addis and the Classics department

In Classics we get the opportunity to have 1 on 1 academic opportunities that many other subjects do not, and so I thought it a good opportunity to highlight a few principles of 1 on 1 academic discussion as well as including some universal questions that can be used for every topic, whether it is something you are well read on or not. The principles are very similar to normal student questioning but I hope this might help encourage some staff who are not as comfortable with 1 on 1s to have a go. Apologies if it feels very rudimentary!

General principles of 1 on 1 questioning

Make sure body language is relaxed and open. By maintaining an open relaxed pose it becomes a fun conversation rather than an intense grilling. Combine this with nodding and smiling at points to encourage the student to continue.
Allow the student to finish their point completely. If you think of something you would like to ask, jot it down and ask later with reference back to the point they were making. By finding a link between a later topic and the previous point you can help the students connect differing aspects of their study.
Don’t be afraid of asking the student to repeat their point in a different way if you didn’t understand. This is good practice for them to think of other methods of explanation, and should be done on occasion even if they have made themselves clear.
Like with much questioning, don’t feel the need to fill the silence. It will become more awkward quickly, but due to it being 1 on 1 the student is likely to relent and make a point which you can expand upon.

Some questions to ask students that will always be relevant and useful:

Can you simplify your point into a single sentence/How would you explain this to a child? (Very useful for them to break it down to more simple terms on which you can expand)
Are there any other perspectives you have read into this that you disagree with? Why?
Why do you think the terminology is used? Would you change the wording and how?
Can you think about how this links to other things you have learnt, in this subject and others?
What do you think is the next step? (Either for the author or research or the curriculum)
Which elements of this did you find difficult to understand?
Where would you like to take this further?
Do you think there is a problematic background to this topic? How might you challenge this?

We hope you get the opportunity for some 1 on 1s in the future!

Dan Addis and the Classics Department

10th November 20207th June 2022

From Socrates to Stormzy: introducing the Experientia Scholarship

Mr James Porter, Specialist English teacher and Experientia Scholarship lead, reflects on the first half-term of a radical bespoke curriculum project that aims to introduce the Upper Junior School girls to the concept of critical thinking and the art of Socratic discussion.

What does academic achievement look like in 2020?

Fionnuala Kennedy, Head, began this academic term with an address to staff in which she spoke of a ‘new epoch’ in education. In this time of truly unprecedented crisis the core business of schools has very much been thrust into the public spotlight, and, with circumstances necessitating a ‘back to basics’ approach, there is now a very prescient need to look closely at the fundamentals of teaching and learning and to ask – how can we do the basics better?

Nationally and globally, the lives of children have been turned upside down and the education community has been rocked by profound and severe crises, the implications of which many observers hold will be felt for years, if not indefinitely. Take this summer’s public exam fiasco and the ongoing uncertainty around this type of assessment as just one example of the domino-like impact that the COVID crisis will continue to have on the core components of the British education system. Naturally, this is leading to a renewed impetus in the search for change.

The need to explicitly address the social implications of the crisis in school planning is widely acknowledged. It is this principle that Barry Carpenter makes central in his proposal for a ‘recovery curriculum’ model for the Autumn term, which addresses the holistic development of pupils in response to a deficit that is perceived as having emerged during the period of school closure. [1]

However, there are those who propose that times of profound uncertainty be met with more divergent thinking that is far broader and deeper in scope:

In more turbulent times, a radical vision of education may emerge from cultural trauma, as it did in Reggio Emilia in northern Italy at the conclusion of the Second World War. A whole society pulled together in revulsion at the ease with which they had embraced, or tolerated, fascism, and vowed to raise young people who would not make the same mistakes. [2]

Further, a growing discourse in British education reflecting a broad spectrum of society has seen this crisis as the catalyst for their calls to end what they perceive to be an inherently problematic public assessment regime, the most eloquent of these coming from Michael Rosen in a letter to Gavin Williamson published in The Guardian. [3] Their calls to replace GCSEs with alternative models cite the established practices at Bedales School who introduced “richer, more expansive courses” that “encourage creativity, autonomy, and enjoyment of learning for its own sake” as a ground-breaking example of a successful alternative. [4]

While some have drawn equivalents, I am not comparing the gravity of our present situation with the fall of Fascism at the end of the Second World War (this weekend’s election result not withstanding). However, at no time since the Second World War has it been more important that we support the holistic development and emotional intelligence of our pupils through considerate planning that addresses emerging needs while focusing on the development of skills and maintaining disciplined academic rigour.

What is the Experientia Scholarship?

Inspired by dramatic developments in education and tasked with developing a radical new curriculum programme in the Upper Junior School, I wanted to address the challenges of 2020 and beyond by creating a programme focused on rigorous academic pursuit and the development of higher-order thinking. The programme also needed to be responsive to the needs of pupils through engaging, thoughtful, and sensitive planning that makes the habits of effective discussion and learning explicit, building on the psychological development model proposed by Abraham Maslow in 1943:

Since September, the girls in the Upper Junior School have been immersed in a bespoke curriculum programme which considers the contentious issues that affect our daily lives and introduces pupils to the concept of critical thinking and the art of Socratic discussion.

The Experientia Scholarship, which forms part of the weekly timetable for all girls in Years 3-6, exposes pupils to a range of learning experiences which challenge their view of the world. Comprising of a range of short courses, pupils explore elements of both classical ‘enlightenment’ and progressive ‘modernist’ units of study devised to grow cultural capital, cultivate divergent thinking and enhance preparation for success in a globalised and digital world.[5]

Underpinning this are three pillars which guide the ongoing development of the programme:

Academia: A community concerned with the pursuit of knowledge, always seeking to find truth and assessing all available evidence to make logical conclusions that are not based on opinions or emotions;
Fraternity: A feeling of friendship and support within our community, being kind and supportive, understanding that we never discount the person; we challenge their conclusions based on our understanding of the evidence;
Culture: We learn about, respect and show tolerance towards all no matter their background, geography or beliefs. Understanding that high culture is not limited to high art, we embrace eclectic tastes across a broad range of disciplines, from Schubert to Stormzy.
Through weekly Socratic discussions based on a thought-provoking reading, pupils engage with a cycle of themes that introduce them to a range of critical topics.

Experientia Scholarship – Autumn Term
Year 3	Has technology made life easier? Can machines replace human beings?
Year 4	Does Hollywood need to change? Who makes the news?
Year 5	What is art? Is art inclusive?
Year 6	How much influence does the media have?

The pupils reflect on their position throughout the discussion cycle and are encouraged to conduct their own research into the topics of discussion and to set their own questions for future discussions.

In the lessons, the teacher prepares discussion-based activities that ask a series of open-ended questions specifically targeting the different ways of thinking about a topic. Arguments are dismantled into their constituent parts which can then be evaluated, and the implications considered.

Above: Questioning to Promote Higher Order Thinking Skills

The benefits of the Socratic approach to learning have long been espoused by those who have studied it:

“[…]Within the context of the discussion, students listen closely to the comments of others, thinking critically for themselves, and articulate their own thoughts and their responses to the thoughts of others. They learn to work cooperatively and to question intelligently and civilly” [6]

The scholarship culminates in a formally assessed public speaking activity in which pupils explain and justify their thinking around the topic of their choice before being awarded commended, highly commended or distinction, aiming to reward metacognition and the process of learning rather than just linear attainment.

What have the lessons been like?

I will share one example of the impact that I have observed of the Socratic approach with a Year 4 group.

The first discussion in the Year 4 unit on ‘who makes the news?’ is an introduction to the concept of fake news and an examination of the people who could gain from spreading misinformation. In a follow-up discussion, pupils look at the idea of censorship and consider the occasions when they believe it is justified before reading a text about president Xi Jinping who, it is reported, censored Winnie the Pooh in China after memes emerging online mocking supposed similarities between them offended him.

The girls had decided that there are circumstances in which censorship is warranted. They gave the examples of internet blocking on their devices at school and people sending offensive messages as times when it would be right to censor. I was fascinated when the implications of their reasoning were applied to the example of Xi Jinping. While there was broad agreement that offensive communication should be censored, a vocal group of girls emerged who came to the conclusion that presidents, being in a unique position of influence and power, were to be treated differently than the general population, and in this case the rights for the people to criticise the president should be defended.

The ability of the girls to form critical connections when introduced to reasoning in this way was powerfully illustrated to me recently with the same group while watching Newsround coverage of Trump contesting the presidential election count. Pupils were immediately able to identify this as misinformation, and crucially were able to articulate the motivation for Trump to do so, as well as identifying the dangerous implications.

Teachers from across the Junior School have also commented on the impact they have noticed the Scholarship having in other areas of the curriculum. In an English lesson, Year 5 girls were able to articulate their thoughts around intrinsic gender bias and the etymology of words, citing the example of ‘female’ being the negative form of ‘male’, and explaining that this issue had been thrown up in discussion with Mrs Walles-Brown about whether art is inclusive.

I asked the girls to share their thoughts describing what their Experientia lessons have been like. This word cloud formed from their responses neatly summarises the general consensus felt after the first half term of the Experientia Scholarship in the Upper Junior School.

Above: Summary of The Experientia Workshop

Further Reading

Carpenter, B., A Recovery Curriculum: Loss and Life for our children and schools post pandemic, Evidence For Learning [online], 2020, https://www.evidenceforlearning.net/recoverycurriculum/

Israel, E., “Examining Multiple Perspectives in Literature.” In Inquiry and the Literary Text: Constructing Discussions in the English Classroom, NCTE, 2002

McConville, A., Bedales: Rethinking Assessment [online], 2020, https://bigeducation.org/rethinking-blogs/bedales-rethinking-assessment-a-case-study/

Rosen, M., Dear Gavin Williamson, here’s how to avoid more exam catastrophes, The Guardian [online], 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/sep/29/dear-gavin-williamson-heres-how-to-avoid-more-exam-catastrophes

Wells, G., and Claxton, G., Learning for Life in the 21^st Century, Sociocultural Perspectives on the Future of Education, Blackwell, London, 2002

References

[1]Carpenter, B., A Recovery Curriculum: Loss and Life for our children and schools post pandemic, Evidence For Learning [online], 2020, https://www.evidenceforlearning.net/recoverycurriculum/

[2] Wells, G., and Claxton, G., Learning for Life in the 21^st Century, Sociocultural Perspectives on the Future of Education, Blackwell, London, 2002,

[3] Rosen, M., Dear Gavin Williamson, here’s how to avoid more exam catastrophes, The Guardian [online], 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/sep/29/dear-gavin-williamson-heres-how-to-avoid-more-exam-catastrophes

[4] McConville, A., Bedales: Rethinking Assessment [online], 2020, https://bigeducation.org/rethinking-blogs/bedales-rethinking-assessment-a-case-study/

[5] Boyd, C., Experientia Vision Statement, Wimbledon High Junior School, 2020

[6] Israel, E., “Examining Multiple Perspectives in Literature.” In Inquiry and the Literary Text: Constructing Discussions in the English Classroom, NCTE, 2002