My Teacher Goals for 2020-21

I think this year will be the most challenging year of my life. And I don't say that lightly. I will be finishing my PGCE as well as going back to work full time and starting at a new school with a new curriculum on top of all the scary Covid requirements and regulations! If I think about it too much I get sucked into an unhelpful vortex of anxiety. What if I don't finish my PGCE? Will we stay open? What if we close? What if only some of the schools close and not others? How will I manage child care? Will I get ill? Will I get really ill? Will my son go to school this year?...

However there are plenty of things to be thankful for. I have a job. I found a placement. I will have new colleagues to meet and get to know. I will have a new class who I will get to spend a lot of time with and really get to know. So in the spirit of thinking positive, I'm setting myself some goals for things I would like to achieve this year that should be achievable whether I'm doing online teaching or in class.

1. TIME MANAGEMENT

a) By nature I am an organised person and this year does not bode well for me. I will have to go with the flow and be endlessly adaptable, but I still hope to work on my time management. In particular I wish to schedule some off time in the week as well as a day at weekends. 

b) I want to schedule in time to do things that I am not especially good at finding time for. In particular I'd like to make a better effort at contacting parents and keeping them up-to-date about the good things that happen in class.

2. EMOTIONS

I'd like to do more PSHE work with the children. This year it seems more important than ever to create emotionally literate children and a safe classroom environment for all. I'd like to try introducing mindfulness or yoga into the classroom too.

3. RESPECTFUL AND SENSITIVE CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

a) Reprimand and praise individuals privately.

b) Frame requests, reprimands and reminders positively. Emphasise purpose over power (the reason for the rule rather than my authority).

4. SET UP GOOD HABITS  for saving my voice and patience!

a) Deal with behaviours that are irritating before I get wound up.

b) Teach students explicitly how to actively listen and participate in class.

c) Teach students to use hand signals for common requests and give non verbal corrections, answers and reminders so that I can look after my voice.

5. SET HIGH STANDARDS

a) Some of the ideas that struck me the most when reading Doug Lemov's Teach Like a Champion were Right is Right, Cold Calling and No Opt Out so I would like to experiment with those.

b) This year I'd like to bring all my students with me, which means planning lessons which work at the pace of the slowest rather than the middle of the class as I usually do. I'd also like to make sure that everyone has understood the lesson's key vocabulary and can use it before discovering comprehension problems at the end of the lesson (or even unit!).

Have you got any goals or resolutions this academic year?

What They Don't Teach You During Teacher Training: Part 6 - Motivation

• Part 1: Time Management

• Part 2: Parents

• Part 3: Vulnerable Children 

• Part 4: Bullying 

• Part 5: Colleagues

• Part 6: Motivation

This series of blog posts covers areas that I feel are often missing from the PGCE year and teacher training in general. That's not a criticism - there simply isn't time to cover everything but I have been using my extra pandemic time with the university library and the World Wide Web at my finger tips to search for answers to questions that have been perplexing me for some time. It turns out that many people have thought about these things a lot more than me so I'm excited to be sharing the insights that resonated the most.

...

For my final entry in this series I want to share the research that I have done on motivation, and more specifically motivating students, because after all what is teaching if not motivating children to do productive work, grow and learn? As a child I remember thinking that the teacher "controlled" the class, but as a teacher I realised quickly that it isn't true. A bad teacher coerces the students into behaving, a good teacher makes them want to behave well. And while it seemed that content was something that was poured into me and the students I now realise that I was lucky. Learning came naturally to me and I was intrinsically motivated to learn. When I met students who were not like me, later as a teacher, I really felt quite helpless.

During my PGCE I had carried out research on a reward and sanction classroom management system that the school I did my Teaching Practice in used. As part of the literature review (bibliography at bottom of post) I took hard look at extrinsic and intrinsic motivation and what I found was illuminating but incredibly complex. What I found out will, I hope, change my teaching forever. 

The Basic Principles of Motivation

1. Intrinsic motivation (motivation that comes from within the student themselves) is more effective than extrinsic motivation. Since teachers cannot make students be intrinsically motivated teachers need to cultivate self-esteem and self-discipline so that intrinsic motivation can grow and be careful not to damage students' intrinsic motivation either. 
2. It is necessary to provide extrinsic motivation when a student does not have intrinsic motivation. This may be a reward or a sanction. Both rewards and sanctions can be effective if used correctly. Remember that even a cross look or verbal reprimand is included under the idea of sanction. Rewards are generally thought of as being more effective than sanctions however the devil is in the detail... 
3. Students are incredibly sensitive and averse to being manipulated, with an exception for only the very youngest students. Students can be very suspicious of praise, often believing that teachers praise the least able students because they need the most encouraging. For this reason public rewards and praise are best used for groups and private rewards and praise for individuals, because it will make the praise seem more sincere. 
4. In order to promote intrinsic motivation teachers should aim to praise effort and process rather than ability. If students think you think they are good at Maths they may be unwilling to try for fear of proving you wrong. What is more, to make praise a useful part of feedback it should be as specific as possible. "Great work!" is nice to hear "I can see that you planned out your paragraphs well" is more gratifying because it seems more sincere and is undoubtedly more helpful for the student. 
5. Rewards work best when they are unexpected. Rewards which are routinely given out and expected by students can become outright demotivating. It should go without saying that rewards are most effective when they are something that the students really desire.
6. Sanctions work best in environments with high levels of trust (your classroom, hopefully) so building relationships and consistency with students is important. 
7. Allow students to keep their dignity in tact. It is hard to stay focused and alert all day. Students report that public reprimands are the most likely form of sanction to make them stay quiet and switch off. Remember that compliance does not equal learning so like with praise keep warnings, corrections and sanctions as private as possible, or use them anonymously when in public ("I'm waiting for one set of eyes").
8. If students believe a rule to be unfair the chances of them complying are low, so it is important to stress why the rule is necessary ("We have these rules to keep everybody safe" rather than "Do it because I said so!"). Doug Lemov calls this principle Purpose over Power. Likewise when giving a sanction make sure that students understand that it is to help them learn to manage or correct their behaviour, not just a punishment. 
9. Taking away a privilege can be one of the most effective kinds of sanction because humans have 'Loss Aversion'.
10. A telephone call home or a good or bad report can be one of the most powerful motivators for most children and young adults. If you call to say something positive keep it clean with no ifs or buts for the biggest impact. 

When I think back to my own time in education two teachers stand out for being at opposite ends of the spectrum. One was utterly lovely but she used to praise us even when we got the answers wrong and pretend that we had given her the correct answers. Perhaps she thought she was being encouraging but we got the impression she thought we were all a bit dim. The other was a real character and used to regularly complain that he didn't know what he had done to deserve students who wrote as badly as us. Of course, the second was horrendous for our motivation but our confidence was dented with both extremes. Like with most things in life, rewards, praise, corrections and sanctions need to be done in moderation. 

Bibliography

• Bear G. et al (2017) 'Rewards, praise and punitive consequences: relations with intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.' Teaching and Teacher Education July 2017 65 (10-20) DOI: 10.1016/j.tate.2017.03.001
• Cameron, J. and David, W. (2002) Rewards and Intrinsic Motivation: Resolving the Controversy. Westport, Conn.: Bergin & Garvey, 2002
• Dweck, C. (2016) 'Praise the effort, not the outcome?Think again' TES Magazine https://www.tes.com/news/praise-effort-not-outcome-think-again 
• Payne, R. (2015) 'Using Rewards and Sanctions in the Classroom: pupils perceptions of their own responses to current behaviour management strategies' Educational Review. Nov2015, 67 (4), p483-504. DOI: 10.1080/00131911.2015.1008407
• Naughton, C. & McLaughlin, T. (1995) 'The Use of a Token Economy System for Students with Behaviour Disorders.' B.C. Journal of Special Education. January 1995 19.
• Rose, N. (2017) 'Why Punishments and Rewards don't work.' TES Magazine https://www.tes.com/magazine/article/why-punishments-and-rewards-dont-work

What They Don't Teach You During Teacher Training: Part 5 - Colleagues

• Part 1: Time Management

• Part 2: Parents

• Part 3: Vulnerable Children 

• Part 4: Bullying 

• Part 5: Colleagues

• Part 6: Motivation

This series of blog posts covers areas that I feel are often missing from the PGCE year and teacher training in general. That's not a criticism - there simply isn't time to cover everything but I have been using my extra pandemic time with the university library and the World Wide Web at my finger tips to search for answers to questions that have been perplexing me for some time. It turns out that many people have thought about these things a lot more than me so I'm excited to be sharing the insights that resonated the most.

...

Before even writing this I am already starting to regret having put Colleagues onto my list of blog posts because it is such a difficult area of teaching to navigate. And I'm not an expert, but I have worked in a LOT of different schools, often only popping in for a supply lesson or an after-school course and then back out again but the atmosphere that you breathe in is unique to every premises. Schools are, like businesses, a microcosm of society and the members within it, with the general mood being greatly influenced by the management. But let's take a look at why schools can be particularly difficult places to sail the treacherous waters of office politics. 

1. Schools are very flat organisational structures. There is a Senior Leadership team, often only one or two people, and maybe some coordinators for different year groups and subjects. Then all the teachers rub along together irrespective of experience, competence or temperament. In Italy this unusual set up (for the world of work) is made even more er... complex by schools being run on a democratic basis. The Teachers' Collegio Docenti reigns supreme over the Head. This makes school politics utterly unavoidable.
2. Teachers spend the most of the school day in their classrooms in charge of their class/es, and beyond the Pre-school, mostly alone. They are not used to taking orders and they are also very busy. 
3. Teachers tend to be in teaching because they care about teaching rather than for the money, which means that teaching can be an ideologically charged profession and although pedagogical ideas go in and out of fashion like wheel going round and round, school policy changes can produce a big reaction in the staff meeting (or its aftermath) because people have very strong ideas about the right way of doing things. 
4. Teachers and admin often stay in one school for much of their teaching lives resulting rigid power structures and domains which are invisible to a new teacher. I know because I stepped on the toes of a rather zealous Union Rep in my first meeting at a new school and was made to pay for the rest of the year! I also know of a secretary with an unofficial veto over which teachers to appoint for what positions.

With these peculiarities in mind let me share the points of the compass that I use when starting at a new school.

• If you can talk to a teacher who works at the school before you accept the job and find out if the school pays on time (no job is worth the stress of a school where you have to strike to get paid), what kind of overtime is expected and if the management are approachable. When you go to interview try to visit the staff room if the school has one (Ross Morrisson McGill has a nice chapter on UK staffroom politics in Teacher Toolkit: Helping You Survive the First Five Years). During the interview, if your interviewer is very stiff and serious then this is probably going to reflect the school's internal culture. But in the current climate, if you need a job this is not the biggest worry on your mind so onwards...
• Be very nice to everybody, but especially the admin team and janitors. Learn everybody's names as soon as possible. Ask for permission before arranging trips, changing materials etc from your SLT and your new colleagues.
• Do not badmouth the management to anyone! There are spies. I joke, but no, really. Some schools can be like Bridesmaids others are more like Game of Thrones. You cannot escape school politics but you can at least be diplomatic and discreet.
• Try not to get sucked into arguments about pedagogy. Every method has its advantages and disadvantages.  Take the good and leave the bad, and try not to roll your eyes too hard when they say "We are no longer going to plan anything. We will get everything we need from the children's own questions" if you are an old fashioned traditionalist sage-on-the-stage (like me), or when the Head says "I want to see students' handwriting exercises on my desk by Thursday!" when you are an avant-garde modern guide-on-the-side kind of teacher. Work out how to provide evidence you have done what has been asked and get on with doing your thing.
• Take on your fair share of extra duties and if you can, pair up with another teacher to make the workload more manageable if the project is big or long lasting.
• Avoid unproductive whinging with colleagues, and try not to spend too much time with those who do. If you want to change something, collect evidence that there is a problem and offer solutions. Be the change you want to see in the school, to paraphrase Martin Luther King. If, for example, you had little-to-no help settling in when you started, offer to give new teachers a tour of the school, explain the electronic register etc.. and if you are fortunate your kindness will be repaid many times over.