Abstract
A child is not a vase to be filled, but a fire to be lit. (Rabelais)
The challenge
A few years ago I walked into the staffroom at the start of the new academic year and calmly explained to the staff that I wanted them all to learn how to juggle by half-term. No exceptions. No excuses!
I was not usually in the habit of acting in either an autocratic or eccentric manner, but a small thought had been nagging away at me during the summer holidays. This small thought had formed itself into a question, namely: how do you change a teacher’s mentality from seeing children as ‘just vases to be filled’, to seeing them as ‘fires to be lit’?
For some time I had felt frustrated with staffroom chatter which gave voice to some of the following thoughts – ‘They didn’t get it … I told them but they still didn’t understand …’. At the heart of these comments was the perception that if we do our part, then children should ‘get it’. It seemed to me that more consideration was being given to the learning process than to the learning emotions. In short, the feelings of the learner were being largely ignored. This seemed to be a serious omission so I decided to do something about it, and walked into the staff room with a bag of juggling balls.
The rules
The rules were straightforward:
Each member of staff had 6 weeks in which to learn to juggle. Successful juggling had to include at least 10 throws and catches. On a given date all staff would have the chance to show me what they could do. Each member of staff had to record on a sheet of A4 paper what it had felt like to be the learner in this situation. As a reward, successful jugglers could have half a day’s flexi-leave in the run up to Christmas.
It was not, at first, easy to convince the staff that I was deadly serious and expected everyone to take part. However, this issue was quickly resolved when the next day I shared my plans with the children. In an assembly I told them all that I had set special ‘homework’ for the staff. I also informed the children that when the teachers were collecting in homework, they had my permission to ask – respectfully, of course – how the teachers were managing with the homework set by Mr Warren. There were a few stifled groans around the hall as these words registered with the staff! The plan had been set in motion.
The response
Over the next few days the juggling challenge became a common topic of conversation. Many excuses started to emerge and several staff shared how family members had responded to the challenge while others simply made their feelings plain. Each time I kept relating their adult feelings back to how children can feel in the classroom when we try to simply ‘fill their vases’.
One member of staff confessed that her husband had just laughed at her – ‘You can’t even catch, how does he expect you to be able to juggle! No chance!’ My response was largely unsympathetic – ‘How does this help you to understand a child whose parent tells you that their child will never be good at maths, because they were no good at maths?’.
Another member of staff told me she wanted to give up. ‘Fine’ I said, ‘as long as you give the children in your class permission to give up when they meet their first obstacles with the tasks you set them.’
And still another teacher told me that she could juggle but not when I was watching. I asked her to reflect on what happens when she asks questions to the whole class group and some children seem more reluctant to contribute than others. Not everyone likes to perform in public, though that does not mean that they are any less engaged in the learning.
Each time, I asked staff to relate their experiences to their own teaching practice and to begin to understand more about how the children felt as learners in their classrooms. I wanted to help staff feel some of the same emotions as the children.
As the term continued the tension began to grow. The children were well aware of the closing deadline and took several opportunities to ask their class teachers how they were getting on. No child wanted to be in a class where their teacher had failed to meet the challenge.
The deadline
J-day (or, the juggling deadline day) finally arrived and the usual lively banter that greeted all staff gatherings was noticeably absent. Instead the room was filled with nervousness, normally attributed to a visit from our Ofsted friends. What had I done?
One by one staff showed off their new-found juggling skills. A high percentage had met the challenge; they managed to throw and catch three juggling balls in succession ten times. It was a fantastic achievement and celebrations were loud.
What of those who did not manage ten consecutive catches? Quite a number managed 7, 8 or even 9 catches. Naturally they were disappointed to have missed out and asked whether they had earned half a day flexi-leave. My response was an uncompromising negative. Some of them felt that this was grossly unfair as they had made a huge effort just to get that far. One of them even commented that it was a waste of time and they wished they had not done this. Again, my response was unwavering, ‘What do you say to children who just miss out on a level 4? Have they wasted their time? Is learning only about hitting a goal at a particular time, or is not more about being on a journey where the journey is more important than the destination?’
A late entry
A few weeks later, there was an excited knock at my door and a member of staff burst through the door exclaiming, ‘I can do it, I can do it!’ Over half-term she had finally mastered juggling. She even proved it and I could see that she was in fact a confident juggler. I was full of praise for her.
As she made to leave my office she asked the question I had been waiting for: ‘Now that I can juggle, does this mean that I can have half a day flexi-leave like the others?’. I don’t think she was expecting me to say no. As I saw the disappointment in her eyes, again I asked, ‘If a child just misses out on a level, a test or exam do we say to the child that they have wasted their time? Surely we encourage them and praise them for their efforts. The same is true here. Learning should surely be for learning’s sake. It should not just be motivated by a test score but should go on, even after the test. We don’t just stop – the journey continues.’ I recall that my answer was not gratefully received.
The result
In a small way, and at first in small steps, I began to notice that a revolution was taking place in school, and it was not staff rebelling against my possibly unreasonable request. This was different. Bit by bit, they began to speak about the children’s learning in totally new language. No longer were they using the language from the past, ‘They didn’t get it’. Instead, a new understanding of the importance of engaging the feelings of the learner began to emerge.
Teachers came to realize from personal experience that new learning is an emotional challenge as well as an intellectual and motor challenge. It is not about a fixed point in time but about a journey, and when we reduce learning to jumping over hurdles or squeezing through goal posts we do our children a serious disservice.
A recent report concludes, ‘Judging real outcomes for every child and the steps schools are taking to deliver them is complex and not easily reducible to a league table or test.’ (First Steps: A new approach for our schools, CBI, November 2012). It is not just the Government who need to hear this message.