Had an interesting discussion …. that continues …. the other day in staff meeting about quality and what it means for us in our school. Also how we and the children know what it is …? There was quite a lot of discussion about getting children to do their best and what they are truly capable of.
But the interesting part was when I asked/challenged if children doing their best was good enough?

Two threads of thought and discussion emerged:
1. Children have a potential and what about those who don’t have as much as others or just plain find something very difficult. Do we expect them to keep up and do as well as the rest of the children? What level of achievement is acceptable? Do we want everyone to be ‘at least average’? Is this realistic?

2. If Karl Lewis was happy with an 11 second 100m time would he have achieved his olympic successes? Don’t we want children to aim for just a bit better than they can do now? How do we share these goals and targets with them? Rubrics, models, exemplars….??

I want teachers for my own children and our school who are NOT happy with where they are now. Don’t we want children who have the same attitude to to their learning and achievement? Do adults begin this learning journey at school?

Without exception the best teachers I have worked with have been the ones LEAST satisfied with their knowledge and performance. They see a big gap between where they are now and where they want to be. This provides the motivation for them to make the theoretical and practical explorations of their practice/s that result in improved learning for children.

Fun stuff!!

The Silent generation, people born before 1946.

The Baby Boomers, people born between 1946 and 1959.

Generation X, people born between 1960 and 1979.

Generation Y, people born between 1980 and 1995.

Why do we call the last one generation Y? I did not know, but a caricaturist explains it eloquently below…Learned something new!

http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/2008/07/digital-technologyover-promised-and.html A very good post from Bruce Hammonds.

As I have said many times it is about the LEARNING, not the technology.

Poor teaching is still poor teaching, average teaching is average teaching, even with technology.

If technology becomes the focus then other, (more?) critical parts of classroom programmes and learning can be overlooked. I have seen some wonderful movies come out of classes with poor reading and literacy programmes for example! Technology is seductive …. lets not fall for it. It is not an indicator of a quality programe, but it can make good learning and teaching even better.

Clay Burell often has thoughtful (if a little ’stream of consciousness’ for me) things to say:

Whether tools are used in classrooms is pretty unimportant, compared to what type of learning is expected in the classroom. Most classroom learning doesn’t deserve the budget outlay for increased technology. Extra cash would be better spent on redefining what’s worthwhile for the young to learn. I’m a techie too, somewhat, but find educational philosophy far more vital than technology.

source

Coming back to the quality of teaching rather than the what of teaching.

I am reading Graham Nuthall’s book at the moment. It is fascinating and a great, simple but very informative read. I feel privileged to have had him as a lecturer in the late 80’s in my time at Canterbury Uni (along with Adrienne Alton-Lee, John Church, and other amazingly astute classroom-based researchers).
Graham makes the point that as we look at classrooms to see what things make a difference to childrens learning we need to understand what ACTUALLY happens in their heads (as opposed to what we assume happens) and what, if anything, teachers can do to make a difference. We need to look at the CHILDREN to define successful learning, not the teacher. Learning is NOT a direct outcome of teacher actions and behaviour, but an outcome of the things that happen in childrens heads as they integrate new stuff with old stuff and make sense of it all.
This book should be compulsory reading for all in education! It is Graemes summary of the key things he had learned in a career as an educational researcher with an international reputation. As he wrote the book he knew he was dieing of cancer and wanted to share his understandings. Indeed the last chapter is written by others as he died before being able to complete it.