Watkins 13 Forget Everything And Run

7/28/2019 Watkins 13 Forget Everything And Run

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Forget everythingand run

Chris Watkinsanalyses some new aspects ofthe cultureaffectingour schools and offers some strategies for professionals.


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No, this is not an invitation to exit the proession more o an analysis as

to why some might currently be considering that. The title o this article

reminds us that the word FEAR is not a noun, but an acronym. The acronym

reminds how quickly ear can empty our minds. The eect o ear on human

thinking has been voiced or centuries. As Edmund Burke (1729-1797) put it: No

passion so eectively robs the mind o all its powers o acting and reasoning as ear.

In the 21st century education system o England, it has reached the stage where

ear has become an important topic or ocussed attention and research. We need tonot only understand the eects o ear on learners and on teachers, but also examine

its central role in many education discourses, and how such discourses are constructed.

Then we might be empowered to reduce its negative eects, and ocus on a more

appropriate acronym or educators: HOPE Helping Other Possibilities Emerge.

And currently, in the public education system o England, an increasing culture

o ear is part o what has led most schools to orget their proessional knowledge o

classroom practice and revert to the orm o 5,000 years ago teacher-directed, teacher

as judge, pupils as passive. These dynamics o pupil-teacher relationships are ones

which classrooms revert to when put under pressure, and they were in evidence in the

frst classrooms on the ace o the planet Sumeria 3000BC.

Pupils spot it. Some name it. Here are some comments rom Devon students

attending good secondary schools, in conversation with adults on an out-o-school

learning project:

All through my education, teachers have just been telling me, drumming it into

me, that i I dont get my grades, ... we get told every day that i we dont get the

grades, were going down the drain and not worth anything. The message is too loud,

too much.

The teachers want the grades. They need the

results.

Stop there being so much ear in the system.

All the teachers are scared o students getting bad

grades.

The frst o these comments highlights an

important way o understanding ear, which

I learned rom another researcher, EleanoreHargreaves. Stories o negative consequence

are constructed, communicated and embodied

in action in our schools various practices. This

understanding also helps us see that we are

talking about a constructed culture o ear, not a

matter o individual anxiety.

So what can we as proessionals do to cope

with such a culture and its negative eects? I have

encountered (and used) two main strategies,

which can be successully enacted together at

their respective levels.

Naming and TamingOne o the great understandings rom narrative

therapy is that by naming the processes which aect us we can start to regain our

agency in the ace o them, and then start to reduce their negative eects on our lives.

So instead o silently experiencing ear, i we can get to spot the voice o ear, and

name it, we can then start to regain our thinking contribution.

One example comes rom a Tuesday night discussion by a group o London

teachers talking about change in their classrooms. The early part o the discussion

made much o teachers having confdence. Until the group was challenged to clariy

what makes a confdent teacher (and to know that trying to spot one rom the outside

generates a mass o stereotypes). Some while later they came up with this defnition:

Confdence: The ability to continue acting according to your principles, while in

the presence o the voice o ear.This example also highlights the beneft o proessionals talking together about this

issue and the way it could aect their practice. Another example is when schools are

preparing or Osted inspections. By explicit collegial discussion on what is currently

going well, how we contribute to it, what we consider the best to achieve during


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inspection and (ater the event) what elements we are proud o in the way we handled

ourselves, schools can avoid the worst o the ear and compliance trap, and retain the

best o their proessional practice rather than enacting the current myths about what

they are looking or.

Further value can be gained rom spotting (and talking about) the way that the

voice o ear operates, the way it does its dirty work. For example, one key element

is that it exaggerates the negative consequence. I these test scores dont get better

this year we could be witnessing the end o civilization! I I give these students any

autonomy, the whole classroom will all apart! This exaggeration is captured in the

Swedish proverb - Worrying oten gives a small thing a big shadow. Another element

in the voice o ear is the way it exaggerates the likelihood o getting caught!

Now-ing and KnowingFear hinges on a story o negative consequence a story o the uture, something

that might happen, not something that is happening now. Engagement with this

perspective is what we call worry, but studies suggest that 90 per cent o what we

worry about never eventuates. This means that our negative worries have about ten

per cent chance o being correct. Thats where ear also begets another acronym: False

Expectations Appearing Real.

In contrast, one o the important principles about human beings at their best

is their ocus on the now. As Tolleiv puts it, nothing ever happened in the past - it

happened in the now. Nothing will ever happen in the uture - it will happen in the

now. And as the much-quoted statement puts it, Today is a git. Thats why it is called

the present.

Helping onesel to ocus on the now, instead o the uture or past, can be helped bya ocus on two things - ones immediate context, and ones presence. The frst o these

can be practiced to enhance ones experience o the world around us including the

classroom world. This brings us into the present and channels our intellectual potential

into noticing and understanding our immediate context. The second can be practiced

by paying attention to such things as our breathing, body awareness, and so on a

good route to reducing the minds negative voices and thus regaining perspective. In

so doing we can help our proessional lives avoid replicating the experience o Michel

Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-1592): My lie has been flled with terrible misortune,

most o which never happened.

Once we have helped ourselves return to the now rather than earing some

constructed uture, we can remember and re-engage our proessional knowledge o

classrooms and whats important in education at its best. For example, an appreciative

inquiry I raise with schools and other groups o teachers (beginner teachers, head

teachers) asks them to think in detail about a classroom experience they had where

the learning was really exceptional. Asking people to think this way is really against the

grain in current times. I then introduce a summary o decades o research on eective


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classroom experience accords with these headings, anywhere rom low to high. My

recurring experience is that at least 85 per cent o teachers indicate a high accord with

the research. This afrms or me teachers proessional knowledge and understanding,

even in a climate o pressure and reductionist practice.

Why should we bother?

Teachers currently grapple with a climate o low trust they are not trusted to operate asproessionals, and perorm the job they have trained to do. The source o this climate is

politicians, and the annoying irony with this state o aairs is that surveys o the general

public or the last 25 years show that they trust teachers highly and distrust politicians.

Recent governments have used a discourse o ear to justiy policies and back up their

claims or potency. Sometimes cabinet ministers even make their view o ear explicit: You

cant have room or innovation and the pressure or excellence without having some real

discipline and some ear on the part o the providers that things may go wrong.

But government mechanisms o publishing test scores, hostile inspection, and so on

generate or increase institutional ear, above and beyond proessional evaluation o risk.

And what are the overall eects o such orms o control? A conclusion rom

another sphere o human behaviour may be useul: Fear is manipulated in hierarchical

settings to ensure the preservation o existing power arrangements. Is that what is

happening in education?

British schools are developing an increasingly divided pattern o perormance.

77 per cent o the between schools dierences in student perormance in the United

Kingdom is explained by dierences in socio-economic background (OECD 2009

15-year-olds in reading, maths and science). Only one other OECD country has a

higher fgure (OECD average 55 per cent). The risk is that teachers might contribute

to this divisiveness by passing on the culture o ear. Some teachers try to use ear as

a motivating orce but the eects are divisive. One sub-group o pupils end up with

increased anxiety and a ear o ailure, others end up with a mastery-approach goal.

So the eect is to highlight and accentuate motivational matters, which also oten

associate with socio-economic actors and underlying stances on learning.

I have never met teachers who want to have divisive eects - I regularly meet

teachers who strive or something better, a picture o greater equity. And I amprivileged to witness the schools who do this through a ocus on learning. They rise

above the dynamics which create deensive teaching and compliance.

Current times need us to remember the old phrase: The biggest risk in education

is not to take one. Notice how the voice o ear might capture your reading o

that statement, you cant take any old risk with the lives o children or other such

exaggerations. O course not, but what we might perceive as risk, proessionally

handled, is a necessary part o achieving our best, and doing more o what we know is

best rather than doing more o what we are told.

I recently photographed this poster in a public setting:

It may be appropriate on a station platorm, but I think it would also be appropriate inthe oyer and staroom o every school.

Chris Watkins is the Key Note speaker at the Standing Out Conference on July 5th.

See Page 31 for details.


5/5

Keynote speakers: Steve McDermott

Author, Broadcaster and European Business Speaker of the Year

Chris Watkins

Developer of Learner Led Learning work

Workshops: 'Who Dares Wins' by Creative Alliance

'Innovative use of E-Learning' by Microsoft

'What is Good Teaching?' by Heather Clements

'Leading with Freedom' by Andrew Morrish, Headteacher of

Victoria Park Academy and the leadership team at VPA; Colin

Doctor, Headteacher of Sparkwell Free School and Jonathan

Clitheroe from RIO

Plus: Providers exhibition running during breaks; connect and network with

interesting and innovative suppliers

Delegates will receive a Year's subscription to School Leadership Today

worth 81

Friday 5 July 2013Friday 5 July 2013 09.0009.00

16.0016.00@ West Bromwich Albion@ West Bromwich Albion Football ClubFootball Club

Standing Out:be something different

Book your place for only 195 plus VATBookings received before 31st March will receive a 10% fee reduction

Come with a colleague and SAVE 50

To register please complete and return the booking form to [email protected]

For more information please contact Claire Honey on 0845 8621288 or the Academy on 0121 558 8701

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Watkins 13 Forget Everything And Run