I never expected a significant period towards the end of my career to be spent in ‘A’ Level Maths and Physics lessons – but that is the way it is currently panning out. My two days a week as an LSA are spent attached to sixth form students taking those subjects, and it has proved to be something of a culture shock. While it might not be widely practicable, the experience of spending an extended period watching teaching in subjects that are vastly different from one’s own is an experience that I think could be widely professionally beneficial.
It really does feel as though I am amongst people who inhabit a parallel universe; that is no criticism of them, their methods or their importance, but I cannot help but be repeatedly confronted by the fact that STEM subjects function in a completely different way from the (supposedly) softer ones in the arts and humanities. And not only that, the people who take them seem to have noticeably different thought processes, and even personalities too. Nowhere is the contrast more apparent than the afternoon where I spend an hour in Pure Maths followed by one in Film Studies.
Perhaps the most forceful impression has been the very literal mindset by which such subjects seem to work: everything is reduced to a set of practical fixes. That’s the nature of technical subjects, I suppose. Maths in particular seems to exist in its own little abstract bubble, which is both unnerving and, in some ways, admirable*. I can see that for a certain kind of person, the ability (metaphorically in these times) to shut the door on the wider world and just ‘do Maths’ is very attractive. Teaching those subjects also seems self-referential, in that the only justification for the subject is its inherent interest, something that I have always argued is under-rated. But compared with the clear external relevance of a subject like Geography, it also feels rather unnerving. (I know that STEM subjects are highly relevant in specialised technical fields, and we need more people in those fields – but in their wider application, I have my doubts. They seem to lie wide open to the old criticism about the ‘use’ of what we learn at school…)
As a result, both the teaching methods and lesson structures seem far-removed from what I instinctively do as a teacher in Geography or Politics, not least because the idea of contextualising the lesson content is largely absent. It just is what it is: beginning, progressing and ending with little reference to anything outside itself. And because of that, at this level the teaching consists largely of demonstrations of techniques and procedures by the teacher, followed by the students doing repeated exercises until practice (hopefully) makes perfect.
Another thing I have noticed is the relatively low complexity of personal interaction, either teacher-student or student-student: everything is focused on the technical operations. Observation makes it clear that it is possible to grade the challenge finely, and to position students quite accurately in terms of their ability and achievement. What is more, because marking is largely clear-cut, it is relatively easy to quantify the progress of classes and individuals, and perhaps even to identify the specific impact of a particular bit of teaching.
What is both troubling and revealing about this, however, is the extent to which this approach has impacted negatively on my own professional experience, and perhaps that of the teaching profession more widely.
Many of the issues I encountered in the past came from disagreements with those who determined school policy: their perspectives were all but useless in my own situation. They never seemed to get it, and probably just saw me as awkward. Many of them came from maths and science backgrounds, and my recent experience has firmed up my suspicions about why they perhaps took the approach that they did.
It may equally be no coincidence that people of certain dispositions are more likely than others to rise to positions of power – and in my experience, viewing school and educational management as the largely technocratic activity it has become (or been made) seems to have suited those who came from such backgrounds. It also may explain why they took the view that teaching was largely just a matter of doing graded tasks, against which one could easily measure the effectiveness of both teacher and learner, and from that, accurately diagnose the next steps. Ill-defined notions such as developing critical judgement seemed largely alien to them. It may also explain the increasing dominance of exam grades as a measure of success – in subjects such as those, this approach makes total sense. But in the larger educational context, this comes too close to (only) ‘valuing the measurable’ for my comfort.
What those people could never answer is how one was supposed to use their methods to teach and assess more subjective or creative subjects. Which is not to say they didn’t try: the last Art specification I saw seemed to emphasise the organisational and technical process over the creativity, which to me seemed largely to miss the point: the ability to follow a set of technical instructions does not a great artist make. It’s at moments like this that I remember doctorate Physicist Duncan Watts’ conclusion that social sciences and humanities are in some ways harder than pure sciences for the very reason that so much is imponderable and inconsistent.
And so it seems to me: there is something both very comforting and very discomfiting about the world seen in such an unremittingly literal, concrete way: it makes it all too easy to deny the other facets of life that simply do not obey such rules.
I see this even in the interactions between teachers and students: when everything can be reduced to mechanical issues, it is very easy to overlook what I suspect the scientists would dismiss as the touchy-feely aspects of personal interaction, whether in the classroom or elsewhere. Life lived in a purely technical sense may be efficient, but it risks also being superficial. And this is where there is a distinct asymmetry to the matter; while I would utterly defend the right of those whose interests and mindsets work in such ways to pursue that as best they see fit (so long as it suits both teacher and student, then any lack of empathy arguably doesn’t matter), when it comes to understanding situations other than one’s own, empathy is precisely the key – and may be what technocratic approach lacks. The whole point of humane subjects is that they major on matter which may be as closed to the literal-minded as technical subjects are to the non-technical. The difference is that the latter have the empathy to see that fact, while the former may not be sufficiently imaginative to do so.
I have encountered exactly the same in a hobby of mine: those whose interests lie in its technical aspects frequently fail to understand those whose approaches are more impressionistic or creative – and it has tended to be the technicians who have conventionally laid down the criteria for so-called success. The fact that they may have been trampling on others’ sensitivities was not something that generally registered.
While that is hardly a matter of great significance in railway modelling, it is much more so in a profession like teaching. If I am correct, this would seem to explain the often quite obvious approaches to things like professional appraisal, not to mention the curriculum and wider educational management and research. It seems to me that for several decades, the whole thing has been run by and for those of a technical perspective; on occasions they have been too quick to dismiss those whose approaches and perspectives differed for reasons that they may not have fully appreciated. The same has gone for educational research, that has resolutely pursued a functional understanding of the education process, at the expense of cultural and humane interpretations.
When it comes to professional reputations, let alone the cultural effectiveness of the education system, these have always seemed like massive oversights to me – but ones which the more literal-minded simply did not appreciate. They seem ill-equipped to ask critical questions such as “what are the limitations of the observer?” rather than “what are the properties of the observed?”
This term’s experience has certainly (rather sadly) reinforced my belief that scientists are from Mars and humanitarians are from Venus. Both are valid – and in an ideal world, both would accept the value of diversity and respect what they may not understand about each other, rather than reaching often limited conclusions about what they think they know. What is now clearer than ever to me, is that attempting to impose any one-shape-fits-all model is doomed to failure, and can only detract from the overall effect of a phenomenon whose whole is most definitely greater than the sum of its more apparent parts.
* A personal benefit of seeing such lessons has been finding the answer to a spinner-question I was asked last year in a Critical Thinking CPD session: what relevance has this for mathematicians? (The answer is that critical though involves accurate appraisal of the world, in which an understanding of probabilities and abstract logic is highly relevant)
teaching personally 
Reblogged this on The Echo Chamber.
The way I see it, each teacher / subject sees teaching through the prism of their subject. This should not be problem; diverse views should be congratulated. It only becomes an issue when one philosphy dominates and other views are ignored.
The most egregious example I have had to deal with was with a Head who taught Dance GCSE and thought that all subjects worked in the same way despite everyone on his leadership team, which inlcuded Maths, Science, Music and R.E. specialists, trying to convince him otherwise.
Thanks for your comment. I suspect you are probably right; whether it is inevitable or not, I don’t know. One might have hoped that it was a professional obligation – particularly for management – to overcome such blinkers.
That may be easier said than done – it’s taken me decades in the profession to become fully aware of the issue and see it for what it is. Hardly surprising when most teachers spend so long immersed in their own subject and imprisoned in their own classroom/departments!
Given how strongly the profession champions diversity, one might expect it to practise what it preaches, but awareness needs to come first. When it comes to such misunderstanding actively making colleagues’ lives more difficult, I think it is a serious matter, and more so when they are then misjudged on the outcomes.
All that said, I suspect the matter actually runs deeper than professional blinkers, and is in fact a product of personality traits. But as you say, it should still not prevent an acceptance of multiple approaches, even if we are limited in our ability to understand them.
It remains remarkable to me that certain members of SLT, whose jobs seem to revolve around viewing and then passing judgement, on a wide range of lessons, which I must assume are taught in different styles and different topic areas, develop such a myopia about what effective teaching looks like.
There is a gap, it seems to me at least, between teachers who rely almost singularly on processes and routines to ensure learning, and those whose teaching is more, well, personal.
Yes absolutely. One might have hoped that as they passed from department to department, this would have become as obvious to them as it seems to me. But seemingly not – at least in a certain establishment that we both know.
Or if otherwise, perhaps they just lacked the skills to know how to deal with those who worked in ways they did not understand. Or again, maybe it suited them to have it like that.
Whatever, I think that institution – and probably the profession more widely – risks losing people who are very good at what they do, simply because they are being judged by inappropriate criteria. The same may work for educational research, something else that one might have hoped would recognise its own limitations.