I’m not sure how I feel about some of the to and fro that takes place on Twitter – the replies that turn into lengthy ‘chats’ or debates. On one hand, it can be quite stimulating; on the other, it feels like there should be better things to do! This afternoon’s was certainly thought-provoking and at least I was outdoors in the sunshine and the England match had finished.
I’d commented on a piece written for TES (‘Are you teaching zombie lessons?’). The author was positive about the debunking of various so-called myths of teaching and learning. Wasn’t it a good thing, he wrote, that we no longer believed in brain-gym, promoting learning through self-discovery, 10% teacher-talk and differentiating tasks to take into account different learning styles, among other things. And he cited all sorts of evidence to support his argument. Teachers should not to be tethered to such disproved myths, he said; they should be allowed to fly.
I didn’t entirely disagree but I also didn’t realise we’d stopped believing in these so-called ‘zombie ideas’. I’d give him brain-gym but there are times, I suggested, that a child’s own questions can be fascinating and the self-learning journey they embark upon – with our support – is extremely valuable and powerful, moreso than what we may have had planned for them. For some children, they are more motivated by this than by enduring our lessons. Specifying precisely 10% teacher-talk is errant nonsense but it represents a significant imperative to reduce teacher talk to a point where learners have the opportunity to process what has been said to them and undertake tasks that enable them to practise a skill or apply their learning and so that we don’t drone on and on whilst some children in front of us switch off. The point was rightly made that good teacher-talk is what is important, but this surely goes hand-in-hand with limiting it. There are plenty of teachers who like the sound of their own voice a little too much – me included! It was important that someone pointed this out to me; I forget whether that was with the suggestion that I aim for a particular percentage, but it was good advice.
The debate really raged about learning styles. What – many hours later - I discovered he meant was giving children a test to ascertain their preferred learning style and then differentiating tasks according to those preferences. This surprised me; I’ve never been expected to do that and I’ve never known a teacher who has. In turn, he was surprised, telling me it was policy in most schools in the mid-00s. (I didn’t dare ask for his evidence of this ‘most schools’ claim!) I and many of the teachers I know learnt about preferred learning styles, read about the tests that could be done and then adapted it to our own work. I’ve never grouped children according to whether they had a visual, auditory or kinaesthetic learning preference but I have tried to ensure that lessons incorporate all three approaches and more besides.
It can be important, I argued, to understand what works best for a child and capitalise on their strengths – a good teacher wouldn’t waste time talking through a concept with a child who they know learns better by reading about it for himself. For some, it’s critically important that we understand what works best for them and that we don’t bang our heads (and theirs) against brick walls insisting they do it differently. Maybe some of the children excluded from mainstream education (SEN children among them) would have had more success if their teachers had better understood what worked for them. This isn’t about simply writing off learners’ weaknesses – there should still be opportunities for them to develop a broad range of skills and experience learning in different ways – but I don’t think it’s a bad thing to play to a person’s strengths. I’m no football pundit but I suspect Gareth Southgate has nurtured his new England heroes by both accepting and playing to their strengths whilst also working on their weaknesses.
I tried to explain that the particular phrase he had chosen for his article could be interpreted in different ways, which seemed self-evident given that I had interpreted it differently from the way he intended. I suggested that we are duty-bound to take care in how we phrase and explain our points so that they are not misinterpreted. He was having none of it. It’s not open to interpretation and it never has been, he said – when we talk about adapting teaching according to learning styles, it means something specific and it’s a myth that has been irrevocably debunked by research. As proof, he directed me to a Google search relating to this very point. God knows how many results that search turned up but a quick glance actually showed various interpretations including that there may be three, four, seven or eight preferred learning styles, and the research he had cited himself in his article suggested there might be more than seventy. I suspect that if I looked hard enough, there was evidence there in support of the very notion he was arguing against. Look hard enough and there’s probably evidence lurking somewhere in support of encouraging children to discover knowledge for themselves and 10% teacher talk. I’m sure I remember evidence being quoted a decade ago in support of brain-gym.
Take a broader view of those practices and how they have evolved over the past decade, of the different ways they may have been interpreted and adapted over time and what they might really look like in different classrooms around the country now and there’s probably much good practice that has developed from them. Dismiss them all outright and there’s a risk of both throwing babies out with bath water and even of defending bad practice. Research says I can forget about 10% teacher-talk so I all-too-easily slip back into bad habits and blather on endlessly and tiresomely whilst ignoring the fact that the children in front of me are falling asleep. Evidence says learning through self-discovery is ineffective so I can dismiss children’s questions and miss wonderful chances to engage them in really meaningful learning through which they might even reveal their best work. Learning styles are out the window so it’s okay for me to disregard what works best for my students and expect them to adapt to what works best for me. This all does wonders for my workload but I’m a worse teacher for all that evidence and research and the children in my classes are worse-off.
I honestly don’t know what to do with all the research and evidence that currently bombards us in the teaching profession. ‘What goes around comes around’ has been said so often it has become a bit of a cliché so there’s an understandable desire to break that cycle and to use research and evidence to determine what works best, as is done in some other fields. I value it myself. I read and digest as much as I can and learn from it, it’s interesting and thought-provoking, it often represents the best of academia, it fuels our aspirations and it can be the basis of outstanding teaching and learning. But when you’re swamped by it, it’s hard to see the wood for the trees and you’re left with niggling doubts that there may well be contradictory advice out there that you haven’t yet uncovered. Furthermore, we’ve been told the research-backed theories and strategies we were sold at University or earlier in our careers (they weren’t all mere whims) were actually just myths and to ignore them. How then am I to know that their replacements today won’t go the same way in another five or ten years? And I’m unnerved by the unquestioning, unbudging zealotry of some teachers armed with their supposedly indisputable evidence who, it feels, we shouldn’t dare to question.
For me, one of the best, most exciting and most motivating things about our profession is that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all model – I don’t think anyone will ever write the definitive teachers’ guide to teaching and learning. (I don’t worry about AI ever taking over my job, by the way!) Learners come in all shapes and sizes; what works for one young person doesn’t work for another; sometimes it seems that what broadly worked for one cohort doesn’t work for the next. We’re always adapting what we teach and the ways we do it. Ironically, this fascination with the different ways teachers are successful is the reason I embroil myself in infuriating debates on Twitter!
Research and evidence contributes enormously to improving teaching and learning but please let’s not become slaves to it. Please let’s keep open minds, respect and show interest in each other’s good practice and points of view, and allow space for professional common sense in the classroom.
