Texts without context

We seem to increasingly value ‘metaness’ and prize the ‘mash-up’ more than the original source that was ‘mashed’. Reading the work of Andrew Keen and Nicholas Carr, it would seem that new technology is to blame: the former argues that the internet is creating mediocrity and swapping ill-informed speculation for genuine expertise; the latter argues that our growing attention deficit disorder and susceptibility to information overload is impeding our ability to think deeply and creatively.

I am a firm believer that the web empowers us through equity and equal access: twitter is used by Iranian dissidents and Facebook helped coordinate the aid work in Haiti. Nonetheless, it would be wrong to dismiss these sentiments as coming from luddites. This concern about the way new technology is reshaping our world stand as insightful and useful counterweights to a techno-utopia.

Technology is certainly accelerating certain trends: first, news and entertainment is blurring. We are over stimulated to the point that only sensationalism and hyperbole grab people’s attention. I smiled when my students asked a visiting speaker from a national newspaper whether news editors were just people that slacked off at work and surfed the web for ‘stuff to write about,’ as if news was about the latest and funniest ‘You’ve Been Framed’ clips!

Second, there is an increasing deconstructionist view of literature and a growing emphasis on immediacy and real-time responses, which means that readers are not immersing themselves in another world of reading in the same way they might. Reading is no longer a solitary act but social. Further, in our emphasis on speed and efficiency we are increasingly choosing the immediately available product over the more thoughtfully created one. Instead of embracing a whole novella, speech, film, for example, my students want to jump to the summary, the clip, the sound bite—overlooking the importance of context and nuance.

And third, mash-ups and bricolage are now everywhere in our cultural landscape. The cut and paste aesthetic inevitably results in tired imitations, like Lady Gaga who is omnipresent at the moment but can be seen as a third-generation Madonna.

In learning communities, then, we need to think very deeply about what this means for the future of our education system. We are at a very ambivalent time. Just today I confiscated a student’s phone and asked his parent to come into school to collect it; and yet, I run my life through a smartphone.

Dealing with the most challenging

In measuring the distance between first and second year, I reflect on how I deal with my most challenging students. In the classroom next to me, I am so fortunate to have a truly superlative teacher: watching very carefully the way in which she deals with her most challenging students gives me wisdom. I have lost count of the times I have marched luckless students into my colleague’s room next door. With the youngest she has them nodding along. I get another heavy weight at the school to deal with the older ones. They answer her questions in a matter of seconds before she ends the grilling with a quip or, better still, a nod to their family or friends that she knows from outside of school. This always makes them good-natured and repentant.

I am always grateful to these colleagues for their support straightening my wayward students, albeit makes me feel despondent sometimes!

The hoody girl

A new girl arrived from a sister school down the road. She arrived at my class wearing a hoodie so I asked her to take it off. She simply stared blankly. I told another student on the other side of the classroom to take his hoody off. He did and so the correct behaviour was modelled for her. “We don’t wear hoodies in this classroom,” I said politely. She still refused to remove the hoody and sat staring blankly. However, next lesson, no hoody.

Cussing

I lost my rag with one of my classes this week. I have recently tried to enforce a complete ban on profanities with one group in particular that cannot seem to stop cussing. They didn’t take too kindly to this. Their argument was that anyone heard venomously bellowing “fiddle sticks” in moments of pressure might be deemed slightly eccentric rather than commendably restrained.

My problem with it is the fact that familiarity breeds out the shock value and most of my colleagues are now far more familiar with four-letter words than we might choose to be. As I walked through corridors, I imagine that if the expletives were deleted from everyday conversations that I overheard, there would be very little left. Student hangouts are not the place for those of nervous disposition or aural sensitivity.

In response, one of my students wrote me the following note: "You can't take words away, Sir. Language controls us through what we say. Even if the words aren’t there, we're still thinking it. Besides, swearing may help us let off steam, which maybe prevent us banging each other up! I'm just saying that if you banned cussing completely, every thought and frustration would still exist – new ways and means of expressing them, such as physical violence, might escalate."

Change should be disruptive; if it’s not, it’s not doing its job!

Sometimes those at the top are so out of touch that they think things are as they are and always will be, that nothing can be done and everything has been tried. This reminded me of the following passage from Winnie the Pooh:
‘Here is Edward bear, coming downstairs now bump, bump, on the back of his head behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment to think of it.’

The challenges

I think schools are facing more challenges than ever before and certainly from a broader base too. The most obvious is the way pupil attainment is measured in raw terms by the very explicit reporting mechanism of 5 A-C including English and Maths. I question whether the National Challenge initiative helps. Other challenges include: the recruitment challenge and the incompetence challenge in a system that seldom calls anyone incompetent; the financial constraints, unlikely to let up anytime soon in the current climate; community cohesion; attending to emotional wellbeing, promoting healthy living, tackling parenting weaknesses etc etc. However, these challenges must be seen as fruitful opportunities as we lead beyond our authority...