Done and dusted!

Posted on May 16, 2012 by admin

The essays are done. Having completed the course work part of both Open University courses I now only face the exams. On reflection I have decided that in the case of my Open University studies that the essay writing got in the way of actual learning. The awareness that an essay deadline was approaching invariably derailed good study habits.

The essay component proved to be most problematic in the English Literature course. The English language course actually interspersed analysis tasks amongst the essays which allowed a much greater practical application of the course’s content. The work performed to fulfil assessment criteria in the U211 course felt considerably more meaningful than the it did for A230. It felt as though doing the work would potentially be useful at some point in the future. In my opinion A230′s essay work actually stymied my appreciation of the literature being studied.

My main problem with the A230 English literature course essay was the style of question one is asked to respond to. In the main the questions are worded sloppily, they encourage forced rather than insightful comparisons between texts, and success depends very much on the whims of the tutor. In a distance learning course there is very little opportunity to get an angle on the tutors interests and biases and so tailoring ones essay to their sensibilities becomes almost impossible. Further, the aims outlined for the course, what one is supposed to take away from it,  do not seem to be particularly well addressed via writing essays. Saying that I have no good idea for replacement assessment tasks other than to suggest a much more open approach which would allow students to devise six papers of their own based on at least six of the set texts. The assessment would then be based around the tutors reading original work with a view to discovering what the student has learned from the course material. I wonder if this might not be a better way of assessing a student’s aptitude and understanding than getting them to write a response in a rather peculiar, elitist register to a prejudicing question. Such an approach could be more useful in the long run. Once one has graduated the writing of essays becomes for most people an irrelevance. Extended writing in work life rarely takes the form of an academic English literature essay and the concerns of such essays seem irrelevant to modern life.  I would suggest that very few people outside of academic English studies will have learned anything useful from being taught how to write English literature essays and as such the use of essays only seems to serve the purpose of perpetuating essay writing.

Anyway as was mentioned in a comment by a fellow student  I will soon graduate from writing essays to marking them. Maybe I can find some novel approaches to improve the experience for my students and not let the writing of essays get in the way of the studying of texts.

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A revelation

Posted on March 23, 2012 by admin

I have been incredibly remiss in updating the blog of late. I have realised that the time I feel I have available to up date my blog diminishes drastically as I engage in interesting things that would be good to blog about. This could be yet another effect of Sod’s Law. The good thing is I haven’t felt particularly guilty about not keeping up. I don’t appear to have any readers so if it is for anything, this blog is for me.

I am still interested in keeping a memory of the changes that I am making to my life so I will update every now and again.

Possibly the biggest source of interest over the past three months has been the news that I will soon be a father. I have kept that news under wraps until now because I really wanted to see the results of the first ultra-sound and have some reassurance that the baby is healthy. I take it as a good sign that the nurse who performed the ultrasound was able to tell my wife and I that the baby’s development is perfect, it has all the normal parts, is the right size, has the correct constellation of brain and spine parts and is very active. She even said that the baby was cute.

Before going for the ultrasound I was very curious to know if the baby was female or male but as soon as I saw the live, magically moving, ultrasound images I no longer cared. At one stage  I thought I had spotted nascent testicles but it turned out that the dark areas I saw were the baby’s kidneys. For the past three months we have had our names picked out for the baby. For a girl we have settled on Agnes and for a boy on Franklin. As the baby is currently in a state of indeterminacy we have chosen to call it Fragnes. That in no way privileges the male name, it was just the case that Fragnes sounds nicer than Aglin. According to the scan the optimal due date for the arrival of Fragnes is August 16th.

Franklin Arthur Richards came up as a boy’s name partly to replace the slightly misguided choice of Yoshi Bertil Richards, which was the front runner until pregnancy was actually confirmed. I happened to be reading Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography at around the same time as I discovered the wife had a bun in the oven which is one reason for the first name. Also Franklin means free-man which I like too and finally Franklin Richards is a character in the Marvel comics universe who happens to be the son of a genius.

Agnes Mary Valtersson is the choice if the baby turns out to be a girl. Agnes works in both Swedish and English and is a beautiful name. I particularly like the idea of calling my kid Aggie for some reason. Agnes derives from Saint Agnes who appears in lots of religious paintings, usually with a sheep. There is a poetry connection too to John Keats’ The Eve of St. Agnes. The name Agnes was chosen before we learned it was also the name of the very cute kid in the movie Despicable Me. 

Becoming a father is clearly going to complicate matters when it comes to starting up my PGCE but I am glad that my wife and I have decided to push ahead with our plans. If the scan would have revealed twins I am not so sure I would feel so assured that pushing forward was a great idea. As it stands apart from a small timing issue I am confident that the arrival of Fragnes is going to be a focalising influence.

Even if the general plan has stayed the same the details are changing slightly. Originally, pre-Fragnes, the plan was to up sticks and find a place to live in the heart of London but now that idea is considerably more flexible. Also to maintain a cultural link with Sweden, we will buy a small summer house in the Swedish countryside where we can spend our vacations. It seems very important to keep a living connection with Sweden and give Fragnes a culturally distributed life. It is important that she or he feels as though they have roots in both England and Sweden.

The birth will take place in Sweden which means that I will need to be in Sweden during August and possibly early September. My course at the IOE kicks off on the 10th of September. The timing means that I may have to be apart from my wife and child for a few days to make sure I keep up with the course and manage to have a good nest arranged for them to travel to. Anyway we are advised to wait at least two weeks before taking the baby on a flight, so if Fragnes arrives on time the soonest she or he could move over would be September 1st. As a result we will not give up our house in Stockholm until the end of September.

The news of the baby has put all other pursuits into perspective. The Open University studies have dropped in priority, especially given that I have an unconditional offer to study for a PGCE. U211 continues to go very well, I seem to have a good grasp of the English Language topics. A230 is going fine too, I am not enjoying the course as much though.

Other than the big news I have also managed to set up an observation place for the summer at a primary school in Devon. Primary observation is a requirement from the Institute and it feels good to have been able to set something up so early. It is all thanks to an old friend, John Eliot, who suggested I contact his local school.

 

 

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A moment for reflection

Posted on January 21, 2012 by admin

I finally have a moment to reflect on the going so far. In relation to the Open University the courses keep rolling on. I seem to have more of an aptitude for the English Language course than the English Literature course. I have found the essay writing for the A230 course a real pain. I find having to compose the papers really gets in the way of the studying, I also still have not been able to grasp what is being sought. The U211 assessments are considerably more varied and less flaky. In a sense the Open University courses are no longer very important. Just a week after attending my interview at the Institute of Education, which I can reveal now was my first choice, I received confirmation of an unconditional offer. I promptly accepted and so now my focus has shifted from trying to get good marks out of my Open University studies to using them as a spring board to broad study.

The trip to London for the interview was a crazy day. I had scheduled to travel there and back in a day. That meant a 03:00 start which was preceded by very fragmented sleep. I was both excited and nervous and couldn’t fall into a deep sleep. Luckily the trip to the bus station and from the bus station to the airport went by in a sleepy daze which seemed to grant me some recharge of energy. I arrived at the airport at 05:00 for a flight out at just after 07:00. The two hours was spent running through the notes I had put together, reading up on some topics in Philosophy of Education and running through a short book on grammar. In the end the reading of notes and papers did little to help me through the interview aside from focusing my thoughts.

The interview was at 13:00 and I arrived at Liverpool Street Station just after 10:00 on a beautiful, cloud free, crisp day. With a couple of hours to kill on a beautiful day I decided to walk across London, find somewhere for a big hearty breakfast and kill any left over time at the British Museum where I planned to change into a fresh shirt and smarten up. After stopping for breakfast in the city the stroll to Bloomsbury took about three quarters of an hour. I have always liked London and the walk recommended by Google maps took me to some new streets and scenes. Surprisingly, London was calm and it had a calming effect on me, putting me in a good frame of mind. The positive attitude was helped along by an hour ogling the artefacts at the British Museum.

Then after a quick change I made my way around to the Institute with plenty of time to spare with the intention of taking my time over a large mug of tea with lots of sugar. By now I had been awake for a long time but, after the walk, all of the morning’s travel seemed to have taken place on a different day. Walking into the Institute for the first time felt strangely familiar. I was taken aback slightly by how young so many of the people appeared to be and after a glimmer of doubt I suppressed the idea that I was too old to be making the move into teaching. Whilst drinking my cup of tea I struck up a conversation with a life-long London geography teacher who was visiting the Institute to discuss taking a doctorate. It was great to spend the minutes leading up to the interview chatting about teaching in London.

It turned out that most of the other interview candidates had arrived  early and had been sitting and chatting with one another for a few minutes. The interview was to begin with a small presentation and some work in small groups. Even though I entered the interview room five minutes before the scheduled time I felt as though I was late, which had the effect of giving me a shot of adrenaline on top of the caffeine and sugar I had introduced to my system. The overwhelming majority of interview candidates were female, I only remember seeing a couple of other men. I may have been the only person there over thirty too, but to be fair is is hard to tell exactly how old a person is; the group I was placed in assumed I was in my twenties.

The introduction added to the excitement I was feeling, the course sounded ideal, the Institute has the character I was hoping it would and stuck by an approach to teacher training that gave equal importance to the development of theoretical as well as practical understanding of pedagogy.

The only cause for concern I had was the announcement that school placements could involve periods of training in non-LEA, comprehensive format schools. I personally do not want to learn how to teach in a free school or an academy, a faith school or a gender segregated institution. I also do not want to have anything to do with oligarchic educational institutions such as private schools nor Grammar schools as both are frankly anachronistic throw backs that promote class alterity.  I disagree with any one who believes schooling formats that in one way or another specialise around a particular feature are useful. The one exception I will accept are schools that are designed to specifically cope with students who have behavioural issues or learning challenges that cannot be managed in an all inclusive comprehensive educational setting. In these instances it is unfair to all students concerned to promote a one size fits all education.

I want to be placed at a mixed ability, all-gender school in a working class neighbourhood. My objections to single gender establishments is simple, I don’t see the point in them, they distort young people’s attitudes to gender and promote a view that the only way to cater to gender specific educational needs is to impose a form of gender apartheid. I find free schools worrisome because of the possibility that they will be set up and run along ideological lines by educators that are trying to impose particular ‘closed’ beliefs within an ‘open’ society. Also the freedom they have to deviate from a National Curriculum (like private schools) seems highly problematic. It both undermines the National Curriculum project and alarmingly removes accountability. A similar objection applies to faith schools of course. I don’t see how we are supposed to teach young people to respect the religious belief systems of others when schools are allowed to be set up based upon religious curricula. Education must, in the interests of young people, be a non-biased state provision and on that ground alone I believe all religions need to be kept away from schools. I attended a Church of England lower school myself and can say that even the CoE’s relatively innocuous involvement did limit my scope by promoting the superiority of certain myths to the exclusion of others.  If an individual with the freedom to choose for themselves decides to pursue a path in life that entails involvement in religious institutions and practices, as long as that path doesn’t curtail the freedom of others to also choose for themselves, I am accepting of that decision. I don’t think most young people in religious educational environments are given the freedom to choose, they are rather, often subtly, instructed to follow. If you are child who is unsure about religion and live in a home full of believers school should be a place where you can think freely.

I digress. After the group work, which involved assessing and discussing a year seven student’s attempt at creative writing in prose, we were required to quickly write down our summary of the discussion before attending a face to face interview. I realised as I began the writing assignment that the natural and artificial stimulation was starting to wear off and fatigue was dulling my consciousness, I also realised that after years of typing that my hand writing has become awful. I felt I had contributed well to the discussion but that I had made a fairly average attempt to record what had happened. As such I progressed to the face to face interview with an ever so slightly bruised confidence.

I was interviewed by two people, one member of staff from the Institute and a practising teacher. The conversation went well, all my preparation, as is usual for me in interviews, went out of the window and instead of trying to work prepared answers into what I was saying I just spoke from the heart. For some reason I ended up remembering and talking about an early English lesson by the strict Mr. Simms on John Donne’s ‘The Flea’; about the scheme of work that had been created by the English department in Much Wenlock; about my father’s highly unusual, mature path into teaching; about the incredible ethnic diversity in my family; and poker.  The end of the interview came quite abruptly and I left feeling as though I had not managed to say any of the things that I really wanted to say, although I was fairly confident that my passion had been conveyed fairly clearly.

As soon as I left the interview room, after working with a member of the support staff to copy all of my certificates, I walked back to the station. By the time I reached Liverpool Street again it was clear to me that it had been a long time since I had walked a similar distance in real shoes and my feet were hurting. I had also on the walk rang the wife to try and give words to my feelings. I told her that on leaving the Institute I had realised just how much I wanted to study in London with the IOE and to become a teacher. The reality of the career change I was embarking upon had hit me and I really hoped that I had made the right kind of impression in the interview.

I eventually got back home to Stockholm just after midnight, exhausted and unsure of how successful the whole trip had been. The next day I awoke and found that I could put the whole experience into better perspective. There was nothing to do but wait. It only took a week to find out the Institute’s response and I accepted immediately.

Knowing already that I have a PGCE place sorted out, at my top choice, in a city that I cannot wait to live in is really incredibly exciting. 2012 for these and another reason or possibly two, or three, is going to be one of the most important of my life.

Posted in A230 OU Course, Education, Free Schools, London University Institute of Education, Open University, PGCE, Teacher Training, Teaching, U211 OU Course, William Brookes Secondary School | Leave a comment

The Return of the AWOL Blogger

Posted on December 19, 2011 by admin

Back to the Blog

I realise that it has been weeks since my last post. My reasons for not keeping pace and totally disregarding my commitment to the blog and running features such as Poem of the Week are as follows:

  1. Last Week at William Brookes
  2. England vs. Spain
  3. A230 essay writing
  4. A230 catch up
  5. GTTR application
  6. U211 catch up
  7. Super Mario in 3D Land
  8. Minecraft alpha and Kate Bush
  9. MasterChef and QI
  10. Another thing that I can’t talk about yet.

Taking each point in order I will report on my news.

The last week at William Brookes

The second week was great too. By staying on for a second week I got to experience the practical side of teaching at a greater depth. The staff were used to me being around and it felt as though my presence was much more accepted. I also picked up a few lessons in other subjects to see how teachers approached science, religious studies and Personal and Social Education.

One thing that became even clearer was the tension between teaching and administration. Pop-managerial-ism was subtly pervasive and teachers each had their own views about it’s creep that were conveyed in subtle turns of phrase, sighs and the development of coping strategies. Having been exposed to all manner of manager training over the last few years I could sense the same feeling in the school that I was aware of when trying out a new recommended managerial technique at work. All such initiatives are met with a blend of open mindedness that is tinged with suspicion. I also grasped how there were quite different views on the ultimate goals of teaching English. Some teachers seemed to be trying to instil an appreciation in literature, others in developing literacy skills for life after school.

The best part of the second week though was the follow up on certain classes to see the progression from week to week. It was amazing just how little of the total information they are taught that is retained by students. I don’t believe the retention was low because of the lessons they were taught, in my opinion the lessons were all engaging and exciting. Indeed in most of the classes I observed the students concentrated on the tasks they were set and responded as if they grasped what they were being taught, yet the weekend seemed to have seriously dulled the recall. It seemed as though the anticipation and stimulation of environmental factors such as the release of new video games, the weekend’s football matches, X-factor and just the thought of time away from school squeezed out the positive intellectual experiences the student’s had had in school the previous week. After the fortnight at William Brookes I think it could be a good idea to spend a week in a school that faces a wider range of social issues and I will look into securing a week at just such a school, probably in Plymouth, in the New Year.

England vs Spain

On the weekend in between my two weeks at William Brookes I journeyed to London with plans to meet some old friends, possibly catch up with my GTTR referee and also to see England play Spain in a friendly at Wembley. Although I travelled with books I didn’t get very much useful work done. Other than reading Voltaire’s Candide, or Optimism my brain’s only intellectual engagement was with newspaper sports pages and a comic novel I had picked up by a writer from Walsall.  Sadly I missed catching up with my GTTR referee, but the football was excellent and the next day I had a superb Sunday Roast with one of my best friends at the pub that sits inside the race track at Epsom.

A230 Essay writing

I am now very much aware of my ability to vastly over complicate my approach to course work and from now on will give myself considerably less time to work on essays. I must have written and rewritten the second A230 TMA ten times and I still was far from happy with the result I submitted. I experienced a massive brain rebellion whilst drafting and redrafting. The grey masses refused to be herded into producing an essay of just 1500 words. It was painful. In the end I rewrote the thing in two hours the day before deadline and submitted it to dispel the evil darkness. This essay set my studies back at least a week.

A230 Catch up

It is now done and dusted and I am up to speed with the planned scheduling of the A230 course and have made the move from the Long Eighteenth Century to the Romantics. I spent last night and this morning in the company of Mr. Wordsworth and had a really enjoyable study session. The approach taken to Wordsworth’s poetry by the OU is quite similar to the way I tend to explore poems. The OU looked at a selection of Wordsworth’s poem in the context of his move to the Lakes. It was interesting that they neglected to go any deeper into Wordsworth’s past and some of the reason’s why he felt it necessary to run away from his earlier political passions.

GTTR Application

For such a life changing process the GTTR application has actually proceeded very smoothly (so far). Upon returning to Sweden I reflected on my time at William Brookes and wrote up a personal statement with a little editorial help from the missus. Once copy- pasted into the GTTR system it was added to by my referee’s statement. I don’t think I could have hoped for a better reference, cheers Phil!

Just a couple of weeks later I got my first invitation to attend an  interview. So, on January 6th 2012, I will be making a crazy, one-day round trip to England to meet with the PGCE staff at the Institute of Education in London to hopefully convince them that they should accept me on the course that starts in September.

U211 Catch up

This is still a work in progress. Since my last post was written I received my grade back from my second U211 TMA and got the highest mark that I have ever received in higher education. I did push the boat out for the paper by researching in depth and consulting practising academics,  probably because the topic was close to my own heart. Perhaps the grade made me slightly complacent because since getting it I have not been able to get stuck back into U211. I am hoping to reverse the trend this week as I focus solely on U211 ahead of submitting my next TMA. This time around I will be transcribing and analysing unscripted speech which should be fun.  I have to say I much prefer the TMA’s for U211 compared to those for A230 – I just find the literature stuff to be pretty flaky at times.

Super Mario in 3D Land 

The day that I flew home from England after my two weeks at William Brookes was also the day that Nintendo released its first full Mario game specifically designed for its 3DS console. I decided to treat myself and found myself handling a temporary addiction. The game is excellent and pushed all sorts of dopamine buttons with its blend of nostalgia and the new. The game has been designed to be easily picked up and put down, with short levels that hide some hard to find secrets. The game also has a series of special unlockable bonuses that I felt it necessary to release. In total, according to the statistics recorded on the system I played the game 97 times before finally completing the game and earning the five twinkling stars you get for a near perfect run through. Given that each time I played lasted roughly 20 minutes, I spent around 32 hours achieving something that only other geeks will ever give me credit for. Although it was great fun looking back I should probably have been slightly more disciplined and saved playing the game until I had written up my A230 TMA. Still, I am just as interested in following the latest developments in video games as I am in literature.

Minecraft Alpha and Kate Bush

A Swedish video game called Minecraft recently shifted from Beta to Alpha, which means it changed from being a game in development and prone to large changes to being a game that will change a lot less. I got involved with Minecraft last year and occasionally spent a few hours exploring the world. Since it turned Apha I have found myself drawn once again to the game.

In case you don’t know Minecraft is a PC based game in which you find yourself isolated in a massive environment, without tools, which at night time becomes infested with monsters that will try and kill you. It is all depicted in a beautiful, blocky, art style and is accompanied by gorgeously atmospheric music. You have to learn pretty quickly how to create tools and use them with the environment to build a shelter so that you can avoid being attacked.  Once you have found shelter, you learn by trial and error how to develop more complex tools that allow you to exploit more of the environment. It may sound dull but the game is captivating and the potential for creative expression within the game is limitless.

Given that I already liked Minecraft and could happily spend a few hours digging virtual holes, putting saddles on pigs or building fortresses and contraptions it has been a dangerous discovery to find out how well the game plays when accompanied by Kate Bush’s new album. I realise I may be exposing slightly more of myself than some people may be comfortable knowing so I will leave the revelation there.

Masterchef and QI

A modern test for humanity is the ability to become absorbed in trash TV. If you are immune to all forms of trash TV and cannot find anything to which you will willingly allow your brain to vegetate, then I believe you may be a bud for the species that will eventually supersede the homo-sapiens. My TV vice over the past couple of months has been repeats of the British TV show Masterchef.  I am going to blame this entirely on my wife who insists on watching the show if she gets home from work early enough to see it. I realised I had a Masterchef problem when I felt compelled to watch the show even when my wife was away. In my defence I can say that I resist most consumer fetishes and fashions besides those involving food. I am gladly free of addiction to talk shows (in Sweden they are aptly called prat-shows), car shows, Top model shows, Runway designer shows, people make-over shows, home make-over shows, home purchase shows, antique shows and quiz shows. I do try and balance the inanity of Masterchef by also watching copious amounts of QI which is repeated in marathon runs on the BBC entertainment channel that we have access to in Sweden.

Another thing I can’t talk about yet

All will be revealed in the New year!

 

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Reflections on week one

Posted on December 19, 2011 by admin

I just found this post that I neglected to publish when it was written on the twelfth of November…

The first week at William Brookes has convinced me that a move into teaching is the right thing to do. It has also shown me that I have chosen a future that will mean lots of hard work and gruelling days ahead but it is a future in which the day’s work is strewn with diamonds. There is an appealing sense of continuity to teaching, of building for the long term rather than sniffing out short term boosts. I have seen brilliant leaps in perception by students across abilities and age groups. I have experienced the commitment, professionalism and cooperative spirit of teachers. It has been humbling and inspiring in equal measure and I want to be a part of it.

On balance, after the first week, the good easily over powers the bad but, I have to bear in mind that watching lessons and getting involved to support activities occasionally, simply cannot prepare me for the paper work and bureaucracy that teachers face. I saw dedicated professionals battling fatigue, developing strategies to cope with an educational culture that has yet to find the right balance between ticking boxes and inspiring young minds. Performing lessons back to back for the whole day is tough work. Breaks and lunches are spent blowing off steam, reflecting, consulting, preparing and dealing with pupils, there is precious little time left to relax.

 

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