The Chocolate Lesson

I start today’s entry with a passage written by a guest blogger. He is an able, supportive peer and one of the regular 600+ readers of Head Lines. I think, stylistically, he might be making jest of my writing style but he describes the focus of today’s topic with accuracy.

"There is a tide in the affairs of man, which taken at the flood leads to fortune..."

Why, dear readers, do I discuss Julius Caesar and a random quote from my youth? I suppose my topic for tonight's discussion is missed opportunity.

As you know I fix broken schools - schools which have become dysfunctional for one reason or another and over the past few weeks I have become more and more convinced that my school has been losing the ‘dys’ and becoming more functional...and that dear readers is still true; however, as life does, it served a curve ball today. After the end of a productive and long meeting the last item on the agenda was the fourth 'c' in my life - the curriculum. Regular readers will remember that I spent much of the early part of my teaching career cutting items out of  magazines, picking up shells on the beach and why? Because I think it will interest, engage or otherwise stimulate discussion - it will open a mind, stretch the imagination and exercise the grey muscle between the ears. And today what do I find? [Not entirely to my surprise] That some teachers can't be bothered. Can't be bothered.

My colleague refers to an incident which came to light today. One which caused me to mildly rant on the reasons teachers choose to teach. Currently, with the school on its way out of a failing category, we are revising the entire curriculum to make it more meaningful to the pupils and their lives.

Allow me to provide an example. Instead of teaching a history topic on the ancient civilisations of Central and South America, we (and I say we) will be introducing a topic on CHOCOLATE. The children will learn where chocolate originates, how it is refined, what life is like for the cocoa farmer, how we use chocolate as food, how it is packaged, why it costs so little, its positive/negative impact on the body etc etc etc.

Likewise, another topic will focus on economic migration: recounting the story of the children and their parents and why they left their homeland for a cold and rainy outcrop on the western edge of Europe. It makes sense. Our aim is to make what the children learn more meaningful but will still be based around the basic skills any 11 year old should know.

My dismay was caused by a teacher at our school. She glanced at the topic list and immediately condemned it as unworkable. Where will I get the resources to teach such things?

Her concerns were focussed, on her role as a teacher and not as the child’s as a learner. She is the teacher one can find any morning at 8.15am at the photocopier, reproducing 30 replicas of a worksheet. She seeks the quick-fix, the lesser avenue of resistance.

Consequently, the progress of the children in her class, whilst satisfactory, lags behind the great strides being made by children in classes where the teachers are prepared to take risks. She will fret and cry to all within ear shot in the staff room “I cannot do my job.” Therein lays the problem. Her choice of words betrays her true intentions.

Because teaching is not a job but a profession; a calling she has undertaken. To carry on covering the Ancient Egyptians next year as she did last year and the year before that and the year before that, is a sell-out. It is a comfortable option. It is laziness. It is old fashioned subscription to the notion that the teacher should be the holder of all knowledge in the classroom.

But those who viewed the lecture I posted by Sir Ken Robinson last weekend will know the truth. Children will not learn by sitting still and paying attention. Learning must have an outcome: a reason for learning.

 I am asking our teachers to lower themselves from some outdated pedestal and join the children in learning side by side. I have asked our staff to embrace the mantra ‘I don’t know, let’s find out together.’ Rest assured, dear readers, the answer won’t be found via a worksheet crossword puzzle.

Consider for a moment, dear readers, how you yourself undertake learning a new skill. Do you read a book about it? Perhaps watch an instructional film on You Tube? Eventually or maybe even initially, you will want to have a go and try it for yourself; making mistakes and revising your next attempt. This is how we learn.

Of course my less than enthusiastic colleague will not be sold. For her teaching is a job. I have no doubt that she has sympathy for our children as learners but most certainly does not hold any empathy for them. The next lesson is aimed at whatever is easiest to prepare, not what would best electrify her pupils' senses.

If she did, she would spend the next two months finding out about chocolate, about why people left Bangladesh and Pakistan to come to Britain and who Muhammad Yunus is. If she has a ‘Road to Damascus’ moment, she might turn up in September with raw cocoa for the children to taste before writing a poem about their love of chocolate. My fear is that she will arrive with a worksheet with a picture of a cocoa bean on the top to inspire the minds we hope to ignite.

Sleep well, readers, for whilst there are many like her in staff rooms up and down the country; there is an army representing the converse, who see themselves as life-long learners. 

Now off you go, to find out who Muhammad Yunus is (if you haven't done so already).

Keep the Faith,

The Head