What makes a good teacher?

 

Many state pupils are badly taught because the training system tries to make every class the same, says Katharine Birbalsingh

'Good teachers get extremely frustrated with the parrot-like approach dictated by Ofsted inspectors,' says Birbalsingh  Photo: JANE MINGAY

By Katharine Birbalsingh 7:39PM GMT 31 Jan 2011

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Recently, I visited one of our top public boys' schools and sat in on a few lessons. I found exactly what I was expecting: old-fashioned teaching centred on knowledge instead of skills, with the teacher at the front and children at their desks; no group work nor games, just listening, responding and serious concentration. These teachers had not been moulded into what those of us in the state schools sector understand to be a good teacher.

My recent visits to private schools have me questioning my very understanding of the term "teaching". What is it, after all, that makes a good teacher? With cuts to teacher-training places being planned by the Government, as The Daily Telegraph reported yesterday, now is a good moment to ask what exactly we want our teachers to be trained in.

Training institutions are charged with the task of shaping teachers who will be "outstanding" or "good", according to Ofsted criteria. There are certain formulae. One must begin the lesson with a "starter", to last no more than
4-5 minutes. One must end with a plenary, summing up the lesson, again to last no more than 4-5 minutes. There must be an objective to the lesson, written up on the board, that in many classrooms children will copy into their books. With some bottom sets, this simple act of copying a long objective might waste up to 10 minutes of the 40 or 50-minute lesson. No matter, to be a good teacher in the state sector, one must do as one is told.

Be sure to use the interactive whiteboard in the lesson, of course. One is constantly reminded that "use of technology" will increase results. Funny, then, how the boys in our top public schools make do with only a handful of interactive whiteboards, which, by their teachers' own admission, are "hardly ever used".

One must remember that one isn't a "teacher" in a state school classroom. Instead, one is a "facilitator of learning". One doesn't teach knowledge, one teaches skills. So standing in front of the class and actually teaching is frowned upon. Far better to set the children up in groups, give them envelopes filled with bits of paper and ask them to put the pieces of paper in the correct order. Then, the facilitator of learning can roam around the classroom, facilitating instead of teaching, and guiding pupils through the maze of "personalised" and "independent" learning.

I know of one school where facilitating is such a rage that they combine classes, so that 60 children are in any given lesson, with two different teachers, one at the front who can teach, while the other moves among the children. What good an extra teacher is going to be (if they ever manage to reach you) when one is learning maths is beyond me. There are 59 other pupils, after all, in the class. The fact that half the class can barely hear the teacher at the front because there is too much noise, and some of them are just too far away, means nothing when set against the supposed value of the "facilitator".
The problem with teacher-training institutions is that they are all singing from the same hymn sheet. The philosophy that underpins state education is that we are in the business of pursuing equality, not excellence. The role of the school is to ensure that we give children equal opportunity. I, for one, would agree with this noble aspiration. I want children to have exactly this, and it is precisely because I can see that equal opportunity is not being provided to our poorest and most disadvantaged that I spoke out at the Conservative Party conference last year.
The irony is that if one does not pursue excellence, one cannot provide equal opportunity. But somehow, our understanding of "equal opportunity" has metamorphosed into "sameness". So rather than allow our teachers to be excellent in their different and innovative ways, some teacher-training institutions and some schools attempt to squash all ingenuity out of teachers, and make them into parrot-like machines churning out whatever skill-based nonsense they have been brainwashed with.
As I sat in on these lessons in one of our top public schools, I was struck by the fact that if I had been grading them according to Ofsted criteria – the standards by which we judge state school teachers – these public school teachers would have failed outright.
No teacher in the state sector would dare to teach the way they did. Yet the children were so well taught that they seemed to know everything about the subject. I sat in on one history lesson in which the pupils learnt more than their contemporaries in the state sector would learn in an entire term.
And if that sounds as though I'm making it up, imagine the time it takes to get children huddled around in groups, quieten them down, give instructions on how to do the complicated exercise of not losing the bits of paper, making sure they don't get bent out of shape, ensuring they get returned to the envelope, and so on.
So what is the best way of training teachers? Teach First is an organisation that takes the brightest from Oxford and Cambridge and has them teach for a minimum of two years. A number stay permanently. Some question Teach First and say that academic excellence is not necessarily a sign that one will be an excellent teacher. True, but one cannot be an excellent teacher without brains. Intelligence is a pre-requisite to being a good teacher. Often, but not always, academic excellence demonstrates that one is sharp. So Teach First is a fantastic way of getting our brightest into classrooms.
Above all, the question that needs answering is whether there is a right way and a wrong way to be a good teacher. Can one still be a good teacher if one never has the prescribed model of a starter, plenary, objective, group work, facilitation and so on? Are there really formulae for being "good"? Certainly, the teacher-training institutions would say that there are, which would explain why they believe it is so crucial that we retain them to ensure a guiding hand over teacher training.
The fear, it would seem, is that leaving training to schools might create too much variety in the profession, putting an end to the pursuit of "sameness" in the classroom. But I would argue that variety is the thing that will ensure equal opportunities for all.
The problem is that good teachers want the freedom to teach as they please. They want to do what is best for their pupils. Every class is unique, so every class needs a different approach and teaching style.
Good teachers often get extremely frustrated with the parrot-like approach dictated by Ofsted inspectors and senior leaders. Sometimes they get so annoyed that they defect to the private sector, where freedom is abundant.
Many times, as a senior teacher, I would observe excellent practitioners who were superb with pupils but I would be forced to give them a "good" instead of an "outstanding" for their lesson, simply because some ill-thought-out Ofsted boxes had not been ticked.
And there you have it. If one is to judge teachers by criteria, the list begins in teacher-training institutions, and is confirmed and justified in the end by Ofsted. The teachers who are caught in between are puppets, doing what they are told. That, at any rate, is what we see. In reality, the best teachers do their own thing behind closed classroom doors. They do precisely what they are told not to do and dare to teach knowledge instead of skills, dare to stand in front of the class "teaching" for more than five minutes, and don't insist on their children copying down an objective for the lesson. Then, when they are observed, they put on an act to satisfy the Ofsted criteria, and live to teach another day.
Such is the reality of the state sector, where good teachers are under siege, having to pretend in order to get their rubber-stamp approval. Children are different from each other. Classrooms and schools vary immensely. That is why the freedom to choose what lesson is appropriate, what teacher might work best, what curriculum best suits, is so imperative if we are to provide equality of opportunity.
The public school boys who run Britain aren't doing so because they were all considered to be the same at school: they run Britain because their teachers had the freedom to choose and, perhaps in the end, that is what it is to be a good teacher.