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

52 Comments

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.

 

If bar owners produced movies in Bollywood, the (top 10) titles will most likely be: 10. Seeta Aur Margarita 9. Corona Pyaar Hai 8. Soda Akbar 7. Rab Ne Pila Di Thodi 6. Rum Whiskey Se Kum Nahin 5. Rum De Basanti 4. Hum Tight Ho Chuke Sanam 3. Passed Out At Lokhandwala 2. Peg pia sardard lia And the award goes to 1. Jo Pilata Wohi Bartender

The war on moral hazard begins at home

 

By John Kay in the FT

Published: January 25 2011 20:41 | Last updated: January 25 2011 20:41

Northern Rock was a narrow bank, with only retail customers, and Northern Rock failed; Lehman Brothers was a pure investment bank, but Lehman too failed. The issues in financial reform are to do with the behaviour of businesses, not the structure of their industry.
Wrong. The point of structural reform of the banking system is not to prevent banks from failing. Regulators have neither the technical competence nor political authority to achieve that objective. Nor, even if they had such competence and authority, would the outcome be desirable. The degree of supervision and control would undermine management responsibility. Regulators would need to be able to block Royal Bank of Scotland's takeover of ABN Amro, halt Northern Rock's expansion, and fire Dick Fuld and his associates from Lehman – and that just for starters. The banking system that would emerge would be like nationalisation, only not as fast-moving.


The purpose of structural reform is to allow financial institutions to fail without imposing large costs on taxpayers, retail customers and the global economy. The moral hazard problem is more subtle than sometimes suggested. Banks do not think: "We can afford to take big risks because the government will help if things go wrong." The downside of failure for senior executives and boards is large even if it is not as large as it should be.
But senior executives and boards can reasonably think: "We can afford to run large counterparty exposures because the government will help if things go wrong." Experience has shown that they will generally be right to think that. The transfer of wholesale market counterparty risk from the market to the taxpayer is the central issue. It distorts competition, allows excessive risk-taking and imposes wholly unacceptable burdens on the public. The most powerful mechanism for controlling risk-taking is prudential supervision, not by regulators, but by the market itself.


These are the issues that Sir John Vickers, the head of the UK's independent banking commission, highlighted in his speech last Saturday. Universal banks argue, correctly, that separation of their retail and wholesale activities would raise funding costs. The numbers cited – several billion a year for each large universal bank – are probably exaggerated but the impact is large. These figures measure the value to the financial system of the reduction in counterparty risk that financial conglomerates enjoy from access to a large retail deposit base and the expectation of government support. They indicate the scale of the subsidy that depositors and taxpayers provide to wholesale trading.


It is sometimes tempting to think that guarantees that are not called upon do not cost anything, although this mistake is not one that banks themselves make. Guarantees, implicit or explicit, mostly do not cost anything. But when they do cost something, what they cost is usually a lot. The implicit guarantors of Fannie Mae and AIG – US taxpayers – have discovered that. Irish – and German – taxpayers are beginning to learn the same lesson.


It is not possible for one country, even the US, to impose restructuring of the global financial system on its own, and not sensible to try. A business such as HSBC or Standard Chartered, which operates globally, can migrate if its lead regulator imposes burdensome requirements. But the mobility of capital, and even headquarters, does not prevent unilateral action to protect domestic depositors and national taxpayers. The first object is achieved by insisting that domestic depositors' funds are ring-fenced, the second by insisting that government does not underwrite the wholesale market obligations of banks located within its borders.

That might lead banks to shop around in search of accommodating jurisdictions willing to underwrite their global activities. Such banks would be the corporate equivalent of the benefit scrounger posing as asylum seeker, and are likely to receive the welcome that such migrants receive as individuals.

The Guy in the Glass

 by Dale Wimbrow, (c) 1934

When you get what you want in your struggle for pelf,
And the world makes you King for a day,
Then go to the mirror and look at yourself,
And see what that guy has to say.
 
For it isn't your Father, or Mother, or Wife,
Who judgement upon you must pass.
The feller whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the guy staring back from the glass.
 
He's the feller to please, never mind all the rest,
For he's with you clear up to the end,
And you've passed your most dangerous, difficult test
If the guy in the glass is your friend.
 
You may be like Jack Horner and "chisel" a plum,
And think you're a wonderful guy,
But the man in the glass says you're only a bum
If you can't look him straight in the eye.
 
You can fool the whole world down the pathway of years,
And get pats on the back as you pass,
But your final reward will be heartaches and tears
If you've cheated the guy in the glass.

An undercover mission that involves sleeping with as many nubile green women as possible? Sign me up, says Nigel Farndale.

 

Mark Kennedy got one of the better undercover assignments

Mark Kennedy slept with a number of environmental protesters while undercover 

By Nigel Farndale 7:00PM GMT 15 Jan 2011

72 Comments

Was Mark Kennedy, the undercover policeman, told that part of his mission, should he choose to accept it, might include sleeping with as many nubile environmental protesters as possible? A tempting job spec, one might suppose. But how would that delicate subject be broached?

"Ah, come in, young Kennedy. Sit down, sit down. You are familiar, I presume, with the word 'infiltration'?"

Sorry, that came out all Stephen Fry – that sublimely unconvincing portrayal of a policeman in Gosford Park. I'm sure policemen don't talk like that, not even the ones pretending not to be policemen. Indeed, you can imagine how long Stephen Fry would last as an undercover policeman before the villains rumbled him, fired up their blowtorches and got medieval on his ass.

Can I say ass? It's a film reference, as you know. And "bottom" doesn't sound right. Neither does "buttocks". And now I'm talking about Stephen Fry's buttocks on the comment pages of The Sunday Telegraph and I'm not sure how to move on from it, or them.

It wasn't even the topic I was planning to write about. That would be the other undercover story, the one about the three actors who were paid by a local authority in north Wales to pretend to be drunk, as part of a police sting. Over nine nights they visited 49 pubs in order to find out which publicans, if any, would say: "Don't you think you've had enough, Sir?"

Now, on first hearing, this might sound nearly as good an assignment as being allowed to sleep with climate change protesters. But there would have been little scope for Stanislavskian method acting – preparing for the role with a cheeky half-bottle of crème de menthe before opening time, say – because the actors would have to report to their handlers at closing time. "Was I served in there? I'm sorry, ossifer, I have absolutely no recollection. But do you know what? Do. You. Know. What? I bloody love you."
So it seems the actors did indeed act drunk rather than actually get drunk; and apparently, only one publican out of 49 fell for their act. This despite a variety of "tactics", according to a report on the operation, which included "telling person serving them they were drunk", "slurred speech", "being dressed in dishevelled and stained clothing" and "falling over".
Herein may lie the problem. As Charlie Chaplin argued, the best way to act drunk is to imagine yourself a drunk man trying to act sober. It's an astute observation because there is a certain dignity about a drunken man: he feels his way with all the concentration and balance of a tightrope walker. He doesn't fall over, he corrects — the course correction of a 747 encountering mild turbulence.
As for the slurring, consider cinema's greatest drunk: Richard E Grant in Withnail and I. As he is allergic to alcohol, he was sober throughout – apart from one night when the director poured booze down his throat, just so he knew what it felt like. But what is remarkable about his performance is that he never slurs, though you are sure afterwards that he was doing so all the time. In the famous scene in Penrith Tea Rooms, he brings even more depth to the role by playing Withnail as a naturally rude man trying to be polite as he drunkenly requests "cake and fine wine".
This was where I suspect the actors in Wales went wrong: the bar staff had seen far too many genuine drunks trying hard not to slur their words to be taken in by sober, slurring, stumbling impostors.

After the Chinese Mother, another instance of Americans spooked by the Chinese

 Nation of 'wusses' gets wake-up call
By Benjamin A Shobert

In the midst of a particularly cold, unusually blustery winter blizzard, Governor Ed Rendell (Democrat-Pennsylvania) decided to make a particularly interesting, unusually candid comment on local radio.

Obviously frustrated at the National Football League's decision to cancel a Philadelphia Eagles game due to weather, Rendell suggested this was part of America becoming a "nation of wusses". The reaction to this momentary lapse of honesty on the part of a modern politician was immediate and appeared to be the sort one remembers from sibling "you just crossed my side of the bedroom" fights, full of symbolism and short on substance.

Rendell's comments resonated with the American public in part because Rendell's stream of consciousness ably connected a canceled national football game to a shortage of national fortitude, and to why those pesky Chinese are beating the US at a game it invented - national economics.

One need not rely on inference to make the connection as the governor made the job fairly easy: "My biggest beef is that this is part of what's happened in this country. I think we've become wussies. The Chinese are kicking our butt in everything. If this was in China do you think the Chinese would have called off the game? People would have been marching down to the stadium, they would have walked and they would have been doing calculus on the way down."

While Rendell might pay a price come next election for this sort of atypical truth telling from a national political figure, his comments expressed in raw form what many Americans are beginning to wonder themselves: Are we in economic trouble partially because we've gone soft?

Asked more directly, the governor's assertion suggests that our economic doldrums are less because of other countries' comparative advantages through lower labor costs and rather because our global competitors work harder for longer, anticipate more setbacks and absorb more sacrifice than we are willing to accept in the US. Calling Americans "wusses" may be playground talk, but it has struck a nerve.

On more occasions that most of us would like to admit, Americans have sheepishly exited the bathroom having stood one moment too long at the faucet, waiting and wondering at why the water has not been triggered by the sensor only to realize that it is an "old-fashioned" manual sink, or sporting a bruised nose (and ego to match) at having walked into what one assumed was an automatically opening door.

True enough then Rendell: American living standards are hardly Spartan, and for most of the people, what constitutes struggle and sacrifice would be unrecognizable as such to Depression-era grandparents. It has only now begun to dawn on America and its leaders that the role of sacrifice, specifically the sort required to renew society, is poorly understood and even more poorly embraced.

This realization isn't where we started. In the 1990s, Americans believed economic gains from the country's innovation engine would outstrip economic losses, so much so that we comfortably unleashed a great good on the world - the wonders of free and unfettered trade - with little expectation that the swap might not be quite that simple.

But for most of the 1990s, the costs of this transaction went overlooked as cheap credit made Americans feel their standard of living was increasing when, in fact, they were barely treading water. Now overwhelmed by the consequences of this exchange, we are acutely aware that we spent too much of the 1990s focused on using that credit for consumption instead of investment. And, to Rendell's point, money spent on consumption rarely hardens the soul or stiffens the spine.

This is perhaps why his hasty comment, said tongue-in-cheek but remarkable for its clarity, interjected itself so quickly into America's consciousness. Americans are beginning to come to grips with the idea that maybe our current struggle is more our own fault than we were willing to admit in the aftermath of 2008.

The villains of Beijing and Wall Street will always provide convenient fodder for those who want to be distracted, but Rendell's comments force an admittedly unpopular gaze inwards. His comments harbor a deeper truth, an acknowledgement that American politics - more than any canceled football game - reflect a national wussiness, a marked inability and unwillingness to make the difficult choices necessary to maintain a fiscally responsible government, capable of executing meaningful economic-development initiatives through bipartisan leadership.

Rendell's criticism of American culture isn't necessarily unique to the US. Voices within Japan have been asking similar questions since Japan's economic climax over two decades ago, wondering aloud if the country's struggles are due in part to a generation that does not understand the sort of work ethic and single-minded focus on achievement that staying on top demands. And, frankly, within America's own story, this sort of criticism isn't unique either: in the midst of the Roaring Twenties, themes of decadence and decay are woven throughout the American novels of William Faulkner, Francis Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.

Perhaps becoming a nation of wusses is an inevitable, if regrettable, stage for countries that experience unparalleled success. Already, the lauded Chinese are seeing a different sense of shared sacrifice reveal itself within its youth, marked by the current generation's fixation on material possessions above a sense of community or social sacrifice.

Some China-watchers believe the slightly more heavy hand of President Hu Jintao's regime is the result of these very fears among old-timers within the Communist Party. It may well be that regardless of which country this transition presents itself in, the stage marks a very real inflection point where society must choose between descending into a further morass of materialism, or calling once again for the sort of dedication and striving that marked earlier success.

For Americans, Rendell's comments may be a necessary wake-up call, the sort of gut check that harkens back to an era where coaches could yell at their players, daring to risk emotional damage through their heavy-handed use of negative reinforcement, but always with an eye towards improving the players' - and the team's - performance.

The reality, which may strike some as harsh, is that as bad as today's economy feels, and as real the pain many Americans feel today, those who came through the Great Depression had it much worse.

Our ideas of what pain and sacrifice mean today are nowhere near the sorts of deprivation and scrap for survival that our grandparents knew. We may not be a nation of wusses, but we do need a reminder that to keep what we have is going to take a lot more dedication, effort, and hard choices from our elected leaders than the false promises of the 1990s held out.

Benjamin A Shobert is the managing director of Teleos Inc (www.teleos-inc.com), a consulting firm dedicated to helping Asian businesses bring innovative technologies into the North American market.

Porn stars to take part in Cambridge University Union debate

 

The historic Cambridge University Union has shocked students by inviting adult film stars to take part in an organised debate.

Anna Arrowsmith, who is the UK's first female adult movie director and once stood as a Liberal Democrat MP candidate Photo: PA

10:23AM GMT 12 Jan 2011

The Cambridge Union Society, which was founded in 1815, is famed for inviting international politicians and academics to its regular debating sessions.

But the union has raised eyebrows by organising a debate where students will be entertained by guest speakers including three adult film stars.

First on the bill is stripper and pornographic film actor Johnny Anglais, who was suspended from his teaching job after his work as a porn star was revealed.

He will be joined by Anna Arrowsmith, who is the UK's first female adult movie director and once stood as a Liberal Democrat MP candidate.

US porn actress-turned-chaplain Shelley Lubben will also join the debate and discuss the question: ''This house believes that pornography does a good public service.''

Incoming union president Lauren Davidson told Cambridge student newspaper The Tab that she believes pornography is a ''hot topic'' in modern society.
She said: ''The issue of pornography is prevalent in today's society; it's easily accessible online for people of any age, and seems to be increasingly covered in the news and on TV programmes.
''At the Union this term we've got the traditional debates on politics, foreign policy and the media, but I thought it was important to look at the bigger picture and debate a wider range of hot topics.
''Sexuality is something that everyone is very aware of and I want to create a proper discussion around it.
''But I am not making the debate controversial for the sake of it. I hope it will be both academic and lively.''
The groundbreaking debate will be held on February 17 in the Cambridge Union Society's historic debating chamber on Bridge street.
Anglais, real name Benedict Garrett, was suspended from his teaching post in Illford, Essex, in July last year after he was revealed as a porn star.
Ms Arrowsmith, 38, stood as a Liberal Democrat candidate in Kent in the last general election.
She said: ''I'm glad they are taking the topic seriously now. This issue is important for feminism, culture and censorship.
''I do well at these debates as when people really think about this issue they realise that porn is not the root of all our social problems.''
But Shelley Lubben, who appeared in 30 adult films and worked as a prostitute before becoming a born-again Christian, will argue against pornography.
She said: ''Porn is not glamorous. It destroys lives and is an industry of human trafficking and rampant sexually transmitted diseases that is destroying our nations and families of the world.
''Porn is a huge lie and I intend to expose it.''
US writer and self-proclaimed "Sexademic" Jessi Fischer, child psychologist Richard Woolfson and feminist sociologist Dr Gail Dines will also appear at the debate.
Since it was founded the society has played host to top politicians and celebrities including Sir Winston Churchill.
Guest speakers appearing at other debates this term will include Ashes-winning captain Mike Brearley and actor Sir Ian McKellen.