ReKindle-ing Concentration
Posted on 01. Sep, 2010 by Greg in Learning, Life 'n' that., Productivity, The FB Blog
This is not a Kindle review (seriously, there are already enough of them) but I’m just sharing my thoughts on why I’ve bought one. Concentrate, because this post is about concentration.
I had a good long play with an iPad at the weekend and I spent about two hours swearing. I was swearing at the fact that the usability of this unassuming silver tablet makes it more or less impossible to resist. I felt the money leaving my account. My pre-order for the Kindle 3 needed to be reappraised.
Strange then that I stuck by my Kindle order. I know it’s got a black and white screen, reading blogs or newspapers is stupidly expensive and the list of things it doesn’t do is a mile long. I suppose though, that this is the main part of it’s appeal for me. Single-purpose tools are going to be become increasingly rare. When you get flip-flops with an integrated bottle opener (please stop yourself from googling them because you think it’s a great idea…), you sort of know we’re in trouble.
Some recent research I read in the New York Times explains how our use of technology is rewiring our brains. On a personal level, I know I do far more “flitting” from one thing to another. An email or tweet comes in and the bubble of concentration is burst. The technology often wags me and not the other way round.
So I’ve gone for a device that, from my 24 hours of experience anyway, does one thing really well- it lets you read great value books. My theory is I’ll concentrate more. I’ll wag the Kindle.
My only disappointment is that it doesn’t open my beer.
David Moadel’s Top Behaviour Management Tips
Posted on 11. Aug, 2010 by Greg in Behaviour, The FB Blog
Behavior management, as a component of overall classroom management, is a critical part of any teacher’s success. This is especially true for new teachers, but applies to all classroom educators. Without a well-controlled class, there is no real, sustained learning. Furthermore, in a chaotic classroom atmosphere, students often feel afraid -and they have every reason to feel that way when students are out of control. Ultimately, the teacher is responsible for keeping student behavior under control. When I was a new educator, I wish that I could have known what I now know about behavior management. I had to learn some of these concepts the hard way. I hope that they can be of use to others pursuing careers in classroom teaching.
Please note that these ten tips are in no particular order, and are equally important.
* Have daily routines, and start them from the very first day of school. Some things in the classroom should be rock-solid and unchanging.
* Have a few rules for the class, and post them in a place where students can clearly see them.
* Do not embarrass, humiliate, or put down any student, ever. Resentment is a prime source of misbehavior.
* Address misbehavior swiftly. This includes even the smallest of breaches of class rules.
* Practice what you preach. Do not break your own rules or procedures.
* Keep your lessons interesting. Keep the way you address misbehavior uninteresting (i.e., predictable).
* Brag about how well behaved your students are. They will, sooner or later, meet the expectations that you set for them.
* Regularly reward (notice I used the word “reward,” not “bribe”) students when they behave well.
* Stay calm when addressing misbehavior. ”Losing your cool” will merely cause tense situations to get worse.
* Like your students. Trust me — they can sense whether you like them or not. They won’t care about you and your classroom if they know you don’t care about them.
I have taught students at numerous age and socio-economic levels, and these concepts have served me well in all situations. I hope that you will also find them useful as you strive to improve your classroom management skills.
David Moadel, educator, 38 years old, Boca Raton, Florida, USA
And we’re back.
Posted on 10. Aug, 2010 by Greg in The FB Blog
A busy year. Reading, researching, learning, teaching and consulting.
Yep, busy.
We’ve had a spring clean and I think you’ll agree that the website is about the same size and brightness.
We’ll kick off the new academic year(ish) with a guest post by US educator, David Moadel, who I came across whilst reading some reviews of one of Alfie Kohn‘s books.
I asked David to write his own Top Ten Behaviour Tips and he very kindly did so. Hopefully we’ll hear more from David soon.
What questions did you ask at school today?
Posted on 25. Jan, 2010 by Greg in The FB Blog
Apparently this is what Einstein’s mum used to ask him when he got home from school.
Before the main part of each of my geography lessons, I like to warm up minds with a question. The inspiration came from Tony Ryan’s Thinker’s Keys. I was running low on good questions so today I decided I’d ask the pupils for some questions. And here they are. All are designed to get students thinking. I’ll post again about how I use a structured conversation to hear answers from the class.
New Year, New You?
Posted on 28. Dec, 2009 by Greg in Behaviour, Life 'n' that., The FB Blog
Don’t you love New Year? Traditionally, it’s the time of year when we’re feeling a bit full or a bit fat or a bit like a like drunken tramp in training. If you’re anything like me, you won’t be feeling at your super-duper best. What many of us do right now is make promises to ourselves about how healthy and fit we’re going to be in the following year.
There’s one problem. Hardly ever, and please feel free to share your secret if this isn’t the case with you, do we actually keep many or any of these resolutions and if we do it’s only until about mid January. I have empirical evidence to support this. I used to have a gym membership and my good-lady wife and I used to go 2-3 times a week, every week. In January, we noticed something strange yet predictable. We couldn’t get in the car park. We saw people we’d never seen before. They wore brand new tracksuits. But they didn’t last. Much as these people wanted to, much as they knew their new lifestyle would make them happier and more energetic and less grumpy, for some reason in the third week of January lots of them stopped going to the gym. I could get back in the car park and could find a free cross-trainer. Bonus.
One of my theories about why we don’t follow through and do the stuff we’re pretty sure will improve our lives is to do with the bit of our brains that’s designed to keep us us. It’s the same bit of us that knows what we’re like so we are “ourselves” without having to think about it. The problem comes when we try to change ourselves- we then don’t recognise what we see, so we go back to the old “us”.
I’ve spoken about one of the methods for implementing change in previous posts- visualisation. You get your brain used to the new you by deliberately thinking about the new you before you become the new you. You bring about what you think about. You can take this a stage further and this might be the time of year to give this a try- write down what your behaviour will look like. Write it positively- (ie write what you want to do not what you don’t) and include words that let you know you’ll enjoy it.
Here’s one of mine for the new year:
“I enjoy eating healthy food and make preparations to do so.”
I’ve got about four or five of these going at any one time. I look at them as many times as I can each day. If that’s twice a day, that’s OK. If it’s five times a day, this is better. If it’s ten times a day and I spend a couple of minutes thinking about each one them then behaviour changes very quickly.
I’ve found that I need to return to some of my promises periodically. I like mulled wine and mince pies as much as the next mulled wine and mince pie lover but I don’t want my treats to become a lifestyle. They’re not really treats then are they?
A word about promises. Take the promises to yourself as seriously as you take the promises to others. It seems that easiest person in the world to let down is ourselves. My advice is not to make promises to yourself that you’re not going to keep. Every time you do you lose a bit of the power to change yourself. So choose your promises carefully. It doesn’t mean that because you didn’t promise yourself, you can’t have a go at the things you’re working on- but you take the pressure off yourself.
Enjoy the New Year everyone- no pressure.
Is the future all it’s cracked up to be?
Posted on 18. Nov, 2009 by Greg in Life 'n' that., The FB Blog
I spend a lot of time at work. Some other big chunks of my time are spent in bed, asleep. Historically though, the place I’ve spent most of my time is the future. My latest read is suggesting that spending too much time in the future (or the past for that matter) isn’t a good thing.
“The Power of Now” by Eckhart Toll does what it says on the proverbial tin. It expounds the virtues of living in the now.
Do you prefer the future or the past?
There are some obvious reasons why we might spend so much time in the past and the future. I have been known to pick over a particular event that occurred in my life for much longer than was healthy. I tried to make sense of it sometimes when there was no sense to make or benefit to gain. Often I would be aware that picking over the coals of an incident would do me no good; I still did though.
The future, meanwhile, holds our attention for other reasons. It promises happiness. The good stuff is just around the corner. If I can only get that job or buy that house or find the right partner- then, and only then, will I be happy. It took a long time to realise that for me, this wasn’t the case. Whilst, I’ve had troubles in my life, I’ve also ticked many of the boxes that I thought would make me happier. I then found I wasn’t much happier. I was just about the same level of happy. Ticking the boxes didn’t seem to help; if anything, it made things worse because I was hoping the box ticking was going to sort stuff out. I wasn’t depressed or sad even, I just wasn’t as happy as I thought these things would make me. My lovely family, house and hi-fi still seemed like they weren’t enough.
Is happiness around the corner?
I’m happier now that I’ve realised that happiness can be found in the moment. As Eckhart says:
Nothing ever happens in the past. Nothing ever happens in the future. Everything happens in the now.
I don’t think it’s possible or sensible not to think of the future at all. We need to plan our holidays and tomorrow night’s tea. We also need to have plans about how we’d like our lives to look on a more macro scale. (You may notice I advocate having a specific plan for behaviour in the classroom as well.) What I have learnt is that I need to be aware of why I’m spending time imagining the future.
I wondered where most people spend their time- past, present or future? Do certain people spend more time in the past than me and are there those that naturally spend much of their time in the present? I’d love to hear your thoughts- if you’re not too busy in the now.
Where is the humanity in a behavioural approach?
Posted on 19. Oct, 2009 by Greg in Behaviour
A recent comment on one of my previous posts (many thanks to CM for the stimulus) and some of the conversations I had at a seminar on Friday reminded me of the real antagonism there is in some quarters to any interpretation of a behavioural approach to behaviour management. I thought it would be useful to clarify exactly where I stand.
What is behaviourism?
Behaviourism developed initially as a revolt against the then prevailing ways of doing psychology. It advocated (and still does) that psychology should be a science of behaviour, without reference to mental states that cannot be observed. It looks specifically at how behaviours can be learnt and unlearnt through reward and punishment, reinforcement and extinction.
The points raised so vociferously by opponents of this approach when it is applied to children, are pretty obvious. We can’t ignore what children are feeling or thinking, how much food or sleep they’ve had, whether they have just lost their bus money or fallen out with a friend. They’d say that we are humans and individuals who should be treated as such.
They’d be right. We can’t ignore personal circumstances but we also can’t give all children all the time they might need each day to talk through these issues. Targeted mental health initiatives and the role of learning mentors and inclusion managers have rightly moved the spotlight more directly on to addressing the specific needs of individuals. So what place does a behavioural approach have alongside these person/child-centred ways of working with pupils and young people?
Why do you say “Thank you”?
If I say, “Thanks for looking this way John”, am I cynically trying manipulate him? Am I trying to reinforce this behaviour for my own benefit or am I, perhaps, expressing my genuine gratitude to him for allowing me and the rest of the class get on with the great lesson I’ve got planned for them. Is there no humanity in that? When you thank someone for making a cup of tea, are you really only saying it so that they make you more cups of tea in the future? The intention is key. Students and adults alike can see what your intention is very easily. They know whether or not you have their best interests at heart, whether you care, whether the consequences you give are fair and consistent or simply punitive and designed only with retribution in mind.
The vast majority of the child-centred work I have undertaken in my career was facilitated by the fact that I started with a broadly behavioural approach. Circle time, philosophy for children, work around emotional intelligence, PSHE, SEAL and great relationships are all much easier when you have a calm and controlled basis from which to start. I gained control and then let the power go. I need to communicate my expectations because however we look at it, the classroom should be a benevolent dictatorship. We’re going to have to make unilateral decisions on a regular basis but like all good leaders we’ll share our reasons for doing things as fully as possible.
A behavioural approach should be seen as a foundation
It should not be seen as a means to an end. It can be used with incredible effectiveness as the foundation to build the ethos of a school upon- but it should not form the basis of the ethos. It can allow teachers and students the time and the space to explore more effective and much more person/child-centred approaches. We can do this with impunity if we are satisfied that our humanity underpins our behaviour.
Thanks for reading- and I mean that.
What’s the plan for behaviour management? (The Slide Show)
Posted on 06. Oct, 2009 by Greg in Behaviour
We are having some personalised professional development sessions at school. These are the slides I presented to the eighteen colleagues who hoped my hour long session about behaviour management would be the least taxing of the options available.