- If you are sensitive to expletives, please stop reading now.
It’s Friday and I need a stiff drink. I have just spent first week as Advisory Teacher at our Big Picture school.
This is about as remote as it gets from the quiet of a desk at Moodle HQ. It is also remote from many a schools I have seen, worked in or read about.
For all the prep on Big Picture (an educational philosophy our school follows), I started the week with a teacher hat on. I had plans. Plans not for some stellar didactic performance but just some simple, ‘engaging’ (or so I thought…) activities, basic get to know you and perhaps a beginning of what I have always been about – valuing (good) questions over answers. Plans for (short) periods of time, where I would be listened to by students in my class, uninterrupted, with some important things to say. Plans for students to express, share a few non-threatening details and ideas…
Well, most I and the whole class got of that at one time was a few minutes. I have seriously re-thought full group (and I ‘only’ have seven kids at most in my class) activities. Cut them down to absolute bare bones.
We are a Big Picture school, an approach that, put broadly, is all about students pursuing their passions and interests. It’s about letting go of teacher over the head telling students what to do about something that the teacher, not necessarily the student, is passionate about. It’s about letting go, judiciously but deliberately, to build resilient, independent learners.
So I asked the students to create above their ‘station’ in our class a wall of images about their passions and interests. Well, serves me right for asking that – I got a wall of images of alcohol, weed, a few bikes and singers thrown in and a bit of soft porn which I requested to be taken down.
This was my first week in a new school with new kids who are so acutely sensitive to criticism, lack of trust because they have had little of it elsewhere. At the same time, these aren’t some poor angels but red and raw teenagers who’d love to get one over you just for the fun of it sometimes. With the lack of ‘history’ at the school, I found myself often relying on gut-feel on what is OK and what I should sometimes let go. One wrong presumption and bridges could be burned or damaged at least, one wrong presumption and I will be a soft target for sometimes cruel teenage jokes.
Sprinkle of a few memorable quotes:
- Asking for students’ perception of this school, Day 1: “Do you know what this school is? We are retards and dumb c***s.”
- Creating a login for Moodle that requires 8 characters, 1 capital, 1 number: “This is f***ed. It’s too hard I am giving up.”
- Student: “Just don’t tell s**t to my mum because that ‘expletive 1, expletive 2, expletive 3, expletive 4’ of her boyfriend will find out and kick the s**t out of me.”
- Student: “F**k off.”
Me: “Listen. Nobody tells me to f**k off in my face. If you were 18 and we met out on the street you’d be lucky if I didn’t slap you.”
Student: “OK, sorry about that.”
Me: “Apology accepted.”
After that, the student was genuinely very kind to me. An icebreaker of a kind :D. I ended up giving her a Gotcha! Award [recognition of good things] for being reasonable, courteous and quite polite.
- Catching a repeat smoker: “This country is going down the c***hole. It’s cheaper to have and smoke weed and supply it than cigarettes. For weed you get ……. and for smokes you get ….. (the student ranted on but quoted exact and correct penalties for both as per current legislation – I only knew a part of it myself).”
and many, many more like that.
Yes, we have managed to offend just about all nice, middle-class sensibilities. To thousands of teaching colleagues, this would be horror, Hades personified!
Ours is not your ‘regular’ school. It is for kids who(m) mainstream schools in this ‘tough’ and largely ‘low socio-economic area’ (because ‘poverty’ is a dirty word and only happens in places like Africa, right?) just couldn’t or wouldn’t cater for. We have a group of about 90 kids who have come to this place as ‘terrors’, ‘freaks’, ‘no hopers’, ‘lost cases’, ‘druggies, ‘losers’ … sure you get the picture. It’s a mix of acutely shy ones, (ex)bullies, homeless, kids from broken, dysfunctional families, chronic taggers, spoiled teen brats, kids with degrees of mental illness (well, don’t we all…) and more (and not just with negative baggage here either!).
The name of the game here is confidence. Confidence to have a go. Confidence to imagine, express yourself, and preferably in ways that don’t include abusing oneself or others. Start small, think big.
And to work here, you need to have the longest fuse in the world.
But this is a magical place. No, truly.
This is a place where when an often truant, disruptive (yada, yada, yada, you know how a typical stereotype goes…) Aboriginal kid comes to school and the staff go: “Oh great, ‘Benny’ (not his real name) is here today!” (he is in my class, too 😀 )
This is a place where you hear a kid who got kicked out of a couple of schools for bullying quietly saying: “I want to leave that behind. I want to do better than that.”
This is a place where you see a kid who would not interact with anyone only a few months ago now plays a ball game with a few others.
This is a place where a staff member replies to a student, screaming: “I’m f*****g going home you expletive 1, expletive 2, expletive 3…” with “You know you can go but we are here for you.” The student in question is homeless.
This is a place where staff within 10 minutes board up ideas for an excursion and volunteer for tasks in great spirit, no fuss or excuses.
This is a place where the most reserved of students momentarily overcame the fear of standing in front of others and share an honest line or two about a much loved educational assistant who recently passed away.
This is a place where a shy, quiet student comes up with his first own Independent Learning Plan that includes interviewing adults in the workplace. Huge!
This is a place where students go to the library to pick up a book or check out an audio book for possibly the first time.
This is a place where the principal addresses the conversation about merit of giving ‘Gotcha! Awards’ to either every student or only those ‘outstanding ones’ with the words: “For many years I have heard this argument about ‘diminishing the value of the award by giving it to everyone.Well, I’d rather diminish the value of the award than the value of the child. If we can’t find something good, no matter how little, in each kid in front us, we are not doing our job.”
We have just returned from a barbecue on the beach with the students. Yes, we chased a few through the dunes, told them off for this and that. But we also played 3 on 3 basket, kicked a football, cooked sausages, teased and photographed each other and shared many of those little, precious, golden moments with the kids that build the bridges of relationships and confidence to have a go.
Make no mistake – this is not an easy teaching/education gig! But thanks to the amazing staff with the right ‘chemistry’ even after a few days together we are on track to ‘let go’ judiciously and have the kids experience something few of them have in the past – confidence to get out bed for something that deep down they want to be remembered for.
And that sort of thing grows on your heart, no matter how hard it may be sometimes.
Thanks team, see you on Monday!
Epilogue:
This post was removed after a few days by request of a person whom I respect way too much to make petty issue with.
Today, a few days from the initial posting, this message arrived to my principal from the head of the umbrella organisation our school belongs to and who was one of the main drivers to set up our school:
“… has read the blog [post] and, like me, was quite moved.
When I read it I felt proud of why we set up this school and what we are achieving with these kids.
Our view is we need to have the courage to let Tomaz say this stuff. We understand your concerns about others taking a sentence here or there, but the best defence we can offer is to say “read the blog, read the whole blog, and then tell me what you’re problem is”.
The whole blog is utterly defensible and should be available for all to read.”
Even after such a short time, I am proud to be a part of this organisation, truly.
And if you ever get people whining about ‘why one shouldn’t blog’, feel free to knock them on the head with this.
Tomaz Lasic
But wait … Letting go – again (part 2)
Oh this is brilliant and so inspiring Tomaz. I could write an essay about this whole thing but I can’t see the screen for the tears in my eyes 🙂 Keep on letting go!
Oh this is brilliant and so inspiring Tomaz. I could write an essay about this whole thing but I can’t see the screen for the tears in my eyes 🙂 Keep on letting go!
Go Tomaz! Big start.
Re: your F*off experience.
I once had a student in my year 7 Maths strugglers class who was always cranky. Well, at least 80% of the time. Once while doing some work, she was rather cranky as she was asking me a question. I know part of the problem is frustration for struggling – doing Maths wasn’t easy for her nor most of my class for that matter. Anyway, I said ” Why are you always so angry?” in a non-confronting, just curious way. You know, she pulled herself up and said, “Am I?” She was never cranky in my class again. I never really found out why but my guess is my initial assessment of frustration was right. What made her change I think – and this is important – was that for the first time, someone pulled her up and made her see what she was doing…and that it wasn’t acceptable. She was noticed. Someone cared enough to tell her. That’s important.
Keep up the optimism and the good work. If it all gets too hard, remember the dream, the big picture.
Go Tomaz! Big start.
Re: your F*off experience.
I once had a student in my year 7 Maths strugglers class who was always cranky. Well, at least 80% of the time. Once while doing some work, she was rather cranky as she was asking me a question. I know part of the problem is frustration for struggling – doing Maths wasn’t easy for her nor most of my class for that matter. Anyway, I said ” Why are you always so angry?” in a non-confronting, just curious way. You know, she pulled herself up and said, “Am I?” She was never cranky in my class again. I never really found out why but my guess is my initial assessment of frustration was right. What made her change I think – and this is important – was that for the first time, someone pulled her up and made her see what she was doing…and that it wasn’t acceptable. She was noticed. Someone cared enough to tell her. That’s important.
Keep up the optimism and the good work. If it all gets too hard, remember the dream, the big picture.
Tomaz,
Well I have much to say in support but I’ll limit it to “You go guy”; it’s the right work! I suggest that you read some Choice Theory and connect with the William Glasser institute for some ideas and strategies. I work in Virginia at a Glasser Quality School (www.k12albemarle.org/murrayhs). Our website might have some ideas for you! It really isn’t any less painful to be told to f@@@ off by a middle class kid in a BMW, than it is by a homeless child. They all have their different crosses to bear and all want to be noticed, hugged, and partnered with in their learning.
Ashby
Tomaz,
Well I have much to say in support but I’ll limit it to “You go guy”; it’s the right work! I suggest that you read some Choice Theory and connect with the William Glasser institute for some ideas and strategies. I work in Virginia at a Glasser Quality School (www.k12albemarle.org/murrayhs). Our website might have some ideas for you! It really isn’t any less painful to be told to f@@@ off by a middle class kid in a BMW, than it is by a homeless child. They all have their different crosses to bear and all want to be noticed, hugged, and partnered with in their learning.
Ashby
Tomaz, amazed, encouraged and humbled all in one by this reflection.
I’m a few weeks into a 8 week placement at a “low socio-economic” school as part of my teacher training. While not in the same league as your school, there are echoes of your students in some of the students I see. After only 3 days at school this week, I felt as much in need of a stiff drink as you.
Why the frustration?
While some of the students can be seen as wayward, that wasn’t the frustration. Instead, it was seeing how the constraints of the school system, the room in which I teach, and the students experience of school to date are not only arguably significantly responsible for the students behaviour, but also probably the biggest barrier to turning them around. The advice I keep hearing is along the lines “The best you can hope for is to teach to the middle and bring some along.” The apparent acceptance of the impossibility of connecting with all the students is part of the frustration. Not yet having the insight and experience to effectively battle against this barrier is also frustrating.
All there is to do is to keep trying. Keep looking for new ideas, trying them out and seeing if there’s a chance to connect with these students. Especially given the potential that I can see in those kids. But given they are 10.5 years into their educational experience……
Kudos to you Tomaz and the Big Picture school folk for trying something different and trying to connect to your students. It’s needed. In fact, the more I see of schools, the more I wonder whether significant rethinking of the school experience is the only way to help the majority of students in schools. Talented individual teachers, groups, departments, or even schools trying to make changes doesn’t feel like it’s going to make a lasting difference. Something more fundamental is needed.
Tomaz, amazed, encouraged and humbled all in one by this reflection.
I’m a few weeks into a 8 week placement at a “low socio-economic” school as part of my teacher training. While not in the same league as your school, there are echoes of your students in some of the students I see. After only 3 days at school this week, I felt as much in need of a stiff drink as you.
Why the frustration?
While some of the students can be seen as wayward, that wasn’t the frustration. Instead, it was seeing how the constraints of the school system, the room in which I teach, and the students experience of school to date are not only arguably significantly responsible for the students behaviour, but also probably the biggest barrier to turning them around. The advice I keep hearing is along the lines “The best you can hope for is to teach to the middle and bring some along.” The apparent acceptance of the impossibility of connecting with all the students is part of the frustration. Not yet having the insight and experience to effectively battle against this barrier is also frustrating.
All there is to do is to keep trying. Keep looking for new ideas, trying them out and seeing if there’s a chance to connect with these students. Especially given the potential that I can see in those kids. But given they are 10.5 years into their educational experience……
Kudos to you Tomaz and the Big Picture school folk for trying something different and trying to connect to your students. It’s needed. In fact, the more I see of schools, the more I wonder whether significant rethinking of the school experience is the only way to help the majority of students in schools. Talented individual teachers, groups, departments, or even schools trying to make changes doesn’t feel like it’s going to make a lasting difference. Something more fundamental is needed.
Good to see you back where you belong.
Good to see you back where you belong.
“But thanks to the amazing staff with the right ‘chemistry’ even after a few days together we are on track to ‘let go’ judiciously and have the kids experience something few of them have in the past – confidence to get out bed for something that deep down they want to be remembered for.” Tomaz.
Very well written Tomaz and so encouraging for us all in this work which can be so messy at times. Congrats to you and the staff. This work really is a team approach.
“Letting go”, is the key for us as teachers who are trained to maintain control. It is in our being to be in charge and direct all before us. When we do let go of our ‘curriculum’ and the way everything should be neat and tidy, and allow our students to take ownership of their learning, our young people will start to find who they are and do great things.
Please share your journey to the rest of us in Big Picture as it will be a great encouragement.
“But thanks to the amazing staff with the right ‘chemistry’ even after a few days together we are on track to ‘let go’ judiciously and have the kids experience something few of them have in the past – confidence to get out bed for something that deep down they want to be remembered for.” Tomaz.
Very well written Tomaz and so encouraging for us all in this work which can be so messy at times. Congrats to you and the staff. This work really is a team approach.
“Letting go”, is the key for us as teachers who are trained to maintain control. It is in our being to be in charge and direct all before us. When we do let go of our ‘curriculum’ and the way everything should be neat and tidy, and allow our students to take ownership of their learning, our young people will start to find who they are and do great things.
Please share your journey to the rest of us in Big Picture as it will be a great encouragement.
Thanks for being one of the few somebodies for these students. If only we didn’t have to put students through a system and instead we developed organic learning experiences. I’m tired of prepping students for tests. I love seeing learning in action and talk.
Thanks for being one of the few somebodies for these students. If only we didn’t have to put students through a system and instead we developed organic learning experiences. I’m tired of prepping students for tests. I love seeing learning in action and talk.
Thank you David for your kind words and insights. They certainly strike a chord.
Indeed, many students, if not most, and particularly teachers, are schooled in the game of schooling. It’s comforting and it works, for many. ‘Teaching to the middle’ and chasing the elusive, blanket, remotely set ‘high’ standards (or rather, high levels of standardness…), teachers as holders of (only) valuable knowledge armed with an array of strategies of ‘getting that stuff into their heads’ is a formidable challenge to change you (and I, presumably) speak of.
This is why I’ve ‘signed up’ for Big Picture. I had refused to be a technician in the service of an empire and rather be something I went to education for in the first place – to help myself and others find and live a meaningful, stimulating, ethical and happy life.
And speaking of Big Picture, it doesn’t work just with the likes of kids you and I are working with these days. Give Big Picture to some awesomely talented and gifted (another word for confident so often) kid and watch them fly! I have maintained over the years that the two places the most lasting radical change has a chance, at least initially, is at the two ends of socio-economic continuum (yada, yada … you know the indicators, right?). With the uber-resourced and motivated and the under-resourced, bashed around, none of whom are chasing some middle-of-the-road dream. Only with those, for now that is, can you throw the book out and do some amazingly and fundamentally different stuff that may just move the glacial middle.
Having said that, Big Picture is not a cure-all. Some ‘traditional’ schools work fantastically well and as much as I’d lile Big Picture spread to as many schools as possible, I would never posit it as THE blanket solution to our educational ills.
But only after a week working with the framework in the circustances described, I can see it slowly working well in the present and particularly in the future.
Cheers.
Tomaz
Thank you David for your kind words and insights. They certainly strike a chord.
Indeed, many students, if not most, and particularly teachers, are schooled in the game of schooling. It’s comforting and it works, for many. ‘Teaching to the middle’ and chasing the elusive, blanket, remotely set ‘high’ standards (or rather, high levels of standardness…), teachers as holders of (only) valuable knowledge armed with an array of strategies of ‘getting that stuff into their heads’ is a formidable challenge to change you (and I, presumably) speak of.
This is why I’ve ‘signed up’ for Big Picture. I had refused to be a technician in the service of an empire and rather be something I went to education for in the first place – to help myself and others find and live a meaningful, stimulating, ethical and happy life.
And speaking of Big Picture, it doesn’t work just with the likes of kids you and I are working with these days. Give Big Picture to some awesomely talented and gifted (another word for confident so often) kid and watch them fly! I have maintained over the years that the two places the most lasting radical change has a chance, at least initially, is at the two ends of socio-economic continuum (yada, yada … you know the indicators, right?). With the uber-resourced and motivated and the under-resourced, bashed around, none of whom are chasing some middle-of-the-road dream. Only with those, for now that is, can you throw the book out and do some amazingly and fundamentally different stuff that may just move the glacial middle.
Having said that, Big Picture is not a cure-all. Some ‘traditional’ schools work fantastically well and as much as I’d lile Big Picture spread to as many schools as possible, I would never posit it as THE blanket solution to our educational ills.
But only after a week working with the framework in the circustances described, I can see it slowly working well in the present and particularly in the future.
Cheers.
Tomaz
Cheers Geoff. Not to worry, there will be more of letting go for sure 😀
I firmly believe Big Picture, used wisely, is a wonderful opportunity for us at the school and these kids to relish what got us, deep down, in this education game in the first place.
Cheers Geoff. Not to worry, there will be more of letting go for sure 😀
I firmly believe Big Picture, used wisely, is a wonderful opportunity for us at the school and these kids to relish what got us, deep down, in this education game in the first place.
Hi Ashby
Thank you. Pam Moran told me to ‘expect a call’ from you guys, mentioning the (similar) work you do. I look forward to our collaboration, plenty we could learn from you … well, each other.
If you wish to get in touch with me, feel free to email me (moodlefan at gmail dot com) or Twitter @lasic.
Regards
Tomaz
Hi Ashby
Thank you. Pam Moran told me to ‘expect a call’ from you guys, mentioning the (similar) work you do. I look forward to our collaboration, plenty we could learn from you … well, each other.
If you wish to get in touch with me, feel free to email me (moodlefan at gmail dot com) or Twitter @lasic.
Regards
Tomaz
Hi Malyn
Indeed! When you think about it, we’ve probably all had moments like that in one form or another.
Big Picture’s ‘three R’s are: Relationship, Rigour and Relevance. Bids well doesn’t it?
Regards
Tomaz
Hi Malyn
Indeed! When you think about it, we’ve probably all had moments like that in one form or another.
Big Picture’s ‘three R’s are: Relationship, Rigour and Relevance. Bids well doesn’t it?
Regards
Tomaz
You know what I value most in your expected post my friend?
Technology is put in it’s rightful place.
Human as always. Welcome back.
You know what I value most in your expected post my friend?
Technology is put in it’s rightful place.
Human as always. Welcome back.
The Epilogue….Brilliant result. So pleased for you, the team and the kids.
The Epilogue….Brilliant result. So pleased for you, the team and the kids.
Fascinating. Good to see the post back up.
“Normal” school can sometimes be injurious to our education. Need to unschool a bit.
Go well Tomaz.
Fascinating. Good to see the post back up.
“Normal” school can sometimes be injurious to our education. Need to unschool a bit.
Go well Tomaz.
Onya. Someone has to take the boken ones and play TANK. Everyone needs someone to run to, no matter how hard they think they are. If people are affraid when some one blogs as a TANK, then shame on them. The world is not nice, not logical and not rational. Sensibilities be dammed. Tests and exams don’t make the world better, people do – and to be brutal, the way society works is completely unfair to those for whom ‘fair’ has never been an option. Go you.
Onya. Someone has to take the boken ones and play TANK. Everyone needs someone to run to, no matter how hard they think they are. If people are affraid when some one blogs as a TANK, then shame on them. The world is not nice, not logical and not rational. Sensibilities be dammed. Tests and exams don’t make the world better, people do – and to be brutal, the way society works is completely unfair to those for whom ‘fair’ has never been an option. Go you.
Glad to be able to read this and glad it is back up…
Glad to be able to read this and glad it is back up…