There's a piece in the Observer today, about a piece of working I'm doing about children learning to ride bikes, which seems to me to sum up something about how early childhood is seen. The article gives a bit of an alarming impression of me "spearheading" an experiment to prove that stabilisers hold children's progress back when they are learning to ride a bike, the implication also being that parents who still use stabilisers are getting it all wrong. Actually it's all rather more muddled than that - just an idea, a little experiment to give children bikes without stabilisers and see what happens.
When I read the article, I thought - what if I had come back from a morning in the local park, damp, after putting the required hours into encouraging my child round on stabilisers, or holding the back of the seat in the time-honoured, back-paining manner, and read that I was doing it all wrong. That sense that you try your hardest, only for some so-called "expert" to say you got it wrong.
So - though the report is perfectly reasonable and fair, it comes across in a way that will, I think, make some parents feel that they have neglected the "best" way to do things. Hopefully other parents will read it and think that they learnt to ride a bike with stabilisers, as did the kids over the road, and who's to say all of a sudden it's all wrong?
To end on a personal note - I love my bike and I take special interest in how the children where I work start to learn to ride bikes. I felt increasingly turned off the traditional nursery school trikes because of seeing children simply tearing round on them for a year, or more, without really developing much. It was more like they were getting away from something...The wooden LikeABikes are tricky for children at first, but they soon get the hang of them, and it has been wonderful to see very little children managing to balance and zoom around on two-wheeled bikes. So I am excited by the prospect of doing more to introduce children to two-wheelers, and it seems to me that this is exactly what children's centres are for - to experiment, and to enjoy the capability of little children.
Since the piece in the Observer, I've had several emails from parents and others who have taught their children to ride by starting off with wooden two-wheeled bikes, and I've also been introduced to the concept of countersteering which might explain why stabilisers may not be as helpful as they seem. So I'm looking forward to seeing how the children get on over the summer and whether we can help a generation of nursery-leavers to be confident cyclists.
You can see some Islington children on the LikeABikes here.
Sunday, 16 March 2008
Saturday, 15 March 2008
Long gap
It's been over 2 months since I last wrote. I don't want this to become a ghost-blog, but the longer I don't write, the more I think of so much to write that I won't know where to start.
Ofsted
Since December, I've had yet another visit from Ofsted, making that 4 inspection visits since 2004. I've written a long piece about teacher professionalism, Ofsted and the terrors of performativity which is available here. I feel more than ever that Ofsted inspection really is a game, a performance, and was therefore very interested to read about the Ofsted whistleblower who states that the inspectors have exactly the same problems. She describes the work as being about meeting targets, with little time to spend on each inspection. As a result, the inspection process is about finding what you need to find - and it is not undertaken in a spirit of interest and enquiry. The Ofsted inspector is, in a sense, no more powerful in this system than the teacher or headteacher - although I would say that the stakes are much higher if, for example, you are a head, because your name, professional reputation and career are all on the line. Not many heads survive more than a few months after a poor Ofsted.
When I was asked at the end of the last inspection if I would like to train to be an inspector, I politely declined, saying I was too busy (true, but cowardly).
I think that one way of understanding the fix we seem to be in about the state of childhood in England - where we have, apparently, some of the most stressed, anxious, unhappy, unhealthy children in the world - is through this type of inspection "game". Everyone is bound by the rules in this closed system: teachers learn to play the game, but at the cost of authenticity, enjoyment, care for education. The game increasingly refers only to its own nature and past self: schools can dress things up to get a good Ofsted, and equally good schools can be careless of the performance and come out badly, and in both cases nothing of any value is discovered. The pressure in education rises, and for both teachers and children there are rewards for a "good performance". But none of this is about children, the space to be a child, developing a love of movement, books, drama, poetry, nature and numbers.
Changing education
I do occasionally feel some hope: there is a developing discussion about how much primary education is being distorted in England. There is an opportunity to state your views in a government consultation here, up to April 30th 2008. I think, from listening to Ed Balls (secretary of state for children, schools and families), that there is a genuine interest in what people submit. The government seems a bit lost to me, which at least creates potential for some discussion. This is also preferable to the "delivery mode" that people get into, for example Estelle Morris's call for the development of an official state pedagogy. Do we really want a small group of researchers, under the wing of the government, to decide on pedagogy, leaving teachers just in the role of delivering it? Apparently, some people do, and it looks like Estelle Morris hasn't really understood what was so damaging about her and David Blunkett's approach to education. My argument is that pedagogy is created amongst practitioners, in schools, working together: if both the content of the curriculum, and appropriate methods of teaching it, are centrally prescribed then we'll end up in the world of Nike: Just Do It.
Ofsted
Since December, I've had yet another visit from Ofsted, making that 4 inspection visits since 2004. I've written a long piece about teacher professionalism, Ofsted and the terrors of performativity which is available here. I feel more than ever that Ofsted inspection really is a game, a performance, and was therefore very interested to read about the Ofsted whistleblower who states that the inspectors have exactly the same problems. She describes the work as being about meeting targets, with little time to spend on each inspection. As a result, the inspection process is about finding what you need to find - and it is not undertaken in a spirit of interest and enquiry. The Ofsted inspector is, in a sense, no more powerful in this system than the teacher or headteacher - although I would say that the stakes are much higher if, for example, you are a head, because your name, professional reputation and career are all on the line. Not many heads survive more than a few months after a poor Ofsted.
When I was asked at the end of the last inspection if I would like to train to be an inspector, I politely declined, saying I was too busy (true, but cowardly).
I think that one way of understanding the fix we seem to be in about the state of childhood in England - where we have, apparently, some of the most stressed, anxious, unhappy, unhealthy children in the world - is through this type of inspection "game". Everyone is bound by the rules in this closed system: teachers learn to play the game, but at the cost of authenticity, enjoyment, care for education. The game increasingly refers only to its own nature and past self: schools can dress things up to get a good Ofsted, and equally good schools can be careless of the performance and come out badly, and in both cases nothing of any value is discovered. The pressure in education rises, and for both teachers and children there are rewards for a "good performance". But none of this is about children, the space to be a child, developing a love of movement, books, drama, poetry, nature and numbers.
Changing education
I do occasionally feel some hope: there is a developing discussion about how much primary education is being distorted in England. There is an opportunity to state your views in a government consultation here, up to April 30th 2008. I think, from listening to Ed Balls (secretary of state for children, schools and families), that there is a genuine interest in what people submit. The government seems a bit lost to me, which at least creates potential for some discussion. This is also preferable to the "delivery mode" that people get into, for example Estelle Morris's call for the development of an official state pedagogy. Do we really want a small group of researchers, under the wing of the government, to decide on pedagogy, leaving teachers just in the role of delivering it? Apparently, some people do, and it looks like Estelle Morris hasn't really understood what was so damaging about her and David Blunkett's approach to education. My argument is that pedagogy is created amongst practitioners, in schools, working together: if both the content of the curriculum, and appropriate methods of teaching it, are centrally prescribed then we'll end up in the world of Nike: Just Do It.
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