Teach on ladders

11/06/2022

https://teachonladders.com/blog/f/unpredictable-motivation

Step ladder to success - Movie - The Shawshank Redemption

05/06/2022

Stepladder to success:

Kerr, J. (2013) Legacy: What the All Blacks can teach us about the business of life, London UJ, Constable

Senge, P. (2006). The Fifth Discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. Random House Books.

“The best sportspeople in the world practice more than they play. Business people should practice too. They should go home at night and analyze their day's performance. They don’t and they need to. To be good at something takes practice and lots of it.” Legacy, James Kerr, page 60

Football teams are successful only if they are well drilled. They understand their purpose, they have knowledge of the team philosophy and they have identified the weakness of the opposition. They all have a job to do and they practice performing that job every day. In fact for professional teams the game on the weekend, while being the focus of the week, is not the first time they have played. If you watch teams warming up before games they can be out there running through drills on the field for as long as the game is going to go. They spend all week training in different situations. Players are expected to know how to respond to various formations, positions on the field, and weather conditions, and they practice over and over again until everyone is working as a team.

When do teachers practice?

Teachers spend time at universities learning the craft of teaching and understanding the theory of teaching. When they are finished they go straight to the ‘team’ (school) and are put in the starting lineup and expected to achieve and create achievement for all the students. James Kerr’s excellent book Legacy identifies why the All Blacks are the most successful team in sporting history, how they got there, and what they need to do to stay there. This involves practice. But teachers practicing their craft, what would that look like?

I have seen soccer players and basketball players work on getting their footwork correct. They can’t take the shot until their feet are in the right position. They need to make sure their hips and knees are positioned perfectly when they get the ball so the shot can be taken quickly and time is not lost getting into position after the ball has been passed.

Teachers can do that. Move around the classroom and consider their footwork. Where should I stand in this part of the room? Who can I see easily? How should I be facing when I am speaking to this student? If I have to get low, what position should I be in? Who are the students I need to be aware of? What students will be on my ‘blind side’? When I am writing on the board who can’t see the board, who doesn’t want to see the board? How can I respond to this? Practice moving around the room, and practice writing on the board. How long does it take to get from the front of the room to the back? What is the best route? What is the common route that is taken that allows those not on the route to not have their work checked? Time how long it takes to touch every desk. This becomes part of your personal data set. I have 5 minutes before lunch, I can see everyone’s work in three minutes if I go now.

How about moving around the school as a class group. Transitions can sometimes be the places where incidents, accidents, and misconduct takes place. How fast do I walk? How fast do the students walk? Where should I walk – in front or behind? Where are the children going? Do they know and can they be led without being observed, or do I need to walk behind and watch the progress? Teachers need to practice the art of moving students. Across the school, across the road, upstairs, and around corners all need different strategies and approaches, and they all depend on the behaviour and aptitude of the students in the class.

Football players know their opponent; Where they stand, how they run, what foot they step off, what hand they fend with, their favourite move, and how long it takes to reach maximum speed.

Teachers can do that. What behaviour am I expecting from these students? What will that look/sound like? How will they respond when I respond? What comment creates the most impact/least impact? What’s their favourite move? How long does it take for them to reach maximum distraction? What support players are they relying on to pass the ‘ball’?

What other ways could teachers practice?

“Team learning, like any discipline, requires practice. Yet this is exactly what teams in modern organisations lack. Imagine trying to build a great theatre ensemble or a great symphony without rehearsal. Imagine a championship sports team without practice. In fact, the process by which sports learn is through continual movement between practice and performance. Perform, practice, perform, practice, perform.”

Peter M Senge, The Fifth Discipline, Page 238

The fear is that if teachers don’t practice they cant improve and don’t perform. They simply improve at mediocrity. Quality teachers are professionals and just as football players and musicians would never enter the stage without putting in the hours of practice on the training paddock or in the soundproof room, neither should quality teachers. Practice in an empty classroom. No one is watching so we can make mistakes and learn. It involves getting a peer or mentor to watch you speak and move around a room with no students. If you think that is embarrassing, consider how embarrassing it is for students to be bored, to not learn, to not be engaged. It may involve filming yourself teaching and being reflective enough to see the students unengaged.

When the quality teacher is ready they will enter the 'stage' and 'perform' in front of the audience. Their performance should be the rival of every football star and musician in the world. They create learning.

Quality teachers should read Legacy by James Kerr. He has much to offer the teaching profession.

31/05/2022

Pressfield, S. (2012). The war of art: Break through the blocks and win your inner creative battles.

Gallwey, W. T. (1979). The inner game of tennis. Toronto: Bantam Books.

Podcast - The Tim Ferris’ show, ( #501) Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey

In the excellent books, The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Galway, and Steven Pressfield’s notable work, The War of Art, the idea of Ego is explored. It is well worth reflecting on the role of the Ego in the classroom from the teacher and student perspectives.

The Ego is who you are. It has been built by your experiences, your choices, and your understanding of your role in the world. The Ego is very important as it sets the boundaries for who you are as a person. It knows you, it understands you, it worships you, but like the gods of old, it also sets you in a concrete shell from which it does not want you to leave. The Ego knows that you are good at football but not Math. It knows that you excel at reading but not writing. The Ego is familiar with your experience with your students, but your lack of social skills with your peers. The Ego supports you in knowing who you are and it is a net that you can fall back on when things get too hard.

If ever you feel that there may be more of you, more that you can offer, more interests, abilities, and skills that you can develop. The Ego sends the Resistance. The Resistance, as wonderfully realised in The War of Art, does not want you to leave the shelter, the boundaries, the wall that the Ego has built around you to protect you from yourself. It doesn’t want you to fail, it doesn’t want you to lose, and it doesn’t want you to lose faith in the Ego that has supported you and cared for you for your whole life. The Resistance believes it is there to stop you from being hurt. It’s not. It is there to stop you from leaving the loving embrace of the Ego. Anything you (Ego) can do was because the Ego allowed you to do it. Your (Ego) skillset and determination are what enable you to complete that task. The Resistance is what is stopping you, slowing you down, preventing you from moving forward.

The Self is you without the Ego. As it is described in The Inner Game of Tennis, the body can move and play without the Ego. Sometimes that tennis shot, that golf shot, that speech, that idea, that maths solution was so perfect and fluid that it makes you think, why can’t I do that all the time. Your Ego will not let you, but your Self knows. Your Self has the capacity, the skills, or the interests to try and experience new things. The Self engages in conversations and thinking that can be productive if you can keep the Ego away. The Self wants to learn, develop, make mistakes and recognise potential. The Self is the part of you who can be better and can move to greater heights. The Self is the part of you who tries that new subject with no thoughts about failing or succeeding, but about what can be learned in this situation.

When this happens the Ego sends Resistance in to make sure you stay in your lane. Because if the Ego is threatened then who you are may be subject to change. Who you are may be different from who you were. Who you could be may be different from who you are. What you can do is about to be challenged to what you can do now. The Resistance goes against you, puts obstacles in your way, it screams at you that you are hopeless, that you will fail, that you will not be loved, you will be laughed at, and you will lose your friends and family. It will conjure up images of imagined problems, regrets, and hazards. It will put you in touch with others who have failed, and expose you to what they have lost. The Resistance will demand that you obey the Ego and be subject to its limitations. Consider the demeaning words of Loki that express, in the movie Avengers, the very definition of Ego.

“Is not this simpler? Is this not your natural state? It’s the unspoken truth of humanity that you crave subjugation.

The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life’s joy in a mad scramble for power. For identity.

You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel.”
Loki (Tom Hiddleston) – Avengers (2012) Walt Disney Studio Motion Pictures

Challenge that thought. Challenge that idea. Be bold and brave as a teacher to be your Self. Encourage your students to be them Self. Don’t allow their life choices, experiences, and expectations to be guided by their Ego. Don’t allow their baggage to bear witness to their potential. Don’t allow their limitations to be set by the Ego that wishes them to be less than, to be smaller than, to be shallow. Get students to trust in their Self, to dive into the waters of learning, and experience the rush of new ideas and thinking. Teachers can also be just as susceptible to the Ego, in fact, one could say more so. They have years of thinking the way they think, and they think that this is the way they think. Where did that thought come from – Ego. They have acted the way they have because that is all they can do – the Ego told them that. They may only be a teacher because that is all they thought they can do – the Ego has set the terms for their life and now we live in that path, that lane. We are directed that way with the Ego setting obstacles to avoid us going down Creative Street, and blocking us from accessing Possibility Avenue. It is only through intentionally exposing ourselves to new ideas that we begin to challenge our Ego, and begin listening to the opportunities that Self wants to show us.

Reading books exposes the Self to different perspectives. It draws out the Resistance into the light to be seen and understood. Reading books allows you to identify the different roles that Ego, Self, and Resistance have played in your life. Listening to the excellent Tim Ferriss podcast, Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey ( #501) enables you to recognise the different sides of you.

Teachers and students spend their whole school life defending their Ego and listening to Resistance. No one is safe from this, and everybody needs to be directed to see their true Self. Most importantly quality teachers need to resist the Resistance and follow the Self for the most important reason - Students will travel down a path based on the Ego of the teacher:

“I am no good at teaching Maths” – now a whole class of students is not engaged in Maths because of the teacher's Ego.
“I can't teach Science” – the teacher's Ego is now affecting the next generation of potential scientific thinking in students.
"Let's just use worksheets" - fear of student engagement, and the teacher's Resistance, now affect a generation of students from thinking creatively.

To be a quality teacher you need to consider the Ego, the Resistance, and the Self. When you teach, when you plan, and when you live, you will be taking advice from someone. Take care of whose advice you are listening to, and check if they have your best interests at heart.

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield is recommended reading for everyone, but especially teachers. So to the Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Galway. The lessons that can be drawn from those books in teaching are numerous and important. If you can't find the learning, maybe it is because the Resistance is not allowing you.

Read these books to step up into Quality Teaching.

https://teachonladders.com/blog/f/the-three-of-me

31/05/2022

“We are like actors who forget that they are playing a role. We become trapped in the theatre of our thoughts. This is when thought starts to become incoherent. Reality may change but the theatre continues.

We operate in the theatre, defining problems, taking actions, solving problems, losing touch with the larger reality from which the theatre was generated.”
Page 241 The Fifth Discipline by Peter M Senge

For the teacher, the classroom is the stage. We teach, we learn, and we encourage. We act, we demonstrate, we laugh and cry according to the improvisation needed in the 'scene' in the classroom. We demonstrate anger for behaviour when we have to, although we have no anger inside us. We show sadness when we hear about a pet that passed away, but we have no emotions about the animal one way or the other. It is all an act. But occasionally we become so fixed on the actors in the room that we forget that the classroom is the stage and therefore we lack the greater reality for which we were placed in the role.

We are not there to create successful students, we are there to create successful citizens, humans, and contributors to society. Teachers often get sidetracked into their own importance, in their own professional standards of professional excellence, and forget the future trades, apprentices, graduates, entrepreneurs, and factory workers that are in the room. We look at failure in the classroom as failure in life. We forget that we are as far from real life as possible.

Students at school can receive encouragement, grades, second attempts, and air-conditioned rooms. The world they are working in can be vastly different. Allow students the chance to learn and grow, but don’t take yourself too seriously. We are actors on a stage without realising the stage has limits in length and depth. Yet the students are transitioning to a world stage of no length, and the only depth they have is what they create in themselves. We expect children to ‘play the role’ of students in the classroom, but we forget that we are actually playing the minor role of the teacher in the episodic mis-adventure of their lives. We surround the students with props that we have used, created, or provided without realising that they have to develop, create or find their own ‘props’ in their lives.

Worst of all we think there is a script they need to follow. There is no script. Your interactions with them have no bearing on the real world. Their interactions with you can make you feel like a great/poor teacher, but actually, you will never really know. The script has plots, stories, complications, resolutions, and consequences. But life is a script that students need to create for themselves. The classroom is the theatre in which ideas and thinking can be explored in isolation and with a safety net in preparation for the day that they will emerge into the spotlight of the first day of their lives with no script, plot, or props, and the only character they have will be the part they have been practicing at school.

Be proficient in your preparations, be respectful of your relationships, and demonstrate ethics in your desire to create higher learning. Act responsibly, act professionally, and act with integrity. Just don't 'act' like a teacher.

The book The Fifth Discipline is a fantastic read as it explores many concepts relating to systems, structures, and success. It will be referred to in other posts.

Senge, Peter M. The Fifth Discipline: the Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. New York:Doubleday/Currency, 1990.

https://teachonladders.com/blog/f/what-is-your-teaching-role

23/05/2022

We see life as a journey. Every journey has a beginning, a middle and an end. The story is in the journey. Live your life as an adventure and see where the trip will take you.

Maybe not.

What if life is like ripples? You step in the water of life and you create concentric circles of ripples that go in all directions.....

Read more at: https://teachonladders.com/blog/f/creating-ripples-of-learning

www.teachonladders.com

22/05/2022

An Honest Climb into Quality Teaching

22/05/2022

“Let no one rob me of a single day who is not going to make me an adequate return for my loss.”
Seneca, The Shortness of Life, page 70

Let us take our first step up the ladder. The world of the student looks very different from the perspective of a ladder. We can look down on not only what they are doing, but what we are doing with and for them. The reason we teach is to enable learning to happen and for students to develop skills. But when we look from the ladder it is important to recognise what difference our teaching is having on their learning. Students enter the classroom with a wide range of emotions and motivations. It is up to the teacher to direct their energy levels towards success. But the question still remains what does success mean for the students or the teacher? Until that fact remains obvious and at the core of everything that takes place in the classroom, then do not expect classrooms to be engaging and students to achieve. Through the steps in the ladders that various books have provided, I believe there are some interesting points to consider.
www.teachonladders.com