Why Do We Need Half of our Holidays at the Same Time?

So this morning I woke up to a new future. No, not the UK’s departure from Europe. This is all about me. I’m on holidays for six and a half weeks and I deserve it. Non-teachers bristle; their eyes roll. Fair enough. I’m going to be on a sun lounger in about forty eight hours so bristle away.

Secretly, though, I’m coming round to the fact that the summer holidays are unnecessarily long and if we are to tackle the serious problems with poverty we are all aware of, we need to do something more than just wring our hands and shake our heads.

This week I’ve had numerous conversations with students about their holidays: some heading off to Florida, to Europe, to London; some heading to caravans around Scotland; some going nowhere, playing X-box. The disparity is obvious. Some grabbing books from school and class libraries; some vowing to never read a page until they return in August. Poverty is not something that can be solved in schools alone; it is a societal problem in a society that, thus far, has been bereft of any workable ideas as to how to ‘narrow the gap’. Throwing money at it has never worked. So we need to be brave and bold.

Our more well-off students will continue their educations over the summer. They can afford to travel, to visit, to learn. Our economically-deprived students can’t do that. They often have to take even more time off during term-time because holidays are cheaper. Our rigid approach to school breaks means the holiday companies can, quite openly, often double the price of that fortnight in Greece. With twelve weeks holiday a year there is no reason we can’t shorten our summer holidays to make that window smaller.

A four week summer holidays is still vastly longer than most people get. The final two weeks of term could be given over to activities/ trips and those who wanted to use that for a family holiday could do so. We, in effect, shorten the time our most vulnerable children are out of school at any one time, with added fortnights thorough the year. Still twelve weeks; just  utilised in a more valuable way.

Oh, I know you’ll shudder at that thought after such a hard year. But think about it. More breaks throughout the year might mean we are less stressed at specific times. We can plan for proper breaks and, dare I say it, time to step away. It’s a bold and not original suggestion but if we’re serious about doing our bit to tackle poverty then we need to be radical in our thinking. The accepted structures of our society embed that poverty. So we must change for them not for us. We must do something.

I’m already feeling the benefits of my summer holidays. I’m packing. But this way isn’t working so let’s be brave and less self-serving. Poverty isn’t a school problem but it is something we can help change. Perhaps the way we live and work needs to be transformed if we are serious about the lives of all of our young people. Perhaps it’s time for that.

On Not Finishing Books

A fine-looking copy of ‘Ulysses’, resplendent in green jacket like a proud Masters winner, stares at me from my bookshelves. I’ve moved it around because it catches my attention and reminds me of my failure to finish it. Oh, I’ve tried. Many times. One page a day; big chunks at a time; sections in a different order. I just can’t do it. As an experienced reader, it’s something that has troubled me for years. And, while I can’t bring myself to part with it – it as a gift, bought for me at the James Joyce Centre in Dublin – I’ve finally put up the white flag. I will never finish ‘Ulysses’ in this lifetime.

Not finishing books is an unforgivable sin in the English classroom, is it not? Those reluctant readers will change their books every week, every day, if they could get away with it. The novelty of a new book, chosen without thought or advice, trumps finishing the previous one. Experience in spotting the tricks of ‘reading avoidance’ allows us to recognise and intervene but raises the thorny problem of my ‘Ulysses’ hypocrisy. If I’m allowed to dismiss books unfinished then why shouldn’t my pupils? The answer may lie in a discussion of what it’s like to be a reader. Of course you can change books if you’re a reader. Knowing when and why to give up is another matter.

Life’s too short to waste time on books you don’t enjoy. Notice that I refrained from using ‘bad books’ because I don’t think that matters. I walk into my local bookshop and it often sinks in that, despite reading constantly for forty years, in the larger scheme of things, I’ve read nothing. None of us will ever read everything we want or read everything we think we need to read. So let’s not get hung up or feel guilty if we dump a few books along the way. And I think it should be okay for our children to do so too.

When I take a class to the library it is incumbent on me to be by a child’s side when they are choosing a  book; to stop them choosing a seven hundred page doorstopper if they are a reluctant reader; to know them well enough to suggest a book which they may enjoy; to have read enough teen fiction to be able to make that choice. It is not about insisting that they finish the books I choose for them but providing them with the skills to make that choice for themselves. Children with no reading history have no hook to hang their reading on. My job is to provide the conditions for them to start that history.

In his essay, ‘Why Finish Books?’ Tim Parks argues that it’s fine to finish books before the end because the writing is the most important factor. ‘Once the structure has been set up and the narrative ball is rolling, the need for an end is just an unfortunate burden, an embarrassment, a deplorable closure of so much possibility.’ I wouldn’t argue with him about the ‘Reservoir Dogs’-style end to Hamlet and, dare I agree with him , that the play might have been better without it. But it makes me feel better about not finishing ‘Ulysses’. I recognise the beauty of the prose. It’s just I’ve got other things to read. Allowing our pupils to ‘not finish’ books is okay too. As long as they know why.

Not Just Confidence. But Integrity. A ‘sort of’ Review of ‘The Confident Teacher’ by Alex Quigley

There’s a long walk up from York City Centre to Huntington School but it’s a beautiful day, unexpectedly beautiful, and I’m soaking in it. My first visit to the city and, after a nervous, sleep-interrupted night in a TravelLodge, Research-Ed is getting ever closer. I’m listening to Teenage Fan Club. I recall it clearly; Songs From Northern Britain; a nod to my three hour trip from Glasgow the night before; the real Northern Britain. To the jangly guitar twang of ‘Ain’t That Enough’ the humble and ordinary looking Huntington School appears to my right. Yet despite that ordinariness, a welcoming aura surrounds the place.

That welcome feeling defines the school. Throughout the day, the words ‘honourable’, ‘humble’ , integrity’, pepper my notebook. Personified in their remarkable head teacher, John Tomsett, and the one speaker I really want to hear, Alex Quigley, Huntington School in May 2014 is everything you expect it to be. Pupils, in on a Saturday, justly proud of their school, go out of their way to assist. I get my talk out of the way – a poetry-based analysis of Scotland’s curricular development. Yeah, I know, right- and wallow in the atmosphere. If I had ever wondered about the kind of school I’d like to be a part of then on that day I found it.

Two years on, and both John and Alex have become successful authors. There’s a lot of them about in Education. The Twitter world has spawned a multitude of new voices. These two rise above them all. The humanity and integrity I witnessed two years ago shine on every page of John’s book – I blogged about it here – but Alex’s new book, The Confident Teacher, is a different thing altogether.  I loved his first book, Teach Now. Becoming a Great English Teacher. However, the new one achieves something of which most other Education books find themselves falling short.

Like the echo chamber of social media, very few teachers I know bother to read Edubooks. They don’t have the time. There’s a feeling that reading about new approaches and techniques is just another burden on top of the mountain of work we have to complete already. I can teach well. Why should I read your book? Alex’s book does something quite remarkable. I read a lot of these things and, perhaps for the first time, I think ‘The Confident Teacher’ speaks to teachers as equals. It understands the real issues we experience and never patronises. It is practical, positive, hopeful. It is a book written with integrity, humility and a deep, deep passion for teaching. It has knocked me sideways.

Leaving York that night on the evening train back to Northern Britain, I reflected on what I’d experienced that day. I remember little of the sessions apart from my own, the day was too much of blur for that. But I took away an image of the kind of experience I’d hope my school provided. I love my school and hope we display the characteristics of Huntington, at least on some days.

This might not be a book review as such, but I’d recommend Alex’s book to any teacher looking for some practical advice on how to improve our day. Reading it took me back a couple of years; to a school that operated on confidence, with confident staff and pupils. Read it now.

Missing the Music of What Happens To Us

I suppose the last straw, the final nail, came when someone about two rows in front lifted up their phone to film the opening lines  of ‘Caroline, No.’ It wasn’t the first time that night that I’d wanted to shout out, ‘Put your phone down. He’s there. In front of you. Brian Wilson. You’re missing this!’ Our desire to capture what we think might be beautiful or valuable or historical, and the newly attained ability to do so – I wonder how many filmed moments are ever watched more than once or twice –  deflects our attention from the real moments, the moments we experience in the flesh.

And in our haste, we miss the shy couple who, instinctively, reach out for each other’s hand when they hear the first chords of ‘God Only Knows’, turning to smile fondly; the elderly gent, smartly dressed and previously reserved, jumping to his feet like an excited child for ‘Help Me Rhonda’; the involuntary gasp of many at the engrained familiarity of ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice.’ The music of what happens to us.

It’s such a shame when we waste our time staring through the lens of a phone, hoping to capture a memory, especially when the truly interesting stuff is often happening all around us.

That desire to grab hold of the moment has become a commonplace factor in the classroom too. Teaching can be a collection of wonderful moments and technology allows us, more than ever before, to freeze those in time; social media inadvertently encourages us to share those moments, hoping they’ll be noticed and loved equally by others. Perhaps we have gone too far though. Choosing to capture the lightbulb learning moments can mean we miss the ‘Pet Sounds’ of real learning in our classrooms. Rather then the shiny, perfect essay by little Ryan, we miss the effort in Alice’s attempts to write in full sentences for the first time or the pleasure Ross displays after being praised for his improvement.

Increasingly, lately, and for too long, I’ve been too guilty of looking for those bits of teaching; my attention focused on one lens, missing what is really happening in my classroom, what is happening all around me. I’ve undoubtedly lost focus, forgotten what was important. So, for a while at least, I’m putting my lens away.

This is not a big huffy abandonment of Twitter or blogging. Just a recognition that, for a time, I need to put the phone away, step back a little, and find out what I loved so much about teaching in the first place. Rather than watch some wobbly footage of the best bits, I’ll have a look at the audience instead.

Your friends don’t really want to watch your footage of Brian Wilson, no more than they really want to see your holiday snaps. They’re probably not that over-excited about hearing about how many of your kids got ‘A’s  either. Not everything needs to be for forever. But just don’t miss out on the important bits. The music of what happens to us.