A lost generation
Earlier this term a small group of Year 13 students – born in 1993/1994 (Yahoo was born in 1995, Google in 1996, Facebook in 2004 and Youtube in 2005) – asked me if I could order Spanish newspapers so that they could have authentic materials to read in Spanish.
They were asking for actual printed newspapers to be brought in daily from Spain.
Since access to Spanish dailies is somewhat limited in Nottingham, and given that all these pupils had high end mobile devices with 3G and Wi-Fi and access to high speed broadband services both at school and at home, I felt at a loss having to remind them that they could easily access authentic Spanish materials off the internet anytime, anywhere.
“But Sir, when you’re on the internet it’s difficult to concentrate, what with Facebook, BBC sports… I’d much rather read the actual paper” came the reply.
My students, like yours I would assume, seem to be incredibly well versed in using the internet in general and social networking technologies in particular for their own personal use and leisure but appear unable to associate these technologies with their formal education – they are simply not used to using social networking sites and the wealth of opportunities they bring for academic purposes.
And this is not their fault. It’s ours. Ever since they have enjoyed access to the social internet, we teachers have never seen it as anything other than a threat and have almost always reacted by putting in place draconian filtering policies, sticking our fingers in our ears and refusing to listen to anyone who dared suggest a possible pedagogical value.
As long as this remains the case we will not be teaching our pupils to make the most of these new opportunities to enhance learning, and therefore we will be failing to fulfill our primary purpose: to educate.
I am sure that we can all find reasons why we have felt obliged to do this in the past. Bullying, for example, is often cited as a concern. But bullying is not confined to cyberspace and in the real world we tackle it by educating our pupils. Why not take the same approach when it comes to the social internet?
Let’s please have more zones of proximal development and less paranoia in this argument, because while we continue to overstate our pupils’ safety we are neglecting their education.
Picture by Old Shoe Woman
Missing a trick
I was recently reminded how useful smartphones actually are when my family and I became stranded on the corner of Marylebone Road with Gloucester Place after our car broke down. Not a very good start to our short holiday break in London.
From live maps detailing the position of the roadside assistance van relative to mine to apps helping us to make sense of the London bus and underground network. From apps which helped us find and book train tickets for the car-less return trip to the brilliant Google Maps app.
These apps have always been useful. But you really become aware of just how incredibly useful they are when you’re broken down in a strange city with a one- and a five-year-old.
HMC – Teaching and learning with new and emerging technologies
The theme for this year’s HMC Conference was Shaping Reality, and was defined by the Chairman as “an opportunity to shape the future”. At the insistence of HMC members, this year’s conference was to have a greater number of seminars that focused on the practical dimensions of shaping reality in schools. HMC members wanted the “stimulus of new ideas”.
I am indebted to Kevin Fear, Headmaster of Nottingham High School, who put forward my name to lead two seminars on Teaching and learning with new and emerging technologies.
Although, at first, I was overwhelmed by both the significance of being asked to present at such a prestigious venue and by the magnitude of the task, I soon realised that here was an opportunity to present to the people in charge of some of our most prestigious schools a vision of teaching and learning that makes education more compatible with the needs and expectations of our 21st century students through the effective use of new technologies.
This was my opportunity to depict an ever-changing teaching and learning landscape populated with new and exciting tools that allow us and our pupils to communicate better than ever before and to be the creators and publishers of content that is instantly available worldwide, opening up a whole new dimension of pedagogical possibilities.
The point I tried hardest to put across was this: Learning is evolving. Teaching must too.
Is it time to change History?
The issue of Modern Foreign Languages take up has hit the news almost daily since the GCSE results were published last Tuesday.
The fact is that numbers are in decline with no sign of abatement. Regardless of whether you have strong feelings or not about the place of languages in secondary education, hardly anyone would argue that this decline is good news for the education of our children.
There has been a significant amount of soul searching in the national papers in the past seven days about just why the United Kingdom appears to be so uninterested in learning other languages, an attitude which was formalised by the government when they made languages optional at Key Stage 4.
The government actually replaced compulsion with a statuary entitlement to study foreign languages, which means that secondary schools must still offer a language to all pupils who wish to take one, although this is blatantly ignored by an increasing number of head teachers in the state sector. But never mind that.
The languages class divide
GCSE results were published yesterday. For the 23rd year running, the trend was an improving one, with more pupils getting better grades.
It’s not all good news though. The statistics also confirm a continuing decline in take-up in foreign languages: the number of students taking a language has dropped by a third since the government made them optional at GCSE six years ago.
Having said that, there are places bucking the trend where languages are still flourishing. Amongst the proverbial ivy and oak panels, the house ties and the straw hats, the study of foreign languages is still thriving in British private independent schools.
Since languages were made optional in the state sector, take up has nose dived to an all time low, with languages disappearing altogether from some schools at the hands of head teachers who saw an opportunity to save cash for a more popular performing arts and media centre.
Some head teachers, however, had no option but to abandon languages altogether at Key Stage 4 and beyond due to appallingly low take-up. Some students in the state sector really could not wait to get rid of a subject they perceived as hard, pointless and boring as hell.
However, private schools in the UK have tended to retain languages as compulsory to GCSE (age 16), with some doing the International Baccalaureate studying a compulsory language all the way to university entrance age, thus creating a de-facto class divide: those who can afford a private education are learning other languages, whereas those who cannot are not.
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The Language Ambassador Scheme
Two years ago I attended a presentation by the inspiring Rachel Hawkes that focused on the multiple unique selling points of languages. In her presentation she mentioned how she had set up a Student Leadership Award at her school and how it had been a magnificent success. As she put it, the results were so good that, in hindsight, running the award appeared to be a “no brainer”.
Her experiences inspired me to adapt her Student Leadership Award in languages and led to the launch of our very own Language Ambassador Scheme on the European Day of Languages in September 2009. The Language Ambassador Scheme is designed to last one academic year and aims to develop the potential of our best linguists in the senior school by involving them in the planning and delivery of language lessons to younger pupils in our infant and junior schools.
Recent posts
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Why Schools Must Teach Social Networking
May 15, 2012
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Disruption is Good
May 12, 2012
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The Reflective Practitioner
May 2, 2012
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The Ideas of Others: Why We Really Loathe Innovation
April 22, 2012
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Programming in Schools: Lessons from Language Learning
April 19, 2012
