Once upon a time, I thought I was the bees\u2019 knees in the classroom. I loved teaching and I flattered myself that the pupils I taught loved learning. Sadly \u2013 or perhaps luckily for my ego \u2013 mine was an era in which students were not canvassed for their opinion of lessons\/teaching. Inspection-ready proof, therefore, have I none.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But in today\u2019s classroom, I think I might fail the scrutiny of an inspection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
I laboured for most of my professional career under the illusion that \u2018to teach\u2019 was an active verb \u2013 I qualified, I trained, I passed exams and inspections, and even won a university award for my teacher training year, and then I went into classrooms and lecture theatres and taught. Or possibly lectured. The basic premise was: I know these things now, you need to know them, so listen up and ye shall learn. How will I know you learned? By your exam result at the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Happy all round. If you were bored\/detached\/sullen on the journey, not to worry, as long as you got the stuff and tailored it for your exams, in a packed exam hall, on a hot day with hay fever, while your parents were getting a divorce \u2013 hard luck. Not my problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am sorry to confess that I took pupils\u2019 learning for granted, as they sat in their serried ranks, listening intently (OK, mostly) and making occasional notes. Hand on heart, en route to what I hoped would be good results for pupil and school, I cannot lay claim to ever having worried about a student\u2019s capacity to hypothesise, still less about my capacity to engineer an opportunity for such skill to be demonstrated and made visible to a lurking inspector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I do recall what I think of as the best class I ever taught, and that was accidental. Renovations in school caused my A-level class, reading Hamlet, to be relocated to a lecture hall. The space went to our heads. I asked them to act, rather than sit and read. Action, not passive, dutiful, receptive, note-making learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Much as I enjoyed \u2018I teach, you sit and learn\u2019 classes \u2013 oh, the ego \u2013 for this particular lesson I sat in the stalls and the girls took the stage. It was a revelation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To begin with, slight nervousness all round \u2013 huge space, teacher almost invisible in the dark auditorium, stage all theirs. They could walk, stride if they were the king and speak lines into the faces of characters if the script suggested aggression. Shout if necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ours was a very \u2018just so\u2019 school. The freedom of the big space was intoxicating. Our gentle, sober classroom-based previous classes had brought us to the point in the text where Hamlet\u2019s dad, the king, is besieged by Laertes and his mob.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Throwing caution to the wind, I stationed half the class out in the corridor and told them to riot. Bang on the doors. Shout. Demand entrance for Laertes and his men. Fight your way in and threaten death and destruction!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The girls left inside assumed great dignity as the king \u2013 \u201cI am guiltless of thy father\u2019s death\u201d \u2013 and his courtiers awaited their fate. Such drama. Such contrast of words and actions, feeling and belief. Such fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I like to think my sixth formers remember this occasion as one of their best sessions; they brought the situation, the sentiments, the anxieties of Hamlet\u2019s world, to life. They surely hypothesised \u2013 one reflecting on Laertes, \u201cHe\u2019s really p\u2014-d off, isn\u2019t he?\u201d I could have told them that in the classroom, but they would have \u2018known\u2019 it in a completely different way, and maybe not at all if they were actually thinking of the many things that fill a teenager\u2019s brain instead of being riveted by Hamlet\u2019s existential crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, much as I loved the centre stage spotlight afforded to the old-style teacher \u2013 \u201cI know, you don\u2019t, listen to me and I will tell you, and don\u2019t interrupt\u201d \u2013 even I saw the massive value of making learning active, inclusive and personalised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And in the year of the great coronavirus, what do we have now? Surely a seismic shift in the whole business of teaching and learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And \u2013 so far as one can tell at this stage, and before the realities of exam results as they emerge from this year\u2019s dramatically different system \u2013 it seems education is flourishing. In particular, it appears that teachers dyed in the same 20th-century wool as me are, to mix a metaphor, coming into the sunlight. Staff, students, parents, all happy. The triple crown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If it were true that many senior teachers were less comfortable with digital, 2020 has offered the seismic shift, both in attitude and practice, to bring the business of teaching into the 21st century. Our pupils are children of the digital revolution. Get over it. Get with the programme. Go online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And when it mattered, that\u2019s what they did. Like large parties of would-be bathers who had stood at the pool\u2019s edge for the last couple of years and finally got pushed in \u2013 they could swim! And they loved it; and the kids loved it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For many teachers that had been forever \u2018put-offable\u2019 and \u2018no time for it anyway\u2019, getting with the programme and becoming computer-savvy became possible and even fun. Welcome to the new army of Ted-talkers, with the bonus of audience participation and repeat as often as you wish. It\u2019s revolutionary, but what else would you expect from the future?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From these acorns, oaks are surely possible. A complete revolution in schools, their structure and timings, their demands for attendance \u2013 and is that for children to learn because they are sitting in the same room? Or to provide day care for parents who will all be working in the way that, pre-war, only men worked, and mum existed to keep house and home and be there if a child was unwell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It would be sad if we ever decided that releasing mums into the workforce was really the major reason for having schools at all, but we\u2019re already halfway there with the creation of wrap-around care provision at the top and bottom of the day in many, if not most, schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s as if schools just got shoved into the digital age, in which students have any information they need at their fingertips when they want it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It must seem that there is no point in \u2018learning\u2019 anything, when you can just look it up when you need it. The apps on the phone multiply and they are open all hours. My parents had a small set of three encyclopaedias \u2013 my heart used to sink at the words, \u201cNow, I want you to research\u2026\u201d Now, it\u2019s on the phone. And theirs, in every classroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Which may leave us with an interesting question, to follow this extraordinary year: in the 21st century, what are schools for?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hilary Moriarty<\/a> is an independent advisor for schools, a former head and former national director of The Boarding Schools\u2019 Association.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This article originally appeared at https:\/\/ie-today.co.uk\/comment\/even-i-saw-the-massive-value-of-making-learning-active-inclusive-and-personalised\/ <\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Once upon a time, I thought I was the bees\u2019 knees in the classroom. I loved teaching and I flattered myself that the pupils I taught loved learning. Sadly \u2013 or perhaps luckily for my ego \u2013 mine was an era in which students were not canvassed for their opinion of lessons\/teaching. Inspection-ready proof, therefore,\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ie-today","category-independent-education-today"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}