The difference between managing and leading

October 5, 2014 jamestheo 9 Comments

If you believe a certain discourse, we live in a world of digital natives. Oh, and digital immigrants. And presumably there are also digital day-trippers, as well as trust funders on a digital gap year and people who just got a cheap last minute package deal to digital from Ceefax. (I imagine that some of these digital holidaymakers probably don’t really experience digital – they are merely little analoguers who use their sat-navs to prop up wonky table legs or use their iPads as kitchen chopping boards or… SNAP! Damn, I get through so many metaphors that way.)

Against the tide of the digitisation of classrooms, there is one analogue device that is resolute in its ubiquity: the classroom clock. Based on a 2014 study by Me, Myself & I (in which the researcher looked in a few rooms then extrapolated his observations), it is estimated that around 99% of classroom clocks are analogue. (What? Rigour? Piaget got away with this kind of research.)

I recently shopped around online for a new analogue classroom clock, and I noted a curious phenomenon in the images of the clocks for sale: almost all of the clocks and watches showed a time of 10:08. Well, a few of them showed similar times – 10:09, or 1:49, 1:51, 1:52, etc. But the picture that these times create is all very similar – the hands become an inverted chevron, as can be seen in the example above. Intrigued by this, I made a cursory search to find out why this pattern pervades. And it turns out that the thinking behind it is based on pareidolia – the psychological phenomenon which involves our tendency to see significance in randomness, most commonly occurring when we see imaginary faces in arbitrary objects. You know, like when you see a cat’s profile in a cloud or Elvis’ visage burnt into your toast or a human face when you look at George Osborne. By tapping into Carl Sagan’s claim that we are “hardwired” to see human faces, clock sellers discovered that they do more business on their wares when the clocks look like they are smiling: we are drawn towards happy-looking clocks. Thus, a clock at 10:08 is a smiling clock, and we are more likely to buy it.

Apparently, a clock face at 10:10 looks too obvious and we feel we are being conned, but 10:08 just makes us want to take home that cheerful plump face and shower it with love. So what seems arbitrary at first – setting clocks to 10:08 – is actually a thinking and purposeful approach to selling. And what is more, it makes the jobs of the salespeople easier.

Comedian Dave Gorman identified this “10:08 rule of advertising” in his show ‘Modern Life is Goodish’. But Gorman also noticed something similar in digital clocks, or at least in products with a digital time displayed. Whilst out and about in the the London Underground, he noticed an advert for an HTC phone; an advert that looked a bit like this: Notice the time that HTC choose to use when displaying their phones? In fact, if you just perform a quick image search for “HTC phones”, you’ll find that the overwhelming majority of their images show that time: Strange, isn’t it? I mean, there is no pareidolia to experience in 10:08 as written digitally, is there? It doesn’t look like a smiling face. So why do they continue to use 10:08 to sell digital timepieces? As Gorman asks, “You don’t suppose that someone in the marketing department of HTC phones actually thinks that 10:08 is just an inherently happy time, do you?”

There is an argument that 10:08 is the time that shows off the most segments in the old 7-segment digital displays: But modern phones don’t have those segments. And wouldn’t 18:08 show off more segments? It seems that such an argument is an attempt to apply some retrospective reasoning to something that has no logical origin.

No logical origin, that is, other than they are merely following a practice that has gone before: the 10:08 rule of advertising. Yet we know that the 10:08 rule only works with analogue clock faces. So to follow that rule without question seems daft. Whilst the original practice was both thinking and purposeful, continuing to use it to sell digital timepieces seems the exact opposite: it is unthinking and purposeless. And it doesn’t help the salespeople do their job. It takes the position that many organisations take: “It’s what we’ve always done. Why change it?”

It struck me that the 10:08 rule, applied in these two ways, is a good analogy for the difference between leading and managing. Selling analogue clocks using the rule is an approach that has drive and thought behind it. It is deliberate and is based in theoretical beliefs. It is relevant. It supports and aids the shared goals of both management and staff. And, what is more, it makes the job of those on the front line easier. These are all things that leaders do. They have drive, thought and beliefs behind what they do. And they make it easier for those subordinate to them to do their jobs.

Conversely, using the same rule to sell digital clocks is just following what someone else has done. There is no drive, thought or belief behind it. There is no clear relevance to it. It brings nothing to the achievement of goals. It just brings uniformity for the sake of uniformity. It makes practice just about following rules, following “what we’ve always done”. And its aim isn’t to make the job of those on the front line any easier. This is what managers do: just ensure that things are being done as they should be done.

I am inclined to say that there is a place for both leaders and managers in any organisation.

But I’d also ask anyone thinking about taking the step up the ladder, which would you want to be? And if you want to be a leader, ask yourself: What do I believe in? What is my drive? How do I ensure relevance? How can I make teachers’ jobs easier and still achieve our goals?

As I finish writing this, it is approaching 10:08pm on a Sunday night. I have to get up for work in the morning. I’ve just looked up and the clock is smiling at me. It doesn’t have to get up for work in the morning. Smug bastard.

Teaching

Why is opportunity cost so important? Bo knows.

October 4, 2014 jamestheo 3 Comments

Ask me about my favourite album at your peril. You might think of such a question as a throwaway conversation starter, but it is a question that will send me through The Seven Stages of Indecisiveness: excitement, confusion, shortlisting, redrafting, frustration, decision, and – ultimately – regret. The last one usually comes a couple of days after the decision, probably in the middle of the night: “I should have said ‘Pet Sounds’! Why didn’t I say ‘Pet Sounds’? WHAT WILL THEY THINK OF ME NOW?”

But ask me about the main thing that drives my thoughts on curriculum and what happens in my classroom, and I am pretty decisive: opportunity cost.

It is only since I have grasped this as a concept that it has begun to really inform my teaching. I mentioned it briefly in this post on sunk costs, but I haven’t really discussed the importance of it in any detail.

In my classroom, I previously judged things as to whether they succeeded or failed. Indeed, that is the way we have largely been primed to see things. We are encouraged to evaluate this way during initial teacher training. Probably more influentially, it has been the culture of Ofsted for many years (although, like a spurned philanderer, they claim to have changed – “Honest, I’m not like that anymore. I’ve changed. Trust me, babez.”) And by dint of Ofsted’s mesmeric sway, it has percolated into the very bloodstream of many schools. Of course, there are gradations within this measurement, but it is still a measurement of success and failure nonetheless.

But of course, as Hattie tells us: “Almost everything works.” According to his observations, 95% of our teacher interventions have a positive effect on achievement. As such, Hattie suggests that claims to success are rather arbitrary. Whilst I often make such claims (and claims to failure too), I do agree, and so I have switched my decision-making from ‘what works?’ to ‘what is the opportunity cost?’ I ask myself: if I choose to use this intervention/approach (which, remember, will probably work), does it mean I miss out on doing something else which is richer in what it offers pupils?

If you are a regular reader, you’ll know that I like to use stories to illustrate the theories I discuss in this blog. And a story that I think exemplifies opportunity cost well is that of American sports star Bo Jackson. You might remember him from the Nike ‘Bo Knows…’ advertising campaign from the early 90s:

The premise of this campaign rested on Jackson’s phenomenal athletic success, which led him to professional careers in both Major League Baseball and American Football in the NFL: he ‘knew’ sports. And not content with merely playing both baseball and football professionally, he was actually named in All-Star teams in both of them too. He still holds the distinction of being the only person to do so in two major American sports.

Like most sports stars in the U.S., his professional career began with the college draft system. This is the main recruitment system for major American sports teams, in which each team takes turns to pick eligible players from the colleges and offer them professional contracts. In a surprising act of fairness for big-money sports, the system is set up so that the poorest performing teams from the previous season get the first picks.

So, when Jackson reached his senior year at Auburn University as a star of the baseball team and the holder of the Heisman Trophy for most outstanding player in college football, he was highly sought after by major teams in both sports.

The NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers decided that they wanted him as their first pick. They saw that he was having a great season in baseball and didn’t want to lose him to that sport, so they set up a visit to Tampa Bay. For this trip, owner Hugh Culverhouse laid on his own private jet for Jackson.

It turned out that, whilst visiting prospective teams was okay, travelling in the owner’s private jet was against NCAA rules. When Jackson returned to Auburn to continue his senior baseball season, he found that he had been banned from playing for the remainder of the season. He was distraught.

Jackson felt that Tampa Bay had deliberately set him up so he couldn’t continue playing college baseball. So when Culverhouse told Jackson that the Buccaneers would make him their first pick in the upcoming draft, Jackson felt aggrieved:

“the officials at Tampa Bay told me personally, ‘yes, we checked it, [the NCAA] said that it was OK,’ — I think it was all a plot to get me ineligible from baseball because they saw the season that I was having, and they thought that they were going lose me to baseball. (They thought) ‘If we get him declared ineligible, then we got him.'”

Signing for Tampa Bay would have been very lucrative for Jackson, but he felt betrayed:

“I told Hugh Culverhouse, ‘You draft me if you want, you’re going to waste a draft pick.’ I said, ‘I promise you that.’”

But Tampa Bay did still pick Jackson as their first draft. And Jackson was true to his word and didn’t sign the $7.6m dollar contract offered. He ended up signing for the Kansas City Royals to play Major League Baseball instead for a mere $1m. He went on to start his football career with the Los Angeles Raiders a year later.

The loss of signing Bo Jackson for the Bucs was huge, given the impact he went on to have in the NFL. And the majority of people would see that loss as the most significant impact of the whole affair: not signing Bo Jackson was the failure here. But actually, the biggest loss was not in not signing Jackson, but in Tampa Bay using their first round draft on him instead of using it on one of any number of other players that could have had significant positive impact on the team. In short, they wasted the opportunity to do something else. In the words of Dave O’Connor, the producer of the documentary, ‘You Don’t Know Bo’:

“The opportunity cost of losing a first round draft pick isn’t just that Bo Jackson isn’t playing on my team. It’s that every other player I could have selected with that pick is not playing on my team either.”

And this kind of thinking is so important to decisions on curriculum. I recently saw this article on “using [Star Wars] to teach the Hero’s Journey and mythology”. Now I really love Star Wars, and I’m not in a position to judge the teacher in the article as I don’t know the curriculum they are working with, but I can’t help but think about this in terms of opportunity cost. If I were to think about teaching either the hero’s journey and mythology in my classroom, I’d have to consider the opportunity cost of teaching it using Star Wars when there is a clear opportunity to use the classic mythology and introduce pupils to an important branch of literature, a branch that is alluded to in the literature that followed it: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Romantic poetry, Gothic literature, etc. The opportunity cost of teaching mythology through Star Wars seems huge to me.

So that’s it. The single main thing that drives my thoughts on curriculum and the classroom? Opportunity cost. Well, opportunity cost and building a body of knowledge. My two main drivers are opportunity cost and building a body of knowledge. And memory. Three – my three main drivers are opportunity cost, building a body of knowledge, and… I’ll come in again.

Further reading: ‘What Do Medieval Nuns and Bo Jackson Have in Common?’

Teaching

Bloom’s: the slipperiness of soft skills doesn’t make them higher order

September 28, 2014 jamestheo 13 Comments

One of the best things about taking cover lessons outside of your subject area is that you often come away having learned something new. In my particular experience, Geography is the lesson I usually come away from loaded with bags of new knowledge, having bugged the kids with questions for the best part of the hour. To put it bluntly, before I started teaching, my knowledge of tribal communities mostly extended to the moment that a hippo took an apricot, a guava and a mango, stuck it with the others and then danced a dainty tango and… well, the rest is history.

But thanks to Geography cover lessons, my knowledge of tribal communities is much deeper. I now know that Um Bongo is actually produced in Somerset (they do genuinely drink it in the Congo though).

I also recently learned about another tribal community, named the Mundurukú, who live in the Amazon River basin. As far as I am aware, they did not invent any soft drinks, but they are interesting for another reason: they have a number system that only goes up to five. That is to say that they only have words in their language for numbers one to five (which is probably why Brazil did so badly at the last World Cup: if they’d have won, it would have been their sixth trophy – how would they have explained that to these people?) And whilst we may find having only five numbers in your language peculiar, the Mundurukú would probably look at the Pirahã people (a ‘neighbouring’ tribe located some 700 miles away) with a similar curiosity: the Pirahã only have words for numbers ‘1’ and ‘2’. Don’t worry, they’ve got all eventualities covered: for anything greater than two they use the word ‘aibaagi’, which means ‘many’.

So basically, everything with these tribes is quantifiable up to a point and then it just becomes vague, ambiguous and equivocal beyond that.

To us it seems unworkable to have a system where everything is clear and distinct to begin with, then becomes imprecise and woolly once it reaches a certain level. But that is basically how I see taxonomies of higher order thinking, such as Bloom’s.

It strikes me that, according to such taxonomies, the higher the order of your thinking, the less likely it is that we can actually define or measure it. Which is problematic if we are encouraged to live by them, as we are in many schools.

But maybe it is precisely that same problematic nature of these ‘higher order thinking skills’ that puts them at the top of the hierarchy in the collective consciousness? Because – and here’s the crux of my thoughts on this taxonomy – I don’t actually believe that those soft skills at the top are actually harder than those distinctive ones at the bottom: I think it is often harder to remember than it is to create. I’m of the belief that it can often be more difficult to understand than to evaluate; indeed, it is only once you understand a concept that you are in a position to evaluate using that concept. I’d even argue that, if you have full understanding of a concept or concepts, evaluation of it/them is a very simple process. Just watch how quickly and precisely experts like Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood evaluate the shortcomings of a technical bake – they do this because they have complete understanding. One could even suggest that their understanding came after mastering creating.

Yet, it is the slippery nature of these soft ‘higher order’ skills that means we see them as somehow more advanced than the others.

I recently went on a course aimed at improving higher order thinking skills. During this course, there was never any discussion of pupils actually knowing things. It was all aimed at them being able to do the stuff at the top of the taxonomy – creating, evaluating, analysing. What the course missed was that, by teaching pupils content, by building their knowledge base, by making sure they can remember things, by ensuring they understand concepts, the ‘higher order’ stuff becomes much, much easier for them. With stuff like Bloom’s, we are often deceived into missing this.

For me, it seems that the so-called ‘lower order’ skills (such as remembering, understanding) often involve a lot more cognitive processing than the ‘higher order’ skills (creating, evaluating, etc.) Indeed, those ‘higher order’ skills often involve the brain just making short cuts using the hard-earned knowledge – that which was acquired through ‘lower order’ thinking.

So, Bloom’s taxonomy? Higher order thinking? If we want pupils to do the things at the top of those ranks, I think we should ignore these hierarchies and, instead, concentrate on teaching content and building pupils’ knowledge. Honestly, I think it is that simple. As simple as do-re-mi, A-B-C, 1-2… um… many?

Note: the penultimate paragraph – italicised – was added on 30th September 2014, to clarify the argument made in the post.

Teaching

Killing off the Brontosaurus, again: how can research reach further?

August 31, 2014 jamestheo 6 Comments

Q: Which dinosaur became extinct twice?
A: Brontosaurus.

That’s not meant to be a joke, by the way. It’s (sort of) true.

In 1877, Othniel Charles Marsh, a Professor of Palaeontology at Yale, discovered the skeleton of a new dinosaur, which he named Apatosaurus ajax. At the time, he was involved in a fierce battle of discoveries with a palaeontologist from the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, named Edward Drinker Cope.

When the two men first met they got on well, but over time they developed a strong dislike for each other which rapidly escalated into a rivalry which, in turn, manifested itself into a desire to outdo each other professionally. This feud saw Marsh and Cope not only attack each other in their scientific publications but also swear to outdo each other in the field of discovery.

As such, two decades of intense fossil speculation ensued from the early 1870s onwards that was to be known as ‘The Bone Wars’. Whilst they yielded plenty of new discoveries, the wars also involved underhand – and unscientific – tactics such as destroying bones left in the ground just so that the other man couldn’t discover them. During this time, the men discovered more than 130 new species between them, whilst simultaneously destroying the public reputation of palaeontology and leaving themselves financially ruined.

The discoveries were fast and frantic and so it was that, two years after discovering Apatosaurus ajax, Marsh discovered a similar dinosaur: Brontosaurus excelsus. The thing is that this wasn’t really a different dinosaur. It was just a bigger Apatosaurus. Oh, and when he was piecing the skeleton together, Marsh had accidentally put the head of a different species on it. In fact, there is no such thing as Brontosaurus at all.

Whilst this mistake was corrected soon afterwards, the Brontosaurus lived on. He appeared in movies and in books and cartoons: you’re certain to remember how Fred Flintstone was partial to a Brontosaurus burger with a side order of Brontosaurus ribs. I certainly remember seeing that big lummox in the dinosaur books of my childhood in the eighties. Yet it was when the U.S Post Office issued a set of dinosaur stamps in 1989, one of which was labelled ‘Brontosaurus’, that his final decline began:

1989 US Postal Service stamp that finally put an end to the Brontosaurus.

The release of this stamp caused uproar amongst dinosaur enthusiasts and, as a result of the publicity from this outrage, it seems that he was largely left to disappear. Previously a stalwart of children’s dinosaur books, he now seems to have been finally made extinct. Again.

Like the Brontosaurus, there are ‘discoveries’ in education that have since been debunked by scientists: Pashler et al took down the myth of learning styles in 2008, which has since been echoed by psychologists such as Professor Daniel Willingham:

Further theories to be discredited include such classroom favourites as Brain Gym and what is often called the Learning Cone, but is derived from Dale’s Cone of Experience.

Yet, like our friend the Brontosaurus, these myths refuse to die. There exists two realms in education: the realm of teachers and schools that are aware that these are myths; and the world where they continue to live on in certain classrooms: Jurassic Park schools. They exist because, sometime in the early 1990s, Richard Attenborough extracted DNA from chewing gum scraped off the underside of teachers’ desks and began cloning these classrooms, ensuring that the educational falsehoods live on. Or maybe they exist because people just haven’t heard the theories debunked? It’s one of the two.

What is certain is that these theories do still survive. They survive despite us being in a climate and era where research and science is having its greatest influence on education. Where the EEF and NTEN exist, and where Tom Bennett’s juggernaut researchED is about to host its fourth conference in just a few days.

researchED is popular. It is extremely well-attended. It is recognised by policymakers and commentators alike. It attracts brilliant speakers from a variety of spheres within education. The message is out there and hitting the bright lights, but is it reaching the dusty corners of education? Not while so many myths still exist. This is not a criticism of these organisations – far from it – but a lot of what is shared is preaching to the converted. The challenge for these organisations is to get themselves noticed by those that are blind to them.

And so, on the eve of researchED 2014, the question I have is: how does the research-savvy community extend its reach? Are conferences enough? What about publications? Would it be possible for researchED to have representative writers, writing under the banner for publications such as TES, SecEd, Academies Week, etc.? What about commissioning books produced under the same banner – could an educational publisher house an imprint? Is it feasible for these research-focused organisations to produce free publications to put in staff rooms?

It took over 100 years to kill off the Brontosaurus a second time. How can we ensure the extinction of today’s edu-myths isn’t as slow and painful?

Teaching

I am not your spirit guide: the intoxicating narratives of teaching

August 28, 2014 jamestheo 7 Comments

Earlier in the week this Slate article, loftily entitled ‘Spirit Guides’, ricocheted through my timeline. Putting aside some of its more ‘interesting’ touches – ‘[t]he mind has “hands”‘ (huh?); its use of a moment from fiction as exemplar; its paraphrasing of Socrates on student-teacher relationships (!) – the piece attempts to take the well-travelled path of presenting the teacher as something more than a teacher: the mentor, the parental figure, the titular spirit guide.

It is a time-honoured and usually very convincing vision of a teacher, so quite how the article fails to stir the emotions of the reader-teacher and have us ripping up textbooks is a feat in and of itself. Perhaps it is the seemingly conflicting ideas presented in the same argument – ‘a genuine teacher teaches students, not courses’; ‘”The teacher, that professional amateur teaches not so much his subject as himself.”‘ Or maybe it is just the downright silliness of some of the views presented: ‘”If a professor didn’t mention something personal at least a single time—a reference to a child, an anecdote about a colleague—then it was a pretty good bet that I had nothing to learn from him.”‘

But where that article fails, the image of the teacher as avuncular genie or fairy godmother endures elsewhere. In books, television and the movies, the trope of teacher as more-than-just-a-teacher is ubiquitous.

I wouldn’t argue against the suggestion that teachers are often inspirers, mentors, or even parental figures by proxy. And, as the article suggests in its bland finale I’m certain that teachers do change many of their pupils’ lives.

But the problem with these pervasive grand narratives of teaching is that there is a suggestion that we should do this – or at the very least a consequence that we do try to do this – by design. That is to say that we are compelled to exert much of our effort in trying to be more-than-just-a-teacher. Indeed, that seems to be what the Slate article is suggesting.

And that, I think, is wrong. I think it is vitally important that, whilst surrounded by the eddying current of all these intoxicating narratives, we avoid getting carried away by them and we focus our efforts on being a teacher. Just a teacher.

Because being just a teacher is what we can do for every pupil. It is the most we will ever be to the most of our pupils. And it is tangible. Unlike being a muse or an angel or a guardian spirit, it is what we are trained to do and it is an area where we have at least some knowledge of what is required of us. Whilst the Hollywood narratives are thrilling and bewitching, they take us away from what we really are.

So be a teacher. Just a teacher. And I think you’ll find that, in being a teacher – in teaching and imparting knowledge – pupils might find their mentor, their inspiration, their spirit guide.

Teaching

Why I think selling resources to teachers is wrong

August 24, 2014 jamestheo 19 Comments

This is just a quick post in response to a brief discussion I had earlier.

After seeing a new website that was charging around £8 for a 31-slide Powerpoint and a few worksheets, I tweeted this:

People selling basic resources (PPTs, worksheets, etc.) to teachers actually offends me.

— James Theobald (@JamesTheo) August 24, 2014

A few people tweeted agreement. A couple of people defended the selling of resources to teachers and questioned why I felt this way. Here’s why:

1. It is generally teachers that pay for these out of their own money, not schools. If anyone wants to suggest that it isn’t, then why do these companies sell individual accounts and pay-as-you-go schemes? Teachers spend enough of their money on things like: subject knowledge books, teaching practice books, stationery, printing, class rewards, etc. (I’m sure you can all add plenty of things to this list). Charging them for things they could and should get for free is just exploiting their commitment to their job.

2. If the resources were produced by a jobbing teacher for their classes, the teacher has technically been paid for producing them. And as the state has paid for them, I feel uneasy that they are making extra income from selling them to somebody else working for the state. Why not just sell the pens out of the department stationery cupboard?

3. If the resources were produced specifically to be sold and not to be used in the creator’s classroom at all (i.e., by a business that solely produces resources), then it’s worth asking: are they selling something that has not been tried, tested and developed in a classroom first? How effective is that resource? New/desperate teachers might just assume it is worthwhile and spend money on it anyway. I’d also question the quality of a resource if the incentive for producing it is purely financial.

4. I don’t think there are many off-the-peg resources that can be taken straight from a third party to one’s classroom. Teachers will spend time developing and altering it to suit the needs of their class. I think it is fair to question the quality of a resource that is produced for generic classes, rather than one that is produced for a specific class.

5. Obviously, one could level some of those last criticisms at resources from third parties that one can get for free. The difference is that with free resources one can pick and choose. When you pay for a resource, you have sunk costs into that resource – this is a bias that means you will probably be committed to using it, no matter how good it is. I’ve written about the dangers of sunk costs and consistency before.

6. The resources we create are a product of everything we have learnt as teachers over our careers – they are, in part, ideas that we have picked up from other teachers. Nothing is entirely original. If I were to sell a resource, I may have put the effort into typing up the slideshow or worksheet, but the ideas are partly made up of things I’ve picked up from others. I’d be profiting from something that was given freely to me. Again, that makes me uneasy.

7. Why not just be kind? What you give someone else will benefit other classes – classes the other side of the country, maybe the other side of the world. Even if altruism isn’t enough, what about the reward that your reach as a teacher is even greater than the walls of your own classroom? Doesn’t that give off a lovely glow to bathe in?

Please note that this is what my opinion. You may disagree entirely. I am merely responding to those questioning why I feel this way.

Teaching

The key to good CPD? Inconsistency

August 7, 2014 jamestheo 18 Comments

“Americans don’t really have opinions. What we have is bumper stickers. Once you’ve committed to a bumper sticker, there’s no changing your mind then.”

Rich Hall, comedian

Furby, Buzz Lightyear, Tickle Me Elmo. What have they all got in common? Yes, they are all toys (not that kind of toy, tsh). What else do they have in common? Well, along with Star Wars figures, Cabbage Patch Kids dolls, Nintendo game cartridges, Tracy Island playsets, Xbox 360, Playstation 2 and a whole host of others, they are all massively popular toys that have found themselves with a supply shortage at Christmas.

Wild scenes at the release of the Michael Gove's autobiography. — Wild scenes at the release of Michael Gove’s autobiography.

This happens almost every year: a toy or game is deemed the number one most desirable ‘must-have’ present for kids at Christmas only for it to be in very short supply, meaning that thousands of children have to go without it over the festive season.

So surely toy companies would learn from these mistakes and ensure that they are fully stocked for Christmas? Why has this been same phenomenon been happening for decades?

Psychologist Robert Cialdini (yep, him again) has a friend who worked in the toy industry who gave him an explanation for this. The explanation is based on the idea that there is a huge lull in sales during the first quarter of the year as people had already spent their toy budgets during the Christmas boom. Despite investing financially in extra advertising or dropping prices, toy companies found that this slump persisted. So the companies came up with another approach. An approach which cost them nothing.

The theory goes that companies advertise these must-have toys in the run-up to Christmas. Kids then nag their parents for these toys and parents promise that they will get them in their stockings. Companies then undersupply the toys to the market and so parents, facing an upset child as they can’t follow through on their promise, buy toys or games of equal value.

The companies then advertise the must-have toys again after Christmas, during the first quarter sales slump. The kids see these ads, remember the promises made to them, and go back to their parents citing those earlier covenants. The parents then go back to the shops and buy the original must-have toy that they promised their children. A toy which is now, funnily enough, in plentiful supply. This theory means that the toy companies double their profits.

Now this story is repeated in Cialdini’s book, ‘Influence: Science and Practice’, as an anecdote from somebody who used to work in the toy industry. Regardless of whether we believe it or not, the idea behind it is based on something interesting: the consistency principle. This is the idea that we have an innate drive to be – and to appear to be – consistent with our prior behaviour or beliefs. So, in the case of the toy companies, they are tapping into the human desire of the parents to be consistent with their earlier commitment to buy the toy. They know that a large number of the parents will be consistent with a decision they had made earlier.

There are a number of studies where the power of this principle has been shown. An interesting one cited by Cialdini is a 1968 study by Knox and Inkster that noted how people at horse races are more confident of their horses’ chances of winning just after placing the bets than they are immediately before. Despite nothing changing in the horses’ chances, the consistency principle ensures that the gamblers have convinced themselves that their decision is the right one and so feel better about it. This is a close cousin of the sunk cost fallacy, which I wrote about here.

Now consistency is largely seen as a desirable trait, which is difficult to argue with – as Cialdini acknowledges, “[w]ithout it our lives would be difficult, erratic, and disjointed”. But he also notes that, whilst “it is so typically in our best interests to be consistent, we fall into the habit of being automatically consistent even in situations where it is not the sensible way to be.”

One of the reasons consistency appeals to us is that once we have made a decision, if we stay consistent to that decision we don’t have to think too hard anymore. And as Daniel Willingham points out, “our brains are designed not for thought but for the avoidance of thought.” So consistency is a useful shortcut to stop us from having to think too much.

Rodin's most famous sculpture, 'At the End of the CPD Day' (1880). — Rodin’s most famous sculpture, ‘At the End of the CPD Day’ (1880).

The other reason Cialdini cites for being consistent is that, sometimes, we just don’t want to face the reality of what may happen if we think differently: consistency is “a safe hiding place from troubling realisations: Sealed within the fortress walls of rigid consistency, we can be impervious to the sieges of reason.” In this way, consistency can be seen as harmful to our best interests: we eschew something that may be helpful, or indeed truthful, and fall back into the safety net of our consistent beliefs.

I quite often discuss subjects such as edtech and SOLO taxonomy and, in debating it, it may seem that my sceptical position on the value of both of these is quite consistent. Unmoving, even.

But that couldn’t be further from the truth. My beliefs on these two issues are entirely inconsistent with my prior positions. I have, in the past, been a torch-carrier for iPads in the classroom, opening up my classroom for many to observe the use of these and other new technologies. Furthermore, I actually delivered sessions on new technology in education for four years on a university ITT course for both primary and secondary trainees. My position on the value of new technologies in the classroom has shifted considerably over the past few years, but it is a position that shifted through the spectrum. I don’t hold my position as a sceptic through a lack of experience or through Luddism. Largely, the shift is down to an understanding of opportunity cost, alongside facing a poverty of evidence.

Likewise, I also read heavily on SOLO taxonomy and put my ideas together for about 6 months before applying them to the classroom. I then spent about two years experimenting with SOLO in the classroom, during which time I led a school improvement group which trialled its use. Again, my position on SOLO has developed to one of scepticism. This is largely because of the value it places on ‘thinking skills’ over and above knowledge. As knowledge is the third stage in the hierarchy, I have reservations of how important both pupils and teachers see knowledge in the learning process. These are reservations I noted over many months of seeing teachers and pupils approach the process.

The reason I chose to look specifically at edtech and SOLO is that they seem to be areas where automatic consistency is prevalent. As in the opening quote from Rich Hall, SOLO enthusiasts often have the bumper sticker of their beliefs in their Twitter bios. Likewise, I don’t know how someone can be objective about the use of iPads in the classroom if they include an Apple symbol in their online username. With these sorts of behaviours, automatic consistency is so pervasive that challenging such a belief is often akin to challenging someone’s faith.

David Didau recently wrote a defence of how some of his views have changed, in the face of accusations that he somehow lacked conviction by changing his mind. Likewise, plenty of my views are entirely inconsistent with what I thought about them just a few years ago. I don’t think such development of thought needs defending, but the fact that it does is entirely compatible with our default nature to see consistency as the desirable trait.

The fact is that by eschewing the drive to be consistent, my thinking and practice has developed in ways that it wouldn’t have had I just stuck to a consistent position – and that goes for many areas of pedagogy, not just edtech and SOLO.

So my advice for great professional development is: be aware of your drive to be consistent and don’t be afraid to be inconsistent at any time. Inconsistency can – and does – bring about real development.

And, by the way, I reserve the right to think that this is a terrible approach at any time in the future.

Bibliography:

‘Influence: Science and Practice’ by Robert B. Cialdini

‘Why Don’t Students Like School?’ by Daniel Willingham

Teaching

Inspector who? What to make of Ofsted’s latest regeneration

August 3, 2014 jamestheo 8 Comments

Here’s something you can try at home:

Take three deep bowls (each large enough to immerse your hands in). Fill one with cold water, one with water at room temperature, and fill the final one with hot water. Place them in front of you in a row, with the bowl of room temperature water in the centre. Now place one hand in the bowl of cold water and one hand in the bowl of hot water and leave them for about 20-30 seconds. Take your hands out and quickly place both in the room temperature water. Interesting, eh?

Now let’s stop pretending that you actually did all of that (but kudos to anyone who did: you’re in my fraternity now – I’d show you the handshake but, you know, you have wet hands). The sensation that one feels when placing both hands in the room temperature water is that the hand that was in the cold water first now feels as if it is in hot water, and the hand that was in hot water now feels as if it is in cold water.

This is called perceptual contrast – the idea that our perception of something is affected by the context in which it is placed. In this instance – as in most examples – by presenting two different things directly after one another, our perception of the second thing is altered. It’s a form of anchoring, which I wrote a little about here.

This phenomenon isn’t just present as a physical sensation – it also works psychologically. You will have seen lots of optical illusions like the one below. They basically work on the same principle – we perceive the contrast between the two orange circles to be greater than they are. In fact, as your relentless experience of this type of trick has probably told you, the two orange circles are actually the same size. It is the context that makes you perceive the contrast.

Which of these two orange circles is bigger? — Which of these orange circles is largest of the two?

But where perceptual contrast really comes into its own is in the world of retail as, in the words of psychologist Robert B. Cialdini, a “weapon of influence”. In his book ‘Influence: Science and Practice’, Cialdini refers to how both clothing retailers and car dealers use perceptual contrast to make more sales. He writes:

Suppose a man enters a fashionable men’s store and says that he wants to buy a three-piece suit and a sweater… Clothing stores instruct their sales personnel to sell the costly item first. Common sense might suggest the reverse: If a man has just spent a lot of money to purchase a suit, he may be reluctant to spend very much more on the purchase of a sweater; but the clothiers know better. They behave in accordance with what the contrast principle would suggest: Sell the suit first, because when it comes time to look at sweaters, even expensive ones, their prices will not seem as high in comparison. The same principle applies to a man who wishes to buy the accessories (shirt, shoes, belt) to go along with his new suit. Contrary to the commonsense view, the evidence supports the contrast-principle prediction.

The same principle is applied to car sales. Quite often you’ll see an advert for an ‘on the road’ price of a car. Once you’ve acquiesced to pay this price for a car, the dealer will offer you add-ons. After you’ve spent thousands on a new car, a few hundred on some added flashes and gadgets seem trivial and you are more likely to pay for these. I don’t know about you, but I’ve lost count of the times that I’ve paid for add-ons to expensive purchases that I’ve made.

This ‘weapon’ is also prevalent in restaurant menu design. Menu Engineer (‘Mengineer’?) Gregg Rapp talks about how he places expensive items on menus as decoys to make other items seem more reasonable. See him expose his tricks in this video (skip to around 2mins for his use of perceptual contrast):

It is with this phenomenon in mind that I think we should have reservations in our reception of Ofsted’s revised school inspection handbook, released this week.

After years of campaigning for Ofsted reform (by the way, that is a brilliant list of blogs compiled by de facto Chief Librarian of the campaign, Joe Kirby), the Rebel Alliance, led by legendary master Old Andrew Kenobi and flaxen maverick Jedi hero David Didau have recently begun to engage the inspectorate in dialogue. This has resulted in reiterations of policy and rewrites of the handbook, culminating in this week’s revised guidance.

"You're my only hope." Deep in the BlogCave, David and Andrew receive a holographic message from new EdSec Nicky Morgan. — “You’re my only hope.” Deep in the BlogCave, David and Andrew receive a holographic message from new EdSec Nicky Morgan.

The revisions have been received quite warmly – who could complain about the reiterations that inspectors – and I might be paraphrasing here – “definitely 110% guaranteed-or-your-money-back won’t be grading individual lesson observations, oh no siree, Bob, not this time and you can take that to the bank”?

But is it enough? Are we in danger of accepting this Gallifreyan regeneration of the inspectorate because, well, it’s a bit different to the last one and the perceptual contrast means we see that difference as greater than it actually is? Is this a reboot or is it just a shot-for-shot remake with a different cast? I must admit, I think that the differences between this revision and the last aren’t as great as I’d expected them to be.

It’s really important that we look at the inspection process from September in isolation and not in the context of the last few years. It doesn’t matter if it is better than what we had before – perceptual contrast has no actual value. What we should be asking is, just as the relentless bloggers have been asking all this time, is this incarnation fit for purpose? Is this incarnation actually right? I’m not sure that it is… yet.

So let’s take up Joe Kirby’s rallying call:

Now, above all, is the time to keep up the pressure. The education blogosphere is organising. We, the teachers, are reclaiming our profession. The momentum is rising. The next campaign target is to stop Ofsted grading teaching altogether.

If we sustain it, radical reform of the inspection regime is within reach.

Now, go and dry your hands.

Bibliography:

‘Influence: Science and Practice’ by Robert B. Cialdini

Teaching, The Education Fables

An art history of school inspections

July 25, 2014 jamestheo 8 Comments

School inspections have long been an important subject for artists, and depictions of such inspections have been noted in the hieroglyphs of the Ancient Egyptians as well as the friezes of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. In this post, I would like to retell the story of school inspections through the works of the great artists from the latter half of the last millennium.

Perhaps no other painter has captured the essence of an inspection quite as faithfully as did Flemish Renaissance artist Pieter Brueghel the Elder in the 16th century. One of his most famous works is ‘The Staffroom After “The Call”‘ (1550):

'The Staffroom After "The Call"' (1550) by Pieter Brueghel — ‘The Staffroom After “The Call”‘ (1550) by Pieter Brueghel

In this painting, we see how some of the younger, less experienced members of staff have to restrain those that remember the school’s last inspection. It is also interesting to note that some of the members of staff take a more practical approach to the inspection by hiding or – more creatively – stripping down, putting their underwear on their head and defecating in the corner in an act of feigned illness.

Pieter Brueghel (1566) — ‘Direct Instruction’ (1566) by Pieter Brueghel the Elder

This later painting (above) by Brueghel depicts the moment when the lead inspector (far right foreground, light blue smock) informs the headteacher (dark smock, looking perturbed) that John the Baptist’s lesson has had far too much ‘preacher talk’ and not enough group work.

Interestingly, when this work was reproduced (below) by Brueghel’s son some time later, the bearded man – facing away from the preacher, in the centre foreground – was removed. According to documents attributed to Brueghel the Younger, he and other disruptive members of the group were taken to Olde Thorpe Parke for that version of the painting.

Reproduction by Pieter Brueghel the Younger (after 1616) — Reproduction (after 1616) by Pieter Brueghel the Younger

Brueghel the Younger also painted a reproduction of the work below, ‘Grading the Lesson Observation’ (1480) by Heironymus Bosch.

'Grading the Lesson Observation' (1580) by Hieronymus Bosch — ‘Grading the Lesson Observation’ (1580) by Hieronymus Bosch

In this image, the inspector is giving feedback to the observed teacher, showing the teacher exactly how the grade is arrived at. Details about the methods of grading are sketchy, but we are led to believe it has something to with the inspector’s skilful legerdemain.

Bosch of course famously painted the classic ‘An Outstanding Three-Part Differentiated Lesson’ (1510), below.

'An Outstanding Three-Part Differentiated Lesson' (1510) by Heironymus Bosch — ‘An Outstanding Three-Part Differentiated Lesson’ (1510) by Heironymus Bosch

Again, not much is known about this painting, but art historians largely agree that the number of differentiated tasks that can be seen in the triptych’s main central image total at least 58, and we know from the title that this was enough to warrant a grade of ‘outstanding’. Some experts have argued that the fact that a number of the pupils in the image seem passive would have certainly led to a lower grade, but others suggest that the sense of creativity and fun that the lesson depicts would have been enough to distract the inspector.

Whilst depictions of inspections are most prevalent in the Flemish Renaissance movement, there are certainly many other notable pieces of work from later years that touch on the inspection experiences of teachers and leaders.

One of my favourites is William Holman Hunt’s piece, ‘Boy, Am I Glad It’s You’ (1854), which brings to life the moment, during an inspection, that the classroom door opens mid-lesson and it turns out to be merely a friendly colleague.

'Boy, Am I Glad It's You' (1854) by William Holman Hunt — ‘Boy, Am I Glad It’s You’ (1854) by William Holman Hunt

Another more subtle piece is Ramon Casas’ ‘Data Manager: 4am, Day Two’ (1895):

This image of the school’s data manager, spreadsheet in hand, exhausted across a seat in the staffroom at 4am is one of the most enduring images of a school inspection. Commentators often note that she isn’t sleeping, in fact her eyes are open and the ‘thousand yard stare’ she holds is one of “whimpering resignation” (Sister Wendy Beckett).

Into the early 20th century, and this wood carving by Eric Gill (below) shows the head and deputy head offering up biscuits to the lead inspector upon his arrival. Note from the insignia on the biscuits that these are premium heather honey and saffron macarons from Fortnum & Mason, not those biscuits that you all get in staff meetings.

'Refreshments for the Lead Inspector' 1915 by Eric Gill — ‘Refreshments for the Lead Inspector’ (1915) by Eric Gill

School inspections have long been a motif in art movements that span cultures and eras. I hope that you have enjoyed looking at a few of my favourites.

Teaching

Have you tried NEW Diamond Shreddies? (Life after ‘life after levels’)

July 20, 2014 jamestheo 4 Comments

I can picture it now: It’s September 2015 and the DfE, under the stewardship of the new Labour government, are preparing to relaunch National Curriculum Levels:

“Here are the suggested slogans for the relaunch material we are sending out to schools, Mr. Hunt. We’ve narrowed it down to one of these and you have final approval.”

“Great, Toby, what have we got? Let’s see… What’s this? ‘THEY’RE GR-R-REAT!’ Hm. I like it, but we’d have to lose the tiger…”

“Righto. ‘Lose the tiger’. Okay, Mr. Hunt. What about this one?”

“Hm. I’m not sure I get it. ‘Snap! Crackle! Pop!’…um, nope. I don’t really see…”

“That’s okay, Mr. Hunt. I didn’t really think… I… er, what about this one? Have you seen this one?”

“That’s it! That’s the one. That says everything we know people think about levels. It’s absolutely the reason why we are bringing them back: people love them; they just don’t realise that they love them. THIS is definitely the slogan we should use: ‘National Curriculum Levels – have you forgotten how good they taste?’ I love it!”

Of course people wouldn’t be silly enough to be resold back something that they didn’t think they wanted on the back of a rebranding. Would they? You’d be surprised.

In January 2008, the breakfast cereal Shreddies launched a new advertising campaign in Canada that resulted in a reportedly significant sales increase, and ensured the product continued to perform well for quite some time afterwards.

The reason for the spike in sales was this advertising campaign:

Brilliant/frightening, isn’t it? This is what Rory Sutherland (Vice-Chairman of international advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather, and Spectator columnist) tells us is “intangible added value” in his very entertaining 2009 TED Talk on the subject – a talk in which he refers to the Diamond Shreddies campaign. Sutherland asks:

“How many problems of life can be solved actually by tinkering with perception, rather than that tedious, hardworking and messy business of actually trying to change reality?”

Can't decide? Try the Combo Pack. — Can’t decide? Try the Combo Pack.

That is exactly what the Diamond Shreddies campaign does. It takes something, changes the perception of it, adds intangible value.

And that seems to be what is happening with many of the approaches to replacing curriculum levels that I read and talk to people about. I know people are actually making changes – re-writing descriptors, changing bands, etc., but what this seems to result in – in many cases – is just another version of curriculum levels.

In these cases, I think people’s perceptions of what they are using may have changed and as a result they see value in their model, but this may come purely as a result of the sunk cost fallacy: “we invested lots of time and effort into this, so it must be better than what we had before.” The important thing to do now is to ask ourselves, honestly: Is this better? Have we improved the previous model? And we should continue to rewrite, redefine, remodel until we know what we are doing isn’t just turning the current model on its side and calling it ‘new’.

Part of me wonders whether our reluctance to travel too far from levels is due to the discourse we use. Every model I see discussed is always presented in its relation to levels: the phrase ‘life after levels’ is used in almost every blog and tweet on the topic. Failing that, it’s ‘beyond levels’, ‘post-levels’, etc. Maybe it’s time to stop using the word ‘levels’ in our discourse and start referring to it as ‘assessment’, ‘KS1-3 assessment’ or ‘KS assessment’. As long as we keep using ‘levels’ in our language, everything we do is anchored to the National Curriculum Levels and we will never really sail too far from them.

We should ensure that we aren’t just adding intangible value to a model that already exists, a model that we scorned over for years and jeered at gleefully as it was evicted from the Big Brother house.

Alternatively, we could just embrace the idea of intangible added value and apply it to all that we do in education. Back to Rory Sutherland (“Normally, as an advertising man, I actually speak at TED Evil”):

“So I was discussing this. And I actually went to the Marginal Revolution blog by Tyler Cowen. I don’t know if anybody knows it. Someone was actually suggesting that you can take this concept further, and actually produce placebo education. The point is that education doesn’t actually work by teaching you things. It actually works by giving you the impression that you’ve had a very good education, which gives you an insane sense of unwarranted self-confidence, which then makes you very, very successful in later life. So, welcome to Oxford, ladies and gentlemen.”

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Othmar's Trombone

The difference between managing and leading

Why is opportunity cost so important? Bo knows.

Bloom’s: the slipperiness of soft skills doesn’t make them higher order

Killing off the Brontosaurus, again: how can research reach further?

I am not your spirit guide: the intoxicating narratives of teaching

Why I think selling resources to teachers is wrong

The key to good CPD? Inconsistency

Inspector who? What to make of Ofsted’s latest regeneration

An art history of school inspections

Have you tried NEW Diamond Shreddies? (Life after ‘life after levels’)

I'm just a teacher, standing in front of a class, asking them to be quiet and listen.