Just give me some feedback......

Readers who have joined my blog recently may not be aware that in addition to filling the blogosphere with my ponderings on kids and education, I also run a teeny-tiny tutoring business. It's called Exploring All Options. I spend at least an hour a week with each student doing whatever I can to make the experience of school less stressful for them. Once we reduce the stress, I then work alongside the student to ensure they start experiencing success in school.

It amazes me that teenagers are willing to come and sit at my dining table and tell a middle-aged woman, whom they've never met before, about how the experience of school makes them feel. It shows how much struggling students are willing to accept help, if only educators have the time to give them that support.

My first session with every student starts the same.
Louise: "Sooooo, tell me how you feel about school?"
Student: Looks down, mumbles
Louise: "I really want to know - tell me - what's it like?"
Student: It's hard/frustrating/I find it stressful/I can't keep up/I hate reading
The list goes on.

Louise: "Tell me about your favourite teacher?"

I loooove asking this question.
It tells me so much about the student.
It tells me about how they learn best.
It tells me how they view school teachers.
It tells me what attributes they value in a teacher.
It tells me how I will be able to best support them in our sessions.

Recently, I encountered a new response, and I was so excited to hear it.

The student told me about a teacher he had who gave him written feedback on his English work. He would hand in his English pieces, the teacher would look at the work within a day or two, write comments on how he could improve his work and provide an indicative final mark for the work. Then the teacher would return it to the student and give him the chance to resubmit it, incorporating rewritten sections in response to their feedback. Then the teacher would go through the work again and give it a final mark.

GENIUS

1) Teacher teaches
2) Student produces work in response to teaching
3) Teacher looks at work and gives targeted feedback
4) Student learns from feedback and has another go
5) Teacher is able to measure student's performance based on his ability to learn and apply their teaching.

GENIUS

I want to find out the name of that teacher, enrol my child in that school and put in a request for that teacher to teach my child every year of their High School education. I hope they can teach Maths, History and Science too, because I'll be asking for them to teach my child in every subject.

I cannot tell you how much I long for all my students to receive timely feedback on their work. I spend so many sessions with my students, encouraging them as they work through tasks ready for submission and helping them prepare for tests to be completed the following day. Each week I will ask, Have you got that assignment back? How did you go in your test? We'll log on and see if grades have been listed.......nope, nothing yet. Sadly, by the time marks are received, we've long forgotten what the learning task was about. And feedback? The chance to learn from and apply feedback is long gone. What a waste of a learning opportunity!

When my husband and I first got married, I had moved from Melbourne to Sydney. We had a long distance relationship, so except for long weekends and holidays, we had never spent long periods of time together. When we were together it was a whirlwind of fun dates, visiting friends and making long term plans. Once we settled into a house together, we quickly had to adjust to the rhythms of everyday life. Having lived on my own for many years, I was self-sufficient. If I was thirsty, I got myself a drink. If I felt like eating drive-thru Maccas for dinner, I would. If I had an opinion to share, I would just roll it on out, even if my husband was halfway through talking.

I was pretty much oblivious to the fact that when you are married, it's good to show consideration to your partner. Offering them a drink when they're thirsty, not just thinking about yourself at dinner time and being respectful of their thoughts and opinions. The day came when my husband had had enough and decided to give me feedback on my behaviour. He pointed out the selfish things I was doing and told me how it was impacting him.

Imagine if, at this point, my husband gave me his feedback and then that was the end of the discussion.  Imagine if he didn't give me the chance to reflect on my actions and change my behaviour. Imagine if I only had one chance to do things right and I lost it. End of story. End of marriage.

Of course, that's not how relationships work. Naturally, (after a heated argument) I apologised, and reflected on my husbands feeedback.  I wanted to improve my behaviour for the good of our marriage. Fortunately, I have become more considerate of my husband over the past 11 years. Feedback is a waste of time unless you actually get the chance to reflect upon it and have another go at getting it right.

It's the same with education, if you don't give students feedback within a reasonable time-frame, the true impact of your teaching will be lost because you didn't give the students a chance to demonstrate what they have learnt, reflect on your feedback and have another go.

When our kids get out into the big wide world, they won't always get feedback and the chance to have a second go. But they're not out there yet. We are in the business of equipping students with all the skills they will need to get it right once they are out there. Let's give them some support, encouragement and FEEDBACK whilst they are in school. I can assure you our students will learn from it.

Dear Teacher/Dear Parent....About Naplan

Dear teacher,

I want to let you know that my child feels worried about NAPLAN this week. She was talking with a year four girl who told her that the tests go forever and it's the worst thing she has ever done at school.

I feel so frustrated that my child has to go through this. 

Four tests in three days. Really? Couldn't you even space them out?

What's the point of them anyway?

If you could quietly help my child with the tests I would really appreciate it.

From a year three parent.



Dear Parent,

Thanks for your note. To be honest, I don't like NAPLAN either. It upsets the children and makes them feel worried about school. I want my classroom to be a happy place where children feel safe to have a go at things and do their best without being worried they'll get it wrong. I don't think my team leader or principal likes them either, but sadly they are a necessary part of modern day schooling.

I am actually glad they are squashed into three days, it gets the whole experience over and done with quickly. The problem with NAPLAN days is that they interrupt our normal routine and as you know, children like their routines. I know it is a daunting thought to have four tests in three days, but to be honest with you, the Tuesday tests are over by lunchtime and the Wednesday and Thursday tasks are over by recess. They are really only a small part of our school week, and once they are over, the children quickly forget about them.

As far as the point of them - well there is actually a good reason for them. The information that we get about each individual child is not so important as the overall trend we are seeing in the school. State and federal government funding is influenced in part by NAPLAN results and help identify schools that need more support. The school is also able to look at the overall results and see if they are making progress in the education of students over time.

As far as individual results go, yes, we check that each child is within the bounds of what would we would expect for a child at their age. If a child is performing below what we were expecting, then the school leadership might check in with the teacher to see if the child needs further support in their learning. If a child is performing above what we were expecting, then we might explore ways to enhance their educational experience that meets their interests and needs. If your child is performing as we would expect, then it is truly business as usual and we consider their results to just be confirmation that things are heading in the right direction in their academic education.

The real problem with NAPLAN tests is that the results are made publicly accessible on the Myschool website. This leads some schools to feel anxious about how their results may appear to prospective parents. Sadly, NAPLAN tests may show how a school is doing academically, but it doesn't tell you about how the children are taught. It doesn't tell you what lengths the school went to in order to achieve their results. It doesn't tell you how happy the children are in the playground. It doesn't tell you about the community spirit that lives in the school. It doesn't tell you about how children with additional needs are loved and embraced by the school community. All it tells you is that in May 2017, this is what the average child at a given school knew.

My advice, give your child a big hug and kiss tomorrow and send her off to school as you always do. When the results finally arrive in September, have a quick peak to see if your child may need additional help or needs more challenges at school, and then chuck the results in the recycling bin.

Instead of worrying about NAPLAN, celebrate the person your child is becoming. Celebrate the fact that they are learning more and more everyday. Celebrate their perseverance when things are hard. Celebrate the kindness they show to the children who find school a real struggle.

Celebrate that we live in a country that wants to keep schools accountable for what they are teaching our children.

And maybe go out for pizza on Thursday night to celebrate the end of NAPLAN.

Kind regards,

your child's teacher

A time to build resilience? Or a time to just go buy a frozen coke at Maccas?

This week was our school sports day. I must say from the outset, the school did a brilliant job in running the event. The students were well behaved, we all had a brochure outlining the order of events for the day, the MC did a great job of keeping us informed of what was happening, the teachers were all positive and on task.

My own two children, however, did not have such a great day.

One of my children was emotionally fragile before the day even begun. A splash of water on their blue t-shirt resulted in a torrent of tears in the bathroom. Meltdown #1. We should have seen the early-warning signal!

I had set aside the day to attend Sports Day, not to be a parent helper, but to be a mother to my own two children, who do find these days difficult. The first issue occurred before the first race had even been run. I gave one child a pile of grapes thinking my other child wouldn't want any. Big mistake. They did want those grapes, but I had given them all to their sibling. Meltdown #2 for the day.

A running race for both children, long jump for one, high jump for the other. They returned to find that one of our drink bottles had fallen out of our bag and had been damaged when it had been kicked around by some students in front of us. Meltdown #3.

By this stage, it was 33 degrees and I could see that all the other students, although hot, were having a wonderful day. I had a choice. Persevere with the sports day, even though I was averaging one meltdown per hour, or take my children home before more meltdowns occurred. I decided to take my children home. I located both classroom teachers, briefly explained the situation and signed my children out. When I got back to the seating area, I found both my children in tears because one child had inadvertently bumped the book the other was reading thus losing the place they were up to in the book. Meltdown #4 for one child, Meltdown #1 for the other. What was lovely was seeing two other mums sitting with my children trying to calm them both down in my absence.

I sincerely thanked them for their help and explained to my children that I was going to give them the choice to stay at the sports day or go home early. Naturally both children eagerly took up option B. I then told them that we were going to go and get a frozen coke on the way home. There was happiness all round, especially from me, I love happy children AND frozen cokes! The supportive mums smiled with approval and one said "You have the patience of Job".
I smiled and said, "If I had the patience of Job, I would make my children stay for the whole day!"

Withdrawing my children from a difficult school experience does raise an interesting issue.

If I want to build resilient children, should I be yanking them out of school in the middle of the day?

Will my children learn that if they have a meltdown they will get out of school and have a frozen coke every time?

I would argue that building resilience is a life long journey. I want my children to 'toughen up' but I also want to show them that there are occasions when it's okay to say 'I give up - I actually want to step out of this situation as it is more than I can handle at the moment.' As their mum, I also knew that both my kids were going through a difficult time. We've just moved house, they had both had a big weekend and had been unwell recently. My mum is also very sick and the children are concerned about her. These meltdowns were about more than an aversion to sport, they were a symptom of my children in overload. Now was not the time to give them a lesson in resilience.

The reason for the frozen cokes?

Well, it was 33 degrees, I needed a frozen coke, I couldn't drink one in front of my kids and not offer them one - could I?

But seriously, if I had driven straight home from the sports day. The children would look back on the day as that hot, miserable experience where they kept on having meltdowns and then went home and watched tv.

The positive experience of the frozen coke re-framed the day. When my children reflect upon sports day they will remember that it was a hot day, they went in a few events and then got a frozen coke. They will remember that the last school sports day actually had quite a few good things about it. When sports day comes around next year, they will be keen to prepare for it. They will put their name down for a few events and I will come along and cheer them on.

If the weather is a little milder next year, my children are well-rested and worry free, sure, I'll make them stay all day! But either way, we will pick up a frozen coke on the way home! I deserve it!

USE YOUR VOICE

This may come as a shock to many of you - but I was given an incredible gift when I was created in my mother's womb. "What gift?" I hear you ask.

I was given a loud, clear voice.

I suspect my parents and sisters became aware of this gift within hours of my birth.

I first became aware of it when I was 7, playing in the street with a friend outside her house. We were having a delightful game of make-believe when her dad stormed outside and said to me "You are too noisy" and then he pointed at my friend "you need to do your chores". I was stunned, how can one be too noisy when playing on the footpath?

Fast forward 20 years, and my loud voice was no longer a problem but an asset when commanding the attention of 350+ primary school children in the school gym.

I continue to be reminded that perhaps my voice is louder than average when I speak to my children in K-Mart. I would like to blame the acoustics in the toy section....however, whenever I say something such as "OK children, 5 minutes until we go", every other person in the toy section stops and looks at me. In fact some onlookers have even been known to demonstrate a 'startle response' to the sound of my warm, loving voice addressing my children. As I said  - it's a gift.

In addition to an above average volume, I have also been gifted with the ability to not be afraid to use my voice. I think this was particularly demonstrated in the early 2000's when I would share my personal opinion on absolutely every agenda item raised in staff meetings. (It is at this point that I would like to apologise to all my colleagues who had to endure staff meetings with me during this era!)

I continue to be outspoken in my opinions and demonstrate an eagerness to share my 'constructive opinion' on all manner of topics. However, I am also learning (slowly) to be a little more discerning in when I demonstrate this ability. Just like the boy who cried wolf, if I use my voice all the time, people tire of listening to it and no longer respond to it. At the same time, if I never use my voice, I may allow things to occur that are not beneficial to my loved ones. It's a tricky balance.

In recent months, my mother has been in and out of hospitals and care facilities. We have generally had good experiences with these, but a couple of weeks ago mum found herself in a hospital that was not doing the right thing by her. I had a choice, I could grumble about what was going on to whomever would listen OR I could use my voice wisely and locate the best avenue by which to express my concerns and have them addressed. With a bit of help from my brother-in-law,
I located a service which would enable me to get in contact with the CEO of the hospital in question. I respectfully but truthfully aired my concerns, and found I was listened to - and things were put right.

When it comes to the education system, parents can generally fall into one of two categories. Some parents let the teacher know about each and every problem that arises with their child. They send angry emails, stand at the classroom door exasperated and share their annoyance with whomever is in the car park at the time. These people seem to always find something to complain about and teacher's fear their next interaction with such parents.  On the other extreme, there are parents who see problems, feel frustrated about them but are too nervous about talking to the teacher. These parents are the ones who need to speak up, because the teacher will never know there is a problem unless you tell them. I can speak for all teachers when I say that we want to hear from you if your child is struggling with something and we don't know about it!

The trick is to use your voice wisely. 

Speak up if your child has a learning challenge that the teacher needs to hear about.

Speak up when your child's right to feel safe and to have equal access to education is not being recognised.

Speak up when you see any child at risk due to the actions or inactions of another person.

Speak and tread carefully when your child has made a complaint about the class teacher or another class member - there are two sides to every story!

Stay silent when you wake up grumpy and everyone is annoying you today - including your child's teacher.

Stay silent if the person you are speaking to has no power to change the situation for you or your child.


If you need help in working out whether you need to 'speak up' about an issue concerning your child's education, contact me on 0425 792 189 for a confidential, free chat.
I'm happy to tell you whether you need to speak up or stay silent!