5^th December 2011

I watched the Young Apprentice yesterday on catch-up TV.  Students between 16 and 18 years of age slung into the verbal gladiator ring with the sardonic, yet pithy wit, of Lord Sugar, each of the engaging entrepreneurs hoping to win £25,000 towards starting their own business.  It’s cringingly crass.  It’s great TV.  Like Big Brother, the producers pick plucky students: 16 of them, who sit along all points of the personality continuum. 

The innocents don’t know about ‘new group’ dynamics.

                In the business world they know the process as … Formin’ … stormin’ … normin’ and performin’ … the process that every new group of people goes through when they get together to perform a task:  the process that basically says, ‘Here’s the task, now get on with it’.  In TV land the leaders offer their services with little clue how to proceed, relying on their wits and in some cases their repartee to get them by.  In the real world the groups have a skilled leader who knows how; the one who can lead groups of people towards a satisfactory conclusion.  This is the person who knows that the process has to go through all its component parts in that particular order; if she or he ever thinks there is a quick way to group success, then he or she is doomed.  Fact. 

                And so it is with NQTs and trainee teachers

                Rachael trainee has been watching me for a few weeks now, hopefully picking up a few tips about teaching and learning. Purposely, I haven’t let her teach for even 10 minutes. The group isn’t at ‘performin’’ stage.  It would be unfair. I think I have led the group through towards the middle of the ‘stormin’’ stage.  They are all still vying for their position in the group:  who’s the loudest, cleverest, quietest, most thoughtful, most helpful, most critical, the leader, the follower.  Since the start of September I have been co-ordinating my own version of Young Apprentice without the prize money. I’m lucky.  I have one group of 25 to teach.  The average teacher, let alone NQTs, can have between 5 and 15 new groups in September. 

Let that sink in for a minute.

                Due to other ‘Deputy Head’ commitments next week, today is going to be the last lesson before Christmas.  This will be interesting and also help the group dynamics.  It’s all about being assertive and I’m going to use the topic of cannabis to help them for the future.  A starter to think about, two video snippets and using storyboard conversations about case studies – engagement.  I’m looking for them to distil information and collaborate to support group development. I need them to share their opinions and help each other out.

                BLP invites are on the door, starter is on the desks and the register is open.  I hope they have recovered fully from the flaming fire drill this morning and the wet, windy weather at lunchtime.  I count them as they troop in. I know P has gone on an extended holiday to India and I have already put activities on the VLE to access whilst she’s there. She was insistent. So was I. 

One other missing.  As I am about to mark her absent, K walks in and isn’t happy that her usual seat has been commandeered by a boy.  She tries to negotiate, but to no avail.  “Sit over there for now,” I say and walk towards the table to the right.  She follows, throws her coat half-heartedly on the back of the chair and it falls to the floor.  Those closer to her notice, even though we’re not practising noticing skills.  I sense she is trying to control her unhappiness as I walk away.  She needs time.  So do I.  I keep the faith that in the long term she will be fine.  She’s too young to look that far ahead as younger people live in the now; feeling every subtle nuance that life throws at them, each event taking on a humungous disproportionate proportion.

After last week’s experiment I go back to micro-instructions for getting attention and the speed of their silence is impressive.  I go through the starter and tell them they have 4 minutes.  I nearly forget transition time, but interrupt myself moving and return to standing still and lots of scanning. It’s easy to forget.  Trainees and NQTs forget.  Sometimes so do I.

I decide to give a time reminder every 30 seconds. After each 30 seconds the noise reduces and reduces and reduces.  They are still collaborating, but quietly.  Every question I am asked, I point to their instruction sheet and say, “Talk about it,” quickly pointing alternately to them and their table friends.  P is off task messing with something under the desk.  I move towards her, she looks up at me and I say in an expectant tone, with a smile, “Have you finished P?”  Head down. She knows. 

During this, the 11^th hour, the framework I am building for them to work within, is nearing completion. Their reactions to me are becoming automatic and consistent. Soon, those walls will be fully built and all 25 students will know how to treat me and me them.   Another half a term should do it.  Then we’ll be ‘normin’’ to ‘performin’’.  My job. Half done.

It’s feedback time.  “30 seconds to go …. 15 seconds left …. 54321 … “ I use the final finer countdown as an attention getter.  Many of their teachers have used that in the past.  They remember the cue and they’re not even Pavlov’s dogs or Skinner’s pigeons.  The power of the non-verbal behaviour techniques.  A few of the talkative ones let their voices finally fade away.  Every group has them; always been the way.

“So who would like to tell us about their own situation when they were or weren’t assertive?”  2 hands shoot up.  “Yes, M … tell us.”

“When I was out with K the other day-“

“You went out with K?!!!” A student to my left interrupts and shouts out laughingly. Loud sniggers follow.

I let it go. It’s a funny remark and the two boys take it in the spirit.

“Not like that! We were out cruising the streets and he wanted my sweets.  He’s always asking as he has no money.”

“No I don’t!” retorts K, obviously lying.

“I have to keep on saying no so that one day he might buy some for himself!” finishes M.

I smile a big smile and turn to face everyone so they know I like the tone of this discussion.  It’s a group building and bonding technique.

“So you feel that you were assertive in this case M?” I ask to confirm.

“Yes.”

“Good, I’m glad you recognised that.” He smiles as I smile too.

I ask a few more students for feedback.  Some students are having private conversations as others are feeding back.  I use lots of sentence interrupts and standing silence to keep the discussion on track and show my irritation when I say, “I’m not going to have people interrupted when they are talking.  It’s the same for everyone.  “OK sorry M, carry on.”  I am scanning furiously and there isn’t even a hint of a smile.  As I sense their compliance, I know I need to move on quickly. I can’t have their behaviours dominating the lesson.  A brick in the wall.

As I move them on to the next collaborative exercise, A comes to me and says, “Can I borrow a pencil Sir?” This is personal responsibility time and I need him to ask friends before seeing me.

“Have a look in your pencil case first A.” (pre-supposing he has it with him)

“I don’t have it Sir.” (thought not)

“Then ask your table mates if they can lend you one.”  I smile, wrinkle my nose and look over to my right so that he will take up my request.  His pencil is his responsibility, not mine.  If he doesn’t get one and finish his work, then he’ll do it at home.  He walks away.  Another brick in the wall.

As they continue to work I decide to use the timer again, but with some classical music.  Class-tools.net is my tool.  First I try some Mozart and countdown every minute.  Noise levels are high but it’s productive noise.  As I say, “6 minutes left,” my friend without the pencil is chewing gum and he doesn’t see me, see him.  Gum is no big deal on the scale of world wars and famine, but it does make a mess on the floor and it’s banned here.  I pick up the bin, put it right next to him and he duly spits out the masticated mess. His mates on the table smile and I walk away.  Minimal interruption to learning.  Elegant.  Always works, always will.

Next I add some time on and countdown with Debussy.  Then I add more.  Then Beethoven.  Strangely, it gets quieter.  Perhaps Beethoven included some weird subliminal messages in his works.  Time for feedback.  Rachael can help me with this.

“Miss, can you pick a good one from the back three tables?” The ‘leader’ types offer theirs up for scrutiny, but Rachael deflects that strategy and chooses her own.  She reads it out and knows every subtle inflection of the street language they’ve used.  She’s better at it than me.  I read mine out too with a mix of street, Black Country and BBC.  They love it, and in that one moment, they love me and Rachael too.  Another brick in the relationship wall.

Year 7 are now metaphorically pulling in their elbows, softening their creased faces and relaxing into their place in the group.  My experience tells me that we might just have taken a giant step into ‘normin’’ today. They say it takes a whole village to rear a child. 

Today it was Rachael, Mozart, Debussy, Beethoven and me