Luxury or Nurture?

Originally uploaded by mtsofan
One of my flickr contacts John raises and interesting question about music in school:

I remember making an appointment with the vice president of the college I attended. The topic was the music program. Though I cannot recall the exact reason for our desire to challenge him, the statement he uttered during our meeting is clear in my memory. He had made a decision based on his opinion that music is a “luxury” when it comes to an academic curriculum.

In this photo, a teacher, hired specifically to give our pre-school children early experience in music, explains how a drum works. Why, for example, it’s useful to have air beneath the head.

Within a half-hour session, the kids also sang, used hand movements, learned dynamics (loud and soft voices), and even used body movement.

Studies have shown that music and dancing can enhance a person’s performance in math. From my perspective, it can help people to think more creatively.

Is music really a luxury?

The continuing conversation below the photo on Flickr makes it clear that most people value music in school as a basic human need. John is in the US but in the UK schools also struggle to fit music into an already packed school day.

In many schools there are no music specialists, sometimes not even someone to play the piano for singing. Teachers in primary used to be expected to play a musical instrument when they applied for training. It’s one of the reasons I opted to work with older children Now with the loss of older teachers and lack of music specialists many teachers dread music sessions or hand them over to teaching assistants (often with even less training in music!) to cover in PPA time.
In my last school we were lucky enough to have a singing teacher who came in to run “Sing your socks off” sessions but they were after school. Children mostly love to sing and no one can seriously believe that it isn’t good for them to do so. So what should we be doing about it?
Music services are under constant threat of cuts, yet the government makes pledges about children having access to music tuition.
It seems to come down to money and time, as usual.

Interesting article on brain based learning by a neurologist who is also an educator:

ASCD
Classroom experiences that are free of intimidation may help information pass through the amygdalas affective filter. In addition, when classroom activities are pleasurable, the brain releases dopamine, a neurotransmitter that stimulates the memory centers and promotes the release of acetylcholinem, which increases focused attention.

The acronym RAD can remind educators of three important neuroscience concepts to consider when preparing lessons:

• Novelty promotes information transmission through the Reticular activating system.
• Stress-free classrooms propel data through the Amygdalas affective filter.
• Pleasurable associations linked with learning are more likely to release more Dopamine.

There are no neuroimaging or brain wave analysis data that demonstrate a negative effect of joy and exuberance in classrooms, yet some schools have unspoken mandates against these valuable components of the classroom experience. Now that hard science proves the negative effects of stress and anxiety, teachers can more confidently promote enthusiasm in their classrooms.

Let’s hear it for classrooms full of novelty, excitement and delight then She even has some quite useful suggestions for how to achieve them. Good stuff

All I have to do is remember that adults need this sort of consideration too!

Originally uploaded by the.burninator

Once long, long ago I worked in the St Andrews Castle visitor centre. This forms part of the exhibition. It is supposed to be someone pulling down the Saints’ statues in the cathedral in response to John Knox. Knox, standing at the lectern, his finger raised, had a movement activated tape that shouted “Cast them oot, I say” every single time someone walked past.
After a while he stopped being irritating, especially once we’d decided he was actually saying “Pass the Lucozade”

“Every primary school should have a maths specialist and parents should have a less negative attitude to the subject”

According to the BBC an interim report by Sir Peter Williams says the UK is one of the few developed nations where it is acceptable to say you are “useless at maths”.

Such attitudes will not help children see maths as an essential and rewarding part of their daily lives,

The study suggests the amount of in-service maths training primary teachers receive is inadequate. Although most (I’d assumed it would be all by now) teachers do have the basic requirement in maths for teacher training - GCSE maths at C or above.

All HLTAs and many TAs also have to have maths GCSE in order to even be considered for a job.
The report had a go at parents as well. It says they needed to have a “can-do” attitude to maths and to learn the modern techniques their children were using to help them and give them a love of maths.

So what do we get from this? More initiatives and funding for family learning perhaps? Parents expected to not only support the children whilst they do homework but also to make time themselves to learn the techniques schools are using to teach maths? I’ve been involved in family learning in school before and they are great for those who do get involved. The trouble is it’s never the parents you really need to reach who turn up to them.

One of the biggest contrast I’m seeing at the moment though is between these attitudes and those of some of my Teaching Assistant students. Mostly educated in non-European countries they express a deep love of Maths and a high level of confidence in their own abilities. They have exactly the ‘can- do’ attitude the report wants to promote, understand that maths is vital to children’s learning and actually look forward to numeracy lessons. As far as I can see the main thing they have in common is that they all did the International Baccalaureate.

I’m busy working out what to include in a one day ICT workshop for trainee primary school teaching assistants. I’ve got an ICT suite booked from 10 till 3 and I’m wondering what people think the TAs really need to know. I’ve had a few thoughts of my own and some great input from Andy. Last night I found that Anthony was thinking about something similar. He’s planning some longer training for TAs and has narrowed it down to 4 topics:

Redbridge Primary ICT Consultant: TA Training
* Using relevant software to support a child with special needs
* Training other TAs to create banners for display
* Researching websites for teachers and TAs to use in their lesson
* Using the IWB to teach

I agree with these and have added them to my list. I also think he’s hit on a couple of really important points but maybe not spelled them out. Teach one TA in a school how to do something really useful on the computer and it tends to spread without the need for formal training. Teaching assistants tend to be a resourceful lot and if something is actually useful it spreads virally through the school.

Of course I was interested that he’d picked out making banner titles for classroom displays. This is something I’ve banged on about for ages. Hand cutting lettering for displays is a hugely wasteful use of teaching assistants’ time. Often schools don’t even have die cutters for the letters so that means using wooden templates, drawing them out and then cutting by hand. If TAs, and so by implication teachers, learn how easy it is to do banner titles, and how good they can look, maybe this can change.

Other areas I’ve thought about:

• File saving and sharing - an introduction. Basic, but many people, including teachers, have no concept of the difference between files and folders, don’t understand about saving versions, or even sensible naming of .docs
• Calibrating white boards. This is a simple but really helpful classroom skill!
• Supporting from the side - how not to do it for them!
• Very basic troubleshooting. Things like checking knowing how to check the in control panel of the laptop when the sound doesn’t work. It’s often just defaulted to ‘mute’.

I think the best way to take this forward might be to use a wiki page so I’ve set up a Teaching Assistants ICT Training page on usefulwiki.

If anyone wants to join in it is easy to edit. Just set yourself up a user name and away you go

So what do you think teaching assistants need to know about using and supporting with ICT? Either add your thoughts to the wiki or leave a comment here.