But sometimes, like this chap, we can’t and we have to make the best of the here and now. It’s like a game we occasionally play where we sit outside a city cafe with our expresso, our backs to the road and pretend there’s a harbour behind us. A way to survive the city.
I see other people finding their own ways of creating a bit of personal space, on the trains and tubes. Mostly this seems to involve iPods, phones and newspapers.
I like this chap. I’m not really sure what he’s doing there, just sunbathing, maybe saving a parking space? Who knows? All I know is that there he sat, in the sun, relaxing and he made me smile.

The other thing I know is that if I hadn’t had my camera with me I would never have seen him. It was only because I was casting around for something to photograph that I saw him at all.
So there he is - a slice of city life. Did he make you smile too?

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A classic combination of questions in action research. I’m going to use them to try to help me reflect on this blog. I got very bogged down in the 31 day Blog Commenting Challenge. It made me really think about what I’m doing with this blog and, well, why I write it at all. I’m going to use a reflection technique to help me sort it out. It’s one that I used a lot when I was at uni and which might just be helpful now.

What?

State the problem -

I’m only a very part time educator these days. When I do work in education it is with adults and it is very limited. Most blogs that I read or comment on are primary school teachers. After 18 months out of school I’ve lost my common ground with them. I thought I’d find adult education bloggers to be my peers and provide a new community. I haven’t. They are either not there or I can’t find them. It’s not like I can just use university bloggers either - their issues are as different to mine as the primary school teachers.

Mostly now what I do is write: blogs; articles; wiki pages. Some about education, some not. I like to write. I enjoy it.I love the whole gamut of writing from simple factual things about dates and times to long, in depth, opinion pieces. Mostly it’s the sort of writing that combines words and images. Heh - I wasn’t going to get less visual was I?

Put simply then, the problem is that what I read (blogs and twitter) and what I write about (and reflect on) here does not improve my practice. My practice has changed.

So What?

Why is this important? Well, it’s important because I still want to take actions and improve. It’s just that what I do has changed. I still want to use a blog to help me do that. I know it’s a useful tool and I want to use it.

Now What?

Now I get to re-invent my RSS reader and this blog. If you come with me on this journey you are very welcome. If this is where we part company, thanks for being around and goodbye.

I’m going to use these insight to plan radical changes to the blog over the next couple of weeks. It might get a bit bumpy along the way. My focus is going to shift to writing and reading in all it’s forms.

So here’s a few questions for anyone who’s still here after this announcement.

Who writes really well?

Who should I be reading?

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I’m a little behind with the 31 day challenge so this is my day 7 reflection.

Progress to date:

1. Audited my own commenting behaviour,
2. Commented on a new blog,
3. Installed a blog comment tracking service,
4. Asked a question in a comment,
5. Commented on a post I didn’t agree with
6. Responded to another commenter on a blog post.

Task 7 is to identify 3 things I’ve learned in the challenge so far. I’m to think about what I’ve learned about myself as a commenter, what I’ve learned about the act of commenting, and how I think my recent commenting activities have impacted me as commenter and a blogger. The idea is to quickly identify the significant learning. Familiar and not all together comfortable territory from Ultraversity days First the:

Reflection

I learned that I am a reluctant to post comments part because I worry about what people will think of me. I think I sometimes misjudge the tone of what I write and there can be cultural differences that make global blog commenting more difficult. Yet I have no problem commenting on lots of flickr photos, engaging in conversations about the images and their meanings, implications etc. I am more confident in that environment. I also discovered I’m quite likely to respond to a blog post from a contact on twitter rather than on their blog.

Recurring themes? Feeling safe, comfortable and ownership

About commenting in general I’ve learned that it’s harder than I thought. It’s given me an insight into why people might be reluctant to comment on my blogs. I read so many things and am interested and enjoy them but I still only respond to a small minority. It’s made me more aware of the need to get a response from the blogger, to be made welcome and comfortable even if I’m disagreeing with them. Hard! See the point above. I might just face the fact that avoiding conflict is a deep seated personality trait and stay in my comfort zone.

Recurring themes - difficulties, balance, conflict avoidance

Now for some quantitative data:

There seems to be a 10% responding to 90% reading balance now compared to 2% - 98% before the challenge.

Ok - that’s pleasing This is partly because I culled my feeds and removed a lot of stuff I skimmed and wasn’t relevant to my current needs and interests. Even so I think it’s progress. None of these comments were just “me too” posts and I tried to add something and engage with the poster and other commenters in all of them.

However - I still commented on 3 times as many flickr photos as blogs! These comments were almost never of the ‘lovely photo’ variety

Themes - progress, engagement, visual stimuli

Significant Learning

I avoid even minor conflict - even on blogs,
Visual stimulus is important to me
I can change my commenting habits with a small amount of effort

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Today I’ve got a guest blogger.

“A Peri” responds to my last post and adds some important advice for parents choosing schools:

You’ve hit the nail on the head with the luxury or nurture about the lack of music specialists.

I feel parents are not very clued up as to what to look for in a music department. If parents ask careful questions about music provision they can find out quite a bit. Here are some suggestions:

1) How many instrumentalists performed solos last year in concerts? Choirs etc. are great but it is by finding out what is being done for the children that learn instruments that you can tell the true level of support for music in a school. Sample concert programmes might reveal only one or two being showcased.

2) If the school is in a position to offer scholarships how many music scholarships does the school have and to what value? Make sure you know what some of the opposition are offering. Ring round a few other local schools.

3) Does the head always allow children out of school to go and perform at local, regional or national concerts? You would think this was a given, being good PR for the school, but not so. Imagine your child having practised for years and on being invited to perform at a prestigious event being told that they are not allowed to!

4) Do the school employ music peripatetics (specialist instrumental teachers) to coach string quartets, jazz groups, brass quintets etc? Any kind of chamber music or traditional music groups? These groups, if they are regularly rehearsed will be being entered for competitions and festivals e.g. National Chamber Music competition. The headmaster/headmistress should be able to tell you about them or you should see timetables in the Music department as you are being shown round. Look for details on noticeboards of groups other than orchestras being coached by named peripatetics specifying who is doing what on which day of the week. This should be happening in senior schools.

5) Are there concerts set up every term to give instrumental examination candidates practice just before music examinations?

6) How many teachers are involved in the running of junior orchestras and for how long each week? If there is a half hour session with one teacher then, by the time everything is set up and instruments tuned, there is not much time left. Plus as inexperienced junior school players frequently get lost when starting new tunes, it requires a high level of teacher competence/availability to keep players together. If management are prepared to offer the support of two teachers one can keep going on the piano or conducting and the other can go round rescuing players reducing the need for continual stopping and starting and avoiding pupils sitting there being miserably lost.

7) Does each school orchestra run for the whole year or is it a one term/two term option? Half a year can be the norm and even if it is two terms - just think - March to September without any rehearsals!

How many orchestra rehearsals are held as a minimum per term/year? If the music teacher is ill or unavailable is orchestra cancelled? Does a replacement music teacher/peripatetic get booked to take the rehearsal? It is possible to lose a huge amount of rehearsals this way and pupils get very fed up and drift off. I have known whole terms to go missing. In small schools you might judge this hard to avoid but certainly it should not be the case in larger schools or junior schools attached to senior schools. Staff could be shifted across if management support is there.

9) Is there an excellent pianist on the teaching staff or do the school hire a trained peripatetic to help out with accompaniments. Pupils can get to Grade 5 and find the school simply cannot cope with the piano accompaniments that are needed at this level. Some of the piano parts can really be very tricky. Pupils then find they are not selected to play in concerts or else parents end up sitting through concerts listening to somebody doing their best to stumble through the accompaniments.

10) Does the school take any kind of hire fee/rental/commission from the peripatetics? Is the peripatetic actually receiving what you are paying? It is a question well worth asking your County or Borough music service as well. Any organisation that really values their music staff will not be doing this. After all the rest of the teachers are not charged for teaching.

11) How does the school’s system of extra curricular activities work? A junior school that requires that pupil’s sign up every term is likely to lose pupils as they forget or just don’t feel like it when the notice is up at the start of term. Encouraging children to think that they permanently belong to the orchestra and that this activity is part of their lifestyle is what is needed.

Likewise a senior school that requests pupils do two extra activities a week encouraging them to change activities every term is not a successful receipe for anything the music department might be wanting to do. Years of study turns out useful players by the time pupils reach Years 12 and 13. A term or so here and there will not do it.

Even worse if all music groups are only allowed to be counted as one activity whether it be orchestra, choir, jazz group etc. and the children are required to do something else in a different subject as well. Making progress on any instrument is exceedingly time consuming and musicians ought really to learn two instruments before even beginning to think about taking it up as a career. Many professionals play a lot more than two instruments. Encouraging instrumental students to do as many musical activities and styles of music as possible with consistent attendance at rehearsals is the way forward.

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Once you are in the school and watching concerts how do you keep track? If the orchestras are populated by a lot of peripatetics is this just for show or are the peripatetics actually paid to attend the rehearsals as well? I have taken part in a concert where the orchestra would have completely fallen apart if visiting teachers had not agreed to go in and shore the whole thing up. This made the orchestra seem a viable proposition for parents in the audience when it wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination. We weren’t there at the weekly rehearsals.

If your child’s instrumental teacher is there it might be worth discreetly asking if they were paid to play in the concert. A lot of goodwill by peripatetics goes unnoticed. You are in a position to thank them and a little appreciation goes a long way.

Listen for the level of difficulty of piano accompaniments that are needed. They take hours of extra time to practise and rehearse for whichever member of staff does it. Make sure the school knows you appreciate it if you feel they have invested in employing a really decent pianist on the teaching staff. It is the kind of leg up for your child at Grades 5,6,7,8 and beyond that you’ll notice dreadfully if lost. Plus having a competent pianist around is a gift for all the instrumental teachers. It means they do not have to rely on choosing pieces for their students on the basis of what the pianist can manage.

So……………… the website or the prospectus or even both may have a picture of children playing violins, cellos, horns but do the actions match the publicity? That is what parents need to find out in order to assess whether the deal is reasonable.

Asking these questions also has the added bonus that if the music passes muster then it will tell you a lot about the school as a whole.

Happy school hunting.

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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.

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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!

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John posted on Flickr about the sound of church bells, especially electronic carillons, and wondered if people find them intrusive or if they make them think of God. (These two are obviously not mutually exclusive but we won’t go there )

Church Bells in Spain and Scotland

I’m not a Christian but I love to hear the sound of church bells. I have lived in old towns and villages most of my life. These sounds that punctuate the day are something I miss in London. I just got back from Spain and the sound of the bells ringing the hours of the day, as they have for hundreds of years gives daily life a reassuringly grounded feeling. In the south of Spain at Christmas many towns have loud speakers that play traditional carols all day long. I love that too as the music is a wonderful mix of medieval chanting with Arabic overtones. I hated it when they played cheesy Christmas pop, like they did in Ronda

In St Andrews (Fife) there is a wonderful carillon, not an electronic one but a 1920s version that can be played with a keyboard. It is one of only four churches in Scotland to have a carillon. The instrument consists of 27 bells and is housed in the church tower. It is always played before Sunday morning service around 10:45 am. Sometimes other times as well, most often for weddings. The church web site says :

the first fifteen bells were installed in 1926, as a memorial to Rev Patrick Playfair, minister of the first charge from 1899 to 1924, and the inspiration behind the 1909 restoration. The bells were cast by John Taylor of Loughborough and dedicated on St Andrews Day, 1926. Two more bells, an anonymous gift, were hung in 1938, and six more, in memory of members of the Mercer family, were presented by Miss Jane Mercer in 1962. Four more were added in 1998 and dedicated on Easter day in that year.

I remember the dedication of the new bells, it was a big deal in the town. I never minded the sound of them, it fact I always thought it was a pleasure to hear. Some visitors staying in nearby guest houses used to object to it getting them up on Sunday mornings though. I was usually ensconced in MacGregors with a big mug of black coffee & a Sunday paper by then
The sound of bells doesn’t make me think of God. I’m just not wired that way I like it because it connects me to all those people who went before, to a feeling of continuity and stability. It reminds me that those people were, in fact, just like us. People doing the best they can in difficult circumstances.

I think I’m with Larkin , not with Betjeman after all, standing awkwardly in a quiet church, enjoying the stillness and the solemnity of the bells.

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For ages on of my goals on 43Things has been to have more fun. It’s a good goal to have, it doesn’t mean I’m unhappy just that there’s always more room for fun in my life. I spend a little time thinking about how to achieve this and the results are things like theatre trips, short breaks to Paris, and more everyday things, like a walk by the canal on a sunny day.

So one of the joys of my Twitter PLN has been (re)discovering Bernie DeKoven. Anyone who was working in with kids in informal settings in the 70s and 80s will remember New Games and the wonderful, silly and often hilarious results of playing them.

Nobody wins, nobody loses and everyone has fun.

It stayed with me and underpinned many of the activities I used with children in schools. Pure fun and if something about cooperation or groups gets learnt along the way, great.

Well, Bernie’s a blogger these days and he’s compiled a list of 54 kinds of Deep Fun. It’s a comprehensive list but in his comments Josh G. adds one more:

Bernie DeKoven, funsmith
I’d have to say … “thoughtful fun”.

Fun that thinks. Fun that thinks about how to make things even funner!
And maybe fun that thinks about others and how to make sure they’re
having fun too.

Thinking is fun.

Can you believe I forgot that?!! What was best about my time playing New Games wasn’t participating in them, though that was fun, it was facilitating them and ensuring that the kids and adults had a great time.

Maybe I need to remember that and incorporate more opportunities for fun into my students activities.

I’d also like to add another kind of deep fun to Bernie’s list:

creative fun

The kind of fun where you are absorbed in the creation of something, the act of making for its own sake not to produce an outcome, like making mud pies or messing with play dough.

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I’m exploring the key principles that define and underpin the concept of life long learning in the UK.

I used a target diagram but I’m not sure how easy others would find it to interpret. I often have this problem with visual representations. I know what I mean but will anyone else?

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Tonight is Burns Night and ex-pat Scots all over the world will be eating haggis and toasting the bard. I can’t help but wonder what that gloriously irreverent poet would have made of all the mad trappings of a classic Burns Night.

Anyway, enough of my babble! If you want good resources for using Burns in school you could do worse than start with

The National Burns Collection.

Lovely resources, download-able packs for different key stages, virtual tours of various Burns Museums.

The National Library of Scotland

Lots of images and scans of original materials, chronological account of his life in various places, audio available.

Family myths about Burns

One of my ancestors (a Kirkpatrick) attended the first ever Burns Supper in Burn’s birthplace in Alloway.
My grandmother (a Wilson of that ilk) in a fit of ‘cleaning’ before moving to a new house in 1958 threw away a ‘Kilmarnock edition’. (1786 published by John Wilson of Kilmarnock only 600 copies ever printed “Scottish Poems by Robert Burns”)

My Memories of Burn’s Night

When I was a child my parents used to disappear to Caledonian Society ‘doos’ on the Saturday nearest Burns Night. This usually involved my father donning his kilt, (not the dusty coloured one that smelled of bracken that he occasionally wore from choice when we were ‘up home’ on holiday) but the ‘dress Lindsey’ one and a velvet jacket. My Mum wore a white frock with a sort of sash of tartan over one shoulder, (a plaidie - but a sort of fake one, no use what so ever in the North West rain!) a big fancy broach with an purple stone pinning it to the frock.

My dad said he felt a bit silly in that get up, though he was usually gallant enough to say my Mum looked lovely. He wasn’t a Highlander after all, but a Lowland Scot. Just like Burns himself. Still Burns liked to romanticise the noble Highlander and I suppose he’s partly responsible for the spread of the belief that that’s the true version of Scottishness. Most of it came later with Queen Victoria and all that Balmorality but Burns was there at the start of it.

All that tartan, all those formal speeches! If I believed in an after-life, (slipping quickly past that topic!) I’m sure he’d be wetting himself laughing at what it has turned into.

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