Horrible Pun Warning
When I started as a (trainee) RE teacher I was given a KS3 Geography class to teach, despite not having even taken it to GCSE myself. The received wisdom back then was you just needed to read a page ahead of the kids in the text book. Suffice to say, it didn’t go very well. Thankfully, as a sector we’ve evolved in our thinking a lot since then. In these knowledge rich times, subject expertise is given more far primacy. However, in the context of a recruitment crisis, with some subjects falling short by a third, I think I’d be naive to think this kind of practice does still not go on across the country.
Furthermore, having just taught a friend to knit, I have some reflections on how we might (responsibly) harvest some of the benefits of novices learning from advanced beginners[1]. Particularly, when it comes to guided observation.
If you are an ECT it’s not always that helpful to go and see someone teach who has worked at the school for years and for whom the class is impeccably behaved. However, seeing someone who is that little bit ahead of you, explicitly and successfully putting into practice a action step you’re working on is one of the most helpful forms of CPD out there. Advanced beginners, haven’t learnt to effectively disguise their effort yet, they don’t make it look easy. They demonstrate (sometimes painfully so) the micro-steps needed for success. This can be incredibly useful for beginners. Whilst there’s no way, I could teach my friend how to knit a whole jumper, , I can show her the micro-steps of how I do a stitch and I can share my stories of how hard it was for me to at first and inspire her with my growth mindset in ways that are motivatingly attainable.
What is more, my own meta-cognitive strategies are fresh in my mind and I can share those with her too. This is where the garage comes in. Our EYFS colleagues know all too well the power of song and rhyme in supporting listening and attention but we don’t tend to apply those learnings later on in life. Somewhat irritatingly, when I started knitting I could not stop singing the same two lines from Craig David’s ‘Rewind’[2] but when I went to teach her I realised the power of combining an action with a song in supporting effective recall. Now we both sit their humming “from the front to the back..” as we knit and she’s almost as good as me. Though we do get into a bit of a tangle (sorry) if she asks me to unpick her stiches.
[1] See the Dreyfus model https://medium.com/@luka_giorgadze/from-novice-to-expert-rating-your-skills-c7dd78f85ca8
[2] For those interested: “From the front to the back that’s where I was at
You know, you know, the Artful Dodger do it like that”
streamlinedsendco.com 