Category Archives: Education

Standing up to the Pesky Unions

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Well done to our Minister for Education, Jan O’Sullivan.

She has had the guts to face down the Secondary School Teachers Unions and is pushing ahead with the pet project of her predecessor Ruairi Quinn.  (Junior Cert Reform, with teacher assessment)

So, she has faced down our strikes, and is holding fast. So she has courage – well done, Minister, take a bow.  Her stand is all the more impressive as she is adamant that all this for the good of the students.

Let’s ignore for a moment the implicit bit that suggests that teachers are not interested in students.

Instead let’s celebrate that we have a minister who is willing to stand up to vested interests.  A minister who is willing to risk popularity in order to do the right thing for students.

Therefore…

Minister, I look forward to the day when you will do the following to support our students:

Reduce class sizes.  This is an incredibly simple measure, but one that has a huge impact on the dynamics of any classroom.  I wrote before about how my daughter was for a time in a class of 34.  This is a ridiculous situation and one that should never be allowed to happen.  This does have the downside of costing money, but the minister has assured us that the evaluation farce was not about money, so maybe there’s room for maneuver. Call me cynical, but I won’t hold my breath.

Restore Guidance Counsellors.  This is another incredibly simple measure, and again has a huge impact on students.  Our guidance counsellors do incredible work with students.  Apart from the obvious help in subject and college choice, guidance counsellors sit with students in times of crisis.  Again, this one would happen to cost money, but I’m sure that the minister will stand up for what’s right, yes?  Actually no.

Restore School Budgets.  Again, a simple thing to do.  Schools get a budget to operate, and this budget is based on the number of students enrolled.  For the past few years this budget has been cut, with a further 1% cut due in September.  Another simple thing to reverse.  But again this isn’t about the money, is it?

Restore resources for Students with Special Educational Needs.  Another simple thing. Really, isn’t this not only simple but ethical?  Are those with special needs already at enough of a disadvantage in educational terms?

Have an effective budget for book rental schemes, and IT in the classroom.  OK.  This is more complicated, and requires some real thinking and procedures to go into place.  Some real work required here.  But it is so necessary.  Books are incredibly expensive, and each new school year brings stress to many families trying to dig out extra money for books and uniforms.

As regards IT – there is no cohesive policy, and what you get from school to school can vary radically.  So our students do not have a level playing field when we talk about ICT in the classroom, and technology in education generally.

So, so much is just about money, and we have a minister who is willing to stand up to others.  So surely she’ll stand up for these principles?

Surely, now that the Minister has shown her mettle in standing up to the unions she will show equal courage standing up to the bean counters?  She will stand up to those who have a view that education can be budgeted down to the minimum possible, and then blame the teachers for failing?

But let’s be honest – the minister is showing little enough care for the reality of life for so many students from disadvantaged areas.  It is about the money, and there’s no point in pretending anything different.  The Minister is failing us, is failing our students – and trying to shift the blame.

 

 

A face for radio

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January 22nd was an interesting day for those of us striking outside my school.  We got a heads up on the 21st that there would be a journo from the Irish Examiner (Niall Murray) there, as well as Paschal Sheehy along with an RTE camera.

I arrived in school about 11 AM to find the Journalist there already along with an examiner photographer and the RTE cameraman.  All very exciting, and a little bit nerve wracking.

The whole process is actually very interesting.  Niall Murray went around to all the staff who were happy to talk to him, and did his interview thing, using shorthand.   Really, I have never seen anyone using shorthand for real.  A little bit of witchcraft right there.

Along with Niall Murray was Denis Minihane, the Examiner photographer for the day.  He took hundreds of photographs.

And lets not forget RTE.  Their camera man took around about 45 minutes of footage, including one interview with yours truly.

So.  What did all this lead?

Niall Murray distilled his 8 or 9 interviews down to this article.  Quite a skill to take thousands of words and summarise the main ideas you’re after.

Denis Minihane’s photographs?  One of them ended up in this article.  That strikes me as a hard way to earn a living.  He also gave a few of us a chance to give a little speech on video, and some of that is in the first article linked.

And RTE?  Paschal Sheehy impressed us with his ability to interview in two languages.  The Irish language interviews were aired on TG4 and Nuacht.  But as for the English language interviews?  Not on the RTE news.  There was a 5 second clip of us picketing the school gate, but no interview.  That was saved for the Radio news.  So there you have it.  Even RTE thinks I have a face for radio.

Doublespeak

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George Orwell’s ‘1984’ scared me.  Yes for the references to Big Brother, and yes, for all the totalitarian references and the image of a world at war.

But  1984 also scared me for the concept of ‘Doublethink’.  Orwell nailed it when he had his politicians twist words so as to make their constituents think whatever it was they were supposed to think.

One who had displeased the party became a ‘nonperson’ and all reference to them was wiped out; the Ministry of Peace tested hand grenades on prisoners; and newstalk was used to indoctrinate the population.

The book is listed as fiction, but seems to have been taken as an instruction manual in the political life of ‘The Best Small County In The World To Do Business’.

Take our successive Education Ministers.  To listen to them, life is only getting better for our students, and they think that we should be happy to swallow their bitter pill.  I think they are hoping for a version of the last line of 1984 where the protagonist, Winston, ‘loved big brother’

Why am I even talking like this?  Lets take a few examples.

Guidance Counsellors.

Guidance Counsellors, for decades, were an important part of Irish schools.  Guidance Counsellors have helped hundreds of thousands of students in subject choice, college choice, and ultimately, career choice.  But that is only part of the work they do.

For years now Guidance counsellors have also done a huge amount of counselling work.  They have helped students who have suffered abuse, bullying, depression, suicidal thoughts, rape.  They have supported, they have referred and they have grieved.

And just like that the government got rid of them.  2 years ago in the budget.  Hidden in the nitty gritty, with the stroke of a pen.

And now that we are told the recession is over, Minister O’Sullivan has no plans to reinstate guidance.  And she calls this good news.  She believes “that it is desirable to give schools some discretion on how to use these increased resources” .  She conveniently forgets to mention that to put in guidance, schools need to lose a teacher in another area.  But that’s ok, because the schools have discretion.

It’s pure Doublethink.  Change the story, and repeat it so much that you believe it yourself.  Minister O’Sullivan also referred to the 2015 budget as being the first budget increase in Education in many years.  More Doublethink.

Why?

Here’s the spin.  Yes, there is an increase in funding, but it’s in the capital spend.  There has been a raft of new building measures proposed (because we love property).  This extra capital is only to ensure school buildings meet increased population demands.  This extra spend does nothing to improve pupil/teacher ratios.  It does nothing to reverse cuts to those who have special needs.

The downside of the budget is that it was published in a year that schools have their capitation budgets cut, and have been promised, wait for it, another cut next September.

So the Minister talks about an increase in the Education Budget and hopes that we all forget the ongoing cuts and buy the party line.

Sadly, in our media driven society, those who can keep their message going loudest and longest will be the ones remembered.  Successive Ministers for Education seem to have taken this lesson to heart.

Striking Again?

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I reckon Minister Jan O’Sullivan is beginning to think that us teachers are an ungrateful lot.  She’s in the job less than a year, and we’re heading towards our second strike.  Why?

Well that’s the core question.  Why should we go on strike again?  Why not just accept what the minister referred to yesterday as her ‘fair and reasonable compromise’?

Let’s take the question a step further.  Why go on strike when so many schools already had a day off yesterday?  At least that’s what this tweet suggests:

tweet

So there you have it.  The strike is about having a day off.

Seriously?

There is one core principle at stake in this strike.  That of assessment.  In Ireland the final assessment of a student’s grade is absolutely impartial.  It is a core value of our system.  And our government wants to squander this in a money saving exercise.  (more on that later)

Our state examination system is one of the few things in this country that we can truly say is impartial.  Money can’t buy grades or favours in the system.  When an examiner starts reading scripts, the only identification he or she will get is the exam centre number, and the candidate number.  Race, Gender, Ethnicity, Wealth, Sexuality or even Behaviour are not factors when it comes to having your exam corrected.

The same could not be said of a teacher correcting his or her own students’ work.  All of us teachers are human.  Any of us can end up liking one student over another for the simplest or stupidest of reasons.  And this could affect that student’s grade.

Let’s talk about the money.

At our first strike I was asked if this was about pay.  Would teachers accept the change if more pay was offered?  It was a fair question, and I probably didn’t give the best answer at the time.  But I’ve had time to think about it.

The strike isn’t about pay – but resources are part of the picture.

Schools, have suffered a brutal regime of cutbacks in the past six years, and our most recent budget had even more cutbacks in store.

  1. Remove Guidance Counsellors from secondary schools
  2. Increase the pupil/teacher ratio
  3. Cut capitation grants to schools
  4. Again, cut capitation grants to schools (and again for next year)
  5. Reduce supports for students with Special Educational Needs

Supports for students are constantly being cut.  Resources are being cut.  Student welfare is being cut.  And in the middle of all this the minister is trying to sell us a flawed product.  And she is trying to sell us something when our resources are being decimated.

The new Junior Cycle Programme is flawed.

One of the sad things about this situation is that the unions and the National Council for Curricular Awards (NCCA) had agreed a new Junior Cert in 2011.  All this trouble could have been avoided.

However, even if the Minister accepts our principle that teachers should not correct their own students’ work, and proceeds ahead with a productive vision of a new Junior Cycle, then she would then need to provide the proper resources to implement it.

The Junior Cert is flawed.  It does need to be revised, rebuilt.  But it needs to be done properly.  The current programme is not the way forward.

And that is why we teachers will again go on strike next week.

Next week I will stand proudly with my colleagues and we will make our opposition to the minister’s plans known.

 

More articles on the New Junior Cert:

The New Junior Cert

I don’t want to go on strike.  I need to go on strike.

Now you see it…

The Narrow Focus of Assessment

Education and Equality

6 Reasons why we’re going on strike

 

Getting Started in Google Classroom

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One of the tools available in the Google Apps For Education (GAFE) suite is Google classroom.  It gives the teacher the ability to set assignments, allows students to return assignments, and facilitates teachers’ engagement with students as they complete their assignments.

So.  How to get started with this?

If you are a teacher in a school / Institution using GAFE, then you need the administrator to register you as a ‘classroom-teacher’.

Next, go to classroom.google.com and sign in with your GAFE account

Once you are logged in, you will get a home page that will show all the classes you have created (but that’s a step or two later)

First, how to create a classgroup:

On your homescreen, near the top at the right hand side, you will see a + sign.  Click on this, and you should see a drop-down menu like the one here:

classroom1

Click on the ‘Create Class’ option.

That will give you this screen:

classroom 2

Give your shiny new class a name (and a section if you’re doing just one part of a course)

Once you click ‘Create’ you will be taken to this or a screen like it:

classroom 3

At this point you can take the (brief) tour offered at the bottom right-hand-side of the page, or you can dive in and add students to the class.

Here, you have two options:

  1. Give students the class code (listed at the bottom right of the page).  The students then log into their google account, go to classroom.google.com and type in the code.
  2. Invite students manually

To invite students manually, click on the ‘Students’ tab in the top centre part of the page.

Classroom 4

Click on the nice, blue ‘Invite’ button and you will get this option:

Classroom 5

The system will first give you the option of inviting students in your own contacts list.  This is actually limited unless you already have the students’ email address.  You need to click on the ‘My contacts’ button, and then click on ‘Directory’.  This will give you the directory of all the users with an account in your school (domain)

Classroom 6

The hard part now is to actually add students from the directory in the most economical way possible!

Here’s what works for me:

  1. Have your roll handy
  2. Type the first name of a student into the search box
  3. You will be shown all the students with that first name
  4. Tick the check-box beside his/her name
  5. Once his/her name appears in the box below, type in the name of the next student
  6. Repeat until you have all your students included
  7. At this point click on the ‘Invite Students’ button
  8. The students will now receive an email inviting them to join your class group
  9. They need to click the longer link in the email.
  10. This will bring them to their classroom account, and they will then need to accept your invitation.

Classroom 7

 

There are extra options at this point.  You can click on the ‘About’ button for your class group to set more information (your choice!)

Classroom 8

Good luck!

If you are already using Classroom and have tips, ideas or more suggestions – I’d love to hear them!

Related Posts:

Sharing Documents in Google Drive

Getting Started in Google Drive

Google in School

7 Ways to use Google Classroom

I don’t want to go on strike. I need to go on strike.

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Some of our students are very clued in.  On Friday one of my leaving certs approached me with his phone and gave me the news of the upcoming strike.  Good for him.  He’s interested in what’s going on in the world.

And yet he represents one of the many students who I will walk out on, come December 2nd.  He’s a great guy, his classmates are great, and I’m sure this is replicated across the country, and yet here we are.  We, the members of the two secondary school unions have voted for strike.  Here’s the joint statement from the unions.

So.  Why are we going on strike?

There is one core issue.  Assessment.

You see, up until now the Junior Cert has been assessed externally.  This is important because it means that little Johnny from Mayfield is on the same playing field as Alistair from D4.  It’s an incredible logistic feat, but when a student sits a state exam, their paper goes to a different part of the country, and the examiner knows nothing – nothing about that student.  This is a vital part of the integrity of the system.

In his time as Minister for Education, Ruairi Quinn wanted to do away with this and replace the Junior Cert with the JCSA and have it assessed in-house.  This was a sea change and, if accepted, open to abuse.  A JCSA certificate from my community school would not carry the same prestige as one from an up-market fee-paying school.

Our new Minister, Jan O’Sullivan has tried to reach a compromise in this.  She has offered 40% internal assessment, with an oversight element.  This is still not good enough.  For a number of reasons:

  1. We have still broken from the principle of external assessment for the exams.  This would still mean teachers marking their own students work.  Who is to say that this isn’t open to abuse or manipulation?  What pressures will be brought to bear on some teachers to bring up the marks of their students?
  2. The syllabus is due to change.  And where are the resources to implement a new syllabus?  Syllabus change and development is necessary.  I think that all teachers accept that we need a revision of the Junior Cert.  In fact, we had agreed to this in 2011, and had a plan in place.  But any change of this magnitude needs proper resources.  Teachers need training, updating in their skills.
  3. Building a project for assessment.  Have you ever tried to get 25 students to complete a project?  It can be… interesting.  There is a balance to be struck between driving the students and spoon-feeding them all the answers.
  4. Time.  When is the marking of this 40% due to happen?  A teacher with 33 class periods in a week is already struggling with time pressures.   If that teacher has students sitting the state exam, then he/she ends up having to correct the work for the state in an unpaid manner.
  5. Where is the educational merit of the decision?  Why does the minister not want to move on the 40% number?  Money.  The less work that is corrected by the State Examinations Commission (SEC), the better.  It saves money.  In it’s original form, the JCSA appeared to be a precursor to phasing out the SEC.

Look at some of what’s been done (in the name of educational reform)

  1. Remove Guidance Counsellors from secondary schools
  2. Increase the pupil/teacher ratio
  3. Cut capitation grants to schools
  4. Again, cut capitation grants to schools (and again for next year)
  5. Reduce supports for students with Special Educational Needs

I’m being a bit long-winded, so back the core issue.  Why are we going on strike?  Because teachers should not assess their own students for a state exam.  Add to that, (speaking for myself) I don’t trust the motivations behind these measures.

So. It’s time to act.  It’s time to let the Minister and her government know that enough is enough.  Education has been attacked long enough.  I don’t want to go on strike, but I need to.

Sharing Documents in Google Drive

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(I’m building a Google site in our school domain to put together a series of ‘how-to’ pages to help students & staff figure things out.  Here’s the latest offering, hope it helps someone!)

Once you know how to create documents, it’s a good idea to know how to share information.

For example, you may be part of a group working on a project.  Drive makes it very easy to share whatever document you are working on.

First Method for Sharing:

Let’s take the document we created earlier as an example.  Remember, it looks like this:

Open a document for yourself.

Notice that at the top right hand side of the document there is a blue button labelled ‘Share’.
Click on this.
You will then see a pop up screen that looks like this:

Type the email address of whoever you want to share the document with.  Make sure you have the right email addresses!

If you have accidentally clicked on the sharing button click ‘Done’, and you will exit this screen.

Once you have the names you want to share with, you can choose to add a note.

Click the ‘Done‘ button at the bottom of the pop-up window and that’s it.  You have now shared the document with your group.

It will appear in their Drive folder.

Second Method for Sharing

In your Drive folder, look at the list of documents you have.

Click once on the document you want to share.

You will notice that the menu bar on your screen now has a few new options.  They look like this:

Click on the icon that looks like a person with a + sign on their shoulder.

You will then get the sharing screen that you saw in Method 1

Follow the same instructions, and you have managed to share!

How Do I See Something Shared With Me?

Open your Drive folder.  At the left hand side you will see a tab labelled ‘Incoming’ (in the ‘New Drive’.  In the older version of drive, it’s called ‘Shared With Me’

Click on this and it will show any documents shared with you.

Just what are schools for?

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It’s the kind of question that can get you thinking.

Depending on who’s standing on a soapbox, you could be led to think that schools are responsible for any number of different, and possibly contradictory, functions.

  • Schools should prepare students for science
  • Schools should prepare students for business
  • Schools should prepare students for the world of work
  • Schools should prepare students for the arts

and so on.

In the midst of all of this there is the juggernaut of assessment.  The cycle of PISA brings panic and hysteria to departments and newsrooms as whole countries try to reassess how they are doing in competition with their neighbours.

I have previously stated my reservations around the Narrow Focus on Assessment, but for a better reply to PISA than I could ever write, have a look at this piece written in the Guardian.

But schools are, I  believe, more than just about turning out utilitarian units destined to be productive members of the business community or of industry.

I think that the piece of Irish Legislation dealing with the running of schools (The Education Act, 1998) actually gives a good idea of what schools can be.  In Section 9, (d) the Act states that schools shall “promote the moral, spiritual, social and personal development of students, and provide health education for them”

That really opens it up.

The children we take into schools will one day leave as adults ready to take their place in the world.

Yes, some will go on to be business leaders, and yes, some will go on to be innovators, entrepreneurs, productive employees.

But not all of them.

There will also students who will not find a job, there will be the students who may be too ill, or have too great a disability to work.

The students who leave our schools will go on to become parents, friends and neighbours.  They will be members of communities and clubs, they will be a part of society.  And how do our schools serve them?

Schools are not something that are separate, where students are trained.  Schools are a part of society.  They are places that children grow and develop.  They are messy complicated places full of little (and large) dramas.  Schools have got ranges of students of differing abilities, and differing personalities.  Schools are full of students fighting their own battles and still trying to do their best.

We already know this.  But in the face of the constant pressure of assessment, we sometimes forget it.

There is a great line in Terry Pratchett’s ‘Small Gods’.  In a scene where a library is burning, some characters argue over which books to save.  As one fights for scrolls on maths and engineering, another fights for literature and philosophy “these teach us how to be human!” he cries.

I like that.

Schools are places full of humanity, and places where we learn to be human.

Maybe, ultimately, this is what schools are for.  Places where we learn to become human.

Getting Started in Google Drive

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I’ve written already about my school getting started with Google Apps for Education.

For a next step, I was thinking of what are basic skills that students need if they’re to make use of what’s on offer.  So I put this together to give students (and staff?) an idea of how to get started.  Is there anything I’m missing in this step?

When you sign into your Google Account you will see at the top right hand side of the screen the apps menu.  Click on the icon that looks like a grid.

apps toolbar

 

You will then see this drop down menu:

apps toolbar 2

Click on the Drive icon.  If you are using Chrome then Drive will open in a new tab.  Not sure about other browsers.

Once Drive is open, it’s time to learn how to create a document.

menu

At the right hand side of the screen, you will see the shiny red ‘New’ button.  Click on this.

menu 2

Once you get the drop-down menu, click on the option ‘Google Docs’

Again, if you’re using Chrome, a new tab will open.  This is your new document.  At the right hand side of the screen, click on ‘File’ and rename the document.

rename file

 

This will give you a small window where you can give the document a new name:

rename file 2

Once you have renamed the document, learn how to put in text, and format your work.

sample document

 

To create a table, simply point your mouse to the ‘Table’ heading in the toolbar and use the drop down options:

make a table

As with most computing skills, the only real way to learn this stuff is to try it out.  You can see the table I chose is 6 columns across by 4 rows down.  Simple to add!

Go on.  Give it a try.

 

Google in school

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This year we decided to take on a new project in school – adapting Google Apps for Education.

Wha?

It works like this.  Google offer schools the facility to have a corporate email structure with cloud storage, shared calendars, internal websites and other bits & pieces.  And, if you’re a school, the cost is free.  Obviously, this is a big plus for any school – I don’t know of any that complain of having too many resources.

And what’s on offer?

  • Each user gets a gmail account (for us, student@mayfieldcs.net)
  • Create groups so that you can share resources or email them.
  • Each account comes with 30GB of cloud storage via Google Drive
  • Each account comes with Google docs (the ability to create documents, spreadsheets, presentations, forms)
  • Google Classroom (it’s new & I haven’t figured out its potential or pitfalls yet)
  • Google Sites (the ability to create websites internally or viewable externally)

So.  How do you actually tap into this resource?

If you go to this link, you can apply to Google to take on their Apps for Education suite.

Step 1 was to get registered.  This can be done using the existing domain for the school.  Google can then move your email to a gmail account.  The alternative is to create a new domain, but you need to jump through an extra hoop or two while Google verifies that you are acting on behalf of your school.

Step 2 is to get accounts set up within the school.  If you have a lot of students then what you do is to get the names of the students on a CSV file and allocate them all email identities and passwords.  This does take a bit of time – but that’s nothing compared to step 3

Step 3: take students to the computer room and get them all to open up their accounts.  this is best described as bedlam.  Chaos is a good alternative word at this point.

Step 4: get students to accomplish basic tasks such as opening drive, creating a document, or uploading files and sending an email.

Step 5: email the group you just signed up giving them instructions on how to add their account to their phone/tablet. (they like this bit)

A few teachers have started using the Classroom app, and seem to be happy with the ability to email notes and assignments to groups of students.

It’s early days yet, but there’s a lot of potential.

There’s a lot o resources out there from people who are a lot more experienced than I – but hopefully this will help someone get a start!