8 minute read
OPINION
ADAPTING TO COVID
Plotting a new route
The impact of Covid-19 has changed the way in which the further education sector operates, perhaps forever. It’s down to us to help shape what the future looks like, says David Russell
t’s a tough time. It’s a strange time. It’s a time of anxiety and of loss. When I began to write this, in April, I knew that a small number of readers would have lost loved ones to Covid-19. Now, in late May, the numbers have climbed up the international league of woe. Though the fear may currently be receding as we look to a relaxation of lockdown, we have all suff ered loss of one kind or another, even if we have been spared the loss of a loved one.
We have lost some freedom due to confi nement, and psychologically we have lost freedom from fear. We have lost the future along with the pre-Covid world we knew. The threat of the virus will recede – in time, maybe all but vanish – but we can never go back to a world in which the pandemic never happened. That familiar world – for all its problems – we are all grieving.
What does this mean for teachers and for post-16 education policy? In the short term, it is too early to tell. So much depends on how the pandemic progresses and what the science dictates in terms of physical distancing in the months ahead. But we cannot simply wait and see. We are not currently in the I
waiting room or delayed in the departure lounge, waiting to see when our fl ight will fi nally take off and our lives will resume. This is our life now. We have to live it, and shape it, and do our best with it for those in our sphere of responsibility.
Many teachers and leaders have spoken about how proud they have been of their colleagues’ responses to lockdown, and how quickly colleges and providers fl ipped their provision to online almost overnight. I’ve heard some amazing stories, especially from the world of local authority adult education, where teachers and leaders have turned their hands to all sorts of diff erent work: for example delivering health and social care training for volunteers, staffi ng venues for adults in need of social care, and assisting with ‘reablement’ (helping people at home that have been released from hospital to make room for Covid beds). Truly, adult learning services lie at the heart of our communities.
Many others are worried about the fi nancial impact, especially independent training providers who stand to be hit hardest by funding decisions around apprenticeships. It will be a terrible loss for our sector if skilled and dedicated teachers, trainers and assessors fi nd themselves unemployed because goodquality providers cannot ride out the fi nancial storm.
Most of all, as is so typical of our sector, people have spoken to me about their concern for the learners. Digital education body JISC has pointed out that an estimated 30,000 or more of the poorest 16- to 18-year-olds do not have even a mobile phone on which to learn, let alone a laptop or tablet. Many more do, but have data packages that will not stretch to fulltime online learning as well as normal use; young people will make choices, and not always good ones. Colleagues have spoken of their worry about high numbers of unemployed in the coming months across the economy – possibly averaging 20%, and much higher in some areas. They ask whether the sector will have the right provision in place to give those people the training and support they need. Most immediately there is concern about young people’s disengagement from learning over the long summer of confi nement, and whether we will have a ‘Covid generation’ whose progression is permanently hit and in which the disadvantage gap is even wider than the norm. One College CEO spoke of the sense of loss of the ability to be a social and educational leveller, “the power to generate equality” which is the driving motivation for so many of us in the further education sector.
As a leader, my fi rst response of course has been to secure my organisation and the safety and future of those who work in it and make it what it is. But quickly we moved on to the next circle out: the needs of the teachers and sector leaders we serve. This is very hard, as their needs are changing, unknown and currently unknowable. And then, beyond the sector itself, is the economy and society it in turn serves: what knowledge, skills, wisdom and wonder will our sector need to focus on to help our young people and adults thrive in the world as it unfolds in the coming years? I do not know. So like everyone, I keep listening, talking and reading. We are not in the airport departure lounge. The fl ight we were expecting to catch will never fl y. This is our journey now, and we are already on it. Let’s look out the windows and talk about where to head our plane. Together. It could be amazing.
DAVID RUSSELL
is chief executive of the Education and Training Foundation
MISTAKES TO AVOID
Watch and learn
Many teachers are guilty of making easily avoidable mistakes. Susan Wallace shows her four simple rules that will make an immediate difference to the quality of teaching and engagement of students
have vivid memories, aged about 13, of sitting in despair as our maths teacher wrote up solutions to algebra problems on the chalkboard with her right hand while simultaneously deleting them with the board rubber held in her left. This gave each line of the solution about 30 seconds’ exposure before being obliterated forever.
Far from being impressed by her ambidexterity, I was – and remain – perplexed as to why she would do this. My diffi culty was exacerbated by the fact that she performed this feat while muttering explanations directly to the chalkboard at a volume just below what is audible to the human ear.
Since then, I have had the privilege of observing countless lessons during the course of my professional career, many excellent and none – I am delighted to say – which have matched that one for awfulness.
But some have come close, and perhaps one way we can get something positive out of them is to heed them as a warning of what not to do if our intention is to be eff ective. Here are four major mistakes that the would-be excellent teacher needs to avoid. Starting the lesson by telling the learners they’re not going to enjoy the topic about to be covered. This is usually prefaced by the teacher saying something like: “I know this is boring, I
but we’ve got to do it.” This is often said under the misguided impression that it will create a sense of solidarity with the learners. But, let’s face it, who wants to be told: “I’m now going to bore you for 40 minutes?” When I hear this, I have to resist the urge to rise to my feet and say loudly, “Find a way to make it interesting then! That’s your job!” Of course, I do eventually say exactly this, but only afterwards, privately, and in a nice way. Talking to the screen. This is understandable, perhaps, with new teachers, but unfortunately they’re not the only ones who do it. Turning your back on a sea of faces who might be waiting to hang on your every word – but might equally just be waiting for you to make a terrible mistake – may seem to off er a momentary sense of safety. But turning your back is about as eff ective as putting a bucket on your head: it’s no real protection from disaster and – worse – you won’t even see disaster coming. And, of course, it sends completely the wrong message. If we want to communicate eff ectively with someone and build up a rapport, we don’t turn our back on them. Treating a wrong answer as though it’s stupid. It’s very dispiriting to hear an incorrect answer greeted with a blunt “No!” or “Wrong!” or even “Rubbish!” It destroys the confi dence and motivation of the learner (doubly disastrous if they didn’t have much of either in the fi rst place); it discourages others from engaging with the lesson; it engenders fear in the class – one of the greatest barriers to learning; and it doesn’t teach anyone anything except that learning carries the threat of humiliation. And there are perfectly good positive ways to respond. “Good try!” “Nearly right.” “Interesting idea, but I need a bit more.” Or: “I like your thinking, but that’s not the right answer.” (We can thank Victoria Coren Mitchell on Only Connect for that one.) Always having to be the one who knows everything. There are three things a good teacher learns to say quite early in their career. They are: “I don’t know”, “I was wrong about that” and “Does anyone else know?” As teachers, we need a sound grasp of our subject. But no one expects us to be a walking Wikipedia. What we do need is the ability to guide our learners towards fi nding things out for themselves and the willingness to use their existing skills and knowledge as an added resource.
None of us is perfect. The upside of our mistakes is that we can learn from them. I could write a whole article about what I’ve learned from my own. And, needless to say, I’ve never really got the hang of algebra.
SUSAN WALLACE
is professor emerita of education at Nottingham Trent University
