An Apple for the teacher. Please.

I’m a little uncomfortable about what I’m going to advocate here, as it feels a bit like brand endorsement. I am not a fan of branding, especially around kids. No, not branding as in cattle marking; although that is also a very bad idea around kids. I just don’t like children being viewed as a marketing opportunity, they’re not cynical enough.

However: I think all schools should use Apple.  There, I said it.  Now I’d better explain it.

Schools are essentially slow moving things, and technology is a fast moving thing.  This often means that schools lag behind current developments a ridiculous amount. I mean, there are teachers out there who still think that “doing a powerpoint” is the cutting edge, whereas most private companies are encouraging people to move away from powerpoint and really engage with their audience, something that teachers already do brilliantly. But we were blindsided by the arrival of interactive whiteboards and whizzy slides and forgot that these tools cannot replace a charismatic, knowledgeable expert at the helm.

The relationship between primary schools and technology is always an uneasy one. Anyone remember the NOF training? Money spent trying to update teachers’ IT knowledge, and oh how we all hated its misguided efforts.  Then came Computers for Schools vouchers and as a result millions of digital microscopes serve as bookends in stock cupboards up and down the country.

ICT lessons themselves are too often about teaching processes, learning how to use equipment. I used to spend at least 10min of each precious half hour lesson reminding children how to save work; a route so convoluted that it was like talking them through defusing a bomb. And there was still always That Child who cut the red wire.

And don’t get me started on RM Window Boxes (http://www.rm.com/generic.asp?cref=GP1225202). A “child friendly” interface aimed at simplifying things for primary aged children. Children don’t generally need their IT simplified, so who’s that for? Never mind “Number Magic”, just let them use Excel and stop messing about.

It sometimes feels like schools just aren’t getting it.

Which is where Apple comes in. They have always been about the interface, or more importantly the removal of the interface. This is the aim of good technology, that there is no barrier to its use. Perfectly intuitive technology is the Holy Grail of work psychologists and Apple is its Champion.

Recently I was coveting an iPad in the phone shop, and when I turned round dd1 was cheerfully using one to play the piano... “Mummy, I REALLY want an iPad”. She can dream on, but it does sum up what IT should do in primary schools. It should enable children, give them options, support them. With no-interface technology we can get on with teaching children to become rigorous and analytical appliers of technology, not just competent users of Windows.

It's not all schools, some get it perfectly. Want to see what an iPod Touch can do? Look at @ebd35’s blog (http://ebd35.wordpress.com/). A boy with no special love of writing created this:

http://ebd35.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/martian-story.pdf

Isn’t it brilliant? This is what happens when we let technology support the learning, not the other way round.

Please may I have an iPhone now?

Welcome to the jungle...

Now, just you hold your music snobbery horses there, cowboy. Yes, this is about Guns N Roses. I gave them a capital N, look.

Sometimes when you’re online you can’t help but notice a certain musical bias: I don’t use the word facism lightly. I’m not a fan of musical snobbery; food snobbery I like, it’s funny, but music is about your soul and therefore I think demands a little tolerance.

Take Axl Rose. [insert “please” gag here]. Is he a bit of a prat? Yes. Should Guns N Roses grow up and turn up on time? Yes. Should Axl stop throwing all his toys all over the place & stamping his artiste’s feet? Of course. Will I love Guns N Roses forever? Yes, I’m afraid so, because they are The Band. We all have a band who introduce us to the music we end up loving. Guns N Roses are my band. And Paradise City is my song.

I can remember where I was, who I was with and what we were doing the very first time I heard it. It was the 80s, and this was the moment when I first realised there was more to life than Wham. I was 11.  I had just finished a starring role in the school production of “Bugsy Malone” (This is a lie. I was a first year and therefore an extra, although the Sixth former who played Bugsy did brush my arm thereby fuelling an almighty crush). We were having the after show party in the exclusive venue of the Sixth Form common room and someone put on Paradise City.  Suddenly I stopped being a petrified First Year and I was in the crowd of big boys and girls, dancing. I made my friends come too, including the one who was quite cross with me because I’d made her tie into a “peanut”. They weren’t that fussed, but I was in full on epiphany mode and taking no prisoners.

Since then, Guns N Roses have been a soundtrack to my (ongoing) growing up process.

When I was 16 and visiting my older cousin at Uni, I was able to join in the Axl chat, which made me pretty damn cool, oh yes.

When MrBird and I were in the early stages of going out, we had a holiday in the Lake District and we played Appetite for Destruction while he taught me to riffle shuffle (#notaeuphemism). I perfected my card sharp moves to the sound of Axl wailing, which made me just about the coolest person ever.

Much later, I was blessed with two daughters, neither of whom enjoyed the going to sleep thing. Sweet Child of Mine was one of the songs I used to sing to get them to sleep or at least be quiet in the car. “The Wheels on the Bus” can kiss my rock n roll arse. It helped keep me sane, which was cool.

So. I love Axl, I love Guns N Roses, I love them despite the fact that they are 40somethings who need to stop behaving like teenagers. I love them because of it. One day I might finish growing up and not need them any more, but until then I am theirs.

I wonder if either of the girls would like to walk down the aisle to November Rain….?

The trouble with twinkles.

Lesson 1: when you're talking to girls, what do you call it? You know, it. Well, maybe you don’t know, but I bet if you’re a parent of girls you know exactly what I mean.  You’ve probably worried about it, asked a few friends, maybe even looked on a Mums’ Forum.

I am referring to the semantic difficulties posed by the whole genital area often just known as “downstairs” [nods meaningfully in relevant direction with pursed Les Dawson lips]. What do you call it? What do you tell your toddling daughter? What names do you give your little girl to call her body?

If you’ve never had this internal (ahem) debate, you may not see the immediate problems. And if you’re a laid back and cool-type parent, just roll your eyes and feel smug. Let me elaborate; whilst trying not to feel resentful towards all those parents who’ve only ever had to say, “It’s your willy, dear, now leave it alone please.”

As a Sex Ed professional, I believe children deserve better than euphemisms and that very English secrecy around sex. If we’re not honest from the very beginning we create all manner of peculiar hang-ups later on. And personally, I believe that words are powerful. How can we own and understand something we cannot name?

At school I blithely led a staff meeting telling my fellow teachers that we must be honest and accurate in discussing children’s bodies with them. We must use the correct vocabulary. We must stand confidently at the front of the class and say penis, vagina and testicles without deviation, hesitation, or repetition. Some teachers balked at having to say to KS1 boys, “Please don’t play with your penis in lessons”, preferring the traditional, “Get your hands out of your trousers RIGHT NOW! And wash them please.” However, I was insistent that this was the way forward, our responsibility to the children.

So, as a mum, I took a deep breath and taught my daughters that they had vaginas. Where babies come out. It’s not your bottom, it’s girl bits and right inside is your vagina. I taught them it’s ok to touch, just not in public. Please.  Unfortunately, vagina is a lovely word: unusual and fascinating to say over and over again. Which is no doubt why, to my utter horror, dd2 (age 4) made up this little song:

“Your girl bits, your girl bits, that’s your bagina.”

Top marks for learning I suppose, but I ignored it in the most fervent of hopes that she forgets all about it and never, ever sings it in Polite Company. It was a nice introduction to lesson number 2: Please don’t go on about this at school, it’s not up to you to teach your friends these very grown-up words.

It could be worse though.

A friend decided she was just going to go with “fanny”. It’s no worse than willy, she thought. Until one day on holiday when her 4 year old son shouted across the beach,

“Mummy! Fiona’s putting pebbles up her fanny!”

She was mortified.  It sounds horrible when a child says fanny. It just does.

So where does that leave you? Oh, the suggestions I’ve heard. Frou-frou. I mean, honestly? You could look your child in the face and say, “That’s your frou-frou”? I know I couldn’t. How can you teach your daughter to be proud of her body when you use shameful words?

There are plenty of words in the adult world, and if you can think of a single one that sounds great coming from a small child, I’d love to know.  Maybe I should be reclaiming the words for my daughters.  As an adult I have no problem with any of them. I would even use the “c-word” here, but you probably wouldn’t be expecting it from me, and I’d hate for you to spit your tea on the screen. It worries me that there are no accepted, everyday, casual words for girls’ genitals; women’s yes, but not girls. Perhaps it worries us to think of little girls as having the potential for womanhood, perhaps all the words are so sexual that we can’t bring ourselves to apply them to girls, perhaps it’s just another Victorian left-over that we need to get over.

Maybe I should just brazen it out, name without shame. I won’t though. Call me cowardly, but I just can’t be That Mum whose kids go round talking about their fannies. It’s bad enough being the Mum whose kid goes round singing a song about her bagina. Sigh.

Boys, Girls, Marshmallows.

I don’t often watch school programmes on the telly, because they tend to make me shouty and sweary. Waterloo Road is an obvious exception because, well, have you seen it? Then you know.

However, I found myself sucked into Gareth Malone’s Dangerous School for Boys which assumed that boys need more physical exercise, and specialised teaching to help them bridge the literacy gap with girls. The programme showed the best and the worst of primary education. Unfortunately for the teaching profession, the best came from a preternaturally youthful choirmaster and the worst came from pessimistic teachers.

Gareth’s teaching was vibrant. Writing their own musical, decorating the library, choosing books: it was all just fantastic. And I found myself feeling sorry for the girls. Presumably they were stuck in the classroom with their regular lessons while the boys toasted marshmallows and played Ladders (I love Ladders).

I know the programme was about closing the gap between boys and girls. I know the girls were achieving more, in terms of reading ages and testing, but does this mean that teaching was meeting the girls’ needs but not the boys'? I’m not sure it does.

Girls’ and boys’ brains do not really differ in any notable way. The learning needs of children are really best not categorised by gender. There are obviously societal influences, but primary age children are still at a developmental stage where the biggest influence in their lives is parental. OK, non-reading Dads were highlighted in the programme as an issue, but I can’t believe all the Mums were sitting down with Dostoyevsky of an afternoon. Not when Dinner Date is on.

I don’t think that boys need specialized teaching. What worked for them in this case was participation in an amazing learning experience and literacy made relevant.  This is what all children need, boys and girls.

Yes, the girls tested better but that doesn’t mean that the teaching was doing its job of creating lifelong learners. With boys the effects of poor teaching and an irrelevant curriculum are immediate: low test scores and acting out in class. Working in EBD outreach, our referrals for boys outnumbered girls by about 20 to 1, not because girls experienced no emotional or behavioural problems but because their difficulties didn’t tend to trouble teachers or put them at risk of exclusion. With limited resources, you’ll refer the boy setting fire to his classmates ahead of the girl with an eating disorder, sexual health concerns, depression, or school phobia.

Girls tend to perform acceptably at school in spite of personal difficulties or less than inspiring teaching. But when they get older will they value their education? What will they aspire to? Will they be enthused enough and confident enough to go for the important jobs that make a difference to us all? It’s not till well after the testing stops that we see the impact of poor teaching on girls.

All children deserve an extraordinary education. Every Child A Marshmallow Toaster.

It's not you, it's me.

Falling out of love is very much like falling in love: sudden and sickening. There is a pinpoint moment of clarity in which something inside says Yes or No. Your heart or soul or endochrine system has made its decision and after that your brain is just playing catch up.

Of course, what you do with that instant depends very much on whether you got the answer you wanted. If you didn’t, you will fight it with every rational neuron you have. You won’t win, but well done for trying.  If you did, then you run the risk of doing something Spontaneous. How alarming.

Recently I fell suddenly out of love with my profession. Not my job, being fed up with your job is standard, this was different. I sat in the staffroom one lunchtime contemplating a rather unwise sandwich choice, when I overheard a conversation between teachers and support staff. They were setting out to sabotage a plan the Deputy Head had put together. For no good reason; it was a good plan that benefited the children and did no harm to anyone. They just didn’t like the Deputy and spared no thought for the effect their games would have on the children in the school.

Something inside me went twang. I felt an instant loss of all the ties that bound me to teaching and an urgent need to be apart from all this. I walked out of the staffroom, into the Head’s office, sat down and announced my resignation, pausing only to put the sandwich in the bin en route.

Spontaneous. Frightening. A snap decision acted upon the very second my brain heard the “No” and thought, “Yeah, I’ll go with that”.  And most definitely the right thing to do. I’m so glad I didn’t fight it, because I know where that can lead.

Many years ago I fell out of love with a person. It was a bolt from the blue. I was sitting in the car on the way back from the shops when my subconscious tapped me on the shoulder and told me I didn’t love him. The next thoughts, in order, were:

-         Hmm, moving to the other side of the world to live with him’s going to be a bit tricky then

-         Oh crap

-         I wonder if it’s too late to back out

-         Oh crap.

The sick feeling that went with the mental spinning was quite the opposite of the delicious giddy nausea that goes with falling in love. But after some deep breathing, and very impressive logical thinking I calmed my nerves and convinced myself I was deliriously happy.  Two weeks later I moved to Australia, moved in with him & got a job for a waitressing agency. It was a complete disaster, and not just because of the septic blisters I got on my overworked feet.

You can’t ignore the moment when the truth hits you. Well, you can, but you’d be fooling yourself. It’s why despite the grief I feel right now in not teaching, despite the loss of a key part of my identity, if I ask the question “Did I do the right thing?” a quiet voice always says, “Yes”. Falling out of love demands action and acceptance. As does falling in love. We’ll talk about that another time.