Our priorities in education are outdated
Less mental arithmetic, more mental health
Each week (well, most weeks), I write about teaching from my 3G perspective - growth, giggles and gratitude.
I’m on a bit of a rant this week, what with the election coming up and all. Enjoy.
Growth - mental health first
Teachers - they teach subjects children need like maths, English, science, RE, history, rounders and, sewing. Inexplicably, some of us still teach Latin.
That’s what teachers do.
But there’s so much more to it than that.
Under the current government, Britain have risen up the global rankings in reading and maths.
Big bloody whoop.
We have children with poor diets everywhere we look. [1]
We have more children than ever suffering with their mental health and more than ever lacking support for it. [2]
And we spend less time teach in children arts subjects than we used to. [3] (Even Ofsted say something useful from time to time).
I’ve added links at the bottom of the page to articles that support these claims and, while they aren’t the most robust sources or correctly referenced (I’m not doing my Masters now, so there), they’re exactly what I see in school.
All of these vital issues have plummeted under our current government at the expense of English and maths. The time spent on those two subjects has increased where I work, even in the 3 years I’ve been teaching, because that’s what is expected of schools now.
My students - ever one of them - now knows how to divide fractions, how to identify figures on a number line, how to apply the subjunctive form when writing, what the passive voice looks like and why you need a comma before which when used as a relative pronoun but not before that.
We simply don’t need these skills. As adults, almost no one needs them but as 10- and 11-year-olds? Give me a break.
Most of maths needs phasing out imo - even architects, accountants and engineers, who traditionally applied maths in their jobs all the time, don’t need all of this anymore with the invention of computers and application of spreadsheets and mathematical software.
And the PM wants us doing compulsory maths until we’re 18. Do me a favour. Most of what we teach at 11 isn’t necessary; to put the poor buggers through 7 more years of it is ludicrous.
Instead of a quick mathematical exercise, those first few minutes of the day should be about checking in with the children, finding out how they are and seeing what we can do to help them.
Like the student I had come in this week in floods of tears because they’re staying with their dad at the weekend - who they’ve not seen for a month - and they’re feeling homesick about leaving mum’s already.
Just think - what’s it like for you at work?
Do dentists come into work and quickly whack out a filling on someone before they’ve even taken their coat off?
Would a builder stroll onto the building site and throw down a few bricks, put down their lunchbox and mix some more concrete in the first minute of the day?
And does a writer wake up, churn out a paragraph then go to the kitchen to make a cup of tea?
Most of us have the time and space to start the day in a manner conducive with better mental health.
We come into work and say hello to our colleagues. We whip up a brew. We have space to think about what the day will look like. I had a job once that provided a gigantic breakfast selection for everyone that worked there. First half-hour of the day was help-yourself-o’clock. Every other job I’ve had (20 in total) has allowed me the space to settle in.
For those wondering how I handle our teary friend, I did this:
Set the expectation - I told them that there is no work expected of them today. We’ll have a go at some of the lessons but there is no target other than feeling better.
Empathised - I had no solution to their homesickness but I could share a story about my sister who suffered with it as a child. As a result, she missed out on a couple of great holidays but she doesn’t regret it and it hasn’t defined her; she regularly travels abroad for work and gets by despite having to leave her 5-year-old behind. What this shows is that the child’s feelings are common, normal and won’t affect them in the long run.
Gave them space - I sat them at the back of the classroom with a reading book and left them time to settle. As long as they needed.
It worked. After 15 minutes I checked in and, sure enough, all seemed well now. They’d even taken it upon themselves to create their own maths exercises - 3-digit x 3-digit numbers, something they’ve never done before.
What really impressed me, though, was their improving ability to talk about their feelings.
And, for all the dominance maths and English enjoy, we do spend a little time each week on mental health discussions.
As a result, we have here a child struggling with feelings of anxiety and overwhelm using strategies to overcome them.
Something they WILL need in the future. Something they will ALL need in the future.
That’s a topic for modern-day education.
Giggles - priorities
I have a clicker that allows me to move through lessons on our interactive whiteboard from anywhere in the classroom. Useful tool - I can circulate better and see the children’s work; I can keep an eye on behaviour; they can all hear me equally and not be disadvantaged at the back and I’m more available to help the less confident askers.
It has a laser function as well, a bit like a sniper.
I was accidentally pointing the laser at one student, who cried, “Oh my god, I’m going to get shot!”
“I sure hope not!” I added.
To which they replied, “Me too. I’m going to a car boot sale tomorrow.”
Funny what matters to children.
Gratitude - sleep
I nap a lot.
I’ve also got into a habit of getting more sleep than in the past.
I feel so damn good for it too.
However, one night this week, I participated in one of the school residential (overnight trips), which involved camping. Cute tents and all.
Which meant being awake until 1am pointing children to the toilets and rising again at 4.30am as they noisily awoke with the sun.
I’m also very grateful for the afternoon off work the following day. By heck, I needed it.
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They’re very good*, if that helps.
*heavily biased opinion alert
References:
[2] https://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/what-we-do/our-work/well-being/mental-health-statistics
I completely agree that mental health needs to be more important than maths. I've never once needed to know the square root of pi and can't remember a single time anyone outside of the classroom gave me an algebra equation and made it feel like a life or death situation.
You sound like a wonderful teacher. I'm glad you got that afternoon off to rest, and you should be really proud of how you helped the homesick student - I'm sure you'll go down in their personal history as one of the people that cared.
I love this 10000%. As a kid, I used to feel nervous and teary a lot. It was difficult to understand or control it. I just had ZERO tools. (That's growing up in the 80's). I was always told how much of an easy-crier I was, so I grew up feeling weak and awful about it. I learned to hide and swallow every overwhelming emotion, not to mention the constant fear for being spotted for "feeling things" or wanting to cry. And of course, it only became more frequent through childhood and teen years. Now at age 42, I'm finally starting to understand what all that vulnerability was about and how it affected me, how it wasn't normal, and probably, how it was of no importance for society to talk about emotions at the time. I'm so so glad that this is slowly changing, and I want to think that many of us are now being part of creating such change. No one should ever grow without an emotional toolkit, and since there was never one before us, it's now us who can create it. Thank goodness for healing. Hadn't been an easy road but it works. And so many of us have understood how important this is, making us want to make a change within and without.
Bravo for your work! You're a gold teacher. And thanks for sharing! 💯❤️