An Evening of Philosophy...

Last June I was extremely privileged to attend an evening with Ron Berger at Campsmount School.  Ron’s ideas regarding learning spoke volumes to me and I vowed that I would find a way to trial something based around his ideas and vision for learning.  His work is far too complicated for me to explain in a blogpost – if you are genuinely interested, read his book ‘An Ethic of Excellence’.  If you are not sure, have a look at the work of @davidfawcett27 and @pekabelo, as their summaries are far better than mine could ever be.  From Ron’s talk, and some subsequent reading around, three clear messages resonated with me:

1. We sometimes expect too little of our students and allow them to expect too little of themselves.  We often set a task, receive an attempt, feel disappointed in it and rather than go back and give students the opportunity to improve, we settle for their first attempt, even though they may be capable of far more (if you haven’t already seen it, watch ‘Austin’s Butterfly’)
2. When work matters, students get it right.  By introducing a purpose and/or a real audience, work takes on more meaning and feels valued by the student.  Too often students see the work they do as meaningless, a moment in time, quickly forgotten by the teacher.  Intrinsic motivation comes from self-esteem and self-worth.  When we value student work, they value their work and will work harder to achieve their best.
3. Students can learn a lot from peer critique and peer collaboration but it doesn’t just occur by magic.  Giving students simple rules embedded in clear routines (for example, ‘be kind, specific and helpful’) can help a student to make progress.

If I wasn't already convinced by Ron, I then read /http://wclou.edublogs.org/2013/04/27/when-learning-has-meaning/ by @wclou (who I cannot thank enough for the inspiration and helpful, supportive comments for our own Evening of Philosophy).

So as the new academic year began, I already had in the back of my mind that I wanted to use this somehow but the specifics were eluding me.  Rather wonderfully, in September, one of our Assistant Heads announced that we would all be participating in Inquiry Groups – collaborative CPD groups designed to enable us to enhance an element of our practice.  I immediately knew that this would be my focus and, with the support of my inquiry group, set about planning my very own ‘Evening of Philosophy’, one that would develop an ethic of excellence in my own students.

I, like many teachers, have my issues with Gove and I was, frankly, furious/despairing when the removal of January exams was announced.  I felt that it would disadvantage my students but then something amazing happened.  I realised that in not preparing my students for an early exam, I had more time with my students.  Time that would usually be spent on early mocks and revision and disruption suddenly became real teaching time again, so on a cold and rainy morning I suggested the idea of hosting an ‘Evening of Philosophy’ to my fantastic year 13 group.  I was a little nervous.  They are a superb group – talented, bright, wonderful, but their biggest single issue is that they do not realise how wonderful they are.  I have a good relationship with this group, in that when I want to try ‘new stuff that I got off twitter’ (their words, not mine), they are up for it and give honest feedback. I figured they would say no to this immediately, so imagine my surprise when they said ‘go on then, but we probably won’t be very good’.

The evening was theirs from the very beginning.  I gave them a list of essay questions and they had to select a top three.  There were two main motivations behind their choice – they either chose a topic that they had enjoyed and wanted to explore further or they chose a topic that they had struggled with and wanted to spend more time on.  They then wrote an essay in response to their question.  I would provide feedback (no grades, just commentary and corrections) and they would draft and re-draft until it was perfect.  They then paired up with another person who had their topic and they had to turn their essay into a presentation suitable for an audience with very little philosophical knowledge. They then presented their ideas and received peer critique, made corrections and repeated the experience and then finally, tonight, they were ready to go.  They sorted the catering (which was provided by our very talented year 11 hospitality students), the music on arrival, set up the room, wrote the guest list, invited the parents, friends and teachers.  And then tonight they presented their ideas, took questions and generally just made me feel proud.  They took the evening seriously and, hand on heart, exceeded both mine and their own expectations.  To see these wonderful, brilliant young people discussing complex ideas in front of 50 guests and doing so with confidence and pride was probably the highlight of my teaching career to date.

What the removal of the January exam has given me is time.  Time for students to become immersed in a subject and to become an expert on a specific topic (which admittedly is one of the rationales for removing modular entry).  This project enabled them to review and revisit ideas from earlier in the year and to keep the ideas fresh in their minds.  Most importantly though it proved the three things that appealed most about Ron’s ideas.  High expectations, the opportunity to revisit work, a purpose and audience and the role of peer critique were all instrumental in securing the success of the evening.

If I did it again, would I do it differently?  Absolutely!  I would get someone in to work with them on presentational skills and use of voice.  I would consider the partnerships to make sure that they worked.  I would collate feedback from guests that the students could keep.  I would have pushed some students a little harder to complete their essays a little more quickly so they had more time on their presentations.  I would have had their essays on display so parents could read them.  But these are tiny details.  The important thing is that they did it, by themselves and they can be proud of what they achieved tonight.  A former student of mine who came along to support said to me ‘they were brilliant, we could never have done that’ and... I just think that perhaps that’s my fault, because they could have, I just didn't give them the opportunity to experience that level of success.