Accessing a Free Education

For this week’s blog post I am stepping outside my usual realms of thinking about fiction texts by considering young adults’ use of a particular non-fiction text which is loathed by many people, but seen as a primary source of information by many others.

In contrast to the uncertainty which often surrounds the definition and purpose of children’s literature, Cory Doctorow (who describes himself as a science fiction author, activist, journalist and blogger) confidently labels his latest book, Homeland, as a Young Adult novel. With his implied readership defined, the novel includes a bibliography which explains how to go about finding out information on “cool stuff” such as pay phone hacking or using the Internet anonymously. While this would be a perfect opportunity to consider the ethical implications of such an instruction, I am going to save that for another time and wander in to the realms of non-fiction.

As part of his instructions, Doctorow sends people to Wikipedia in the following manner:

Wikipedia is an amazing place to do research, but you have to know how to use it. Your teachers have probably told you that Wikipedia has no place in your education, and I’m sorry to say that I think that this is a lazy and dumb approach.

As a teacher, I know that students are often told not to use Wikipedia; indeed, I tell my students to be wary of Wikipedia when I set them a research homework. However, I also know that such exhortations are a mite hypocritical as Wikipedia can be a useful means by which to confirm details or clarify the answer to a question. But, as any savvy online researcher knows, never rely on a single source (and having half an idea of the answer to the question before asking it can often count as another source).

While I tell my students to check elsewhere when they insist on using Wikipedia, Doctorow succinctly gives “two secrets to doing research on Wikipedia”, the first of which I have – to some extent and not consistently, I will admit – mentioned as part of my instructions to students:

1. Check the sources, not the article.
In an ideal world, all the factual assertions in a Wikipedia article will have a citation to a source at the bottom of the article. Wikipedia hasn’t achieved this ideal state (yet -- that’s what all those [citation needed] marks in the articles are about) but a surprising number of the facts in a Wikipedia article will have a corresponding source at the bottom. That’s where your research should take you when you’re reading an article. Wikipedia is where your research should start, not where it should end.

This puts the onus of the research back on the student as they need to follow up on sources. However, from conversations with them, I know that if they see a referenced comment on Wikipedia they are content to accept this as verified fact without bothering to take their research further.

In an age when students have nearly immediate access to such a wealth of information, this is more of a ‘lazy and dumb approach’ than teachers disallowing the use of Wikipedia. However, if following up sources is unlikely to happen, Doctorow’s second secret – something I had not really thought about before – is even less likely to happen:

2. Check the “Talk” link.
Every Wikipedia article has a “Talk” link that goes to a page where everyone who cares about the article discusses its state. If someone has a weird idea about a subject and finds a source somewhere on the net to support it, they might just stick it into the Wikipedia article. But chances are that this will spark a heated debate on the Talk page about whether the source is “reputable” and whether its facts belong in an encyclopedia.

The problem with both of these ‘secrets’ is that they take time. While the analogue days of searching in paper encyclopaedia for information for a homework have been replaced with Google, it has made people lazier (try Googling [google effect] or reading Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows if you need any convincing). The time taken to find and read a paper article is not inconsiderable, but its content (usually) rewards the researcher. Relying on Google’s first search result (which is very often Wikipedia) and taking the quickest path to a completed homework with an undiscerningly quick copy and paste is – unsurprisingly – the choice that most students will make.

It is inevitable that students will continue to use the Internet to do their homework, so rather than trying to fight it by dismissing Wikipedia (which means that students end up on risibly unreliable and unreferenced sites lower down Google’s results) teachers could do much worse than embracing Doctorow’s secrets and accepting Wikipedia as a valid source. If teachers can say that they have trained their students how to explore the world beyond Wikipedia, they are providing their students with skills that will be useful beyond the classroom, whether it is researching Shakespeare, black holes or lock picking.

It is a question of making technology work for you, rather than being moulded by the technology, and as Doctorow concludes,

Armed with the original sources and the informed discussion about whether those sources are good ones, you can use Wikipedia to get an amazing education.

Teachers (and I include myself in this): stop being so hard on Wikipedia and make sure you take the time to understand its power, and to model its use and show students how to use it critically.

Students: stop being so lazy! You have access to an amazing free education that no-one in the history of mankind has had before: learn how to use it and don’t waste it.

(The whole text of Homeland can be found at http://craphound.com/homeland/Cory_Doctorow_-_Homeland.pdf, and the Bibliography start at page 277)

Originally written for the Children's Literature at Cambridge blog and first posted there earlier today.

A Week in the Life: Friday

After having turned my light off at 12.05am, it was somewhat annoying to wake at 6.06am and not be able to enjoy returning to any form of sleep before Jim Naughtie started discussing snow and football. The alarm duly went off and the morning routine fell into its usual pattern. Strange snow/ice combination on the car needed scraping, but relatively light traffic meant an 8.15am arrival at school.

8.50am - Registration: Year 12 Tutor Group. No notices today, but lovely to be able to congratulate a handful of students whose teachers felt that they had made an improvement since their report at the end of last term; thanks go to colleagues who did not just delete my e-mails asking for an update on my tutees' progress.

9.15am - Period 1: Year 11 English. The second of two lessons re-attempting another controlled assessment. During the hour I managed to mark three from last week and then collect in a further 27 to mark. I made it very clear that there was no way in which the essays would be marked by next week as my posthuman essay hangs in a Damoclean manner.

10.35am - Period 2: Year 8 English. In a moment of weakness, I had booked the hall for this lesson and the students have the opportunity to recreate an updated version of the Mechanicals' first appearance in A Midsummer Night's Dream. There were some fantastic performances (and my opinion was seconded by the Drama teacher who came in towards the end of the lesson to prepare for his next lesson).

11.35am - Period 3: Free. Marking another small sample of last week's controlled assessments. Also check with friends whether they will be arriving tonight (as was the original plan) or whether the weather has changed anything; they will now be with us for coffee tomorrow.

I manage to have lunch at 12.40pm and at 1.00pm I return to my room in an unsuccessful bid to tidy my desk. I do not refuse when offered a slice of birthday cake by one of the friends of a form member lunching there.

1.35pm - Period 4: Year 10 English Literature. We discuss a Vernon Scannell's Nettles which the group had been reviewing for homework and then spend time making connections between it and Simon Armitage's Nettles.

2.35pm - Period 5: NQT Meeting. We usually bring cakes to help us through our meeting, but my mentee is not in school this afternoon, so I take advantage of the staff (and sixth form) privilege of being able to leave at the end of period 4 and head home.

I arrive home at 3.10pm having had the second of the bi-weekly hands-free parental conversations and sit down with a cup of tea, Facebook, e-mails and little blog writing until 4.30pm when I feel compelled to open my posthuman essay and consider the next section.

I quickly realise that a Friday afternoon after work is not the best time to be trying to write. I therefore read through what I have written so far, making corrections and developing a couple of ideas which now seem to be presented in a somewhat brusque manner. My wife arrives home at 5.15pm; we have a cup of tea and then I return to the proofreading at 5.30pm.

At 5.45pm it is time to get ready to head to the Cathedral for tonight's recording instalment and I am charged with picking up fish and chips on the way home at 9.00pm.

The recording session is hard work and by 8.20pm everyone is flagging. Nevertheless, we somehow manage to get through to 9.00pm by which time we have apparently recorded enough to make a CD.

I eventually escape from the Cathedral and stop on the way home to pick up food, encountering an eight minute delay while the fish is cooked for us, and arrive home shortly before 9.30pm.

We enjoy supper and a bottle of wine to the accompaniment of some more television from weeks ago.

Washing up completed, bed calls at 11.30pm, with the tacet reminder that friends will be arriving in eleven hours' time.

A Week in the Life: Thursday

Radio. Alarm. Routine. At school at 8.05am.

In a manner not dissimilar to Tuesday, this morning's timings are all slightly altered to allow for this term's extended lunch during which a range of charity events will be held.

8.50am - Registration: Year 12 Tutor Group. Two notices this morning and then catching up with a couple of people before the bell.

9.00am - Period 1: Year 10 English. I model the planning process for their creative writing controlled assessment and speak to every student about their ideas for their piece. Official planning sheets all completed in preparation for the hour's writing straight after half-term..

10.15am - Period 2: Year 13 English Literature. Continuing work with the poetry collection and we hear mini-presentations on Browning, Dickinson and Rossetti.

Thursdays are the days on which I have all my frees timetabled in order to allow me to go to Cambridge for PhD seminars. However, because of tonight's recording I am obliged to save myself driving a two hundred mile round trip, and I have the opportunity to do some reading and add a few words to my posthumanism essay.

By 4.30pm my essay stands at some 2,740 words and my brain feels as if it has been clubbed with a hard club-shaped clubby thing (even helpful similes escape me), so it is clearly time for a break and a cup of tea. And the first bit of blog writing today.

Back to the computer at 4.55pm until my wife arrives home at 5.20pm. We get to catch up for a few minutes before I have to head out to the Cathedral for the recording session at 6.00pm.

From 6.00pm to 9.00pm we are in the Cathedral recording the first half of a CD that is intended to be a fund-raiser when it is released. It all seems to go well, but recording it a tiring process, both mentally and physically.

As the recording finishes, the Directors of Music kindly invite people to their house for food: having not eaten this evening, I gratefully receive a ladleful of beef stew and a glass of red wine.

I am back home at 9.55pm at which point I finish today's blog, check Facebook and e-mails and decide that I have finished for the day.

Bed and a book beckon at 10.10pm.

A Week in the Life: Wednesday

Today programme. Alarm. Usual morning routine. No ice and lighter traffic so at school at 8.10am enabling me to photocopy some bits and pieces for the next couple of days.

8.50am - Registration: Year 12 Tutor Group. Just one notice today and then Year 12 assembly. The headteacher surprises the assembled crowd by apparently eating cat food in a bid to make them consider the fact it is not what the outside looks like, but what is inside that counts. Doubtless the detail that they will remember is that the headteacher ate cat food and then wonder why.

9.15am - Period 1: Year 12 English Language and Literature. Finish reading The History Boys and start exploring character. Due to the smallness of the group, I find myself completing the sheet for the character I was reading in which will be photocopied along with all the students' for their notes.

10.35am - Period 2: Year 7 English. We finish the section in the text book (see yesterday) and then assess leaflets that Year 8 have created for which the target audience was Year 7; a range of marks and critical comments duly awarded to their seniors.

11.35am - Period 3: Year 11 English. The first of two lessons in which students have the opportunity to re-try writing the second of their controlled assessments. I watch in the sad knowledge that it will result in a further 27 essays for me to mark.

Lunch starts promptly at 12.35pm and sandwiches and chatting abound (as it is preferable to marking the controlled assessments which I am still carrying around with me and probably will continue to do so).

1.35pm - Period 4: Year 10 English Literature. We continue working on essay writing technique and looking at how to approach the comparative examination question. Lots of good feedback and practice paragraphs fill me with some confidence.

2.35pm - Period 5: Year 9 English. A quick round of You Say, We Pay (courtesy of Richard and Judy) starts the lesson in a fun way before we return to Romeo and Juliet's initial sonnet and consider the physicality of their words; from there we look at Juliet's prophetic closing lines. Five headlines to summarise the events of each scene in Act I and character profiles show that everyone has taken something away from the past three lessons.

At 3.35pm I leave school promptly and remember I need to get some petrol on the way home. Some £70 later, I get home, wade through the post, manage a cup of tea, and check e-mails and Facebook.

Evensong tonight is replaced by a rehearsal for the forthcoming recording, so I head to the Cathedral for 5.00pm and we have a 75 minute session dealing with some of the minutiae that is usually forgotten in the daily routine of having to sing a service.

After the rehearsal, mention of a quick drink is made. Having been very organised this week, I accept and enjoy a pint with three colleagues. Back home for 7.30pm, cook supper, wash up and at the computer for 8.45pm.

I download and print a work-in-progress paper by a member of the PhD group which I may end up critiquing tomorrow and turn to writing the bulk of today's blog. Then, before reading the paper, I sort out books in preparation for writing some more posthuman essay tomorrow afternoon and remember I agreed to copy a few tracks from a recording of a concert for someone. Sadly, the CD is not where I expect to find it. Nevertheless, I eventually find it and set about ripping the relevant tracks and creating a new CD.

At 10.05pm, when the CD is burnt, books organised, papers in slightly more organised piles and today's blog finished and checked, I decide it is time for a fractionally earlier night (or at least opportunity to read for a little longer in bed tonight).

A Week in the Life: Tuesday

Radio 4 at 6.37am. Alarm at 6.55am. Usual morning routine, but ice on the car and more traffic en route means arrival time at school is 8.25am.

Today's school timings are all slightly out of kilter as we have a meeting during period 5; rather than cancelling a single lesson, all five are curtailed.

8.50am - Registration: Year 12 Tutor Group. Notices and quick mention of Charles Dickens's anniversary as a colleague has sent an e-mail saying how to work out your Dickensian name (a grandparent's name and the name of the road on which you grew up). We are still playing with names when the bell rings.

9.00am - Period 1: Year 9 English. Exploring Romeo and Juliet and use the Zeffirelli film version to recap the story for five minutes before reading Act 1 Scene 5. The sonnet is duly identified and the question of whether Romeo and Juliet are really in love addressed by looking at the language used and making links to Romeo's first appearance.

10.15am - Period 2: Free. A couple of administrative minutes at e-mail, and then marking controlled assessments.

11.10am - Period 3: Year 12 English Language and Literature. Continuing reading through The History Boys and I am slightly surprised to get no reaction to the various uses of the f-word and the single c-bomb which was read as if it was an item in the TV listings.

Lunch at 12.05pm, and for the first time in three weeks I am able to sit down to my sandwiches (including homemade apple and chilli chutney) without having Year 11 repeat speaking and listening tasks hanging over me. I am so bored by 12.40pm that I mark another controlled assessment and gossip to colleagues who are also pretending to do something constructive.

1.05pm - Period 4: Year 7 English. Return to a section in the text book on presentational devices and organisation of texts after yesterday's foray into moral issues. I decide that I need to see how this can be made more engaging for next time.

1.50pm - Period 5: Year 10 English. Introducing the first of their creative writing controlled assessments which has to be inspired by a film's title or line of dialogue. Use the opening of Great Expectations (please note the Dickens link) to consider how a young person getting accosted by a stranger could be a starting point for a piece of writing. Set my favourite GCSE homework: raid your DVD collection and pick a film to use as your starting point.

It is 2.45pm and time for the staff meeting. We have opportunity to air concerns about any aspects of life at school and then good practice is shared by members of several departments. Sadly, time-keeping is not seen as good practice, so the meeting ends nearly 30 minutes late.

4.10pm and I jump in the car to try and get home for a cup of tea before Evensong. I telephone my parents for our bi-weekly hands-free catchup and mention the engine fault light; I subsequently prove that the car is running normally by using the kickdown to take the engine to somewhere around 7500rpm and a few miles an hour.

I reach the Cathedral Close at 4.40pm and realise that I can make it home in time for a very quick cup of tea. I manage half a mug of tea as my interest is taken by a Fever Tree bottle opener I have been sent for buying their tonic water and entering an online competition. I am, nevertheless, convinced I ticked the 'no further correspondence' box.

At 4.52pm I leave home to get to the Cathedral for the rehearsal, and notice as I start the car that the engine fault light is no longer on.

The 5.00pm rehearsal, and 5.30pm Evensong which is followed by a pep talk in preparation for the recording sessions scheduled for this Thursday and Friday evenings.

Home at 6.40pm (noticing that fault light remains satisfyingly off), supper, washing up, and then lesson planning by 8.00pm.

By 9.25pm lessons until Friday are organised, the bulk of today's blog written and there is just the ironing left on my list of jobs for tonight before tiredness overtakes me. An episode of The Saint and the ironing takes me to 10.30pm and bed.

A Week in the Life: Monday

Awake at 5.15am and dozing until getting up at 6.55am. Usual term time morning routine and arrive at school at around 8.15am. Worried that the car's engine error light came on during the commute, but as it still seems to drive as normal, I will endeavour not to panic and check it with the diagnostic gadget when I am at home in daylight at some point in the week.

The mouse for the computer in my classroom is not working, but helpful techy solves this so when I get back for registration after daily briefing and catching up with colleagues, it is working. Who needs a wireless mouse, anyway?

8.50am - Registration: Year 12 Tutor Group. Usual notices and quick glance at uniform to check for blatant contraventions of the the dress code (complicated by the fact that as there is snow on the ground, boots are permitted today) and then write e-mails to colleagues on form tutorly matters.

9.15am - Period 1: Year 8 English. Exploring A Midsummer Night's Dream and read the scene of the first appearance of the Mechanicals. Compare their characters to the lovers and Theseus and Hippolyta; show a short DVD about staging the scene and chaos ensues as groups consider and practise their own interpretations and characterisations.

10.35am - Period 2: Year 13 English Literate. We have reached Victorian poets in our chronological ranging through the Literature of Love from 1500 to the present and three students present their ideas about poems in the collection.

11.35am - Period 3: Free. Administrative bits and pieces, catching up with odd bits of marking, GCSE speaking and listening write ups, dealing with responses to earlier form tutor e-mails, and start today's blog (once I have launched my stand alone copy of Chrome as blogger no longer supports IE8).

Lunch is meant to start at 12.35pm, but it was closer to 12.50pm by the time I managed to sit down with a sandwich. 1.15pm and back to the classroom to listen to a Year 11 student give another individual presentation in an attempt to improve on their last attempt.

1.35pm - Period 4: Year 12 English Language and Literature. Starting to look at Alan Bennett's The History Boys so we share background details and information before making a start reading through the play.

2.35pm - Period 5: Year 7 English. We begin with something as old-fashioned as a spelling test and then discuss the final chapter of Michael Morpurgo's Private Peaceful, the morality of shooting soldiers for cowardice, and whether there are any lessons we can learn from Tommo and Charlie's actions and behaviour or the book in general. One student asks whether Private Peaceful is a children's book and I ask what she means by a "children's book": she is sated when her neighbour points out the age range printed above the barcode.

3.45pm is meant to be the end of school, but I choose to stay in school to save an hour driving to and from home and hopefully make profitable use of time before Year 9 parents descend at 7.00pm to help their children choose their GCSE options.

By 4.30pm I have finished the speaking and listening administration, checked a lesson for tomorrow, and written a little more blog before turning to marking GCSE controlled assessments. I realise I have forgotten to see a colleague at the end of school as we agreed, so I belatedly go to see her. We complete the short task and then spend the next twenty minutes chatting.

At 7.00pm, we start waiting for parents to arrive to discuss options for their children for next year and I have marked three controlled assessments. By 9.00pm I have spoken to a handful of parents and endeavoured to explain the differences between English, English Language and English Literature GCSEs. Repeatedly.

Arrive home at 9.25pm and decide to try reading the car's error code. Ironically, the diagnostic tool reports its own error thereby leaving me no better off than earlier. Switching it on and off several times and pressing buttons randomly to try and improve matters all takes about twenty minutes and makes no difference.

Go into the house at 9.45pm and have a couple of slices of toast and do the washing up.

10.00pm, onto the computer to check e-mails, Facebook and Twitter and complete today's blog and at 10.35pm it has to be time to go to bed.

The Gruffalo's child as a model learner

Although I enjoy picturebooks, I have not read The Gruffalo’s Child so, over Christmas, I did exactly what I advise my pupils not to do and watched the televised adaptation.

Displaying my teacherly inability to switch off, as I watched I was struck by the character of the Gruffalo’s child as she displays many elements of the learning dispositions which Guy Claxton has identified as part of his Building Learning Power (BLP) programme.

I understand the core values of BLP as being to encourage students’ lifelong learning habits and to make them independent learners who are not reliant on their teachers. To do this, Claxton has identified the four learning dispositions, or characteristics, which students need to be able to demonstrate. These are resilience, resourcefulness, reflection and reciprocity, and the Gruffalo’s child is an exemplary exponent of many of these.

In terms of her resilience, or emotional engagement, she notices details, spotting and following the animals’ trails, and is wholly absorbed in the task. Most importantly, she shows her perseverance as, despite set backs when she nearly drowns, has uncomfortable encounters with the snake, owl and fox, and is lied to by the mouse, she persists with her search for the Big Bad Mouse.

Her resourcefulness, or cognitive range, is seen in her question asking throughout the story, and the use of her imagination when drawing the image of the mouse. More advanced resourcefulness is shown by her making links between the trails of the animals and the search for her goal, and her reasoning as she uses her logic to deduce how each animal could be the Big Bad Mouse.

One of the characteristics of a successful learner which I stress as most important to my pupils is that of reflection and again the Gruffalo’s child is a good role model. She shows her ability to plan through her escape, and the revision of her ideas as she encounters the snake, owl and fox, and the distillation of her ideas through her identification of key details of each animal she meets.

The final learning disposition, reciprocity, is one which develops with age as pupils become less egocentric, and it is the area in which the Gruffalo’s child is weakest. Nevertheless, she does collaborate with the mouse (even though it is to her disadvantage), and she does listen attentively to the Gruffalo’s story and to the mouse’s ideas.

Adults, and especially teachers and parents, will recognise the importance of Claxton’s learning dispositions to a child’s development but, just as the Grufflo tries to protect their child, having the confidence to allow and encourage active and student-directed learning is sometimes a difficult boundary to overstep. It is, however, one which adults need to have the confidence to overstep for those in their care. Interestingly, these positive characteristics often seem to disappear as pupils move into secondary school and become more self-conscious, and it is at this age that teachers need to be explicitly encouraging children to use a wider range of learning techniques.

Yes, the Gruffalo’s child is ultimately terrified by her encounter, but having a daughter who is able to get things wrong and learn from testing her ideas and theories should make the Gruffalo very proud. Parents and teachers could do worse than to look at the Gruffalo’s child and think how they could make their children and pupils more like her.

Originally written for the Children's Literature at Cambridge blog and first posted there earlier today, and with many thanks to Kristina Shakeshaft for mentioning BLP as we watched 'The Gruffalo's Child' together and thereby summarising the teacherly comments we were making about the Gruffalo's child's progress.