~ Learning to teach: making sense of learning to teach : 5 What students say about learning to teach?
Hagger et al. (2008), in their longitudinal study of student teacher’s reflections on their learning, found that responses could be categorised into five dimensions:
What is particularly interesting about their research findings, is that student teachers themselves recognise the significance of their own responsibility as learners.
These ideas are reflected in a number of studies that examine student teachers own perceptions of themselves as learners.
Intentionality
As in Hagger et al’s research, Taylor (2008) found evidence of effective learning when students deliberately set their own schedules of learning and influenced the implementation of these. She found that, ‘Students achieve this through reflection on self in terms of their own individual development and of their development as teachers, and through reflection on wider educational theory.’ (Taylor, 2008 p. 79).
Interestingly, Mutton et al. (2010) found that student teachers identified a lack of power, meaning a lack of ability to influence or experiment with alternative approaches to teaching, as a potential constraint to effective learning. This could be seen to be a criticism of approaches to ITE that require students to replicate existing practice, such as Zeichner’s traditional craft paradigm (1983) or the transmission approach, but could equally be a criticism of student teachers who adopt a reactive approach to learning.
Frame of reference
Hagger et al. (2008) found that effective student teachers drew on a range of sources of information.
The value of other sources of learning isn’t overwhelmingly recognised in research that highlights student teacher’s opinions. Maldrez et al. recognise that some student teachers indicated that they felt such ‘theoretical’ studies were only of peripheral relevance (Maldrez et al., 2007). However, she did find evidence that some student teachers acknowledged that they might be using it ‘subconsciously’.
‘“I feel that things like learning about theories of how children learn and things are useful, but I can’t honestly say I’ve ever put them in my teaching… But maybe I do subconsciously, but I don’t know...” [Female, 20–24, BA QTS, secondary, MFL]’ (Maldrez et al., 2007, p. 235)
If considering this evidence to Zeichner and Taylor’s research, then it is possible to see that the Enquiry Orientation (Zeichner 1983) and development of students as teachers and learners (Taylor 2008), both promote a type of learning that draws on a wide range of sources.
Response to feedback
Caires et al. (2012), like Hagger et al. (2008), provide evidence that student teachers value the feedback they receive, if it supports effective learning. Caires et al. define effective feedback as ‘the sharing of experiences with their supervisors and other student teachers, the joint exploration of beliefs, perceptions and affects involved in teaching practice and/or the joint construction of meanings’ (Caires et al. 2012, p173). They argue that these can support effective learning as they lead to ‘self-exploration, exploration of the teaching profession, mutual knowledge and the strengthening of complicity relationships amongst student teachers, their supervisors and colleagues’ (Caires et al., 2012, p. 173).
Mutton et al’s research indicates that student teachers value feedback which raises questions and issues as much, if not more so, than being offered solutions (Mutton et al., 2010).
Reflection point: Why do you think the student teachers in Mutton et al’s research felt the way they did about feedback? How does it relate to the discussion of paradigms and approaches to ITE?
Attitude to context
Hagger et al. identify a difference between students who can capitalise on a context in order to learn, and those who see the context as a constraint (Hagger et al., 2008). This is reflected in Taylor’s research which found examples of students who were aware of the different opinions and opportunities that different contexts brought to their learning, as evident in the following quote:
… I think people need to be open-minded about the whole process, rather than thinking this is how I’m going to teach because when I first came onto the course I just had one view of teaching… However, I’ve been opened up to all these different ideas, working with my mentors and tutors, and also other students and other teachers … and you have to accommodate working with others so you’re always going to be learning and you’re always going to be learning different ideas [and] some of the things you learn, I didn’t always agree with, but I feel that you have to be completely open-minded and you have to try and change things. (Student 1)
(Taylor, 2008, p. 79)
Aspiration
Interestingly, aspiration, as defined by Hagger et al.(2008), concerns not only aspiration as a teacher but also aspiration as a learner. This is supported by Taylor’s research which identified that students ‘make connections between principle and practice, thought and action to make sense of teaching and its impact on education in general, schools and particularly children and their learning’ (Taylor, 2008, p79). In describing this dual, although fundamentally interlinked identity, Taylor discusses student’s development as both learner experts and expert learners.
This section has focused on what student teachers consider to be important to their learning. It is clear that those working with student teachers, their view of the learning process and attitude to ITE have a great influence on the effectiveness of the learning experience. However, Hagger et al’s research (2008) reminds us that central to effective student teacher learning is the attitude and approach of the student themselves. This will be influenced by the nature of the ITE course (i.e the paradigm or approach that underpins it, the route, level or qualification) but also the opportunities afforded to the students to take responsibility for their own learning.
Conclusion
This course has highlighted differences in perception about the nature of ITE by exploring different paradigms and approaches that underpin different beliefs about the role of ITE and the role of student teachers as active participants within it.
It then considered how this has manifest itself in the plethora of different routes into teaching in the UK. It concluded by examining research into how student teachers perceive they best learn during ITE courses.
Central to this course is the question ‘What type of teachers do we want in our schools?’. It is clear that there is not a single shared vision within the field, the profession or at government level that can answer this question. Maybe the question ought to be addressed to those who can influence the outcome, the student teachers, by asking: ‘What sort of teacher do you want and what experiences will best support you to achieve this?’
Activity 6: Characteristics of a good teacher
Listen to the clip of Tom, Mark and Sid talking about their school days.
Audio content is not available in this format.
Audio 3
As you listen, make a list of what they consider to be the characteristics of a good teacher.
Are good teachers born or made? Reflect on this question in the light of the list that you have made.
What qualities do you bring to teaching, and which will you/did you need to learn? In the light of what you have read in this course, how best can these things be learnt?
References
Caires, S., Almeida, L. and Vieira, D. (2012) ‘Becoming a teacher: student teachers’ experiences and perceptions about teaching practice’, European Journal of Teacher Education, vol. 35, no. 2, pp. 163–78.
Taylor, A. (2008) ‘Developing understanding about learning to teach in a university-school partnership in England’, British Educational Research Journal, vol. 34, no. 1, pp. 63–90.
Hagger, H., Burn, K., Mutton, T. and Brindley, S. (2008) ‘Practice makes perfect? Learning to learn as a teacher’, Oxford Review of Education, vol. 34, no. 2, pp. 159–78.
Maldrez, A., Hobson, A., Tracey, L. and Kerr, K. (2007) ‘Becoming a student teacher: core features of the experience’, European Journal of Teacher Education, vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 225–48.
Mutton, T., Burn, K. and Hagger, H. (2010) ‘Making sense of learning to teach: learners in context’, Research Papers in Education, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 73–91.
Zeichner, K. (1983) ‘Alternative Paradigms of Teacher Education’, Journal of Teacher Education, vol. 34, pp. 3–9.
Acknowledgements
Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence.
The material acknowledged below is Proprietary and used under licence (not subject to Creative Commons Licence). Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this free course:
Table 4: adapted from Hagger, H., Burn, K., Mutton, T. and Brindley, S. (2008) ‘Practice makes perfect? Learning to learn as a teacher’, Oxford Review of Education, vol. 34, no. 2, p. 167.
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Activity 2: Compare views of ITE
Discussion
Zeichner’s and Taylor’s research reveals some common themes in thinking about the underpinning philosophy of ITE courses. Both make a distinction between the ‘transmission’ of knowledge and skills (Behaviouristic, Traditional Craft, Cascading expertise, Developing student teaching), and a more student-teacher centred approach (Personalistic, Enquiry Orientation, Enabling individual growth, Students as teachers and learners).
Back to - Activity 2: Compare views of ITE
Activity 3: Examine paradigms
Discussion
Analysing where knowledge comes from, and the student teachers’ role in the learning process, may have led you to draw a distinction between paradigms. The ‘behaviouristic’ and ‘traditional craft’ paradigms require student teachers to copy and adopt pre-existing practice and accept knowledge as presented by an ‘expert’ such as a university tutor or school based mentor. The ‘Personalistic’ and ‘Enquiry orientation’ paradigms require student teachers to develop individually and play an active part in creating new knowledge and understanding.
This can be characterised generally as the differences between a transmission model of teaching (akin to a traditional lecture mode of delivery) and a student-centred model of co-construction of knowledge.
Back to - Activity 3: Examine paradigms
Activity 5: School experience
Discussion
Sarah makes a number of points, but one of the most significant is that learning to be a teacher is about developing your own ‘teaching personality’. Learning to be a teacher involves drawing on your previous experiences, and the opportunities that you have as a student teacher, in order to develop that personality. And it will change as your career progresses and you gather more experience.
In reality, choosing an ITE course may come down to very practical considerations such as availability of places or personal experiences of a provider, rather than the philosophy which underpins a course. However, as with any learning, it is how individuals take control of their own learning that will influence the type of teacher they become.
To that end, it is worth examining the views student teachers themselves about what helped them to learn effectively.
Back to - Activity 5: School experience
Activity 6: Characteristics of a good teacher
Discussion
Clearly, the different skills might be learned in different ways and much will depend on the skills, experience and attributes that a student already has. There will be times when students learn by copying what experienced teachers do, there will be times when they want to try new and novel things, and there will be times when they feel as if nothing is working. One of the purposes of an ITE course is to provide students with the tools to get through those times so that they emerge as better and more effective teachers.
Back to - Activity 6: Characteristics of a good teacher
Audio 1
Transcript
My name is Jonny Saunders and I am a teacher. Before I was a teacher – which I’ve been for 18 months – one academic year-and-a-half – I was a sports reporter for the BBC for 12 years. And I knew that at some stage in my career that I would go and become a teacher, it just so happened that I’d worked on the radio and, I suppose, reasonably successfully (I’d worked with Chris Evans for six years)... but I felt towards the end of it – and I'm sure that getting up at 3:45 every morning wasn’t helping my mental state at all – I felt that towards the end of it that I was getting tired and that the challenges of broadcasting were not quite as great as they had been, and I felt that in a sense I’d achieved everything I wanted to achieve in radio, and I’m of a volition that you only live your life once and you try and experience as many things as possible. And because I wanted to be a teacher and because I had those beliefs I felt that I wanted to perhaps try something different, and it made a bit of a news story at the time because it was this idea of somebody giving up a perceived glitzy and glamorous lifestyle to go and do a job that is not perceived as glitzy and glamorous. I suppose another way that I’d look at it: it was that for 12 years I had in a sense fuelled my own ego by being on the radio and talking on the radio and being listened to by nine million people every day; to go and do something not fuelling my own ego in a sense. And it’s kind of a pious way of looking at it… but being selfless rather than selfish is another way of looking at it.
I was sort of two thirds of the way through my Open University degree in English literature. So, I already had a degree before that from Durham University, but I felt that if I was going to be a credible candidate as an English teacher I needed to prove that I was really in love with English. And then it was a question of applying for jobs and I managed to get a job here at St. Edward’s School in Oxford. And immediately this year now I’m getting my PGCE, so on the job whilst I’m teaching.
Teaching is wonderful. It is fantastic because there’s just so much sheer variety. You have to be mega organised, however much you want to instill a love of your subject into people – and I think that is hugely, hugely important – the idea that exam results are very important is without question. So I took over, in my first year, a group of 12 pupils who were predicted C grades, most of them, for their GCSE English and when their results came out, five of them got A grades, five of them got B grades and two of them got C grades. And that day of those results... And I did a lot during my broadcasting career, I had some incredible highs. I remember broadcasting on the first day when we took over from Terry Wogan on the breakfast show and we had an estimated… well, I don't know how many people were listening to that show, but obviously it was big news when Chris Evans took over for that. But that moment of these 12 students achieving something... Now, it was down to them, don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t me who took the exam! But I had hopefully helped them along the way: that was a comparable, if not a better, feeling – the results they got that day – than perhaps it was being on the radio show January 11th 2010.
I think as well, at the end, anecdotal things... At the end of a lesson when you see children get up and they’re still discussing something that they’ve been discussing during the lesson, and being really engaged in the subject that you’ve been talking about. I get a real buzz from that as well. And you can see them improving in terms of the way that they’re writing and the way they’re engaging with a particular text that they’ve been taught.
The most important thing when I came into teaching was that I had to have the attention of the pupils, and that I think you have to lay down the guidelines. So that was a challenge. I think just the day-to-day planning a lesson – education had changed hugely since I’d left school. So, I had a gap of 19 years between leaving school myself and coming back into education as a teacher. And the transformation in education and pedagogy and how people teach and the focus on what children learn as opposed to... when I was at school it was just a teacher, usually standing up at the front of a classroom: if you choose to engage, you engaged; if you didn’t, well you were kind lost for the rest of the lesson. It’s much more interactive now, the teaching; the focus is on what the pupils are learning during the course of the lesson, rather than how much the teacher actually knows.
A good teacher – I don’t even begin to assume that I would fall into this category, but I’ve seen a lot of other good teachers – I think it’s about striking the right relationship with your pupils. So that you can communicate with them, so that you can know what makes them tick, but at the same time they’ve got to have that mutual respect for you so that they will work and they will get down to it – you can’t be too chummy, you can't be too distant. You have to hit the right area in terms of the relationship, and I think that that is hugely important. The material you’re working with is also very important: I've taught some poems which some pupils don’t enjoy, if they don’t enjoy it they’re not going to engage in the lesson. Alternatively, I’ve taught some texts which the pupils really enjoy and when they’re enjoying it they learn more. So, the material is down to it. Your organisation – you’ve got to be completely organised so that you’re moving from one place to the next so that you’ve got a coherent narrative going through your lesson, so that you’re moving to an end point so that all the learning is taking place as well. So, organisation, striking the right relationship – really, really important factors.
Learning to teach, the most valuable thing you can do is reflect on the lessons you have taught, and that’s part of the process I’m going through at the moment in terms of getting my qualification. We are actively asked, quite rightly, to reflect on our teaching practice – what was good about that lesson? What could have been improved? And it’s quite hard, I suppose, being your own critic and saying ‘well, they didn’t quite learn what they should have done there. Why was that? Probably because I hadn’t made it clear enough.’ It’s generally the teacher’s lack of focus and preparation that will lead to that learning not occurring. Pupils generally are very willing to do it and they are very able to be led, but they’ve got to be led in the right direction.
My advice to other student teachers would be: be organised. Be prepared, so that you’ve got a lot of material. Also, be prepared not to use all of that material: be prepared to go off-piste if you have to go off-piste. Be prepared for the unexpected – you never know what’s going to happen in a classroom. Be prepared to laugh at yourself, take the Mickey out of yourself on occasions. Don’t be too rigid, but at the same time don’t let the children trample all over you. It’s a fine line. And I think a lot of it comes down to instinct. But I think organisation’s absolutely vital.
Audio 2
Transcript
Diegetic
Simon Bland:
Those of you that don’t need to be logging on, have a look at the starter on the board, think about what you did last lesson. So, today you’re actually going to be composing your own bass-lines…
Non-diegetic
Sarah Vaughn:
We call this initial teacher education, and I think that’s significant – it’s not just about training, we’re educating people to become teachers and it’s a career-long continuous development and I think the day you think you know it all is the time to give it up. I’m Sarah Vaughn. I’m a PGCE tutor for the Open University. As soon as you qualify as a teacher you also need to recognise that you are going to continue to learn and to learn that profession the more you do it, and it’s very useful to be able to make these connections between being a learner and being a teacher and recognising that that relationship is symbiotic: it goes ‘round together. There are plenty of pupils in our classrooms who are struggling and having difficulties with acquiring the knowledge or the skills that you’re asking them to use, and I think if you’ve got this ability to reflect on what it’s like to learn you can give them a lot more guidance and support in their struggle to gain that knowledge.
I think the key to learning about how to teach is understanding about learning yourself and the type of learner that you are. I’m very definitely a kinesthetic learner – I learn by doing things and once I've done it then it’s hardwired into my brain and I won’t forget it. So, you have to identify that in yourself and then you also have to realise that in front of you as a teacher there are a variety of different learners and you have to take all of those into consideration while you’re presenting your materials. I think you also need to think about different theories about how the brain develops and how, therefore, pupils’ and children’s brains develop and the sort of things they’re capable of at certain ages. So we are talking about sort of Piaget and stages, but we’re also talking about the types of activities that make learning possible, so we’ll be drawing on theorists like Bronfenbrenner and Vygotsky who will talk about the social context in which learning is taking place. As learners, we need to think about how other people learn and the types of activities that promote learning for us and for the pupils in our classrooms.
Diegetic
Simon Bland:
So, we’ll just have a look then... What you should have is something that looks like this – now, we’re going to open a screen now where you can input your notes. So, what I want you to do is actually just watch what I’m doing and then copy it.
Non-diegetic
Simon Bland:
Having done some teaching, you then need to think about what you’ve done in terms of when learning has been successful and when it’s been less than successful. So you need to make some sort of evaluation of what you’ve done in terms of teaching and assess what your pupils have learnt and then you can make a conclusion from that about the types of strategies that are effective, the things that work and the things that don’t work. But the things that work are not necessarily going to be the same in every context and I think that’s what makes teaching really interesting – the things that work in one school or the things that work with one class are not necessarily the things that work with another class. So you can have two year seven classes in the same school, but the way you actually approach the teaching and the learning that comes out of that may be structured in completely different ways. And that’s what makes the job fun, because you can think about different ways of putting your material across each time and I think that also reflects on this whole process of us as teachers growing and continuing to develop – we’re always finding better ways or new ways of teaching that we think might be an improvement on what we’ve done before.
Neville Ashcroft:
My name’s Neville Ashcroft. I’m a student teacher. This is my third placement, and I will finish in the next month or so. At the moment I’m deliberately not trying to have a (x) teaching style because I want to practice those different styles and see which ones suit me best. At the moment, I’m trying to be a chameleon and just copy other people’s styles and see what suits me. Being in school is the most critical part of the course – all very well sitting in your study or your bedroom at home looking at the literature, it really comes down to when you’re actually in front of those pupils practicing what you’ve learned that’s when you can really test yourself. You can practice different things.
Dave Smith:
I’m Dave Smith, Open University tutor on the PGCE course. It’s really important that trainees work in more than one school simply because schools vary so much and that as soon as you work in one school exclusively it becomes a training that means that you will find it very difficult to adapt if at any point in your career you need to move. And if someone starts in one school and becomes effective in that school it should be a taking-off point for an ability to work effectively in other situations, but if they remain in that school and remain there too long then those habits become exactly that: they become habits rather than practices that they’re aware of and thinking about and considering the applicability of.
Simon Bland:
I’m Simon Bland, I’m a PGCE student. The first placement school that I had in a city school – at the moment, the mix of that school is something along the lines of 60% Indian, 30% Somali, with the majority of the rest being Eastern-European. And so there’s a mix, you have language-issues, the class sizes are high... It’s a fascinating place, but also there’s a variety of behavioural issues and so I found that very, very hard. And then this school’s very different; it’s in a much more affluent area and overall the students are a lot more well-behaved. The issues are different here. I’m glad I did it that way ‘round; being there and knowing that there are times when you have to really seize down on a class and then coming here.
Dave Smith:
Many students find the move to a second school quite difficult, because they’ve often reached a point where they feel they’re competent, they feel they’re effective and suddenly the rug’s taken from underneath them because they’ve got to adapt to different people, to different pupils, to a different school ethos and that is probably the most crucial point in the whole of a PGCE or any other teacher-training course – that point at which they’ve accepted their competence, but find that that competence is limited and then they can really move on to a position which enables them to work in a range of situations.
Sarah Vaughn:
I think when you start as a teacher, you’re so terrified about every new class that you made and you’re terrified that you’re not going to be able to control them that the majority of your waking moments are planning your classroom management strategies and how you're going to deal with behaviour and challenges that the pupils present to you and that seems to take up an awful lot of what you think about when you’re planning lessons, is making sure that the management side of things runs smoothly. And I think one of the advantages of getting a bit older is that those things are more secure and you’re happier with yourself that you know you can control situations and that things are not going to go wrong, and it allows you then to think a little bit more in detail about the quality of the teaching and the quality of the learning that’s taking place for the students, and being able to draw on other aspects of your own knowledge in order to help students make progress. For example, I’ve started to work on visual learners and using works of art to illustrate and support an understanding of some of the modern music styles which I wouldn’t have thought about in early days when I was still worrying about whether somebody was going to be off-task talking.
We’re all individual and as a teacher you need to develop your teaching personality, and I think in order to do that you need to see how other people do it. You need to see how other people work with children, how other people manage classrooms, how other people structure curriculums. And the more variety that you can see, the more variety that you’ve experienced, will give you a basis to work out how you want to be in the classroom – the sort of teacher you want to be while you’re working. If you’re worried about management and if you’re worried about losing control, then you often put a barrier up, you put a sort of defence up and you don’t let yourself come through and I think, actually, you need to be able to do that because you’re a person working with people; you’re not a computer, you’re not a robot. They’ve got feelings, and particularly teenagers are so wound up in their hormones and all their feelings and their emotions – and I think if they realise that you are a person, and actually you’re a person who can be relied upon because you’re not a friend, you’re not a peer... it’s a bit like parenting, I suppose, where you can’t be your children’s best friend cause actually sometimes you have to assert your authority and you have to lay down the law and say ‘these things have got to be done, or these are my expectations’ and I think you can do that, but still show your human side and still become a person that they can have a relationship with and that they can develop some trust with and I think if you have that really good sense of trust and understanding of each other then actually they will do pretty much what you want them to do.
So I guess after 26 years of teaching experience, the idea of developing your relationship with the children you teach is probably the best bit of advice I’d give to student teachers.
Audio 3
Transcript
Narrator:
Author and broadcaster Tom Holland, the actor Mark Williams and children’s television presenter Sid Sloane recall their school days and the teachers that inspired them.
Tom Holland:
I remember all sort of teachers that got me through exams, who gave me the information that I needed to do well in lessons and then to get qualifications; but the ones that really live in my memory are those who lit the touch-paper of enthusiasm and excitement, that transcend the objective requirements of the curriculum. The fact that they demonstrated that what you were studying in a classroom wasn’t just something to be got through, wasn’t just something to be slogged through, wasn’t even something to be learned so you could get a qualification: it was something that had fascination in its own right.
Mark Williams:
The better the character the better the teacher, I think; because the more complex and interesting you are, the more intriguing you are to children who haven’t met anybody like you. And if you’re yourself it’s much more proof against people playing you up than if you’re not, because in the end they’ve got to give in ‘cause they want to know and if they don’t want to know then you’re on a losing battle aren’t you – there’s no point. But the ones that want to know are going like ‘why did you say that?’
Sid Sloane:
My favourite teachers were Miss Earnham, my English teacher, and Mr. Wilson my Sports teacher; also, Mr. McKenna, my History teacher. And the reason why they were my favourite teachers was because they took the time to have a conversation with me on my level. I just felt like they had recognised a potential within me and wanted to help me to draw it out of myself. So they weren’t saying ‘you need to be this, you have to be that, you should be this,’ they were saying ‘you know what, you have a whole lot of potential and you can do more. And why don’t you ask that of yourself? And I believe in you.’ That's what made them my favourite teachers.
Tom Holland:
I didn’t greatly enjoy school, but I do have a debt of gratitude to certain teachers, of whom one in particular set me on the career that I now follow. And he was called Major Morris and his day job was to teach us History, that’s what he was meant to do; but his idea of teaching was basically to elaborate on shaggy dog stories – that was his lesson plan and he could always be persuaded to go off on a tangent. So, he was very interested in Greek Mythology and he told me the whole story of the Odyssey. He was just a man in love with his subject and that love was not going to be contained within the dykes of the conventional curriculum. And I don’t know now whether that would rank as a quality to be praised in a teacher, but I certainly felt that it was, but it gave me a passion for History that I have never lost since.
Mark Williams:
I remember school as getting better and better – was how I remember it. As a young child I didn’t really like school, I was often bored. The thing that I was most interested in was learning, and it depended on who was best at generating that enthusiasm. I remember we had a teacher who was a very conventional teacher, in the sense that he smoked a pipe and wore a sports jacket, but he was funny. And he used to do stuff that shook you a bit; like when Bob Beamon broke the 1968 long jump record; he chalked it out on the playground – which was quite radical then – and we went out and there was like 28' 6'' and it was just like unbelievable. He was good.
Sid Sloane:
Teachers are very integral to a child’s life. When I went home from school I went home with what happened during my day at school, and I talked to my mum. And my mum, who raised five children on her own, didn’t have much time to listen – if she was there at all –, because my mum was out at work all day. And there are lots of families like that, single parent families, they just haven’t got time because they’ve got to go to work or whatever. And I have to say I had a really good time at school: I was head prefect, I was made pupil of the year in my third year when I was about 13. But I left school without any qualifications. At the age of 15 something inside me snapped and I went: ‘I’m going to be a rebel.’ and I just decided overnight ‘I'm going to be a rebel and I'm going to go and hang with the rebel kids’ and that’s what I did. And then I started playing truant and I started not going to school and I started thinking about my exams and thinking ‘well, who cares? I don't need them.’ The whole school system lost value and I slipped through the net. And I think I missed out on that part, that final stage, of my education because I probably would have gone on to college and then maybe on to university, who knows?
Mark Williams:
I think that one of the essences of good teaching is the same as good acting – is you’ve got to have some politics with a small ‘p’. You’ve got to know where you’re going. You need to aim. You don’t have to tell everybody all the time, but it’s a good idea in your mind to know where you’re heading. Where you want them to be. What you want for them and, by association, for you. What are you saying? If you know, it will sing.
Sid Sloane:
The most effective type of teaching is when you actually speak to the individual in the group. And I think that was the great thing about the teaching that I was motivated by was I felt like I was being spoken to as an individual. And also, and this is the great thing, when I’m in a group and I feel like everybody else is being spoken to as individuals it adds extra value to what I’ve been told about me. It’s about positivity, it’s about inspiration and trying not to make kids feel like they’re going to achieve much, cause I believe kids are potentially able to achieve whatever they want and I truly believe that.
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