Autism and Camouflage - how girls with ASD can keep it hidden from sight

This week I have been learning about the concept of 'camouflaging' as a technique used by autistic people to get by in the world of neurotypicals.  It has been a real eye-opener, not least because it's blatantly obvious that this is the very method I have used to get through my life to date.

Also known as 'compensation', camouflaging is the term for how autistic individuals manage to hide or disguise their autistic traits, allowing them to come across to the casual acquantaince as entirely neurotypical, often to the point that no-one would ever suspect that the individual is on the spectrum.  It is a real hot topic currently, and it seems that long-overdue research is finally being undertaken into its mechanics and its effect on autistic people who employ it.  At its most basic, camouflaging appears to rely on intense effort and stress on the part of the individual as they utilise their excellent memory of social cues to 'artificially' fit into social conversation and situations - essentially making their social life an endless act in order to prevent showing behaviours that they would be embarrassed or even ashamed of.  The range of skills involved is pretty daunting - the individual will have learned in minute detail how to react appropriately to the actions, speech and expressions of others, often using memorised details from their own life and even the media (films, TV shows) to help them 'say and do the right thing.'  As Meng-Chuan Lai notes in the introduction to the article 'Quantifying and exploring camouflaging in men and women with autism':

"One such coping strategy is that they may ‘camouflage’ difficulties during social situations by either hiding behaviour that might be viewed as socially unacceptable or artificially ‘performing’ social behaviour deemed to be more neurotypical – they Pretend to be Normal".

Forced eye contact, moderation of voice volume, even jokes and types of laughter can be examples of this camouflaging, all of which can usually serve to allow the autistic individual to 'fly under the radar', as Lai puts it, never getting diagnosed as there is never any concern from their teachers, parents or doctors.  The turmoil is all on the inside and is invisible to others.

Several clear patterns are beginning to emerge from the studies that continue to be published.  Firstly, successful camoflaging seems to be more prevalent in female autistic people for reasons that are still unclear; the ability to hide one's autistic traits (especially social ones) seems to be more readily within the purview of females, and female children in particular seem to have far more success in establishing friendships, for example (though maintaining them is often far less successful).  It appears that girls are more adroit at performing the expected social cues, and presumably more able to identify them in the first place.  Boys, in contrast, are far less capable of this, meaning that their autistic traits and behaviour may be more visible and obvious.

This, I think, has significant ramifications in the school environment.  The overwhelming 'maleness' of autism and aspergers in schools is well noted, and I think SEN departments, teachers and other stakeholders would benefit from being aware of the fact that female students who are on the spectrum are very good at hiding the fact, and therefore more care and time should be taken when trying to identify a students extra needs.  From my reading, I would suggest that the following considerations be taken when working with female students who may be on the spectrum:

1. Do not dismiss the possibility of ASD if they seem to have a social life - closer examination may be needed to establish the nature of the social interaction and whether friendships are maintained or falling out is commonplace.

2. Do not dismiss the possibility of ASD if eye contact is maintained, conversation with known adults is easy and a sense of humour is apparent!  Firstly, a sense of humour is often finely developed in people with autism (I, for example, am hilarious); secondly, it tends to be that conversation and interaction with other children and adults known to the student will be fine, flowing naturally - the student knows the rules and cues for those people.  They will, however, struggle with strangers for whom they have no record or knowledge.

3. Consider the other traits of ASD more carefully.  Obsessive behaviours, limited and intense interests, dislike of physical contact are all quite noticeable if you know what to look for.

It goes without saying that male children can be adept at camouflaging their symptoms, right up to adulthood.  I was only diagnosed at 34 because I had felt for years something wasn't quite right; at school it was never even considered as far as I am aware.  With male camouflaging, autistic traits can be hidden by a desire to not appear unusual, to avoid bullying, or just to avoid stressful situations getting worse.  This compensation is draining - it seems that males with autism that has been well-hidden are far more likely to suffer with anxiety and depression, mostly (it seems) due to sheer constant effort such camouflaging requires.

Finally, this phenomenon seems to be one of the reasons for some autistic children showing less severe traits as they grow older - they simply learn to cover them up.  All of this brings us to the rather uncomfortable conclusion that people with autism, girls and boys, have to expend considerable energy and mental strength to appear normal, for fear of being bullied, ostracized or treated unfairly.  This leaves them drained, depressed and even at times suicidal.  Surely this is no way for society to handle such a potentially talented and bright segment of the population?

A diagnosis of Asperger's? Part Two

Lots and lots of people are socially anxious, and lots are introverted.  This does not mean they are on the autistic spectrum at all, and for years I assumed this about myself.  Socialising has been a major part of my life, but not in any way as much as for most people who have been to university and been in a gigging band - I tended to socialise as little as I could get away with whilst maintaining an air of reasonable normality.  The fact that I really love the taste of beer helped a lot too!  But I always had myself pegged as an introvert, assuming that terror and stress in social situations was pretty normal for everyone.

For someone with Asperger's, it is common for social situations to cause intense anxiety and even pain.  Making small talk and 'chatting' is something that does not come naturally, and the prospect of being around strangers (especially strangers whom one is expected to 'meet' and 'talk to') can be extremely problematic, often creating a fight or flight response to the stress.  As such, parties and other gatherings are anathema.  However, it is possible for well-established routine socialising with a small bunch of people in the usual haunts to be far more attractive and successful; throw alcohol into this mix and someone with Asperger's can make a decent fist at a night out (it's interesting just how often drink and drugs become a crutch for people with ASD - it makes perfect sense, when you think about how alcohol is used by just about everyone as a 'social lubricant', so those with ASD find it particularly handy.)  But a 'big night out', or a dinner party with acquaintances will be an utter nightmare.

The myriad issues that can crop up in social situations are worth looking at in some detail.  The biggest problem is not having an automatic, instinctive knowledge of how to act in social situations.  I genuinely view people with social confidence as if they are a different species.  It makes no sense to me how they are able to talk and be like that, so a two-fold thing occurs.  Firstly it can create resentment and even bitterness - 'it's not fair that these people find all this so easy'.  I think this is what led me to utterly despise the confident sporty people at University - it just didn't seem fair that they could be so at ease in any social situation!  The other effect is stranger, and is to do with a very common strategy employed by Aspies in particular - acting.  Socialising becomes an intense bout of Daniel Day-Lewis-esque method acting.  All the social cues and scripts that have been absorbed over the years help me to say and do the right thing when dealing with people 'en masse'.  Even films and TV shows can be dragged into the mix, as lines or reactions seen on telly become learned behaviour as it seems to work with people.  This was the symptom that really piqued my interest about six months ago, as it was something that I was hyper-aware that I did.  It's not just quoting TV shows - that's great fun when with the right people and is just an exercise in common humour; it's deeper than that.  It's scanning one's brain, looking for the right facial expression or bland comment to get you through the next chit-chat, stealing them wholesale from often quite obscure sources (often those shows or films that you've had a deep obsession with).  I know for a fact that I over-rely on several TV and film characters, but I will let the people who know me figure out who they may be.  Asperger's leads to a social life that is one long and tortuous performance, in the spotlight, with high stakes should anything go wrong.  It's small wonder that Aspies are so keen to avoid it.

When things go pear-shaped, then the fight-or-flight response can kick in.  I can't count the number of times I have abandoned a social occasion, usually abruptly and very often for no externally discernible reason, simply because I had to.  I have found myself wandering around cities after midnight having bailed (often without informing friends, as that confuses matters), deeply immersed in the sudden comfort of being alone in an empty place.  Now I am having the assessment, I have found myself looking back over my entire social experience and realising that this was the thread that linked all my peculiar behaviour together.  I'm hopeful that if I am diagnosed, then I will be able to manage a little better, as I'll know that those close to me will know about it too, and will understand, rather than be confused, hurt or cross!  But nothing can quite communicate the sudden and wonderful relief of leaving a social occasion - even one that is very enjoyable, with close, good friends - and wandering home alone in the cold dark with nothing but my own thoughts. This does not mean I hate socialising with friends - I actually love it, within strict parameters(!) but it does mean I am always grateful for the last orders bell.

A diagnosis of Asperger's? Part One

I have always been rather introverted.  I say 'rather' with a sense of grim irony, as I am in fact deeply, painfully introverted; this may be surprising for those who know me, but I have always found social situations exhausting and generally stressful, even with close friends.  I have managed to keep it pretty well hidden, I believe (though it's possible I may be wrong and everyone I know has always had me figured out!) and maintained a 'front' of being reasonably sociable and even lively at times.  However, I had never really considered this as anything more than a fact of life until quite recently: I guess I assumed everyone was the same.

My pride and joy - just for illustrative purposes

Then a few things happened in concert.  I became a father and a leader at work in the same year.  I won't go into details, but these things combined convinced me that perhaps my way of viewing the world and going about my business was a little different.  I'd learned a lot about Autistic Spectrum Disorders from teaching and getting to know various students with the condition and so I decided to see if I fit the criteria.  Lo and behold, a few free online clinical-style tests gave me a 'woah mamma' conclusion.  Apparently I wasn't a bit on the spectrum: I was in the pot of gold, so to speak.  Fascinated by this, I asked my GP for a referral to an expert; after describing my symptoms she referred me without hesitation, barely questioning me at all.  I am now in the middle of the diagnosis process.

In Wiltshire (different authorities do things differently) the diagnosis consists of a three-part assessment, each appointment lasting 90 minutes.  Along with this, questionnaires are completed (interestingly identical to those available online - the RAADS-R test among them) and parents/loved ones are asked for their take.  At the end of the assessment I will be emailed (not phoned, obviously!) with the results, and right now I have no idea what I want to happen.

On one hand, getting a diagnosis would explain an awful lot, and presumably give me some peace of mind.  On the other, I am afraid it will allow me to 'relax' into it, and this would not necessarily be a good thing.  I have made a reasonable job of my life, and have a good job, a wonderful partner and daughter and plenty of Lego, and much of this is down to my ability to hide how I really feel and react to the world.  I worry that if I relax, and 'let it all hang out', then problems may ensue.  Time will tell.

Anyway - the purpose for this rambling introduction is that I wish to begin a series of blogs about the diagnosis process, what it is like to hide the symptoms of Aspergers and how it is that I can be a reasonably successful teacher and middle leader with the condition.  Of course, I may turn out to not have the condition (or at least not sufficiently enough for diagnosis), but I believe a blog exploring my experience could be useful for anyone who feels similarly about themselves, and it may give the wherewithal to get a diagnosis for themselves.

And so, I shall leave this for now but I will follow up with Part 2 soon, which will hopefully be concerned with social anxiety and difficulties.

Pete

Becoming a HoD, Part 2

I've been in the job now for eight working days, and in terms of energy and the heavy weight of my eyelids, it feels more like eight weeks.  The good news is that in terms of motivation and eagerness, I'm still pretty bright and bouncy, like a mad puppy.  It's odd that the ability to make decisions and simply make things happen does this to a person, but explains where dictators get their boundless joie de vivre from, I suppose.  I am working constantly in school from 7.30am until around 4.30, and thanks to the endless multitude of different tasks, I am always able to re-energise myself with a new or more interesting job.  I must stress here, however, that for me looking at levels of progress on a spreadsheet is a genuinely interesting job.  And fun too, once you break out the conditional formatting.  It's like being allowed to use crayola when in a restaurant as a child, carefully colouring in the line drawing of a circus that the place kindly proferred on entry.  I can't get enough of it.  Someone pass me the Burnt Sienna.

So I'm maintaining a spookily high level of motivation, which is good.  But I'm also focusing even more on my lessons.  I had heard from many corners that one of the first things to suffer when you shuffle into middle management is the teaching itself.  Happily, so, far, this is yet to happen; I'm treating every lesson like a particularly vital observation.  This is bound to be down to my high levels of motivation and the strange new confidence that promotion brings.  I aim to keep it this way, but we all know an ill-timed cold or bout of insomnia can play havoc with our best teaching intentions, so I will have to see how it goes.  There is also the matter of 'setting a good example' which is now a major factor.  The reality of being a classroom teacher is that you never feel responsible for the practice of your colleagues.  As Head of Department, you suddenly are.  It is imperative to practice what you preach, and so you become even more aware of what you are doing than ever before.  I think it'd be fair to say that this week has seen some of my best ever teaching.  How exciting.

In terms of the 'other stuff' - things to keep the department running - my primary realisation is how much there is to do, and how disparate it can all feel.  One thing I'm having to do, against my character really, is be more outgoing and positive with my colleagues.  My natural habitat, or indeed my cage were I ever to find myself incarcerated in some human zoo, would be a dank cave packed with electronic gizmos and Lego.  It certainly wouldn't contain other people.  So I find myself hoisted bodily from my comfort zone, going around the department chatting away and being as 'motivational' and 'nice' as I can muster.  Joking aside, it has been very pleasant, and I have a good role model to look up to - our Head of Maths has got this aspect of his role nailed, and is incredibly good at making his department exude positivity and optimism.  Their results are supernaturally good, and I think a good portion of this success stems from this - thus, as desperately odd it must seem to anyone who knows me, I must follow in his footsteps.

More about the admin side of things next time.  Right now, I've got to get some forms filled in.

Becoming a HoD Part 1

In five days time I will be at work as Head of English for the very first time.  At results day I could still hide a little, safe in the knowledge that at that point, I was barely more than a cabin boy with some weird primary transition duties and a wee snifter of KS3 to look after.  However, come the beginning of the new school year, I have nowhere to hide.

This is an interesting position to be in, as I've never been in charge of much more than an EPQ before now.  As such, I expect this year to be jam-packed with trials and problems and issues and disasters and, with a fair wind, some successes too.  I have worked with some inspirational and excellent HoDs in my 7-year career, and would be ecstatic if I could measure up to them in any way.  I have also met some quite difficult leaders, and I hope that I may well have learnt from the experience.  Whatever happens, it will all be new and I will be under a great deal of pressure, so I think this could be the start of a healthy and possibly therapeutic series of blog-posts outlining my time as a proto-HoD, and the many adventures I have along the way.

I will attempt to blog weekly, as far as I can manage, but for now I shall content myself with outlining the focuses I have given myself for the first week, so we can track how they go over time.

1. Teach my lessons.

2. Get through the first day without forgetting I'm meant to be in charge of proceedings with my dept and waiting for someone else to start the meeting;

3. Finish the organisation for the year, including dates for CW, exams, moderation, meetings, reports and all the usual bumf;

4. Get my poor head around the intricacies of Performance Management and CPD;

5. Set my stall out re: expectations of behaviour, effort and progress;

6. Make my first major target for the dept clear: to be a 'famous' department that the students chat and yammer about, because interesting and chat-worthy things are happening there;

7. Have a chat with the new headteacher and see what he can offer English;

8. Sleep well;

9. Look after our two new starters in the dept, and make sure they know what's going on and how to get on well.

10. Minimise sobbing to around 5 minutes per day.

We shall see how it goes.

My year as a 'Cross Phase Leader' Part 2

Now I had managed to communicate with the primary schools and agree to work with them, what did I actually do?

As I have already said, the main reason my job existed was to push our school and make it a more attractive proposition for Year 7.  I may have managed to soften this objective for my own sense of well-being into one that was primarily about helping students, but I still had to deliver for the powers-that-be.  This meant that any time working with Year 6 was essentially time wasted, as they had already made their minds up.  Far better to work with Years 4 and 5, as the decision was still pending for them, and therefore there was plenty of opportunity to get them to consider our little school.  The trouble was, the primaries were very keen indeed for me to work with their Year 6s - the looming SATs were clearly on their minds, and my offer of helping with 'reading and writing' was very attractive.  For the first two terms of this outreach (Christmas and January terms), Year 6 was all I was offered.

Aware that it was unhelpful to my main objective, I took the work anyway.  I reasoned that many of the students I was going to work with were to end up at my school anyway, so it would aid transition (especially useful now I am Head of English, so quite a useful 'familiar face' for them to have - though I didn't know this at the time).  It was probably going to help raise my profile within the schools too - allowing me to work with the Year 4 and 5 students later on in the year.  So I planned some a detailed writing unit for these Year 6 classes.  I had them once a week, for around an hour, for a whole term.  This meant I needed seven full lessons that really engaged them with writing (the skill their teachers had identified as being weaker).  I created a unit based loosely on The Demon Headmaster and Boy, by Roald Dahl: the concept was a short story, with character development and clear structuring, about a new headteacher who turned out to be 'odd' in some way.  Each week focused on a different skill, utilising 'slow writing' techniques a great deal: cohesion one week, detail and imagery the next, punctuation a third and so on, until the students were ready to create their delightful little tales.  With a clutch of level 5 and 6 workunder their belts, the students were happy to have made progress, and the primaries were more willing to let me work with students from further down the school.

I did some reading work, again based on Boy, with some Year 5s, focusing on the skill of inference and evidence gathering.  Year 4 students worked with me on a writing topic based on the Titanic, focused on finding the 'joy' in writing and developing vocabulary and simile creation.  Some Year 3 students, and goodness me they were tiny and quite frightening at times (they are so very different even to Year 7s), worked on a speaking and listening topic, again based on the Titanic (stick with what you know, that's my motto!) where they created really quite startlingly professional TV news reports on the sinking.  Jabberwocky was a focus for another group of Year 5s, where we worked on creating meaning through language, ensuring every word counted.  All of these units were around one hour a week for about a term, and I think in total I must have worked with over one hundred students from around the town.

However, there was a problem.  I was able to collect work, mark it and share it with them, but I had no idea about progress over time.  It was difficult to liaise with their class teachers, so by the end of the year I was aware that I had no idea - really no idea at all - whether I had had a positive impact on their progress.  It dawns on me that this is likely the biggest downfall to the programme.  As a teacher who is very much led by marking and then developing work, this was hard to handle; in the end I had to content myself with the fact that I was very unlikely to be doing educational harm to these students, and to liaise with the primaries over their SATs results whenever I could.  As these things should always end with an evaluative note, checking progress would be an area of development for the next time I make it to the primaries.

So, my year was over.  I had managed to get myself promoted to Head of Department by May, so it is clear to me that I will be spending far less time in the primary schools in 2014-15.  Cross-phase standardisation, moderation and joint planning had taken baby steps, but were by no means fully implemented, and I had worked with more Year 6s than I'd wanted to.  On the other hand, the units of work had been enthusiastically received, and communication routes had been set up between the schools, and we saw a raise of around 25 students entering for Year 7, so all in all, it wasn't a bad year.

My year as a 'Cross Phase Leader' Part 1

Back in May 2013, I was given a promotion.  It was a Second in Department job of sorts, having responsibility for KS3 curriculum and assessment, and a 50% timetable.  This seems very generous, but I was expected to spend that time doing something else entirely - working with primary schools.

Schools try many different methods of communicating with their partner primary schools, and can spend a lot of money, or very little.  The importance of such work is generally accepted, though it is often hard to pin down exactly what benefits we are expecting to reap from transition efforts.  Often it's a simple case of attracting Year 4 and 5 students to our schools - advertising the quality of the place to the main consumers; sometimes it's a worthy desire to help the students cope with the terrifying change of scenery and routine; occasionally, and I whisper it, it can be through a need to tick the appropriate box.

Happily, in my case, the first two reasons were paramount.  We are a small school, struggling in a very competitive area with two other, much longer-established secondaries.  The work of the four Cross Phase Leaders (English, Maths, STEM and PE) was in many ways simple: attract more students to our school, to help keep it viable.  However, this is a desperately 'private sector' approach, and clashed with my woolly lefty personality of education being for the kids, so I had to smother this core concern in a more Pete-friendly smock of 'helping students'.  I reasoned we in the English department could learn a lot from our peers in the primaries, and could engage in very practical issues such as cross-phase moderation, standardisation and possibly even planning.  I also wanted to take my own particular brand of teaching down to the Year 4s and 5s, hopefully working with them on projects that they wouldn't normally get involved in.  In short, I was trying to achieve quite a lot.

Once September 2013 came along, the order of the day was networking.  It's astonishing how few contacts we had with the primary schools.  We could easily get in touch with the heads of our main 'feeder' schools, of course...but what about the other schools - the ones we were interested in, as they would enlarge our catchment?  By the end of the year I had made contact with, and worked with, about 70% of the town's primaries, but what a hell of a job this was.  The break-through came in the form of the town's primary Literacy meetings which take place three times a year.  These have a teacher from every primary, and they spend time discussing curriculum changes and SATS.  Once I had infiltrated this - actually inviting them to have their January meeting in our school library - the rest was easy.  I chaired the meeting, chatted to everyone, got their emails and that was that: easy access to every primary.  Having a key contact in every school is very useful - it may be their Literacy Co-ordinator, their deputy head, or a class teacher, but it doesn't matter.  What you need is an ally who will organise things at their end, spread the word and act as a point of contact whenever you want to work with the students at their school.

Before starting the job, we CPLs had been warned of the difficulty of communicating with primary colleagues.  We were told horror stories of teachers who never check emails, or who are actively hostile to any secondary teachers who dare to enter their domain.  I was expecting to meet endless walls of resistance, but what I found in reality were warm welcomes and eager requests for help.  Most of the primary colleagues were incredibly keen to let me work with their students on 'different' work.  Any extra input on reading or writing skills was instantly snapped up, to the point where it became difficult for me to juggle everything.  The 50% timetable began to look too heavy.  In truth, I was astonished at how willing primary teachers were to get me in front of their students; but then I considered - if someone was willing to drop in and teach my Year 10 class once a week, freeing me up, I'd jump at the chance too.

The horror stories had been over-elaborate and exaggerated.  The job of working with multiple primaries across town seemed to be a little more achievable.

Part 2 will be about what I actually did in the primaries.

Things to do on Results Day

Hello.  It's that time of year again - the fortnight of horrible Thursdays.  Results day scares me a great deal.  It is partly the importance of the grades on the students: have they achieved what they have to achieve in order to progress through life happily and fulfilled? This weighs heavy on any teacher's mind this next two weeks, and yet is probably outstripped by the more selfish, yet arguably more important (to the teacher themselves) question of 'how do these results reflect my ability?'  Like it or not, the grades awarded to students after one or two years of teaching from you do reflect your teaching ability.  Yes yes, I understand the old adage about horses and drinking but still - ignoring your input on their grades is foolish and would lead to a logical conclusion of removing teachers altogether if gone the full distance.  We can bleat as much as we like about the little terrors ignoring us or not revising, but ultimately, your ability to teach and aid them learn has a huge, huge effect on their results.

So this is quite a lot of pressure.

I am terrified of letting the students down, you see.  It keeps me awake at night, sometimes - the very idea that I could have explained something more clearly, or used a more effective activity to practice a skill.  This is the torture of any professional left to their own devices - I'm sure doctors and lawyers recognise the feeling.  It's an integral part of reflective practice and is, therefore, ultimately a good thing.  However, it still remains a fact that the whole thing is horribly stressful.

So, here's my tips on what to do on results day 1 or 2 (you know what I mean):

1. Only go to one of them, unless you have responsibility in that area.  This is obvious - don't go through it twice if you don't need to.  I know this seems a little uncaring, or even unprofessional, but it isn't.  Your presence on results day is far from vital, especially if you only teach Year 12 - you'll see them in September.  Wait for the email and do your analysis in comfort at home, at your own pace.  This will give you the breathing space you need to work out how the students did and what comes next.

2. When you do go in, spend most of the time talking to the students.  This is the only worthwhile way to spend results day if you're in school.  Analysis and worrying can come later at home with a glass of wine.  If you trouble yourself to go into school, you're only really doing it to see the kids, so chat with them, advise them, console them if need be.  That's the way forward.

3. Be on holiday.  If you really can't cope with the stress in the midst of your mega-downtime, then wait until September before you engage with it at all.  Unless you're a HoD or higher, you can get away with this - do it if the alternative is losing your mind.  Being away (preferably abroad, away from the British media) is the perfect way of making it so you don't even know it's results day.  It's not cowardice - just self-preservation.

4. Do not read the papers on the day.  Don't even be tempted.  It'll only make you angry and belittle your years of hard work as they bleat about rising standards, as if they're a bad thing.  Honestly, it's as if all that money and expertise spent on improving education over the last 20 years was meant to yield no results at all, isn't it?  The logic of the papers (and the Daily Hate Mail in particular) is astonishing.

So there we are, four ways to help maintain your professional sanity today and next Thursday.  I do hope they help.

The Reading Festival?

This started off as a pun on the name of a fairly damp and uninspiring town in the UK, known for its vast music festival every August.  Once I had noticed the potential hilarity behind this pun, nothing could stop me beavering away on this poster for a fairly embriotic Reading Festival in my school in the autumn term.

Now I have my title, and my poster, it's time to start thinking about what a reading festival would actually consist of.  A festival suggest chaotic life and many activities occurring simultaneously.  This can be hard to arrange in the strict environs of a secondary school.  However, I am now responsible for primary transition and recruitment in English, with close working links with several primaries, so I see potential there for something really quite large scale.

What would be the aim of a reading festival?  Well, primarily it has to be a celebration of books and the joys of reading and learning from fiction.  Every teacher knows the pitfalls here, and the sadness that encroaches on us when students fail to share our enthusiasm, so I must tread carefully.  Reading challenges and competitions are a staple of such affairs, and I will endeavour to include many of these crowd-pleasers.  Public readings are vital too - potentially from teachers in role, masquerading as Dickens, Shakespeare and Jane Austen.  This would lend a sense of Horrible-Histories excitement to proceedings.  Tutor time activities and lunchtime diversions are a must, for the whole week (or two days, depending on my energy levels), and some kind of grand finale is required.

I am going to sit and ponder ideas that will be added to this blogpost, but in the meantime, if you have a cool idea please let me know.  Similarly, if you've attempted anything similar and have stories to share, I'll be happy to add them to this blog!

Randomised Trials in education?

The big question here is 'why not'?  Ben Goldacre is completely correct in saying that if we want to be treated as professionals, then it may be an idea for teachers to actually partake of some rigorous trials into what interventions really work.  As I tweeted earlier, in my experience of teaching most 'evidence' of working interventions are anecdotal, biased and often totally unrepeatable.  Yes, every child is different and yes, we don't want to have prescriptive methods foisted upon us, but I don't believe either of these arguments should prevent randomised trials from being, well, trialled.

The main reason RTs are so highly regarded in the world of cold empiricism is because they remove bias and  variables and allow us to identify exactly what works and what doesn't.  For drugs testing this is an obvious boon, as it allows researchers to identify the effectiveness of chemical interventions without any other issues muddying the water.  But in medicine, RT go beyond this - it isn't all drug trials.  RTs into the behaviour, style, language and techniques used by doctors and nurses have been carried out, with their effectiveness measured and analysed.  Tests such as doctors converging their language to that of their patients have been measured and the results published (see here).  If these patently non-pharma tests can be run, published and respected, then why can't similar trials be done in schools, on either a local or national level?

Obviously there are concerns that somehow children are a mysterious and vague concept, that no amount of scientific analysis can comprehend.  I view this as utter nonsense, as I see no reason, other than the deliberate mystification of the profession, for it to be the case.  Children are all different, yes; but as Goldacre said in his report: they're not that different.  Anyone who's ever written a class set of reports will know this.  If all children and their behaviour were utterly unique, teaching would be totally impossible, as no-one would have any benchmarks to set things by.  Of course there is variation - as there is in patients - but not enough to stop us from giving RT a go.

As I said, prescription from on high is feared, too.  But this misses the whole point.  Goldacre's entire idea is based on giving us as a profession an arsenal of solid, trustworthy evidence to throw back in the face of bureaucrats trying to tell us our job.  It would give us the intellectual clout required to seriously question the wisdom of policy without sounding like spoilt brats, over-mystifying the whole job by making it sound like only the chosen few can cope with teaching.  Rot.  RTs would enable us to trial techniques and ideas, to see if they actually, objectively work better than not doing them at all.  This harms no one.  For example, trialling mini-plenaries to see if they have an effect on learning would involve analysing book work, classroom participation, questionnaires, and yes, even data.  It would take time, and real focus, but over a set period would provide us with a picture of whether they are useful or not, in general.  This, multiplied all over the place, would give us an invaluable understanding of pedagogy that we currently lack.

The main things to bear in mind is that medicine and education don't have to be that similar.  All they need is to both be about results (whether data, engagement, behaviour, whatever) and RTs will give us some feedback on the efficacy of the techniques and interventions we use.

I would say that RTs done locally, with teachers leading them and analysing them, would be a good place to start.  They certainly shouldn't be top-down (they're not in medicine, after all - one of Goldacre's other big point that has been totally ignored by some) and should empower teachers to do some proper academic research into their own techniques, or new ones they fancy trying.  This would soon build a corpus of evidence for different intervention and teaching styles/techniques that would enable teachers to actually argue their points against the government with actual evidence to back them up! How invaluable that would be!  And what a change it would make, creating a more reasonable, logical profession and hopefully helping to dispel some of the ridiculous dogma that surrounds the profession (a pet hate of mine is teachers who act like there's something inherently 'different' or 'special' about teaching, as if it absolves teachers of any criticism at all.)

Look, I'm not saying that it's the be all and end all, and I obviously can't be sure that it will work, but I just hate the knee-jerk anti-idea culture of teaching sometimes.  Think about these considerations - maybe Goldacre is onto something.

Units of work with overarching narratives

The council had decided it.  The beautiful village needed a bypass, and quickly.  Deaths on the main road had been occurring all too often, and it was time to act.  Three potential routes were established, and the villagers quickly decided on the route best for them, their families and their businesses.  Just as the contest between the routes  was getting fierce, the local vicar was killed in a hit and run incident.  There were rumours of murder…

So goes the storyline of a KS3 transactional writing/speaking unit of work that I have taught for several years.  Units of work that focus on the writing of news articles, letters, speeches and the like can be incredibly boring to teach and to learn from.  Endless lessons of writing different, meaningless letters to imaginary people can really wear down the motivation of even the happiest students, and are anathema to those who find school to be an annoyance.  I just couldn’t bear to put my students through this hell, so a few years back I trawled my imagination and dredged my memory for some way of making a unit of this type fun.  Year 8 English lessons from my own past swam into focus: a village, that every student is a ‘resident’ of, with careers, social anxieties, relationships, friendships and deep seated rivalries.  This was a unit of work I remembered well, delivered by my teacher of the time, Mr Fox.  And it was certainly memorable.  I barely remember any peers (apart from close friends) from my school days, but I certainly remember us all in the drama studio, acting our parts with gusto, arguing and back-biting about the pros and cons of Bypass Route A.  Happy days indeed, so it made eminent sense to steal this unit, give it some more flourishes and develop it for a full transactional writing unit.

The Village - drawn on MS Paint (I'm a masochist).

The reasons this unit work so well are two-fold.  One, it embeds character development into the scheme, giving the students open-ended opportunity to flesh out their villager, giving them traits, back-stories, motives and relationships.  This leads to very rich and detailed Speaking and Listening activities, and gives them an opportunity to add a very strong voice to their writing.  Two, it has an over-arching narrative: a story, that gives all of the written and spoken tasks a distinct purpose and flavour.  Yes, it is a fiction, and I imagine some would argue that transactional writing in a world of fiction is meaningless.  I would take issue with this, as the fictional world is grounded in reality and deals with real issues, but still: there is ample room to create narrative units entirely based in reality.

So, the story of the village and its problems provides a backdrop to a range of written and spoken tasks.  Travel guides or Wikipedia entries can be written for the village itself (writing to inform/describe for different audiences); character biographies can be drafted (writing to entertain and develop character); newspaper reports and editorials can be written, with a focus on the difference between certain newspaper types/audiences; even obituaries and epitaphs, for the poor dead vicar, can be written – it sounds macabre but the students enjoy trying this formal and prescriptive style for a change.  Spoken tasks can include speeches from characters about their opposition to council plans; drama activities based around protests and village hall meetings; full on debates, even.  There’s plenty of scope for elongating or shortening the unit as you see fit.  I found myself adding a sub-plot about finding old manuscripts in the ancient cottage - this involved the class decoding and creating a cohesive storyline from a differentiated range of renaissance-18th Century text excerpts.  This acted as a pleasant taster for the next term's unit of work - Twelfth Night.

The students love it, of course.  It’s very engaging, but obviously this isn’t the be-all and end-all.  They learn an awful lot, too.  With their defenses down, they absorb the skills and knowledge quickly, as it all makes more sense, with their writing linked to a central narrative.  It all means something, and adds to the overall story.  They can follow their tasks through, recognising that writing a sub-par news report on the Vicar’s death would show a lack of respect, and would not be print-worthy.  They make their editorials truly powerful and persuasive, as they really want a certain by-pass route to be successful.  Thus, their learning and practice of technical aspects, such as punctuation, leap in quality.  It’s astonishing how ‘real’ the whole thing can become, to the point where the students end up leading the narrative, taking it to strange new places.  For example, we ended up doing some creative writing based on animals being displaced from their homes.  A pupil had chanced upon an old episode of Animals of Farthing Wood and wanted to use it.  And it worked brilliantly, with excerpts from Wind in the Willows analysed, and the whole theory and technique of anthropomorphism explored.

Creating story-driven schemes is time-consuming, but very rewarding.  I aim to storify all of my KS3 units in this way - I'm currently sorting out a First World War unit where the progress of the war is tracked by poetry and the biographies of Sassoon and Owen - and I believe that this will create English lessons that will be remembered for a long time.  There are limits, of course.  It would be unfeasible to create a narrative line in some units, I'm sure - but be imaginative.  Media units or transactional writing units can always be given a narrative (I have a Yr 9 writing unit built around the story of a decaying amusement park), and poetry units should be given some kind of central focus or tenet.  Novel and play units have their own narrative, of course, and I feel any persuasive module, either spoken or written, should have a story or major project at its heart.  

Minecraft - a revolution for students Part 1

I play Minecraft.  There, I've admitted it.  I play it because it's fun, cheap, provides endless leisure, and allows me to utilise my imagination in a different way to writing.  I've been playing it for around a year now, endlessly tinkering with my own personalised world, adding buildings, bridges, churches, castles, underground lairs - whatever I can think of.  After a stressful day's teaching, an hour in this electronic sandpit can wash away all my troubles, allowing me to get on with life with a bounce in my step.

A market square in my map - all built by me out of cubes.

But though there are a huge number of adult players (it was designed by, and for, adults), it is the school age kids that have really run with it.  As you may have noticed, corridors and classrooms are now rife with talk about creepers (baddies that explode, destroying your handiwork), redstone (the Minecraft equivalent of electronic wire) and diamonds (the ultimate find when mining, deep underground).  and the thing is, these guys can play.  A student in my tutor group was telling me how he'd designed a working calculator using the redstone - a hugely impressive feat, and one that shows that he has somehow taught himself the rudiments of electronics, using a video game where you can ride pigs.  Another student was talking about traps he'd built, using this redstone - floors that disappear, hurling you into a lava pit, and doors that require a code to open.  I understand that to many of you this may mean nothing, but believe me, it's the equivalent of a 12 year old confiding that they have constructed similar things in real life - it's that complicated.  They can certainly do things on that game that I can't, and I'm quite capable on games.

So, students are learning about electronic circuits, logic gates, even electronic memory storing.  They are also learning about architecture.  I overheard some older students talking about their construction projects, and discussing the merits of different column shapes, or roof pitches.  I mean, when the hell did that get cool? And here's the final thing: though the game is obviously the preserve of the geeky, all other sorts play it too.  Girls and boys, geek and popular kid.  In my boys Yr 11 class, all but one student plays the game.  These are tough, naughty and tricky lads, but they all love to talk about mods, texture packs and blowing stuff up with in-game TNT.  The single lad that doesn't play tries to mock the game, but can't manage it, due to the weight of popular opinion.  I give him a week until he gets on-board.

I haven't yet mentioned the thriving modification (modding) community, mostly children, and those who draw and paint their own texture packs.  This game is a genuine phenomenon, and I feel we need to make some use of it.  But it will require imagination.

English and Boys-Only Groups.

When I moved to my current school, I was given an all-boys Yr 10 class.  They were the disinterested, naughty, often hostile students that had been a bit of a nightmare in Yr 9, plus a few quiet lads who'd flown under the radar for three years.  I was the only male teacher in the English department, and so it was believed that I may have half-a-chance of getting these students on track, and maybe even wring a few grades out of them.

A year and a half on, and these boys are in the middle of year 11.  They are benign, funny, talkative, opinionated and often hard-working, and I wouldn't swap this group with any other.  It seems to have worked.  They are mostly on course for their targets, or above; their behaviour is generally very good indeed, and their attitude to learning is incredibly positive.  I think biting the bullet, and including gender in your differentiation to this quite extreme extent is a good thing, and not to be shied away from.  So, what are the benefits of this segregation?


1. No distractions.  This is the obvious one, and its been debated to death in the larger debate about segregated schools.  But within a mixed school, taking the boys away from the 'charms' of the female students seems to have a positive impact on their attention span and their learning.  They have no one to show off too, and as boys are usually pretty intolerant of idiotic bravado when women aren't around, this can become a positive cycle.  It helps if the teacher leads the way on this, highlighting foolish behaviour by labelling it using the student's lingo ('weak', describing poor quality humour, has gone down a treat!).  They latch onto this pretty quickly and the class benefits immensely from it.

2. Toilet humour.  There is no better way to get a gaggle of malcontented boys on side than making jokes about (and sometimes actually demonstrating) farting.  With no girls in the room to temper such grotesque behaviour, the potty-based 'banter' can reach disturbing new highs, with the level of trust within the room increasing with every foul joke.  Soon, every student feels comfortable in the classroom, knowing that banter is redirected from personal attack, to general 'blokish' silliness.  The teacher has to set boundaries, of course, and they will be stretched; persevere, though, and you can end up with the class wrapped around your little finger.

3. Similar interests.  I'm not going to say that all boys share the same interests, but it is reasonable to suggest that many discontented young men, around year 10/11, do have some interests in common.  In a group such as this, these interests can be made full advantage of.  Video games, films, football - these can all be used as starting points into modules, or even assessments themselves.  Recently, my Yr 11s completed a GCSE S&L discussion based around the future of video games, and it was fantastic!  Wonderful debates abounded, and lots of marks were awarded, as they actually wanted to listen to each others' ideas.  We have a 5-minute chat at the start of every lesson, before the starter, where we share our experiences - films we've watched over the weekend, Saturdays' football scores, video game highlights.  This leads to bonding and a sense of community, and before long, everyone's pushing in the same direction.

4. Camaraderie.  My group have really achieved this - they are 'all in this together', and are very happy to help each other out and offer new ideas to the lesson.  This could happen in any group, of course, but I feel that it has happened more quickly, and more strongly than in mixed groups, as the boys feel special.  They know they are in a boys only group, and a low one at that, and this has brought them together.

So, get those troubled boys together, add a dollop of poo-humour, chat about Grand Theft Auto, and then sneak in a bit of learning every now and then.  The results can be very good indeed.