A Response to Reframing The Debate by David Didau

I was interested to read an article by David Didau: Reframing The Debate. In it, he proposes different continuums on which teachers' practice might be placed. I have already said quite plainly that I find the polarisation of teachers as either Traditional or Progressive unhelpful. I tend to take a Pragmatic view - if it works, I do it and I'm really not concerned with someone else's labels.

Didau offered a new perpsective however, by proposing a continuum that focuses not so much on WHAT teachers do, but WHY they do it. That seems much more helpful.

This is a continuum that interests me greatly. For most of my career I have taught in a school (I call it Hogwarts) where the academic ideology prevailed. Certainly the aim of the school is to make children cleverer (at passing exams anyway) and which absolutely prioritises academic knowledge. I am still cogitating on whether I think that we are primarly concerned with the impersonal and the abstract, but I will probably come down on the side of yes, we do.

Last year, I did a 9 month stint in a medical unit working in a very therapeutic environment. It ticked all the Therapeutic boxes as you would expect. It had to - the learners needed a therapeutic environment, and given one were able to begin to achieve academically.

The expericence taught me to value a therapeutic approach in my classroom - it's not a "love-in" and I have high expectations of my students, but I am flexible in my approach and more sensitive to what some children need. I don't just value the therapeutic approach because it's "nice" - I value it because it creates the safe and secure learning environment where academic excellence can flourish.

The only problem I have about this continuum is that it appears to present the two approaches as opposites - or at the very least a choice you have to make as a teacher. To raise self esteem or to make children cleverer. Prioritise the impersonal or the personal. Focus on academic knowledge or emotional intelligence. I am not certain whether this is what Didau intended - perhaps he will be kind enought to tell me?

I certainly don't see the two approaches as anything other than compatible.

How can I raise academic achievement in learners whose self esteem is low? I can't. Unhappy children who do not feel safe don't learn well. Why would I not choose to make my students feel good about themselves?

Ask any English teacher approaching A Christmas Carol with students and they will tell you that understanding Dickens' presentation of Scrooge's redemption is all about the journey that he makes from seeing the world as impersonal and abstract to personal and concrete. Any response to literature worthy of the name requires a balance of academic understanding and emotional literacy. Again, if we focus on either one to the exclusion of the other we get poor responses.

Didau suggests that in the run up to exams, we probably prioritise teaching how to pass the exams over boosting self esteem - he's right - but we should be very careful not to ignore students' confidence right before they walk into the exam hall!

For me, this is a useful continuum in that it opens up a different way to frame my thinking about my practice. I think I am by nature a Therapeutic teacher, working in an Academic environment.

And curiously, it's not uncomfortable...