Half a Brain, and Attention Deficit

One "diagnostic" test I have had the opportunitiy to do with several groups of my students is the Adult Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) self report scale (ASRS) from the World Health Organisation (Sample here). This does not diagnose the disorder, only a Doctor can do that, but has been proved to be reliable at predicting probability.

Along with all the usual numeracy and literacy diagnostics I find this one helpful for finding out which students are most likely to struggle with concentration, and seek out distractions.

The test is originally designed to indicate probability of someone having ADD. Actually, I don't use it for this, though interesting. I use it mainly because in answering the questions on the test I find out some interesting things like:

• Which learners will find it hard starting a piece of work.
• Which learners will find it hard finishing a piece of work.
• Which learners tend to procrastinate.
• Which learners are disorganised.

Knowing all these things can be really helpful as you try to get each learner to reach their potential. The test reveals these things simply in the questions it asks. Answers are given as 'never', 'rarely', 'sometimes', 'often', 'very often'.

• How often do you have trouble wrapping up the final details of a project, once the challenging parts have been done?
• How often do you have difficulty getting things in order when you have to do a task that requires organization?
• How often do you have problems remembering appointments or obligations?
• When you have a task that requires a lot of thought, how often do you avoid or delay getting started?
• How often do you fidget or squirm with your hands or feet when you have to sit down for a long time?
• How often do you feel overly active and compelled to do things, like you were driven by a motor?

These questions reveal quite a bit about my learners inner workings that is really helpful.

In pondering Attention Deficit, I have wondered to what degree this is actually a 'condition' for my learners, and to what degree they simply never learned to concentrate properly.

A large proportion of my students insist that listening to music helps them to concentrate. I disagree. Logically, if half your brain is being used up with music, only half is available for doing the work. OK, there may be left brain right brain issues here, fine, I welcome your insight. In favour of my view I cite the animation director of 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit' whose mentor ain his early days advocated turning the music off - and when he did, his animation imediately improved.

Why? Because in the words of his mentor he wasn't "clever enough to think of two things at once".

So where does that leave our students? Because they have never learned to focus on one thing, they find it boring, the trade off is to listen to music and only work on part efficiency. Half a brain.

Prospect Theory and Student Motivation

I know I promised to talk about the behaviourist approach to discipline, but I just had to say something about the recent BBC Horizon programme - "How to Make Better Decisions".

Part of the program went into an area of behavioural psychology called Prospect Theory. Although students motivation was not the subject of discussion I could see definate connections between students decisions to work or not and Prospect Theory.

So what is Prospect Theory?

Prospect theory basically explains how human motivation is altered depending on a persons perceptions of risk. Simply it says - people are more likely to take action to avoid a loss, than they are to take action to recieve a gain.

(You can read more on Wikipedia, or for a more succinct article, on EconPort.)

It took me about half a second to make a connection between this and my own student's motivation.

Impact on student's motivation

My hypothesis is that education, in the student's mind, is more about recieving a gain than it is about avoiding a loss. Their qualification is seen as something that they currently don't posess. Likewise improved job prospects, possibility of increased earnings etc. are all future events - 'maybes' that they currently don't own. They lose nothing that is currently theirs if they fail. This is particularly true if the student already has low self-esteem - then they can't even lose that.

On the flip side, students do own some things that do stimulate more vigorous action.

Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) is one example. Students who recieve EMA feel a definate sense of ownership. If their EMA is paid late even by one day, students rarely fail to take up the issue with their tutors. On one occasion a student, mistakenly thinking that certain college employees are to blame, even spoke about making complaints against those staff members they percieved were to blame. I say this because it is important in illustrating the students sense of ownership. Prospect Theory says these students are more likely to take action to avoid a percieved loss. This is born out in practice - and as I just mentioned, even motivates potentially more drastic action.

In some class situations (thankfully not mine) the students most prized possesion may be the respect of their peers. If so, Prospect Theory says, they will take more drastic action to keep that peer respect than they will to do anything the teacher asks.

Owning the future

Assuming the above is true (and I believe it is), solutions are both obvious and difficult. One solution I have begun to adopt with my students, is to help them to take ownership of their future. They need to feel that their next step, whether employment, whether university, (whatever it is), is something that they own right now - and by implication, something that they can lose. When a student takes ownership in this way, Prospect Theory says they will be more likely to take action to prevent the loss of their future dream.

So how are we doing it? I, along with my team, have adopted a strategy that introduces students to their next step almost as soon as they start with us. We do this by taking students to open days at universities, by inviting in speakers from universities, by getting the students to start deciding straight away what their next step will be. To have an aspiration that they own.

True, their future next step is 2 years away. But it is that very idea that we need to change in the minds of our students. By owning their future next step now, Prospect Theory becomes an advantage to our students, and not a distraction.

Army style discipline in schools?

The latest news is likely, for some teachers, to bring hope and frustration in equal measure. The BBC reports that the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) is urging the government to:

"adopt a US-style programme which brings ex-servicemen and women back to
school."

Their reasoning?

"...ex-soldiers could have a profound effect on discipline and learning."

Their logic is simple. Ex-soldiers are not intimidated by adrenaline fueled adolescents. Ex-soldiers are statistically more likely to stay in the profession longer. Ex-soldiers are more confident in their moral authority. Ex-solidiers are likely to gain respect, especially from boys, because of their experience in a macho profession.

The implication however is that teachers from other backgrounds may be more intimidated, less likely to stay in the profession, un-confident in their moral authority and less likely to gain the respect of boys.

All in all a description of a teacher worn down by the circumstances of their job day-in day-out.

The Frustration

It is at this point the frustration kicks in. Surely there is a reason why some (perhaps many) teachers might be described in this way - apart from the fact that they don't happen to have spent 10 years in the armed services.

I suggest that many, if not all teachers, could be as effective at maintaining discipline as any ex-serviceman - provided they were given the training, tools and support from their senior management team.

The Hope

Unbelievably the think tank's report also said:

"Whether we like it or not, children from more deprived neighbourhoods often
respond to raw physical power".

One has to wonder what they expect ex-soldiers to do that existing teachers currently do not do. Something highly illegal by the sounds of it. But this may represent a teeny glimmer of light in the area of classroom discipline.

Perhaps new government policies will come down from above, untying the hands of school senior managers and teachers to be more effective. We can only hope.

While none of us would really want to 'bring back the cane' I think the CPS has really hit on the crux of classroom discipline - sometimes what is required is a show of strength - and currently by-and-large, that show of strength is simply not being given.

It really comes right down to behaviourist theory at its most basic level - stimulus response - Stick and Carrot. The problem however is that balance between the two may not be correct, too much carrot and not enough stick for the students who need it most - so it doesn't work effectively. This is a topic all on its own and I will cover it in my next post.

F.E. Management Under Scrutiny

While lecturers up and down the country have this notion of F.E. being a business drumed into them by managers in order to instill concern over meeting targets, do F.E. managers understand that F.E. is a business to a degree appropriate for their role?

Why do I ask? One side effect of the new teacher training courses (DTLLS and GDTLLS) especially in year 2, is that lecturers are encouraged to explore, examine and criticise the business functions of their institution. As such, management suddenly come under scrutiny from their subordinates to a degree previously un-encountered. Gone are the days of generic moaning about policy and management demands - this has now been replaced by serious study, research and analysis - level 5 and Level 6 analysis at that. All in all, the new graduates, when they moan, will be doing it with new authority. Managers and policies are being appraised by their subordinates as never before.

What then are these lecturers finding in their research? What recommendations are coming out of their analysis?

At this point I can only comment on my own findings (though feel free to leave comments). Early findings indicate the following:

• Short Term and Medium Term business goals are in conflict.
• Lack of synergy between important areas of business function.
• Marketing can and should be more closely aligned to business objectives.
• Pressure to pass sub-standard student work to meet targets diminishes staff morale and respect for management.

Are the managers aware of these issues and taking appropriate action? Do they listen to fresh ideas from the ground floor?

I suggest that the degree to which these two questions can be answered in the affirmative is a primary indicator of the degree to which managers understand that F.E. is a business, and treat it as such.

One very heartening thing I can say in favour of our new management... we have been invited to give feedback, we have been asked to tell them the things they may not want to hear. This is very refreshing. However, I wonder how many will dare to do it? It very much depends on whether the aim of management is to root out and squash the criticisms, or whether they are truly open to new ideas, and willing to hear them out non-judgementally.

Remove bad teachers?

"Sub-standard teachers should be removed from schools to make way for better colleagues, a key government education adviser has suggested.

"Sir Cyril Taylor said there were about 17,000 "poor" teachers in England. "(BBC)

On the other hand...

"Teacher Frances Gilbert said problems they had to deal with included parents unwilling to accept the disciplining of their child, government paperwork, and head teachers who would not back them up."(BBC)

However while there is unlikely to be agreement about who is to blame, there are some areas against which a teacher's ability may be more easily assessed:

"'Obvious' weaknesses, such as not knowing enough about their subject or being unable to keep control of a class..."(BBC)

So what is this discussion all about? We know the UK has some of the worse qualification stats for adults, we know many students leave the school system with few or no qualifications. But this does seem to be one attempt at placing a large part of the blame on poor teachers.

Sure there are good teachers and bad teachers, but this suggestion from the "key education adviser" misses some other important points - such as the number of teachers leaving the profession because they are "burned out" - such as broken homes - such as poor parenting - such as expulsion/exclusion targets.

It's easy to go teacher bashing, but this is becoming a worrying trend. In fact the problem is not that simple. Yes lets look at the impact of poor teachers, but lets also look at the impact of increasing discipline, of holding parents responsible for their children's behaviour, of holding students themselves responsible for their own learning. This will take a whole society approach, and is much more complex than removing poor teachers.

HAVE YOUR SAY - read what teachers and the public have to say on the issue >

Law change to raise learning age

The BBC reports: "There will be an 'educational opportunity' Bill so all young people can stay in education or training to the age of 18, Gordon Brown told MPs.

"The measure - one of several announced in the Commons - is an effort to drive up the 'staying on' rate. "

Read more >

This basically is a nice way of saying that education or training will be compulsory for 16-18 year olds who are unemployed. It is part of a bigger strategy to deal with the NEET (Not in Education Employment or Training) problem and is due to come into force for 17 year olds in 2013 and 18 years olds in 2015. How effective it will be remains to be seen and it is not without it's opponents - especially when the proposals include fining young people who are NEET - effectively criminalising them for doing nothing.

For one I welcome a proposal that makes it less attractive to be an unproductive future benefit leech, however to insist that young people do something, and criminalising them if they don't, even if they are supported by parents and not benefits does seem to encroach on individual choice.

Is this where left wing socialism reaches so far that it meets right wing capitalism round the back? "You will want to better yourself even if we have to make you do it".

Radio 4's PM discussed the issue this evening. Listen to an interview with Jim Knight, the Schools Minister and Adam Hildreth, who left school at 16 after setting up his first company when he was 14:

LISTEN HERE (Download the item in MP3 format) >

School creativity 'needs support'

The BBC reports that "Creativity in schools needs to be taken 'far more seriously' if it is to avoid being squeezed out of a crowded curriculum, says a report from MPs.

"The Commons education committee warns that creativity is a 'second-order priority' in England's schools. "

Read more >

I am glad to see that this issue has been brought back to our attention. While the focus is so much on standards and attainment as Britain's solution to global competition, we must not miss, in the delivery of education, the one factor that could make those other things truly competitive - creative thinking.

Time to re-look at the Cox Review of creativity in business commissioned in 2005 by the Treasury. The review "sets out the steps that the Government and the business, broadcasting and education sectors should take to ensure that UK businesses harness the world-class creative talents that the UK possesses."

Read the Cox Review on Creativity in Business >

Read more on the value of creativity:

The Design Council >
Design Council introduction to the Cox review on creativity in business >