“Happiness – A state of harmony with oneself and others around us”

This definition was supplied at the start of Dr Anthony Seldon’s talk today at a conference titled above. I had to fly to Belfast for it and though there were some specific case studies I didn’t enjoy or find useful, I want to write about what I did find useful.

I’m going to plagiarise Seldon a bit, because he said it better than I can, the next 25 points made are his, but since I’ve written at least two previous blog posts on happiness, I feel obliged to comment;

So, Why do we want Happy Schools?
1) We don’t live sufficiently in the present. We live constantly in the past or the future. The point being that this increases anxiety and worry. Funnily enough, one of my colleagues has been talking about starting a meditation group – I actually would go after today – and it was only a small experience.

2) Obsession with examinations is distorting what we as educators know it means to be educated. This is self-evidently true and something written about extensively by other educators who have blogs.

3) We are preparing people to lead a good life. And part of that has to be the skills that make people happy.

4) We want to prepare people to lead a whole life – so to focus on all intelligences.

5) Young People need to take control of their own lives. A life lived in control is a life that is productive and free of dependancy – on drugs, alcohol, or other things. I wonder what it means that I’m having a glass of wine while I write this!?

6) Childhood depression or anxiety, by any measure, is unacceptably high in our relatively prosperous society. I can’t be bothered to look for figures – I think most educators will recognise this as a reality.

7) There has been an associated rise in adult depression, fear and anxiety

8 ) The development of the field of positive psychology, began by Martin Seligman asked why is psychology overwhelmingly focussed on depression, neurosis, and anxiety. Why can’t we use psychology for good things. Even in the last ten years, we know much more than before about maximising the well being of children.

9) Every Adult Matters – this would raise a cheer in the staff room. But we should be enhancing the worth and lives of every adult.

10) Intelligent communities are about far far more than league tables. In intelligent communities, and I want our community to be one of those, dissent and difference are tolerated. Respect is present for all. Acceptance is prevalent, and there is a wish to flourish. Decent, humane values permeate. This starts with the Senior Leadership Team.

Obstacles

1) Will
2) Time
3) Knowledge
4) Resources (though the core change is a change in attitude)
5) Leadership

Aspects that schools should adopt:

1) Our relationship with technology. Given the interface with students and technology daily – and all parents and most teachers will be very aware, for example, of the influence of myspace, msn, and so on. How can we make students the master of this technology rather than it’s servant?

2) Relationship with the environment. I’m going to keep my office tidier from now. It makes a difference to happiness. This also involves the planet and so on.

3) Relationships with others. High quality respectful relationships with others – this is what makes us human and what makes life worthwhile

4) The relationship between the self and the body – we are good at getting across the virtues of exercise, being a sports college. Also good on food/ hydration and perhaps not so good on helping all people to know and be able to relax. Why don’t we teach students about head massage?

5) Emotional Intelligence

6) Adoption of a positive outlook – see the positive. Eliminate the destructively critical.

7) Mindfulness and stillness

8 ) Challenge students – both out of school and in school. Meeting challenges is what helps students, and staff, to grow as people.

9) Take control – what do they want to achieve for them?

10) Goodness – Selsdon says that the iron law of selfishness is that the most selfish act is to do good to other people. Fundamental of human life – the “sovereignty of good” (Iris Murdoch)

So I was up for the happy school stuff, to walk the walk, and to really develop it as a priority in our school. Then Dr Carol Craig left me with thoughts, pitfalls, and worries – and it was one of the most interesting presentations I’ve ever heard. I also spoke to her over a break. I’m going to save that for my next blog post as I’m hungry!

Someone I vaguely know asked me what questions a prospective headteacher should expect to receive at interview. She’s thinking of applying for such a job.  I’ve only been involved in one headteacher interview, and I honestly don’t remember many questions we asked. I do remember that the successful candidate really impressed the students in the student panel by sitting with them rather than away from them and by not patronising them at all.

I know what I think the answers to almost every question should be though. Almost every answer should be about Teaching and Learning. If any Head or prospective Head talks about buildings, staffing, food, conditions, timetable, parents, curriculum, buzzwords, support, budget, constraints, 14-19, consultants or ANYTHING, without referring it back to the quality of Teaching and Learning – well then I think their priorities are wrong.

I’m at a conference in Belfast tomorrow called “Leading a Happy School”. I think it’s going to be a long day but I’m really looking forward to it.

Good day! We finally appointed a capable, effective and potentially excellent person to our G&T Lead Teacher post. I’ve written about this post a few times, but what excited me about this appointment was not only that it was someone I like and respect, but that I think it will really develop her into a school leader, rather than someone who works within the school – where she will really shape the school as well as the school shaping her and her practice.

We would not have appointed her if she hadn’t been good – so I’m happy she was good. Really good.

I had a lot to do today. I produced a questionnaire for year 11 for their exit, I wrote some letters, I planned some stuff for Year 11 kids to do wit, I taught a lesson, and I chaired a meeting of our middle leaders.

I love the middle leader meetings when we do stuff that is developmental, or makes us better. I hate them when it gives them space to whinge. I actually think space to whinge is very important, but I don’t think that professional meetings of half a dozen very well paid people is the place. The place to whinge has a name, and it’s the pub – especially when the whinge really won’t result in anything different happening.

Today was a little different. There were problems, but I think that most of them were with proposed solutions, and that’s what the second head I ever worked under meant when I heard him say to a colleague “don’t come to me with problems, come to me with solutions” (I remember thinking “if they had the solution, they’d just do it” but I know what he referred to now).

And so I had a good day.

Tomorrow is busy as well

No-one even close to me can understand this. But I had a day today thinking about my personal life. It was at the forefront of my mind (not necessarily because there’s anything wrong, or anything happened – it just was!) all day. When I taught my Year 11 class, they called me “lazy”. They said they really love that I set up a revision forum for them, and they appreciate the revision classes, and they like that I hassle them about revision or will sit with them for hours if I need to after work.

But they feel like I’m ‘lazy’ in my lessons. I don’t put in the effort that I once did, and I give them exam papers and go through them – they feel like I’m one-dimensional.

They’re right. I’m a better teacher than that. And they know it – so I’m going to show them (again).

I wish they’d tell some of my colleagues that they’re “lazy” because some of them really are, but they told me (I hope) because they think I’ll do something about it.

They’re on for top results. Fingers bloody crossed!

The emotional part; well it meant I cruised through the day with precious little effort.

A comment written in my blog under a previous post asked why I choose to be fairly anonymous in my blog.

First, I didn’t think I was particularly anonymous. I use my last name, it’s not hard to find where I live, and I’ve certainly told family, friends and colleagues about this blog.

But I have made a point of not mentioning the name of my school, and a further point about not mentioning any names of others, both at work and otherwise.

I think the reason for this is because I don’t know who is reading. So when I look at the statistics for my blog and I discover someone has found my blog by googling “Mr Lock Maths teacher” I don’t like it very much – someone was looking for me and I don’t know who they were or why.

In addition, because so many of my posts are produced by ‘automatic writing’ (just writing regardless of what comes out, and making sure I don’t stop for a set length of time, having the effect of capturing reflective thoughts in a slightly different way) I’m worried I might say something I’m thinking (like a criticism of a colleague, or compromise something a student has told me, or offer an opinion on something that isn’t public from our SLT meeting) but don’t actually want to write to the public. And so a basic precaution has been to not post my school or anything else that could easily identify my school.

I think it’s also a little harder to blog about everything as a member of SLT just because there are things you hear or talk about that cannot be mentioned outside of the meeting you’ve been in, and yet sometimes those things are what I need to reflect on. At the same time, I hate when senior leaders whinge, because they chose to apply for the job and so they should get on with it.

Having said that last paragraph, I really do want this to be primarily about me as a teacher, because a teacher is what I think I am, ahead of being a school leader or anything else.

And finally, I quite like that on the internet you can be anonymous, and be an idiot on some other forum and it doesn’t matter – because you’ll never see those people again (except on forums that people actually meet up and weird things like that!)

I had another great day with artists and teacher participants again today. I always do.

I will be energised and refreshed tomorrow at school. But I also know that I’ll have at least partly forgotten that by period 4 or 5 because things will have happened.

How do I keep that inspiration? Or that energy level that I have now? Or do I accept that it’s naturally going to dissipate and make the most of it when I have it?

I think part of the answer is to start seeing results by using and doing some of the things I spoke about, and part of the answer is in a post I wrote named Tipping point. Namely that things are hard to maintain when it’s just your energy that’s maintaining them, but that when you see the feedback, and others are involved, (indeed, maybe I’m just making the same point about seeing results) that’s probably when it becomes a whole lot easier.

As a leader, part of my role is to ensure that some of the energy and enthusiasm of today translates to others in the school, but also that some of my colleagues who have been involved in the project can see how easy it might be to maintain as and when we reach the Tipping point.

So I’m meeting with the artists to finish the project that started this blog, and indeed started me blogging.

I thought I’d just print off the blog to take with me as something that I’ve produced, and I was going to talk about promoting blogging amongst staff.

Then I thought “oooh, it’s a bit long, I’ll cut and paste it all into a word document” – to save on printing.

It’s 77 pages and 34,000 words. I knew the words, but I didn’t realise the pages. I’m not printing all that out. But what it did do is answer several questions for me and raise an important issue for me.

(1) Why I have felt some elements of lethargy in updating the blog. I wrote some time ago that I was going to edit the blog into something “useful” – but actually its use is for me. I can either have a blog that is useful for me or one that reaches out into the outside world, and I could probably (like Doug Belshaw) do one that does both, if I set out to do so… but I need to start a new blog for that. I think that’s what I’m going to do! The job of editing this blog was a long one I never got round to, and I think I’m pleased about that now, because it would have been a futile and pointless task.

(2) Some of my other posts are superb! I mean really superb for me to reread besides anything else. So I AM going to read the whole blog.

(3) I read one blog every day (unlike the forementioned Doug Belshaw who seems to read hundreds). Otherwise I dip into blogs I know about when I feel like it. The blog I read every day is about trades (“transfers” in British English) in baseball. The owner, Tim Dierkes, once wrote in an answer to a question that one of the pieces of advise he’d give ANYONE who sets up a blog is simply “write in it every day”. He’s right, that’s why I visit it every day, even though it’s probably not my number one thing to read about every day (it’s close though!) So I do need to listen to myself when I write “write something every day” and do exactly that. I also need to improve my use of technology and I wish I knew someone who knew which widgets I need and could use easily on wordpress, but I don’t, so I’ll have to manage the way I always have on the internet, and muddle through it myself.

(4) It’s not the blog that’s been useful, it’s the reflecting, and then the re-reflecting and re-reading that has been useful, and that’s what’s helped me be more creative – immediately (using some of the things we’ve done as part of the project in the classroom) but also more subtley – giving me permission, so to speak – to ask myself some difficult questions.

Now, what I’m going to take with me tomorrow really bothers me – as does what I’m going to ‘produce’ to take back to my school!

I’m still here. I keep intending to edit/ tidy up the whole blog, but I haven’t got round to it, so I’m just going to make sure I add to it daily and continue building up the content (even if I delete some of it later).

I’ve got a lot of reflecting to do about the end of the project. I’m disappointed that it appears to have petered out for some of the participants and I hope they can take something from it. I feel I have a better understanding of how to be a reflective thinker, plus why it’s important, and I have about a dozen things I’d contribute to help us to do the project better next time. I’m hoping to write about it at length tonight, and hopefully I’ll be able to. Suffice to say I will be very careful not to blame anyone. If one person had not engaged the way that was anticipated, I have no problem saying “well that’s them”, but everyone has engaged very differently to how we (or at least I) expected, and hence it’s to do with the diverse experiences, expectations and ambitions (and personal circumstances) of the different participants - both teachers and artists came into the project with.

More later (I hope).

I spend my life telling people to do this and yet a colleague has told me I need to do it more as well.

She was right too. The questions that I think up on the spot; I need to think up how to ask them on the spot too.

So I haven’t written on here for a while. I am intending, when my holiday starts next week, to tidy up a lot of the posts.

I taught and was observed teaching a lesson on Friday. It was a lesson on the sine curve and the effect of, for example, changing y = sin x to y = sin ax or y = sinx + a. I was observed by an English teacher – one who gets good results and has great ideas but can also be very difficult with new ideas she doesn’t agree with.

The conversation afterwards almost completely centred around one student. This student is struggling in English, and it’s taken enormous amounts of intervention to get him to the point where he’s probably going to get a grade D. He’s a bit of a pain as well. He also really understood and contributed well to my lesson. I think his mind works a bit like mine, logically (in fact I think he’d love the discipline of the Logic module I took at university). Seeing him achieve made the person observing me reflect on whether they could teach English in that way for students who think that way. With logical steps.

The Head of English, who isn’t the person who observed me, came to me yesterday morning and asked for a refresher on Trigonometry because she wanted to try to get the same enthusiasm my observer had.

I think they’re going to try and get a small group of Year 7s who are like this student and teach them that way and see the results!

Now the challenge for me is with a student like RC. She’s an intelligent and creative student, but she doesn’t get Maths. When people say “what is the point in knowing this?” you can tell she thinks that a million times over. Our (or my) challenge is to teach her Maths (she’s on for a D, or maybe, hopefully a C) in the way she understands English and is achieving at A grade level in English. Sometimes I’ll say something to her and it’ll suddenly make sense and she’ll realise she was always able to do that topic, or whatever – and I think she needs more of that. The “well why didn’t you just show me that way in the first place”.

And then, when English can teach my first student in a ‘Mathsy’ way and I can teach my second student in an ‘Englishy’ way, we have to train those students to transform those skills into the written context of an exam.

But that’s our job. We’re teachers of students, not teachers of subjects.