Saturday, August 31, 2013

How to 'Cripple' Students

Recently, my next door neighbour gave me Stasiland by Anna Funder to read. It is a very moving and oftentimes horrific account of life in East Germany after the Wall went up, under the the constant monitoring and manipulation of the Stasi, the GDR secret police. The reign of paranoia, fear, obedience and acquiescence was not fiction from George Orwell's 1984 but actually happened to real people from the 1950's to 1989. A constant feature throughout was the insidious way the Stasi endeavoured to break the spirit of the populace in a calculated fashion (a theme covered so often in fiction by e.g. Orwell and Pink Floyd (for a tenuous link see Peer Review, Peer Exposure)). 

In the Notes on Sources at the end of the book, Funder reports that she later "found instructions to [Stasi] operatives on ways of crippling 'oppositional' people". The aims of these instructions were to:
      1. develop apathy (in the subject)
      2. achieve a situation in which in which his [/her] 'conflicts', whether of a social, personal, career, health or political kind are irresolvable
      3. give rise to fears in him [/her]
      4. develop/create disappointments
      5. restrict his talents or capabilities
      6. reduce his capacity to act
      7. harness dissentions and contradictions around him [/her] for [this] purpose
These are in essence, a list of ways to dehumanise someone. So getting to the point of this post in an educational blog: if any teacher, school leader, district administrator, politician or parent behaves or imposes an environment that achieves any of these aims, they are in fact contributing to the dehumanisation of the students in their care. I am not being melodramatic, this is happening in pockets (sometimes swathes) all across the Western world. Consider this, how many students:
      1. arrive at a school or a particular class invigorated and leave dejected and apathetic?
      2. find their social skills, personal lives, aspirations, abilities and individualism irreconcilable with 'school'?
      3. find that school raises their self-doubt, and they even fear attending?
      4. are set up to fail?
      5. have their wings clipped?
      6. find their opportunities limited and nonmeaningful?
      7. receive mixed messages about themselves such that they fade rather than flourish?
I am not suggesting that this is the plight of most students but it does happen and it shouldn't!

Turning a morose post on its head, if we use the antitheses of these points we empower students and let them 'fly'. Everyone in education and the establishment should strive to allow students to:
      1. develop a fervour for life and education
      2. find 'school' a place that embraces and adapts to their individual nature
      3. find their way through adolescence whilst feeling safe in school
      4. experience achievement
      5. find their individual talents encouraged and provided for
      6. be provided with meaningful opportunities and a genuine voice
      7. receive a consistent message of self-belief and self-worth and the necessary skills to be resilient and to flourish
Nothing but the best is good enough (see Nil Satis Nisi Optimum). Anything less is at best neglectful, or at worst crippling.

Monday, August 26, 2013

HSC Physics '1 More Mark' Tips

Today I was fortunate enough to present video conference to large bunch of Year 12 Physics students from across Sydney. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, getting back into my Physics, the preparation, collaboration with colleagues and finally the delivery and discourse that ensued.

This was part of the 'HSC Masterclass: One More Mark' initiative being run to help lift our students from high Band 5 into Band 6 in the NSW Board of Studies Higher School Certificate examinations.

Here is the presentation. Please copy, re-edit, comment and critique to your heart's content.



Many thanks to my colleagues at work for organising and the various tips offered by fellow Physics teachers. Also a big thanks to Helen Fergusson and Derek Muller for their contributions. Recommended resources include:

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." Aristotle
"All science is either physics or stamp collecting." Ernest Rutherford

BEST OF LUCK TO ALL YEAR PHYSICS TEACHERS AND STUDENTS!