A Special Study to Show the Lifting of the Curtain To Reveal My Educational Values

by

Justine Hocking
copyright, Justine Hocking 1992

Foreword by Moira Laidlaw

  It is with great pleasure and a sense of fulfilment that I introduce the second part of this publication. It should already be clear from the Guide itself that Justine and I worked closely together in the academic year 1991-1992 and that both of us derived a great deal from the exchange of ideas and insights. It was decided quite late in the year for the Guide to be adapted to include the processes which led to her Final Report: when Jack Whitehead and I read what she had produced we were aware that here was something of real value to the educational world as a whole. Although it was obvious that Justine herself had gained a great deal from the writing of this Report (and her account gives us a full explanation of that truth), I found myself more and more convinced that her insights and conclusions could be of real significance to others engaging in their own enquiries and meeting the kinds of contextual, personal, professional and developmental challenges that Justine encounters. Her insights and conclusions are unique of course, but this Report stands as a testament to the kinds of work possible within the professional life of a new teacher. With all the above in mind I rewrote the Guide with the result that there is now a symbiotic relationship between the two. In other words one is enhanced by the other and understood best in conjunction with it.

  I think it is vital as I have said before, for us to share our work in education, to break away from the idea that we are isolated technicists, carrying out individually instructions from on high. Justine shows us vividly how she comes to her understanding and the uses she makes of that understanding. She shows us a commitment to those elements I mentioned in the Epilogue of the Guide: a critical self-knowledge leading to good practice.

  In particular I draw the reader’s attention to the way that she has attempted to combine her telling of the narrative with the insights of others - pupils, colleagues, tutors, and academic writers. She exemplifies the notion that Action Research is at its most emancipatory as a methodology and philosophy when it develops collaboratively.

  I hope that in reading her account you are as struck as I am by Justine’s aspiration towards achieving in practice the value of respecting the other, of social justice, of learning for pleasure as well as instruction, and the importance of, in her own words, ‘moving the students to a better world’.

The Prologue
The Dream

  “Good Morning, Year Ten! I hope you all managed to have a little think about the work we were doing yesterday...”
  I was interrupted by Laura putting her hand up. She seemed to have something very important to say and so I let her take the floor.
  “Ma’am, I had this ideas yesterday about how we might made this topic seem more real and relevant to us, so I discussed it with some of the others and if you don’t mind, we would like to take over for a little while.
  As she paused from her excited outburst I had time to think. Could I trust Laura and co. to take over the lesson? Well it was certainly worth giving it a go.
  “How do the rest of you feel about this?”
  There seemed to be general murmurs of approval and no dissenting voices stood out. I decided to hand over to them and hope for the best.

  What then happened was wonderful. It would seem that not only had Laura had an idea, but she had also thought it through with the co-operation of others. They proceeded to enact a scene where Jewish families were victimised for no other reason than their race, and they cleverly drew other members of the class into their sensitive empathy exercise. I sat back and watched in awe as the class became caught under a spell of enjoyment. They were enjoying what was happening. Sometimes a few got a little carried away, but this was soon sorted out deftly by another member of what now seemed a family rather than a class. I looked at my watch and realized that it was time to clear away before the bell went. I was loathe to break the spell and so sat tight. The bell went and no one made a move. The lesson went on into break and then finally at the end of break, like the Wicked Witch of the West, I shattered the spell and thanked them for a wonderful time and asked them to go to their next lesson.

  The next lesson I had with Year Ten I approached with trepidation. How could I follow that? I need not have feared. The class realized that that lesson was pretty special and couldn’t be repeated. I moved on to the next part of the topic and was greeted with openness and enthusiasm. Questions were fired and thoughts voiced. Again it was a real shame when the lesson ended.

  And this was the dream...the dream was to promote enthusiasm and joy in learning in my classroom.

  I fell asleep that night thinking of my Year Ten class and awoke to realize that it had all in fact been a dream. Laura had not volunteered to direct the class. They did not work through the bell. There was not a love affair between learning and my Year Ten class going on. It was all a dream.

Act One
Introduction

I am about to embark on the biggest piece of writing of my life. The general attitude amongst colleagues is that the idea of sitting down to write a special study is a chore.  I, however, am looking forward to the prospect of attempting to explain my school experience to show how I have moved forward in my understanding of what I believe Education is all about.  I feel that the writing of a special study is the natural corollary to a nine week teaching practice.  However, I do acknowledge that this is only the case when you are writing about something relevant.  The subject of relevancy would seem to be at the heart of this analysis of my relationship with a certain Year 10 class.  In attempting to address the question:

“How can I help year 10 enjoy gaining an understanding of Nazi Germany?”

I discovered that I was in fact beginning the process of realizing what I felt was important in the classroom.  Or, put another way, I was discovering my educational values.  In attempting to motivate the pupils to enjoy their lessons I realize that I was making huge assumptions about the atmosphere I wanted in the classroom and why I felt this atmosphere was important. When I first met this class I noticed that the group were resigned and apathetic.  I felt that it was imperative to eradicate this lethargy before any meaningful learning could take place. The various techniques I employed and the emerging relationship with one particular student illuminated for me, that I was expressing values in the classroom.  This in itself is a major landmark.  I recall a conversation with Moira on 31.10.91, when I said:

“Your advantage is that you’re so much more aware of your values..............whereas I’m still not sure of mine..............Maybe more what I should have said, then, is that you maybe know the issues that you want to develop your values through, whereas I’m not even sure at the moment what the issues are that I could discover the values about. “

I went on to comment:

“So that’s why I wonder ‘what is all this about?’ .........some days it’s clearer than others.  Some days it’s I don’t know .  I’ve only  been here six weeks.  What do I know?  What am I really thinking about these issues?”

These extracts from the conversation with Moira clearly show how confused I was before the beginning of my first teaching practice. I felt that I had no clear understanding of what it really meant to be in the classroom.  The theoretical discussions of values had left me floundering.  I was struggling to understand how in the classroom my own values would emerge.  What indeed were values?  Would I walk into the classroom on my first lesson and there would be a crash of thunder, a bolt of lightning and a puff of blue smoke and the wise sorcerer of Educational Philosophy would appear and hand me a leather bound manuscript with the words:
“Justine’s Educational Values”

engraved upon it.  This was the extent of my incomprehension. 

Now, seven months on, the issues are certainly clearer.  No sorcerer appeared and yet, through my first teaching practice and through various incidents on my second teaching practice,  my own beliefs and values are  surfacing.  In this paper I would like to attempt to show how my work with one year 10 G.C.S.E History group, and the development of a special relationship with one particular pupil has helped me to discover some of my values, and I would like to try to show how my teaching (with the emergence of these values) has helped me to enhance the learning of this group.

The style in which I have chosen to write this explanation is one which I feel is relevant to me.  In the first assignment I wrote for this course I identified the importance of finding the right level for a group as what I felt one of the keys to successful teaching to be. By this I meant finding a style and level that would be relevant to a class.  This point about relevance in the classroom is also pertinent to relevancy in writing about experiences in the classroom.  In the assignment  I wrote:

“the key element seems to be the ability to strike the right note - or reach the right level - with each particular age group.  By this I mean achieving the right balance of lecturing, discussion, participation. document work and so forth.  If the right language is used and the right examples  chosen to emphasize a topic, success is far more likely.”       

I still agree that finding the right note and level is absolutely crucial to successful teaching. However, I would now go further and say that it is not just the age group that it is important but it is each individual class and all the characters that make up that class which is important.  One approach and level that may be appropriate to one Year 10 class might not be successful and appropriate for another Year 10 class.  This can be taken to its logical conclusion that the right particular note for one individual within a class of the same age range, will not necessarily be, and probably won’t  be, what is right for the next personality.  I came up against this with my Year 10 group.  This is, for me, what makes being in the classroom so much fun.  It is an opportunity to get to know everyone, and attempt to suss out what ‘makes them tick’.  Not only is it fascinating to discover the mazes of personalities in a room and the best way to find the path to the centre of the maze, it is also fulfilling to give the clearest and best possible instructions to those personalities so that they can make it easily to the centre of the teacher maze.  Perhaps it is wrong to call the teacher a maze.  Ideally the teacher should not be seen as anything so complex or inaccessible as a maze.  So what should the teacher be?  Obviously not a  mountain, and not even a hill.  Perhaps the teacher should in fact be some sort of travelling companion who is also trying to find the centre of the same maze.  Therefore, I think that I am describing the learning process as a journey that is made together between pupil and teacher.  Or should I say pupil and grown-up pupil? This then leads to all sorts of questions about what the role of a teacher is, and how can a teacher be the best possible guide.  Hopefully I will begin to answer some of these questions throughout this paper.  
 
The journey itself is an enjoyable experience, and I have now come to believe that this is the only way that I can begin to promote learning in the classroom.  I am aware that I have just articulated a value that I hold.  In fact, not just one value but several.  It would seem that the wise sorcerer of Educational philosophy has been generous with his gifts at last!  Throughout this study I hope to show how I have attempted to live out some of these values. 

Therefore, getting back to the original point of working in a style that is relevant, I am  attempting to explain my educational progress in reference to my work with year 10 I am writing in a style that is relevant to me.

Why write this Special Study?

Why indeed?  At this point in time I am not totally sure of all the reasons for writing this study.  The real question is, what is the value in writing this study?  There are two reasons that are clearly apparent to me.  Firstly, by writing this study it will help me to consolidate all that I have learnt this year as shown to me through my work with year 10.  I will be able to enunciate my values and show where I have and have not lived them out.  By doing this I should hopefully be able to move my own teaching practice forward in the future.  Secondly, I will be able to show others, and here I think I mean my colleagues and tutors what has occurred in my educational experience.  Now I need to consider whether I feel that the sharing has any value beyond that small world.  Lee Shulman advocates the use of action research case studies as a way of making sense of education.  He compares educational case studies to Law case studies.  He comments that:

“We have these great ideas, we teach, and they flop! And then we try to figure out what happened and we work from there.  One of the things about case studies like these is that students can learn how to read those cases, much as Law students learn how to read legal cases........It’s a way of framing and organising the landscape of their experience in terms of that kind of syntax.”          
I originally struggled with the idea that an explanation of what has happened in my classroom will help anyone else.  This is because I fervently believe that every school is different, every class is different, all the individuals that make up that class are different and of course each teacher is different, just as every day is different.  How could my experience therefore be relevant to anyone else?  In a discussion with Moira on 31.5.92 she compared the case study to the practical exposition of a map of a landscape, the landscape being education.  The value of this was made clear to me when Moira asked me if reading such a study would have proved useful back in October when I was unable to expound my values in an educational context.  I then realized that if I had read such a study I could probably start to ask myself questions about the issues and values that were emerging.  Shulman asks the question:

“How do we develop a strategy for developing what I am going to call a syntax of cases so that as you criss-cross this landscape you have a sense that there’s a structure there?”      

I suppose that his answer to this is that we systematically document our experiences in the classroom to provide this “syntax of cases” that “criss-cross this landscape”.  In my capacity of student teacher I am struggling to appreciate that I have a contribution to make here.  Maybe as I progress with writing my special study this will all become clearer.

I fully appreciate a remark made by Walker and quoted by McNiff:

“What is changed most by research is the researcher  - it is almost always the researcher who learns the most, changes most, has most commitment to the project and most at stake if it fails.”   

Act Two
The Question

After a week on my second teaching practice, there seemed to be two main areas of concern emerging from the sea of questions. The first was a concern with my Upper 6th form group.  I was very conscious of my own bias and specifically political bias that was emerging in our lessons.  This greatly concerned me because I felt that I was not dealing with the issue ‘properly’.  I was constantly reminded of  my ‘A’ Level Political Studies teacher, who professed to be politically motivated and indeed active within local party politics.  Throughout the two year course, the ‘A’ Level group, myself included, were unable to discover her political affiliations.  This to me is a great testament to her objectivity and impartiality.  I struggled inwardly to find a way to handle my own bias and opinions.  I could not decide if it would be best to ‘come clean’ and admit my political persuasions or try to be impartial, objective and non-partisan at all times.  I feel that this is an important area to look at particularly when teaching  History.  However, this appeared to be very problematic to tackle because I would have to rely heavily upon feedback from the students.  This group were feeling the pressures of the rapidly approaching ‘A’ Level examinations and I did not feel that it was appropriate to ask for more of their time to carry out collaborative research. This shows a value that was to emerge again later. In fact a value that often reared its contentious head throughout my action research enquiry.  This is the issue of whether I have the right to ‘use’ students in collecting data and evidence.  The whole prospect of ‘using’ students is anathema to me.  It is a delicate situation that has to be carefully approached whilst constantly evaluating motives and methods as well as outcomes.  The subject of bias is one that I hope to look at in the future, when it would seem fairer to involve the students and ask for their cooperation.  

The second area of concern was regarding my Year 10 mixed ability G.C.S.E  History group.

Enter Year 10

Why did I choose to work with Year 10?  There was quite obviously a need to help motivate this group. On my preliminary visit before teaching practice began I observed the lesson whilst talking to the regular teacher.  Even at this stage I could detect the negative atmosphere in the classroom.  I didn’t fully develop or crystallize these thoughts consciously at the time, however, at some level I must have acknowledged that there was a problem because in a conversation with Moira after my preliminary visit but before teaching practice actually began I seemed to be admitting that there was something that was concerning me about this class. My thoughts were vague at this stage but I did manage to intonate that there was the potential for an enquiry with this class.  The conversation on 28.2.92 with Moira evolved thus :

“Moira: Is there anything that about your teaching practice that you want to, in terms of looking at it within the action research  questioning, whether you’ve got some  idea of the area that you might be looking at.
Justine: It’s very general.  All I can say is, I think the area will be something to do with my actual relationship with the class rather than actually conveying certain things but in a way, I think it would be easier to look at a question of how can I make Hitler’s Germany come to life for a fourth year.  I think in a way that’s an easier question than to say how can I get on better with the fourth years so  that they enjoy my lessons more.  In general, but that seems to me to be harder, harder to quantify at the end.  
Moira: And if you get to know a particular class, your relationship with them has got to be an integral part of it, hasn’t it?
Justine: Yeah.”

I think what this conversation shows is that at this stage I was still not fully appreciating the significance of the relationship between teacher and pupil.  I believe that I was getting there, and do implicitly acknowledge the importance of having a good relationship with the class to be conducive to learning.  However, it is Moira really that spells out the symbiotic nature of a good  relationship with a class and the promotion of learning (with enjoyment). Obviously by my lacklustre response at the time (“yeah” !)  I had not fully taken on board this idea.  I now realize that this is central and crucial.  I think that I think that the two issues are really in fact the same issue.  That is, improving motivation in a class and having a good relationship with them are mutually inclusive. 

 Why, therefore, do I think that this particular class had problems? The class had had many interruptions due to teacher absence for several weeks. As I have already commented, when I first observed this class I felt that there was some apathy in the classroom. It made a stark contrast to year 10 on my first teaching practice.  Last time I was teaching the Wild West and if there was ever any apathy over that topic I found it a little easier to understand (I appreciate that that is a loaded and totally biased statement!)  However, this time with the topic being Nazi Germany I found it very difficult to understand why there was so little interest.  This could be me being blinded by my own passion for this era of history, but I still believe that this is a topic that has alot of potential to be interesting and stimulating to all ages.  To this puzzle of why there was no enthusiasm, I can now identify several possible factors:

1.  There was unease in the class because their teacher had missed a lot of lessons. There was no continuity and not a lot of interest had been sparked because the students were sometimes left to work alone and so it was difficult to bring the subject alive.

2.  The class itself contains some difficult characters and also the class is very fragmented into distinct cliques.  This made the class seem made up of various little competing groups.

It therefore seemed necessary to do something drastic to try and win this class over and to motivate them a little.  The topic seemed to be out of their grasp and understanding and I wanted to do something to bring it all alive.  Hence the emergence of the question.

 The topic of Nazi Germany is a very exciting one, but this excitement was not apparent in the classroom.  It therefore seemed that  the challenge was on!

What were my aims?

Fundamentally I wanted to encourage real learning in this subject through empathy and enjoyment.  I wanted the class to start to motivate themselves with the realization (consciously or subconsciously) that learning could be fun. The atmosphere I strived for was one in which learning was not a chore but an adventure.

Carl Rogers comments that there are two types of learning:

'Learning, I believe, can be divided into two general types, along a continuum of meaning.  At the one end of the scale is................the learning of nonsense syllables............In contrast there is such a thing as significant, meaningful, experiential learning.”    

It is this kind of “experiential” learning that  I hoped to promote in my classroom. Carl Rogers goes on to say that :

“Nearly every student  finds that large  portions of his curriculum are for him, meaningless.  Thus education for him becomes the futile attempt to learn material that has no personal meaning.”      

I would like to believe that I was constantly striving to address this problem of relevance to the students.  I can appreciate from my own school experience that if an issue or subject had little obvious relevance to my own life I found it hard to get interested in a subject and hence learning was impaired.  This presumes that a student must be interested before learning can take place. 

Real learning, or perhaps a better word is understanding, will only take place when the student is genuinely interested.  This is not to say that superficial learning (or indeed, recall) will not take place in the disinterested student, but this is not the real learning and understanding that will have a lasting and profound influence.  Of this superficial learning, Carl Rogers says:

“Such learning involves the mind only.  It is  a learning that takes place ‘from the neck up”.  It does not involve feelings or personal meanings; it has no relevance for the whole person.”   

I believe that it is important to look at what various academic theorists have said on the subject of learning and empathy, because it is all relevant (and that after all, is one of my aims for myself as well as the classroom).
I believe that empathy is an important skill and asset  which can be developed through History lessons.  It is also an effective way to achieve deep learning.  Carl Rogers uses the illustration of a toddler, who touches a warm radiator,  will learn and remember what the word ‘hot’ means.  Marshall McLuhan cites the example:

“If a five-year-old child is moved to a foreign country and allowed to play freely for hours with her new companions, with no language instruction at all, she will learn the new language in a few  months and will acquire the  proper accent too.”’     

 He explains that this is real learning because the child is:

“Learning in a way which has significance and meaning for her, and such learning proceeds at an exceedingly rapid rate.  But let someone try to instruct her  in the new language, basing the instruction on the elements that have meaning for the  teacher, and learning is tremendously slowed, or even stopped.”      

So, what do I mean by real learning ?  I have started to address this issue by looking at what Rogers says about this.  In the context of Year 10 I believe that it is necessary to state my intentions.  The class were not animated by the subject and without animation I struggle to believe that meaningful learning was taking place.  In my limited experience I have discovered that:

1. If the teacher seems dull	2.  The work seems dull and 
		irrelevant

4.They will not absorb what	3.  The pupils are not 
   they are supposedly learning			     interested

5. Deep learning will not take place.

However, this can be reversed to read:

1.If the teacher seems animated				2. The work seems 										exciting and relevant

4. There is more chance that					3. The pupils are 		they will absorb the ideas					interested										

5. Deep learning is more likely to take place.

This is a very simplistic view and ignores other variables, such as the time of day, the lessons that have gone before and so forth.  However, I still believe that the premise is a significant one.

The subject of Nazi Germany  seemed removed from the experience of the students and therefore it was necessary to attempt to create the atmosphere in the classroom whereby deep learning could take place. This would seem to mean that the challenge was on to make Hitler seem interesting! Judging by what I have already said, it would be important to find the right tone for the group, to be animated and therefore animate, and to make the subject relevant.  Without knowing the class the task seems quite huge.  It is probably time to pray that the wise old sorcerer of Educational Philosophy has a sister, the sagacious sorceress of all good teacher qualities, and that she has the inclination to pay me a visit! The central issue, therefore seems to be, how to motivate the class to gain empathetic skills and also to see the value of these skills.

Although I have articulated the question, “How can I help my Year 10 enjoy gaining an understanding of Nazi Germany?” I do not see the actual question as being restrictive or imposing parameters on my work with this class.  The enquiry started off as one of the action research genre but has now moved on to more than that.  I feel that the question provided the stimulus, and even at times a safety net, but as time went on I found the question restrictive.  This was to cause me many problems later on (see“The Interval”). Therefore I do not feel that it is essential to keep referring to the question as this was my initial stimulus and motivation rather than the my constant guiding light.

Empathy

“Jeeves’ description of Archimedes discovering the principles of displacement had made a deep impression...I had been able to see the man testing the bath water with his toe....stepping in....immersing the frame.  I had accompanied him in spirit through all the subsequent formalities - the soaping the loofah, the shampooing the head, the burst of song.  And then, abruptly, as he climbs towards the high note, there is silence.  His voice has died away.  Through the streaming suds you can see his eyes are glowing with a strange light.  the loofah falls from his grasp disregarded.  He utters a triumphant cry, ‘Got it !  What ho !  The principle of displacement !’ and out he jumps, feeling like a million dollars.”     

Although Bertie Wooster is evidently a long way off perfect empathy with Archimedes, the passage is useful because it shows the first steps towards empathy.  The first step being that Bertie has tried to put himself in Archimedes’ position.  He tries to work out how he would react to making a major discovery.  If the exercise were taken no further we would be left with the problems of anachronisms.  This problem has been described before as ‘The Flintstones Syndrome’.  This means that although ‘The Flintstones’ supposedly lived in the Stone Age they do so in a twentieth century fashion, by having a stone television, barbecues, pet dinosaurs and so forth.  So now that Bertie has reached the stage of being able to imagine what it must feel like, his experienced must be substantiated with real historic evidence. I have witnessed in the classroom before when students let historical fact and their imagination mix and the end result is often a very imaginative, creative piece of writing but lacks historical accuracy or even content.  The goal is to blend the skill of being able to transport oneself to another time, with the ability of seeing what it is really like when you get there.  If I can communicate the excitement of going to another place (that place being the past) with this ability to truly understand the situation, I believe that I would have achieved several goals:

1.  To provide a fun atmosphere in which the pupils are interested to learn.
2.  To further historic understanding and hence learning.

“Empathy in history is an achievement : it is where we get to when we have successfully reconstructed other peoples’ beliefs, values, goals, and attendant feelings.”   

This remark from Ashby and Lee seems to encapsulate one of my aims.  This ability to put ones self in the position of another is crucial to gain an understanding of why things have happened the way they have.  Ashby and Lee go on to say:

“To say that a pupil has emphasized.......is to say that he or she is in a position to entertain a  set of beliefs and values which are not necessarily his or her own. 

Portal argues that evidence is important in “human sciences” just as it is in the natural sciences.  Evidence in the “human sciences” has an extra dimension created by the importance of language.  This is why empathy is an essential skill.Portal clarifies this by saying:

“Words still in use today, such as ‘marriage’, ‘rebellion’, ‘heresy’, may be found in sources from the past, but they will often have important differences of sense from  how we would now define them and this is not a minor matter, confined to the semi-technical vocabulary of social institutions; it applies to every aspect of life and thought................It is necessary to establish what people thought was going on and how they saw their own range of options before any explanation of their motives has a chance of success.”   

Researchers who have looked at learning in History along the lines laid out by  Piaget have concluded that when faced with historical information, children find it harder to think hypothetically and deductively than in other disciplines. For example, Hallam suggests that the stage of ‘formal operations’ which Piaget shows appearing from the age of 11 begins in history at the mental age of 16.5 years.  If this is taken to be true, it would seem that there was very little point in including history on the time table if it were just to be about telling stories.  However, as Booth  has commented, there are a number of reasons for challenging this position.  First, Booth points to the weaknesses in the research tests used. Secondly, he questions the fundamental psychological theory on which the assumptions are based.  Thirdly, because the historian can never look at an issue with a mind which is tabula rasa  but brings in all other concepts, attitudes and so forth, it is therefore inappropriate to apply Piaget’s theory which emphasizes the age-structure and the development of hypothetico-deductive thinking. Fourthly, Booth concludes:

“It can be claimed, therefore, that historical knowledge and the thinking it demands have certain distinct features:  that it is concerned with the winnowing of evidence and the creation of a true, narrative account of events which have actually occurred. To assess this by means of an a priori framework evolved in the first instance from children’s language and thinking when dealing with problems in the natural sciences where the evidence was ‘all in’, would seem misguided : what is needed is an analysis of children’s thinking in terms of the discipline’s particular knowledge form.”    

I would reject the Piaget notion that real understanding in History cannot take place until the 6th form, because I believe that many of the progressions that I have witnessed whilst on my second teaching practice, and indeed with my Year 10 group show that there is a development of understanding at the of 14 and 15.  I would support Booth’s claim that the subject should be looked at individually.  I believe that the limited amount of evidence that I have been able to collect actually supports my claim and shows that it is possible for children to gain a real and useful understanding of history.
Therefore, one of my aims was to develop the empathetic skills of my Year 10 group, because I believe that through empathy the type of learning that Carl Rogers described as not just taking place “from the neck up” could begin to happen. The old cliche, that “Experience is the best teacher”  springs to mind.

Act Three

The Attempt to answer the Question

Having identified my goals with this particular Year 10 class, I would now like to look at what happened when I tried to fulfil my ambitions.  Before that I would like to introduce you to the class.  As I have said before, the personalities within a group are very important and it is therefore imperative that I attempt to paint at least a vague, amateurish, water colour that will  give an impression of this class.

Who are Year 10 ?

Quite obviously, the group I met in the first few days was unrecognizable, in my eyes as the group I left at the end of teaching practice.  I managed to observe a couple of  lessons before teaching the group and after one such observation I wrote the following in my journal on 3.3.92 :

“The group seem fairly tired.  There seems to be no bonding with the teacher as I witnessed in X’s lesson.  A group of four boys dominate teacher attention.  They sit in the middle of the second row and I shall have to watch out for them.  I can’t decide if they are hostile or just bored. I’m probably inclined to think that they are disinterested.”

This evaluation proved to be fairly accurate. Four boys did dominate my attention initially.  They sat in the second row and at times it proved difficult to ‘get over them’.  The furniture arrangement in the classroom was quite unsatisfactory because the seating was such that the pupils sat in rows facing the white board.  I would have preferred groups of desks or even a horse-shoe shape because this I believe helps the atmosphere in the classroom and takes the focus away from the teacher.  I believe that it is quite important to take away that focus because by putting the teacher up front it is easy for the learners to switch off rather than to become actively involved.  However, the room was small and the group fairly large so there was little I could do about this problem.  As time went on I obviously got to know the group better and the problem of the four dominant boys seemed to decline.  

The atmosphere initially was fairly cold towards me, but this too improved.  It is important that I now introduce Lee.  Lee was not in any of the lessons I observed and he didn’t attend my first two lessons.  I had heard his name mentioned in the staffroom, and the comments seemed to suggest that he was very selective about attending lessons, and school in general.  He did start to attend History lessons regularly and became a focus for my concerns within that group.  More about Lee later.

Thus with the group being fairly apathetic and the constraints of the course, I endeavoured  to bring the lessons alive in an attempt to further pupil learning.
The Strategy

I decided that I would try to involve the class as much as I could and constantly ask for their thoughts and feelings towards what we were doing.  I wanted to embroil the group into the decision making.  The rationale behind this being that if the group believed that there was an element of choice they may respond more positively to the lessons.  I also realized that without their cooperation, nothing could be learnt or achieved. The techniques and strategies I attempted to use are summarized below:

1.  To involve students in making decisions about how we tackle certain topics.

2.  To make a real effort to get to know the whole class so that I could begin to understand how I could make the work relevant.

3.  To constantly ask the students how they feel about certain issues.  By doing this I believe it will force the student to think about a topic at a deeper level and will therefore help them to absorb the material and processes.

4.  In as many circumstances as possible relate the work to the students and get them actively involved.  

This list summarizes my motives.  I think it is in keeping with what I have articulated as my values thus far.

Implementation

I have deliberated at length how I could best show what I attempted to do in the classroom.  It seems to me, to systematically look at all the techniques tried and then to show evidence of what happened followed by an analysis of this data would be inappropriate.  After all, nothing in reality (or perhaps I should say in my own reality) is ever that methodical.  I realize now that the processes that occur within the classroom are not easy to file and categorize.  It would seem that the classroom is a very untidy place!  I recall a comment of Moira’s in a letter she wrote to me whilst I was feeling disillusioned with what I was attempting to do:

“Teaching is messy.  Action research is messy too.  Sometimes it might be a competition between them to see which is messier!”

I will therefore attempt to unravel the story as it happened looking at each incident and its results rather than explaining all the approaches and then systematically evaluating the evidence.

Before I can commence that I must begin to address another huge question, “What is evidence?”  In a tutorial after second teaching practice we discussed the question “What does learning look like?” After reflection, I concluded that this was a stupid question.  I was reminded of the Court scene in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” when the White Rabbit reads aloud the evidence to the jury, which is absolute nonsense:

“There was dead silence in the court, whilst the White Rabbit read out these verses:

“They told me you had been to her,
And mentioned me to him:
She gave me a good character,
But said I could not swim.

He sent them word I had not gone
(We know it to be true):
If she should push the matter on,
What would become of you?

I gave her one, they gave him two,
You gave us three or more;
They all returned from him to you,
Though they were mine before.

If I or he should chance to be
Involved in this affair,
He trusts to you to set them free,
Exactly as we were.

My notion was that you had been
(Before she had this fit)
An obstacle that came between
Him, and ourselves, and it.

Don’t let him know she liked them best,
For this must ever be
A secret, kept from all the rest,
Between yourself and me.”

“That’s the most important piece of evidence we’ve heard yet,” said the King, rubbing his hands; “so now let the jury--------”
“If any one of them can explain it”, said Alice, (she had grown so large in the last few minutes that she wasn’t a bit afraid of interrupting him), “I’ll give him sixpence.  I  don’t believe there’s an atom of meaning in it.”   

Learning, I believed, could not actually look  like anything because it is only a concept. Even the idea of collecting evidence of learning seemed a little tenuous.  Hence the Lewis Carroll poem.  However, after the tutorial on 27.5.92, I wrote this in my diary:

“We had a good tutorial today, much better than the week before. The group dynamics were a lot better...........We looked at the issue of collecting evidence of pupil learning. One question that Moira posed for us to discuss in groups was “What does learning look like?”  Karen came up with a good answer...........”Purple with pink spots and green stripes”!!  My negative contribution to the small group discussion was that it was “a stupid question”.  We discussed the issue as a larger group.  Although I  still believe that the actual question is stupid I can now appreciate the value of the process of discussing the question.  Learning I believe has occurred here for Justine!!”

Therefore, I realize that the question was posed not to actually come up with an answer but rather to think about the implications of trying to discover whether learning had indeed taken place in our classrooms.  The consensus within the group seemed to be that learning is such an ongoing process (indeed, a life long process) that it is exceedingly difficult to pin- point exactly when it occurs.  I remark upon these dilemmas because they seem pertinent to my attempt to discover what has actually happened in my classroom.

What Did I Do ?

This is taken from my journal on 5.3.92 after my first lesson alone with Year 10 :

“I tried to achieve so many things with this group today. I wanted to seem approachable, but firm.  I wanted to lift the apathy and get them on my side.  I want to get to know each and every one of them so I can live out my belief and I guess value, that it is the individual that is important.  What a mammoth task.  I guess today was all about setting the scene.  We didn’t actually get through all that much content, but that is because I believe that creating the right environment is very important.  I did know everyone’s names by the end of the lesson, which is important.  When the bell went, instead of sending them out all together, I sent them out individually by name.  I partly did this to test and indeed help myself, but I also did it as an attempt to prove that I do see the class as 28 individuals rather than as just one Year 10 group.”

And this is how the relationship started.  The following lesson I continued to ‘feel’ my way in, giving everyone the chance to get used to the new feel to the class.  By that I mean, I had to get used to their ways, and to an extent they had to get used to mine.  The following day, however, the lesson took an interesting turn.  This new turn of events helped me to focus on what my question would actually be.  For up until this stage, I was not certain what my question for an action research enquiry would be.  Furthermore I wasn’t even sure whether it would be with this particular class.  As I have mentioned in my introduction, I had had thoughts about working with my upper 6th form group.  However, the arrival of a German Professor in my Year 10 classroom helped me to not only focus on a question, but also helped me to realize the full potential of what could be done with this group and how they could best be encouraged to respond to this stimulation.

Enter Professor Müller

11.3.92
The original plan for the beginning of this lesson was to inform the class that we were doing dictation.  I would then proceed to dictate ‘nonsense’.  The reason for doing this would be to see how many students wrote the ‘nonsense’ down.  This was an attempt at an empathy exercise.  The rationale behind this being that I wanted the pupils to try and understand what it felt like for someone in authority to tell you to do something and to see if you felt able to speak out against this.  This was supposed to help develop an understanding of why people were swayed by Hitler and in many cases stood by and watched their friends being persecuted, without protesting.

The actual lesson changed a little with the arrival of Professor Müller (alias Moira Laidlaw!) Moira was briefed as we walked to the class that she was about to observe. We walked into the classroom together and I proudly introduced Professor Müller.
“Good morning. We are very lucky to have a visitor today.  This is Professor Müller from the University of Bath and she is an expert in German History and Culture. We are privileged to have her here today to talk to us about Hitler’s Germany.”
At this point Professor Müller in a strong German accent began to order people around, asking them to sit up properly and so forth (incidentally, one of the chosen members of the class to be picked on by the Professor was Lee). She then ordered the class to take out their exercise books for dictation.  This they all did in absolute silence.
“It is a well known fact” began the Professor, “that Hitler was a marvellous man.”
At this point the eminent Professor chose to chivy a few people along and picked on one pupil to read back what had been said so far.  The dictation continued:
“He had many good and interesting solutions to racial and economic problems........................”
At this point the Professor halted and I stood up.
“I would like to start the introductions again.  This is Ms. Laidlaw and she is in fact an English teacher.”
The atmosphere was electric.  Faces were shocked as they realized that they had been ‘had’.  Slowly people began to look at what they had just written.  Knowing that this was not a particularly vocal group I did not push for their immediate responses.  I asked them all to write a short explanation below the dictation in their exercise books.
The following day I read a letter aloud from Professor Müller.  I then asked them to explain what they thought the exercise proved and how they felt about it.  Answers were a little slow in being voiced and so I asked them to write their responses down.  The quality of these responses are incredible.  When I read them through I was made fully aware of something that I had already begun to suspect.  Something big had happened in that classroom with Professor Müller.  In many ways I think it really broke the ice for me with the group.  Many of the responses genuinely thanked Professor Müller for coming in to help them understand the situation a little more clearly.  After this I think the class began to wonder what would happen next!  I even overheard one comment made by a member of the group which went along the lines of “Oh no I wonder what trick she has got up her sleeve today!”

Below are some of the responses to the Professor Müller exercise, some are written in letter form to Professor Müller (alias Moira!)

“When Professor Müller was talking to us I felt very disturbed at what she was saying. We all know that Hitler was a horrible man but when Professor Müller was talking it sounded like he was great......I wrote down what you were saying because of peer pressure, all of my friends were writing it down so I did.
I learnt a lot from the experience I learnt  that Hitler had authority and he could do what he wanted if he said something you had to do it.  This exercise was useful and fun.  I learnt alot and understand Hitler more.”

“It was a useful exercise in the way it does prove that if someone in authority tells you to do something you do it, no questions asked.”

“I think that I learnt that it was quite easy to be taken in by a person that has power.  I mean that Ms Laidlaw shouted at us and Miss Hocking done nothing about it so I thought she must not have been higher up than Ms Laidlaw so I done as she said.  I imagine that is what Hitler done that is how he got all his support....It was a useful exercise because it made me realize that you could get sucked in by some screaming mad person and believe.”

“I did not agree with what she was saying.  Although, I suppose that everyone’s got their right to their own opinions and have their own point of view...I honestly believed what was going on. I thought that she was visiting this country to take some leave and tell people in schools of her love of Hitler.  I learnt that when a person with power, and a strong attitude and voice takes over a class, or indeed, in Hitler’s case a whole country, people aren’t going to argue with them.  Which is probably why so many people voted for him in the pre-war elections.  It was a useful but time-wasting exercise dealing with 3 minutes of sheer hell, then 30 minutes of utter embarrassment as we didn’t see past her naff German accent, and petty comments.”

“I wrote down what you told me to even though I disagreed with it.  You can’t argue with people in power......I think you showed us the way in which Hitler got the crowds attention.”

“I didn’t agree with what you were saying, the reason why I didn’t say anything was because if I didn’t do what you were telling us then you would tell me off.  What I learnt from it was that when Hitler was alive, he managed  to seize power over the people.”

“You came across with such power and authority that I don’t think that anyone wanted to mess with you. I learnt from this that people can be easily led especially when the orders come from someone with so much power.”

“I think that it showed us how easily we could be persuaded into doing something that we didn’t want to do.......I didn’t agree with what we wrote down, I was tempted to put my pen down.  However, I didn’t dare as I thought I would be in serious trouble.  Maybe if someone else had stopped writing I would have done so as well......I think that it was a useful exercise as I suppose we all thought we couldn’t be told what to do.  It showed us that we wrong and also that if we had been in the German’s position Hitler would have persuaded us!”

“I’ve learnt that we should always say what we think and not just follow what everyone else does.  I can imagine how Germans followed Hitler now.”

“After being  involved in that exercise I feel that I realize how Hitler’s followers  must have felt at his ‘gatherings’.  A very authoritative and dominant force taking the lead with unlimited confidence, I can understand why people followed him.  It was a useful exercise .....because I understand the feelings ......but on the other hand we had no choice as to what we did, whereas Germany could have rejected him immediately.”

“If she had gone on for the whole lesson raving about Hitler  I would have said something, but seeing as it was only for a few minutes, and the way she started off by telling people off you didn’t quite realize what was happening.....It was useful in that it will make us remember they felt agreeing and disagreeing with things, yet afraid to speak out.”

“I learnt that we should all stand up for what we believe and not just get taken in so easily.  I think that it was a very useful exercise as it gave us some idea on what the citizens of Germany must have felt like when Hitler was talking to them.”

“I learnt alot about how the power of speech can overcome you.”

“It was a useful exercise, it proved to me how easy it is to be dictated over.”

I have quoted extensively from the responses and because so many of them are excellent I didn’t want to miss any one out.  I believe that they are a great testament to prove that learning did indeed take place in this lesson. I was also pleased that the pupils felt able to express their feelings on the subject. I believe that the responses largely speak for themselves.  Many pupils learnt that it is easy to be convinced by someone in authority.  Many also realized that it is not easy to speak against someone in the power position.  Several pupils also managed to make the connection between what they experienced and what citizens of Nazi Germany would have been through.  Some also realized that they should, and perhaps could, speak out if they disagreed with what was said. 
I used this exercise many times in the classroom to remind the pupils of what they felt and how this might apply to what was happening in Nazi Germany.  The lesson was an ideal way in which to make a point.  Obviously it wouldn’t always be possible to manufacture a situation like that, but I would like to thank Moira very much for making that lesson so enjoyable and valuable.

As I have commented before, it was after that lesson and the realization of the quality of responses, which indicated how valuable the exercise had been, I decided to pursue looking at my work with this class. I was, however, always determined that I would not let my research guide the lessons.  At this stage I had not fully realized that this would have been against action research ‘protocol’ so to speak anyone.  I was aware at this stage that I didn’t want to use this class as a means of collecting evidence and data.  This dilemma was to emerge again later.  At this stage it is suffice to say that I was cautious not to let the research dominate my lessons with this class.  It had to be the pupils and their learning coming first, otherwise the whole object is defeated.  Again I am aware that I am quite clearly articulating those once elusive, but now omnipresent values.

Video

I decided that with this group and this particular topic, the use of video was essential as a visual learning aid.  It is always helpful to have a visual image to enhance understanding.  I therefore used video cassettes whenever appropriate.  I never asked the class to make notes from the video because if they are busy scribbling notes it is easy for them to lose the impact of what is being said.  However, I was aware that with out anything to focus on, thoughts might wander, and so I often used to ask the class to concentrate because there would be questions at the end, or I would give out a worksheet that would have general themes and questions on so that their minds would be focussed on what I believed to be the important issues.  I also tried to stop the video at suitable moments so that I could emphasize a point, or clarify a point, or answer any questions.  I asked the class after one particular video if they could write their responses to some general questions about what they thought of watching videos in relation to their understanding of a subject.  My motives behind asking these questions were two-fold.  Firstly, I wanted to discover if they really did think that videos were useful.  Secondly, I wanted to actually give them a chance to say what they wanted in our lessons, and to let them decide to an extent on the format of our lessons.  Below are some of the responses:

“It did help me to understand more about Hitler because I think that you can learn more watching a video than you do in class.”

“The video helped because it is in pictures and not in words.”

“I thoroughly enjoyed the video.  It was very enlightening, as Hitler is a very enigmatic and interesting character.......It helped my understanding of Hitler, his beliefs and methods.  And by listening to a former of the Hitler youth movement, I found empathy with his awe of the ‘captivating’ Fuhrer.  By watching the extract of Hitler dictation, I felt his enormous power and control over the German people, I could understand why 16 year old boys being afraid of him.”

“The parts where Hitler was talking to the crowds showed how good he was and the tactics he used and why he won so many votes.............Videos help  because they show things that books can’t”.

“It helped me a bit, the parts where Hitler was actually speaking himself showed me what he was really like instead of reading it out of a textbook.”

“We should watch videos because we live in the age of computer and if work can be presented on video tape then that is better and more interesting........I wish that we could meet Hitler.”

“I would rather watch more videos since it is more alive than answering questions.  Videos help you remember things better.”

All the comments made about the video were very positive.  I tried to take this on board by showing more videos at a later date.  However, I was always aware that I didn’t want video ‘over kill’.  One particular comment, from Abi, shows that some students were really beginning to empathize.  I wander if she was relating what she was saying about peoples’ responses to Hitler to what she experienced with Professor Müller:

“The video helped me to see how easy it was for Hitler to take in people and how his speeches were the main part of his rallies.  I think that it showed how now we look upon Hitler as an awful man because of his crimes but we forget that if we were living at that time it would have been very difficult not to have believed him because of his propaganda, speeches, the music and also the threats from the SA.”

Although she doesn’t actually relate back to the Professor Müller experience I can’t help but speculate as to whether she was consciously or subconsciously relating to that experience.  Evidence of course is elusive here, but this would support the idea that learning happens over time rather than being able to pin point the exact moment.

Empathy

“I swear to devote all my energies to the saviour of our country, Adolf Hitler.  I am willing and ready to give up my life for him, so help me God.”   

I read this statement aloud to the class, and they each had their own copy.  I wanted to see what their reaction to this quotation was.  I asked them to discuss their feelings in small groups, but I came up against the usual problem with this sort of activity with this group.  The group is reticent to voice its opinions aloud to the rest of the class.  There does not seem to be  the trust in the class to make this happen.  I also appreciated that what I wanted them to talk about was of quite a personal nature.  I therefore arranged the class in friendship groups and asked them to discuss whether they could understand why anyone would swear such an oath.  I also wanted them to think about what they would have done if they had been in this situation.  This activity did not work, because some of the groups said nothing at all and some would not stay ‘on task’.  Once again I decided to abandon this activity and I asked them to write down their responses.  If I had had more time with this group I would have tried harder to overcome this problem.  I think that it is important to encourage group work, because it is a valuable way to develop ideas and to learn from others.  However, I decided that it would indeed be more beneficial for the students to explore their own feelings on paper rather than have no opportunity at all to express their attitudes .Therefore to the question ‘Why do you think people swore this oath?’ and the follow up question, ‘Do you think that you would swear such an oath?’ the responses were as follows:

“Childrens minds can be easily manipulated in to thinking certain things.  I could not see myself saying this.”

This is an interesting comment, firstly because the pupil obviously no longer sees her/himself as a child and secondly because the pupil is adamant that s/he would not say it.  I regret the fact that this pupil has not made the connection from this to the Professor Müller exercise when s/he did not speak out.

“I think people swore to this because at the time Hitler agreed to their needs and they thought he was very important, and followed him.”

This comment shows that the pupil has considered the situation at the time which is what empathy is all about.

“I can understand because people follow and for children being in this ‘organization’ was fun for them.  And people often follow one another, especially children without thinking about the consequences.  Germany was in a bad way and Hitler promised to improve it.”

Again this shows an understanding of what it meant to be in Germany at this time.

“Yes I can understand why 10 year old boys stood up and said the oath.  I think that at 10 they didn’t really understand why they were saying it but followed everyone else.  They liked belonging to a group and knew they’d lose friends if they didn’t.  I don’t think I would say the oath now, the way our country is run, but I’m sure that I would have in Nazi Germany time because I would have wanted to join in and follow the ‘great man’ everyone was talking about.”
Here the idea of peer pressure is being acknowledged and this just what many said they felt during the visit from Professor Müller.

“I can understand that people would say the first half about saving the country but nor the bit about Hitler being the Saviour.  People shouldn’t of worshipped him even if they believe he was good and doing the right thing.  I wouldn’t say it about the Queen, Prime minister or anyone.”

“I would say this because you would have been brought up to honour Hitler.....The first half is alright but the second half is rubbish.  I would never say this and Hitler was stupid to make kids swear to him.”

I like the self-assured quality to this writing!  However, I wonder if s/he has absorbed the significance if the circumstances under which this oath was sworn.

“They said it because they were only 10 and didn’t know any better......they also said it because they didn’t know any better.  When I joined ATC at 13 years of age   I had to swear an allegiance to Queen and country.”

This is an interesting comparison and shows that the pupil has tried to relate to the oath within his own realms of understanding and experience.

“People did this because they believed it was right and Hitler was a wonderful person.  They also feared him and weren’t sure what would happen if they didn’t do what they were told.”

“I can’t understand why a 10 year old would stand up and say that because I don’t think I would now, but maybe in the circumstances the children were in I would.”

Here, the pupil starts off by saying that s/he would never swear this oath, but then seems to think it through and realizes that in different circumstances maybe s/he would.  The same is true of the next response:

“I can’t understand why a 10 year old would say that as they wouldn’t give up their life for Hitler would they.  I wouldn’t have said it because I wouldn’t give up my life for some man.  But I haven’t been put in these circumstances.”

“I cannot understand why someone would declare to give up their life for their leader of their country and to respond to every command given by this person.  Personally I think that it is very wrong and I would not be swayed by the pressures of the leaders of a country.”

And yet this brave individual who is prepared to stand up against the country’s leaders was not prepared to stand up against Professor Müller!

“I can understand why a 10 year old boy would say that speech, because he wouldn’t know what it meant, his family would perhaps encourage him to believe Hitler because he promised better things.  It’s just like a boy being taken to church at a young age, you don’t understand what you are saying you believe, but you’ll say it!  I would like to think I wouldn’t have said it, but in that situation I probably would have.”

This is an excellent comparison and one that I wish I had thought of to use in the classroom.  It shows a clear understanding of the situation and of human behaviour.

“I can understand why children swore the oath when they were only 10 because they were  probably forced to. Their parents believed in Hitler and so the children didn’t have a choice.  Also with all the propaganda about Hitler the children probably thought they were very fortunate to have a leader like him, they couldn’t see he was bad.  If someone told me to say that now I wouldn’t because I think it’s crazy To like someone like Hitler but I don’t know what I would do if  I was living then.”

After reading these comments I was disappointed that no one had drawn the comparison to the Professor Müller exercise.  I asked the class as a whole whether they could see the parallels.  When this was pointed out to them they did see the similarities.  Does the fact that they did not draw this comparison themselves make the Müller exercise less valid?  I think not because it was useful for me to go back and comment on this exercise.  However, I think that it does show that it is important to help children make all of these connections in the jungle of learning.  Even when given all the ingredients they will still need guidance in formulating the recipe.

Segregation

Bearing in mind the fact that I wanted to try and really bring the class alive, I wanted to get the class working in different groups.  The dominant four boys were still attempting to dominate.  I wanted to move the class round without causing too much friction and resentment. I was aware that it could all end up back-firing.  At the start of one lesson I stood at the doorway and directed everyone to new seats. There was also a secondary reason for doing this.  I asked all the fair haired pupils to sit at the front and all the darker ones to sit towards the back.  The class seemed bewildered and there was a little protesting.  However, when everyone was seated in their new groups I started the lesson and gave all my attention to the minority of the class who were the fair ones sitting at the front.  When I asked questions I only chose the ones at the front to answer.  I couldn’t keep this charade up for very long, and so then asked the class what they had thought I had been doing.  They could all tell that I had been favouring the ones at the front but they couldn’t work out why.  I then explained that it was because the ones at the front were all fair.  Then they began to make the connection with Hitler’s thoughts about a master race.  It was unfortunate that I never got the opportunity to video this lesson and the reactions of the pupils.  One pupil commented afterwards:

“I felt really left out and wanted to walk out of the room.  I kept trying to answer questions but you wouldn’t let me.”

One of the fair haired pupils said :

“You made me feel very special and because you were making us feel different to the rest of  the class I wanted to work harder for you.”

We then went on to discuss how people in Germany must have felt.  The exercise proved useful and I wish, perhaps that I could have carried it on for longer.  If I had videoed the lesson it would not have been so successful because I believe that the children would have put my change in attitude and action down to the fact that there was a video camera in the room.
However, I did learn something very valuable in that lesson and that was from the second comment made, to repeat:

“You made me feel very special and because you were making us feel different to the rest of  the class I wanted to work harder for you.”

There is a lesson to be learnt from this and that is, in an ideal world and if I were an ideal teacher, I would make every child feel special all the time.

Reactions

In History we often look at sources.  We encourage pupils to look at these sources analytically and we encourage them to evaluate the evidence in an attempt for them to come to their own conclusions about whether the evidence is likely to be true, biased, subjective and so forth.  We also encourage pupils to draw as much knowledge as possible out of each source, just as a ‘real’ historian would.  I had done considerable amounts of this type of source work with my Year 10 and they were gaining all the appropriate skills that kind of work enhances.  However, there was one quote I wanted them to read and I wanted them to react as people rather than as budding historians.  I wanted them to think about what they really thought about such evidence.  I asked the class to work in pairs and I gave them several questions to think about after.  I am not denigrating the value of systematic, objective analysis of sources, but when dealing with the emotive issue of the Holocaust I felt that the pupils needed an opportunity to react passionately to some of what happened.  The subject is an extremely emotive one and therefore I felt for the students to really absorb some of what had happened it was necessary for them to look at a piece of work without just the usual dispassionate questions being asked. The source I asked them to read and to react to and discuss in pairs is reproduced below:

“I was ordered to establish extermination facilities at Auschwitz.  I visited Treblinka to find out how they carried out their exterminations.  The Commandant told me that he had liquefied 80,000 in half a year.  He used Carbon monoxide gas and I didn’t think his methods were efficient.  So I used Cyclon B.  It took me 3 to 15 minutes to kill people.  We knew when they were dead because their screaming stopped.  After the bodies were removed our special commandos took off the rings and extracted the gold from the teeth of the corpses.  Another improvement we made over Treblinka was that we built our gas-chambers to take 2,000 people at a time.”  

I asked the pupils to describe their reactions after reading the quote.  Below is a sample of their responses:

“Personally I think that it is sick.  Then the fact that really frustrates me was the fact that he could actually stand up and say that in public as if he had done nothing wrong, and this was something to boast about.......He was proud of the fact that he could make better methods of building public incinerators or liquefying millions of people....”

“I think what they did in concentration camps was disgusting.  Rudolf Hess makes it sound like fun and he enjoyed  listening to the screams of thousands of Jews dying.  He is the one that deserves to be gassed not  the innocent Jews.”

“I was disgusted  and appalled to think that  it was possible that one person could kill so many people.”

“Horrifying, distressing, disturbing”

“I think that it is awful to think that anyone could have such a disrespect for human life.  He talked about it as a real hardship to him to kill the Jews quickly, he almost made it sound as if he were competing with the other Commandant.”

“We were not surprised as he was a Nazi and despised the Jews.”

“He sounded proud that he could kill the Jews  with such efficiencey.  He didn’t care what he had done and felt that he hadn’t committed a crime.  This made me feel a bit mad.”

“We were pretty shocked after reading this statement, as it showed no guilt or remorse.  It sounded like he was describing a routine every day ‘do’, and he didn’t seem at all bothered about murdering the Jews.  In fact he seemed quite proud of his methods and was  keen to explain how he modified the method to make it more efficient.  A very relentless, ruthless attitude that you’d expect to come from the mouth of a mad  man.  He showed complete disrespect for human life, and talked of  as an achievement.”

“They must have had sick minds, you can’t imagine anyone pressing a button and in 3 minutes 2,000 people were dead.  And they didn’t think it was bad because after they took their gold teeth out.”

“We both agree that the described evidence was cruel and sickening.  Killing people is terrible  and then taking off their rings and taking out their gold teeth is really sick.”

“I am horrified that a human being could be so bad to another. If I had the  choice I would rather live the life of a chicken in a battery unit  than live in a concentration camp, as at least there is food and you would probably live longer, in fact you would last longer in a pirhana infested river”.

“I think that it is totally disgusting because he was actually proud of himself for designing a machine that would  take 2,000 lives in 15 minutes.”

As these quotations show, the students reacted quite violently to the Hess evidence.  I believe that it is an essential element of understanding this era in History, to begin to sort out ones own feelings on the subject.  By allowing the pupils to make judgmental comments on this evidence is to begin this process. I also believe that the responses from the pupils show that they are beginning to think seriously about the issues raised and this must surely allow for a deeper understanding and absorbing of the subject.  I firmly maintain that this experience helped move the pupils’ learning forward.  Alas I have no real evidence to support this claim and I cannot prove that learning has indeed taken place. I can, however, claim, with the support of these responses that the journey through the maze of understanding has commenced.

The above described strategies are the only techniques that I consciously used and consciously collected data for.  At this stage, things began to shift and the focus of my enquiry changed somewhat.  Now it is time to reintroduce Lee.

Act Four
Enter Lee

As I have already mentioned, Lee was a member of this class, be that as it may, a selective member.  He was not in any of the lessons I observed and did not attend the first two lessons that I taught.  The first lesson that he did attend he sat at the back.  I was quite soon aware of the difference he made to group dynamics.  He was totally uninterested in the lesson and did his best to make this uninterest infectious.  For the next lesson he changed seats and sat right at the front of the class.  He would constantly slouch and yawn and made no attempt to do any work.  He continually made throw away comments to me.  In one lesson evaluation on 12.3.92 I commented that:

“Lee now sits at the front of the class and it would seem that he is having a real battle staying in the classroom.  There is something very different about this character and he needs to be handled accordingly.  He refused to do the work that I had set the class today because he said  that it was ‘boring’.  Instincts told me that it would not be appropriate to challenge him on how he could tell if the work was boring before he had attempted it.  For some reason I had decided to play the games by his rules.  I said that it was O.K. that  he didn’t want to do the work and I would find him something to do that did appeal to him. I produced another worksheet but this wasn’t to his liking either.  I had no more work in supply and consequently Lee ended up spending the lesson reading “Mein Kampf” !”

The fact that I could let Lee ‘get away’ with not doing the work whilst the rest of the class did not object goes some way towards showing that Lee was indeed a very special case.  I would also not normally allow a Year 10 pupil to sit and read “Mein Kampf” in a lesson, but this seemed the only way to focus Lee’s attention on anything historic.

It is very difficult to capture in words the nature of my relationship with Lee.  All I can really succinctly say is that I treated him as more of a friend than a pupil.  This in itself was quite strange because superficially Lee is not an endearing individual! However, I decided quite quickly that nothing would be gained by constantly chastising him in any nagging fashion. It seemed imperative to communicate with Lee that I was actually on his side and to an extent I wanted him to be his own person in the classroom.  Hopefully, through some of my journal entries and lesson evaluations an essence of Lee will emerge.

The reemergence of Values

I realize now that my behaviour towards Lee is indicative of one of my firmly held beliefs.  This belief is that every individual in the classroom should be treated as exactly that - an individual.  I believe that you cannot develop a protocol that will apply to every child.  I believe that my relationship with Lee lived out this value, although it was difficult at many times.  I struggled with the eternal dilemma of not having enough time to do justice to the twenty eight relationships I was having within that class as well as all the other classes and demands.

So why did Lee take up more of my time, thoughts and reflections?  Possibly because in Lee I saw the most need.  This may have been me being blind to other apparent needs in the classroom, but I also believe that to work well with Lee would also be to the advantage of the rest of the class because Lee so obviously had the potential to disrupt the learning atmosphere in the classroom.  As time raced by, I became more and more concerned by Lee. His attention span was minimal and he seemed to have no desire to be in the classroom let alone a desire to learn and to enjoy being in the classroom.  And yet despite this he consistently attended the lessons (which he was not doing in all subjects) and gradually he started to focus on the subject in hand.  Whereas once his throw away comments to me were of a general nature they were now related to the topic we were looking at. I took time when the others were working to chat about school and things in general. I often had to keep him behind at the end of a lesson to have a ‘chat’ about what was and what was not appropriate language to use in the classroom. We began to have continuous jokes and themes, as I wrote in my journal 19.3.92:

“In a most sarcastic tone today I reminded Lee of the previous weeks  course of lessons in manners that we had been undertaking.  We started by learning that  it was rude to yawn without putting your hand to your mouth, from there we moved on to when you yawned you put your hand your mouth and you didn’t make a noise. Today we progressed to the fact that it was rude and unreasonable to yawn in my lesson at all!  His response was fairly sullen and the rest of the class held their breath to see his reaction.  I was scared that I had over done it and I thought  that I might have lost him altogether.  I remember cursing myself, thinking ‘now you’ve done it, you’ve pushed him too far this time’.  However, Lee did not explode, and at the mildest , I thought he might leave the room, which I suspected was likely judging by the thunder clouds rapidly gathering on his face.  In fact I had the faintest belief that I saw him  start to smile.  The smile didn’t really happen and if it had it would have been a first - I’ve just realized that I have never seen Lee smile before.”

There are countless incidents and anecdotes that I could recall and narrate that would attempt to build up the nature of my relationship, but even that would be unsatisfactory.  Perhaps it would be of more value to attempt to explain why this relationship was important and valuable.  I was becoming more and more sure of the need to get to know individuals before any meaningful learning could take place. With some pupils this relationship must be firmly established as a prerequisite to learning.  I am reminded of an absolutely wonderful anonymous poem that beautifully captures this sentiment:

Teacher

I will know you
I will touch you and hold you
and smell and taste and listen
To the noises that you make - and the words, if any.

I will know you
Each atom of your small, lonely, aching, raging, hurting being
will be known to me
Before I try to teach you
Before I try to teach you I must first reach you.

And then, when I have come to know you, intimately,
I will insist, gently, gradually, but insist that you know me
And later, that you trust me and then yourself.

Now, knowing each other, we will begin to know the world -
The seasons, the trees, animals, food, the other children.
The printed word, books
The knowledge of what has gone before and been recorded.

Then as surely as I moved toward you, I will move away.
As I once insisted on being close to you,
Demanding entrance to your half-wild world of fear and fantasy,
refusing you aloneness, so now I move away.

As your words come and your walk quickens,
As you laugh out loud or read clearly and with understanding,
I stand behind you - no longer close - available
But no longer vital to you.

And you - you grow - you are! You will become
And I, the teacher?
I turn, with pride in you towards my next child.   

***
 “Before I try to teach you I must first reach you.”

This line particularly resonates and I cannot help but think that it was written about my relationship with Lee!

As I began to realize the importance of this relationship I began lose my way with my original action research enquiry.   Other issues and pressures were building up and I lost sight of what I was trying to achieve.  Disillusionment swept over me.

The Interval
Disillusionment

By the end of April I felt that I had totally lost my way with my action research enquiry.  I was feeling frustrated that I could not achieve all my goals. I felt that by concentrating on one year group other classes were suffering.  I had become restricted by my question and felt that it was holding me back from what I really wanted to do.  I started to question the ethics of what I was doing.  I felt the pressure of writing up my enquiry for a special study and thought that I was in danger of  manufacturing situations so that I could get what I perceived to be the desired end.  Another value was emerging in that I felt that it was wrong to ‘use’ the class for my own research.  I fully comprehend now that this in fact was not happening and that any work I undertook in that class would have benefited the class and my relationship with it in the long run.  However, I think that it is important to look at how I succeeded in reaching this insight because I feel that it is an illustration of how I managed to come to terms with what I feel is important in the classroom. On 30.4.92 I wrote this account, which sums up my feelings at the time, which I then presented to the action research validation meeting on 5.5.92:

“Year Ten. Any Progress?  

    I really don’t think so! I wish my action research enquiry had been about Lee. I think that proves the artificiality of doing an action research enquiry on a teaching practice. Bit of a sweeping statement there, and maybe I had better try and explain myself. Although I was fairly enthusiastic to undertake an...enquiry at the beginning of my teaching practice - no, correction, before my teaching practice began at all I was enthusiastic - I rapidly realised that it was quite unrealistic to think I could really tackle the task because:

	1) The exceedingly heavy work load already required in the day to day living of teaching practice necessitates that to carry out an...enquiry, sacrifices must be made elsewhere. I am a great believer in time-management...However, I still	find it impossible to find the hours in the day to concentrate on an...enquiry without sacrificing other classes. By ‘sacrificing other classes’, I mean not giving them due attention in preparation and evaluation. That is one sacrifice that I know I am not prepared to make.

 	Does that all sound melodramatic?

Well if it does, I must be feeling melodramatic at the moment...

	2) In nine weeks it is virtually impossible (or so I have found) to get to know a class, to identify a meaningful problem, to attempt to solve the problem (bearing in mind that all the time, new areas of concern are emerging) and begin to really see and understand the results of your actions. I feel that the situation is too artificial and it somehow seems unethical to rush through data-collection, to ‘twist’ lessons to facilitate the enquiry and data collection (and this is necessary despite what is idealistically desirable) and due to the time pressures to see the enquiry as an experiment that needs an introduction, a method, and a conclusion - with evidence.

3) Ideally I would have liked to work on the question of bias (my own bias) with the sixth form, but because of the timing (not enough time, and ‘A’ Levels) it proved impossible. It is a difficult issue that would have needed a lot of time and consideration to tackle as an action research enquiry. However I have attempted an enquiry that needs a lot of work on to pull it all together, and a lot of analysis to discover what, if anything, is actually going on in my classroom in relation to my question. I believe that I am conscientious about lesson evaluation, and if I am not evaluating my lessons in the light of my question anyway, maybe this suggests that the question is all wrong. No, I would like to modify that. It is not so much a that the question is wrong, but rather that the question is not the only consideration in that class. There are other things, such as Lee!

I will soldier on with my limited and not totally satisfying enquiry and look forward to the day that I can begin a real action research enquiry.”

I attended the meeting with entirely negative feelings. Nothing, I felt could be salvaged.  However, I left the meeting encouraged by the support and positive advice I received from the group.  Many thanks to Bijan, Stella, Diane and Moira.  I did not, however, leave the meeting with my faith totally restored, but I did have plenty to reflect upon.  Moira summed up the gist of what I had been saying and what had been said at the meeting in a letter afterwards on 6.5.92:

“The group responded to these comments in a variety of ways:

1) that ‘failure’ in an action research enquiry needs to be looked at closely. Just because the enquiry does not seem to be going according to plan, then there may still be valuable insights emerging.
2) time spent concentrating on one group might still be useful to all others in the sense that what one learns from one situation may be able to throw light on another, and all of one’s experiences in the classroom add to one’s growing expertise and knowledge about children, about education, about how we all as learners, learn.
3) if the problem is one of ethics, about what comes first, the children or the research, then by concentrating consciously on the classroom situation, probably the same information/insights/data would emerge. The problem of ethics is one that the individual researcher has to come to terms with.”

At the meeting I began to digest what had been said I had to swallow pride a little because in the stubborn and forthright mood I was in it was difficult to accept that there could be a value in my research after all. Moira writes that the value of a validation group is:

“They serve the function of enhancing the researcher’s perceptions and methods of making claims about pupil learning.”  

McNiff also comments on the importance and functions of a validation group:

“The task of the validation group is to help the researcher move his ideas forward. The atmosphere must be supportive, but challenging, encouraging the researcher to give responses to questions in the form of new questions for himself, protecting his emergent thinking, and giving him confidence to act in a new direction.”     

The group did more than enhance my perceptions, it helped me to reorganize all my thoughts and priorities.
The two letters  written by Moira afterwards helped me to contextulize what was happening.  She wrote:

“a) What is the aim of reflective practice? (If indeed reflective practice is an aim you work towards.)
b) If it is to enhance your understanding for the benefit of all learners (which I guess from conversations we’ve had, it probably is) then any kind of systematic method of drawing out your insights and enabling you thus more consciously to reflect on them, must surely be of benefit. What would be unethical would be research which aggrandised you at the expense of your pupils, which placed your insights entirely above theirs. There can be, I understand, at times, a thin dividing line between knowledge you accrue and learning you foster in others. However I think that at best they are indivisible. And I would contend that to help others learn, you have to understand yourself and your context, as well as your pupils.”

This certainly resonated although I didn’t exactly feel that I was having identity problems, I felt it went some way towards my present quandary. She went on to say:

“I sensed yesterday as well, correct me if I’m wrong, that you are experiencing a feeling of failure. That you have in your mind an idea about some sort of linearity in the action research enquiry which you have to follow from A to Z through a number of graded stages. It must appear like that and perhaps it is my own ineptitude to express it any better which has led to that assumption. And that because at this stage in your teaching practice you should be somewhere else by now. You’re not sure where, but where you are doesn’t feel like it somehow. Am I right? Or have I got it wrong? You see, I’m worried that your sense of professionalism and your perfectionism are making you set standards that are simply unrealistic. I’m worried that you’re worried. The pressure you feel under, is, I can assure you, not something that any one of us (and me least of all) wants to make you feel under. Stress is the last thing you need at the moment. I feel certain however, that you are gaining valuable insights about the work you are doing, as I would expect all able student teacher to do. That you have now the possibility of putting that into some sort of write up which might inform others as well as you, I still, even after tonight, have no  doubts about that. Or do you interpret that comment as pressure? It is not meant as such!”

It is very true that I was struggling to accept the new phase my enquiry had taken.  I wanted to work with Lee but I felt restricted by my question.  I felt strangled by a lack of time - both within the school day and the rapidly decreasing amount of time left at school.
I now realize that I had ‘panicked’ and what I was doing was valuable within my own context.  In a paper written about the nature of an educative relationship Moira offers an explanation to the letter she wrote to me afterwards:

“In stressing reflective practice I wanted her to look at her reactions to what she was doing, and see that the ‘model’ of action research enquiries that she seemed to be carrying in her head, in such statements as:

	“to begin to really see and understand the results of your actions... the situation is too artificial, and it somehow seems unethical to rush through data collection, to ‘twist’ lessons to facilitate the enquiry...to see the enquiry as an experiment that needs an introduction, a method, and a conclusion - with evidence”,
was inappropriate. Her final statement as well which included the statement:

	“I will soldier on with my limited and not totally satisfying enquiry and look forward to the day when I can begin a real action research enquiry,”

showed me that her ideas about what a real action research report looked like, were unrealistic. Action research, like teaching itself, is not neatly rounded off, demarcated by time-peripherals which dictate our insights about teaching and learning, but couched in the best terms available, given all the natural time constraints of which all of us are aware in education. Action Research reports should mirror the times they narrate, should explain what they find and not what they want to find, and should put them in the real context of our working lives.”

Another letter written by Moira along the same vein as the first one came at a time when I the light was just about beginning to dawn on me.  She wrote:

  “More pressure!!! No, I thought I would simply write to say first, and most importantly of course, how pleasant it was to see you yesterday. You looked blooming... 
  I really do not believe it is too late to concentrate on Lee, because you’ve now found with your new insights that that’s where you’ve got to. What would be really good would be an analysis of how it is you’ve got to this point. 

To these comments I would like to say the following:
a) ‘it was quite unrealistic to think I could really tackle the task’
I would say to this that at the beginning as always, you weren’t aware of quite what the task was. That had to grow with your insights as they developed over the nine weeks. There are always constraints on teacher-time, whether you’re a full time, part-time, student or supply. I take your point about your frustration about time, but honestly Justine you’re never going to have the perfect scenario. We take what we can in teaching. Yes there will one day be more hours in the day spent teaching, but then you’ll have all the other constraints on your teaching time.
b) ‘I look forward to the day when I can start a real action research enquiry’. You see I think you already have. Teaching is messy. Action research is messy too. Sometimes it might be a competition between them to see which is the messier! You’ve found something out about your values in this teaching practice, as I think you knew you would. Of course your original question is not the only thing going on. Of course Lee is not the only child in your class. But where there is a need perceived by the teacher towards a particular individual, then isn’t it fitting that we should try and meet that need? I know that there have been times in my teaching career when I have given more time to a particular pupil because of her/his need. I have felt no qualms about at all. It has been, it seems to me necessary. If that were not the case then we should only as teachers concentrate on those pupils who were unproblematic and bright. Each according to her/his needs, it seems to me. I am not suggesting that you were talking about any kind of elitism here, but there are times, Justine, surely, when we need to respond to our insights, our intuitions, our feelings, as well as our raised consciousness, about what we are doing. I think that such an approach, when systematised can teach the self and others about the crucially human side of teaching, that can, as we have spoken about, be forgotten about in our too-formalised educational system.
c) ‘I feel that the situation is too artificial and it sometimes feels unethical to rush through data-collection, to twist lessons to facilitate the enquiry’...
I relate to this comment, although with the provisos in a) above, about time etc., I also feel that there is a value in simply reflecting deeply and systematically in a way which leads to action, however short the time is.
d) ‘I would have liked to work on the question of bias’. I think you are in a way already. I think in fact that all teachers are doing that although they don’t always refer to it in that way. If it has been a concern of yours and has been part of the reason about why your question took some time to come to the surface and has then modified (all perfectly bona fide), you may in fact quite legitimately include it as a part of your enquiry.

After reading this I wrote in my diary on 11.5.92:

“The letter from Moira came just at the right time.  It really helped me to clear things up in mind.  It is with renewed vigour that I shall teach my Year 10 group tomorrow.”

This now makes real sense to me.  So why did I change?  Partly because I had time to reflect on all the advice that had been offered and partly because of Lee himself.  As I continued to teach him I could detect a move forward in our relationship.  He seemed to be doing more and more work.  I began to comprehend that this was the inevitable direction of my enquiry and that was ‘O.K’.  The interval was over and it was time to get back in there!

Act Five
A New Direction

With the realization that it was both educationally sound and also justifiable in terms of an action research enquiry to look closely at my relationship with Lee I decided to waste no more time and to look at how I could help Lee enjoy learning.  This was no small order considering Lee’s attitude towards work and school in general.   I continued to see him as an individual and a person above being a pupil.  In a lesson evaluation on 28.4.92 I wrote:

“I walked in to the lesson and saw Lee straight away, I asked him if he had had a good Easter holiday. A perfectly fair question. A normal question that you would ask anyone. He looked at me very puzzled.  He then replied that he had had an O.K. holiday.  Lee asked suddenly if I had had a good holiday.  The regular class teacher,  was standing next to us and looked up in surprise. I too was pleasantly surprised that Lee had returned the pleasantry. I tried to brush it off as an ordinary conversation. However, I was most pleased that Lee had responded in that way. A simple incident  but one that shows that things are certainly improving because before Lee would have struggled to answer my question (me being one of the enemy after all). X also remarked on this little exchange after the lesson.”

A small event that shows that Lee and I really were building up a relationship.  Another such minor land mark was the incident of the ‘Doc Martens’. One day to school I wore my Doc Martens - with smart trousers I hasten to add!  This in many ways proved to be a mistake because the class were so shocked that they found it hard to settle.  Lee particularly could not take his eyes off of my feet!   I asked him what his problem was and he said that he just couldn’t believe that teachers wore DMs! The whole class was unsettled and so I made all the pupils chant “Doc Martens” so that they could get it out of their system so that we could then move on to more important issues.  I also threatened that the next person who said ‘Doc Martens” would be out of the class.  Not a tactic that I used very often but I felt that it was time to get serious.  Lee lasted quite well but about ten minutes from the end of the lesson, he had to utter it again.  He was sent out of the room which he and the whole class found quite entertaining. Fortunately the classroom is so designed that there is a lobby so that although he was out of the classroom, he could still hear the lesson.  At the end of the lesson he remarked to me that he thought my boots were great.  Again a small landmark because initially he would have not have bothered to make a pleasant comment to a member of staff.  Later that day I opened my pencil tin, which would have been open in the Year 10 classroom and I found a note in it.  Clearly written in Lee’s scrawl it said:

Doc Martens 

This obviously made me laugh and made me believe that I was finally getting through to Lee and getting him on my side. The words of the poem came back to me:

 “Before I try to teach you I must first reach you.”  

I believe that I was now beginning to reach Lee.  It was now time to see if I could actually teach him.

Lee’s Work

Lee’s goal each lesson appeared to be to get as little done as possible.  He had no desire to work and was determined to find everything boring.  When I first introduced Lee I related the story of how Lee refused to do a piece of work because he thought it was boring.  I responded to this by giving him alternative work.  This then became the order of most lessons.  I would sit up late at night producing work sheets that might be to Lee’s liking.  Often he would reject five or six worksheets before grudgingly agreeing to attempt one.  Quite often the worksheets were remarkably similar but Lee did not realize this.  

In a tutorial after teaching practice we were discussing differentiation.  The whole conversation revolved around differentiating according to ability.  I tentatively suggested that there was also a case for differentiating according to attitude.  Or perhaps another way of putting this would be to say differentiating according to personality. I had two things in mind when I suggested this.  Firstly, my belief in relevance - that is, my desire to constantly struggle to make lessons relevant to all pupils, and this may involve differentiating the work. Secondly, I was thinking of how I followed this belief through and differentiated for Lee.  My rationale behind that differentiation was not to suit ability, but to suit attitude.  I then explained this scenario to the rest of the tutorial group.  It was put to me that instead of ‘differentiating’ I was in fact just ‘acquiescing’.  I agreed that in fact I was indeed acquiescing, but this was certainly not a negative thing to do.  The implied comment (or ‘hidden agenda’) within the accusation of ‘acquiescing’,  I believe, here was that  it was wrong for a child to determine what s/he should do because if they did not agree to do what the rest of the class were doing, they were somehow failing to reach a predetermined set of standards and expected code of conduct.  I tried to show that in this particular case it was the only thing to do as well as the right thing to do.  I agree that with all individuals it would not be a suitable response.  Also on a practical level it would make classroom management particularly difficult if every child demanded her/his own work.  However, having said this, it is no different really to what we strive to achieve when we differentiate according to ability.  I am now aware that I believe that wherever possible, it is important to differentiate according to ability and personality.

 A word now about the Appendices. It is often a problem in collecting data that the purposes to which it is intended do not become fully clear until much later. Circumstances meant that it was not possible to get from Lee clearer copies of his work. What the Appendices mainly intend to show however, is not blunted by the poor photocopying. It is the increase in his preparedness to produce work at all which still shines through these pages. 

 Appendix A shows extracts from Lee’s exercise book.  Pages 1-3 are examples of his work before we started working together.  It was difficult to find some pages in his exercise book that had more than a couple of words on them. Pages 4-7 are from his exercise book when we were working together.  The standard he achieves at the end is not that of a high standard and quality.  However, for Lee this shows a marked improvement.  If the work was assessed in relation to the rest of the class, the work is distinctly below standard.  However, when the work is assessed relative to the work Lee usually achieves I believe that it is possible to say that there is an improvement here.  Lee only joined the school in December.  He had had a rather chequered school career, and  he was also a year older than the other members of Year 10.  Between the December and when I left in May, there were no actual marks for Lee in History (or Business Studies) because he had handed no work in.  I therefore felt that we were making progress when Lee actually handed in two pieces of work.  On 13.5.92 I wrote in my diary:

“I asked Lee today where his homework was because when I had marked the class set of books his was missing.  He said that he had not done it.  I very quietly said  “Oh”, hung my head and slowly turned and walked away.  I was determined not to have a scene because that would instantly switch him off.  As I walked away Lee called out “Ha got you, here’s my homework....”  I  could have jumped for joy.  Slowly I turned round and smiled pleasantly and thanked him for his homework.”

I will always remember that moment.  It was one of the high points of teaching practice.  This piece of work is page 7 of Appendix A.  The standard is not high compared to the rest of the class, but for Lee it is a real achievement.  That is certainly not to say that it is the best Lee can do, but it is to say that it is a meaningful start.  The very fact that he made the effort to sit down and attempt the homework is significant.  I was acutely reminded that education is about individuals and their own progress within an embroidery of other individuals.  It would seem that teaching is indeed about the dictum, “one rule for one, and one rule for another.”  Obviously, within that it is important to have some ground rules and some patterns, but these patterns should leave plenty of room for individual needs.  Perhaps this could be compared to the fact that the pattern is one that will ultimately produce a jumper (learning), but the details of the pattern, such as design, size, colour and so forth will depend on the individual requirements.  I am not sure what my pattern is exactly, I do not know how much I would be prepared to deviate in each circumstance.  I don’t know if it would ever be possible to define these parameters.  Perhaps that could be the basis of a future action research enquiry!

Farewell to Lee

On my last lesson with this Year 10 class I was presented with a card that the class had made each with a personal comment.  This showed to me that the lessons, to an extent had been enjoyed, and this connects to my original question of :

“How can I help Year 10 enjoy gaining an understanding of Nazi Germany?”

For ethical reasons it is impossible to show this card (there were some confidential comments about other members of staff).  Lee then, at the end of the lesson when the others had left, lingered to silently give me a hand-made bunch of paper flowers.  He walked out of the room making no comment and turned round when he got to the door and said “See you”.  I felt very sad.  I was also sorely sorry that our journey through the maze had to be curtailed.

Act Six
Conclusions

And so my voyage of discovery slows down a little (or is it that I am now at sea with nothing to look at, and with time to remember the places that I have been?)  It would be so untrue to say that the journey has finished.
How do I briefly conclude all that has happened without, in effect, reiterating the whole study?  What do I feel I have ultimately gained from my journey?  There are several people I would like to quote in this conclusion, for they encapsulate some of my thoughts.  David Hopkins says that action research is about:

“an attempt to enable teachers to become more self-conscious, systematic and critical about  their teaching with the aim  of improving it.  By so doing teachers will develop more power over their  professional lives and be better able to create classrooms and schools more responsive to the vision they and we have for our children’s future.”   

Action Research for me has meant that I am more “self-conscious” and “systematic” and “critical” about my teaching.  I hope that this will mean that I will contribute to making the world as better place for our children.  
On the level of how much of a successful action research enquiry this has been I have a real reservations.  I believe that there are certain practicalities that I did not implement and have possibly suffered from this deficiency.  For example, I had no critical friend who observed lessons on a regular basis.  Moira proved to be an excellent sounding board (and at times punch-bag!), but she was obviously unable to be a “critical friend” who could consistently observe lessons.  I also have no visual or audio evidence to either substantiate claims, or even to elucidate my classroom situation more clearly.  I have also not described any really disastrous lessons.  This is because I did not have any real disasters!  However, this shows me that I probably did not try anything adventurous enough.  Given more time after building up a relationship with the class I would possibly have tried some more ‘adventurous’ ways of attempting to help Year 10 enjoy gaining an understanding of Nazi Germany.

The study is, I believe, a discovery or perhaps realization and consolidation of my values.  The curtain that had been veiling my values (because they probably had been there all along, but I wasn’t fully aware of them - in fact they were probably waiting back-stage) had risen.  Sometimes I feel that this inhibits the demonstration of learning for my pupils within my classroom, in this study.  However, I cannot deny the importance of my own self-discovery.  So what have I learnt?

Fundamentally I have learnt that the individual is important to me, and important enough for me to do everything within my power to help those individuals to fulfil their own potential.  Moira often talks about “moving the world to a better place”, in the absence of this, perhaps I would like to move the students to a better world.  A world I would like to attempt to create in my classroom.

David Hopkins quotes Walt Whitman:

“Stop this day  and night with me and you shall possess the
origins of all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun....there
are millions of suns left,
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand
                  .............
nor look through the eyes of the dead....nor feed on
the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things
from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.” 

This sentiment of self-discovery and indeed discovering things for oneself (and they are not necessarily the same things) is also echoed in two lines from another Walt Whitman poem (which I cannot place): 

“Re-examine all that you have been told,
Dismiss what insults your soul.”   

In a way this is exactly what I have done through teaching practice.  I have examined what I deem to be important.  To attempt to itemize this list, or to attempt to summarize all that I have discovered would devalue my values.  They are not so tangible that they can be written down in list form.  Therefore, this study has attempted to show these values as and how they emerged.  Thus to tabulate my values would somehow seem to devalue and hence possibly even violate them. 

 I would now like to quote Zac:

“If this study has done nothing else, it has opened my eyes....to myself, and given me the incentive to pursue my idealistic nature, in a realistic manner,  if I am given the opportunity to do so!”     

 I concur with this sentiment and like the positive note it strikes.  It leads the way forward as well as reflecting upon past experiences.Daniela de Cet in her action research enquiry too concludes with the forward journey:

“It is because of the nature of action research too that this cannot be the sort of conclusion which has an ending. Instead I already have my next research question ready.........”      

Back to the wise sorcerer of Educational Philosophy.........He did not actually pay me a visible visit, and yet I believe that possibly one night whilst I slept he did visit and somehow internalized my values that helped me to help Year Ten. 

The Epilogue

The Dream Continues......

“Good morning, Year 10.  I hope you all managed to have a little think about the work we were doing yesterday..........”
I was interrupted by Lee putting his hand up. He seemed to have something very important to say and so I let him take the floor.
“Ma’am, I had this idea yesterday about how we might make this topic seem more real and relevant to us and so I discussed it with some of the others and if you don’t mind we would like to take over for a little while.  
As he paused from his excited outburst I had time to think.  Could I trust Lee and co. to take over the lesson......? Well, it was certainly worth giving it a go.
“How do the rest of you feel about this ?”
There seemed to be general murmurs of approval and no dissenting voices stood out.  I decided to hand it over to them and hope for the best.

What then happened was wonderful.  It would seem that not only had Lee had an idea, but he had also thought it through with the cooperation of others.  They proceeded to enact a scene where Jewish families were victimised for no other reason than their race, and they cleverly drew other members of the class into their sensitive empathy exercise.  I sat back and watched in awe as the class became caught under the spell of enjoyment.  They were enjoying what was happening.  Sometimes a few got a little carried away, but this was soon sorted out deftly by another member of what now seemed a family rather than a class.  I looked at my watch and realized that it was time to clear away before the bell went.  I was loath to break the spell and so sat tight.  The bell went and no one made a move.  The lesson went on into break and then finally at the end of break, like the Wicked Witch of the West, I shattered the spell and thanked them for a wonderful time and asked them to go to their next lesson.

The next lesson I had with Year 10 I approached with trepidation.  How could I follow that ? I need not have feared.  The class realized that that lesson was pretty special and couldn’t be repeated.  I moved on to the next part of the topic and was greeted with openness and enthusiasm.  Questions were fired and thoughts voiced.  Again it was a real shame when the lesson ended.

And this was the dream........the dream was to promote enthusiasm and joy of learning in my classroom.

I fell asleep that night thinking of my Year 10 class and awoke to realize that it had all in fact been a dream. Lee had not volunteered to direct the class.   They did not work through the bell.  There was not a love affair between learning and my Year 10 class going on.  It was all a dream.

I walked in to the class that day and went to the front of the room.  Laura and Lee approached me and asked me to sit at the back whilst they took over...................