Personal Productivity

Saying “no”

 Ideas, Information, Personal Productivity  No Responses »
Oct 242012
 

I heard yet another tail of woe yesterday, a headteacher on the sick 2 weeks before an inspection, deputy and assistant heads in the dark, teaching staff demoralised. Rather sadly, it is a very common story which I hear far too regularly.

To follow the stereotype through I would expect the head to have had a leadership problem, not delegated sufficiently well and not managed the staff.  If this was baseball that would be her error, a stolen base and potential RBIs (hey, its the world series on Wednesday, Detroit versus San Francisco…). But in an organisation like a school the error is often not that easily attributed and I would look at the governors and the deputies as having let the school down as well.

Somewhere along the line someone didn’t say “no” when they should have.

Saying no is one of the hardest things to do in any workplace and something which is accentuated when the management structure is fractured or wobbly.  You should be able to say no without fear of retribution or ridicule.  You should be able to say no with a clear conscience and mutual respect. You should be able to say no, but I bet you can’t.

We are almost hard wired to not be able to do it.  It might be something we were trained out of in our youth, saying no to your parents, for example was not allowed and saying no to your own teacher was also something which would have led to a punishment of some sort.  You can check if you can say no, by doing the “sending food back in a restaurant” test… If the food is slightly cold what do you do?  Put up with it or send it back?  If you can send it back then you have most of the ‘saying no’ tools in your briefcase, if you struggle and would probably choose not to “cause a scene” then we need to do a little more work and go and look at assertiveness, one of my favourite topics.

Assertiveness is the cornerstone of being able to say no and we’ll come back to it in other posts.  You can find quite a lot of excellent material on line already.  It is also one of the best one day training courses you can go on. Crack assertiveness and saying no will follow…

The Straight

 Inspiration, Personal Productivity  No Responses »
Oct 122012
 

This video was used to provoke debate in staff development sessions.  It asks a very simple question about learning, school, examinations and life.  Do you ever step off the straight?  The film always provokes some good discussion, and a lot of comment, particularly about the cyclists breathing!

Please feel free to use the film in your own staff development sessions, here are some questions and prompts to get things going.

1) In this school, what is the straight?  Just how much is set down and formally required?  Just how flexible is the curriculum?

2) The cyclist clearly has a sense of adventure as a lot of risks are taken and there is a lot of potential danger.  What are the risks in stepping off the straight in this school?  Is there really, truly, any danger?

3) Who would you need to speak to about stepping off the straight?  Is it right that you have autonomy in your classroom and the freedom to do what you want without clearing it with anyone?  Head of year?  Head of department?  Headteacher?  What would the headteacher say anyway?

4) Why do you think the film is called “The Straight” and not “The Straight and Narrow”?

5) How do you measure it?  Everything is measured in school so how do you measure a journey where you are not sure where you are going?  What would OFSTED say? How do you show the value of using your own initiative?

6) You may know of some alternative approaches to education that value ‘the journey’ more than ‘the destination’.  Why do we not value these approaches more in this country?

Brain Pickings, Procrastination…

 Personal Productivity  No Responses »
Sep 272012
 

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/09/21/the-science-of-procrastination/

I wouldn’t go as far as call it a plague, as others have, but I do think many of us suffer from procrastination issues and don’t have any solutions for it.  This excellent little video from ‘Brain Pickings’ is probably just what you need to start to put some measures in place to make your work time more productive.

One hour of focused work is better than 2 hours of fannying about.

‘Brain Pickings‘ are one of the inspirations for A* to G, do check out their excellent site and donate if you can.

New (academic) year resolutions

 Ideas, Personal Productivity  No Responses »
Sep 022012
 

Here we go.  If not tomorrow, certainly this week. If in Scotland, probably last week. More than likely though, it is time to get back to work and start the new term, and for some of you it is your first day at work, teaching a proper class of your own.  Good luck.

It has not been a particularly quiet Summer.  It’s not been a Summer which has recharged batteries and prepared us to deliver an inspiring and dynamic education experience.  It’s been full of stuff.  Stuff which we could have done without.  It’s been a political Summer (and a wet one) where I’ve had to stop myself from posting angry articles almost everyday (new term resolution No. 1 – no angry posts). Not only have we had GCSE issues, we’ve had free school problems, governor problems, University problems, employment figures problems, NEET problems, A4E problems, G4S problems, funding problems and my guttering gave out in all the rain.  Not a great Summer at all.

What we have to do in times like these is focus on the task in hand which is being great teachers and taking our enthusiasm into the classroom. In this spirit I want to talk about what you are going to change this year, your new term resolutions.

You probably realise that new year resolutions, traditionally made in the first week of January are doomed to fail.  We stop going to the gym, we do have a glass of wine, we do loose our resolve and revert to the old comfy ways.  It’s just human nature.  We still make resolutions because we know that we are not perfect and can identify some steps to make things better.  We just don’t keep them.

New term resolutions are the same.  We probably wont keep them, but it is great to analyse the work flow, identify the areas where we could improve and have a go at coming up with some solutions. Do the paperwork on time, have some more time for year 9, give better feedback, be a better mentor, be a better coach – that sort of thing. But you can make these thoughts more effective, even if you do fully realise that you are not going to keep them after half term.  Tell someone, and ask for their support and assistance, share.

Once you have someone with you on the journey you gain extra support and extra perspective and have a better chance of coming up with a work flow which is sustainable and might survive a term or two. It might be your colleague in the department, or just a friend in the staffroom.  In an ideal world it would be your line manager, but we all know that is not going to happen. Discuss your thoughts with your team and get them to do the same.

If only AQA had talked to OCR and Edexcel it might have been a different Summer for everybody.

Briefing – Episode 58, The JamHub

 Ideas, Personal Productivity, Technology  No Responses »
Aug 142012
 

My experience of rehearsal rooms when I was young was that the equipment would be ropey, your ears bled afterwards and would ring for days, and that you shouted so much that your throat was ruined for at least a week.  Oh, and there was always a disgusting old sofa in the room somewhere.

I think those days might thankfully be over.  This means you can rehearse with headphones on and control the mix you get without ruining everyone else’s experience.  And no shouting, talk through the microphones at all times.  That way you need never take them off while you rehearse.

The secret is “headphone busses”, normal mixing desks will provide you with one, maybe two or three headphone outs, which have their own controllable mixing sections.  This device designs that feature up front.  Each headphone out, has it’s own mini-mixer section allowing individuals to set exactly what they want to hear. without changing anyone else’s mix.  These individual busses, yes, that is the word, give the JamHub its USP.  Each feature is colour coded as well, meaning that if you are plugged into green, your sound will be on green right the way through the unit.  Once you see the colour coding, it speaks for itself, not that the manual isn’t pretty good as well.

I’m guessing that cheaper versions will crop up soon, but I would council against trying to save money on these devices and urge you to teach how to use them safely and carefully before you let anyone rip them to shreds. They are solidly built, but tape two of them together any you’ve got a frisbee.  As I’ve said elsewhere before, run a little course that trains people how to use them and rewards the right to have access to the equipment in lessons, breaks and lunchtimes.  Having clued up and trained learners in the classroom will repay itself in no time.

Have a look at the JamHub website here for ideas on how they can be used in the classroom and experiment yourself. I much preferred using the JamHub to my Behringer mixer for practicing and I would be very interested to hear how you do use these in the classroom.

No money has changed hands and no promises made to JamHub or its distributors, but I would  like to thank Steve, Andrew and Tony for the loan of the equipment.

Briefing – Episode 56, Deadlines

 Ideas, Inspection, Personal Productivity  No Responses »
Jul 202012
 

A word crops up in here which many people have problems with.  Assertive – Lots to say on assertiveness that we’ll save for later, but a crucial skill for all teachers is to be assertive.

Draw a line in your mind.  At one end write the word aggressive and at the other, passive.

Aggressive is not good.  If you are in any way aggressive education is not the industry for you, you should leave before you get sacked.  Passive is not good.  If you are in any way passive education is not the industry for you, you should leave before you get sacked.

Assertive is right in the middle.  It’s features are firm but fair. Honest, truthful and clear.

I think I’ve made my point.

Drive

 Information, Inspiration, Personal Productivity  No Responses »
Jul 032012
 

We’ve posted about the rather wonderful book exploring motivation “Drive” by Daniel Pink in Briefing 21.  Well, here’s an opportunity to hear Dan himself in the rather wonderful RSA animate series.  This explains such a lot.  It helps with class management.  It helps with why we teach at all.  It explains why Barclays Bank did what it did and it explains why it won’t get fixed all that quickly.

This could be the best 10 minutes of the day.

Incidentally, hope you don’t mind the break from videos.  Stu and I are just so busy at the moment we’re suffering from a lack of editing time…

Briefing – Episode 46, 5 Top tips for email

 Ideas, Personal Productivity, Technology  No Responses »
Apr 062012
 

Getting your inbox to zero is a problem we will all probably face at some point in our working lives and some schools really don’t help by creating a fog of notes, adverts, queries, edicts, agendas, minutes, reports, gossip and “stuff” which is almost designed to make your email time a waste of time.  Taking control of email is something which can have a great impact on your life and some of the starting points are really quite easy to implement.

What do you do if your inbox is already out of control?  Say over 500 unread emails or more?  Declaring email amnesty might be worth considering.  delete anything over 2 weeks old and start again.  Go on, order it by date, select all, unselect the last 2 weeks and press delete… have you done it?

Try to get control of your email, you won’t regret it…

Let us know your stories in the comments section below and please subscribe here or over on YouTube.

Briefing – Episode 41, Batteries

 Information, Personal Productivity, Technology  1 Response »
Mar 022012
 

Do try and cut down on your reliance on alkaline batteries and replace them with rechargeable ones.  There are a bewildering array of types and chemicals being used but really any rechargeable is better than using disposable.  You can get great batteries and chargers in sets from Jessops and Maplins in the UK and I’m sure you will have no problem elsewhere. They feel pricey, especially when you will probably want to buy more than 8, but remember that they are a once in a lifetime purchase – well they should last you enough time for them to become obsolete!

The EEV blog http://www.eevblog.com/ is an excellent place to go for more technological information, delivered by Dave Jones in his own idiosyncratic style.  Dave’s battery post is here.

Don’t throw your used batteries in the bin, make sure they are disposed of properly.  How do you dispose of your used batteries?  Is there a simple and convenient system in place for you?  I think B&Q have a battery bin in their stores, but if you know of anywhere else do let us know in the comments section below and please subscribe here or over on YouTube.

Briefing – Episode 39, Scotland’s education world

 Information, Personal Productivity, Policy  No Responses »
Feb 182012
 

I’m as guilty as anyone as saying “UK” when I should be saying “England”.  So let’s give the Scottish education system some deserved time and have a look at the differences between the two, and yes, we’ll look at Wales and Northern Ireland as well soon.  I’ve deliberately not talked about skills and apprenticeships here, we’ll do a post on that shortly.

Calling calling – anyone fancy doing a 5 minute post on the education system in their part of the world?  I know we have viewers in the USA, Mexico, Canada, Japan, Eastern Europe and elsewhere, so email me at info@astartog.co.uk and we’d be delighted to include post them.

Have you taught in other countries?  Do let us know at info@astartog.co.uk and please do subscribe either here or at our youtube channel.

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