Yesterday, Greg Ashman wrote a Substack post, The case for shared planning. Greg teaches and does leader stuff at Ballarat’s Clarendon College, and his post discusses a couple aspects of the school’s approach to teaching, arguing for Clarendon’s approach while noting that it may not be every teacher’s cup of tea. Greg begins by noting that Clarendon is “not into marking”. There’s a discussion to be had here: grading is exhausting and abhorrent but assessment and feedback are important, and so arguably there is an unavoidable conflict. My own manner of dealing with this might be described as empathetic anarchy, but I’ll leave discussing that for another time. Grading is not the main focus of Greg’s post.
Greg is primarily concerned with describing and arguing for Clarendon’s approach to lesson planning and in particular the school’s approach to parallel teaching, where the same subject is taught by different teachers to different classes. Of course a large percentage of school teaching involves such parallelling. Greg writes,
The second point I make is that if a teacher comes to work at Clarendon then, initially, they won’t do any lesson planning at all. Instead, they will be given all their lesson plans — well, unless they are in a subject only one teacher teaches, perhaps.
The “perhaps” should not be overlooked.
When a teacher prepares to teach one of our mathematics lessons, they learn which methods we use to solve a particular class of problem. Our plans come with fully worked answers to all the questions that are asked in class.
Greg is upfront about the pitfalls of this centralised approach and the individualistic counterarguments, and we’ll get to this. But before that the obvious question that comes to mind is, how good are Clarendon’s lesson plans?
Reading Greg’s post, I stopped at this exact point and pondered: “Huh. I wonder what Clarendon’s lesson plans are like. I wonder if Greg would show them to me.” I then read on:
I would be the first to accept that our curriculum is far from perfect. Imagining an expert like Marty Ross looking over our maths curriculum brings me out in a cold sweat.
At which point I broke up laughing.
Greg is safe. I’m not going to ask him to reveal Clarendon’s lesson plans. In any case, I would likely be less critical, or at least less judgmental, than Greg seems to imagine. Greg notes,
No doubt, there are many nuances a professional mathematician would pick up that could improve what we do.
This is very likely true, and my guess is that the suggested improvements would involve more than just “nuances”. But it is really not that big a deal.
Teaching is a marathon undertaking, class after class after class, year after year after year. It cannot be about perfection, or even about excellence. It is about coherence and consistency. A teacher wants to be hitting the fairway, time and time and time again. If her drive is a little shorter in order to make that more likely then that is absolutely fine. That is much better than shooting for the green from a mile out and hooking into the hazards. And if the teacher hits into the light rough on occasion, that is part of playing well. A par is a very fine score, particularly given the current triple bogie offerings of ACARA and the textbook publishers.
I would guess that Clarendon’s lesson plans are, in the main, solid and good, or at least good enough. Clarendon is a strong enough private school to piss off the Murdoch populists and I respect Greg’s attention to detail; it is not nothing that Greg can imagine Marty the Doomsayer staring over his shoulder. Sure, improvements could undoubtedly be made, and I think Greg mischaracterises the difficulty:
A suboptimal curriculum that everyone follows is better than an optimal one that is understood and deployed only by some.
I think that is a contentious point, but it is a side point. The central point is that it is suboptimal to imagine that an optimal curriculum is attainable for everyone, at least right now in Australia.
Accepting that Clarendon’s lesson plans are up to scratch, having shared plans obviously saves everyone a hell of a lot of work. Perhaps even more important, Greg makes a very strong case for predictability and consistency:
… the advantage of having every worked solution available is coherence. We no longer have students at our school who might be taught short division in Year 5, then long division to solve the same class of problems in Year 6, and then some variation of short division that looks slightly different to the previous version in Year 7.
The underlying point, which Greg makes but too softly, is that the Australian Curriculum is utterly useless in this this regard, vague and disconnected to the point of meaninglessness. ACARA could just declare when this or that division algorithm is to be taught – if ever, which is no gimme – but they fail to provide even the remotest hint. They are useless beyond measure. So, where does a school go for consistency? To the textbooks? Well, sort of, except that the publishers follow ACARA’s idiotic not-lead as well as indulging in the publishers’ own fetish for neon-lit nonsense.
Greg doesn’t say it out loud but it seems to me that Clarendon’s centralised planning is directly making up for the disgraceful dereliction of duties of ACARA and the publishers. In an ideal world, in which Australia had a clear and solid curriculum presented in reliable and well-written textbooks, there would be much less argument for Clarendon’s overlording. But we are not in an ideal world, or even a moderately sane one, and so I am comfortable and happy with Clarendon’s approach.
Sort of.
I am too much of an individualist to be that happy with such overlording, and I am writing not only to praise Clarendon’s approach but also to bury it. Or, at least to throw a little dirt on it.
To begin, Greg notes that handing teachers the lesson plans on a platter may tempt some to under prepare, and to then monotone their way through the class. There’s not much to say about this. Greg notes, in more diplomatic language, that idiots are gonna be idiots, whatever the system. Much more of a dealbreaker is the apparent mode of delivery of Clarendon’s lesson plans:
… yes, most plans are housed in a PowerPoint presentation and I know that upsets some people.
This doesn’t upset me: it nauseates me. PowerPoint is one of the great crimes against humanity and pedagogy and staying awaky. If PowerPoint is used as more than an extravagant overhead projector, to do anything other than to display the previous lesson’s summary and/or the current lesson’s skeleton, then the teacher is screwing up. If Clarendon demands that teachers use PowerPoint as more than a summary tool then Clarendon is screwing up.
PowerPoint is a symptom, however, not the fundamental issue. Greg appears to be anything but a fan of individuality. He wants the classes to be the same:
[Shared lesson planning] also reduces variability between classes. A student may not like Mr Droning very much. They may think he is dry and boring, but at least they are not going to worry about missing out on something that Ms Passion is teaching next door.
This is way underselling both the nature and the value of individuality. To begin, it is not simply a case of Boring versus Entertaining. Teachers are able to grab and keep the attention of their students in their own many individual ways; constraints on that individuality can come at a big cost. Moreover, even if it were simply a matter of entertainment, of Droning versus Passion, that would not be all bad. A no-frills class can be a relief after one high on theatrics, and vice versa. Variety is pleasing and, within bounds, can offer its own good lessons.
Having said that, and the revolting use of PowerPoint set aside, I wonder how much Clarendon’s scripting genuinely cramps teacher’s individual style and technique. Teaching is always about the interaction rather than the delivery of a script. A good teacher will always be on the lookout for a doubtful frown, and she will always be willing to pause and to go off-script, to check if those doubts are shared and to de-doubt whomever needs de-doubting. Teaching is always human and even with a tight script that can still be done very well (and very badly), even with revolting PowerPoint, if the school culture permits it.
So, a little dirt on Clarendon’s overlording, but not too much. Except on the PowerPointing. They gotta stop that. But on the main point, my guess is that Clarendon’s shared lesson planning does not cramp teachers’ individual style all that much and there is plenty of upside. The lessons may be much more similar than at other schools, but my guess is that Greg is somewhat overselling the Team thing and that Clarendon’s lessons are still very much a lottery. Which is a good thing.
If you want to see how we make use of the revolting PowerPoints, this video is good, if a couple of years old:
Ugh!
I was in this presentation, I remember being impressed with the overall system and the clarity of purpose behind it. The thing I most wanted to take from it though was the spaced practice lesson starters which seem like a great idea. I was less convinced by filling each class from start to finish with PowerPoint led practice on mini-whiteboards. Surely there’s a case to be made for some variation, some of the time?
Thanks, YT. I have not seen mini-whiteboards in practice, but I had previously had them lauded by a teacher I respect, and they intuitively sound like a great idea to me. The PowerPoint stuff still seems appalling. Always.
I am in the middle of writing a follow-up post, which touches on deeper issues of Clarendon’s “purpose”.
I’ve taught at schools which have had this approach, and I can see its advantages and disadvantages.
When I started teaching it was great as it meant I could focus my attention on other matters. I was also working with some very experienced and some very young teachers who were willing to do things differently. It was a great environment – the experienced teachers learnt something as did the young teachers. The main thing though was we all shared resources and acknowledged that while Teacher X might present something differently to Teacher Y, we knew the same content was being delivered.
However, all of us young teachers grew and learned how to develop our own lesson plans and structure. We still shared resources, but there was an understanding that we had grown and matured. The key though was we all valued each others ideas and we had robust, but respectful debate on the content and ways to teach it.
But this method falls apart from you have teachers who just take the work of others and don’t contribute. I have known of at least one staff member who wanted this system in place so they basically didn’t have to do any planning. It also means that staff will often take materials from a school and use it elsewhere.
Ironically I left my last school because everybody had to teach the same thing at the same time. Lessons were even pre-recorded. It was stifling as someone who wanted to do things differently – when you raised a concern you were told that we all had to do everything the same, despite knowing it wasn’t necessary it the students’ best interests. Even was so bad that even the students and parents compared their child’s notes.
Thanks, Anonymous. (ps Please don’t use “Anonymous” as your name. Variations of “Anonymous” are fine.)
I would assume all schools coordinate and share resources to some reasonable degree, and this is obviously a good thing. But that still leaves a huge variability in the extent of it all. Watching the video that Greg links above, it suggests (and I have no reason to doubt) that Clarendon is very tightly coordinated, but in a human and flexible and feedbacky manner. It was what I imagined from Greg’s post and I liked it (except for the PowerPoint). And I still don’t think it stops the lessons being a lottery, which I still think is a good thing.
Regular teachers are probably better placed to comment on the “this method falls apart” bit. In general, teachers seem pretty generous about sharing their work but there will always be leeches and I know it’s frustrating.
Your last paragraph suggests a post-apocalyptic parody of what Clarendon does.
This is a fascinating topic. It seems obvious that the thousands of students being taught by a novice using a lesson plan created by the novice and untried before would be better off if the novice was working from a tried and true plan and focused on other aspects of teaching.
It is also obvious that a single mandated plan at a state level might be stifling. But in between is not hard.
I also don’t get the concern with social loafing. It’s annoying but no reason not to share the work with the willing. It has no cost.
Thanks, Stan. I don’t know that anyone is advocating “a single mandated plan at a state level”, but *some* sense of what the hell is supposed to be taught and when would be kinda nice. To take Greg’s example, what are students supposed to learn about algorithms for integer division, and when? I can find absolutely zero solid guidance on this, which seems absolutely insane.
If we were in Singapore, I very much doubt that Clarendon’s model would be so attractive, at least to me. We are not, and so it is.
I think you are wrong. Social loafing has a cost.
I don’t see anyone advocating the single plan. I do see that as the individuals only straw man.
Social loafing has a cost but not for those sharing their work on lesson planning. There are extremes where a loafer takes credit for others work but in this cases those doing the work can publish so there work is credited to them. Here publish can be just putting their name to a group contribution.
At my school we have a mix common lessons and individual lessons.
A very capable teacher from a while back made very good resources, so many of the teachers use those or base their lessons on them.
Also, we all use the same textbook for a course. This is what gives a commonality to our lessons – students get exposed to the same variety and scope of questions.
However, there is no stipulation on how to teach a topic. Our program does mention important aspects of a topic students should cover but it’s up to the teacher on how to achieve that.
My faculty has generally good teachers who know what is required to teach a topic well (or as best as we can). So being very prescriptive with lesson plans seems unnecessary and would come off as overbearing.
I could see if the quality of teachers varies a lot then prescriptive lessons would help reduce the lottery.
Thanks, Potii. Yes, a decent textbook, based upon a decent curriculum, is the usual way to keep a common thread. Much much harder now.
I can see how many teachers would find Clarendon’s system “overbearing”. Greg acknowledges that, and seems basically to have a live and let live attitude. I’ll admit, I’m conflicted by it all. When I hear about teachers Sullivaning their kids to death, I am much less inclined to live and let live. I would also probably find Clarendon too constraining, but probably less than people imagine.
I’ve been pondering this, and chatting with people offline, and I’ll probably post again, tonight or tomorrow.
Clarendon maths teacher here to defend (explain) our use of PPT.
I can only really speak to the Maths Department here, but our use of PPTs is as a collection of questions. This is done to ensure staff follow a clear sequence, have a myriad of questions available for use and save time in the lesson, both to avoid having to handwrite questions on the board or have students copy these down (huuuuuge waste of time). It means the focus is purely on teaching, displaying a question, and then having students complete these.
What I used to plan at my previous school for an entire lesson makes up maybe 10 minutes of work for my students at Clarendon – cutting down on copying/writing and having to source my own questions is one of the biggest time-savers and allows me to get through more content, and my students to practice more questions.
Thanks, CMT. You won’t convince me. But, pretending that you might, may I ask a question?
You suggest that using PowerPoint saves time otherwise spent having students copy questions down. How? Do the students have after-class access to the questions, and solutions, and if so then how?
My guess is that if anyone can do centralised planning well, it’s Clarendon. I assume it’s done in a non-authoritarian manner, which is the only way this could be successful. There’s a lot to be said for the process of lesson planning in terms of the dialogue generated (though of course given just how busy teachers are these days, finding the time would not be easy). My understanding is that it’s a whole school culture (the Clarendon way), which suits some teachers but not others (hence the upfront description of their methods). Certainly they get excellent results for VCE.
I suspect there’s a spectrum from where all teachers do their own thing with no textbook (would hate this), through the standard textbook with suggested exercises through the Clarendon way to the old East Germany where you knew that each class was studying the same thing at the same time across the country.
Having autonomy is something I really enjoy in teaching and the ability to respond to a specific class in a manner I think most appropriate is one of the things I find most rewarding. Of course this only works if I have a reasonable textbook. Having been micro-managed in the last few years by a Head of Maths who was less competent than myself, probably puts me more at the autonomy end.
One of the things I’ve noticed is that over recent decades, teachers have lost autonomy as well as power – but it’s something that doesn’t seem to come up much these days in discussions, when the research shows that power is linked to good health outcomes (the Whitehall Study).
Thanks, JJ. I’m not sure why you suggest Clarendon is “done in a non-authoritarian manner”. It sounds pretty authoritarian to me.
I am really conflicted by the teacher autonomy thing. Like adolescent kids, I think autonomy is a freedom that teachers must earn, for which one demonstrates readiness. But I don’t witness, at least at large scale, any such demonstrations.
Hi Marty – it’s all relative of course. But there are multiple ways of being top-down – from the dictatorial to the one who listens to reasoned argument and works sensibly (perhaps more like and old patrician model). I don’t know Greg or Clarendon, but I’ve seen Greg’s writings and they’ve been up-front, so my guess is that some rules are very clear, but they know what they are talking about and willing to listen to reason and adjust. My most recent experience with top-down was just a crazy dictatorship (clothed in the modern way with lots of ‘values’ and much pretense etc etc).
As to autonomy, there’s not much choice about earning it – who with power is going to tell maths teachers what to do – ACARA? VCAA? MAV? Not to mention that there’s a huge shortage already and telling people that having paid 2 years Masters’ fees means they aren’t ready for autonomy is a big ask I’d have thought. The issue is not the autonomy, it’s the training they’ve received.
Ultimately change usually occurs as a combination of carrot and stick – top-down and bottom-up. The project of convincing people is important. Even simple things like sending some secondary maths teachers out to primary schools and explaining to them the implications in algebra for kids without timetables would be a simple start.