Teacher in the Cupboard

Self-reflective, solution-focused teaching and learning

Lisa Jane Ashes

• Publisher: Independent Thinking Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781781353257
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

In Teacher in the Cupboard: Self-reflective, solution-focused teaching and learning, Lisa Jane Ashes takes educators on a self-reflective journey that will inspire them to challenge the 'how to', tick-box approach to teaching.

Even if all the problems in your classroom have been solved by the time you read this, plenty more would surface to take their place... And while each problem has multiple solutions, you'll need your creativity in order to find them.

In this book, Lisa explores how spending time 'in the cupboard' - a metaphor for removing yourself from a situation and seeing it through a more objective lens - can help teachers come up with creative solutions to everyday challenges and positively transform their classroom practice and human interactions.

Teacher in the Cupboard encompasses Lisa's many and varied observations in education - and each chapter includes real-life experiences to make you think, as well as practical techniques to help educators avoid retreating into self-blindness: a common affliction that robs them of their perception of their own contribution as part of the teaching and learning process.

Brimming with fresh perspectives, the book presents a wide range of innovative ideas to enable educators to harness the power of self-reflection and create a stimulating learning environment that produces excellent results for them, their students and their colleagues. It also talks teachers through a number of methods, approaches and resources that will enable them to instil in their learners a sense of satisfaction derived from the learning skills and behaviours being developed in the classroom. These materials are collated in the 'Resource Cupboard' section at the back of the book, offering adaptable - and downloadable - resources that Lisa has used to successfully enhance learning in the classroom.

Suitable for NQTs, teachers and school leaders.

Part I

THE VIEW FROM THE
CUPBOARD: STUDENTS

Chapter 1

GET SOME PERSPECTIVE!

Student’s perspective

As I sat in my cupboard one day, a teacher took a child aside during a lesson to discuss unfinished coursework. The student had been in the learning mentor’s office earlier that day, beside herself in panic, crying and looking for help. Her parents had just separated and she was unsure where she was going home to that night as both parents wanted custody. Home wasn’t the easiest place to do coursework and she had arranged to have time out of another lesson to try to get her mind on her work. This teacher either didn’t know any of this or didn’t care, and quickly launched into a verbal assault. I heard and saw it all. The class did too.

Imagine the high-pitched, shaking voice of someone who has lost their composure as you read this:

What’s wrong with you? I’ll tell you what, you’re lazy! Why should I have to teach you? Why should I have to spend every night awake worrying about making sure you get a good education when you don’t care yourself? Do you know the level of effort I go to for you? You deserve to fail this subject. Don’t you know that this is such an important subject, if you do fail, you will fail in life?

Inspiring, right? Did her admonishment work? No. The child never came back into lessons after that day. It was almost exam season and the school wrote her off, allowing her an early ‘study’ leave.

Have you ever taken your emotions out on a child? Why?

Try a daily mantra when working with frustrating children: no emotional response!

Teacher’s perspective

Despite the teacher seeming to be the villain here, she was trying to do the best thing by the child. She wanted her to hand in coursework. Doing so would have improved her chances of passing a subject that is required to get onto many college courses. Instead, she succeeded in turning her off school. This same teacher had been pretending to have hay fever for the past week. I saw her crying in her classroom, but her eyes were not red from pollen. She had been the talk of the staffroom because of her unsatisfactory results. Everyone knew her teaching was substandard. She was always given the bottom sets to avoid her failing any of the ‘important’ students. She was on a programme designed to manage teachers who did not deliver out of the profession.

This teacher did not want the student to fail, but she did create the failure. The child was finding her world unbearable. The teacher was adding to that pressure because the pressure she was under herself was bubbling over into the classroom. Communication and mutual understanding was lacking. Neither party could step back and look from the perspective of the other. If only they could have stepped inside the cupboard to view the reality of their situation. Both teacher and student were blind to themselves and to each other.

How often do you stop to look from the perspective of others?

Do your moods follow you into work?

As time went on, I witnessed senior leaders making fools of themselves by following a ‘how to’ guide to management, teachers in tears over poor behaviour, teachers unable to cope with heavy workloads, managers unable to empathise with those beneath them. Why couldn’t they see that what was going wrong was caused by their own behaviour? Their teacher gremlins were creating this insanity, and problems were being perpetuated rather than solved. My vantage point gave me an enlightening view. Perhaps everyone should spend a year in a cupboard in order to witness the craziness that people inflict on each other every day! By staying in the same old rut, these teachers had become blind to themselves, to their potential and to their impact on others.

It wasn’t all bad. I witnessed the most amazing teachers taking ‘difficult’ children on learning journeys too. Maths was always alien to me and yet the maths teacher got down to the level of his students (my level), and I learned more in that classroom than I did in five years at my own secondary school. I got to spy on what worked and what didn’t, and I had the time to process this and apply it to my own development. The power of observation began to shape my understanding of education practices. My cupboard observations continued, even when I escaped to a new school. I remained hooked on understanding what was going wrong for students (like me), what was getting in the way of success for teachers and leaders, and what we could do to put it right.

Stop, look and listen

Before we move on to the next section, a quick reality check is necessary. As teachers, we deal with human beings – students, parents and colleagues. People don’t always respond in the way we hope or expect them to. Approaching any difficult situation requires care and a recognition of the humanity in the other person. I often use mantras to avoid my emotions clouding my conversations. Remember this and create your own with this understanding in mind.

Inventing on-the-spot ‘cupboard time’ for yourself can improve your relationships and your ability to deal with emotional situations in the moment. Gaining the perspective of those around you requires you to put your ego, emotions and gremlins to one side. The teacher I just described acted in the moment. No breaths were taken, with the result being detrimental to the future of the child. Could she have stopped? Could she have questioned? Could she have taken a route that kept the student in school?

The gremlin got the better of that teacher. She wanted to assert her power to show the child exactly how angry her actions had made her. The gremlin in your head will get in the way of positive outcomes during emotional exchanges too. ‘Who does she think she is?’ ‘Why doesn’t he understand what I’m trying to say?’ ‘How dare they …?’ We can’t control the actions or words of others, but we are responsible for our own. We need to know when to stop and assess what is really going on.

You can get into your metaphorical cupboard at any time – when a student is being difficult, when a colleague is stepping on your toes, when a leader is being overbearing. These are the times when you should seek out the other person’s perspective. Observe the voices in your own mind and be aware of your initial reaction, but try to not act on it. What is the bigger picture? Why is the other person acting like that? What is their motivation? What could be done to create positive outcomes for all? Fight your inner self-preserving anger and bring yourself into the reality of the moment.

We can’t jump inside the minds of those around us. If we could, we would either all get along a whole lot better or we would never talk to anyone again! In the 2000 film What Women Want, Mel Gibson is granted the power to see inside the minds of women. Selfishly, he uses this power to further his love life and career rather than improve his relationships. What would you use the power for? In fact, you can have that power – not in a supernatural mindreading way, but by better understanding others and their situation. You can only try to understand other people’s point of view by looking at the clues they are giving you. Whoever presents you with a difficult conversation, an emotional exchange or an infuriating demand will become the subject of your cupboard time.

Listening is easier said than done. To listen, you must empty your mind, be present and hear what words are being said, as well as observe how they are being said. What is being verbalised can give you clues to the deeper issues within, but so can observing more subtle cues like body language and facial expression. If you are listening but waiting to get your point across, you may miss the subtleties that non-verbal cues are giving away. A raised eyebrow, tightening of the lips, movement of the body away/towards you – the shoulders, arms, legs and feet all give clues to the inner realities of that person.1 If there is conflict between you and another person, careful listening is far more likely to resolve that conflict than bulldozing them with your own opinions. Even if you get your perspective across and get them to change theirs, you have likely made an enemy for life.

Questioning is an essential element of listening. Careful questioning can help us to find out why the other person feels/thinks/acts in the way they do. As you will see in the examples below, we often make up reasons for ourselves to explain why our students are behaving in negative ways, rather than questioning them further to find out the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part I: The View from the Cupboard: Students
• Part II: The View from the Cupboard: Teachers
• The Resource Cupboard
• Bibliography
• Copyright