TACTics Journal
Elementary/Secondary Tactics
(1) Stories from the Chalk Face: Dangerous Passion, Judy Holder, UK
Quote
(2) Rob E. Geraghty
Editors’
Note!s
(3) Kay Buckner-Seal, Cheryl A.
Edwards
(1) Stories from the
Chalk Face
By Judy Holder, United Kingdom
“Stories from the Chalk Face,” by Judy Holder, is a
collection of personal experiences using the TOCFE tools with students in
England. You will be able to read these
stories in the next two editions of TACTics.
I had to
move about 18 months ago, which meant looking for a new job. I haven’t done a job interview in a very
long time. I stopped teaching for a
while when my children were young, and when I went back to work it was because
someone who knew me had a job they couldn’t fill and asked if I’d take it on.
I didn’t know anyone in my new area.
I won’t tel!l you about how I used the tools to decide which jobs
to apply for, and to prepare for the interviews. I’ll just tell you that I really like my new job.
Since November I’ve been teaching children who are temporarily out
of school. There are three main reasons
for this. They can’t go-because they
are ill, or because of complicated personal problems. They won’t go-because they hate school. Or they are not allowed to go because they have exhausted the
patience of the schools they were attending and there’s been no decision about
what to do with them next. They are an
interesting bunch.
Judy
Rule one, when you’re working with seriously disaffected
youngsters, is that you have to start where they are, not where you would like
them to be. And for one 15 year old,
whose “temporary” absence from school has now lasted several years, where he
is, is motorbikes. I’ve tried many
things with him, and have had, at best grudging compliance. Until, quite by chance, I stumbled on this
passion.
Actually it’s quite a common passion, and it presents a dilemma
I’ve met before.
A: Be an effective teacher
B: Engage student’s interest
D: Exploit hard-to-reach student’s passion for dangerous high-speed
equipment in designing reading and language programme
C: Teach responsibly
D': Teach useful and appropriate content and skills
Assumption B-D
1. It’s the only thing I’ve found that really engages him.
This is true, and I’ve tried
very hard.
Assumptions C-D'
1. If I don’t fuel his obsession about motorbikes it will go away.
2. If his mother finds out we’re doing work about motorbikes she’ll
be furious- I’ll bet it’s already causing rows in the household.
3. His motorbike obsession isn’t my problem.
4. I can’t build a worthwhile programme around a passion for
motorbikes.
His obsession with motorbikes isn’t likely to go away, whatever I
do. And it is in fact my problem,
because sometime soon he’s likely to be riding around the streets where I live,
and telling him what a menace I fear he is likely to be won’t help.
So what it boiled down to was whether or not I could create a
programme based on his passion, teach worthwhile content and skills, and maybe
even reduce tensions in his household, as well as the potential risk to life
and limb in which motorbike owning represents.
I think it becomes pretty obvious at this point. We started with the question, “What’s going
to stop you owning a bike?” At first he
told me nothing could stop him, but once he realised that this was in fact a
real, practical question, he started to build the list of obstacles to bike
owning for himself. He knew what they
were. He worked out for himself that:
• He needs money to buy the bike and run it, which means a
part-time job.
• He needs a licence.
• He needs insurance.
• He has to pass a basic road test
• To pass the basic road test, he needs to do a specific training
course.
• He also has to pass a written test on
rules of the road, which means he has to know them and study them. (Which, by way of a small bonus, means
reading that he will want to do and to think about, so he will get some of the
reading practice and vocabulary extension he needs.)
• He needs his mother not to worry because a
friend of his got killed driving while drunk.
Then of course we could do the cloud. We used a story about a family arguing about motorbike riding,
and it wasn’t difficult for him to work out the adult side of this cloud. His injection was that he will demonstrate
that he is going to be a safe driver, by studying for the tests, and by keeping
in close touch with his mother, so she knows when to expect him home, and isn’t
worried that he’s drunk.
We thought about protective clothing. He did not understand why you need protective clothing for bikes
but not for cars. So we used if-then
logic to compare the consequences of accidents on a bike, and accidents in a
car, to compare the consequences of accidents with and without helmets, and to
consider what difference wearing protective eye gear and bright clothing at
night makes.
Of course, he believes that he is going to be a very skillful
rider. Consequently, he found it hard
to imagine that he could be at serious risk of injury; his skill would protect
him. It was possible to get him to
start to think about this by asking if all riders are equally skilled, and then
applying if-then logic to think about what might happen in encounters with
other road users.
I don’t know what the future holds for my student. I do know that telling him how dangerous
motorbikes are would not have achieved anything. I do know that he did more reading and writing, without
complaining, and with considerably more thoughtful engagement, than he had
previously been willing to attempt. And
although I don’t know if he will transfer what he learned to other situations
or the real world outside the classroom, I also know that he had an opportunity
to practice strategies for thinking through problems in a context that was very
meaningful to him.
(3) Kay Buckner-Seal, Cheryl A. Edwards
Kathy and Judy, thanks for sharing!
To our TOCFE, send us a connection, an experience, a wish, a quote, or a thought. You can send by mail to Cheryl A. Edwards, 2253 S. Hill Island Rd., Cedarville, MI 49719, USA. Or, you can send hyperlink to <redwards@sault.com> or <bucknek@earthlink.net.
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