TACTics Journal

A Publication for and by TOC for Education Practitioners

August 10, 2001

 

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

 

ELEMENTARY/SECONDARY TACTICS

(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

Dangerous Passions

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.

 

QUOTE
(2)       The answer, maybe, is going out and doing rather than waiting.  If you wait, life will probably pass you by.  But if you go out and do the things you want to, take the risks you fear, you may just find that everything slots into place.  — Rob E. Geraghty

 

EDITORS’ NOTES

(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. 

 

 To view TACTics in its intended formatting and to read previous issues, visit the TOC website at: www.tocforeducation.com