Book Review: Why Teach? by Ben Newmark

Why Teach? by Ben Newmark. Published by John Catt. £14

One of my new year’s resolutions was to read more books. I intend to review those that are relevant to education. Two warnings though. 1) Any links to Amazon will be “associate” links potentially earning me a few pennies. 2) A lot of these books have been sent to me by people I know, so I’m completely biased. 

This is another one of those little books from John Catt, which is probably best bought at a discount or in bulk. It’s a collection of essays about teaching. Although the title seems philosophical, other than the final chapter the focus is on accurately describing what it is like to teach and giving advice. It would be well suited to NQTs and others early in their careers. It might be best to read when, having had a fair bit of experience of standing in front of a class, you start to wonder about the point of what you are doing, and everything else going on in your school.

Chapters include “Why doesn’t my school’s behaviour system work?”; “Why are there so many spreadsheets in my school?”, and “Why is everyone so scared of Ofsted?” These, and others like them, are describing the experience of working in a school and how to deal with it. The character of the writing is that of the sort of conversation you might have with a more experienced colleague in your first year of teaching, when you start to wonder whether the many of the things you are are doing have a purpose and if you are doing the job correctly.

The tone is upbeat even when the descriptions of school life would seem cynical to a non-teacher, or equivalently, depressingly realistic to a teacher. It isn’t a book to put you off teaching, even in chapters such as “Why is there more work than it is ever possible to do?” and “Why is teaching making me so sick?” Most chapters have a “What to do” section, balancing out descriptions of what can be a challenge to teachers with solid advice on how to overcome these difficulties.

The exception to this format is the last chapter – the title track – “Why Teach?” which is a reflection on the purpose of being a teacher. This is an intelligent, philosophical discussion reminding us that what we do in the classroom is not some indirect step to some ambitious greater goal, but a worthwhile activity in itself when you believe that what you teach has inherent value.

Like most of the books I’ve reviewed so far, a lot of the appeal of this one is the honesty and accuracy. I don’t remember many books like this when I started teaching. Honest books written by a teacher, for teachers, are a reminder of how much there is to be gained from learning from those still within the profession. This book is a good demonstration of the way that teachers still spend their time thinking about teaching, and probably with greater sophistication than those who are often given the most prominent platforms to tell us what to do.

Book Review: The Truth About Teaching by Greg Ashman

The Truth about Teaching: An evidence-informed guide for new teachers by Greg Ashman. Sage Publishing. £17.28 on Amazon.

One of my new year’s resolutions was to read more books. I intend to review those that are relevant to education. Two warnings though. 1) Any links to Amazon will be “associate” links potentially earning me a few pennies. 2) A lot of these books have been sent to me by people I know, so I’m completely biased. 

This book is aimed at new teachers, not those of us who have been in the job for a while, but I still loved it. It’s exactly the book I could have done with 20 years ago. A guide to teaching with a twist. The twist is that the content is true and useful. There are no claims that engaging lessons will solve behaviour problems. There are no claims that group work and chatting in class will mean better learning. There’s no Bloom’s Taxonomy, brain gym or attachment theory. There’s no chapter on SEN that pretends that being on a list makes everything different. There’s just how to teach, based on the evidence.

The best part though is that the whole book is framed around the actual history, debate and research in education. There is no claim to be above it all, and no assumption that nowadays all disputes have all been resolved in favour of progressivism. Alternative ideas about education are presented and an evidence based case is made for what actually works. Explanations are given for what is effective and how we know it’s effective, alongside practical advice, and some exploration of current controversies such as phonics, and the use of technology.

Greg is based in Australia, but he worked in schools in England (at their worst) for years, so the book is somewhat generic in what it shares. It’s not a guide to teaching in a particular country, just a guide to teaching. But that is probably the reason it gets its priorities right. I think it’s the first book of it’s type that I’ve seen which puts the chapter on classroom management before the chapters on learning, motivating students, teaching, planning and assessment.

The case is made for explicit teaching: actually telling kids the stuff they need to know and making sure they learn it. This is accompanied by advice on how best to do it, and the limitations of the alternatives. The references are thorough enough that it would also serve as a good guide to further reading about the ideas in the text.

I don’t imagine a book like this will be appearing on too many PGCE reading lists any time soon. Even if ideas about explicit teaching weren’t anathema to the ideology of many university education departments, the idea that teachers should be uncovering “the truth”, by use of reason and evidence, would be. I can, however, imagine teachers recommending it to their new colleagues. It’s a useful place to start your reading about teaching if you’re just starting out, and a good recap if you’re not.

Book Review: The researchED Guide to Explicit and Direct Instruction. Edited by Adam Boxer

 

The researchED Guide to Explicit & Direct Instruction: An evidence-informed guide for teachers edited by Adam Boxer. Published by John Catt Educational Limited. £12 

One of my new year’s resolutions was to read more books. I intend to review those that are relevant to education. Two warnings though. 1) Any links to Amazon will be “associate” links potentially earning me a few pennies. 2) A lot of these books have been sent to me by people I know, so I’m completely biased. 

This is one of those short, but packed, education books that are probably best bought in bulk, or on special offer. This one covers the benefits of explicit instruction, the history of Englemann’s Direct Instruction, and more detailed explanation of how his ideas might be used in practice. In the end, I think I’d rather have seen more of the first two and rather less of the third.

Having become a teacher in an era where teacher talk was demonised, I think it’s great to see books about the value of explicit instruction. The most interesting chapters are those that talk about the history of Englemann’s Direct Instruction – a method of explicit teaching based on carefully designed scripted lessons – and how it was vindicated by a massive research trial entitled “Project Follow Through” – but somehow subsequently neglected for being against the tide of educational opinion.

Other parts of the book explain the benefits of explicit instruction in general, but also outline what was unique about Englemann’s contribution. A lot of the chapters explain how Englemann sequenced his work through various principles that determined what examples, and patterns of examples, would be most effective. While it’s intellectually interesting to see the connections between pedagogy and reasoning, a lot of these parts of the book assume the reader will have a lot of time to plan examples and sequences of instruction which, unfortunately, is not the case for a lot of classroom teachers. Perhaps those parts of the book are most useful for those creating resources, or planning curriculums.

Some chapters give examples of applying Englemann’s ideas in practice, but in some cases these examples are probably too subject specific for those unfamiliar with the topic to get much from. I was completely lost in the chapter about teaching electrolysis, but more at home in the one about teaching fractions. There’s probably a gap in the market for anyone who can find a way to write about these ideas without relying too much on subject specific examples. Alternatively, what may be needed is subject specific books on these ideas.

Overall, this book reads like a starting point, and perhaps the aim is to get people engaged with a wider body of work that is already out there, rather than a source of ideas that can be immediately applied. Somewhere I have a copy of Englemann’s Theory Of Instruction, and this book certainly increased my enthusiasm to get started on it.