e=mc2andallthat

The task of an author is, either to teach what is not known, or to recommend known truths by his manner of adorning them.

Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, 27 March 1750

I regret to say that, for me at least, blogging has become a habit that has been more honoured in the breach than in the observance. And, judging from a conversation or two on Twitter, I haven’t been alone. A number of edu-bloggers also seem to have hit a dry spell.

Some ask: what’s the point? What have we actually achieved? In a typical school, how many teachers actually read any edu-blogs? Outside the edu-Twitter bubble, has anyone ever changed anybody else’s mind, ever? Humans can generally change their location easily enough, but as Horace observed mordantly many years ago, “Who can change their mind?”

And yet. Reading blogs and engaging in Twitter conversations has changed at least one person’s mind: mine. And one of the most important things it taught me was: I was not alone.

I wasn’t alone in thinking that group work was over-emphasised as a panacea to the point of absurdity. I wasn’t alone in thinking that Learning Styles seemed a bit dodgy. I wasn’t alone in believing that a teacher should, on occasions, be an unapologetic sage-on-the-stage and not a permanently-muted guide-on-the-side.

And, in my opinion, a number of things have indeed changed for the better. Ofsted still has issues but it isn’t the educational Thought Police which brooked no dissent from the One True Path that it was a few years ago. A significant part of the credit for this should go to the edu-blogging pioneers who pointed out that a number of its policies had no clothes, and did this using evidence and reasoned argument rather than merely relying on a set of appeals-to-educational-authority as was the style at the time. I would single out @oldandrewuk, @tombennett71 and @daisychristo as being particularly influential in this regard, but there were many others.

I agree with @larrylemonmaths‘ comment that “When the stonemason hits the rock, the first 99 times, it seems like nothing is happening, then suddenly, on the 100th blow, the rock breaks apart. It’s important to keep blogging and talking and arguing, even if it seems like nothing is happening.”

So if we are to continue blogging, what should we blog about? Whither Edu-blogging? in other words.

If I was to highlight some current issues that I think would benefit from more people blogging about them, they would be:

1. Markopalypse Now: why are most teachers in most schools marking so much? When did insane amounts of over-marking become the new normal? Do people realise that written marking is not the same as feedback and that the majority of marking is being undertaken to comply with school policy and a misguided idea of “what Ofsted wants”.

2. The Bonfire Of The Greyhairs: why are so many experienced teachers leaving the profession? Are some of them being forced out because of budgeting pressures with manufactured “performance issues”? Is there any other profession where the wisdom of long-serving colleagues is not only sidelined as an irrelevance but actively rejected?

3. Accountability Roulette And The Culture Of Fear: research suggests that the “teacher factor” is responsible for between 1 and 14% of educational outcomes. Why, then, are teachers judged as if they are accountable for 100%?

No doubt I will blog on other issues besides the ones above (assuming that I blog at all!), but I will try to contribute to the tap-tap-tap of stonemason’s chisels on the adamantine rock of these problems at least.