One of the privileges of my role is that I get to interview a lot of teachers for positions at my school. We are aware that we are quite different to many other schools and so we use the interview process as much to explain the school to the candidate so they can decide whether it is a fit for them, as we do to decide whether the candidate is a fit for the school. We do not want people joining us under any misapprehensions. We want people to enjoy working here.
There are two aspects we are particularly keen to clarify. Firstly, we use an explicit teaching model. In the questionnaire we send out prior to interview, we mention Rosenshine’s principles of instruction because this is perhaps the most succinct description of an explicit teaching model.
People have funny ideas about explicit teaching and we are keen to explain that to us, it is a whole system that gradually moves from teacher to student. Concepts are fully explained and procedures are fully modelled before students are asked to make use of these concepts and procedures. However, there is a lot of checking for understanding and guided practice — our lessons are highly interactive with students often answering a question every couple of minutes on their mini whiteboards — and the end result is students working independently on complex problems or producing complex products such as essays or works of art.
We know we are different because the visitors we host at our school and who observe our classes tell us that we are. However, it is surprising how often candidates will tell us that, although they may not have heard of Rosenshine before, they teach that way already.
And we talk about the way we structure our curriculum. We jointly plan everything down to each lesson plan and we map out when each lesson will be taught. A new member of staff joining us will not have to plan a single lesson, at least in their first months. Instead, they will have to prepare to teach from the plans they have been given.
This has many upsides, we explain. For instance, The Grattan Institute suggests it saves teachers about three hours per week. It also makes it less of a lottery for students — it no longer matters quite so much which teacher they are assigned. And it aids our process of incrementally improving the curriculum. The first step in agency over a curriculum is knowing exactly what it is.
Teachers will still bring their own personalities to lessons, but we are aware that for many teachers, our approach represents a loss. They want more autonomy over exactly what happens in class. They will be used to closing the classroom door and being left to get on with it, particularly if they are experienced. That’s fine. It’s a legitimate perspective that many effective teachers will hold. It just means that we are probably not the right place for them.
Again, when we explain this to candidates, we are frequently told that they already plan curriculum in the way we do.
Despite our best efforts to clarify our teaching approach, we still occasionally appoint new members of staff who are surprised when they are expected to follow it.
I was reminded of this odd phenomenon in the response to an article about explicit teaching by Christopher Harris published this weekend in The Sydney Morning Herald. I was drawn into the discussion because I was quoted in the article, approving of the idea that explicit instruction was being prioritised in New South Wales but sceptical that anything could be achieved with a single day of training.
This article prompted much harrumphing: It’s not either / or between explicit teaching and inquiry. It is a boring issue that the silly journalist really shouldn’t have written about. Everyone already uses explicit teaching (although some, telling, don’t seem to quite know what it is).
At one point, I was challenged on my suggestion that explicit teaching is not common in Australian schools. What wide-scale and rigorous research was I basing this on? Obviously, I am not basing it on any such research, just what I learn from speaking to teachers, many of whom describe in great detail how they have been discouraged from using explicit teaching for many years.
I think there are a few factors at play here. Firstly, I think a lot of teachers really do think they are using explicit teaching. If a teacher stands at the front and gives students instruction on where to find the resources for the investigation they are about to do, that’s clearly an example of inquiry learning, but the teacher may think: standing at front + talking = explicit teaching.
And when students don’t learn much from inquiry learning — as they won’t — teachers will inevitably backfill. This ‘resort to’ explicit teaching is again not the type recommended by research. Neither is the kind of generic exposition that teachers will often default to. It tends to lack the decomposition and interactivity associated with an application of Rosenshine’s principles. I know because, for years, this is how I guiltily taught. Why? Because I thought I was supposed to be using inquiry methods, couldn’t get them to work and assumed the fault was mine. I did not know what effective explicit teaching looked like.
This is why a wide-scale research project is unlikely to resolve the question of how prevalent explicit teaching is. Define it elastically and it will be everywhere. Define it narrowly and it will be hardly anywhere. It is for the researchers to pick the definition that will deliver the results they want and we know that the mainly progressivist ranks of our education faculties will want to prove that explicit teaching is both everywhere and wrong.
Does any of this matter?
I am not going to convince anyone who took to Twitter to express their outrage at Harris’s article, but I’m not trying to. Sometimes people mistakenly think I am in the persuasion business but I don’t see it that way. If I was, I would be using all those manipulative ‘nudge’ strategies that governments deployed to make us wear masks during COVID and the like.
Instead, I see my role as setting out what I believe to be true in a marketplace of ideas. I don’t feel particularly constrained in how I do this. Sometimes I build a case patiently and sometimes I use hyperbole and humour. If people find the ideas convincing then that is due to the ideas, most of which are not my own. I am happy to help those who are drawn to these ideas but if you’re not drawn to them then that’s fine. I have nothing riding on it.
What I tend to find is that I can have a public argument with someone on Twitter, convince them of nothing and then find out from silent onlookers that they were watching and making up their own minds. This is the value of debate. It tests ideas and helps third parties decide where they stand.
I guess some people find this a bit annoying. I guess they find me annoying, particularly if I am doubting cherished beliefs that they have confidently espoused or based their life’s work on. That really is too bad.
However, if you want to chat about effective explicit teaching and what it looks like, you know where to find me.
I think lots of secondary teachers are somewhere between 'ok' and 'pretty good' at explicit teaching. I think of my Yr 12 History classes about 7-8 years ago. I was good at delivering concise lectures, but not as good at revisiting content as I could have been (I used a weekly rather than daily review.) I was good at teaching essay writing using a gradual release model, but often skipped the 'we do' phase when teaching other skills/content. I was good at whole class/individual feedback on assignments, but feedback during lessons was greatly lacking.
I would have told you I was teaching explicitly (I, and others, had actively pushed against an inquiry model at our school) and I guess I was, I just wasnt doing it as well as I could have. What I know now is that really good explicit teaching constitutes consistent, deliberate practice.
I think most secondary teachers who love their content area can get on board with EDI, but they need to see it in action and/or have it explained properly and meaningfully- not coming from a vague news article like the ones we see about 'going back to basics'.
The main thing I have noticed arising from this debate is the Dunning Kruger effect. Commentators exposing how little they know and being so unwilling to learn. I think your approach is a good one - see who is open minded or fence sitting and present them with information and evidence. You could have quotes Project Follow Through but I doubt it would have made a difference.