The Grattan Institute recently released a report, Ending the Lesson Lottery, in which one of their recommendations was:
“Over the next five years, ensure every school and teacher has access to a suite of comprehensive, high-quality curriculum materials that they can choose to use and adapt as required.”
To any teacher who has stayed up late into the evening, Googling worksheets for the next day or who has considered paying for a resource, this should be welcome news. To new teachers who can and do get dragged under with the pressure of planning, this should be excellent news.
For what its worth, my school coordinates planning at the department level, meaning that teachers do not initially have to plan any lessons when they join us. Over time, they are expected to take their share of curriculum development. My school is mentioned in the Grattan report as a case study.
Note that the Grattan Institute is proposing something slightly different to what we do — lessons provided to schools from some outside source. I guess these lessons could be poor quality lessons that miss the mark. If so, according to the Grattan Institute proposals, schools and teachers can choose not to use them. So, at best, teachers will be provided with a set of lesson plan resources that will save them a considerable amount of planning time and at worst, they will reject them and carry on as before. There is no downside and a lot of potential upside. What’s not to like?
Apparently, there is plenty not to like. Over on the AARE blog, a group of authors that includes a teacher, a teacher educator and a researcher have slammed this plan in a post titled, “Distorted reports keep coming. This one will make you livid.”
Livid? Really? Why?
At first, the argument seems laboured. We should be considering other factors that affect teacher satisfaction rather than focusing on planning:
“What should we be talking about when we talk about teachers? Teachers’ pay, working conditions and the looming teacher shortage. What are media talking about instead? A commonly suggested ‘solution’ to address concerns about standards in teaching: pre-prepared lessons…”
I don’t know about you, but I can walk and chew gum at the same time. Why can we not address all these issues? For instance, in my last post, I focused on the negative effects of out-of-control behaviour on teachers. That doesn’t mean I am precluded from discussing lesson planning.
Setting this aside, what are the authors’ main contentions? Firstly, they seem concerned that the centrally produced resources may not be very good and be a ‘wasted expense for taxpayers’. Laudable though such a keen interest in fiscal responsibility may be, I am prepared to risk a very modest amount of public money — in terms of the overall education budget — on something that could reasonably pay back dividends in terms of teacher time, productivity and burnout.
However, the authors do not see this logic. They suggest the idea that teachers have to fend for themselves, scouring the internet for resources is, “a departure from any claims to objectivity,” despite being a situation I suspect virtually all teachers will recognise.
They make a confusing point about the paid resources teachers can already draw upon:
“There are already a range of paid options for teachers to access similar resources through sites like Twinkl, Teachers Pay Teachers, TES and others. Admittedly, these are paid resources; we argue it is unreasonable for teachers to pay for any curriculum resources out-of-pocket. However, even a ‘free’ version seems misguided because it does not pay attention to the work – and the expertise – that is central to teachers’ practice.”
It seems they are arguing that we don’t need a new source of lessons because these paid ones already exist. However, teachers should not have to pay for these resources but they also should not be given a free version. I’m a little lost.
The authors argue that lesson planning is central to the role of teachers and that free lesson plans would degrade the quality of lessons. Yet the reality is that a well thought-out lesson plan produced by a skilled curriculum writer is probably better than a resource pulled from the TES website or an algebra worksheet drawn from Google at 1.00 am. Teachers simply do not have the time to design wonderful lessons for every class from scratch themselves. That is a luxurious view of the work of teachers.
They authors suggest:
“…the assumption and positioning of highly trained and university-qualified teachers, many of whom have trained for 4 or more years, as vulnerable and ‘fending for themselves’ is odd.”
It’s not odd. Again, it is a situation most teachers will identify with and the idea that university training adequately prepares teachers to do their jobs is close to a poor taste joke.
However, in something of a revelation, the authors then make a statement that strikes me as new and sheds light on where all the anti-Grattan animosity is coming from:
“As with many things in education, the best solutions require humans to be empowered to find their own solutions. “
Humans are unique among species in that we can communicate complex ideas, strategies and solutions to each other. Instead of figuring everything out for ourselves, we can pick up where others have left off. As Isaac Newton proclaimed, “If I have seen further, it is because I have been standing on the shoulders of giants,” a statement that is pleasing derived from an earlier saying.
And yet educational orthodoxy denies this. Educational progressivism posits that nothing is truly learnt or understood unless we figure it out for ourselves. It posits the impossibility of communication when it comes to complex ideas. Which is, of course, very silly.
But it appears to be what sits behind the objection to pre-prepared lesson plans. Such plans are wrong because they mean each individual teacher does not have to figure out each lesson for themselves.
When we understand where this objection comes from, it becomes easier to dismiss it as the tired ideology we see elsewhere in education — an ideology that works against the interests of teachers and their students.
Totally agree with your observations here. Having a trove of decent lesson plans that match the particularities of the curriculum outcomes of a state is prudent.
I suspect much of the negative reaction stems from a concern for the autonomy of teachers in the classroom. Departmental policy already seems detached from the realities of the classroom, so substandard lesson plans perceived as required or mandatory would rub many teachers the wrong way. But from the perspective of a graduating student teacher, the provision of useful lesson plans linked to curriculum would be a godsend.
As usual the complaint seems odd as if true everyone involved should figure out the utility of the free plans for themselves and it is a waste of time to do more than ask the question.
A useful and coherent position from those who worry the free resources would be detrimental or wasteful would be to ask for a minimal pilot study before spending too much.