The Burnt Out Teacher

The Burnt Out Donkey

In which the cause of Eeyore’s gloom is revealed

Illustration by E.H. Shepard, from ‘The House at Pooh Corner’ by A.A. Milne

Christopher Robin, Pooh and Piglet kicked their way through the crisp snow, sending sparkling crystal-flurries high into the air, until they finally reached the corner of the field just beyond the pine-wood. Here they found Eeyore deep in contemplation of his house of sticks.

“Good morning, Eeyore,” said Christopher Robin, brightly.

“Is it?” he replied, without raising his head. “I hadn’t noticed. Too busy.”

“How are you?” asked Pooh, with a scarcely-concealed trace of reluctance because there was always the likelihood of receiving an honest answer.

“Oh, mustn’t grumble.” Eeyore paused. “I could, but I won’t.

”We’ve come to have a Serious Talk …,” Christopher Robin began.

Eeyore lifted his head. “Well, as soon as you’ve all finished, let me know, as I expect you’ll be off then and I’ll be pleased to say goodbye to you. In the meantime, I’ve got Things To Be Doing.”

“… with you, Eeyore.”

Eeyore said “Ah”, and “Oh”, and turned to give them his full attention, or at least as much as he could spare.

“You see, everybody’s noticed that you are always gloomy, and that you don’t much like company, and that you seem tired all the time, and that you don’t feel appreciated, and, well, to cut a long story short, – ”

“Thank goodness for that,” interrupted Eeyore.

“ – for far too long your Very Sad Condition has been the Heffalump In The Room”.

“Heffalump! Where?” squeaked Piglet loudly, reaching out instinctively for Pooh’s paw, his ears twitching in agitation.

“Quiet, Piglet. This is serious, remember,” said Pooh in a stern voice, then he squeezed Piglet’s paw and whispered reassuringly, “There is no Heffalump”.

Eeyore looked at Christopher Robin, then at Pooh, then at Piglet, then back at Christopher Robin again. “You mean you noticed?”

“It’s been hard not to. We’re two books in, Eeyore, and your low mood shows no sign of lifting. So we consulted Owl, because he knows everything, and he says that you are a Burnt Out Donkey.”

Eeyore considered this for a while. The others could hear him quietly rolling the words ‘Burnt’, ‘Out’ and ‘Donkey’ around on his tongue like a particularly prickly thistle.

“I’m The Burnt Out Donkey,” he suddenly said aloud, in a moment of realisation.

“A Burnt Out Donkey,” emphasised Christopher Robin. “There will almost certainly be others out there but, yes, within Hundred Acre Wood I suppose that you are indeed The Burnt Out Donkey.”

“Are all these capital letters really necessary?” asked Eeyore.

“I think they lend our discourse an air of gravitas,” replied Christopher Robin, parroting Owl’s turn of phrase, which was odd because Owl was an owl.

“Gravitas? Like when Tigger fell out of the tree and everyone landed on me?”

They all thought for a while. Christopher Robin scratched his head, Piglet tugged on his ear, and Pooh – well, Pooh rubbed his tummy, mainly because it was now past eleven o’clock and surely time for A Little Something. “Yes, I suppose so,” said Christopher Robin hesitantly.

“Well that hurt. Does being The Burnt Out Donkey have to hurt too? ”

“Owl says that it will for a while, but after you have had a long rest and looked after yourself then you will start to feel better. And since those Canadians pathologised our patterns of behaviour –

“And so they should, treating us like that,” interjected Pooh, “Saying sorry is the least they should do. A jar of maple syrup would be some recompense.”

“ – since then, Owl has become a Qualified Psychotherapist and he says that he can help you recover,” said Christopher Robin.

“So he has capital letters in his title too?” Eeyore asked, with just a twinge of disappointment.

“Yes. A capital Q and a capital S. I wrote the sign myself, for him to hang outside his consulting room.”

There was a moment’s silence, punctuated by the rumblings from Pooh’s tummy.

“What does Owl do to help exactly?” Eeyore tried not to appear too interested, but his curiosity was piqued.

“Well, he says that he spends all day listening to people’s problems, nodding wisely and asking occasional questions, until eventually they figure out the solution to their problems for themselves. A sort of sounding board.”

“I’d be bored too, listening to people’s problems all day,” admitted Pooh. ”But what he does is very clever. And quite reasonable.”

“Owl says that being a Burnt Out Donkey is the result of chronic stress,” chipped in Piglet, hoping that it sounded as if he understood what he was saying.

“Well, he’s right there,” Eeyore snorted. “There’s never a moment’s peace around here. I spend all day trying to mind my own business – because someone has to see to all these thistles – and I am constantly bothered by visitors. Then there’s the not-so-small matter of Tigger falling out of the tree so that everybody landed on top of me, and your stripey friend even bounced me into the river. And as for my house, well… they say that moving house is one of the most stressful experiences in life, but it wasn’t me that moved, it was my house. Literally a moving house. Imagine the stress involved in that.”

At this point Pooh and Piglet exchanged anxious glances, but Christopher tried to cover their embarrassment by saying cheerily, “Owl thinks that you should take time to realign yourself with your values. He says you may even want to do new things, like write a blog.”

“I don’t suppose anyone would read it,” said Eeyore but, catching the concerned expression on his friends’ faces, he added, “although I might give it a try.”

“That’s the spirit, Eeyore. You’ll soon be better.” Christopher Robin put his arm around the old grey donkey’s shoulders and hugged him so tightly that Eeyore found he was unable to speak, and the North wind suddenly blew so icily that he found he had tears pricking his eyes. At least that’s how it seemed to him.

Pooh patted Eeyore on the back. “Let’s call on Owl now,” he said, hoping that maybe Owl would offer them all A Little Something while they were there. “Then how about a game of Pooh Sticks afterwards, Eeyore?”

“Okay,” said Eeyore, surprising everyone, even himself. He shook his head and his mane briskly, swishing and swooshing them back and forth so that the snowflakes that had settled on him during their conversation flew in all directions. Piglet squealed with delight as they floated down again, and he danced a jig from foot to foot (because by now his feet were just a little bit cold) as if he were inside a giant snow globe. Christopher Robin and Pooh laughed at Piglet, and Eeyore smiled just a little, and they all set off together to Owl’s house.

The nose tap

Actually, let’s talk about it

‘Jolly Old Santa Claus’ illustrated by George Hinke 1958

I experienced differing reactions from family, friends and colleagues when I first suffered with mental health difficulties at the beginning of this year. Most people were sympathetic and wanted to understand how to help. Others disappeared without trace never to be heard from again but, while that is a matter of regret to me, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps they, or someone close to them, have their own experience of mental ill health, and it was all too close to the bone. Perhaps they were overtaken by the events of the pandemic and were struggling with the many difficulties it has brought with it. Or perhaps they just couldn’t think of what to say, tongue-tied as we often are when faced with others suffering physical illness or bereavement, for example.

However, the most curious reaction I experienced was the nose tap.

This gesture, a tap or two to the side of the nose with a straightened forefinger, is apparently peculiar to western cultures, particularly British and American, and carries a variety of meanings. It can signify everything from “I know something you don’t” to “This is our shared secret” to “Let’s not talk about it”. It features in the well-loved poem ‘A Visit From St. Nicholas’ by Clement Clarke Moore, as St. Nicholas bids farewell:

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;

In one of my favourite films, ‘The Sting’ starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford, the grifters use the gesture as a signal that the long con is on. It can even be used to indicate that a euphemism is being employed, a physical version of “If you know what I mean … nudge, nudge, wink, wink”. The body language experts claim that its meaning is very much dependent upon context.

What did it mean in this instance? I really can’t be certain. The conversation took place early on in my illness and was tangentially relevant to it, but the parting shot from my interlocutor was the nose tap before turning to walk away, leaving me feeling confused and distinctly patronised, for surely none of the possible interpretations of the gesture looked good in the context of our conversation. While I can respond compassionately to the ‘wall of silence’, this reaction to my illness seemed to me to be stigma made visible. That feeling stayed with me for some time and the incident was instrumental in my decision to set up this blog and to become involved with the Time to Change campaign that aims to change the way people respond, by opening up the conversation surrounding mental health.

And what is my view of the incident after all this time? Well, in recalling it now for the purposes of this blog post the use of the gesture seems alternately forgivable (for the reasons outlined at the start) and risible. Mostly risible, I’ll admit. But at least the person involved has – unwittingly – inspired me to challenge stigma, however minor. Now excuse me while I go and watch ‘The Sting’ again, and work out how many sleeps there are until Christmas.

Awe walks, not autopilot

The best medicine for Earthlings

A report in the New York Times last month highlighted a recently-published psychological study into the benefits of so-called ‘awe walks’ for older adults. Participants in the study took weekly 15-minute walks for 8 weeks; half of them were instructed to include the experience of awe during their walk while half formed a control group with no particular instruction. Awe is defined in the study as ‘a positive emotion elicited when in the presence of vast things not immediately understood’; awe walk participants were directed to undertake their walk somewhere new if possible, but not necessarily outside an urban environment, and to pay attention to details, whether a panorama or the dappling of sunlight on a leaf. Both groups were asked to document their walk with a few selfies along the way.

Remarkably, the researchers found that this simple intervention of a weekly awe walk impacted the participants’ emotional wellbeing and the social connection experienced outside the context of their walks. Self-focus was reduced, which is significant because it fuels negative emotions that can accompany some detrimental effects of aging such as anxiety, depression and social disconnection. In the most surprising result of the study, over the eight-week period the faces of the awe walkers became less dominant in their selfies, with greater emphasis given to their surroundings. Now, much of this may be somewhat subjective but nevertheless the conclusions of the study into awe walks are intriguing. As Virginia Sturm, associate professor of neurology at UCSF and leader of the study, says, ‘There is no downside”. And while the word ‘mindful’ seems to be attached to just about anything these days, including walking, the cultivation of awe while walking is certainly a new twist on this.

The beneficial aspects of walking as a pastime are well-documented. Hippocrates himself, the father of medicine, said “Walking is man’s best medicine’, and writers from Thoreau to Solnit have extolled its benefits for our physical health and mental wellbeing. Walking is often prescribed by GPs for patients experiencing mild depression as a first step (ha!) in their treatment. This is fine provided that one is able to escape the lure of rumination – otherwise one is simply ruminating outdoors rather than in-, as I know only too well. To counteract the tendency of the brain to dwell on the past or to worry about the future, we ruminators need a method of ‘being present in the moment’ in order to broaden our focus. In her book ‘The Burnout Solution’ Siobhan Murray describes her delightfully idiosyncratic method; she imagines connecting with her extra-terrestrial friend the Purple Alien on her walks. “Anything and everything I see I mentally relay to him as I see it. Because here’s the thing. If I’m consciously aware of my surroundings, the smells, sounds and sights, I’m not thinking about what to cook for dinner, or what bills I have to pay”. She does not suggest that one’s virtual companion has to be the Purple Alien, and indeed it wouldn’t work for me for a very particular reason. He instantly brings to my mind the series of children’s books by Jeanne Willis (brilliantly illustrated by Tony Ross) featuring Dr. Xargle, an alien (green) who passes on his accumulated knowledge of Earth, Earthlings and their civilisation to his attentive alien students, even conducting occasional field trips in disguise. The books were much-loved at storytime in our family, mostly by me (“Stop laughing, Mummy. Read.”). So, Murray’s Purple Alien idea does me good, but perhaps not in the manner intended. Maybe laughter is actually the best medicine?

No, it’s definitely walking. Instead of the Purple Alien I remind myself of the sense of wonder that young children bring to the most mundane of walks. Years ago, the 15-minute walk home from dropping off my older children at primary school could easily stretch to an hour or more as the youngest unclipped herself from her pushchair (!) and insisted on walking. En route every snail climbing a wall, every dandelion growing through a crack in the pavement, every bird’s feather caught in a spider’s web, was examined in forensic detail and with a running commentary to boot. Awe was to be found in the prosaic – and it still is, if only we adults remember to take the time to stop and stare.

Eunoia (yoo-NOY-uh)

Powerful, poetic and quirky

You know, I think I’ve found my new favourite word.

I love words more than numbers.

There, I’ve said it. It’s out there now and cannot be unsaid. It’s always been assumed (mostly by me) that, as a Maths teacher, I am a mathematician at my core, but my recent experience of mental ill health has forced me to rethink this assumption. It has also rather oddly suppressed my enthusiasm for the subject. Depression can do that to you, making you lose interest in things that you thought were fundamental to you. From an objective standpoint it has been fascinating to observe many of my interests gradually return one by one as I have recovered. But not Maths, maybe because it is the passion most closely associated with work, the source of my burnout.

In truth, I’ve always loved words more than numbers: their power, poetry, and etymology. Their quirkiness too. It was while looking online at such gloriously untranslatable words as mångata (Swedish: the path-like reflection of the moon on water) and iktsuarpok (Inuit: the anticipation of someone’s arrival that makes you repeatedly check to see if they are here yet) that I happened upon the Ancient Greek word eunoia.

Eunoia: in Ancient Greek rhetoric, the goodwill a speaker cultivates between themselves and their audience, a condition of receptivity.
Wikipedia

Here is a word that ticks all the boxes of power, poetry, etymology and quirkiness – and, remarkably, that is connected to both teaching and mental health, the two keystones of this blog. Let’s get the quirkiness of eunoia out of the way first: according to the Guinness Book of Records it is the shortest word in the English language to contain all five vowels. (It apparently counts as English because it has been ‘acquired’ from the Greek. A bit like the Elgin Marbles?!)

Its power? Well, eunoia so very concisely conveys that special connection that is forged by a speaker who has truly bonded with the audience, that sense of mutual goodwill in the room. I believe that the concept of eunoia need not be restricted to the public speaking of Ancient Greek rhetoric but can be extended to the classroom too. Here the interaction is clearly two-way between teacher and students rather than the one-way street of formal oratory, but nevertheless a teacher can develop with a class a sense of common endeavour anchored by mutual respect, where everyone is ‘on board’. I’ve experienced it as a school pupil, aspired to it as a teacher, and seen it in lesson observations with colleagues, but it is clear that it is a fragile and unpredictable thing. Even the very best teachers will admit to having some classes with whom they simply do not click.

To develop eunoia in the classroom is no easy task, but there are certain factors that seem to me to underpin it – confidence, consistency, and humour – but not just in the sense most often promulgated in teaching manuals. Confidence: yes, the teacher needs confidence in her own ability to teach, but I mean the confidence she must have in her students, her belief in their potential. I’ve seen supremely self-confident teachers who hold sway in the classroom but who will, in the privacy of the staffroom, routinely bemoan or belittle the efforts of their students, presumably as they see their students’ errors or poor performance as a personal affront. A good teacher will have confidence in her students’ ability to achieve well regardless of setbacks and will communicate this confidence to them too. Eunoia is, in the rhetorical sense, the perception that the speaker has the listeners’ interests at heart, and students are quick to recognise this quality in their teachers too.

Consistency in classroom management is often cited in terms of behaviour and sanctions. It is true that teenagers have highly sensitive antennae for fairness (or, more precisely, lack of it); treat a student unfairly and the teacher loses goodwill immediately. Here I mean consistency of validation so that every student’s presence is acknowledged in some way, however briefly, each lesson and so that over a longer timeframe of a few lessons every student receives quality individual attention. This is not, though, a one-size-fits-all approach such as ‘everyone takes turns to answer a question’. While the outgoing personalities in the class will undoubtedly relish the limelight of participation in class discussion, the quieter ones are more likely to appreciate opportunities to discuss their ideas individually with the teacher, especially if these ideas are then referenced by her later in class discussion. Inclusion and differentiation.

And then there’s humour. When I started teaching there was a much-quoted piece of advice for taking on a new class: ‘never smile until Christmas’. I was always lucky if I made it to the end of the first week. As long as clear boundaries and expectations for behaviour are set early on then humour is a powerful means of establishing a positive atmosphere in the classroom from the start. A classroom full of Duchenne smiles is a very happy, productive place. Sarcasm is definitely off-limits, though, as are any jokes at the expense of students. Interestingly, the humour I’ve found most effective has been that at my own expense – if I am able to express the funny side of my mistakes then students learn to relax with their own mistakes too.

Finally, the poetry of eunoia lies in its etymology. It literally means ‘well-mindedness’ from eu- (well or good) and nous (mind) but is often also construed as ‘beautiful thinking’. Eunoia Junior College in Singapore uses this latter aspect of the word as a fundamental part of their college identity (and I do like their crest, which is very clever). But the translation as ‘well-mindedness’ explains why eunoia is occasionally used as a medical term to refer to a state of normal mental health. So it turns out that eunoia is important to all of us, whether Ancient Greek orators, teachers, or otherwise.

Teaching superpowers

Remarkable, whichever way you look at them

A few years ago when I was teaching circle theorems I started to draw a diagram on the whiteboard when suddenly there was a collective gasp from the class. I turned to them expecting the worst: a student in a faint, or an unannounced learning walk from Justin Bieber, or possibly even both. The students were staring at the whiteboard.

“What is it?”, I asked in bemusement.

One student managed to find their voice and whispered in awe, “It’s a perfect circle, Miss”.

When I looked again at the board I discovered that I had indeed, with two sweeps of the arm, drawn a perfect circle. So perfect that it had to be recorded for posterity (or, more likely, Snapchat) on everyone’s mobile.

“Do it again, Miss!”

Of course, I couldn’t. Think about it too deeply and self-doubt strikes; the superpower escapes you. I’m sure even Spiderman has the same problem from time to time.

Teachers are favoured with more superpowers than any Marvel hero and, my goodness, they need them under current circumstances. John Dabell lists a few (fifty!) here but teachers and school leaders are now having to discover some new ones on the fly (OK, maybe not that one – yet). Of course, everyone knows that teachers have eyes in the back of their head (yes) and hearing attuned to the slightest negative remark sotto voce on the back row (yes, even though at home I am always asking for the volume on the TV to be turned up). And as for the ‘teacher stare’ … well, I am an expert practitioner, capable of halting a miscreant in their tracks at one hundred paces. It is a superpower that I occasionally use outside the classroom too, most recently on our canal boat holiday when we were bumped by a boat that had cut us up two days previously. They chose to moor a very safe distance away.

Marvel’s Avengers would be a dull bunch if they all had exactly the same superpowers, and this is true of teachers too; fortunately we all have our own special abilities to draw upon. Mine included being able to perform a rapid change into sports kit for badminton club after school in a toilet cubicle the size of a phone box without strangling myself with my lanyard. Too similar to Superman? Well at least I remembered to take my work clothes away in a bag with me afterwards. Usually.

Then there was the ability to read upside-down (the page, not me) so that I could crouch down when helping students during individual work and make eye contact across their desk, rather than being a disembodied voice emanating from over their shoulder. This particular superpower has served me well outside the classroom too, unnerving doctors, bank clerks and hotel receptionists, among others. But it is the ability to write upside-down that is my true superpower; I can produce a passably legible line of mathematical working without the need to rotate the exercise book. It has the wow factor for students, although invariably the novelty wears off by mid-October.

So, if I ever have to save the planet – or return to teaching – I have a few tricks up my sleeve. (Unlike an ex-colleague who kept his pet python up his jacket sleeve. I’m sorry, that’s not a superpower, that’s just an accessory.) If it’s a matter of life and death, I may even be able to pull off the perfect circle. In the meantime I am looking for alternative employment that makes the most of the much-vaunted transferable skills of the teaching profession. Does anyone out there need a quick-change artist with a death stare who can write upside-down?

Peak anxiety

‘Not waving but drowning’

One of the ironies of 2020 for me is that in March, just as I was descending from peak anxiety brought on by burnout, I was faced by a stampede of millions of people charging in the opposite direction, all heading uphill to plant their own flags at the summit. The cause was Covid-19, of course, and little wonder: it brings with it enormous anxiety about vulnerable family members, job security, home schooling, and so on. Over the past few months the media have frequently reported on significant rises in the UK of anxiety and other mental health issues, and a BBC report out yesterday reiterates this, at a time when parents and children (and teachers) are anxious about the return to school. Let’s face it, during a pandemic it would be remarkable if we were not all anxious.

So how do we tell when anxiety has tipped over from a natural reaction to extraordinary events into something that is harmful and possibly the harbinger of more serious mental health problems? The simplest layman’s answer I can offer is: when it feels abnormal and when it interferes with our ability to go about everyday life*. In my own case I first noticed something was wrong one morning back in October 2019 as I sat waiting for the start of our weekly staff meeting. I experienced a sudden and inexplicable sense of unease that came out of nowhere. A feeling that I needed to escape the fluorescent lighting, the chatter of colleagues in close proximity, and the glaring white walls – but then the meeting began and I forgot all about it. At least until the following week, when it happened all over again. Then a week later in the queue for security at Gatwick on the way to our half-term holiday.

Each time this occurred there was nothing at all threatening or stressful about the situation, and with some deep breathing the feeling eventually passed. As someone who had never experienced anxiety attacks before, or indeed any other mental ill health, it was all too easy to put this down to physical causes and I was diagnosed shortly afterwards with high blood pressure. However, I experienced the same rush of general anxiety again and again, almost always when in brightly lit, noisy spaces and with no specific focus to the anxiety.

Knowing what I do now, I recognise this as the first indicator of my reaction to chronic stress. By January this year I had started to experience occasional attacks where I froze just before I was due to teach a lesson, unable to move from my desk and frequently unable to speak in order to tell anyone that I was in difficulty. Again, there seemed to be no rational explanation for it; I enjoyed teaching all my classes and had no concerns about the upcoming lesson. For a few minutes I would experience a raised heartbeat, cold sweat, and tunnel vision. We are all familiar with the well-documented ‘fight or flight’ response, but it is more accurately ‘fight, flight, or freeze’. I was experiencing the latter, and before long it became apparent that I was suffering from burnout and depression.

So as we wrestle with the worries of a resurgence of Covid-19 cases and the personal difficulties that the pandemic brings with it, we need to be conscious of our mental health and be alert to the warning signs – in others as well as ourselves – that anxiety has become problematic. The stereotypically British reflex response to “How are you?” is “I’m fine. How are you?” when in fact we may be ‘not waving but drowning’. The mental health charity Time to Change are spot-on when they encourage us to ‘Ask Twice’.

*For expert advice on anxiety visit the websites for Mind and Anxiety UK.

Three little words

Or does it count as four?

When I started out in teaching I often mistakenly thought that I should know all the answers. The fount of all knowledge, and all that. This seemed particularly important when teaching Maths, a subject in which everyone supposes one can only ever be right or wrong (not always true). It took a while for the penny to drop that to say “I don’t know” is in fact a very powerful tool for the teacher in the classroom, as long as it leads to further action. It can stimulate learning and offer an opportunity to model real-time mathematical thinking. If it encourages competition among students to beat the teacher to a solution, then even better. (They usually won.)

Let’s find out together.

Shall we each try that question again and see if we can find our mistake?

I don’t know why we use the letter m to represent gradient so let’s Google it.

“I don’t know” also has power in the wider world, this world of increasingly polarised viewpoints which are currently all the rage on Twitter. James O’Brien makes this point in his book ‘How To Be Right … In A World Gone Wrong’. In this context “I don’t know” represents not lack of knowledge but lack of certainty, unwillingness to concur absolutely with either side of the argument, even after thorough consideration of the pros and cons. It is important for the teacher to model this uncertainty in the classroom too, to challenge dichotomous thinking and present both sides of the argument, even if (especially if) we do privately favour one side or the other. (Interestingly, dichotomous (all-or-nothing) thinking is the name given by psychologists to one of the modes of negative thinking often exhibited by people suffering from anxiety or depression. I tend towards other modes myself.)

Does “I don’t know” count as three words or four? I didn’t know. So I tried to find out. I do know, of course, that it is a contraction of two words and the OED describes it thus but with no definitive answer to my question. Evidently it is not a valid single word in Scrabble, according to the Scrabble dictionary; however, in Word’s word count it counts as one word (are you following this?).

Sometimes there just isn’t an answer, one way or the other.

Growth mindset

Nothing ventured, nothing gained

“Age is just a number. And Maths was never my thing”, said Helen Mirren in an advert for L’Oréal back in 2015. However, within days of its release the advert was withdrawn and amended, following complaints from National Numeracy who objected to its reinforcement of negative attitudes towards Maths. For it is unique among school subjects: to boast of lack of ability in Maths is seen as socially acceptable; some even wear it as a badge of honour. Many years ago I listened in dismay as a Deputy Head (Academic) introduced the guest speaker, an eminent writer of popular Maths books, to a student audience by saying that she herself understood nothing at all about the subject – then compounded the error by repeating this in her vote of thanks at the end. Such attitudes are prevalent in society and risk promoting among students a sort of intellectual helplessness. They also risk perpetuating a stereotype threat that ability in Maths is something that only a certain type of person has. Overturning the preconceptions and prejudices that many of our students carry with them into the classroom was always a significant aspect of my rôle as a Maths teacher that added to the challenge and reward of teaching.

Carol Dweck’s theory of fixed and growth mindsets was by far the greatest influence on the development of my teaching in the past ten years; I only wish that I had come across it sooner. Dweck, currently a professor of psychology at Stanford University, proposed that people adopt one of two mindsets with regard to ability. A person with a fixed mindset believes that her qualities and abilities are set in stone. She is unwilling to risk failure by challenging herself and prefers to prove herself over and over but only within her comfort zone. By contrast, a person with a growth mindset believes that qualities and abilities can be developed through her efforts, strategies, and help from others. In the context of the classroom, I found it incredibly useful to get to know at an early stage – by discreet observation and interaction – my students’ mindsets towards learning Maths, at least as useful as any measure of their ability.

Often the concept of growth mindset is misrepresented. At its core, Dweck states, is the belief that one can develop one’s abilities, but this meaning is sometimes lost in sweeping misinterpretations such as having an open mind, being optimistic, and believing that one can achieve anything one wants. These are unhelpful and, in the case of the latter example, potentially damaging. The concept is much more subtle than any of these, but fortunately Dweck’s research into effective praise and the development of resilience points teachers towards strategies to support students in developing a growth mindset in Maths. To be truly effective this needs to be implemented at department level, or even across the school. At a previous school I developed a ‘growth mindset framework’ for our department that acted as a checklist for us of aims and specific strategies. Here are the aims (I’ll save the strategies for another post):

We aim to foster growth mindset within students so that they can develop their potential in the subject and enjoy the satisfaction of learning. We also aim to facilitate the development of both resilience and intrinsic motivation in our students, attitudes that are of broader benefit to them and to their wellbeing. In particular we aim to:

Promote the notion that effort is a necessary part of success.

Encourage and demonstrate the power of deliberate practice.

Make students aware that ‘fast learning’ is not the same as ‘deep learning’.

Promote mistakes as opportunities for learning.

Monitor our language to students to avoid promoting fixed mindsets.

Set learning goals, not performance goals, wherever possible.

Provide formative feedback and assessment opportunities.

Praise for effort and process, not ability.

Give students a sense of their improvement over time.

Provide a rationale for what students are learning so that they understand its value.

Build resilience in students so that they are better able to cope with challenges and setbacks.

Encourage and support autonomy in students so that they take responsibility for aspects of their own learning.

Challenge negative perceptions of Maths or effort in students, parents, colleagues and ourselves.

Carol Dweck’s work on growth mindset has received criticism in academic circles in recent years, not least because it is claimed that it has not been possible to replicate the results of some of her studies in similar experiments. In academia, replication is everything – and critics have argued that if the theory does not hold up in controlled experiments, how can it possibly work in the classroom? Yet the concept of growth mindset still has many enthusiastic adherents amongst teachers, as the abundance of related websites and CPD courses indicates, and my personal experience showed it had a huge impact on my students’ attitude to Maths, the quality of our interactions, and their achievement. Let the academics argue amongst themselves – if it works in my classroom then that’s good enough for me.

More of less, and better

Thinking outside the box

I have always admired institutions that don’t take themselves too seriously, and that is one of the reasons why I enjoyed the BBC’s comedy ‘W1A’ so much. First shown in 2014-17, this mockumentary satire of BBC management follows the hapless new Head of Values, Ian Fletcher, as he struggles to make sense of his job description, his obfuscating colleagues, and their impenetrable mediaspeak. “So that’s all good then”, his somewhat guarded summing-up at the end of yet another meeting, has become a catchphrase in our household for those moments when a situation may have been resolved but almost certainly in a less-than-optimal fashion.

Like all the best satire, ‘W1A’ is probably just a paperclip’s breadth from reality, and it offers nuggets of wisdom too. When the (fictional) BBC announced its new mission statement of doing ‘More of Less’, this sounded to me like a commendable ambition. Wouldn’t we all benefit from doing more of less? An unforeseen advantage of the recent lockdown for my family was to spend more time together enjoying the countryside on our doorstep rather than piling in the car to travel elsewhere, and I expect that others have found similar positives in the imposition of constraints on leisure.

In education it often seems that there is a culture of more of more. Increasing demands are made of teachers in the quest for improvement, and they will naturally comply with this (along with the odd grumble) because they want only the best for their students. Such is the nature of a caring profession. However, a focus on doing more of less as a school might provide an opportunity to reflect on what is truly important, effective, and beneficial to students and staff alike; in short, how to make things better.

Which brings me to another insight gleaned from ‘W1A’. On April Fool’s Day 2015, in a cheeky teaser for the upcoming new series, the (real) BBC advertised a new post, Director of Better:

The character Anna Rampton, former Head of Output, is subsequently appointed, even though she seems an unlikely choice for a rôle demanding an open mind (her particular catchphrase is “No”). OK, it’s ridiculous, but it got me thinking: isn’t the appointment of a Director of Better a tempting one for any institution? A school, for instance?

Almost certainly not, but the good news is that it isn’t even necessary. Staffrooms will already have ‘disruptive thinkers’, in the most positive business sense, people who like to prod the status quo like an avocado in the greengrocer’s to see how well it lives up to expectations, then find better ways of doing things where needed. Some of these disruptive thinkers may be in positions of responsibility where they can effect change directly – headteachers, heads of year, heads of department – but others may not be. This is why schools need to put time and trust into opening up the debate on how to make things better, into reflecting on what is truly important, effective, and beneficial to students and staff alike …. which brings me back to doing more of less.

So that’s it. More of less, and better. I think that’s what Anna Rampton was trying to communicate when she said to the team:

The fact is, this is about establishing what we do most of best and finding fewer ways of doing more of it less.

I think?

Rumination

I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently

Me: I’m probably the best ruminator in the world
Hamlet: Hold my Carlsberg

Okay, so Hamlet knows a thing or two about rumination. “To be, or not to be”, and all that stuff. He takes brooding to new heights – or, more accurately, new depths – by dwelling constantly on the symptoms and causes of his depressed mood. Much of the ground-breaking work on rumination was undertaken by Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, Professor of Psychology at Yale, who showed that such patterns of thinking can increase an individual’s vulnerability to depression and other mood disorders; she also showed that rumination can impact on the time it takes to overcome depressive episodes. A study by Prof. Peter Kinderman at the University of Liverpool in 2013, using the results of the BBC’s ‘Stress Test’ which involved 32 000 participants, further revealed that thinking styles are as much a factor in determining the level of stress people experience in anxiety and depression as the seriousness of the traumatic events that trigger the conditions in the first place.

Rumination is such a harmful coping strategy when we are faced with stressful events that it ought to carry a government health warning, like cigarettes and alcohol. Like them, it has its attractions; it feels as if we are thinking things through, searching for solutions, etc., when in reality it is negative thoughts in tailspin. Nolen-Hoeksema’s research indicates that rumination can, in fact, impair cognitive ability and problem-solving skills, as well as drive away social support. “You’re over-thinking this, or “Just move on!”, say the non-ruminators impatiently, but the truth is that ruminators find it difficult to break the habit.

“For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”. Hamlet recognises that the way in which we frame our thoughts can make all the difference, even if he himself cannot make this leap. The first line of defence against rumination is to become aware of one’s thoughts: to identify the situations when rumination is most likely to occur, and to recognise when it has already taken hold. CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) offers means of reframing negative perceptions, and mindfulness practices enable the ruminator to observe and accept negative thoughts objectively without being drawn into them. Distraction is yet another effective strategy to defeat rumination, indulging in activities that leave no free ‘headspace’, such as reading, or writing a blog (ha!). My therapist advised me to hum or sing when rumination strikes, and it certainly does the trick, although it’s always La Marseillaise that comes into my head, which probably demands an entire course of therapy in itself.

“You need to get out more” is a criticism justifiably levelled at those of us who live in our heads, but some of us quite like it in there, at least when the going is good. Introspection and reflection are important human activities, just as much so as surfing and flower arranging. But when the atmosphere in there shifts from positive to negative then we may need some help to find the exit.

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