I’m a teacher, get me OUTSIDE here!

Does it matter what your hair looks like once you have removed your hat?  Ask most primary teachers and the answer is a resounding “Yes”.

I have come to the reluctant conclusion that this is one reason is why outdoor enthusiasts and environmentalists have so far failed to motivate the vast majority to teachers to capitalise on all the outdoor offers.  There are simply not enough decent hats for teachers to wear.

Oops I forgot…we wear many hats…counsellor, tutor, nose-wiper, butler, serf…but unlike the list I’ve mentioned, hats for keeping our heads warm outside tend to make teachers look horrendous once we’ve removed them. Common sense says the obvious next move is to remain indoors with the hat on. In today’s Eco Schools, this makes brilliant sense as up to one third of our body heat can be lost through our heads .  But there are other reasons too.

School heating systems are frequently bizarre.  In one Highland school the heating system was controlled by a company based in Aberdeen.  So the heating depended on the prevailing weather conditions in Aberdeen, a three-hour drive south east.

At another school, convector fan heaters located on the ceiling, were the only heating in the classroom.  The poor teacher spent years attempting to outshout the noise which was equivalent to living on a Heathrow runway.  After half an hour you could stand in this classroom and have your toes numb with cold whilst the top of your head sweated profusely.  Temperature readings showed a difference of 8 degrees between the floor and ceiling.

With increasing energy bills it would be logical to advise schools to try not to switch on their heating unless really necessary.  Alas there are strict guidelines covering minimum working temperatures in schools depending on room and the nature of the activity. Many unions advise that members should not work in schools where the temperature falls below the threshold. Thus wearing hats in cool classrooms is not for the Union Die Hards who prefer hat hair and heat.

So, readers, I beg you please to put on your thinking hats and help find a GHD solution to this matter! Answers on a postcard welcomed.

*GHD=Good Hair Day

I’ve just returned from an exciting two days at the Scottish Learning Festival.  It was my first visit and despite restraining myself and only signing up to a couple of seminars and workshops I found the event exhausting.

What amused me most was the motley collection of stalls in the main hall.  One of the Grounds for Learning staff expressed her puzzled concern about the number of computer and software companies and activities. Luckily I was able to explain the history of the event which began as an education technology event in the days of SETT.

I enjoyed walking around and seeing the tricks of the trade show where the sales folk find novel ways of enticing people into their booth.  Alas there was only bowls of sweets everywhere which, in the age of health promotion had me worrying as to whether the GTC Code of Conduct would kick into place and we’d all get our knuckles rapped should we be spotted on a GLOW webcam helping ourselves to more than 3 sweets.

Every now and then a moment of inspiration or sanity could be found. I sought refuge at the Real World Learning booth (http://www.realworldlearning-scotland.org.uk/) for significant amounts of time.  It was the only place where natural materials could be found as part of the display which an art student had designed with care and attention to detail that was probably lost on a casual passer-by.  The RWL is a partnership between many outdoor and environmental organisations, so every time I entered there was a new face and new discussions to be had.

Probably my main gripe was the lack of effort towards demonstrating the environmental impact of the event and measures to counteract this by the organisers. No recycling facilities, lots of sweet wrappers and not a carbon footprint index in sight. Tsk! Tsk!

I am in a delightful mood.  My son brought home his “maths challenge” questions and I have spent the last hour working them out.  Alas the competition is serious.  I may not share my ideas and solutions with him.

Earlier this week I was searching the internet and various maths books for multicultural maths games. I had several reasons for doing this:

1)      In the majority world countries, many cultural activities take place outdoors. Thus a strategic game is more likely to be played outside.

2)      Many mathematical developments have taken place in other countries: Arabia, Eygpt, China and India to name but a few.

3)      One of my favourite games, Owari, can be played with stones and holes or circles drawn in sand or mud.  In one cottage where we lived, my husband and I played this game using the patterns on a carpet and chickpeas for counters.

When creating a base on which to play, chalk can be used or stones to scratch a board pattern onto a paving slab.  This is a tradition which has happened for thousands of years.

In terms of extending children’s strategic thinking, use questions such as:

1) From which positions on the board is it possible to make two / three/ four moves?  Sketch a diagram of the board and record your findings.

2) Where are the best places to put your pieces on the board in order to make a good start?  Why?

3) Is it an advantage to start?  Explain.

A good quick reference place for strategy games is http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/ufa10/games.htm. It’s worth remembering that time is needed to develop competency in any of these games. Thus by introducing them at the start of the year, they can be used as an interesting alternative to indoor board games.

A whole class challenge is to play one of the games as two teams with children acting as counters and some members being the key decision makers.

Oh yes and do challenge me at Owari  - I’m out of practice these days!

My son MJ was considerably hacked off yesterday.  He felt cheated that on the last day of the world’s existence children were expected to attend school.

As with the excitement of the Millennium dawning and the possibility of our society crumbling as the computer registered zero, the reality seemed … well … normal.  Just another day.

Now the environmental hardcore have been muttering about the waste of money being poured into subatomic particle research when there are more urgent and pressing concerns such as global warming and climate change.  They have a fair point, I do concede.  I am naturally suspicious of any nuclear research owing to my pacifist Quaker upbringing and oodles of books I read about risks of low and high level radiation as a teenager.

 As part of my Churchill Fellowship, I visited Fermilab (www.fnal.gov), which undertakes a lot of shared projects with Cerne, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (http://public.web.cern.ch/public/) I was interested in visiting the Lederman Science Education Centre, which is part of Fermilab.  Their teacher training programmes are great and as the theme of my Fellowship is Outdoor Technologies the place appeared a natural fit. 15 000 students from local schools visit to learn about science and nature.  900 teachers participate in training provided by Fermilab staff.  Most of the school visits focus on environmental programmes.

The Fermilab site is quite remarkable in terms of its prairie restoration work.  There are more than 6000 acres of wetlands, woodlands, grasslands and tall-grass prairie as well as a herd of American bison. Being a science facility, the environmental changes have been closely monitored over many years and provide data on the growing diversity of flora and fauna becoming established.  Science researchers mingle with environmental educators and grounds staff over lunch.  The shared facilities and ethos of support and sharing enable all staff to learn and work together.  Strangely the only organisation I’ve come across in the UK with a similar approach is the Wetlands Trust headquarters at Slimbridge (www.wwt.org.uk) .  The common factor appears to be far-sighted founders who valued the natural environment and understood aesthetics and creativity in all its forms.

Arguably particle physics is a financial black hole…but Cerne brought us the technology that created the World Wide Web.  Fermilab pioneered MRI machines through the Tetravon particle accelerator research. There are real-life applications to the disappearing-white-dot-on-the-screen visions which make the physicists “ooh and ah” whilst the rest of us blink and wonder. 

The merciless side of my personality is revealed at this time of year. It always tickles me to see sane people develop ticks and twitches as well as irrational behaviour when they try to shoo away a wasp. 

People like to copy each other.  That’s why wasps can play havoc in the school grounds and indoors.  It just takes one child to scream and ….you can imagine the scene!

Thankfully children can be trained to behave properly around wasps.  It’s very much like teaching good manners:

1)      Keep your mouth shut. The moment it opens, a wasp can fly right in.  Practice breathing through your nose.

2)      Politely cover your mouth and nose if a wasp is buzzing around these orifices.  Having experienced a wasp clean up my lips at a wedding when I’d just eaten a meringue, it is scary. (NB Admittedly I can scream quite loudly with my lips shut tight).

3)      Stand or sit still. Close your eyes if you need to but remind children this does not make a wasp magically disappear.

4)      Never run away.  Running creates a vacuum effect causing a wasp to follow in your wake.

5)      Flapping  your arms frightens the wasp.  Frightened wasps are more likely to sting.

6)      Avoid eating sweet foods and fruit outside on sunny days.

I like to hold “wasp practice” drills.  These work just the same way as fire drills, except you fake a buzzing wasp sound instead of the fire alarm and encourage children stay still and quiet, whether inside or out.

Wasps and bees make a great project.  The British Bee Keeping Association (http://www.britishbee.org.uk/) has various education packs and information. I love getting young children to do a writing activity about what to do if you are stung and how to stop this from happening. I usually end up telling them the Very True Story of how my grandmother accidentally swallowed a wasp when eating Kendal Mint Cake and got stung in her throat.  She saved her own life by eating lots of raw onions to reduce the swelling. I do, of course, advise children to seek medical help as soon as possible should this happen to them or someone they know.

I have also stumbled upon an ingenious, environmentally friendly device for keeping wasps away.  No nasty sprays.  No swatters.  No cups of jam and washing up liquid. No more slaughter of these helpful insects which munch up garden pests like greenfly. No. No. No!  Instead I’d like to introduce the ….WASPINATOR  (http://www.waspinator.co.uk/)

This amazing device is a fake wasps’ nest which you hang up in your garden. The very sight of it keeps the wasps away. The website is worth a visit, not least because it contains all sorts of information about wasps written in a friendly style. Read and enjoy!

Truth be told, a lot of children aren’t that interested in nature.  In my early twenties I witnessed a seven-year old girl raising her fist and telling a ranger to f**k off when he tried to get her to look at a bluebell.

Of course, this is not the reaction we would like any child to have when presented with a harmless flower by a kindly expert. So as teachers we have to create the enthusiasm in imaginative ways, which can require a little forethought and planning:

·         Children sense the open space outdoors and need to move about.  Thus starting with an energetic game can be helpful.  Alternatively, tell the children that you’ll meet them under a tree, 200m away and that they are free to run there.

·         When introducing plant species, have an activity the children can do.  Gathering around to look at a dandelion is dull.  Besides, half the class won’t be able to see and thirty children crowded around one adult tends to create a pack mentality.  Asking the children to find a dandelion clock and count the time by blowing away the seeds is a lot more fun.  An additional challenge can be that the children can’t pick the flowers, they have to crouch down and blow.  This also prevents dandelion wars breaking out where the seedless flowers are chucked about, creating mayhem.

·         Play a short team game, to get the children moving about.  There are lots out there which can be used to discuss knowledge and plant facts. I’ll blog about these in due course.

·         If you have time, try and make up a story about a plant as a way of introducing the facts.  Humans in all societies have passed on knowledge in this way for thousands of years, so why break a good habit?

·         Have a calm activity which allows for reflection.  If you have an excitable class, which isn’t used to being outside, this can be done as part of the follow-up indoors.

To be continued…imagine the Dr Who theme music starting!

Sue Fenoughty,  an environmental education consultant, gave me a very memorable analogy many years ago:

“Many youngsters lead what could be described as an artificial ‘box-like’ existence: going from a box (the home) in a box (the car) to a box (the school), where they are attached to a box (the computer), then back in the box (the car) to the box (the home) where they spend another 2 or 3 hours attached to another box (the computer, Playstation, television).”

I have a dubious theory about all the box metaphors used in eduworld and beyond. If you accept Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligence theory then, it’s not unreasonable to assume all children are gifted.  That’s why adults have to place them in boxes (like gifts).  Then we can spend hours in schools examining the boxes into which we’ve categorized them and peeling off the wrapping paper. Some children are even wrapped in cotton wool before being put in boxes by their parents.  Children are reduced to being ornaments.

We also seem to like and encourage thinking outside the box.  I wonder where this leaves children who are stuck inside the various different boxes. I find myself imagining scenarios of having to teach kids ESP and how to have out-of-body experiences to escape and gain first-hand experience of the world beyond their boxes.  I hope they are allowed and encouraged to think inside the box in which they live and have been categorised.

Now at this point, I have to flag up one of the biggest selling education books of the 21^st Century. It’s called Inside the Black Box by Black and Wiliam.  These professors recognised the issue of boxing in education 10 years ago and offer suggestions based on research about how to raise standards through classroom assessment. It is important reading for every teacher.

In a previous post I mentioned using a wrap-n-mat to solve my plastic box problems.  I am now proposing a wrap-n-mat solution to edubox thinking.  Take the advice of Black and Wiliams and apply it to teaching outside. We need to stop being boxed in and to physically get children and teachers out of the boxes.

This may be a challenge to those who love living in their box. Try not to panic – I’ve come up with a few box therapy solutions to assist with the process:

1)      Give children cardboard boxes to play with outside, in unstructured and free play situations

2)      Create outdoor world scenes or “dioramas” using natural materials such as leaves, sticks and stones inside shoe boxes. By cutting a hole in the lid and covering the gap with green cellophane, adds to the scene created below.

3)      Put up some nest boxes outside.  Check with a local ranger as to suitable type and location and remember to ensure they are cleaned out annually.

4)      Go on a shape hunt and look for cubes, cuboids, rectangles and squares in the local neighbourhood.

5)      Start a compost heap in a wooden box or buy a square-shaped container for growing plants.

6)      Try not to get too wrapped up in being square.

Remember I offer free 30 minute phone consultations.  I’m not a therapist but if you’re feeling boxed in, I will offer a sympathetic ear!

TGI Friday. All over Scotland, school staff and children are mopping their brows with relief that the first week is over.  Only 186 school days until the summer holidays begin once more. 

The weather welcomed everyone back with a wet vengeance.  The smell of damp permeated my room all week, even when children were absent on Wednesday. I desperately wanted to escape outside but even I was thwarted by the instant drenching.

Amazingly cabin fever did not break out at school.  The rain kindly stopped once and the children had an outdoor break. Something rarely considered is the need for shade and shelter outside for children.

Evergreen, the Canadian school grounds charity, and the Toronto District School Board EcoSchools team have joined forces have to tackle this issue. Rather than investing in sheds, shade sails or other man-made structures, they have a comprehensive free book which advises schools on how to save energy, increase biodiversity and provide shade and shelter through planting large native tree saplings. Oh yes – learning links are included too!

Want to know more? The book can be downloaded for FREE on http://www.tdsb.on.ca   Scroll down the index to Guides and Publications.  Check out all the other resources too!

Thanks TDSB EcoSchool.  Definitely a TGI (Truly Great Idea)! 

Some people have washing machines which eat socks. I have a drawer which makes plastic box lids disappear.  This is a nuisance.  I am trying very hard to be environmentally friendly but if a box has no lid, then it’s not much use for storing sandwiches and other packed lunch paraphernalia.

North America’s green movement have been promoting litterless lunches for decades.  The concept is simple.  You make packed lunches where no litter is created and if you must have packaging, it should be recycled or composted.  Instead of plastic bags, cling film or aluminium foil, you put food into boxes and take water or juice in a reusable bottle. Dairylea lunchables are a definite no-no along with yoghurts and crisp packets.  This is a harder challenge than it looks, especially if you have no lids for all one’s plastic boxes.

In April I stumbled across a nifty little item called a Wrap-n-Mat sitting innocently on a shelf in an outdoor centre near Seattle.  This object has revolutionised my life and put a lid on my plastic box problem once and for all.  It’s a plastic coated piece of material in which you wrap up sandwiches. Being a closet Science nerd and open sceptic I bought a couple to test. Like all other sectors of our society, the eco world is full of Things You Never Knew You Never Needed for the ethical consumer. I am a wary purchaser of gimmicky products.

Every day last term, I made up sandwiches and wrapped them up. The Wrap-n-Mats survived. I machine washed, hand washed, wiped them clean and used them continuously. Four months later, they are still going strong.  The mat acts like a soft plate and catches crumbs and spills. Best all of they live in my box drawer and have yet to go awol.

So for sandwich life beyond the box, visit www.wrap-n-mat.com  or if you are living in the UK, try www.onyabags.co.uk

The outdoor bargains continue galore.  This week I popped into Asda, where the sale now runs at 75% of the original price. Here’s an illustration of the potential of items found in supermarkets:

1)      Two more kites – forces, flight, aerodynamics, technology.

2)      Funky knee pad and garden gloves (37.5p per pair!) – knee pads make useful portable seating and are easy to clean.

3)      Bubble kits galore – every school and nursery needs a bubble box for practical science and maths activities.  I like to build up different sorts, so that there’s plenty for a large group or class.  This can supplement gadgets and shapes made by the children.

4)      A rubber chess mat. Great for work on patterns, tessellation and practical problem solving.

5)      A portable target board for hanging up. Simple, but great for schools which can’t leave resources outside overnight.

6)      A foldaway 3 litre bucket from the camping section (also in the sale).  It cost me 75p which compares favourably to £10 in an early years catalogue.  Great for centres where lack of storage is a nightmare.

Before the summer holidays start next year (oh yes, I’m forward thinking!) I’m going to send a wee reminder about this to schools.  If the PTA or school funds can be found, huge saving can be made buying outdoor gear in the summer sales.

Next stop?  B&Q or Au Naturale? Watch this space!