More Mistakes

I don't know how to deal with a student making a mistake. I mean, really, I don't. My current strategy goes something like this:

If it's in front of the whole class, say, 'Hmm, that's not quite right, can somebody help X out?'

If it's one-on-one with a usually capable and confident student, say 'Nope, that's not quite true' or 'You've made a mistake in this problem. Can you spot it?' - and then wait.

If it's one-on-one with a less confident student, say 'This one here isn't quite right. You do it like this:.... What do you think the answer is now?'

It's fairly disastrous. The first two are more-or-less ok, mostly because the students are fine with making mistakes anyway. Another teacher in my department always says 'Bad luck!' when someone makes a mistake in front of the class, which I like, but in a way I'm not sure it matters what words you use - they know what it means. It's the third scenario where there are huge problems. Fluffy, my smallest and spunkiest year 10, is always kitted out in fluffy bed socks (Why? She's fifteen!). She's the kid in my bottom set who is failing everything. When she's told a problem is wrong, she will totally shut down. Head on the desk, snatches the book away, and grumbles.
'Leave me alone! I'm doing it! Just let me work!'
'I'm pleased you're working, Fluffy, but I think you've made a small mistake in one place. Let me look and we can sort it out, then you can carry on.'
'I know what I'm doing! Stop picking on me! You can look at the end!'
'I don't want you to make the same mistake again, so I need to look now.'
'God! I'm just trying to work! Go away - I'm ok! I know what I'm doing!'
'I'm really sorry, Fluffy, but I'm not sure you 100% know what you're doing, because you've made a small mistake. So we need to go over it.'
'It's fine! It's not a problem! Leave me alone and go and hassle someone else!'

She's crying, I'm frustrated, and we don't get anywhere with the maths. Sometimes she will continue working during the conversation, whilst covering her book up and refusing to stop writing. More often, she won't pick up a pen again for the rest of the lesson. I always feel awful for pushing her, and I can't see it as naughtiness - she's upset and defensive, because she can't deal with being wrong, again.

The only possible solution I've thought of so far is really small problem sets, where each one needs to be checked before going on to the next. That way at least she knows it's coming, so she's not always worrying about me coming over, and I'm not 'picking' on her. I'm sure she won't like that idea, though. There's got to be a way that's less hurtful for both of us!

At the bottom

I've just found out that I'm getting bottom set 11-year-olds next year. It's pretty exciting, because I've never taught that level before - I've taught higher level 11-year-olds, and bottom set 13+. Bottom sets at that age are a bit of a mystery to me, and from the frantic research I've been doing, to a lot of people. Before they enter the world of GCSE target grades (usually 'Get a grade! You're upsetting our A* to G %!') nobody really minds what you do with them. In fact, it's terrifyingly unsupervised and unsupported. And here's the shocker.

Most children in bottom sets in the UK make no progress in maths between the ages of 11 and 14.

None, in over 3 years. That's the sort of stat nobody wants to own up to, and it's the sort that nobody even tries to address, because it looks pretty impossible.

There was an ugly facebook argument last week that I saw, where someone suggested that education isn't good at producing clever, useful people because, well, teachers aren't clever, useful people - if they were, they wouldn't be teaching, would they? They'd be writing software, or working in finance or consultancy, or the civil service, or something a whole lot better than teaching.

It got quite a response, which I shan't bother repeating - if you're reading this, chance are we don't disagree about this anyway. However, it got me thinking of a parallel argument:

Maybe education is so terrible at catering to the needs of the bottom 5% of the (mainstream) school population, because none of the teachers were ever in the bottom 5% of their school populations. In a conversation recently, it turned out that none of the people present had ever been in anything lower than set 2 in school. Bottom sets are a mystery to teachers, and to education advisers in local or national capacities.

A bottom set year 10 kid had me in tears a few weeks ago when she apologised for her shocking behaviour, and explained that she'd just found out she was failing Drama GCSE. As in, she was predicted to get a U, and the teacher couldn't see a way for that to change. She said 'Drama's my best subject! It was the only subject I thought I might get a grade in. Now I'll have nothing at the end of next year - no grades at all. What's the point?'

When she arrived age 11, she met with a host of teachers who had never been in her position, and had little idea how to teach her. She's stuck in a system that really doesn't cater to her, because it was designed by people who had never been in her position. It's probably too late for her to get much out of secondary school, but I want a different experience for my new 11-year-olds, fresh-faced from primary school. How?