Rural Ramblings Size does matter! Baabaara Ramsbottom
It was only very recently – during an excellent Incredible three sets of scrabble, all with pieces missing.) Despite four years Years Teacher session when we were asked to recount what led of weekly lectures on the sociology of education, nobody had us to become teachers – that I realised that I began teaching bothered to explain the rudiments of classroom management. By at the age of 12. My Sunday school class of ten children were Friday lunchtime I was completely exhausted and on the verge pretty attentive given that the alternative was listening to the 45-minute-long Sunday sermon. I would spend several hours I find support in the evidence for the a week making cardboard models of whales which could swallow Jonah whole and then miraculously eject him days claim that there is a positive effect later without a scratch. Thankfully, 30 years on, I have reduced on achievement when class sizes are my lesson preparation time! Despite this early apprenticeship, at the age of 18, I went reduced, although this effect is small to varsity to study law. It was after my first presentation on the components of a contract that my tutor suggested I look relative to other influences. into the Education Certificate being offered alongside degree courses – my multicoloured pens and bubble writing must of tears – my mentor (who had popped his head round the door have been a dead give-away! I wasn’t particularly sold on the every day to say, ‘everything alright?’ and then, despite the fact idea of ditching my glamorous vision of a career in law; until that it very obviously wasn’t, disappeared back to his classroom) my first teaching section when I met Mrs Grimshaw. I can still took me to the pub and bought me a pint of Guinness and vividly recall the assembly we planned together on the theme of imparted the golden advice, ‘It might help if you wait for them sustainability and American Indians. When I asked her how she to be quiet before you start talking.’ That afternoon the effects of four sleepless nights and some would create a full-size totem pole, she grinned and said, ‘Oh warm English beer meant that my class went shrieking home I’ve got no idea – but the children will!’ We spent three weeks adding papier mâché faces to Weetbix to tell their mothers that Miss (momentarily) fell asleep while boxes and fixing them on to a 3-metre cardboard tube (Shane’s reading the story. His advice worked though! Over the course of my career I have taught classes which varied Dad ran a carpet warehouse.) On the day of the assembly all 42 children in the class danced in to ‘Walk this Way’ by Aerosmith/ in size from 10 to 60. Admittedly, the class of 60 was only for Run–DMC (Mrs Grimshaw brushed off the complaints of the an hour in a school in the Philippines with a total roll of 7,000 deputy principal who didn’t hold with that new fangled rap split into a morning and an afternoon shift. The school had very music!), while Emily read the speech of Chief Seattle in response little space and children spent the whole day in their classroom to the request of ‘the great chief in Washington who sends word he wishes to buy our land.’ So we will consider your offer to buy our land. If we decide to accept, I will make one condition: the white man must treat the beasts of this land as his brothers. I am a savage and I do not understand any other way. I have seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie, left by the white man who shot them from a passing train. I am a savage and I do not understand how the smoking iron horse can be more important than the buffalo that we kill only to stay alive. What is the white man without beasts? If all the beasts were gone, men would die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts soon happens to man. All things are connected. Four years later, when I called the roll for the first time in my own classroom there were 37 names on it. (I seemed to have a disproportionate number of Waynes, Shanes, Tracys and Lees as well as a cupboard full of maths textbooks from 1965 and
Rangiwahia Jubilee
and were rostered to play on the basketball court once a week. That said they were strongly motivated to learn, their behaviour was impeccable and they learned in both Filipino and English. John O’Neill’s article in the last issue (and Hattie’s response to his points which can be found online) have caused me to think back again over my experiences and the years when I know there was greatest pupil progress. Whilst I agree that quality teaching can occur in any class with a skilled and well-educated teacher – Mrs Grimshaw being a case in point – in my own experience it is certainly harder to meet the individual needs of 40 children than 20. It is widely misquoted that John Hattie’s work on Visible Learning claims that class size does not have an effect on learning. In his response to John O’Neill’s article he clarifies: I find support in the evidence for the claim that there is a positive effect on achievement when class sizes are reduced, although this effect is small relative to other influences. Both O’Neill and Hattie agree that this may be because most
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teachers do not change the way in which they teach in response to a smaller class and there would be merit in researching how teachers can do so. I would suggest that this research could be carried out very easily in any number of rural schools here in New Zealand, and I believe there would be numerous examples of teachers using approaches which maximise pupil progress. In my own experience, given the assumption of an effective teacher, the behaviours that have the largest effect sizes such as giving high-quality feedback, using formative assessment and managing classroom behaviour are simply harder to deliver with a larger class. The Kahikatea strategy tells us that Māori learners – and I would argue all learners – need positive learning relationships with their teacher. Relationship building takes time, and again, is more achievable with a smaller class. Meanwhile, like many of my rural colleagues, my mind is currently engaged with the problem of too few students. We have a roll of 16, my junior teacher is currently supernumerary and I will become sole charge at the end of the year . . .
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