The (Passionately) Boring Teacher

Last week my first PGCE student finished his placement. He wrote me a lovely card which signed off with “stay passionately boring”. This is a mantra which I live by and I think is embodied by a recent tweet of mine which has taken off over half term. Unfortunately, some people appeared to take from this that I am against any form of fun within lessons. I absolutely believe that lessons can and should be fun. However, I want this enjoyment to be rooted within enjoyment and success within the subject itself, rather than the activities which frame the content. I began my career vehemently believing that fun activities in the classroom were the route to effective learning. Examples from my early career which I now avoid include: Writing a facebook page for Henry VIII. “Plan your own lesson” lessons (which often involved people writing “Watch a video about it.”) Empathy pieces (“Imagine you are...”) There are three reasons why my focus has moved from ac...

“With great power comes great responsibility” and the best manifestation of this in teaching is zero tolerance behaviour policies. Many recent articles about these policies appear to infer that they are discriminatory and cruel. To an extent, I agree: If used incorrectly, they can act as a sledgehammer cracking a nut. However, if used in a thoughtful and nuanced manner, they can help to create strong bonds between teachers and pupils and ensure an excellent learning environment for all. I think there are three main principles or nuances which should be applied when using zero tolerance or high expectations behaviour policies: 1. High expectations don’t just apply to the pupils: Just as ‘zero tolerance’ creates high expectations for pupils’ behaviour, I believe it creates high expectations for teachers’ teaching. It is no coincidence that I believe that my teaching has improved the most during my time at a school with a ‘zero tolerance’ behaviour policy: teaching in an e...