The Mixed Ability Class

My class of 22 children is classed as "mixed ability" - that is, students were not selected for the class based on their academic ability or lack of ability.

As a result, "mixed" is a very good term. I have now finished the beginning of the year testing, and find in different subjects that the ability range is:

Reading: My poorest reader reads at the level of an average child leaving kindergarten. He struggles with words with more than 4 letters, and words that can't be directly sounded out are beyond him. Finding reading material is a challenge - if he can read it, it is far below his interest level (which is much the same as any 11 year old boy in our community - motor bikes and footie). On the other end of the spectrum, I have a boy and girl both reading at an adult level. Both have read all of Harry Potter, the girl has read all of Twilight and is now exploring Austen, and the boy currently has Huckleberry Finn and Ash Road on his desk.

Spelling: We give all students the South Australian Spelling Test, which is a test of 70 words, ranked in difficulty. The first word is "on", the last is "seismograph". Where they start making mistakes gives their "spelling age". My poorest speller (not the same as the lowest reader) fell apart at word 5 "Jam", giving her a spelling age of less than 5. My best spellers, by contrast, made their first mistake at word 61 "Mortgage" and their errors from that point still lead to readable, understandable writing, even though their spelling was incorrect. Their spelling age is 16+, or adult level.

Maths: Range from struggles with single digit addition to comfortable working with fractions, decimals, and large number calculations.

Teaching this range of ability levels is common in our primary schools, and one of the biggest challenges we face. With the push for good results in the NAPLAN testing, I sometimes feel I am throwing my good students under the bus - they will achieve in NAPLAN regardless of what I do, but oh, how I wish I sometimes had the time and opportunity to really work with them and to extend them even furtherl.

This range of abilities and achievements

How old are you, Miss?

R: How old are you, Miss?
M: Yeah, how old? My mum's 42, but I don't think you're that old.
Me: You'd be surprised.
R (speaking to M): I reckon she's in her 20s. (to me) Are you in your 20s, Miss S?
Me: No, a little older than that.
M: Thirties?
Me: No.
R: You're not. You're not in your 40s. That's older than my Mum!!!
M: You can't be in your fifties. That's old and you're not old.
Me: Well ....
R: Really? 50? 51?
Me: You got it.
M: Wow (awed voice). You don't seem that old!

Swings and roundabouts

My class is beautiful. I have radiant, lively, intelligent children, who are keen to learn, to be involved, and to have fun. I'm loving this year, and my class and my classroom.

But then there's B1. There is also B1's identical twin, B2, but he's in another class, thank goodness, and not my problem.

I'm keeping a behaviour journal on B1. This is a slightly expanded version of the entry for yesterday. We use a version of Assertive Discipline in our school and each cross next to his name on the board earns him a further consequence.

B entered the classroom well and did his spelling test. However, when the handwriting lesson started, he "fell asleep", snoring loudly on his desk. This got his name on the board for disrupting the class. He pulled his shirt over his head "so you can't see me" and refused to work. He then echoed everything I said, either to him or the class. He got a cross on the board and said "So you want to play that game, do you?".

He then started taunting another student with a crude variation of his name. This got a second cross and a reminder than a third cross means he leaves the room and takes his work to the classroom next door. He calmed down for the rest of the session and went to lunch.

Unfortunately, our system requires that each session of the day is a "fresh start", so he has the option to start again with the nonsense.

After lunch, he refused to join the class but wandered the room. He picked up J's watch which had been left on his desk (bad move on J's part, I know) and refused to give it back, either to J or to me. "I stole is, so it's mine". Eventually, he threw the watch across the room; luckily another child caught it and returned it to J undamaged. Name on board. When students went to their desks to start work, he flicked R on the face with a ruler. X on board.

We then had a whole school assembly, at which he was mostly fairly settled. However, after our last break of the day, he took A's homework sheet from her desk and refused to return it. He told me it was none of my business and destroyed it. He chose not to join the lesson at all and made it as difficult as possible for the others to work.

B1's mother is a part time aide in our school and knows the behaviour system intimately. Our principal is a little scared of this woman (hell, so am I) and we can't do anything with either of her children unless every little piece of paperwork and recording is in place. If he is taken out of the room before the three crosses are given, she is in the office demanding to know why. If he is in trouble on the playground, she has to know why. Nothing is ever the boys' fault - usually it's the teacher's fault. I am working with the principal to develop strategies to deal with this child, but he is very resistant to everything that is tried, and knows that his mother is on his side.

However, there are pluses as well. This morning before school, one of the girls in my class was in the room and helping me get organised for the day. We were chatting, as you do, and she started asking about my family.

She comes from a large Samoan family and found my lack of relatives a little strange. Okay, extremely strange. She asked about my parents and I told her they both died some years ago (apparently, I should say "passed away", 'died" isn't nice). She looked at the photo in my wallet and said, very seriously, "You know that they still love you and are watching you all the time from heaven, don't you?".

I don't believe that, but I do love that child. What a sweetheart.

A New Year, A New Start

Today is the first day of the school year. It's hot. 40C (about 104F) hot. It's always this hot when our school year starts. It's as though summer is taunting us "I'm still here, and you have to go back to work!". If our school was located 5km west, we would be entitled to an extra week of summer holiday (the "heat week" that western New South Wales schools get). 5km.

My teaching world is changing this year. After two years of boredom and dissatisfaction, I am leaving ESL behind (at least temporarily) and taking on a mainstream class. I am ready. My classroom is ready. I am Year 5. On Monday morning, 25 9 and 10 year old children will be looking at me as their teacher for the year . It's exciting.

And, as I think about my Year 5, my mind drifts back about a million years to when the dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was in Year 5. My Year 5 teacher was Mr Anderson (and my Year 4 teacher, and my Year 6 teacher; that's what happens in small schools). I loved him. Not the way I loved my parents, but as a mentor and teacher who opened the world up to a little girl from the bush in a way nobody else had. He guided my reading in a way that helped me to learn so much about the world, to develop ambitions and the will to fulfil them. He answered my questions, and made me memorise poetry, and helped me find answers to my questions that he couldn't answer.

Mr Anderson's class was a group of fifty (yes, I know, wouldn't be allowed today) children of wildly varying ability, background and ambition. I don't know how he managed it, but he made us feel special and individual; we were never just one of the crowd to him.

When we were in Year 6, he organised an excursion for us. Three days away from home, on a bus, going to Canberra and to see snow. For most of us, the first time ever. And, helping supervise, was his wife. That was certainly above and beyond the call of duty for both of them, but especially for her. Such trips were a very new thing at the time, although routine now.

Many years later, I was at a school function with my children, and one of the fathers was, by extreme coincidence, one of my classmates from Mr Anderson's class. We immediately fell into playing a game with the children. One of Mr Anderson's games. It came automatically - twenty years after leaving him, we were still Mr Anderson's kids.

Mr Anderson died when I was in high school. Almost the entire class of Mr Anderson's kids (we were his last class, he retired when we left Year 6) attended the funeral. Mr Anderson's kids to the end.

Wherever you are, Mr Anderson, you did good, and you are remembered and loved.

What is Reading?

Reading Recovery is an excellent programme, designed to assist children who have made a slow start in reading to catch up with their peers.  It involves one-on-one tuition, and a very structured lesson plan, delivered every day.  The success rate is high, and many participants continue to do well as they move up the school.  Reading Recovery is only available to students in Year 1, after they have completed a year of schooling.

However, when a child comes to our school from another country, with no English and enrols in Year 1, they are immediately eligible to go on the Reading Recovery programme, and the programme’s procedures put them on as soon as possible.

It’s useless at that time.  They may learn to “read” – to decode text – but reading is so much more than just decoding text.  Comprehension is the major part of reading.  After all, I can have a reasonable “go” at reading French.  My pronunciation might be off (as is these children’s) but I can “read” it.  I can’t understand it, though.

And comprehension doesn’t happen without an understanding of the language.  Putting these children in the Reading Recovery programme is a waste of resources – they need a lot (at least a year, sometimes more) of oral language development and understanding first.

You can’t read and comprehend what you can’t say and understand.

Worries from Kindergarten

I have two kindergarten students who now, at the end of the year, are still worrying me.  Their peers, who also had little English in February, are now confident communicators, chatting happily in English and well on the road to literacy.  While they still need help, they are on the way and I don’t have long-term concerns about them.

These two boys are different.  O.  has been sent to school too young.  However, I doubt another year at home would have made a different.  He is the third child in his family; the older two are doing well in Year 1 and Year 3.  O doesn’t speak.  He understands no English, but copes in the classroom by sometimes copying his classmates, and sometimes waiting to be physically moved into place.  He also doesn’t speak or understand Tongan – when asked, his brother communicates by showing him what to do or physically moving him into place.  He does seem to hear – he responds to his name and to bells. 

Of course, a hearing check is needed, but the parents don’t see a problem and won’t do it.  We can get free hearing tests for Aboriginal students but not for others.  So O. goes on his way, understanding little in either language, and learning nothing.

Z is the other child I am concerned about.  Z lives in a happy, happy place – but it isn’t the real world of school.  he seems to have no awareness of why he is here or what he is meant to be doing.  He needs watching constantly as he doesn’t respond to bells, routine or instruction and can be found almost anywhere if not watched.  He doesn’t follow his classmates at all, hasn’t yet learnt to write his name and can’t really hold a pencil.  He doesn’t seem to have grasped that these are things he might one day do, or that we want him to do, or even that other people do.  Hearing is a concern but, again, a test isn’t happening.  So Z continues in his happy place (he is a happy, placid child), but not yearning anything.

A counsellor assessment done recently tells us that both boys are of average intelligence (tested how, exactly?) and being ESL is their only problem.

Hmmm….

A Shameful Past

Because we are a school with a significant Aboriginal enrolment (about 25%) we receive considerable extra funding from the Government to improve the educational outcomes for our indigenous students (like the educational talk?).  Part of the responsibilities that come with this is that we have an extra School Development Day each year which is devoted to Aboriginal culture and awareness.

Usually this day is not particularly looked forward to.  This year’s however, turned out to be quite interesting.  Part of the presentation was about Aboriginal men who served in the Australian Army in World War I and World War II and the way they were treated when they returned home.

During the wars, the Aboriginal soldiers were treated equally with their white mates.  During World War I, they were not actually allowed to enlist as Aboriginal men, but many were so keen to serve that they told the recruiters they were Indian (or anything else) so they could enlist.  Once they were in they received the same pay, did the same work, and took the same risks.  My late father-in-law served with several in World War II, and always spoke highly of them.

He also spoke of the shameful way they were treated at the end of both wars.  At the end of World War I, returned soldiers were entitled to a grant of farmland to enable them to establish homes and families, and to develop new areas.  Much of this area is “soldier settlement” land and some farms are still held and worked by the direct descendants of the men who were granted them 90 years ago.  However, even though this land was taken from the Aboriginal tribes (and the tribes moved onto mission stations), the Aboriginal soldiers were not entitled to receive a soldier settlement grant.

As well, Aboriginal returned soldiers were not allowed to join the RSL, not allowed to participate in Anzac Day and Armistice Day marches and celebrations, not allowed to join their mates for a drink in the pub; generally not allowed to participate in society at all.

Aboriginal people were also subject to the provisions of the Aborigines Protection Act 1909, which gave the Aboriginal Protection Board power over their lives, where they lives and what they did.  It enabled children to be removed from parents (the Stolen Generation), Aboriginal people to be forced onto reserves, and many other controls over their lives.

Unless, of course, they obtained a General Certificate of Exemption.  This allowed the holder to

Leave the reservation or mission at which they live to go to work.

It also conferred additional benefits, including

Walk freely through town without being arrested (note: Curfews apply)

Enter a shop or hotel (you may or may not be served – at proprietor’s discretion)

However, there were also special conditions which must be strictly adhered to:

Speaking in native language – Prohibited

Engaging in dance, rituals, native customs – Prohibited

Associating with fellow indigenous people (including family) – Prohibited

This Certificate gave the Aboriginal man the chance to

Assimilate into the wider community.  If all conditions are met with and satisfactorily upheld, you may also be eligible to live in town unsupervised.  Note:  Strictly segregated housing areas.  This is your chance to be free of the Aboriginals Protection Act and live like a white man.

Ancient history?  Not so much, really.  The copy certificate I have (and have quoted from) is dated 1951, and such certificates were issues into the 1960s.

An interesting day indeed.