Pedagogy – When you teach, are you ‘bothered’?
The act of zeroing in on what education is for and who it should serve can be summed up in one handy word, observes Hywel Roberts…
Okay. Three words that sum up education for you – go!
In order to unpick any approach to education – dry, normal, greasy, traditional, progressive, Jedi, old skool – one must settle on some unshakeables, some non-negotiables. Some values we can hang on to. These are the agreements we have with ourselves in our own heads – principles that inform our own practice.
When crazy Uncle Pete1, who likes Stella Artois and can’t hold down a relationship, corners you again at the next family event and challenges you on the ins and outs of state education, these are the words you may stutter back at him as he suggests that ‘Being hit across the arse by a sweaty 50-something male as it never did him any harm.’ (He’s an expert. Because he went to school.)
Uncover them, your three words, and use them to arm yourself against the uninformed, the ignorant and the powerful. Fight on the bridge of educational misinformation for these words. They’re yours. They’re what make you bothered.
Making it matter
I’ll tell you my three words in a moment. But first I should explain the term (and title of my new book), Botheredness.
Let’s say that in your class sits Maisie and she’s a real sweetheart. You’re starting a topic on Ancient Greece, and Maise’s so excited because that’s where she’s going on holiday in the summer.
And when you did Romans, it was cool because her family piled into their Volkswagen camper van and off they went to Hadrian’s Wall for a weekend. She’s buzzing and bothered. Her parents are ace, and fair play to them for being bothered.
Amber isn’t that bothered, though. Amber hasn’t got a bed, or a mum. She hasn’t really got head space for Hadrian, walls or Romans. She’s got enough on. Besides, these walls and ancients are just so long ago. They tell her nothing about her life. They’re a mirror that reflects nothing.
A challenge for you then, as Amber’s teacher, is: how are you going to get her bothered? How are you going to make it all matter?
Carriers of warmth
‘Botheredness’ is a word I wrote about in my previous book Oops! to sum up the levels of authentic care and ‘unconditional positive regard’2 I witnessed whilst working at a social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) school in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. It’s classroom/institution-level monkey-giving. And it’s instilling it in the children. Giving it to them. Wrapping it up as a gift.
What it isn’t is soft. To exude botheredness, you have to be an authentic professional. Basically, it’s ensuring schooling is about children. That shouldn’t sound weird, but as I write this, I feel it might come across as strange to some. I think it’s strange I’m having to write it down.
If you’ve got botheredness then you’re a teacher who will have impact beyond the subject coverage. You’ll be the role model for the child, a significant adult, a carrier of warmth. It’s the opposite of cold survivalist and defensive classroom approaches. It’s why you became a teacher in the first place.
So, three words to offer to Uncle Pete. Well, here are mine, experience distilled like fine whiskey, into three cool words – ‘Stories’, ‘Stance’ and ‘Pedagogy’.
Word 1 – Stories
We’re bombarded by stories all the time. They’re an essential part of who we are. Stories, according to Daniel Willingham (2004), are ‘psychologically privileged’, meaning that they help us retain information.
I saw Jaws at the cinema when I was 5, going on 6, but grew up remembering the story until I got to see it again on TV years later.3 I also vividly remember Aesop’s Fables, as I had one of those card-backed Ladybird books4 telling me the tales. I can picture the accompanying illustrations right now as I write this.
I also remember stories of my own schooling – stories Nainy would whisper me to sleep with5, and the stories my dad would tell about his time doing National Service. And that time he borrowed a horse on his way home from the pub.
Stories are useful for us as educators. They can be our stimulus, our hook, our case study, our design brief as well as being our way of ‘protecting’ our pupils into complex thinking and learning6. Stories essentially build botheredness.
Word 2: Stance
Stance is where you stand as a teacher, both physically and mentally. It’s how you are in a classroom.
We all know that you can have two degrees, a doctorate and a book deal, but if you cannot find a way to communicate all your hard-won knowledge to children, then as a teacher, you’re screwed.
Well, maybe that’s a bit strong. Essentially, you’ve a struggle on. If you can’t protect yourself into working with children, the job becomes much harder. If you cannot muster some rapport with an individual or a class, it’s all uphill.
This is why stance is so important. Where do you stand? What are your values? How do you demonstrate your authentic professional care? And how would you sum up your teacher presence? Who do you model yourself on?
I had aspirations of being John Keating from Dead Poets Society, but I also wanted to be Dave Matthews, Marc Doyle, Elizabeth Gaughan, Russ Thornton and Allan Horne and those other ace teachers who helped shape my ‘new teacher’ years7.
I also wanted to be that teacher that children might remember fondly, in the same way I remember John Booth, Theresa Crowsdale, Chris Idle and Mrs Greenhalgh – teachers who supported me when I was a kid8. Real people with names and everything. Stance is botheredness, humanely and professionally enacted.
Word 3: Pedagogy
I couldn’t say the word ‘pedagogy’ for a long time. It’d come out of my mouth as ‘pedagorry’ and would get quieter as I made my way through its sound.
One day, after a high-powered SLT meeting I’d been seconded to, I asked the head how to say it and what ‘pedagogy’ actually meant. Frankly, I had enough on with planning lessons and all that without having to namby-pamby about with academic words I couldn’t pronounce.
My boss set me straight on the pronunciation and neatly summed up the meaning of pedagogy. It’s how we teach. It’s the human delivery of stuff that’s been written down. I love this. Pedagogy is the human delivery of agreed content. It’s the how of curriculum, the implementation of the should, coupled with the protection of children into learning.
Pedagogy is the holding back of the nettles on the footpath, so the children don’t get stung. It’s not dumbing stuff down;, but making it accessible. It’s making the world of challenging content inductive, wonderful and necessary. It’s the building of botheredness.
Those footnotes in full
- This is a real person in real life and everything. If he were in a movie he’d be played by Steven Berkoff. He’s a baddie.
- Carl Rogers, the eminent humanistic psychologist, coined this beauty. Not to be confused with the other Carl Rogers who produced the movie Blade Runner 2049. For more information on unconditional positive regard, see Gobir (2021) and for a good article on its application in a school context, see Halliday (2018).
- On ITV, 8 October 1981. I’d just turned 11.
- Now selling for a mint on eBay! For many, Ladybird Books are a nostalgic reminder of childhood. Do you remember them?
- ‘Nainy’ is the Welsh version of a grandmother.
- The idea of protecting children into learning and thinking is explored in my Oops! book. Basically, it’s about the ways in which a teacher can support a child (and a class) into caring about the topic being studied and, in a way, seeing themselves in it. If that makes sense?
- This is a list of teachers who taught me when I was a probationary teacher. They taught me more than teaching. They were mighty oaks. Not weeping willows. As a new teacher, it’s a good idea to spot these winners in your school and learn from them.
- This is a list of teachers who taught me at Bury Church of England High School back in the 1980s. They left their fingerprints on my brain and my heart.
Hywel Roberts has taught in secondary, primary and special settings for almost three decades, and is now an educational speaker, writer, author and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts
This article is based on an edited extract from his latest book, Botheredness: Stories, Stance and Pedagogy (£18.99, Independent Thinking Press)
