Recording evidence of learning is getting in the way of actual learning
The photos I take in class are tangible evidence of something having been learnt, or are they?
- by Mark Aston
Got me rubric, got me exemplars and got me smartphone camera ready. Get, set, go – and I’m a-clicking and a-clicking my way around the aisles of my classroom, in among the children.
Callum looks up to me, as doe-eyed as is possible for a hard-bitten Northumbrian nine-year-old:
“Sir, whaddya think of me fronted adverbials?” Before you can say ‘impossible is unpossible’, I’m upon him, snapping away at his scrawled sentence.
“And, sir, I’ve used the WOW adjectives that you said me to.” But, it’s too late: I’ve already added a vintage filter to his writing and I’m back on the trawl – the trawl for evidence.
Callum’s fronted adverbial is safely ensconced on the class blog and the beast is off me back for another lesson or so – until the next learning intention comes my way.
So I always make sure to have my phone fully charged and diligently clear the memory each week so there’s always space for one more photo of Nadine’s atmospheric setting or Paul’s characterisation.
It’s only the beginning of the school year and I’m already planning for next March’s book week.
Oh, the tableau! Picture after glorious picture of Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Harry Potter, the odd (very odd) Dobby, the Johnny Depp version of Willy Wonka, Harry Potter, an inexplicable Minion, the Johnny Depp version of the Mad Hatter, Harry Potter and Harry Potter.
Each picture on my class blog is a creamy slice of evidence – irrefutable, almost tangible evidence of something having been learnt.
I sometimes (I say ‘sometimes’ – I always) dream of these photos.
They mosaic kaleidoscopically through my subconscious then order themselves into rows and columns which rigidly form the cells of a spreadsheet.
These cells drip with honey and in the dream – in the dream – I know this honey is not simply evidence; it is data.
And in the dream, I push my fingers into a cell and I taste it. Man, but does it taste good. I sleep so well on nights like these, when I have my evidence and I dream of spreadsheets full of sweet honey.
Only sometimes, and I don’t really like to talk about this, the dream goes a bit wrong. Maybe I’m gorging myself on data-honey evidence and I get to starting to feel a bit sick and my mind starts to swim a little, but not in a nice mosaic-of-kaleidoscopic-photos-of-evidence type of way; but in a kind of what-is-the-point? type of way.
I can’t put my finger on it, but I see row after row and column after column of photos, of evidence.
Everything then reduces to numbers. I say ‘reduces’ but then the numbers get larger and larger, longer and longer; and my head almost splits with the thinking and the holding of these ever-expanding numbers.
My mind is beyond racing and beyond differentiating between photos, numbers, honey, fronted adverbials – in the flurry of everything, everything becomes nothing.
And then there is silence. Blessed silence. Slowly my diaphragm lowers into my stomach and I’m able to breathe again after what seems like hours of no breathing whatsoever. There’s no evidence: no photos and no numbers. No honey; only silence.
I hear a voice. “Sir,” it says. It’s Callum. “Sir,” it says, still Callum. In the silence and the whiteness, I walk over to him (I’ve got legs now) and I look down at him, hovered over his white sheet of paper, at his white desk in his white uniform.
He shoves his white paper towards me and nods toward it. I read what he has written. It’s written in white upon white, but I can read it as clearly as I’ve ever read anything.
I read it and then I look at Callum. He smiles. I taste my tears as they run over my smile. I sob. And I have never been so happy. Then I wake. And I reach over to my bedside table to switch off my alarm. Me phone is fully charged. Get, set, go.
Mark Aston currently teaches English in a secondary school in the Czech Republic. Find him at whatonomy.wordpress.com and follow him on Twitter at @whatonomy.
