Wilshaw is not an easy man to like. Making public remarks such as 'teachers don't know what stress is' is certainly not going to endear Sir Michael to the body of professionals he is tasked with regulating. Now he is courting further controversy. And he has also been heard on live TV today calling for a ban on mobile phones in schools. For those who missed it, here is the full transcript of his Sky Television News interview at lunchtime today:
Interviewer: Mobile phones have become ubiquitous and schools are no exception. But now schools will be penalised if they fail to tackle the low level disruption that comes when pupils are texting, taking calls or updating their Facebook status in lessons. It’s being proposed by Sir Michal Wilshaw, the Chief Inspector of Schools and he joins me now live from Brighton. Sir Michael, thank you for being with us. Some schools are already tackling this. Why does Ofsted need to get involved?
Sir Michael: Well, Osted is going to be commenting in its inspections on the quality of provision in the school, looking at the culture of the school, looking at behaviour, to see whether in fact the culture of the school and the behaviour of the students is promoting good teach and good learning. And what we’re saying is that it’s up to schools, it’s up to headteachers, it’s up to governors to make decisions on mobile phones and texts and so on and so forth. But it’s really really important that when inspectors walk into a class they see children being attentive, focused on their learning, making progress and achieving good outcomes.
Interviewer: Is there never a place for a mobile phone in a classroom? Can it not be used as a calculator, as a homework diary for example by a pupil, is there never a positive?
Sir Michael: Well as I say, it’s really up to the leaders of our schools to make decisions on this. Certainly when I was a head in East London, I made a very clear and unequivocal decision that I didn’t want mobile phones brought into school - they cause too many problems, youngsters were bullied in school through text bullying, .... often when they left to go home they were picked upon by others and their mobile phones taken away. So we made a very simple rule that we didn’t want mobile phones in the school. If the youngsters wanted to phone home or use a phone in an emergency, they could use the school phone.
Interviewer: Isn’t this adding just more pressure to the teachers who say they are already stretched to their limits. How do they police this? How do they go about it?
Sir Michael: Well the greater pressure, in my experience as a Head, is on teachers who try and teach and lessons are disrupted by mobile phones going off, or children trying to text each other in the class. Certainly the staff in schools I worked in welcomed this sort of blanket decision to ban mobile phones. Teachers want to focus on what’s really important – which is teaching well, making sure the children learn and are making progress. They don’t want lessons interrupted. It’s really up to the leaders of our schools, Head teachers and governors and senior staff in our schools to make this decision. If they want to carry on with mobile phones and giving pupils permission to do that, that’s fine as long as they don’t disrupt lessons.
Interviewer: Does it say something about teaching itself though, because if the pupils were engaged, they were feeling a part of that lesson, they were concentrating, they wouldn’t be a texting or updating their Facebook status?
Sir Michael: And that’s absolutely fine. And then the Head can make a decision on that. If it’s not an issue in schools and it’s not interfering in education and in lessons then the Head can make the right decision for that institution. I’m simply saying that I think low level disruption in classes, and in schools is a bigger problem than the punch-up in the playground actually. So it needs to be cut out. Low level disruption needs to be addressed by teacher and Head teachers and if mobile technology is getting in the way of that then it needs to be sorted out.
Interviewer: Since you’ve come into the role as Chief Inspector of Schools you’ve made a number of announcements and a number of proposals to try and improve standards in schools. Not all of them have been welcomed, you’ve found yourself in conflict with teachers and Head teachers. As a former Head teacher yourself, do you understand where they’re coming from?
Sir Michael: Well I want, and good Head teachers want, good schools. I want all children to go to a good school. Parents want their children to go to a good school. Children want to go to good schools. That’s the intention behind the reforms I’m introducing, to say that ‘satisfactory’ isn’t good enough, that the only acceptable provision is ‘good’ – and those schools that aren’t ‘good’ need to work towards that. That might take time to do that, but we’ll be backing and supporting the good Head, the ambitious Head, who wants to get to a ‘good’ state as soon as possible. So that is a central focus of our reforms.
Interviewer: Sir Michael, you’ve given a speech today, you’ve talked about teachers complaining about the job being too stressful, not enough support from parents, disruptive pupils, do you think teachers have got it too good, they’ve had it too good for too long?
Sir Michael: I think the great majority of teachers that I have worked with, over many many years, over forty years - are very hard working professionals who want to do the best by children, that’s been my experience. And we want to support those teachers, but we also want Heads to make sure they assess teachers, that they performance manage properly, and they reward good teachers. As I say, the great majority of staff need to be praised and rewarded - but do something about those teachers who aren’t teaching well. And so on and so forth. So, we need to make sure that performance management in our schools is robust and we need to make sure that Head teachers are ambitious for their school.
Interviewer: Sir Michael Wilshaw, live with us from Brighton, thank you.
It's very easy to see where Wilshaw is missing the point, and doing so either through lack of knowledge about the potential of mobile phones in learning, or through simple blind prejudice. He gives himself away by falling back onto the old authoritarian mantra of 'mobile phones are disruptive', and suggests that all kids want to do is update their Facebook status or text their friends during lessons. He fails to see that such tools are actually a huge part of youth culture, a means to create links to knowledge, social networks and ultimately - learning, when used appropriately. The mobile phone is purely disruptive, and as such it must be banned, removed from the classroom once and for all, and given no reprieve.
There are deeper issues at stake. Notice the interviewer's question about lack of engagement, and his response - to dance around the question, and instead, answer the question he wanted to answer. Another intelligent question from the interviewer was whether mobile phones can be harnessed for good use in the classroom. Once again, Wilshaw skirts the question, and instead places the decision making onto the shoulders of individual school leaders. It seems that Head teachers are still in control of their own schools, but deep beneath, there is the underlying threat from Ofsted that if inspectors witness what they consider to be 'disruption' in classes they observe, then there will be punitive measures imposed. Ofsted can put a school into 'special measures' or lower its quality assessment status, usually as a result of determining that it does not measure up to the agreed standards. But is this the thin end of the wedge? How are already hard pressed teachers going to impose these rules? asked the interviewer. Surely they are already under enough pressure? Wilshaw's response was to suggest that there are far greater pressures, and that mobile phones are the root cause of those pressures. OK, so tell that to the male teacher who tries to retrieve a mobile phone that a female student has secreted on her person. Tell that to the teacher who receives threats of legal representation from parents who believe that she has broken or lost their child's mobile phone while it was being confiscated. How many schools are insured for that eventuality?
The fact is, many schools are already harnessing the creative potential of mobile phones to inspire and engage students, both inside and outside the classroom. It's also a fact that in schools where mobile phones are banned, many students continue to use them, and often for disruptive purposes. Where schools do allow mobiles as a part of their daily learning activities, the devices come out into the open, are no longer illicit, and can then be better controlled and used purposefully as a part of lessons. Which ever way we examine this issue, mobile phones are now a ubiquitous part in society, and are already playing a huge role in the culture of modern living. Simply attempting to ban them from a place young people regularly gather is an impossible task. Schools should instead consider ways that mobile devices can be used to enhance and enrich learning, for in so doing, we prepare our children for the future, instead of rooting them in the practices of the past.
The bring your own device (BYOD) movement in particular is gaining ground in education, so to attempt to stem the tide of mobile phones is schools is to emulate the megalomania of King Canute. Should Michael Wishaw (and that other Michael, Wilshaw's boss in the Department for Education) not also consider that when mobile phones are used correctly and responsibly by the 'ambitious teachers' they so value, learning can be taken to a whole new level of engagement and inspiration? Personally, I don't think that possibility will ever cross their minds. Not when they continue to see mobile phones as a threat.
It's probably not too late to point out that when that asteroid hit our planet all those millions of years ago, it failed to completely wipe out all the dinosaurs.
Image source
Trying to stop the tide by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.
