>> Case Studies >> Case Study 8
Laissez-Fairé? Non!
The events that are described here happened in
my 3rd Year of teaching
It took me over three years to get to teach the subject,
I knew most about : Economics. I had been a mobile resource
for the first year and a bit and managed to get in a
variety of teaching Home Economics, English, History
... the Master of four periods for about colleagues
in average of schools. I guess I learned a lot about
discipline and classroom management, but what of Economic
teaching?
Right from the moment I get my first Economics class
(Year 11) I was faced with tremendous tension between
covering the syllabus, following the school program
and developing and organising the activities I thought
that students needed to complete to learn the concepts.
For a start there were three classes in Year 11, so
there were other teachers to discuss Economics with.
But it right from the start it was obvious that our
backgrounds were different. One of the other teachers
was basically a recycled geography teacher and relied
on the other two of us for content instruction, answering
problems and technical advice. The other teacher, although
knowledgeable, had a different background to mine. He
was the sort of teacher who basically went through the
Shade or Gallagher and Burkharat text ... with a real
neoclassical approach. Whereas I had a more political
economy approach. This made selecting options, case
studies and exam questions either a battle or a non-event
where we ignored each other. Another difficulty was
the program. ... it was very much out of date. I instantly
agitated to change it and was the acceptance of the
head teacher, who was worried it was so far behind the
intent of the syllabus and out of date with warrant
events that at was inoperable. I had planned to ignore
the program and do my own thing but now I was given
the task of developing a new program for all of the
classes. This was to be done with consultation with
the other two teachers and the Head Teacher. However,
the other economics specialist estimated that he would
follow the text, anyway, his new job of sports coordinator
preventing him from wasting too much time planning lessons
and units. In effect the program I developed was based
around my own classroom teaching ... which was followed
by the others non-specialist teacher.
I introduced games, group work, topic studies, seminars,
used computer program and tried to develop a range of
really existing and interesting teaching and lessening
strategies. The sequence of events had a number of consequences
for our Department. These included ...
a) Tension arose between some of the students and
their parent in my class and the other that followed
the program because of the new approach. There were
complaints that the syllabus was not followed, there
was too much time wasting and the textbooks given
to the students were not regularly used. Two students
left my class, changed lines and resumed the subject
with the 'textbook' teacher. However, six students
from his class left and wished to join ours because
they had heard that there was more fun to be had.
When asked why these students changed back and forth
the most common phrases were "you never teach us
much and we have no notes" or "it was boring, we
just copied out question and notes and didn't understand
anything."
b) In the staffroom the other specialist economics
teacher and I developed some hostility and we couldn't
agree as much. As well to non-specialist teacher formed
a dependency on me and my program. After that class
would complete the activity that was planned but not
debrief properly or seemed to get the wrong idea. Team
teaching where we put the classes together seemed very
successful, however, the non-specialist teacher being
much more capable in classroom control than I was.
c) There were embarrassing moments. We were playing
a game called aeroplanes which were made in a way
to show how specialisation and division of labour
worked. The Deputy Principal walked into my classroom
and was hit ... the side of the head by paper plane.
She took it warmly and didn't seem to be upset but
the principal spoke to the head teacher (what is happening
in X's Economic Room).
In a game mimicking scarcity of resources a student
cut her hand in a scramble over scissors.
There were plays ... I had organised for my class
to role play the Budget. Each student was given a
role and had researched their Department's spending
and cutting priorities ... with the Treasury and Finance
suggesting different courses of action the class (Budget
Cabinet) had to note spending and taxing (fiscal)
decisions. These were entered into a computerised
model of the economy which reported the performance
of the economy in inflation and unemployment terms.
It took about 2/3 lessons to set up and 2/3 lessons
to play, students knew what was going on. (More than
some Ministers I thought) One day a shadow minister
visited the school and sat in on a budget discussion.
He was excited, impressed and very supportive. It
was really enjoyable and fun to go to Economics class.
A publisher approached me to write a chapter in a
textbook.
d) Numbers choosing Economics rose at subject choice
time and a 4th class was scheduled for incoming Year
11 student. A whole class 20 students took 3 unit
Economics for Year 12.
e) I spent so much time programming and planning
in Economics that I didn't prepare very well for 2
of my other 4 classes. For one I did hardly any preparation
at all. Needless to say they become unruly. It was
a Year 8 Geography class, which I had little interest
in. I just followed the program, a program I had little
subject background ... A first year out teacher coordinated
the 4 class doing this. The basically circulated resources
and make up the topic assessments and tests. I never
seemed to finish topics on time until this class,
and sometimes claimed were weren't doing as much as
the other classes.
f) The resourcing requirements of the new economics
approach meant our Department had to spend a lot of
funds on up to date Economics resources, Treasury
Round-up etc. We even had to set up a small library.
The librarian was keen to help and purchased a range
of resources, set up a reading area and went out of
her way to help, assist and encourage me.
g) One thing I really enjoyed was doing different
things with the Economics students in my class. The
students, gifted ... this subject were set economics
journals to read and had regular seminars, those struggling
with the concepts could work on study guides that
I wrote and we had coaching rounds. I only taught
in a whole class way one lesson in three.
h) At the end of the year the following years timetable
care out. the head teacher and the other specialist
teacher were to take the continuing Year 11 classes
to Year 12. The other specialist teacher was to take
the 3 unit class. I was given 2 Year 11 Economics
classes and was asked to take 2 unit and 3 unit Geography
... Year 12.
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