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A 21st century teacher
An interview with Jim Wynn, John Cabot City Technical College
By Clare Richards |
Jim Wynn
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Within two minutes of meeting Jim Wynn he is advising me on the benefits of a palm pilot over my clunky dictaphone. And I can't help agreeing with him. He's not just a head teacher - he's a great salesman. I can feel him pulling me into the 21st century, gently but firmly, and that is exactly what he has done with his school, John Cabot City Technology College in Bristol, where he has been the head for three years. They do things differently here. Five eight-week terms, a summer break of just four weeks, and the school day is an hour longer "to reflect the business world". |
The culture of experiment permeates the whole school and is due in no small part to Jim Wynn. He's had an interesting career. After a maths degree he started teaching in 1976, moved into IT and was promoted to a headship in 1993. He left to work for Research Machines, an educational software company, then returned to teaching again and the headship at John Cabot. Now he's off back to industry, head-hunted by Microsoft. He still teaches maths and wants to continue teaching further maths by e-mail and video conferencing after he leaves.
When Jim started at John Cabot, he told the staff that they weren't going to buy any more ICT equipment for six months and that they would go through the whole curriculum and think about how they could use ICT to improve things. In his previous job at RM he had visited around 350 schools and learned from their mistakes. "I got really fed up with the technological approach to the use of ICT: 'let's buy some new technology and see what we can do with it'. I started to look at the issue from a pedagogical perspective - let's look at what we teach and see what we can improve using ICT," he says. And at John Cabot he could put these ideas into practice.
Improving the 7 out of 10 lesson
Jim cites Professor Margaret Cox's research on teachers' use of ICT (King's College, London) as a key influence. "She found that teachers who try to use ICT often chose areas where they were completely comfortable with their teaching, on the grounds that they could rescue it if it went wrong. Invariably what she observed was a worse lesson than the one it replaced because the prep was wrong and they didn't really know why they were doing it," he explains.
"If it's a 9 out of 10 lesson, leave it alone - the 7 out of 10 lessons are the important ones to rescue. So you take the 7 out of 10 lesson and try to work out why it's not better and then see if ICT can help," he explains. "If the lesson is less than 7 out of 10 you need to look more deeply at your teaching practice. ICT is a step too far," he says.
All departments have a flexible approach to the learning environments they provide: sometimes they use a single computer and interactive whiteboard to enable students to work together as a class, other times they use ten computers to allow students to work in groups of three if that is what the learning needs, and sometimes students work individually on computers, but the learning is always directed by the teacher. "The modality of use of ICT is what any teacher does with an ordinary bit of teaching apparatus. It's very rare to give every kid a textbook and say let's all work individually today," says Jim.
Learning to learn
There are lots of other exciting experiments going on at the school.
This autumn they're having an e-learning day when the whole of Year 8 will be taught at home. Staff will come in as normal but the children will work at home in groups of three. One problem that will obviously arise is the supervision of children and the willingness of parents to take part, but, as Jim says, it's an experiment: "We'll see what works and what doesn't."
They have developed a free website that shows people how to teach themselves computer programmes. They have an 'e-portal' that enables staff to enter information about the children remotely and they are about to release a portal for parents so that they can check things like attendance and marks. "There are lots of foibles to get over but if you can get that teacher/parent/student link working you get rid of problems before they happen," says Jim.
The school is also getting a reputation for consultancy, both at home and abroad, which generates income for the school. Two members of staff have just returned from a trip to Cairo where they talked to the Egyptian government about ICT implementation in schools and gave a workshop for teachers on effective use of ICT.
But aren't the John Cabot kids neglected if their teachers are zooming around the world? "You must use the money you get to have more teachers," explains Jim. "Our plan is to over-staff by 10% so each member of staff can then be out for 10% of the time."
Next year the school is abandoning the National Curriculum for Year 7 and replacing it with the RSA (Royal Society for the Arts) Curriculum, based on developing five competencies: learning, citizenship, relating to people, managing situations and managing information. Jim calls it a 'learning to learn' year.
Looking to the future
I asked him to give me his vision for the use of ICT in schools ten years from now.
"The BBC did a 'classroom of the future' video - which showed a darkened room with kids staring at screens and the teacher in the corner - God knows what they were doing! - but that's not my image. My image is you take a learning experience with a group of kids and the teacher who's still the 'learning manager', and they'll make value judgements about how the computer and the learning objectives can be fused together.
"There are researchers in the States who say that kids will become autonomous learners, that they'll direct the curriculum - I can't see that happening in Europe, not yet. I can't see in ten years time the National Curriculum changing that much. It might change in shape but there will still be a direction to it," he says.
"I think parents are going to be allowed access into a world that used to be closed. I think ICT is going to really bring that parent/teacher/student triangle together as broadband comes online. The poorest family in Bristol will have access to resources such as the Encylopedia Brittanica at no extra cost to the family, probably through their TV," he predicts.
So how does he feel about leaving? "I love my job," he says. "I wasn't planning to go because there are so many exciting things happening. I was just offered a unique position." The Microsoft job was created specially for him and is both impressive and daunting in its scope: Schools Development and Strategy Manager for Europe, Middle East and South Africa. "I'm 49 now and I thought, in five years time would I even get offered it? But coming back again would not be out of the question." And I believe him. He's still a maths teacher at heart - a problem solver. Hopefully he's not a dying breed - his son is doing a maths degree at Oxford but is unlikely to go into teaching. But maybe all maths teachers in the future will have to option to weave in and out of industry and teaching - now there's an idea.
Links
www.cabot.ac.uk - John Cabot CTC's homepage
www.cabotcommunity.co.uk - a site created at John Cabot CTC as part of a community project, aimed at teaching local primary school children basic IT skills. The site frees the project from geographical boundaries - to bring the resources and skills to a much wider audience.
www.thersa.org/newcurriculum/home.html - find out more about the RSA New Curriculum
www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/education/hpages/mcox.html - Professor Margaret Cox's home page at King's College, London
www.acitt.org.uk - the home page for the Association for ICT in Education
www.mirandanet.ac.uk - MirandaNet advocates using advanced technologies as a catalyst for change in teaching and learning and as a force for international understanding between teaching professionals. Research and development projects include 'Thinking Space', funded by Oracle and Compaq, which focuses on the development of international online learning communities.
www.interactiveeducation.ac.uk - 17 teachers at John Cabot CTC are taking part in the unique InterActive Education project at the University of Bristol
October 2003
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