Fellow teachers, you may have come across this idea that sometimes kids should not put their hands up to answer questions in class because then it’s always the same kids who do – you know, some of them need thinking time, are less confident etc, blah blah blah. And we all know that hands-up can be a great buzz for Sir or Miss for that magical penny-dropping moment when the kid gets it. That is why I have always used hands-up with my students along with a range of other traditional and modern techniques. Of course that didn’t stop me from leading an initiative when preparing for Ordinary Comprehensive’s Ofsted visit last year in which teachers were penalised for using hands-up and for not using the hands-down technique.
In aggressively imposing this and other patently absurd and short-lived policies, I was not, as some have suggested, motivated solely by self-interest. I was not slavishly toeing a perceived line for the sake of my own career prospects. No. I was being loyal; I was slavishly toeing the line simply because it was, I believed, the line. It is how armies operate. And it is a good way to be - for most people.
Obviously I’m not like that any longer. This summer I became a maverick and a whistleblower in order to promote my book. Nowadays I am full of original ideas. It’s going very well!
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