Transcript

DAVE HEWITT:

When I first started teaching, I entered into a school where the diet was mainly textbooks or work cards. And I felt that the way the pupils were being asked to work was getting them to do rather repetitive tasks and to always seek an authority somewhere, whether it is me or whether it is the answers at the back of the book.

I was very unhappy with that. And I worked quite hard at working with them in a different way where I tried to find out what they could do themselves. They have minds they bring with them, all sorts of experiences and abilities. And I spent quite a long time, many years, in classrooms finding out what they can do if left, in a sense, to their own devices.

And I found that the pupils realised that they can be quite creative in mathematics and that they are functioning mathematicians at their level. And I saw many pupils grow as a consequence of that. And quite often, I would arrive in a classroom. And if I happened to be a bit late, then quite often, they were working already and they were quite autonomous in that sense.

I then also began to ask the question, well, what is my role? And I felt that I wanted to see whether I could possibly accelerate this learning so that they might be able to learn faster just as comfortably. And as a consequence, I think I've begun working in ways where I'm quite controlling what's happening in the classroom. I'm very much controlling it. And in many ways, the activity relies on me as a controlling body in that room.

I hope, and I feel that I succeed, in still making them realise that they are still in control. So I'm not telling them what to do, but I am trying to affect their attention and perhaps direct their attention to different things, so that they can notice things, perhaps a little bit quicker than if their attention wasn't drawn to certain things.

These lessons are not every lesson. I won't control it in that way every lesson. It's quite often just a starter that may last for one or two or three lessons at the most, I would have thought. What am I going to do to this one? Oh, yes, I'm going to add 3, times by 2, take away 5, divide by 3, add 72.

Got a problem with this? Do you want me to write down what I'm doing?

STUDENTS:

Yes.

DAVE HEWITT:

So-- let me see. I'm thinking of a number. I add 3. Then I'm going to multiply by 2. Then I'm going to take away 5. Then I'm going to divide by 3. Then I'm going to add 72. And then I'm going to multiply by 6. And I get 100. So you're going to-- Jemma.

STUDENT 1:

100 divided by 6.

DAVE HEWITT:

100--

STUDENT 1:

Divide by 6.

DAVE HEWITT:

And you're dividing by 6 because?

STUDENT 1:

Because it was times 6. And so you take that and it's divide by 6.

DAVE HEWITT:

So that's done.

STUDENT 1:

Yeah. Then take 72.

DAVE HEWITT:

OK, and after that-- I've done that.

STUDENT 1:

Times 3.

DAVE HEWITT:

Because I--

STUDENT 1:

Divide 3.

DAVE HEWITT:

So you're going to--

STUDENT 1:

It's times 3.

DAVE HEWITT:

Times by-- all right. We're left with this.

STUDENT 1:

Divide it by 2. Or no-- add 5.

STUDENT 2:

Add 5, divide it by 2.

DAVE HEWITT:

So I add--

STUDENT 1:

DAVE HEWITT:

Right. So that's that done.

STUDENT 1:

Divide by 2.

DAVE HEWITT:

Divide by 2.

STUDENT 1:

Take 3.

DAVE HEWITT:

And take 3. And I end up with-- when I first started off saying I'm thinking a number, what did I write down?

STUDENT 1:

DAVE HEWITT:

So I end up with whatever that number is, and we could work it out and find out what it is. All right.