Anatomy of a failed innovation

This is a piece I wrote in the 80s. I always meant to publish it but I never did. It's a story about when I was a young and thought I was invincible. Now I'm old and think I'm a little less invincible. If you read this you'll find I certainly had my tail between my legs at the end of this project.

I learnt a lot from it and maybe you will pick up some useful hints as you perhaps imagine yourself in my shoes.

All names have been changed.

Introduction

This is a story about a school, a teacher and a group of students.?

The school is a girls' high school in the suburbs of Melbourne. It is set in a quite middle class area and many of the school's patrons think of it as a state grammar school. Indeed many of the girls have a brother at the local boys' grammar. This is not to say that none of the students experience poverty at home – the school is the local high school for girls and accepts all the students within the zone who apply for it – however what poverty there is is well hidden.

The teacher is me. I came to the school after spending seven very successful years in a nearby co–educational state high school. In fact, I came armed with a very recent teacher assessment which unanimously rated my current teaching performance and suitability for promotion as excellent and highly recommended respectively. I was confident that I could tackle anything that this school could throw at me. It was with some excitement then that I accepted the role of Mathematics Co–ordinator even though I did not consider myself an expert in mathematics. (Most of my previous efforts had been directed at the teaching of Physics and the use of computers in schools.)?For reasons that I hope will become obvious as this narrative unfolds, I will leave the school, three years later, a battered but not defeated soul.

The students are a fairly normal (albeit all female) group of young teenagers. A group I have watched change from an assortment of wide–eyed, enthusiastic children just out of primary school to young people who have begun to experiment (to various degrees) with life – whose innocence is starting to fade into a memory. I met this group at the beginning of my second year at the school. I had decided that I would have a Year 7 class as I had had no junior classes in my first year and was eager to try out the ideas I had been espousing.

Part 1: The School

First Impressions

There’s a sense of excitement as a drive to the school. It’s my first new appointment since starting teaching secen years ago. On this my first visit in preparation for formally taking up the appointment in the new year I’m wondering what it will be like.

After reporting to reception I’m shown to the Principal’s office.

I see a smartly dressed man in his late forties or early fifties. As he rises to greet me with a big smile and outstretched hand I notice his athletic appearance. (I was to learn later that he had previously been a big wig in the Education Department but wasn’t one of the ‘in crowd’ with the new government so had been shunted off to be a school principle. For all that, he seemed happy with his lot. He’s probably one of the highest paid principals in the state.)

'Hello Mr. Connor.’ I do my best to sound confident.

'Come in, take a seat. Call me Pat by the way. We don’t stand too much by formalities here.’ He knows how to make someone feel at ease.?

‘Would you like something to drink? Tea? Coffee?’?

‘A tea would be great, thanks.’

’White, no sugar.”?

He passes the details through the intercom. While he still has the phone in is hand he presses another button.?

‘Dick, can you come in please? Out new Physics teacher is here.’

Dick is an older man. Tall, slim and bespectacled with a slight stoop. He doesn’t have the air of confidence his boss does.

'This is Dick Peterson, our Deputy Principal, he'll handle most of the arrangements. In a minute, Dick will take you over to meet Bob Roberts – you'll be replacing him as senior Physics teacher. Bob is also in charge of the timetable.'?

A woman appears at the door with a tray with three cups and some biscuits.?

Pat gives me a brief run down of the school. It’s history and philosophy –?

‘Pretty middle of the road. We like to be seen as quiet achievers. Except of course for sport. We’ve got a couple of budding Olympians here and we’re very proud of them.’

Then he asks about my background. What was my old school like. What are my interests. He makes easy conversation.

After these initial formalities, Dick takes me over to meet Bob Roberts. As the DP leaves I relax enormously. Bob is one of us – a normal teacher. Fairly relaxed, maybe not highly efficient or perhaps just efficient in his own way – but no doubt about it, a classroom teacher not an administrator.?The room is very crowded. There are three other desks in it, the racks on the back wall are crowded with books and equipment and I can see Bob's master timetable on the wall with all the other lists spread over everything on his desk.?

After a brief introduction Bob sets about to put me right at ease.

“First off, I’ll show you around the school.”?

I think Bob recognises I need some sort of induction and what he’s offering is about all I’ll get.

As we walk around the school I am astonished. This school has a very good reputation in the local community. There are waiting lists to get in. But nothing – absolutely nothing – seems to be new. There are old wooden cupboards in the corridors, weeds growing in the (once cared for) gardens. Down the junior corridor there seems to be something repressive about it. I can't put my finger on it but it is not a nice place to be. (It took me about a year to realise that this sense of repression was due to the darkness. Everywhere I went in the school it was dark and the paint on the walls was dirty and flaking.)

Climbing the steps near the Library, Bob told me of a conversation he had had with the previous principal on her first day at the school. "Don't get any ideas about a Commonwealth Library here." she said "There will be no building projects in the school while I am in charge."?Apparently she was true to her word.

Also nothing seemed to be planned. There was an amplifier and a photocopier (neither of which seemed to work) some old wooden cupboards, a film projector, and a clothes dryer in the corridor outside the staffroom door. Nobody seemed to care all that much.

I had only been at the school a couple of weeks when I found at what the clothes dryer was for. As is wont in Melbourne in summer there had been a huge thunder storm just before school was to start for the day. Girls were lining up outside the staffroom completely drenched. An older (female) staff member was directing them a couple at a time into the ladies bathroom. When the girls came out the only article of clothing I could see them wearing was their school jumper. (I presumed they wearing their underwear but I wasn’t hanging around to find out.) The teacher took their sopping tunics and put them in the dryer for a few minutes. (Their summer tunics were fairly light so seemed to come out fairly dry.) And then the process repeated until all the girls had been dealt with. I knew from experience nothing like that would ever happen in a co-ed school.

It's recess now as we go into the staffroom for some coffee. An assortment of jumpers, books and pencil cases lie on the floor just inside the door. Lost property??Past that hurdle and I see the staff of about sixty accommodated into an area that looks like it was once two classrooms. The blackboard is still on the wall at one end. As many as can fit are sitting around a few tables in the area about half the size of a classroom having coffee. On the wall is a makeshift shelf with dozens of cans and jars of coffee, mugs and a broken mirror.

I should have realised then (but didn't) that the physical state of the school was indicative of the way decisions had been (and to some extent, still were) made. I visited another school, a couple of years later, where somewhat similar conditions applied. Here I was able to observe much more objectively than in my own school. As I watched the kids pour in and out of the corridors, pushing each other around in dingy surroundings, watching their complete lack of interest in what was being taught them in their classes, I wondered what it was that was so good about universal education that makes us lock kids up in such uninviting and ugly places for such a large part of their lives. This must surely be a large part of the cause for the alienation of youth in our society. We could suppose that the other part was that society no longer has any useful alternative to school for our youth.

The Mathematics Program

I started preparing for my first year at the school a few days before the formal beginning of the year. As I arrived I found Pat and Dick in the principal's office going through the mail. We started off with the usual questions about how the holidays had been and some advice from Pat about taking a fairly low profile for my first year. I decided to get into some details.?I told Pat how I would like to start a curriculum review in the Maths Faculty and asked if anything like that had been done in the last few years.?Their eyes widened as they looked at each other. Dick took me into his office and brought out a couple of thick folders with the words:

School Review - 1982

on the covers. I assured them that this would be very useful and eagerly went off to read them. As I read I became excited. Here was fertile ground for curriculum review and development. As I read the external review board's section on Mathematics I found:

'The mathematics program...appears traditional, if not ultra conservative... suggests a style which relies heavily on teacher centred, text–book resourced, teacher autonomous methods...

...there are a number of areas which deserve detailed investigation and review. Broadly these fall into three main?categories –

(i)???Curriculum

(ii)??Organisation

(iii)?Teaching methods.

The Review Board recommended:

1.?????That the mathematics staff undergo a curriculum evaluation and review

2.????That in conjunction with the above review new organisational procedures and teaching methods be investigated.

My first few weeks in the school led me to make two observations with regard to these comments. Firstly, the word 'traditional' quoted above was certainly not an overstatement. Although there was a range of some of the best teaching and learning aids in the cupboards (a sign that there had been an attempt to vary the teaching approach in the past) these materials were scattered around the school and nobody seemed to know how to use them. Course descriptions were no more than topic names and chapter numbers out of the textbook.

Secondly, although the need for a curriculum review was still every bit as necessary as it was when this report was written, nothing had been done about it. The recommendation seemed to have been completely forgotten. I was excited about this. This was an opportunity for me to do what I was best at. I decided I was going to bring this faculty into the 1980's.

That was the extent of forethought that went into the decision to implement a change. I didn't consult anyone. I didn't feel that I could go up to the principal and tell him I didn't like the maths program in the school. I wasn't in a position to discuss this with members of the faculty as I didn't know who would be completely against any change and who would support it. I didn't want to alienate those who would reject a change of approach before they even knew me and I would (and did) draw others into the further decisions as I became aware of where they stood with respect to the present program.

Part 2: The Innovation

At this stage I had a problem. I had decided there was a need for a change but I didn't know what that change was going to be. Up until now I had been a traditional maths teacher (although I had been convinced of the need to change what happens in schools through seeing many heartrending experiences that students had had at school). I was going to introduce an innovation in which I was far from an expert. I was going to have to learn it myself at the same time as trying to introduce it to my staff.

An impartial student of change reading this story for the first time would probably stop right here. The rest is totally predictable. One of the gurus of educational change, Michael Fullan, would describe it as a decision to adopt an ill–defined innovation, with no thought whatsoever given to the resources that might be needed to implement it and no concept of the process that would need to be followed for it to be successful. Failure would be the inevitable result. However, I ask you to come with me for the journey. You know already that the innovation failed. but I think there were some minor successes and some significant lessons learnt.

The Change – Lurking in the Wings

During my first year as maths coordinator I had to sit tight. I had been given only two maths classes and neither of these were in the mainstream. Hence I was not in a position to significantly influence what was happening in the maths program. However, I was able to observe and also to start thinking about what I wanted the innovation to look like (although I found much of my time taken up with administrative details and the problem of adjusting my teaching methods to a new situation – ie all girls).

In this first year I did make two changes in the mathematics program. When I had visited the school prior to taking up my appointment I had been struck by the lack of cooperation amongst the mathematics staff. To a large degree, everyone did what they liked within the framework of a loosely worded syllabus. Different classes at the same level usually worked on different topics and teachers were not aware of what resources others teaching the same topic had used. I thought this was bad because it resulted in duplication of effort, ignored one of the best techniques for school improvement (cooperation) and accountability was almost non–existant. Consequently, one of my first acts as Maths Coordinator was to introduce a system of common–testing. That is, all classes at a particular level would complete topics together and be given the same test for that topic.?

This did increase the degree to which teachers worked together and at least provided some accountability (in the form of teachers being required to be open about what they were teaching).

The other change I introduced was an alteration in the Year 10 program to allow for two seperate streams at this level. Previously all students studied a common core mathematics at Year 10 with some students taking an extra unit of maths as one of their electives.

Having jumped into the role of Maths Co-ordinator determined to change the way maths was taught at the school, I started doing a lot of reading about what other schools were doing. Towards the end of the year I started to realise that there was a fairly well defined movement amongst mathematics educators across the world seeking a different approach to maths teaching. This aims of this movement could been seen through the Cockroft Report in the UK, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics??'The 1980's An Agenda fo Action'?in the United States and the Australian Mathematics Education Project here in Australia. These documents from around the world called, almost with one voice, for

a shift of emphasis from 'skills' to concepts and practical applications;

attempts to decrease the debilitating lowering of self-esteem that mathematics classes produce in so many students;

greater emphasis on the 'usefulness' of maths;

greater emphasis on the intrinsic interest that maths can generate;

mathematical teaching and learning environments that allow students to develop a 'feeling' for mathematical concepts;

greater emphasis on 'problem solving' (ie ability to apply 'previously acquired knowledge to new and unfamiliar situations.'?AMEP);

use of ordinary language by students in talking ABOUT mathematical concepts;

use of students direct and immediate experience of the world around them;

encouraging risk taking;

less emphasis on formal 'objective' assessment and greater emphasis on positive evaluative feedback;

greater value to be placed on skills and qualities that cannot be assessed by 'timed written papers' (Cockroft);

mathematics classes organised on the basis of mixed ability;

the use of group work as an aid to learning mathematics;

This seemed just what I needed. I became convinced very soon that this was the only type of mathematics teaching that I wanted to be involved with. It was the only type of maths teaching that was worth anything.

One of the avenues through which I was discovering the type of approach described above was the RIME (Reality in Maths Education) project and other material being produced by the by the Mathematics Centre in Curriculum Branch. RIME was particularly useful for several reasons.

Firstly, it encapsulated the innovation. If someone asked me what I was trying to do I could say that I was trying to implement a RIME approach. Secondly, it gave me a concrete expression of the ideals listed above with which I could relearn how to teach maths. Here was a set of tried lessons that surely could not fail. I believed in them. I believed that if they were used as had been intended by the developers they would work.

I had undergone a Kuhnian 'paradigm shift' and didn't question it very much.

Moving from Adoption to Implementation

I decided we would start by working with the Year 7 curriculum and Year 7 maths teachers. Even though I had a whole year to plan the introduction of this innovation it started in a quite haphazard manner. We were not ready to start anything different at the beginning of the year and had not even decided what the first topic was to be. So the first few weeks were given to revising basic arithmetic skills. With everything going on at the start of the year we hadn’t been able to meet as a group of Year 7 maths teachers. When we were finally able to get together we decided the first new topic would be Statistics and Probability' . Even then there was a wide variation of approach taken with one teacher simply adapting her Year 11 unit on this topic whilst others were scattered along a spectrum towards a virtually completely enquiry based approach. The latter being the approach I adopted.

The whole year consisted of a series of ill–planned lurches forward. Decisions about the planning of each topic varied wildly. Some were simply of the type "What's the next topic for Year 7?" as we passed each other in the corridor with some hurried consultation and photocopying of syllabus suggestions and appropriate lessons. One teacher was often taking her students on to Year 10 work while she waited for the rest of us to finish the topic. (She claimed that the students were understanding it easily and could not understand why it was taking us so long.)

On the other hand, at some times in the year, we were able to sustain weekly meetings of the Year 7 maths teachers to discuss ways of teaching the particular topic. Looking back there is no doubt that the most significant improvements in the teaching program and changes in teacher behaviour occurred as a result of these meetings. Judith Little describes this process well:

School improvement is most surely and thoroughly achieved when:

Teachers engage in frequent, continuous and increasingly concrete and precise talk about teaching practice... By such talk, teachers build up a shared language adequate to the compexity of teaching, capable of distinguishing one practice and its virtue from another.

Michael Fullan's says much the same:

There is no getting around the primacy of personal contact. Teachers need to participate in skill–training workshops, but they also need to have one–to–one and group opportunities to receive and give help, and more simply to converse about the meaning of change.

It was through this sort of dialog that we developed materials that had significance to us. The terminology took on personal and new meaning. The perception of RIME lessons changed from looking at them as a prescription of content to the capsule of an idea. Teachers began to see that concrete materials had a real place in secondary maths teaching, that learning was more than just getting the answers to the textbook questions right and that tests had to encompass a wider variety of skills – particularly the use of students own language to describe mathematical situations. At one of these weekly meetings, the teacher mentioned above told me "Those fraction strips have converted me to RIME – they're fantastic". ( When I saw her classes in practice though, I wondered how much she really understood about the RIME approach. The lessons may have used the RIME materials but missed the intent.)?However, the operative word above is?began?and sadly the weekly meetings were sustained for only two brief periods.

As I reflect on this aspect of the innovation I see firstly my own errors as its director. As stated earlier, I had failed to clearly define the innovation, had no implementation plan and had not allocated adequate resources (ie of my own time and priorities) to see it through into practice. Also I had attempted neither to obtain the support of the school administration or involve an external consultant as a facilitator. Either of these (and preferably both) would have been invaluable. I will return to this point in Section IV.

Part 3: Implementation

At Last, Some Students

Part of my planning at the end of 1984 was to ensure that I would be taking a Year 7 class the following year. It seemed the most appropriate way to start an innovation like this was with a new group of students so it would follow them as they moved up through the school. As I was directing the innovation, I felt that I couldn't change anything if I was not working at that level. Also, I was eager to try this out and experience the rewards of students learning in new and boundless ways.

So it was that in February 1985 I met a group of students known as '7C'. It became increasingly obvious throughout this first year that this was a bright group of kids and in particular, there were some very bright (perhaps they could be called gifted) children in the class. There were those who were 'bright eyed' and obviously eager to take in everything that this new experience had to offer them. Others were a little apprehensive but generally looking forward to what was to confront them and seemed to be quite capable of handling it. On the other hand there were some who had a very poor self–image with respect to mathematics and seemed to be motivated by a 'fear of failure' and one or two who had no real interest in school at all. A mixed ability group but weighted towards the 'top end'.

The First Year – Hopeful?

I was learning what to do and how to do it just as much as everyone else was. As I always did with my new classes from the start of the year I tried to develop a fairly relaxed atmosphere in the classroom. This was a long standing practice which came from my desire to see students treated as individuals with respect and trust. This was particularly important with the Year 7's as I thought it was frightening enough for them to make the transition without having to confront an overly authoritarian teacher. However, this year I had a new reason for fostering this atmosphere. I wanted to develop in the students a sense of cooperation in the learning task and I thought a less teacher directed role would be imperative for this to happen.

During the year I became aware of techniques that might assist in the development of the learning environment I was trying to create and as I came across them I put them into practice. I made this decision with little thought to its implications. It was more or less 'that sounds like a good idea – I'll try it.'?An example of this was my decision to have the students rearrange the tables each time they came into the class. I wanted to foster group work and emphasise the teachers role as facilitator rather than director.

When I heard about moving the tables so that the students were in groups of about four I determined that I would have the students do this every lesson. This created a much less formal atmosphere which was much more relaxed than the traditional rows facing the front. (I now find the traditional arrangement almost repulsive.)?It did foster more cooperative working on tasks but it also fostered a large amount of non–task orientated talk and it became increasingly more difficult to get the class to listen to even brief instructions. This was the first sign of the problems I was to have later but at the time I thought it was just a restlessness occurring as the end of the year approached.

The lessons material I used at the time was a combination of pre–packaged lesson plans (ie RIME), pre–packaged student materials (ie DIME – Developing Ideas in Mathematics Education, Giles) and ideas we developed into lessons ourselves. During this first year of implementation 7C were mainly responsive to this approach. There were even some exciting aspects to the way they were approaching their learning. One day we put the tables around the edge of the room to form a large square with the students and teacher sitting on the outside to discuss a mathematical concept that had come up at the beginning of the lesson. The management of this discussion was sometimes difficult as I wanted to stay within the role of chairman and not interfere too much. I had to keep reminding the students that only one person should be talking at a time and some of the students were not interested. However, as the period progressed, more and more students became involved in the discussion and they were thinking quite hard.

This type of thinking about the ideas in mathematics happened quite often during the year. The students did have a better understanding of the meaning of a fraction, they were able to relate geometry concepts to objects around them and their concept of number was now more concrete than I believe it had been for a number of years.

There were other indicators that this approach was benefiting the students. Dianne, one of the students who had a very low self–concept in maths at the start of the year improved markedly and attributed this improvement to the particular style of teaching that I used. Others seemed to be changing their attitude to maths in a more subtle (yet still positive) manner. On the other hand, the students who had experienced most success in mathematics previously were more skeptical about the approach but seemed to be still withholding judgement.

There were many hurdles to the success of the project in its first year. The innovation was poorly defined, there was no implementation plan, teacher interaction was irregular and (personally) the pressure of other commitments meant that I was not able to allocate sufficient time to the project. Nevertheless, the results in my own class at this time were encouraging and justified continuing into the next year.

Planning for Year Two

Towards the end of the first year, we began the process of planning for the next. We thought that the results of the first year of the project had been encouraging enough to work on extending it into Year 8 for the following year – ie follow the same group of students into their second year – whilst retaining fairly much the same program for the incoming Year 7's.

After a lot of discussion (and a fairly strong stance on my part) we decided not to prescribe any textbooks for Years 7 and 8. Most of us had used the book rarely in the first year and we thought with the availability of RIME lessons for Year 8 that there would be little need for a text at that level either.

I was still coordinator at that stage so I put a lot of effort into arranging the teacher allotments at Years 7 and 8 so that the teachers most sympathetic to the program would be teaching at those levels. This was a difficult process. Putting all the?progressive?teachers in at this level would mean that the senior program would become even more rigid and opposed to change. Three teachers who I really wanted to use at Year 8 level were unavailable. Timetabling restrictions meant that one of them could teach only Year 7 OR Year 8 (I decided Year 7 was more important in this case); one simply wanted to concentrate her efforts at the senior level and the third was starting a PEP schools resource program in science in the school and was not available to take any maths.

There was a further complication. I had been appointed part time as a regional consultant and wouldn't be available to coordinate the project. Nevertheless, I struggled with the allotments for several weeks and finally came up with the best possible. I went on a two day conference at about this time. I returned to school on Friday afternoon for the usual end of week social function. At one point during the function I was passed a sheet written by the acting Deputy Principal showing the final maths allotments for 1986. Many of the decisions that I had toiled over had been changed without consultation or explanation. My immediate reaction was to make a strong protest about this and try and get the decision reversed or modified. However, it was the end of a long and tiring year in which I had fought many battles. I was too tired and too depressed by the decision making process in the school. I had also applied for another (full time) position in Curriculum Branch so I hoped I would not even be at the school the following year. I just gave in.

Enter Year Two and the Problems Begin

1986 began. I hadn't got the position in Curriculum Branch but had had a good, relaxing holiday and was looking forward to the year with renewed enthusiasm. Some changes had occurred over break though. One of the Year 8 teachers had become an instant mother (she had adopted a child) and the vacancy created by me going part–time was filled by a part–timer. These two changes were to result in only two of the teachers in the Year 8 program having had experience of it in the previous year and no less than four part–timers in the group altogether.

Also, as I had become part–time, I had relinquished the position of Maths Coordinator. My successor had been on long service leave throughout Term III of the previous year and heard of his appointment to the position on Christmas Eve somewhere in India. He was only able to give any real consideration of his approach to the task a few days before the beginning of the school year.

This meant that the second year of the program started much like the first – in a mild state of confusion. As with so many innovations?teachers coming in after the initial implementation found it difficult. There was no opportunity to in–service these teachers rather, they gained their orientation through hurried conversations on the way to class or over an all too short cup of coffee at recess. Of the five teachers who had voted to abolish the text at Year 8 only two were still teaching at that level. Two of the three new teachers found it a difficult decision to live with and one of the remaining teachers wanted to retain a strong text–book approach but using class sets rather than prescribed texts.

In particular, the teacher who was new to the school found it virtually impossible to conceive of running a maths program that was not based on students completing exercises from a text book and she received strong support from two other Year 8 teachers.

(There is an interesting aside to the story that occurs at this point. I had discussed the possibility of not having text books at Year 7 and 8 with the Principal as early as June of the first year of the program. He saw no particular difficulty with accepting the decision as long as the faculty supported the proposal and we submitted a well argued defence of it on educational and financial grounds. I had done this by September – by which time the Principal had gone on a term's long service leave and his deputy was acting in his place. However, the school council did not receive my submission until late November. The council, particularly the parent representatives, questioned it and formally asked the maths faculty to reconsider its position. However, by this stage in the year, the booklists had been printed and there was no possibility of reversing the decision. If there had been such a possibility, I believe we may have had to reverse it.)

I Struggle on in My Own Little World

I began this second year with my class (now '8C') thinking that not very much had changed in my relationship with them. I could go on pretty much the same as last year. As always happens, some of the girls had grown up noticeably over the Christmas break. Not only had they grown physically, but they had obviously grown more aware of the world around them. Their outlook on life had changed. Over the holidays they had been given, or claimed for themselves, the freedom of near adulthood – coming back to school meant being treated like children again. (Although I noticed the signs of this at the time it was not until nearly the end of the year that I realised their significance.)?Although this only applied to one or two of the girls in the class, I believe it was a significant influence on what was to happen later.

Two students had been changed from the class to another and I received two new students in their place. These two new students had been in the most conservative teacher's class in Year 7 and were often to say 'we did all this last year'. Whenever they said this, I probed their understanding and discovered that all they could do was to recite a rule which they could not apply to anything they knew about. Even when I pointed this out to them, however, they still believed that they 'knew the work' and were wasting their time doing it again.

Another problem was to arise in our second year. In our planning for this year we had assumed that we would be able to use the new Year 8 RIME lessons which we understood would be available before the beginning of the school year. When they arrived we found that they covered only two topics at Year 8 level and we were going to have to find resources for the other topics ourselves.

For all these difficulties which I can see clearly now, I still thought I could carry on pretty much as before. This failure to reflect on the situation I found myself in and plan accordingly must have been one of the major reasons for the difficulties I was to experience later.

The biggest difficulties I faced was 1) the lack of opportunity for the Year 8 teachers to meet and 2) the non existent in–servicing that most of them had had to the program. Joint planning disappeared altogether. Although I had written a thirteen page course description for this level, most teachers reverted to the text book that they were most familiar with for an outline of each topic. What I had written could not convey what Fullan would call ‘a personal meaning for the change'. As far as I was concerned the common testing program broke down. The other teachers, concentrating less on establishing understanding of concepts were finishing topics faster than I was and writing the tests. I could not use their tests. They did not assess what I thought was most important.

The result of this was that I did not give my kids a test for the whole of first term and had to give them a test on the whole of first term's work early in Term II. (Assessment, of course, is an issue that would have to be addressed if this innovation were to continue. However, I did at least realise that none of us were ready to tackle this.)?Another result was that my personal planning was based more on what to do next lesson than what the overall plan of the topic should be. Hence topics tended to drag on.

Signs of Unrest Emerge

Yet, still, I persevered. I was convinced that students were generally unhappy at school and the way that mathematics was traditionally taught was a significant factor to these feelings. Surely they would welcome any attempt, however feeble, to make this subject more interesting and relevant. What I had failed to realise was how difficult it was for students to learn how to learn and adapt to a new classroom structure and that they would be unwilling to continue to co–operate if they did not experience success in either.

During Term II discipline increasingly became an issue. The students would not listen to instructions. When they started a task they did not understand what to do and why they should be doing it. We started to have long discussions about the approach I was taking. This itself was divisive and disruptive in the class. A few students (the minority) were ardent supporters of what I was doing. The majority, however, argued against the approach saying that we should be doing 'normal maths'.

These discussions degenerated into an argument between the two groups with students showing an intense desire to have their say about how they felt. I wanted to allow all the students to have a chance to express their feelings as I could see that they had given the situation some thought and had worthwhile contributions to make. I felt this related well to what Millicent Poole found in her study of how 15 to 18 year–olds envisaged school:

Although bristling over basic issues such as uniforms, smoking prohibitions, length of hair, permission to leave school grounds and the like, none the less students showed a sensitive and responsible awareness to issues concerning individual freedom and participation in decision–making processes within the school. Students in this age range were questioning blind and dogmatic authoritarianism.

My students were not, in this instance questioning the decision making process as it related to school rules. They were demanding a right to participate in the decisions as to what they were taught and how. However, they were all so eager to have their say that they were not prepared to allow others to speak and the exercise was not a good one.

The Parents Have Their Say

At about this time we had the scheduled Parent–Teacher Evening for Year 8. I was besieged by concerned parents. Interviews were scheduled to last five minutes. Many of mine went for half an hour. The parents of the brightest kids were complaining that their daughters were bored in class and had lost motivation. On the whole they were not aggressive, just extremely concerned. They could not understand why their daughters had previously loved maths and always completed their maths work enthusiastically but now just did not talk about maths at all. Two reactions in particular are worth noting.

Elissa Roberts was one of the two girls who had been in another class in Year 7. Her mother spoke to me for half an hour. I found the interview a touching experience – partly because she smiled the whole way through it, partly because she obviously cared very much for her daughter and wasn't going to let any stupid teacher 'muck up her life' and partly because she gave a moving account of the difficulties Elissa was facing. Mrs Roberts couldn't understand what was happening to her daughter. Elissa herself could not understand the approach, what I was trying to get at and what it was that she was required to do. I can't repeat some of the words she used but no offence was meant and none taken at the time because of the care and intensity of feeling that they represented. This parent had come to charge me with the responsibility of rebuilding her daughter's self image in maths. At the end of the interview I felt the responsibility of being 'in parentus locus' in a moral sense.

Melinda Michelson had been away from school ill for about four months and had returned just a couple of weeks prior to the interview evening. I had wanted to let her get used to being back at school after she returned and not too put much pressure on her. By the time her parents came to see me I had not gathered a great deal of information about how she was going. I was in for a shock. After explaining this to them, Mr. Michelson opened the attack and spoke for at least two minutes without a break. At one stage I thought that he was going to get out of his chair and hit me. The essence of his argument was that Melinda had been away for four months but didn't seem to have missed anything. She was bored stiff in class and thought we just wasted time moving tables and having pointless discussions. It was fairly difficult to know what to say and to remain calm. I started off by explaining that I had had no knowledge at all of how Melinda felt. I went on to explain a little of my philosophy and why I set the class particular tasks. This interview went for quite a while too. As it went on the Michelsons became less agitated and, I think, started to accept that I had good reasons for what I was doing although they were not all that confident that it would suit Melinda. Nevertheless, we ended the interview on friendly terms and they even wished me luck as they left.

In fact, I think that it would be fair to say that all the parents who spoke to me left feeling at least partly reassured that I had a rational purpose and that what I was doing was leading towards it. This argues strongly for including parents in the adoption process as well as parts of the implementation phase. Michael Fullan puts it this way:

emerging from this research is a message which is remarkable in its consistency: the closer the parent is to the education of the child, the greater the impact on child development and educational achievement.

However, one aspect of my failure to include parents is the parental influence on the child's perception of the innovation. Many times throughout the year kids have said things like 'My mum doesn't think we do anything in maths.'?Obviously, explaining the purpose of an innovation to parents and involving them in its implementation would go at least part of the way to minimising this influence.

I went home from the interviews exhausted but with renewed motivation to see this innovation work. I particularly wanted to work further on building an environment where students could be doing different things in the class so that I could cater more effectively for individual differences. Whatever I did, I knew that I would have to put more effort and thought into what I was doing.

The Wheels Fall Off

Back in class I determined to be more aware of what students were doing by observing them and talking with them about their work. I particularly wanted to rebuild relationships with those students whose parents had talked to me at the interviews. At this stage I still thought that most of the class had appreciated my approach but that there was a minority for whom it had not worked. I determined to spend more time with this minority.

The next topic was?Ratio?which was good because there was a good set of RIME lessons for Year 8 ratio which looked as though they would really build?good concepts of the meaning of this concept for the students. This had been a real problem in the past when I had taught this topic. The students had had to be given a recipe which they could use to pass the test but had no relevance outside that. Things were going to be different this time.

The students reacted with mixed feelings to the topic. Parts of it went over well whilst others flopped. I hoped the last few lessons would bring it all together. The students had to enlarge a cartoon using a particular scale factor, make a stuffed frog from a scale drawing and finally make and fly a kite given a scale drawing. There were increasing murmurings about 'why are we doing art in maths' for the first two of these activities. Although, by and large, the students completed them, we ended up having another big discussion about what was important about learning in maths. Again the kids had well thought out ideas that they wanted to express but could not wait for each other to finish speaking. It was with interest that I noticed that Elissa (whose mother I had talked to at Parent–Teacher night) was now taking my side – at least something had worked out well in all this. Basically the kids were arguing for a return to a text book approach. One girl (who had never shown a great interest in anything mathematical) complained that she had forgotten how to do long division.

When we got to the kite making they baulked. Making and flying a kite just was not maths. I persevered with some of the kids doing the activity while many simply refused. One lesson degenerated into a shouting match between me and the students. I had completely lost control of the situation. As this was happening, I noticed a piece of paper going around the room. It was a petition to the Principal complaining about my teaching methods. I found out shortly that all but four of the girls in the class had signed it. They had had enough. I had completely underestimated how disorienting to the students this experience had been. As I look back on it, the wonder is that they cooperated for so long.

A Conference with the Principal

The students took the petition to Jacki, the Pupil Welfare Coordinator, a good friend of mine. After lunch she asked me over to her office and told me that she had received the petition and would have to take it to the boss. We discussed the situation briefly and went over to see Pat together. Her support was very much appreciated as I felt pretty low at the time. Pat was very good about it. He threw the petition in the bin and said he was not going to take any notice of it. I would have to be very sure of what I was doing, he said, and also be able to justify it to anyone who asked. I was sure that I could do this and still thought I would be able to tough it out.

However, on the last day I was at school before the end of Term II, Pat called me into his office again. He explained that he had told the students that he wasn't going to take any notice of their petition. If they wanted to discuss anything with him they were welcome to come to see him one lunchtime. They had taken him up on his offer the day before although Pat explained that he had put them off a couple of times in the hope that they would forget about it.

At this stage, Dick (the Deputy Principal) was invited in. Dick had had a somewhat similar experience with his Year 10 class earlier in the year. It had even got to the stage of parents complaining. It was fair to say that "Dick had to change his methods" Pat told me. Dick explained that he put it down to "girls in this school not accepting a male innovator even when there was a female doing the same thing successfully with another class".

I had a lot of time for Pat. He had faced setbacks in his own career – especially being put out to pasture as a principal after being amongst the highest echelons of power in the Department. That must have been a hard pill to swallow. He never displayed a hint of bitterness though. Rather threw himself into the position with gusto using his old network to help get funding for new infrastructure projects at the school. He always seemed happy and made conversation easily. He also had a way of being almost brutally direct in a kind sort of way.

’This looks like a problem that’s not going to go away,” he started.

‘Your contribution to this school is undoubted. You put our computer education program on track. You shook up the Maths Department. You have played a central role in the school’s professional development program and an important role in supporting the development of Technology for Girls. You’ve thrown yourself into your role here with exception enthusiasm and it has been appreciated.’

‘But,’ and this is where the direct bit comes in ‘you don’t fit in here.’

’This is a very conservative school. I worked that out in my first week here. Dick was reminded of it earlier this year. I think perhaps Dick’s right in saying the girls are not going to accept a male innovator. When reform comes here, it will need to be led by a woman.’

‘You have a bright career ahead of you and a lot to contribute. Have you thought about transferring to a more progressive school? Have you looked at Huntmore Tech? That’s a very progressive school and you might find it a much better fit for yourself.’

I could see he had both my and the school’s best interest at heart. I knew he was right in suggesting what I was trying to do wouldn’t work here. Although I found it really hard to admit. I don’t like giving in. It’s my biggest strength/weakness.

For all that I felt devastated.?

I had just become worthless as a professional. A failure. In my previous school I had been a power broker and respected widely for my achievements for both staff and student welfare. I wasn't angry – just very, very hurt. I began to count the days until I would no longer have to be at this school. It was something to bear. I would have to go somewhere else – do something else.?

Rebuilding Begins

In the time after this I have attempted to rebuild my relationship with this class. I had a few lessons out of the textbook to try to remind the students how boring and irrelevant it was. The next topic was geometry which was well received partly because the students could work at their own pace and partly (mostly?) because they could do it. Purely by accident, I introduced the idea of bringing a tape recorder into class and allowing them to play cassettes of their choosing. It surprised me what a significant event this was. Just after this I started giving a fortnightly questionnaire to the students about their view of maths classes. In response to the question "How do you feel in Maths classes at the moment" about half of them commented how much more relaxed they felt now that they were able to have music in the class. I haven't changed my approach much yet but for this topic I am able to tell the students that what we are doing is almost exactly what the other teachers did in this topic. Maybe this has made them accept it more. However, I am now getting into what is happening in my classes at present and am too involved in it to comment in any way objectively about it.