All character names contained in this article are fictional
Wayward e-mails are secretly destroying careersSending and receiving e-mails has now become an obligatory duty for teachers, especially in big institutions. A form tutor asks you for feedback about a particular student, so you e-mail your reply. The deputy head asks for any items for tomorrow’s meeting agenda, and those people that have issues they wish to raise type their responses and click ‘Send’. You have a problem opening a file on a school computer, so you send a quick message to the ICT technician. You e-mail parents. The list goes on and on.
As teachers, we are spending more time sat down in front of computers than ever before. E-mails allow us to communicate important items quickly and efficiently, and this ‘convenience’ is being improved upon year after year as smart phones and smart watches increasingly utilize novel systems to make dealing with e-mails an easy and fun task. All of this has made e-mailing become a ‘mechanical’ part of one’s working day, where little thought is needed to deliver a quick message. What most people don’t consider, however, is that e-mails are secretly destroying the careers of teachers, along with everything else they’ve worked for.
Charlene was annoyed. She had been slaving away for the past two terms getting her ‘A’ – Level Chemistry students ready for their final exams. She had lead after school revision clubs, printed reams of past-exam papers and resources, spent hours after school planning and setting up practical activities and had spent many a late night updating her school’s VLE with a myriad of resources for these senior, pre-university students. She felt that she had gone above and beyond the call of duty, and when term three came along and her students were on study leave, she planned to use her gained time to prepare resources for the next academic year.
Knowing that Charlene now had a considerable amount of free time, her head of department, Francis, thought it would be a good idea for her to help the other science teachers alleviate some their workload. She asked Charlene to take on one of her colleague’s Key Stage 3 classes for that term, and she asked her to help assess some of the end-of-year tests for the students in classes that she didn’t teach.
Charlene was furious! She felt completely unappreciated and exploited. She had worked her socks off all year, doing things that her other science colleagues didn’t have to do, and now she was being asked to do more. She needed to get all of her frustration off her chest, so she decided to e-mail her good friend: Tracey; who happened to be her NQT tutor in her previous school. She laid it all out, saying how her boss was a complete idiot (using some rather colourful language) and how her efforts all year had gone completely unnoticed. She felt really ‘hard done to’, and typing it all out made her feel much better. However, she made one mistake that proved to be the Armageddon for her career in that school – she sent the e-mail to Francis by accident, and not to her NQT tutor.
Using an e-mail system to complain behind someone’s back can be a fatal, career-killing mistakeThis kind of situation happens all the time – teachers sending e-mails to the person they’re talking about, and not to the intended recipient. For Charlene it was coffin nails for her job at that school. Francis scheduled a meeting with Charlene, and her conclusions were made very clear. She felt that Charlene could have dealt with her frustration in a much more professional way; for example, by simply talking it over with her. If Francis had known Charlene’s plans to get some good resources in place for the next academic year, then she would have passed on less work for her to do in her ‘gained time’. Additionally, the tone of Charlene’s e-mail was so negative and ‘immature’, that her character as a professional was now being called into question. Could she be trusted as a sensible member of the staff body? What if she had sent an e-mail like that to a parent instead? After Charlene was passed up for promotion the following academic year (because of feedback from her head of department to the school principal), she left by her own accord. To add insult to injury, Charlene’s new school needed a reference letter from her current head of department. Thankfully, Francis felt kind enough to emphasise Charlene’s good points, as opposed to writing the king of all character assassinations that she could quite easily, and understandably, have produced.
This story teaches us that e-mails should be handled with care. Always take time to craft e-mails properly, and always assume that every person in your school will see it. Never assume e-mail privacy, and always choose your recipients carefully. With the ability to send e-mails through voice-command and touch-screens on smart phones, it is now even easier to make these fatal mistakes than it has ever been before. Be vigilant!
Using e-mail as a professional messaging tool
E-mails are not private: That’s right – you’re school principal could be looking through your inbox as you read this! E-mails provide managers with a unique window into an employee’s life that they would never normally have in their day-to-day interactions. It is such a good ‘teacher monitoring tool’ that most schools will now have professional e-mail systems set up for them which allow ‘snooping’ by senior management. This is perfectly legal, and you’ve probably signed your consent for it in your employee contract. Many schools are now making all new teachers sign an ‘Acceptable use of ICT’ agreement, where it will explicitly say that your e-mails should not treated as though they are private. However, despite this, many teachers still do not follow professional e-mail etiquette.
Smart phones and tablets have made it easier for us to make silly mistakes, such as sending an e-mail to the wrong recipientNever complain in an e-mail: There are lots of obvious reasons for this, and many centre around the ‘management snooping’ issue. Additionally, however, many employees fall into the trap of sending an e-mail to the person they’re complaining about, rather than the person it was intended for. This can have apocalyptic consequences for you, especially if the e-mail is sent to a manager. Avoid this by making all e-mails professional, imagining that they’ll be blown up to A1 size and posted on the headmaster’s wall (because as far as you’re concerned, they might as well be).
E-mails can be copied, forwarded and saved forever: Whenever you send an e-mail, you are creating a permanent piece of evidence which may be used against you (or to support you) in the future. E-mailing your best friend to tell them how much time you’ve wasted drinking coffee today, or how you can’t wait for the semester breakAn e-mail is a digital document that can be copied, forwarded and saved in a retrieval system indefinatelyto come around because you’ve ‘had enough’, are not good ways to fill your HR file. I feel it’s important to repeat that you should treat all e-mails as if they were posters in the principal’s office.
Extinguish all flames: A ‘flame’ is a hostile or insulting message that is sent from one internet user to another. They often contain profanities, expletives or complaints, and in the teaching profession they are most commonly sent and received through e-mail. If you receive a flame from anyone then you must do two things right away:
Respond to the person who sent you the flame, making it clear to them that they should never send you a hostile message via e-mail again. Make it clear that e-mails are not a private messaging tool, and that you do not respond to expletives or profanities. You should also do this for any unprofessional or inappropriate e-mail, such as one from a colleague talking about how much he has slacked off that day.
Delete the original flame e-mail. If your inbox is being monitored, and a member of senior management sees the flame, they may think that you are in agreement with the person who sent it.
Teachers are held in high regard by students, parents and the wider community as a whole. We can never be ‘off-duty’, and we must strive for perfection and professionalism in all of our undertakings.
It’s that time of the year again. Your line manager has asked you to choose a suitable class for her to observe, and a preferred time. You have about a week’s notice, in which you prepare every possible resource under the sun, ask for lesson suggestions from colleagues or online forums and basically get stressed like mad until it’s all over.
And the outcome of it all: In some cases, your observer evaluates you on the basis of an overly-prepared lesson in which you were probably very nervous and apprehensive. Those who do well under these conditions are praised as great teachers that we can all learn from, and those that don’t are asked to constructively reflect on ways in which they can improve. There are pro’s and cons to this approach to ‘performance management’: much of which depend upon the school’s culture. On the pro’s side, if school managers are supportive, approachable and understanding, then teachers will readily accept the formal observation process as a necessary way to reflect upon their professionalism.
However, even under these circumstances, a teacher is only being evaluated on the basis of a snapshot of a lesson. Does this really help anyone? Doesn’t this seem like a lot of stress for a futile output?
As professionals working in a people-centred industry, shouldn’t we be approaching our personal growth in a much more adult and sophisticated way?
Surely a better approach would be as follows:
At the start of the academic year, sit with your team and write down all of the things you’re good at as a teacher, and all of the things you think you could improve on
Find out who in your team has a strength that you can capitalize on (e.g. Using tablets and mobile devices to support learning)
Arrange peer observations with your team members, so that each person watches someone else who they feel they can learn from
If you feel that you need help with a particular aspect of teaching (e.g. building rapport with students), then ask someone who has a particular strength in this area to come and observe one of your lessons, so that they can offer their advice for you to learn from
Document all reflections, and use these as the basis for teacher appraisals
Isn’t this a more pleasant and, crucially, more productive way of using lesson observations as part of the performance management process?
One of my former colleagues once said “If you want to know who’s a good teacher, then ask the students”. I couldn’t agree more with this statement. Most people, when confronted with this, will say something like “Aha, well, kids are just gonna say that they love the teachers who don’t give them homework to do”. Hmmm, I don’t think so. My observations after twelve years of teaching in a wide variety of schools in both the UK and here in Thailand have told me that kids like the teachers who are rigorous and professional whilst also maintaining good classroom rapport.
With this in mind, consider doing some kind of student led self-appraisal every so often. Perhaps you can set up an anonymous Google form for your kids to fill in, which asks crucial questions about your performance as a teacher (e.g. How quickly you hand back homework).
When one works in a school where there is a collective culture of helping each other; where teachers help teachers, students help students and students and teachers help each other; then haven’t we achieved something special? Isn’t that the ideal environment for fostering good professional development and performance management?
I’ll end by providing some links, which will hopefully give some ‘food for thought’ on this topic for new and experienced teachers alike:
Go back two or three years ago, and the thought of using any kind of social media in lessons was still very taboo in most schools. Now, however, a growing number of high schools are seeing the benefits that platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram can bring to the classroom. Whilst all of this is very exciting, and very ‘modern’, we still have to tread very carefully. Some golden rules that we must follow as teachers when using social media with our students are as follows:
Always make sure that your students are of the permitted age to use the platform
Always show the students how to delete their account if needs be, and how to turn off notifications (some students and parents get very annoyed when they’re constantly receiving e-mail updates from whichever social media platform it is that they’ve signed up to)
Remind your students of the SMART acronym:
Stay Safe: Don’t give out your personal information to people or places you don’t know
Don’t Meet Up: It can be dangerous to meet up with someone you’ve only been in touch with online. Always check with an adult first
Accepting Files: Accepting images, e-mails, files or messages from people you don’t know can cause problems
Reliable: Is the website or person telling the truth? Always check information before you believe it.
Tell Someone: Always inform an adult if someone or something online makes you feel uncomfortable or worried
If you follow these guidelines, then social media can offer a wealth of excitement, enrichment and interest to your lessons. It can encourage students to produce rich content which can be examined instantly in a whole-class context. The attached infographic shows a summary of some ways that social media can be used in education.
Scanning QR codes can be a fun way for studevts to ‘discover’ new information
Smartphone cameras are absolutely amazing learning tools as they can often double up as scanners, analysers and editors when paired with the correct app or software programme. When used properly, they can get students out of the classroom and can act as conduits for engaging the whole brain.
That being said, one does have to be quite cautious when using smartphone cameras with students. There are many documented cases of pupils filming their friends or teachers covertly in school, and then instantly sharing the footage via social media or even video-sharing sites such as YouTube™. In schools and countries where there are heavy child-protection laws and policies, this can be quite serious and can land the supervising teacher in a lot of trouble. My approach to this problem has always been to lay down the ground rules with my students first (i.e. to only use their cameras for the task at hand), and then make sure I am vigilant in supervising the activity. If you do this, then smartphone camera activities will be an enjoyable part of your teaching, and will greatly enhance the students’ learning experiences.
Smartphone Savvy: Camera Based Learning Activities
Code scanning treasure hunts: This activity involves getting the students to scan codes (e.g. QR codes) using their smartphones and then following the clues to find information. It involves some planning and preparation by the teacher beforehand, but it is well worth it! The steps to follow are:
Step 1: Create a sequence of information sheets (e.g. 5 sheets of information about different aspects of cell division)
Step 2: Insert a QR code (or other) into each sheet. QR codes can be created for free at qrstuff.com. Your QR codes should encode a clue to tell the students where to go (e.g. ‘Go to the library’ or ‘This is where you eat fish and chips on a Friday’)
Step 3: Hide your clues in different places around the school (try to use rooms and places that will be unoccupied, if possible). Make sure your first information sheet (with embedded QR code clue) is in the classroom where you will start!
Step 4: Make sure that all of the students have the ‘QR Reader’ app (or similar) installed on their smartphones. This can be set as homework before the lesson starts, to save time.
Step 5: The students will scan the codes and follow the clues, picking up the information sheets as they race/walk around the school.
When the students have picked up all the information sheets (the last QR code ‘clue’ should be something like ‘Go back to class’), then the students will come back to their classroom and complete an activity with the sheets. You may wish for them to organize the information in some way (e.g. into a poster or flowchart, which can be used in a fun memory game like the ‘Poster Game’ – covered in chapter ). You could also get the students to communicate the information in an unusual way (e.g. by texting a friend or by posting to the school’s blog via their smartphone)
The image below goes through an actual example of a QR code treasure hunt that I used recently with my IBDP Year 13 Biology students.
Instructions for using QR codes treasure hunts in your teaching practice.
