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 Thought for the day.

Rebecca Hanson Facilitator ==> "Oh, I con a fecal scatterbrain"

seren_dipity:

The fact that you seem genuinely to believe that you're doing us all a favour is proof, if any were needed, of your arrogance.

It may well be that you had opinions and experiences that would have been interesting to discuss but by cloaking them in unjustifiable superiority you've misunderstood your audience and THAT is a cardinal sin for any sort of communicator.

Knowing and understanding your audience is the single most important thing any of us needs to do if we are to be successful communicators, whether that is in our classrooms, in front of an audience of our peers, making speeches, negotiating with employers, participating in policy making , representing peers or just posting on forums.  The ability to adapt our communication style according to the audience with whom we are communicating is also crucial. These are skills in which you are sadly lacking and your arrogance precludes you from recognising it.

In a nutshell.

I'm astounded at the lack of self awareness of this poster and the constant refusal to/inability to address this fundamental issue.

I can only assume that the "persona" that she has adopted on here is actually a conscious decision in order to engender some friction, antagonism and opposition that she will then take to her little seminar next year. Someone surely has to attend this presentation just to see if it really was a ruse to garner some material!!!

Completely misreading and misunderstanding your audience is a cardinal sin in any walk of life, combine that with a very poor (and I'm being generous here) communication style and you have a recipe for disaster.

Shocking!

Well thanks for the heads up DM - there is only one Maths_Mike although I dont go on NCETM much - all the posts and much of the NCETM work in my opinion revolves around educational theory and academia and as such has little interest to me which is why I rarely visit.  The site is dominated by people such as Rebecca who claim to be experts - some are - but others just talk about it.  I have more respect for the people on her who actually do it.

 (There is some excellent stuff on there and I am not critising all the posters or the peole who work for NCETM - I just happen to believe that they are another gouvernment Quango that has actually done little to improve the quality of mathematics teaching at grass roots level despite the high levels of funding they have received - and if anything they have actually been responsible for taking excellent teachers out of the classroom. 

An example being their ridiculous grants - a few thousand to produce a report - that no one will read - on an aspect of mathematics teaching.  What can this grant money be spent on - resources - NO Equipment - NO anthing concerete and useful in the long tern - NO.  Getting a supply tracher in for a couple of days so my classes dont get taught properley while i write some report on a project I have been doing that has taken way to much that I dont have - YES!!)

The problem with all these things is TIME and the fact that most of us working in a school full time dont have any of it available.  How about the NCETM coordinators going in to schools that are failing and showing us how they can make a difference?  Others teachers can observe and get some of their workload reduced allowing them real opportunities to reflect and develop their own practice.  Obviosly the school and children will also benefit from having the skilled practioners working with them.

Well off topic I know but my point is you make a difference by what you do in a classroom not by what you read or write in a book.

You might be right about the money being better spent elsewhere Mike but I can tell you anecdotally that some of the practitioners who have received teacher enquiry grants from the National Centre feel it has helped to reinvigorate their teaching.   If Tandy or petehall are lurking, they might be able to tell you more.

Absolutely sure you are right DM - I just hold a view that considering the cost the benefit has not been all that it might have been.

The portal does contain some excellent stuff but who has the time to read it all let alone put it into practice?

The grants have I am sure benefitted some individuals but I doubt they have contributed much to developing mathematics education across the board.

I just get really diosappointed because I thought the NCETM was a real opportunity to get mathematics teaching into the headlights and to make some meaningful and long lasting changes to (for example the curriculum and the examination methods) and to the whole way maths is taughts and assessed.

Unfortunately this does not seem to be the brief of the NCETM and I think that is regrettably.  Resources could in my opinion have been used more productive for insatnce supporting Mark with the development of the excellent Emaths - something which since joining NCETM he seems toi have spent less time on rather than more.

As for the total amount of money spent it is more than enough to do something that I personally think would be much more valuable (and in the long run very cost effective) - buy ouy mymaths.co.uk and the supply in free to all schools and develop it further into a real one stop shop for the delivery of the ICT bit of mathematics teaching.