A master class in teaching

Curiosity and just a touch of envy prompted Matthew Godfrey to sit in on a colleague's lessons

 This article appeared in The Daily Telegraph on 17 January 2006

I had a lively debate with one of my English classes recently about what their ideal school would be like. The pupils, who were in Year 8 (ages 12 and 13), had some predictable requests, such as more free time, less homework and no uniform.

There were some radical suggestions, too: one girl wanted no teachers at all and one of the boys was adamant that corporal punishment should be restored immediately.

Then one pupil demanded: "We want more lessons like Mr Orme's." This provoked a collective gasp of approval. I was not surprised; our pupils have long revered Mr Orme, who has taught history at the school for nearly 40 years.

Nevertheless, curiosity and mild envy provoked me to ask why they so enjoyed his lessons. "We learn so much", "They're fun!" and "I don't know - they're just good" were some of the answers.

Their comments spurred me to approach Mr (Robert) Orme and ask if I could observe one of his lessons. Far from having a crisis of confidence in my own classroom practice - I enjoy teaching enormously - I was simply intrigued to discover what he does to enthuse his pupils so greatly.

It is very difficult to determine what goes on in a classroom simply by talking to teachers; it is much more revealing to watch them in action.

While lesson observation was a part of my teacher training six years ago, the pace of life once you are qualified means that years can pass before you enter another teacher's classroom.

A few days later, I sat at the back of one of Mr Orme's lessons. He places a lot of value on the use of the visual image and had a slide of a painting projected on a screen as his pupils entered the room.

The whirr of the projector, the dim light and the sight of a wide-eyed teacher perched on his desk, greeting his pupils as they entered, all combined to create a special atmosphere.

At one level, the next 30 minutes were perfectly ordinary. A great deal of current teacher training encourages different activities in each lesson to cater for the pupils' "multiple intelligences".

For example, activities involving physical movement are said to benefit those with "kinaesthetic intelligence", while getting pupils to talk to each other is said to benefit those with "interpersonal intelligence".

But Mr Orme did not invite his pupils to talk to each other; nor were they were invited to get out of their seats. He managed, nonetheless, to grip their attention throughout. He was successful, I think, for three main reasons.

First, almost everything he said was a question. It was clear that all the pupils felt confident that sensible answers would be warmly received with a nod and a smile.

This, combined with the fact that all the questions were demanding but answerable, meant there were always hands up. The children wanted to be involved and recognised, so they listened to each other's answers and their teacher's embellishment of them. This all generated a gradual build up of knowledge and confidence.

Second, the content of the lesson was demanding and stimulating. Even at a selective, academic school like mine, it can be difficult to pitch work at the right level.

The topic these 12-year-olds were studying - the difference between medieval and Renaissance attitudes towards mankind - and the level of thinking required of them, were impressive.

For example, having read an extract from Manetti's On the Dignity of Man, Mr Orme asked the class how these ideas differed from those of medieval thinkers such as St Augustine, who had been covered in another lesson. Almost all the pupils raised their hands to answer.

They loved it when he told them St Augustine had been accused of "idolatrous polytheism". "Idolypoly what?" muttered one girl to her neighbour, who proudly showed her the phrase, which he had copied into his book perfectly.

But Mr Orme's energy and obvious enthusiasm were perhaps the main reason why the pupils concentrated so well. They were engaged by his lively and humorous tone, by his depth of knowledge and by the way he made eye contact.

Afterwards, I told him that I hoped to be as energetic as him at his age (60). What, I asked, had sustained his enthusiasm for all these years?

There were, of course, many things about the job he loved, but he was especially emphatic when he said: "I get to teach what I am interested in. My head of department doesn't prescribe what I have to cover in my lessons, and he encourages intellectual debate."

At a time when teachers so often complain that their job is overly prescriptive and burdensome, it is an approach that seems especially wise.

Matthew Godfrey teaches at Latymer Upper School, West London.

Published in The Daily Telegraph on 17 January 2006