Today this photo came up through my timeline thanks to the Facebook group BATs (Bad Ass Teachers from the USA).
It invoked in me some distaste. It made me think about how we as teachers display children's behaviour and learning.
At the beginning of 2013 I began a new position. The previous teacher had left a form of data wall display for writing up in in the classroom. Apart from the fact that he had used a prime display wall, I just could not abide with continuing with this as it was a multi-year-level class and many students were struggling in their learning.
I reposted this photo in NZ Teacher (Primary) of Facebook and a lot of discussion followed. Some people were very opposed to these sorts of displays; a small group of others praised their variations of such a display.
I was heartened by the responses and passion teachers had about this topic. This was the comment I wrote to support my position regarding the above photo today:
I personally believe that these sorts of things should be in student's work books or their learning journals because any achievement should be communicated privately between teachers, students and caregivers. If a student chooses to tell their classmate then that is their decision. I do believe that displaying exemplars and WALTs and the like in the room is valuable, but I would much rather display the student's work.
So then I posted this to Twitter as a reflection on the discussion I had initiated on Facebook:
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