Toothless Lionesses

Does the “aggressive” Woman of Colour trope lead to a generation of toothless lionesses?

Women of colour have to navigate the western world with careful footing. Sidelined and stereotyped within the media and underrepresented at leadership tables, conducting herself in offices, classrooms and meetings is a difficult, political affair. Managing standing up for herself, being heard, demanding a seat at the table all the while not being deemed too aggressive, requires strategizing but at what cost? Surely this lack of freedom to express herself honestly and fully has detrimental effects on her confidence, self worth and identity as a whole?

Blog post for Diverse Ed

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Managing the markload

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Over the last few years, what we see and what we expect to see in the classroom has massively changed. We’ve gone from super-pacey, four-part, not-too-much-teacher-talkey lessons, to progress for the long haul, repeated learning and in-depth modelling. This is much more a shift in mentality than it is just methodology and thankfully, the same can be said for differentiation. But it is still something so easy to get wrong! Despite all the controversy that comes with differentiation, with high challenge and upward scaffolding, the glass ceilings once put in place with it, can still be shattered for the wide range of students our classrooms hold. While the transformation of what we know as differentiation is in no way complete, we can still adapt during its transition to something better - it is just a case of reassessing how we are differentiating and why. The past life of differentiation Previously, the suggestions and perhaps expectations of differentiation were planning using “All, mo...

Misconceptions about ‘Mixed Ability’ in English

The mixed vs set ability debate is not a new one. It has gone round the houses, done its laps and the research and general consensus seem to have settled quite firmly in favour of blended classes. So why write about it now? Mainly because I (like many on the other side of the debate) was completely and utterly against the introduction of mixed ability classes when it was first discussed in our department. Many of the titular misconceptions were my own but having now researched, taught the classes and reaped the benefits fully mixed sets bring, I have deserted post and I am firmly in the mixed ability camp. Here’s what I thought versus what I found: 1. Differentiation and Challenge is too difficult For context, our previous configuration was to have two top sets on each side of the year with rest in mixed classes, so from my prior experience, going fully mixed would have been extra work for the teachers while taking away specific focus on learners’ needs. But how ...

Miss Mika (English)

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