Teach-Secondary-14.1

SocialMediaandYouthMentalHealth (VickiHarrison,AnneCollier,StevenAdelsheim(Eds.),£46) Ever since the social media revolution of themid 2000s, questions and concerns have consistently been raised over the effects Facebook, Snapchat and latterly InstagramandTikTok have had on the behavioural development of children and teens. Neatly coinciding with the growing visibility of parental campaigning groups, such as the Smartphone Free ChildhoodMovement, Social Media andYouth Mental Health pulls together contributions from41 scholars across 14 chapter-length articles, on topics ranging from‘Dignity, Diversity, and the Challenges of Bullying and Hateful Speech’ to ‘Gaming, Identity Construction, and Social Connection’. As the editors note in their introduction, the social media space is relentlessly fast- moving, but given the task they and their contributing authors have set themselves – to rigorously interrogate the society-wide youthmental health impacts of social media through a public health lens – their observations and findings are unlikely to date quickly. An ambitious academic survey like this is arguably long overdue, though perhaps its most notable portion is the foregrounding of young people’s perspectives on social media use, in a chapter titled ‘YouthAgency, Rights, and the Promise of aWell-Designed Digital World’.Amid a series of quotes from international teens, describing what theyvariously enjoy about, expect and endure fromsocial media platforms, one soundbite froma 14-year-old Indonesian female particularly stands out: “ As technology grows,we can easily access information. But it’s hard to knowwhether the information is valid or not. ” Whatmadeyouwant to extol thevirtues of subject-based secondaryeducation in the formof a book? I’ma geography teacher, and have always felt I’ve had to fight my case for having geography on the school curriculum.Often, however, particularly at KS3, geography gets lumped in with history and RE to form‘humanities’, meaning students can go fromY7 all the way toY9 having never actually been taught geography by a geographer. The book came out ofmy own doctoral research into why geography is an important curriculumsubject. I put that question to teachers at another school, and received some lovely responses – but then received a different set of responses froma second, and then a third school. I found that disconnect really interesting, and saw it repeated across other subjects – subject specialists, teaching the same subject in different schools, each placing a slightly different emphasis on what they thought their subject was actually doing educationally, which promptedme to read up on the area. Howdoyou reactwhenyou’re askedby students in geography lessons,‘ Whydowe need to learn this? ’ If a teacher ever responds to that question with ‘because it’s on the exam’, that’s not good enough. I once spoke to a trainee teacher,who was teaching a lesson onmigration, andwhen I askedwhy, that’s how they answered. I wanted themto refer to the news stories about boats arriving on UK shores, how it’s a global live issue, and pushed themon it. But in the end, they just looked at me and said ‘ Because they must know the difference between assessment objective 1 and assessment objective 2! ’They’d been conditioned to think that the output of everything we do is geared towards exams, but it’s not.The output is something farmore fundamental,which is empowering students with subject knowledge,whatever that subject might be. What needs to happen to change thatmindset andhelp teachers reconnectwith the fundamentals of their subject? Doing that is quite difficult within the current climate,where schools are judged according to students’ success in their exams.One thing teachers can do, however, is really think about what it is their subject offers young people that no other subject can. Can you articulate it succinctly? Get to the nub of what it’s really about, and ensure that every lesson you teach contains something of the heart of your subject within it. DrRichardBustin is a geography teacher and department lead at LancingCollege,where he is responsible for staffdevelopment and teacher training ON THE RADAR Meet the author DR RICHARD BUSTIN HowtoTeachLiterature–and Still LoveReading (HeatherHolmesandLisaAngus,JohnCatt, £16) The relatively slimnature of this volume – 129 pages, plus bibliography – belies how much knowledge and guidance its authors havemanaged to packwithin it. Evidently the work of expert literature specialists and examiners, each chapter outlines numerous strategies for in-class work and assessing students’ understanding.While undoubtedly a useful book for new English teachers to read and keep around for reference, it also contains some insights that even seasoned old hands will likely find valuable. Having stressed the importance of going through texts thoroughly before introducing themto students, the authors proceed to guide readers through theminefields of teaching drama, poetry and Shakespeare,while sharing plenty of suggestions for reading material that classes will find engaging. Highly recommended. ReviewedbyTerry Freedman WhatAreWeTeaching? (RichardBustin,CrownHousePublishing, £16.99) In recent years, teachers have been encouraged to perceive what they do through a traditional/progressive dichotomy – one that Bustin is determined to upend. His starting point in What AreWeTeaching? is that the subject-based curriculummuch admired by‘trads’ is worth preserving, but can too easily end upwith teachers operating within their own separate silos and inhibit the kind of interdisciplinary exploration that ‘progs’will tell you benefits students and teachers alike. Instead, Bustin calls for greater recognition of how knowledge is constructed differently across various subjects – vividly illustrated by a section in which teachers are challenged to explain why their subject is important. Fromthere, hemakes a compelling case for viewing teaching through the frame of capabilities – exploring what young people are doing with the knowledge they have learnt, rather than obsessing over GCSE results alone. 35 teachwire.net/secondary B O O K R E V I E WS