Principals or Captains of Industry?

To succeed in running an FE college, business leaders must recognise their shortcomings

Historically, further education principals were the slightly intimidating grandfathers of education. They had earned scars and respect as lecturers before climbing the management ladder. Their experience enabled them to act in the best interests of the college. They knew every student, every member of staff and understood the challenges faced by each.

Modern FE principals do not necessarily fit this mould. They are just as likely to have been brought in from industry as from the ranks of teaching staff. This presents two problems.

The first issue is contextual knowledge. The traditional principal started as a lecturer, amassing years of knowledge and experience before rising through the ranks to the highest office, learning every aspect of the FE curriculum and every policy that shaped it. They were experts.

Leaders parachuted in from non-education sectors cannot hope to have a similar grasp of the decisions they will be making. Successive governments have relentlessly bullied FE into meeting their latest whims with ever-decreasing resources, but replacing principals with business people is not the answer. Staff need to respect their leaders, to have faith in their judgement and know that essential sector knowledge guides their decisions.

The second issue is that the head of an FE college has to put education first. This used to be the case. Funding cuts forced principals to adapt, to learn or hire in new skills and explore new, vocationally focused opportunities for learning, as well as economic opportunities for income. But education was still at the core. The same cannot be said for some of the principals being hired in colleges today.

A different breed

New leaders are now more likely to be business leaders or chief executives than owners of leather-patched jackets and PhDs. They have knowledge of “just-in-time” production schedules, sharp negotiation skills, economic efficiency and manufacturing intelligence. But they don’t have much of a clue about education beyond their own experience of it. They will be less likely to make education-first decisions, especially at crunch moments.

Of course, FE is not alone in this; the leadership evolution has happened in all sectors of education. But it seems to be more pronounced in our sector, where the lack of educational experience is more readily accepted.

I am not advocating banishing this new brand of principal. But they do need to understand the concerns their presence creates. Here is a selection of potential problems:

• Respect: if the world’s greatest tractor driver was put in charge of the Bank of England, would we, as bank employees, respect our new leader’s choices?
• Change management: New leaders bring new ideas. FE traditionally copes well with change. But has that been because of the educational experience of our principals and the breadth of their talent?
• Market knowledge: FE is unique – it requires a vast range of skills to lead a college. Removing the need to have education as part of that skill set negates its importance.
• Business: new revenue streams are essential to support education, but it is the business of education, not the business of business, that is paramount.

Key questions

These problems are not insurmountable. They simply require a would-be principal to be more considered about accepting an FE leadership role and to understand what is required of them. This starts at application. A potential college leader should ask themselves five key questions below before applying for a role:

1. What are the basic goals of the college?
2. What is the strategy for achieving these goals?
3. What are the fundamental issues facing the college?
4. What is its culture?
5. Is the college organised in a way that supports its aims?

Prospective principals should ask themselves if they would honestly be able to understand the answers to these questions. If they feel they could, they need to communicate that understanding to the college immediately and be willing to show how the answers will be interpreted.

Asking for help and opinions from staff and providing opportunities for those staff to influence key decisions is essential if principals from the business sector hope to succeed. We can accept they don’t have contextual knowledge if they make efforts to use the know-how that already exists on staff.

Most of all, would-be leaders must understand that colleges are not manufacturers and that commercial success does not equal educational expertise. Many fall into this trap and it is a sure-fire way to dismantle everything that FE stands for.

Published in TES 17th October 2014 http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storyCode=6446892

Staff aparheid

Learning support assistants provide a valuable service yet they receive precious little thanks for it – and enough is enough.
 

Colleges are collaborative, supportive places. Teaching staff share resources, ideas and strategies, along with coffee and chocolate biscuits. They operate with bonhomie and improve their skills through supportive CPD and peer engagement. But although they are the visible face of learning, they are not the only ones responsible for it.

Further education colleges also employ learning support assistants (LSAs) to help the one in eight students with declared needs and the many more who require a helping hand. More than 80 per cent of LSAs are female and, amid the diverse atmosphere of further education colleges, more than 90 per cent are white. Qualified teachers make up about 7 per cent of the LSA workforce, with more than 40 per cent possessing a level 4 qualification. But nearly 12 per cent have no qualifications at all and 20 per cent have only a level 2 qualification. Most are part-time and paid hourly, have no year-on-year job security and are subject to redeployment at any moment.

Many have years of specialist experience assisting students with dyslexia, dyspraxia, mental health issues, impaired hearing or sight, emotional problems and more. LSAs’ responsibilities include note-taking, reading, enabling access to ICT, providing mobility and mealtime support, advocacy, helping learners on work experience and even covering classes for teaching staff.

And yet some colleges practise apartheid. LSAs in these institutions are not part of the teaching team, not part of the culture, not anywhere. Many don’t even have a staffroom to use, just a cupboard to hang their coat in.

In my experience, a number of staff are very reluctant even to allow LSAs into their classes. They find another “voice” distracting, as though it usurps their authority. Other lecturers find that sending the more disruptive students to the library with an LSA enables them to teach the rest of the class more comfortably. And so it might, but is that what the LSA is for?

Funding cuts over the past few years have pared staff numbers to the bone in many FE colleges, and it puts incredible pressure on the remainder when a member of teaching staff is absent. In the sepia-photograph years someone would always be available to take on a class but this is now unlikely, so the responsibility often falls to an LSA who is told to “keep them quiet”.

Frequently, lecturers do not know how to use LSAs effectively because CPD does not teach them how. Nor are LSAs given opportunities to develop their own skills. A few are paid for training but the majority are not and consequently do not attend, missing out on valuable learning and staff interaction. LSAs are often not released for training because of a lack of time or because of their low status. Their contracts usually end when the students leave and before the CPD begins. The career path for LSAs is a narrow one, and without a progression route they have little motivation to develop themselves. Yet they are often observed under similar conditions to teaching staff and graded accordingly.

Many lecturers admit they don’t have the confidence to direct support staff effectively. Many are confused about what “support” actually is – they simply stop interacting with a student when a support worker is present. This seems pretty unfair: LSAs are used to keep the “naughty ones” quiet, barely tolerated in some classes, excluded from training and development, poorly paid and have no career progression, and yet they are expected to stand in for lecturers at the drop of a hat.

Worlds apart

Discussions between teaching staff and LSAs outside the classroom are still rare. LSAs often go into classes without knowing what will be taught, what objectives are to be fulfilled, what practical work will take place or even what the course is.

Is FE like Downton Abbey, with lecturers and teaching staff on a higher tier than LSAs, who must be kept in their place? I can’t believe that is how anyone in the sector wishes it to be. We listen to students and request “stakeholder” views at every turn, yet a significant proportion of the staff are effectively treated as a stopgap.

Where is the equality in that? And what will be the impact if this keeps happening? Training all staff to reach the highest standards is surely a no-brainer. Despite the government’s best efforts, most colleges still insist on employing qualified staff to teach students, so why not extend that investment to the learning support team?

It is easy to talk to LSAs, to listen to them, to take a skills audit and match their strengths to relevant areas. It is simple to define their training needs, to include them in team meetings for the areas they work in and to value their insights. I’m incredulous that so many colleges don’t.

We present an image of collaborative harmony to the world, working in partnership with employers, parents, stakeholders and schools – pretty much anyone who comes our way, in fact. But we do not, it would seem, include a key part of our workforce, who find themselves marginalised and too fearful of losing their jobs to say so.

Building a qualified, experienced and truly collaborative workforce must be our first priority if we are to continue to enable all learners to achieve. And yes, that includes the LSAs.

Published in TES http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storyCode=6442389

Selling our learners short

Extra funding was intended to boost maths teaching in FE, but a topsy-turvy approach to using it could lead to a ruinous skills void.

 

Concerns about the sorry state of literacy and numeracy in England – from CBI surveys and Alison Wolf’s damning 2011 report, for example – have spurred the government and educationalists to push for improvements in further education. More qualified staff, better embedding of numeracy into vocational subjects and a greater emphasis on maths and English as career essentials are among the strategies.

To this end, funding has been allocated for the employment of new maths graduates as expert teachers, and many institutions have applied successfully for this extra cash. Although the money may have been conceived as a “golden hello” to encourage talented mathematicians into the teaching arena, in my experience many college leaders are using it to pay the salaries of non-specialist recruits, thus saving on their wage bill.

This is not the only way that colleges are dealing with the challenge of trying to meet the Wolf recommendations with reduced funding. To make timetables financially efficient, and to save on salaries, hundreds of unqualified staff are now teaching maths and English. The functional skills part of the course is often taught by vocational staff, who are well qualified in their own areas but have no experience of teaching maths.

Meanwhile, qualified staff find themselves redundant or “fractionalised” as their subject is broken up and distributed to others in order to save cash. And those others are now teaching subjects outside their comfort zones. Was this really the desired outcome of the drive for mathematical excellence? As with many strategies, it looks good on paper: move a few bodies around, plug the gaps and off we go. But the ramifications for learners and staff are ignored.

On the road to nowhere

Most colleges buck the Pareto principle when it comes to maths qualifications: 80 per cent of learners study functional skills and 20 per cent study GCSE, but that 80 per cent requires more than a 20 per cent investment. It may well be the case that staff costs are at a premium and funding at an all-time low (with the prospect of a further fall), but that does not justify what we are doing. Fewer and fewer learners are enrolled in GCSE maths and are instead signed up to a level 2 functional skills course – a “safer” qualification that can be taken as many times a year as necessary until they pass.

Is this the best option for students and their future employers? What happens when that learner wants to take an HND or a degree and needs to know Pythagoras’ theorem? Functional skills has no content that will allow for this: no Pythagoras, no trigonometry and no value in a huge range of careers, from healthcare and medicine to engineering and research.

Adults wishing to return to education are refused entry to GCSE maths and enrolled on stand-alone functional skills courses that they must pass before taking their course of choice, which they are paying for. Nineteen-year-olds who were never advised to retake their maths and English GCSEs and have progressed to level 3 cannot move on to the next course. They do not have the opportunity to obtain funding for retakes. They are cast adrift.

But financial needs must be met, so changes are instituted. Functional skills is allocated even fewer hours on the timetable – just one hour in some cases – and this is blamed on “more embedding” in vocational subjects and greater demands on vocational staff because of the new BTEC requirements. Is one hour a week enough, even when taught by an expert? No. And the outlook is worse for students taught by a non-expert.

Vocational staff are uneasy, too. They are concerned about their lack of expertise and their ability to help learners achieve. They fear the impact on their departmental results and the subsequent threat to their own careers. As many have noted, vocational maths in context is one thing but the exam has no single vocational focus, so it is the application of maths that is key. These staff do not have the expertise or confidence to enable students to absorb and then apply mathematical constructs in a variety of situations, much less an exam paper. They need training and support to take on these new challenges, if this is how it is to be.

FE colleges with poor finances are now in a bind. They must save money to survive but must also deliver learning, achievement and success to a high standard. The impact on their futures is clear: colleges without well-qualified maths and English teaching staff and good results are unlikely to thrive, leading to funding gaps, a lack of learners and reduced staff numbers. Poor and potentially dangerous choices are thus being made in the name of financial efficiency. FE colleges are once again prioritising their own survival over the needs of learners.

The requirement for students to achieve a level 2 qualification is the driver. But I fear that this journey, with a blindfolded man at the wheel, will lead only to a horrendous crash. We will again clash with or be run over by the funding juggernaut. Chased by a Wolf, we are behaving as sheep, blindly following the funding formula into a future skills void of our own making.

Published in TES http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storyCode=6439843

Maths; time for a new recipe

 

Gosh there’s a lot of ‘education’ on TV now; it’s almost as popular as baking/cooking shows, which in a way is what schools do. Take a wide range of raw ingredients, treat them to a series of processes and expose them to new experiences, and voila … a Victoria Sponge, the finished product.

Except, it isn’t. The ‘product’ is never finished.

The GCSE Victoria Sponge; that most English of sweet treats, so admired by governments, sprinkled with Govian icing sugar and the merest hint of Morgan vanilla, is then the basis for a global range of courses that are sweet, savoury, salty, sour and umami in FE. A menu of such complexity, Matthew Norman would faint with gastronomic gluttony.

Taster menu’s at L1; short, spicy fast food to develop your senses at L2, longer, more complex dishes to season the palate at L3, then delicious puddings at higher levels, each specialising in individual ingredients, developing and focussing on a core skill. FE would surely hold at least three Michelin Stars in the restaurant world.

The GCSE Maths Victoria Sponge, a fine and traditional recipe though it once was, is, whisper it, no longer fit for purpose in Maths. The two layers, Foundation and Higher, glued together with the sweet sourness of the Grade C raspberry jam centre, no longer works. Nor does its flashier cousin, the Functional Skill muffin. Dressed up as a more accessible, smaller bite of sweet achievement, it is actually just a less calorific, saccharin laden bun, decorated and sold as a multi-function, vocational catch-all, but scrape off the distracting toppings and underneath it’s still a flabby sponge.

Flabby sponges, no matter how well decorated are not the basis for a healthy diet. GCSE maths and Functional Skills are no longer the basis for a healthy, successful education.

Yes, basic mathematical skills will always be required; adding, multiplication, subtraction and division are sacrosanct but teaching these in isolation, crammed into a 34 week sugar-fest with only one final product allowed is senseless.

The application of maths, in a range of employment opportunities, fully embedded into vocational courses and included in the grading criteria is desperately needed and shamefully overdue. Maths as a pure subject should always be available for those who wish to pursue it but for the majority of vocational students, that isn’t their aim. They need maths, applicable to their lives and their subject specialism not academic purity, but they do need to be stretched, mathematically.

Treating maths as a punishment … ‘you can’t have any fun until you’ve done your maths’, reinforcing the stereotype of maths as a separate, additional burden on their learning, continues to damage both the reputation of the subject and the enthusiasm of the learner for a subject which is not  just fundamental to higher career aspirations but also to everyday living.

Following my tweet that only 7% achieve the ‘C’ raspberry, from the TES http://news.tes.co.uk/b/news/2014/09/11/just-seven-per-cent-get-gcse-maths-or-english-when-retaking-it-after-age-16.aspx#.VBKzF0mGLX1.twitter David Russell of the ETF asked me “@fossa99 Always was huge issue. Now focus is on it. Massive challenge for the country to support FE sector in tackling this. Can we do it ?

Well, yes David, we can but that Victoria Sandwich and the Muffin, need to be broken down to their molecular level and then rebuilt, to suit the market we work in; the future.

It needs the input of vocational teachers and industry partners to identify the skills students will need to be effective in the workplace; as employees and future innovators.

It needs the input of maths teachers who have long and bitter experiences of watching those sponges deflate in the white heat of the post 16 exam oven.

It needs exam boards to work harder to develop mathematical fluency as gradable criteria in their Pass, Merit and Distinction ladders of success.

It needs mathematical competency built into Initial Teacher Training and PGCE’s.

It needs focussed, trackable, monitored Maths delivery of CPD for all teaching and educational support staff, which should be compulsory and a condition of Professional teaching status.

It needs a realistic, vocationally focussed framework of maths skills for apprenticeships, not 'bolt-on' qualifications.

It needs time. Thirty weeks (when term starts in September and exams in early June) of 2 or 3 hours a week, with a range of abilities stuffed into an end of day class cannot work. The replacement for the GCSE should be a two year, 16-18 stand-alone course, run alongside the vocational qualification and supplemented by the higher and examined maths content of vocational qualifications.

Most of all, it needs the will and the drive of those who represent FE to call a halt to the twenty one years of 7% achievement and in tandem with those of us who despair of the current situation, and we are legion, work together, quickly to put this shameful, abhorrent failure in the past and start preparing our learners for the futures they deserve.

Can we do it?

 

 

 

Pot Holes of Achievement

Pot holes annoy me, John Bishops lairy blokiness instead of Graham Norton's waspish acid bath on a Saturday morning infuriates me, no Gooseberries at the local Farmers market; August, can be an irritating month.

August though is the month when irritation levels reach fever pitch and no matter how urgent the news elsewhere; Ebola, War, Cruelty of unspeakable levels are brushed aside to bash education.

A level and GCSE results are out soon and the perennial battle between Good and Evil sans George Lucas, pervades our senses. Have standards fallen, have they risen, are students brighter, is teaching better, is learning greater?

Data, if you need it http://www.bstubbs.co.uk/a-lev.htm and http://www.bstubbs.co.uk/gcse.htm and http://www.bstubbs.co.uk/new.htm is here, good data too and the answer seems clear.

Does that ‘data’ answer our questions? Does it tell us about the students, their individual battles, their exceptional determination to achieve? Data is an integral part of education; the Ying to our Yang but it’s a small part.

These things I know; I’ve been privileged to teach students of all abilities. I’ve spent time in PMLD and LLDD areas where measuring the ‘achievement’ of a nonverbal, wheelchair bound student involved me learning how to interpret miniature facial movements and a slightly different smile. I’ve seen students whose main achievement over a year was to turn up on time, sober; others whose main achievement was to not thump someone when they got a sum wrong. Students on A level and BTEC programmes struggling to balance work, study, family difficulties and issues that would fell many adults.

Achievement, so easily measured in a spreadsheet, splashed across the news and dismissed by myriad experts in a miasmic ‘kill fest’ of standards bashing, doesn’t cover their achievement; nor does it recognise the huge and largely unsung heroics of the teaching staff who produced the GCE and GCSE success alongside other, less newsworthy but more heart-warming achievement.

So this year, celebrate the top line and admire the achievements but ignore the ‘bashers’, those politicised death-eaters who are flown out yearly to suck the joy from the students’ achievement.

 Remember that under each column lies thousands of individual success stories that defy categorisation but tell a greater story of college success. The determination of teaching and lecturing staff, in partnership with a student cohort that took advantage of every opportunity we gave them.

That’s the success story.

 

 

Google docs and ILT for teaching and learning

Inspired by my colleagues in #ukfechat, I've been investigating and playing with some more ILT apps for Teaching and Learning.

Here are a few easy to use examples to get started with.



Socrative: fun and super easy to use http://www.socrative.com/


Screencast: Captures screen and Webcam video and saves it or posts it online on YouTube or the program's Web site. With a well-designed interface and simple operation, it's a fun and useful way to develop lesson content    http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/


Reviews of similar software are here, so you can find the one that suits you best ... or try them all http://www.emergingedtech.com/2010/01/comparing-12-free-screencasting-tools/

Drop Box: really useful for accessing your documents and files anywhere you are and no need to carry data sticks and discs around. https://www.dropbox.com/ you can also download through iTunes for iPhone and iPad

Prezi: cloud based presentation software to make exciting presentations http://prezi.com/

Maths: http://www.mathseverywhere.org.uk/ brilliant collection of maths ideas

Show Me: easily produce and share lessons on iPad.  There are all minds of resources and games on the website. The UK site is currently undergoing construction but the worldwide has lots of useful stuff http://www.showme.com/ also available on iTunes

AudioBoo: Podcasting and audio software https://audioboo.fm/

Google Docs: Stunningly clear and useful site covering everything you need to know about 'using the Cloud' all Google docs knowledge is here http://www.gcflearnfree.org/usingthecloud

Pinterest: can be used to collect images relating to a topic. Great for visuals and starters such as .

"what's the connection between" https://uk.pinterest.com/

Edmodo: like a 'safe Facebook', great for creating on line closed classrooms https://www.edmodo.com/

Alice: creates a 3D animated environment for telling stories https://schoolforge.net/education-software-download/alice

 Flipped Classrooms and Learning: http://flippedlearning.org/site/default.aspx?PageID=1

Using Mobile Phones for Learning:  http://www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/guide/mobile-learning-for-education and    http://www.teachhub.com/how-use-cell-phones-learning-tools

I find mobiles are brilliant in areas of a college with no computers and/or WiFi. Learners can photograph each others work if they're stuck and use those images for revision

You can also send them the relevant bits of their assignment brief as a quick text, so if they're out in a field or a building site, they can quickly check the criteria they're working to. Very useful for differentiating the required outcomes when there is no easy access to paper assignments or computer whiteboards.

See QR codes use below

Using video: I use video in a range of lessons; for recording discussions, for presentations (especially Functional English and A level Project equals, for recording role play, experiments, etc as evidence for Exam boards and for evaluative feedback on a learners performance.

Also useful for discretely filming your own teaching and class behaviour. Watch it back and it's so clear how many issues are easily missed in the heat of a lesson. Share it with your teaching mentor too or a colleague in Peer Triangle to identify areas which you can develop.

Put the video on YouTube, so learners can use them for revision. Even better, make a 90 second 'key aspects' video using Screencast and upload it to YouTube, then tag it to a QR code so they can scan it with their phone and revise .... fast!

There is no right or wrong way of using ILT, just pick a medium and try it.  if it doesn't work first time, try with a different group. It will work, you just need the right group and right idea to come together and once it does ... there will be no stopping you.

These are people who really know their stuff and are incredibly collaborative; follow them.

@robsolway

 @gillersn

@chas_countryboy

@bcotmedia

@jo_bale

@EdTech_Stories

@bobharrisonset

@MoodleMcKean

@A_Clowe

And of course @FurtherEdagogy and his fabulous http://eteachingutensils.blogspot.co.uk/

There are many, many more and the best way to find them is to type #ukfechat into the box, type a question and answers will appear. Someone will always have a fab idea.

 

End of an era; The Mouzer Years

Children need education, that is a truism so true as to be self-evident. What constitutes education though is another question.

Much of my childrens education came from their pets and today, the last of the original 'magificent three' passed away. I'm not counting the fish, guinea pigs, hamsters, rabbits and assorted bugs in temporary capture nor the worms in a wormery or the seemingly endless 'things we grew in water', brine shrips, scary things and a host of others including tadoples for frogs and toads, nor the newts that have taken up residence in the pond.

No, the 'magnificent three' consisted of a loopy labrador and two cats, rescued from the Cat Protection League when my daughter was three and my son, 5. Living on a farm, cats were a necessity if we weren't to have more mice than an IT classroom.

Their favourite book was 'The Mousehole Cat' and the brother and sister kittens were named Mouzer as she was the very spit of the cat on the front cover, and Old Tom - cue odd looks from the vet when presented with a 10 week old kitten named so, but my children were using their imagination.

Old Tom passed on some time ago aged 15 after he fought, killed and dragged home one ferret too many. He never really adapted to 'indoor' life except in the winter, when the lure of the Rayburn became too much and he curled up, resting his bones and restoring his muscles in his quest to be the Ultimate, the most dominant life form in Hampshire. He loved Christmas Day too, when the Turkey roasted and he had a series of large and juicy slices of his own. Smudge, the loopy labrador went last year achieving a fantastic 15 years on the farm, proud to have chased Rabbits and Hot Air Balloons with equal passion. Mouzer just went on and on and on.

Over the years, the animals fell to one injury or another, nursed by the children. The earlier days of indignity, when wrapped in blankets and transported with a resigned tolerance we would all do well to learn, in a Ladybird dolls pram by my daughter, were forgotten. Flinty paws were bathed, Ferret bites were cleaned and the entire contents of a cows backside, which had fallen onto a dozing Mouzer and set like concrete in the heat of a summers day in the buttercupped meadow were scraped off and the remaining dross bathed away with love and care.

Mouzer went everywhere my daughter did; sleeping on her bed, following her to the bathroom, kitchen, down the garden and back in the most devoted way imaginable. Mouzer was her cat and no others. Once she disappeared and we plastered the area in posters and our local postman kindly stuffed flyers though everyones letter box for us. She turned up in our neighbours house, fast asleep in the airing cupboard, sadly on top of the clean white sheets, but the look on my daughters face when reuinted with her beloved pet was beyond priceless. She had learned to love, unconditionally and to understand that sometimes, things are not permanent.

As cats they had a poor start in life; abandoned in a sack, contracted Cat Pox and were isolated until they were 10 weeks old. When we finally got them home, they raced around the house as if their tails were on fire, then slept behind the fridge for a week until they felt more confident. My daughter, aged 3 sat by the fridge all day, trying to tempt them out. As soon as Mouzer appeared, she climbed on to my three year olds shoulder and rode, like a parrot around her new domain. It was wonderful to see such a bond form.

As she grew, Mouzer continued to devote herself to the girl. When she came home from school, Mouzer would be waiting, she joined in the birthday parties, wandering from tent to tent and stealing bits of sausage as we held mini-festivals in the back garden, charming all who met her and guarding my daughter as she slept. She was a one girl cat and it was mutual.

She's grown now, and moved out, to live her own life and it was the hardest thing I've had to do, to tell her that Mouzer had finally gone in her sleep and the last of the triumviate was no more.

We buried her in her favourite spot, under the Buddlia bush in the sunshine with a cushion of springy Hampshire moss and sweet Clover for her cover and gave thanks for her life. She was a cat who taught my daughter so many things and gave me the deepest pleasure in watching her learn them.

RIP Mouzer (21 years of age).