Ringing Forums

I find it hard to see how anyone who is not a competent method ringer, at least of basic methods, can hope to teach method ringing — John Harrison

As a ringer in a tower that's trying to move into method ringing I agree with that. Even with three of us who can ring inside, it's still a challenge to "get things going". But we are making steady progress.

that assumes the teacher is learning somewhere else to stay ahead — John Harrison

That's exactly my concern, that seems to be mostly down to geography and chance at the moment, and I think it shouldn't be.

Anyone teaching wobbly plain hunt by the numbers is in the wrong book for teaching competent method ringing. — John Harrison

Yes, that's a given.

Good for you and I hope you are successful, but just the one of you doesn't really scale :wink:

With the encouragement of my own teacher I went on the ART teacher's course, although I probably wouldn't have been considered "suitable" by some. But I've continued to work hard on my own ringing and I'm a much better ringer than I was when I started teaching. My concern is that the current recovery model seems to be very top-down. If we are to revitalise ringing then the whole community needs to be moving, not just the elite level, not just one particular age group and not just a small number of towers.

That's fine in theory but is unachievable in the many towers where there are no competent method ringers to start with and the standard is at best wobbly PH by-the-numbers. What do they do? That's why I said there needs to be ongoing support for the people who are motivated enough to want to learn to teach. If we want to raise standards across the board it's not feasible to parachute skilled method ringers into every tower, we need to find a way of supporting the people teaching in such towers so they can stay a few pages further on in the book, which means ongoing and tiered support. That's going to be a better use of increasingly scarce resources.

I've personally seen several occurrences of people being sniffy about ART teachers, so it does happen. I'm sure it's justified in some cases but they were blanket statements coming from what would be considered advanced ringers. And I've watched some of those same ringers teaching people and their approach leaves a lot to be desired. I don't think any of that will apply to anyone who contributes here, but it does happen.

The would-be ringers are limited by the abilities of those in charge of the tower or responsible for their introduction to ringing — Peter Sotheran

I'm not disagreeing with your list, although fortunately it's not been my experience of learning to ring. But it does describe the situation at my home tower until recently, for around 40 years - when he comes to practices one of the semi-retired ringers often wistfully says "I wish we knew about all this stuff years ago". so this isn't a new problem, it's more that it's become more acute.

As I understand it, ART was set up to address exactly these problems, but some associations only have 5-10 teachers, so there's still more to do. I think part of that requires that the wider ringing community accepts that you don't need to be a Spliced Surprise Major peal ringer to teach people Pain Hunt. What would also help is if there was tutoring and support for the grass roots ART teachers that continued after they had received their accreditation.

Agreed also. But it's going to take time for the pipeline to refill. While that's happening we need to keep towers alive and ringing at a reasonable standard wherever possible, so there are opportunities and support for those people who are the long term future.

It's not necessary for teenagers to be Surprise Major ringers when they go to Uni (although great if they are), but making sure they don't need "remedial help" when they do seems sensible and achievable. You don't need to be a Premier League manager to run an after school footy club, you need to be able to safely teach basic skills, identify talent and know when it's the right time to pass them on for more advanced teaching. That's the way things work in other similar pursuits, I don't understand why ringing should be any different.

When the ship's sinking I think it's sensible to welcome anyone who wants to bail, be it with a bucket or a teacup.

I don't think age is the primary determinant either.

I think the various young ringer groups are great, but that demographic doesn't contain the majority of people who take up ringing, we need to be catering for everyone.

I agree that having a balance of ages is ideal, but we have to be realistic about where we are now. I think one of the strengths of ringing is exactly that span of ages - there are not many circumstances where that happens and for many young people it will be their first opportunity to form relationships with older people on their own terms - something that's going to be vital once they start employment.

I don't think we have to worry too much about uni ringers, as I understand the majority will have been ringing whilst at school and will be well used to hanging out with the wrinklies :grin:

I want the 30- 50 age range. — Phillip George

I'm only interested in potential and drive, I don't give a stuff about age. If the ringing community thinks it's still in a position where it gets to pick and choose, it's deluding itself.

We should aim for deliberate practice and expert performance every time we ring in our local towers. — Phillip George

We should, and as you note it often doesn't happen. But I'm not sure it's possible to do it in a normal weekly practice. We run tied bell + simulator sessions outside of normal practices with a maximum of 2 ringers + tutor so that they can get the 1:1 attention that DP requires. The weekly practice is then an opportunity to put what they've learned "solo" into practice with other ringers. That way we don't have the rest of the band standing around rolling their eyes at the whole-band practices - people come prepared to get the maximum out of the time available.

I think a significant part of the reason for lack of progression is because of the way methods ringing is still taught, it's not moved on in literally decades. People who get to the higher echelons of ringing do so despite the way we persist in teaching ringing, not because of it.

no 30 - 50 year olds, and older people with limited capability hanging on. — Phillip George

State pension age is now 68, yet according to many in the ringing world, anyone over 45-50 is considered to be senile and incapable. it's a ridiculous and insulting attitude and says more about the attitudes of the even more elderly ringing "elite" than it does about the abilities of people in that age range. Move on please, the 2000s happened nearly a quarter of a century ago.

We pretty much had a plan in advance for all of the students — Simon Linford

It would be interesting to see what the plans looked like for the different starting points, I'm sure that would help others planning such efforts in the future.

The ARA will also have follow up in that those who put forward young ringers to come have now been sent feedback on their students and what the next steps for them in their local area ought to be. — Simon Linford

Good to hear there's follow-up. One of the criticisms I've heard about the existing ringing courses is that people are coming back after a year having made no progress, I assume because there's often no follow-up in place?

So the concept of this Deliberate Practice and Expert Performance is definitely possible, but it takes very great effort. — Simon Linford

Undoubtedly, but I wonder if it's actually a more effective use of resources, if you compare it to the amount of time they'd have to have spent in regular tower practices to achieve the same degree of improvement?

I think there is a limit to how far you can get without inate ability ... Plenty of ringers have inate ability but don't get opportunity ... lack of inate ability is or will be the thing that limits their progress — Simon Linford

Clearly true, but there's not just one destination on the journey. By most standards the people attending the course are already advanced ringers, if the approach you used worked well at that level, could it be replicated at earlier stages? After all, you are going to need a steady stream of people who can already ring Surprise Major :wink:

As an aside, this sort of approach sounds like it ticks all the boxes for Arts Council funding, I know of a directly comparable programme in the Carnival Arts area that attracts significant funding.

I think it achieves those aims, as an "All in one, let's get started" book I think it's the best I've seen. I really like it.

They are encouraged to accept the limited info they are given within the small tower bubble where they find themselves. — John Harrison

In some towers I think that's putting it mildly :gasp:

The New Ringer's Book our goal was to provide information they might not be told — John Harrison

Yes, it's very good and "New ringer" undersells it I think, there's material in there that's still very relevant after the initial stages. There are other books as well such as "Carry On Counting" or the Steve Coleman ones, depending on individual taste :smile: You've just reminded me to point them out to our early stage ringers - Xmas is coming up and all that :wink:

There is plenty of scope to improve the way the skills of ringing are taught, but that's not enough on its own. — John Harrison

I fully agree with that and everything following it. I was lucky to be rescued from a mummified tower early on and advised to go elsewhere for help "Before you kill yourself" (quote). If it hadn't been for the TC / Branch RM of that tower who took me under her wing I'd have got nowhere, and she's still encouraging and supporting me to this day. But leaving that to chance doesn't seem workable in general, particularly if the numbers of supportive and skilled method ringers falls.

Once a band gets to that point it is very difficult for anyone to escape — John Harrison

Also very true. In the case of my home tower, the whole tower in effect escaped. That happened because of a chance combination of circumstances - retirement of older ringers, returning ringers, a new go-ahead TC and some keen recruits. I still wouldn't class us as being a method ringing tower but the desire is now there, at least. I'm not sure how best to support such sparks. It's difficult - parachuting in external help is tricky as it can backfire, and once people stop helping, as they must, there's a danger things will revert back to how they were before.

I think the isolation you allude to is a large part of the problem, in some towers it's seen as a sign of treachery to ring elsewhere, and that's often reflected in the standard of ringing. Perhaps the most immediately important thing the CCCBR can do is to make it easier for aspiring ringers to widen their contacts and experience, and to better communicate those opportunities? In which case, I think that's already the plan. But that needs to be backed up by actual provision of opportunities, and I think it's understood that's often not the case.

you are right about there being lots available online but it tends to be fairly advanced, I'm more thinking about the bit in between PH and method construction. For example how to break down and actually learn methods, the importance of the treble - basically "The Dummy's Guide to Method Ringing" and the help that's needed to put it into practice. If you are in a struggling tower then you may not have have access to anyone who can help.

I agree that we don't have a widespread culture of continuous learning, indeed that's my concern. Worse than that I think in some cases there's a culture of taking shortcuts, "To get people ringing" even when that stores up all sorts of problems for later on, such as inability to move from "by bell number" to places.

As someone trying to "get into" Surprise Major it's a huge ask, one that's likely to be beyond the grasp of the majority of people who take up ringing. That's not just a matter of talent, it's cultural.

While, as you mention, learning the ropes covers this I’ve only been to a couple of towers that adopt the scheme — Martyn Bristow

My tower and the next nearest one use it, but it seems to be patchy. I think the majority of people who go on the ART Module 1 teaching course don't complete the accreditation. Looking at the website there seem to be not many teacher's courses available, so I think it's an uphill struggle. But having said that, we've been very successful with "The ART Way", at least for the initial handling stages. I'm a bit less convinced about the progress from there to method ringing though,

being inactive says nothing about skill level, you could argue that inactive members are most likely to be elderly and when active were ringing at a competent level.

hmm, perhaps - my suspicion would be that underestimates numbers at the lower levels. Nobody was a member at my tower for decades, and some associations also have minimum ability requirements that probably exclude most recent starters.

the majority of ringers for the majority of their ringing career would be assessed as being sub par. — Alan C

Do we even know what level the majority ring at? I don't think association membership is an accurate gauge, many ringers aren't members of any association.

the failure rate at most levels (in retention, as well as a reasonably useful upward sense of prowess) is high. Without stimulus from the existing band, there is little forward push for a new ringer to hone and advance their abilities. — DRD-mus

Although this discussion is about peal ringing, the "elite" level is dependent on having a healthy pyramid below it to draw from. I've seen all the issues you describe and while it's difficult to jumpstart a stuck band, it is possible, although it's a multi-year project. We are doing it by setting expectations for new ringers from the start that method ringing is the goal, and CCs / PH are just stepping stones. There are 3 of us who can ring methods and we are collaborating to support the other ringers. It's not always easy but there's great satisfaction in seeing people enthused and making real progress week-on-week - we are at the stage where the more recent starters are overtaking those who've been ringing for decades and are stuck at the same level. If existing ringers want to step up to the mark, great, but we aren't going to stop moving forwards.

I think the biggest challenge is to create the right culture, where continued progression is the norm. If people allowed to "top out" at CCs or PH-by-the-numbers it's difficult to rekindle the enthusiasm that made them take up ringing in the first place.

I think it would be quite hard to find out how many quarters first pealers had rung

AFAIK BellBoard data is in a MySQL database so it would be trivial.

A district ringing master should be aware of people who could be encouraged to ring peals

That's a misassumption. And in any case, there have only been 15 peals registered in my association + county this year, all in the same small area and all 1+ hour away. So peal ringing in my association is already dead.

That illustrates my concerns about many of the conversations in this forum and the direction the CC takes in general. They are driven by people who are generally in areas where ringing is still in reasonable health, even if not exactly thriving. They struggle to square their personal experience with the situation in other areas - "It can't really be that bad". Well, I'm afraid, yes, it is.

peal ringing is only of academic interest to me (my last QP inside was PB6 2+ years ago) but I think peal ringing is important and needs supporting. My QPs were prefaced by lots of longer touches at practices, I assume QPs serve the same sort of purpose for peals? It might be possible to mine BellBoard to find the average ringing history of first time pealers, e.g. how many QPs had they rung in the year before their first peal. You might then be able to use that to identify potential first-time pealers.