Why Robots can’t teach nor cut hair

I’ve just spent the morning with my wonderful hairstylist Maz, basking in nothingness, sipping cappuccino and chatting motherhood, Christmas toys and the pandemonious effects of drizzly rain on curly hair. It might have been one of those hair dryers that look like a spinning Starship Enterprise that started it, but the subject soon turned to artificial intelligence and how safe our jobs might be in the robot revolution.

Could a robot do Maz’s job? Well, technically speaking, probably yes. It could measure the three-dimensional shape of the face, the number of hair follicles and their thickness; it might offer a questionnaire on life-style and whether you favour cool over low maintenance. I guess it would easily make you that cappuccino just the way you like it, with a couple of individually wrapped Biscoff. Be a damn sight cheaper and quicker, too. I’m sure the results would be insightful, we could even pitch machine against machine according to the accuracy of the cut and set up a league table of stylists. We could make a lot of money, Maz and I, in this AI hairdressing conglomerate of ours.

And then we got back to talking about me, because after all, I’m in the swivelly chair, we’re both staring at my unruly mane and who doesn’t like talking about themselves with their stylist? We chatted about my various stints in education, experience as Head of English, teaching, writing and home-schooling. There was, we agreed, potential for smart thinking machines to offer pupils individualised content and, joy, take over some of the marking for teachers. Could a robot do an English teacher’s job? Well, technically speaking, also, probably yes.

So why are Maz and I so sceptical, particularly as we have just established, AI will make us millionaires? I guess it might be because we have both, in our respective fields, had a taste of it: pressure to be like everyone else, to behave, to do our jobs in a set way, to be judged on what someone else has decreed is a set of standards and shared belief that our results measure everything. Because they do not. Just as Maz might achieve the perfect technical cut but not be happy unless her client feels fabulous, so my cohort of pupils might achieve A* at A’Level Literature yet feel I have failed them if they don’t leave me with a passion for the subject that will last them a lifetime.

Dead Poets’ Society         #goals

The biggest compliment a pupil can give me is that I have ignited in them a love of English reading/writing. One of my pupils said exactly this, very recently, and my heart soared. He will get an A or A* because he is passionate, works hard and has an open heart and mind to be filled with the joy of literature and its influence on everything around him. His grades will reflect something of this, and an important by-product they are, too. But while future employers will see his grade, they won’t understand his passion until they meet him because a top grade has not (necessarily) measured it.

An educational system that values the individual connection between pupil and subject, is organic in that it allows for flexible, tailored teaching approaches, encourages self discovery and independent thought, is the one in which I want to teach. It is also the one that Maz wants for her daughter, an avid reader and writer who is already feeling the pressure to perform at school. She’s 8.

During our morning, I was reminded of the time, a few years back, when I went to a hairstylist and rather tremulously allowed myself to be talked into having my hair blow-dried straight, as was (and I believe still might be?) the fashion. My stylist was delighted with it. I think she thought she’d managed to tame the beast. And technically, it was a good – it moved in a way I hadn’t known my hair could, it was trendy and I looked just like all of my cool friends. I detested it from the moment I saw it, didn’t recognise myself and immediately went home to muss it up.

As with hairstyling, you can’t have a one-size-fits-all approach to teaching, by human or robot (or hubot as a teacher friend has it). You have to reflect that we, pupils and teachers, are all individuals with different strengths and style preferences. Maz gets me and my hair. She teases out the natural curl and encourages the shine with expert, human touch. She makes me love my hair. Even in the drizzle. Ofsted, wake up. Schools, stand up to the government; Teachers, keep using your personality and passion for your subject to inspire others; and pupils – we, owe it to you to ensure you don’t just make the cut, but you also leave our charge inspired for a lifetime of learning.

Running to Nature’s Beat

For my first tentative steps into writing about running, I thought I’d consider those questions we are always asked by our non-running friends:

1) Don’t you get a bit bored running? 2) What music do you run to? 3) How do you get time to run?

So, I gave these some thought this morning on a glorious 10 mile run above Spittal Beach, through Northumberland’s beautiful farms, fields and country lanes. Yep. No 1 is easy. I never get bored running. Sometimes I run with my club, Epsom Allsorts, and we natter non-stop and maybe to outsiders, inconsequentially; stuff about trainers, races ran, training plans and goals, best race t-shirts… (serious business!)  and I love that it’s class/age context free and when I turn up at the tea-hut at the Downs I don’t know if I’ll be running with 20 year old Emily or 70 year old Pat, both ‘best for age’ London Marathon runners. Had a crazy-busy day at work? Someone will run at the back with you. Struggling up that ridiculous hill? Someone will run alongside and encourage you. Feeling on fire? Yehh, give a boost to a rookie runner in need of a lift. We inspire each other. It’s here I met my London and Paris marathon training buddies – and developed quite close bonds with these brilliant women. Couldn’t have done these races without them ✊🏻

But it’s not always about that, of course and sometimes, many of us runners, crave time on our own. I love my life and truly value how fortunate I am – but running allows me to necessarily escape it 😊 in a way which is acceptable, healthy and legal 👍. Escape means a moment’s freedom away from kids (my own and others’ – I’m a passionate English teacher…), work, house, marking, writing blocks, shopping, family, dog, diary, phone calls, emails, bills, yada yada yada. Maybe this is where questions 2) and 3) converge. Running is the ultimate escape for me and I long ago decided I would regard it not as a chore but as a luxury, ergo I must appreciate and treasure every moment of it as MINE. (I protect it quite selfishly and while I do my best to fit it around my life by going out stupidly early/late, (3) I’m very grateful to my family for indulging me. Thanks, fam. My bling is your bling.)

To truly appreciate this zen-like trance in which lots of us find ourselves while running, I’ve found I don’t really need music to get me going – something of a surprise to me. I’m a radio-holic, a proud owner of numerous Roberts Radios, lover of Absolute, Radios 4 and yes, 2 (God, must be getting old).  I will always have at least 1 radio on at home and am always singing. And yet, since taking up running I find increasingly, that I don’t need it. It started with an iPod shuffle issue resulting in ‘Santa Baby’ on repeat, in July. I decided I’d try it without. And found that I like it a lot. I can hear birds singing, tree branches dancing; today I heard the waves break on Berwick’s shores, I hear my own breathing. That’s quite special to hear the rhythm of your own life – can’t think of any other circumstances/scenario in life (since childbirth 😖) in which I’d find myself doing this.

We are a strange breed, us runners. It’s like we’ve got this great big secret. We’ve shaken off the shackles of the gym for something… natural, something  life affirming, and essential, and to us, worth making time for.

 

 

Mind-modelling and classroom interaction

studyingfiction

In this post we are going to step back from the literature classroom specifically to explore what a concept from cognitive linguistics – mind-modelling – can offer to our understanding of classroom discourse, both in English and across the school.

Mind-modelling (Stockwell 2009)

Rooted in cognitive research on Theory of Mind (Premack and Woodruff 1978), mind-modelling offers a useful way for us to conceptualise how we think about and understand what’s going on in other people’s heads. Theory of Mind is typically associated in popular discourse with autism, but it’s actually got a much broader focus. In essence, having a ‘Theory of Mind’ can be understood as the awareness most humans intuitively – often unconsciously – have that other people have minds of their own, think things, and act and speak as a result of their thought processes. Theory of Mind also includes our knowledge that other people can’t see…

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Behind the Selfie-Stick Smile – Schools’ Commitment to Wellbeing for Girls

I’m a mother first, teacher second. But it was as both of these that my heart sank at the recent

removal of Natasha Devon as mental health champion for schools. I teach in an independent school

so Devon’s ousting won’t affect our relatively enlightened approach to pupil wellbeing. But what a

message it sends out to the nation as to how we value good mental health, surely educators’ most

fundamental obligation – at a time when self harming is up 70% in two years and 48% of 11-14 year old

girls avoid some school activity due to hating the way they look *.
As one pundit recently put it ͚’Education is too one-dimensional to cope with the complexities of 

being human’. We can’t just expect children to ‘get through it’ like we did. They are not like we were. Yes,

I did spend some of my youth in front of Little House on the Prairie with a Waggon Wheel while my

mum went out to work. It didn’t verge on the child abuse and I survived without PTSD. Yes I did have

a few detentions once; I was embarrassed, but not broken. Yes I spent summer holidays not on the

Algarve but in our damp caravan with my sister, the dog and a packed lunch. We learned how to tell

imaginative stories and make gloriously messy lemonade. Yes, I did get a D in Maths and had to redo

it before achieving the heady delights of a C. It didn’t stop me pursuing an academic career, albeit not as

an accountant. Today,  it’s a completely different world. The demands on our youth are quite

terrifying and their fear of getting it wrong greater than ever.

I worry for our daughters. Some of them seem to have every hour in the day spent in structured

activity. Tutored to the point where they can’t think for themselves anymore they suffer

performance anxiety, body image issues (what is this obsession 13 year olds have with big lips? 13)

and friendship anxiety, fuelled by social media obsession feeding a whose-got –the-most

friends/best party/coolest boyfriend/straightest hair/highest results paranoia.

This is not exclusively a female issue, of course. My 14 year old son recently had experience of a

friend of his taking his own life. I’m not about to go into the details – I don’t even know all of the

details – suffice to say it shook the community to its core and so it should.

We all want happiness first for our children, don’t we? Or if that͛s too nebulous – a contentendness,

a peace within themselves. What parent would value 12 A*s over that? Yet it is the latter by which

society continues to judge our schools and our children. Schools whose mission statements rate

wellbeing as a priority generally maintain that this does not come at the expense of excellent results

– they would wouldn’t they? But where does this leave our children? Once again, the pressure is on

them to excel academically as well as the playing field, the debating chamber, the art studio, the

orchestra pit – all with a with a selfie-stick smile on their face that says ‘I’m a girl and what I do best

is to please everyone’.

 

If my daughter was 10 and I was looking for a school now, I would be asking: How will you help me 

as a mother bestow the skills of being resilient and strong; of having values, imagination, grit, 

emotional intelligence, problem solving, creativity, people skills, honesty, loyalty, integrity? I

would really push for specific examples. The overarching philosophy needs to be there of course, but

until the Government puts wellbeing back on the agenda, I would want the details. What is the

questioning policy and practice in the classroom? How is marked work fed back? How do girls play

to their own strengths in the classroom? Where are the opportunities for girls to take risks? How

does the joined up thinking work so that girls are not overloaded? How do you manage the provision

of the academic with their overall co-curricular opportunities? How do you check in on girls͛

wellbeing? How do you know they are as happy as is possible for a teenage girl to be? And I’d be lobbying

the Government like crazy.

* The Guardian ‘Teachers have to be therapist one moment, social worker the next’ 31 May, 2016

Wielding our Pens – Writers’ responses to the war on Creative Writing

When the DfE decided to ditch the Creative Writing A’level recently, the free-thinking intellectuals most hurt by its unfathomable decision reacted as persecuted creatives have throughout history, they picked up their pens and wrote.

As a CREW teacher and writer, I’ve taken some comfort in the passionate responses from universities, teachers and students; diverse in stance, yet united in their incredulity,  angered by the lack of consultation, frustrated by the government’s lack of understanding of this most precious discipline.Before I go on to list the DfE’s arguments and those reactions to it, I need to say this: There is something unique and wonderful about this course. We teachers know it. The students I teach know it. They absolutely adore it in a way I have not seen with other subjects, including Literature and Language, both of which can and do inspire real love and passion. Perhaps it relates to the fact they start with nothing other than an idea that makes it a particularly personal, poignant journey. The workshops, where we critique in an honest, supportive environment equip the students with resolve, pride, a personal understanding of process, technique and control – and I have not encountered quite this in any other part of my teaching. As Creative Writing teacher Emma Darwin says ” we’re giving students permission to experiment, permission to fail, to take our writing seriously“. The DfE decision denies our youth that enthusiasm and pride, that commitment to a discipline that would serve them well in academic, professional, creative and social spheres.

The DfE reasoning – and some of those responses to it – goes like this:

1. The current CREW A’level “overlaps with English language and English literature

As a Head of English and teacher of Literature, Language and Creative Writing, this is simply not true. Of course it is complementary, it helps if you love literature just as it helps if you love art and history and music.   You need to be a reflective, wide reader –  as is the case for studying many A’levels. But this course allows for a much vaster range of writing to be explored. It’s this range, this diversity of forms and styles that makes it uniquely different – and begs me to dismiss this course as heavily skills-weighted as opposed to valuing knowledge. One of my own students and Head Girl, Sacha, puts it very eloquently: “As a student of both Creative Writing and English Literature I can most certainly say that whilst the subjects are a symbiosis, they are vastly different. The CREW course encourages us to evaluate the craft and effectiveness of a vast scope of literature from poetry and fiction to script and non-fiction, implementing this in our own writing“.

CREW A’level asks for an appreciation of literature without placing writers on pedestals. We regard writers critically, as flawed, passionate artisans of the craft – and it’s a different kind of understanding afforded to Literature students. Like the writers we read, we too start with a passion for reading, an often tenuous and elusive response, and an alarmingly blank page.

It’s a bit like comparing History of Art with Art. Cross overs are, happily, bound to occur. They promote joined up thinking, synergy and perspective. But one does not negate the value of the other. Incidentally, while speaking of Art – which of course the Government rightly keeps on the curriculum – I think it was Voltaire who said “Writing is the painting of the voice“.

The Writing on Demand component (40% of the AS CREW course) is a further unique strand. I know this because I sat this very exam alongside my students last summer. And as an ex-journalist, I can say, it was tough. Writing to a brief, two lots of 300 word articles in two hours is an excellent way to teach good journalistic skills and discipline. I wish some of those writers I commissioned whilst editing trade magazines back in the ’90s had done it. Crucially, there is nothing like it on the Language A’level syllabus so I cannot fathom why the DfE would imagine a cross-over. Writing at speed with precision and care is not merely a journalist’s tool, it is also essential for any one of us using communication in our crazily-paced professional lives.

2) This A’Level is not required by universities for degree courses in creative writing

At two years old, this A’level is still in its infancy. How could universities demand that Creative Writing undergraduates have sat an A’level which schools are only just beginning to offer?

It was developed with the UEA, provider of the country’s leading creative writing  degree programme whose alumni includes Kazuo Ishiguro and Ian McEwan. It is lunacy to imply HE institutions do not value or endorse it – the Government just needed to give it a chance to embed. As a fledgling course, we know the Creative Writing A’level has been hugely welcomed by HE institutions and is in line with the current zeitgeist.  “The demand for creative writing courses in universities has grown exponentially over the past 10 years” notes playwright and novelist Steve May, Dean of the School of Humanities and Cultural Industries at Bath Spa University.  The A’level is championed by leading industry bodies such as The National Association for Writers in Education, which has set up a petition to save it, and The English and Media Centre. What more could the Government expect at this early stage? Robert Eaglestone, Professor of Contemporary Literature and Thought at Royal Holloway, University of London, suggests it is not only HE that will suffer from this A’level’s demise,: “Its loss will impede their [students’] understanding of and active engagement with our outstanding national creative industries and arts.” he warns.

3) It is studied by a relatively small number of pupils.”

Yes. Of course. As was English Language when it first emerged as a new A’level. Students and parents want to see proven form before they sign up and this takes time to emerge. But the will, the enthusiasm, the need for a creative writing A’level is there and it’s growing. This I know from the huge range of student/parental interest at our numerous open events.

This year our CREW A2 cohort comprises nine students; our AS cohort eight. This is as opposed to Latin (one pupil at AS) and Classical Civilisation (four pupils at AS, three pupils at A level). I make no comment on these other illustrious subjects – we must offer our youth a wide and varied curriculum if we are to help them reach their individual potential. But to use take-up numbers as an argument for axing CREW sounds like a political rather than educational rationale.

I don’t know if or when the DfE will consider a review of this decision. I don’t know whether the current Secretary of State for Education, Nicky Morgan, who – rather poetically perhaps – is an ex Head Girl of my school, will be persuaded to think again. I believe my indomitable CREW students are in the process of writing to her, inviting her to one of our lessons. I will keep you posted on that one.

In the meantime, we have two more years of teaching this incredible course before it is relegated to the co-curricular tea and biscuit slot along with aerobics and felt-making. If we want to see change, we must continue to pick up our pens and write to those responsible for making these ill-advised decisions. We must not accept this cull without a fight or we are also denying the next generation a voice that is recognised and valued. Sign the petition. Keep CREW alive.

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/level-axe-creative-writing-prompts-furyhttps://www.change.org/p/nicky-morgan-mp-save-the-creative-writing-a-level?emmadarwin.typepad.com: The itch of Writing

Litera-cy what I did there? The golden three rules to making it count. I think.

Kat Howard @saysmiss

Literacy? I’ve got this. I think.

After convincing anyone within teaching distance that I would make a difference to a whole school approach to literacy, in addition to the recognition of its value within and outside of school, I am just about to embark on my first year as whole school literacy coordinator. So, big boots, you had better live up to your big talk.

I have learned my lesson to some degree at least since my PGCE- less is more. Do things that will stick, things that will be memorable and things that will spark curiosity. I mapped out oodles of ideas before settling on six key elements that I wanted to embed and gauge impact over the following year. I figure that if I blog about them, one of the following things will happen; I will receive constructive criticism from one who knows better, I will inspire someone…

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Sitting the A-level CREW exam with my students? What was I thinking?!

Sitting the A’Level CREW exam with my students last week felt a little like I was teetering dangerously on that precipice that says brave on one side and utterly foolish on the other. Everything to lose surely, and not much to gain. Everyone would expect a Head of English to shine at the subject she teaches, right? Well, I knew it was a risk and hey, I have no idea how it all went. But I’m very glad I did it.

It’s been *coughs* quite a while since I sat an exam. The adrenaline was pumping fast as we entered the exam hall. My fixed grin and thumbs up to the girls was met with nervous smiles and it hit home that this was just one of several similar ordeals they would endure this exam season. How we forget that intensity of pressure! My worst fear last week was public humiliation, possibly that joyous ignominy of a two line diatribe in the Mail on teachers failing their pupils etc. But these girls? their future – or their perception of it at least,  their university places hanging in the balance, their hopes and dreams and desires are all wrapped up in this.  Last week, my heart went out to them in a way it hadn’t before.

But just for a short while, my job was to be just like them: focussed, confident, clear-headed, in the zone. The invigilators, necessarily strict and serious, gave me that reassuringly guilty feeling you get when walking through Customs. My contraband pink squash was removed at the door. So far so good. I was pumped. And you need to be for this exam.

The ‘Writing on Demand’ paper in the AQA A’level CREW exam is all about being a journalist writing 300 words to a tight brief and to a tight deadline. You don’t know what type of journalist you are til you see those questions – what kind of voice you will need to adopt, who your audience is, what tone you’ll need to take, what the purpose of your writing is, what the subject is, whether it’s a blog, newspaper article, report or leaflet… This is quite an ask. No other A’level English exam demands this of our students – which is just one of the reasons we need Ofqual to make it stay… but that’s another blog for another day.

Of the four questions, the one asking us to address our writing heroes and how they have influenced our own writing stood out as something of a gift. I was delighted to discover that many of our girls opted for this one. Ruminating on our writing Gods and their choices, whether it be that of the first person, the present tense, their sparse style, the engaging first line… was simply a joy for any of us slightly obsessive writer/readers. Keeping it to 300 words was a challenge but I just kept with the mantra I’d been spouting to my girls for the past three months: refine, edit, distil, every word must earn its place…  The other question I opted for was asking for personal experiences of education – for a government website I think. I don’t believe even one of our girls went for this option. Was it because they felt their own experiences were somehow limited? Had I not taught them to be whomever they so wished when writing? to embellish? to lie? Mixing some personal experience (to really nail that authenticity of voice) with a little bit of embellishment for ‘entertainment’ value was the approach I took but I must say, that’s a question I will be revisiting with my next cohort as an exercise on writing in a different persona.

Two of the other questions demanded that candidates digest information – in one instance, two pages of copy on social media – before synthesising, summarising and rewriting. I steered clear of these as to an old hack like me they seemed more restrictive, but it was interesting that quite a few of our girls opted for one or both. I wonder if it is because there is that sense that they have something concrete to work with – some definite idea of content right there in front of them. I made a note-to-self to boost girls’ confidence by preparing them to write something out of a mere idea a bit more, to bravely find their own voice as they did with their coursework. But let’s face it, if they did it well, (Please God, they did!) what more can I ask of them?

Hello world!

There was great delight among writers when Creative Writing was introduced as an A Level. Here, SHARON STEAD shares her experience of teaching the new qualification for the first time…

This goes out to anyone teaching AS Creative Writing for the first time this year. Chances are you will be nearing the coursework final draft stage as this forms the bulk of the course content. You’ve doubtless spent the best part of the year developing creativity and confidence in your students. You’ve cajoled, inspired, prodded, work-shopped, pummelled and polished. Their prose and poetry has, maybe for the first time, an audience with whom they’ve learned to trust their inner-most voice. They feel validated as writers and we feel magnificent. Right?
But of course, this is only part of the story. 60% to be exact. The remainder of their AS course is made up of the less glamorouInk Pellets but nonetheless, potentially rewarding exam component. Writing on Demand might initially seem to go against everything else you’ve been encouraging in your students for their coursework portfolios. ‘Give yourself space and time’, we have said. ‘Stop the white noise and listen to your inner voice’, ‘be playful with words’, ‘explore’ ‘have fun’ … Now we seem to be saying ‘know your audience’, ‘stick to the brief’, ‘edit as you write’, ‘do it really, really quickly’, ‘and do not exceed much over 300 words’. No wonder they get nervous.
It’s a big ask. Indeed, it’s more than likely that even a hardened hack in a Soho editorial office would have some idea of who on earth he’s writing for an hour before a deadline. So yes, it’s a challenge. But the good news is that there are ways your students can capitalise on all of their free writing experience, fulfil a brief with clear and tight precision, and still produce a piece that is ambitious and imaginative.
It’s worth us remembering that AS Creative Writing students come to us having been dragged through the GCSE Language paper which, (can I say this publicly?) can be a bit dull (too late). They were up against it time-wise, having had to gen up on so many writing purposes that it probably felt they never really got to intensively study the nuances of any form, purpose and audience beyond the mechanics. Yet they are, just a year later, asked to emulate professional feature writers, marketeers, Public Relations specialists or columnists – and all against the clock.
Many CREW teachers also teach Literature; indeed it’s perhaps the specialism in which most of us hold degrees. It is territory we can navigate. We explore texts, we discover critical material, we immerse ourselves in the canon, the genre, the themes and contexts. It’s all there – we invite students to draw it out. Conversely, the blank page of the Creative Writing student can feel like a wilderness, with notional, vague, approximate signposts leading everywhere and nowhere. Reading lists – while only as strong as the reading matter on it – are crucial in exposing students to different styles from Bill Bryson, Louis Theroux and Giles Coren, to India Knight, Truman Capote and Alison Pearson. Students must read, read, read, exploring and emulating a range of voices and creating their own repertoire of style, tone for themselves.
For Writing on Demand, students have to create the work from a brief that is designed to surprise and draw upon skills rather than knowledge – and they need to bring into play all you have taught them about finding an authentic voice. This is the key. All of those character studies, hot-seating exercises, tasks on structure, pitch and pace… these are not just for the coursework portfolio. They are crucial to the success of the writing on demand task. To find a voice they will need to establish a connection with their subject so they can explore it beneath surface level. Are they trying to persuade their readers of something? Change their minds? Just make them think? Having an authentic voice will stop their writing become a diatribe or worse – a gushing, pantomime voice of the supposed advertiser.
The formality of the piece can sometimes cause confusion. Students used to crafting formal academic essays sometimes find that transition to a more personal, conceptualised piece of writing really tough. Of course it depends on the brief but generally, my advice would be to get students to write looser. Not with lazy grammar nor bland vocabulary. Any informality must be a confident, active style choice. We don’t know what will come up in future exam papers, but so far on this new course, nobody has asked for a formal essay.
On the subject of weary vocabulary, I have noticed that some students, in the panic of the timed exam, can slip into cliché. I think they sometimes actually feel they are using it ironically. But an ironic cliché remains a cliché – so is best avoided. A tip from me is to establish a cliché corner notice-board. I have one in my classroom on which any gem I receive from a student gets plastered up on the wall. Some girls see it as a badge of honour to make it onto the board (irony once again being the language of the teen) – but I know they have their cliché radar on full as they enter the exam and that’s all that matters.

Sharon Stead is a former journalist and Communications Manager. She is now Head of English at Surbiton High School and Network Leader for English for United Learning.

This article first appeared in Ink Pellet Magazine – Spring 2015
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