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http://www.raisingsmallsouls.com/wp-content/themes/179/aschool.html
Dare to be different. Dare to be you.
The paradox has often been noted that the United States, founded in secularism, is now the most religiose country in Christendom, while England, with an established church headed by its constitutional monarch, is among the least. (Richard Dawkins, 2006)
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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I saw myself. Hemmed in by feelings of social inadequacy and failing because of it. This was "just" because I was attracted to boys. The zebra leads to the kangaroo. Or did in my case.
It has been hard to shake.
I am sending this to the teachers that I know. Where my wife teaches the parents are often too thick to make a difference. It is only the teachers that can help some of those kids.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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A very good message and I will be passing this one on to those I know. I hve seen some of these things said before but this is a very good presentation.
Here in the US we have a profound problem with our schools and it is not going to be easily solved. One large impediment to helping some kids is that it is no longer possible for an adult to interact with a kid one on one due to all the paranoia about molestation here.
Ken
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Fantastic. I wish that all parents and school districts could see this and understand. Im lucky I guess that someone here saw the need for magnet schools and comprehinsive schools. To work on the things a child does well in. I know some boys here that thrive in computer classes, figuring out things, but do poorly in English. They take a basic English class and advanced computer classes.
I believe in Karma....what you give is what you get returned........
Affirmation........Savage Garden
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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Timmy said -
"Where my wife teaches the parents are often too thick to make a difference. It is only the teachers that can help some of those kids."
Are the parents really so thick, or are they simply earlier victims of a misguided educational system? It seems to me that, for half a century, education policy in the UK has been driven by political dogma and politically-correct thinking. A 'one-size-fits-all' mentality has damaged the individuality of countless students, and continues to do so. Politicians gleefully report increasing success levels at GCSE and A-level, but studiously avoid admitting that the number of passes in traditional academic subjects is in woeful decline. For example, A-level passes in Further Mathematics are at an all-time low - not because more students are failing, but because fewer students are studying the subject. Why? Because schools are nudging pupils toward the 'new' A-level subjects where passes are easier to obtain, so that the schools can claim to be continually improving. The rating of the school has become more important than the welfare of the student.
And as for political correctness - my kids were taught at great length about Islam, Hinduism and other world religions, but at no time in their school careers were they taught the parable of the Good Samaritan. Does that make sense to ANYONE?
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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Some of them are truly thick. While this does not agree with the mantra that "All of us have equal opportunity because we are all human and are all equally intelligent" (by whatever yardstick you measure it), it is also true.
A great number have been failed by the schooling system of prior generations, probably. But many are thick. We are not speaking of an inner city slum area, either. We are speaking of a town of full employment and plenty of money.
Some of the parents are tagged. Some are on the sexual offenders' regster, some are in jail. Some are great, bright, and wonderful. Some are thick and wonderful. Some are intelligent and dreadful, especially where their kids ae concerned. One relative is being jailed right now for abusing his neice and nephew. Many girls here get pregnant in order to get a council flat. And many girls here are normal, happy intelligent people. Boys, of course, do not get flats when their girl gets pregnant!
The most surprising "grades" of parent make a positive difference. And the most surprising make a negative difference.
When it takes a teacher to see that the child of an intelligent family has eyesight problems because she cannot see the board and the parent says "I wondered what that was. We do have eyesight problems in the family", then you start to wonder.
Teach a 5 year old for a week and you soon learn if the parents are thick, or were simply "bypassed"
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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In Australia, Education degrees are far easier to get into than Commerce, Law, Biomedicine and Information Technology and in a number of cases are even easier to get into than Humanities and Science degrees. It's not the fault of the Universities, they set their entrance scores based on demand and competition for given courses. The blame falls solely on the government, who would WANT to be a teacher over a lawyer, doctor, accountant or IT professional in a capitalist society?
I had a Physics teacher in grade 11 who taught physics not because he wanted to, but because it was his "fallback" career option. He had a PhD in Geology and was forced to teach a bunch of 16-17 year olds that didn't even want to be there.
Attitudes towards education are massively wrong. EDUCATION should be our focus, not results. But more and more education campaigns are targetted at what parents want, not what children need. Recently the Howard government was speaking about the need for standardised testing in Australia so that Australian school kids are able to have their marks compared at a national level. Now tell me who does that help, the kids or the parents who are so insecure about their children's education that they need to see test results coming back as "pass" in order to feel good about their parenting. But of course education policy is targetted at parents. Even though to do so is to err greatly.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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A part of the issue is the workload at least UK teachers are under. The working day starts before 8am, when the classroom has to be readied with the prepared work from the evening before.
A great deal of trivia has to be performed: Photocopying, collation, laminating, prepering to brief classroom assistant (who is only paid for precisley the school hour day) in the 30 seconds after she (always a she) arrives).
At 9 the pupils are meant to have arrived. Housekeeping happens for 15 minutes. Lessons cannot easily start until about 9:15 despite the timetable making them start at 9 with no allowance for housekeeping.
In thsi age group (year 1 - 5-6 years old) the government requires a "Literacy Hour" and a "Numeracy Hour" per day, each as a contiguous hour. The childen work in 5 independent groups with the teacher concentrating on one group only. Classroom assistant runs interference as crowd control, though tries to help with individual attention. In this mess readers must also be heard. Class size is 30 kids. Hearing readers (10 mins per child) takes 300 minutes. Obviously there are not 300 minutes in a day. Equally obviously at this age children have a 5 minute maximum attention span, so the prescribed "hour" is a challenge. Lunch is at 11:45, for an hour. And we must have a 15 minute break. So the morning has 15 spare minutes in it!
Now we must also teach Drama, PE, PSHE, RE, History, Geography, Science, ICT, Art and several other subjects, all to meet National Curriculum objectives, all with lesson plans in monute detail, with the week's lesson plan on the wall for all to see. The NC objectives must be documented and met. If you try to fit this lot into a school day that ends at 3pm, also recognising that 5-6 year olds tire at about 2pm, you will see the interesting challenge.
During the day childen must also be assessed individually to make sure the class is reaching its attainment targets. Those assessments are formal, and must be "levelled" across the year group at an evening meeting with other year group teachers (90 minutes, one day per week).
Reports must be written each term (30 chidlren, 1 hour per child, because the eports are multi-disciploined, formal, and are moderated to ensure fairness - so 30 hours per term of reports).
Planning for the next week takes place one day per week. 2 hour meeting with yeargroup teachers, plus a further 5 or so hours in the evening of individual work. And each day the plan must be revised, says OfSted, for the next day based on attainment that day. A further hour per day.
Random tasks get delivered by multiple layers of management that have precisley no bearing on teaching kids, but are viewed as "important" by the managers, because THEY have to have these boxes ticked in order to justify being managers. Allow 5 hours per week, minimum for these ad hoc crap tasks.
Resources have to be found for the classes. Often this involves a couple of houirs per day assembling resources for the next day or week's lesson. Thsi week it;s "Pirates" as a theme. So, using the theme for geography a treasure map has been made (1 hour) a treasure chest made, filled and hidde in the classroom (90 minutes) and a lesson plan created to remind them about maps. History will also come into it, and PSHE and probably RE. Literacy will be involved because the kids will be writing about pirates, and numeracy becaise some ecuse will be found to teach number related to piracy.
Pirates are because of a whim by a manager. And Johnny Depp, presumably.
Ah yes. Individual subjects have individual attainment targets ofr each child. These must be explained and recorded for each child.
Some children have individual needs. Blasted Jehovah's Witnesses may not hear about RE, have birthdays or Christmas, or pray or anything in school time. They have to have other work created for them while the others learn tolerance fo rother religions. Oyhers have learning challenges - dyslexia, Deafness, Sight impairment, Speech problems. All this must be planned for with individual Education programmes (2 hours per afflicted child for the forma one,and a furthe rhour for the "Child Friendly IEP, which must then be sold to the child (30 more individual minutes, and in the school day, but removing tge teachr from the face to face time with the class)
The governmemnt has now made it mandatory that a teacher gets 10% of classroom time allocated for Planning and Preparation. Cover is brought in for this 10%. But this is 10% of TEACHING time, not of the week.
The day stops at about 11pm weekdays. Weekends usually have about 8 more hours of preparation done in them
So, not a fun occupation. And we wonder why the kids are getting a raw deal? The poor teacher simply has no time. As for the "long vacations", well the UK has 20 days personal vacation time in any job. 4 working weeks. School Xmas and Easter are 2 elapsed weeks and the summer is 6 weeks (during which peak vacation period, a teacher, who is LOW LOW LOW paid can't actually afford to take a holiday because peak fees are payable. The etra time is spent in planning, at school in preparing the room, etc etc etc
And the resources are often bought out of the teacher's own packet with no hope of reimbursement.
This is the teaching system our state provides
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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... after all, I did qualify as a teacher myself, and I have the degrees (and scars) to prove it!
The same problem affects every level of government service, and quite a chunk of private industry. Both politicians and public are obsessed by soundbites and statistics and as an inevitable consequence management becomes an end in itself, rather than a means to an end.
Education is at least luckier than medicine, because most managers in education have teaching qualifications; some of the managers in the National Health Service would have difficulty in distinguishing between a stethoscope and a thermometer, except insofar as they would know that a stethoscope costs more.
There are good teachers, and it is abundantly clear from your comments that your wife is numbered among them. There are also some very indifferent teachers, in consequence of the policy in the 1960s and 1970s of actively directing those who failed to gain university admission to take up teacher training instead.
Nothing, but NOTHING, is more important for the future of our country than the standard of the education we provide for our children. But in our society, it is tax cuts, not initiatives in education, which influence potential voters. In the current political climate it would be electoral suicide for any party to propose increases in direct taxation (income tax, etc), though direct taxation is vastly fairer than indirect taxation, since the former is dependent upon income and the latter is not.
I do not exempt the current government from blame, but the real damage was caused by the Thatcherite policies of the 1980s. As regards direct taxation, the UK was once a high-tax economy; it is now very much a low-tax economy. The change cannot realistically be reversed, but because of that change our public services cannot perform at the level to which we feel we are entitled. And public servants are grievously underpaid.
As ye sow, so shall ye reap. Quod erat demonstrandum.
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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