Parliament goes back to work tomorrow. There is a second reading for voting and parliamentary reform bill better known as the referendum bill.
I wanted to blog so you didn't think i was dead. I have a few blog ideas, i'm going to post about in coming days. First there is Blair's memoirs, why i'm a Liberal Democrat and a review of a Lib Dem members ebook entitled "Make Democracy Work" published on scribd. http://www.scribd.com/doc/34419223/A-MDW-July-2010
I have just read Michael Gove's new plans for an English Baccalaureate of a minimum 5 GCSE subjects so that English students have a broad knowledge. The problem isn't what subjects the English are taking, it is the exams and the teachers themselves. In England, there is a parliament that thinks the best way to educate students is to test, test, test. That is not the way you get the best results with kids, you need to inspire the kids to learn and you don't do that with a test every few weeks.
In Scotland, we take 7 or 8 Standard Grades or Intermediate 1 or 2s and then progress to take 5 Highers, we do have to take English, Maths, a language and a social science at Standard Grade and we had to take English at Higher, yet, we do not have tests every few weeks.
The problem with education in the whole of the UK is our teachers, teachers need to inspire kids, whilst i may not be seen as the best person to talk about the problem with state school education as i had the fortune or unfortunate ability to go to private school but even at private school, there were an awful lot of awful teachers.
My second year Maths teacher was awful but my 3rd/4th year teacher was brilliant. My 1st year history teacher was again awful, i could see that the subject was interesting but it was being taught by someone with a monotone subject and who was obviously bored with the content after having taught it for 20+ years. We need a good standard of teachers in place as well as a good testing and examinations of the students themselves.
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I am not sure how much you know about the education system in England, but while I agree some of the tests and prescription need to go, secondary students particulary are not 'tested every few weeks' ( other than e.g. class tests), and most students do currently take a broad GCSE curriculum. I think you need to look more deeply to see the causes of the questionable standards of attainment that we see at the end of 11 or even 13 years of schooling.
ReplyDeleteThere are also lots of reasons why a teacher may not be performing well, not all of them the teacher's fault - poor training, inadequate support, inadequate ongoing training, massive amounts of paperwork, sheer bloody exhaustion - it can easily be a 70 hour week on a regular basis. Maybe a bit over critical given that your knowledge seems a bit sketchy. I should say that I was a teacher for 16 years, educated in Scotland, taught in Scotland, taught in England, in state and private and was head of several departments - so I do know a bit about this.
I'm going on students. English students think they are tested too much.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure if the teacher is motivated enough to get the support that he or she needs then he or she can find it.
One of my history teachers was so boring that she made me not want to do history at Standard Grade. It wasn't imo because of lack of support or training but that she had become bored of the subject.