Perhaps there is a link between bad parenting and forty years liberal attitude to education.
Of course there is, some generations never learned to be parents as they had no boundaries set by their own parents. Those generations probably became the "decision makers" for the current mess in which presently, some schools find themselves.
Your job is firstly to educate kids to an employable standard, starting with the "three Rs" wouldn't be a bad idea, never mind the "arty farty" stuff.
Ha! Well said!
As you say, never mind the arty farty stuff. Can they spell? Can they hold an intelligent conversation? Do they know its not "would of" but "would have"?
That one has always annoyed me.
Oh I forgot, I read somewhere that spelling isn't considered so important nowadays.
What absolute rubbish!
If that's the state of the education system now, I despair.
Poor little darlings, the spelling is atrocious, but let's not dishearten them by marking them down for it.
Faded.princess, Doghouse Riley and the rest of the rose-tinted-spectacle nostalgia brigade - while am not quite as old as you, I did experience 70s and 80s education. And I am calling your bluff and urging you to take off those spectacles and stop pretending everything was so blooming marvelous 30/40/50/whatever years ago, that there was some mythical golden age when all children were respectful paragons of virtue, every classroom in the land was a hushed temple of academic excellence with silent pupils writing flawless essays in copperplate handwriting with one hand while solving quadratic equations with the other. It just isn't true. Although I personally enjoyed my schooldays and did well, I know that those 'good old days' were really not so good as you make them out to be.There were lots of bad schools, lots of bad behaviour, lots of children thrown on the scrapheap, leaving school illiterate and innumerate. There was even a claim somewhere on this thread that child abuse didn't exist in the post-war era...oh, come on.
As a concrete example: in the seventies and eighties there were would be regular and pretty serious fights in the playgrounds of even the best primary and secondary schools that staff were simply never aware of. We all smoked like chimneys down the end of the hockey pitch at posh girls school I attended. Modern school playgrounds are patrolled much more thoroughly by staff and stuff like that tends to be picked up on straight away.
My own children went through the state system and I re-trained as a teacher quite late in my working life, so I've got a fairly good sense of comparison. When I first went into schools to observe modern teaching methods, I was amazed by the advances in the profession since the 'chalk and talk' of my childhood. And I can tell you that most teachers work unbelievably hard and are generally extremely committed to the children they teach. This - the fact that if they say 'no' to the latest demands and whims from on high, then the children they care about suffer - is what makes them so easy for governments to dump on.
I am very glad that my own children are experiencing modern education - students are kinder to each other, and friendlier to teachers, than they were in my day, and while the teachers I had at school were generally very strong on subject knowledge they weren't always very good at conveying that knowledge; teachers are simply much more skilled and better trained in the art of teaching than they used to be.
As you say, never mind the arty farty stuff. Can they spell? Can they hold an intelligent conversation? Do they know its not "would of" but "would have"?
That one has always annoyed me!
I've never been too over-critical of grammar and spelling.
They don't seem to bother much with it at schools these days, from the results I've occasionally seen.
The best advice I could give the parent of a student who was sixteen plus, is to get them to find themselves a part time job whilst still studying, where they have to interact with people of all ages and attitudes.
That and a bit of responsibility makes them "grow up quite quickly," if you understand what I mean.
Some kids I've seen of seventeen straight from school, are totally unprepared to start full-time employment.
Faded.princess, Doghouse Riley and the rest of the rose-tinted-spectacle nostalgia brigade - while am not quite as old as you, I did experience 70s and 80s education. And I am calling your bluff and urging you to take off those spectacles and stop pretending everything was so blooming marvelous 30/40/50/whatever years ago, that there was some mythical golden age when all children were respectful paragons of virtue, every classroom in the land was a hushed temple of academic excellence with silent pupils writing flawless essays in copperplate handwriting with one hand while solving quadratic equations with the other. It just isn't true. Although I personally enjoyed my schooldays and did well, I know that those 'good old days' were really not so good as you make them out to be.There were lots of bad schools, lots of bad behaviour, lots of children thrown on the scrapheap, leaving school illiterate and innumerate. There was even a claim somewhere on this thread that child abuse didn't exist in the post-war era...oh, come on.
As a concrete example: in the seventies and eighties there were would be regular and pretty serious fights in the playgrounds of even the best primary and secondary schools that staff were simply never aware of. We all smoked like chimneys down the end of the hockey pitch at posh girls school I attended. Modern school playgrounds are patrolled much more thoroughly by staff and stuff like that tends to be picked up on straight away.
My own children went through the state system and I re-trained as a teacher quite late in my working life, so I've got a fairly good sense of comparison. When I first went into schools to observe modern teaching methods, I was amazed by the advances in the profession since the 'chalk and talk' of my childhood. And I can tell you that most teachers work unbelievably hard and are generally extremely committed to the children they teach. This - the fact that if they say 'no' to the latest demands and whims from on high, then the children they care about suffer - is what makes them so easy for governments to dump on.
I am very glad that my own children are experiencing modern education - students are kinder to each other, and friendlier to teachers, than they were in my day, and while the teachers I had at school were generally very strong on subject knowledge they weren't always very good at conveying that knowledge; teachers are simply much more skilled and better trained in the art of teaching than they used to be.
I love your exaggerations, but they don't impress.
Sorry, as an employer, I've seen the decline in the result of the "end product" over a period in excess of thirty years.
So I know what I'm talking about.
Standards of behaviour in schools have progressively declined since the sixties, when "the Labour Party ruined education."
I've never been too over-critical of grammar and spelling.
They don't seem to bother much with it at schools these days, from the results I've occasionally seen.
.
But that's what really annoys me.
Maybe I'm living in the past. Maybe I just feel the way I do because English was my best subject and I'm a good speller.
I've found myself having to explain to younger people what an adverb is or a preposition.
What the hell are they being taught? I covered all that while I was still in primary school.
I remember, aged about 11, being asked to make an adjective out of a noun. The noun being the word iron.
So (and I know you aren't supposed to start a sentence with so) I said ironic, which of course it was.
I certainly wasn't a child prodigy. I just think a lot of kids nowadays wouldn't even know the meaning of the word ironic.
That dismays me and if that makes me a dinosaur in the eyes of the trendies, then that's what I am.
Standards of behaviour in schools have progressively declined since the sixties, when "the Labour Party ruined education."
How do you know this?
I would say that schools are much gentler and kinder places than they were in the fifties and sixties, when many people were brutalised and humiliated at school by both teachers and fellow pupils.
Very many left young, without qualifications, to go into unskilled work. The majority of the workforce in this country were blue-collar. Today we have very few jobs left for the unskilled - almost every single school leaver today needs to be up to the standard of that very small number of white-collar elite in the "good old days". Which is why teaching has had to improve so much.
being asked to make an adjective out of a noun. The noun being the word iron. So (and I know you aren't supposed to start a sentence with so) I said ironic, which of course it was.
Ironically enough the adjective "ironic" is completely unrelated to the noun 'iron'. It is from the ancient Greek eirōneía meaning feigned ignorance, while the name of the metal comes from Anglo-Saxon (iren)
Ironically enough the adjective "ironic" is completely unrelated to the noun 'iron'. It is from the ancient Greek eirōneía meaning feigned ignorance, while the name of the metal comes from Anglo-Saxon (iren)
This may be, but you should be telling this to my teacher. Oh no, she died years ago
I was only 11 and I assumed that the teacher knew what she was doing. I couldn't really see either what irony had to do with a metal, but I guessed that had to be the word she wanted and sure enough she was pleased and said she knew I would know the answer.
I mean, I can't really think of another word. Someone suggested iron-like, but she rejected that :rolleyes:
I was trying to make a point. Do kids nowadays know what a preposition is? Or an adverb? Or an ampersand? Or that the plural of thief is actually thieves, not thiefs? And it's leaves not leafs? And what the definite article and the indefinite article are?
Because I get the impression they neither know nor care.
I watched this for the first time the other night and im pleased Im not a teacher as they dont seem to win in any situation
I am very proud that two of my children are teachers primary and secondary schools (the third child is an engineer)
I come from a poor background in a mining village and went to school in the 60s and left school when I was 15, yet I dont think I would be wrong to say that at the age of 15 I would have been able to run rings around the kids of the same age at some secondary schools now
I was by no means a well behaved pupil at scondary school, I was bored and knew I would have to leave as soon as I could to earn a wage because of family circumstances
I knew and accepted that if I misbehaved I would get the cane (which I got a few times) but getting the cane showed me one lesson and that was the lesson of boundaries
I was not an easy child to teach I would now be called a problem or troubled child but instead of letting me get away with my misdemeanors I was punished and IMO it worked for me
I left school worked since then got our own business and also brought up three children
I dont really think the 60s way of teaching failed me
there could be something to the old saying of Spare the rod and spoil the child
Getting back to todays teaching, I have every admiration for my child who is the secondary teacher for the abuse he has to take from the pupils and parents and admiration for my child who is the primary teacher who is so disappointed that most of her pupils parents just seem to see her as a glorified baby sitter
both of my children will stay as teachers for a few more years but they are both taking a bigger role in the family firm as they both see a teachers enthusiasm and authority being eroded by red tape, paper work, targets and unruly pupils they dont see themselves teaching for their full working life unless they get jobs in private schools
I may look at my years at school through rose tinted specs but at least I knew what was what, who was who and when not to step over the line
That dismays me and if that makes me a dinosaur in the eyes of the trendies, then that's what I am.
Dinosaur? No. Just someone who has seen more examples of different education systems than many. As soon as you make your case, the only answer these "trendies" can come back with is "rose tinted spectacle" or "dinosaur". Don't worry, in twenty years time these trendies will be lamenting the decline of education without realising they brought it on themselves.
Teaching has not improved, it has simply changed its focus. Now teachers are expected to carry out roles that should never have been inflicted on them such as "social worker".
Standards have dropped almost exponentially. I was not a great student. I passed five O levels, maths English language, building science, technical drawing and plumbing. Both maths and English were grade Cs.
I tried out a GCSE maths paper on line and found that I could actually calculate most of the maths in my head. I answered every question correctly well within the time period. Yet this is after nearly fifty years of leaving school
I can write without too many punctuation or spelling mistakes and regularly read four or five books a week. On one of those TV programmes where GCSE A* students were set GCE papers, it was found that they could not spell, did not use punctuation and had no idea what paraphrase meant. But I bet they know how to plagiarise.
Standards have dropped considerably and it is time this was acknowledged.
We have to be social workers, not just because we want to help children but because we have no choice. Every Child Matters is one of the most important government changes in the past decade. Quite rightly, no child should be allowed to slip through the gap and teachers have to play their part in that.
I'm training to be an English teacher and was just about to post about Every Child Matters!
Please bear in mind that this applies to children who wish to study and not only to those who are disruptive. Nearly all of today's effort seems to be going into the disruptive children at the expense of the studious.
Please bear in mind that this applies to children who wish to study and not only to those who are disruptive. Nearly all of today's effort seems to be going into the disruptive children at the expense of the studious.
Well done on you choice of employment.
I see where a lot of posters are coming from, and watching this programme has reminded me of my high school back in the nineties/noughties and as a result of a few boys being extremely disruptive in my science class during virtually EVERY lesson it was the only GCSE I got a D in as I didn't even think we covered half of what was on the exam. Our teacher would spend at least 90% of the lesson sending the boys to stand outside, sending them to the Headmaster or shouting at them! At the time, I remember looking forward to that lesson because it was "fun" and a chance to get out of working but now am almost resentful because in order to teach primary I need to re-take my Science GCSE to get a C grade or above so for now am concentrating on secondary, but beginning to think it is a big mistake!
How do you know this?
I would say that schools are much gentler and kinder places than they were in the fifties and sixties, when many people were brutalised and humiliated at school by both teachers and fellow pupils.
Very many left young, without qualifications, to go into unskilled work. The majority of the workforce in this country were blue-collar. Today we have very few jobs left for the unskilled - almost every single school leaver today needs to be up to the standard of that very small number of white-collar elite in the "good old days". Which is why teaching has had to improve so much.
You're dreaming, you make it sound like something out of Oliver Twist, when for the most part it wasn't. Unless you personally experienced it, you can't make those sort of judgements.
Find yourself a grammar school on Friends Reunited that was changed to a comprehensive by Labour. Then read the comments from those kids who experienced the change and then you'll know.
almost every single school leaver today needs to be up to the standard of that very small number of white-collar elite in the "good old days". Which is why teaching has had to improve so much.
Sorry queenie, I almost missed this one.
The misconception here is that every school leaver is up to the standards of the white collar elite.
Mainly under Labour but the Tories are not blameless, the standards level had been brought lower and lower until the certificate are virtually meaningless. Any drop out from our era would easily obtain GCSE certificates. That is the whole reason the CSE and later the GCSE was invented, to supply all school leavers with a certificate of education. Unfortunately a pretty meaningless one.
Blair's idea that 50% of pupils should on to university was one of the whackiest ever. This is why we have degrees in subjects that have no relationship to real life. A university degree in my days was unheard of and if you had a BSc you were the cream of the cream. Today they are ten a penny.
So now thanks to education being dumbed down we have to live with the consequences.
In all sincerity, my 11+ exam in 1958 was harder. We had to work out volumes and percentages within these volumes of other shapes as well as basic equations and trigonometry.
This GCSE exam is an insult to any ones intelligence yet students still fail to answer all questions correctly. I cannot see how any moderately intelligent person could not achieve 100% in these papers.
Successive governments are failing this country in the way in which they have continually lowered standards just so that all school leavers have a certificate. Using this program as an example I also think that because the pupils are not being challenged mentally, this makes them bored and unruly.
There is not much rewarding debate to be had by simply repeating, over and over, those things one believes to be true.
For some, this "truth" is that they - and the era that produced them - are flawless and beyond reproach. Everything and everyone that came after them is worthless, ignorant and immoral. They have pulled up the intellectual drawbridge - they need never listen to anyone younger than themselves, or have any new ideas or thoughts, because they learned everything worth learning back in 1955.
Such close-mindedness and, dare I say it, arrogance, are not good adverts for the education system that produced them.
As I approach middle and old age myself, I hope that I will retain a little more open-mindedness and intellectual humility. That way, I will continue to learn until the day I die.
I mean, I can't really think of another word. Someone suggested iron-like, but she rejected that :rolleyes:
The answer is iron.
I went to teacher raining college in the mid Seventies and we despaired at some of the nonsense being spouted by the lecturers, who had all been recently indoctrinated and brainwashed by 'the new learning'. The worst thing was that we knew it was nonsense, but had to go along with it at the risk of being marked down.
It's embarrassing when you get graduates coming into an office, who can't be trusted to compose emails that go outside the company.
Poor Robbie-Joe, not only does he have to carry the moniker "Robbie-Joe" (surely just Robbie or even Joe would suffice?) no one seemed to bother to ASK him why he constantly misbehaved. Sometimes the root of "bad behaviour" is just attention seeking. After all, "bad attention" is better than no attention. Robbie was crying out for someone to sit down with him, for him to tell them his difficulties and for that person to then set boundaries and discipline in reward for him being listened to and helped.
.
I thought the same. I was desperate for someone to ask him what was going on at home. I never think it's OK to bring in a parent as a threat in these situations, you have no idea of the consequences at home.
When he looked like he was about to cry when he talked about the teacher who'd taken a shine to him 'and he didn't know why she liked him'. Big red flag there! Poor kid has no self-esteem and that must stem from somewhere.
I personally think a lot of 'ADHD' is kids not learning emotional regulation from their parents and poor diet. I love the idea of teaching Mindfulness in schools to help the kids concentrate. I also think the it's attention seeking, they just want to be noticed, or maybe it's a way to control their environment.
Another thing I think is so important is diet. We really underestimate how important food is with school and concentration and mental energy. And if they are being fed nutritious food at home and having a proper breakfast.
To the best of my recall I've watched every episode of this series, and I don't recall seeing the kids at their "prom."
Brain damage indoors says that we have, and that I must have Alzheimer's.
I recall seeing what looked like a trailer for it, with some of the boys getting out of limos, all suited and booted,
and a girl in a red dress pushing up her boobs while adjusting her dress.
However I cannot remember seeing the kids dancing, or being chaperoned by the teachers.
If it has been on, (and it probably has), does anyone remember which episode it was, I'll catch it on 4 - O.D.
There is not much rewarding debate to be had by simply repeating, over and over, those things one believes to be true.
For some, this "truth" is that they - and the era that produced them - are flawless and beyond reproach. Everything and everyone that came after them is worthless, ignorant and immoral. They have pulled up the intellectual drawbridge - they need never listen to anyone younger than themselves, or have any new ideas or thoughts, because they learned everything worth learning back in 1955.
Such close-mindedness and, dare I say it, arrogance, are not good adverts for the education system that produced them.
As I approach middle and old age myself, I hope that I will retain a little more open-mindedness and intellectual humility. That way, I will continue to learn until the day I die.
Hmm..
You can't beat a good old sweeping statement to dismiss firm beliefs gained over a long time which relate to personal experiences, can you?
What you have to understand Queenie as an infrequent poster, is that not everyone reads a whole thread (this one has nearly 900 posts) and you can't blame them for that, so they'll raise stuff already covered. Those with an opinion already expressed will naturally feel like repeating it, for the benefit of those people, rather than post, "see post (whatever)."
As for the product of my "educational system" I did fine by it thank-you, as did I'm sure, many more contributors to this thread, of a similar age.
I think your rather glib suggestion "that they learned everything worth knowing back in 1955" is rather silly as to my knowledge, no one has said it.
These people would be the first to say as would I, they didn't, but it prepared them a damn site better than some who leave schools today.
To the best of my recall I've watched every episode of this series, and I don't recall seeing the kids at their "prom."
Brain damage indoors says that we have, and that I must have Alzheimer's.
I recall seeing what looked like a trailer for it, with some of the boys getting out of limos, all suited and booted,
and a girl in a red dress pushing up her boobs while adjusting her dress.
However I cannot remember seeing the kids dancing, or being chaperoned by the teachers.
If it has been on, (and it probably has), does anyone remember which episode it was, I'll catch it on 4 - O.D.
I also think that was in trailer too. It's the network trying to raise interest in what is little more than a "reality programme." I'm sure those sequences are still to be shown.
But enough people have said that what has been shown so far is typical, although I've previously said, it'll be mostly things that "make good television" which will be included. The "uninteresting" well behaved kids have naturally been left out.
Your job is firstly to educate kids to an employable standard, starting with the "three Rs" wouldn't be a bad idea, never mind the "arty farty" stuff.
Haven't suggested otherwise. Most primary school teachers would *absolutely love* to be able to teach principally the 'three Rs' with a few other things added on at their own discretion.
Unfortunately the Conservative Education Reform Act of 1988 brought in the disastrous National Curriculum, which shat on the professional expertise of teachers and forced them to teach a daft array of extra subjects. What does it stand at now for primary pupils?? I think they study about 20 subjects. Your mind would boggle. And that's why they turn up in secondary school unable to read, write or add up a column.
So instead of having a go at teachers perhaps you ought to direct your strident little lectures at that oaf Michael Gove. I'm sure that as an enterprising 'employer' (as you keep reminding us in every post) your contribution would be well received.
The misconception here is that every school leaver is up to the standards of the white collar elite.
Mainly under Labour but the Tories are not blameless, the standards level had been brought lower and lower until the certificate are virtually meaningless. Any drop out from our era would easily obtain GCSE certificates. That is the whole reason the CSE and later the GCSE was invented, to supply all school leavers with a certificate of education. Unfortunately a pretty meaningless one.
Blair's idea that 50% of pupils should on to university was one of the whackiest ever. This is why we have degrees in subjects that have no relationship to real life. A university degree in my days was unheard of and if you had a BSc you were the cream of the cream. Today they are ten a penny.
So now thanks to education being dumbed down we have to live with the consequences.
As someone who went to school in the 60s and 70s I find your posts to be patronising and just plain wrong.
Comments
Of course there is, some generations never learned to be parents as they had no boundaries set by their own parents. Those generations probably became the "decision makers" for the current mess in which presently, some schools find themselves.
Ha! Well said!
As you say, never mind the arty farty stuff. Can they spell? Can they hold an intelligent conversation? Do they know its not "would of" but "would have"?
That one has always annoyed me.
Oh I forgot, I read somewhere that spelling isn't considered so important nowadays.
What absolute rubbish!
If that's the state of the education system now, I despair.
Poor little darlings, the spelling is atrocious, but let's not dishearten them by marking them down for it.
Let's give them positive affirmation instead.
As a concrete example: in the seventies and eighties there were would be regular and pretty serious fights in the playgrounds of even the best primary and secondary schools that staff were simply never aware of. We all smoked like chimneys down the end of the hockey pitch at posh girls school I attended. Modern school playgrounds are patrolled much more thoroughly by staff and stuff like that tends to be picked up on straight away.
My own children went through the state system and I re-trained as a teacher quite late in my working life, so I've got a fairly good sense of comparison. When I first went into schools to observe modern teaching methods, I was amazed by the advances in the profession since the 'chalk and talk' of my childhood. And I can tell you that most teachers work unbelievably hard and are generally extremely committed to the children they teach. This - the fact that if they say 'no' to the latest demands and whims from on high, then the children they care about suffer - is what makes them so easy for governments to dump on.
I am very glad that my own children are experiencing modern education - students are kinder to each other, and friendlier to teachers, than they were in my day, and while the teachers I had at school were generally very strong on subject knowledge they weren't always very good at conveying that knowledge; teachers are simply much more skilled and better trained in the art of teaching than they used to be.
I've never been too over-critical of grammar and spelling.
They don't seem to bother much with it at schools these days, from the results I've occasionally seen.
The best advice I could give the parent of a student who was sixteen plus, is to get them to find themselves a part time job whilst still studying, where they have to interact with people of all ages and attitudes.
That and a bit of responsibility makes them "grow up quite quickly," if you understand what I mean.
Some kids I've seen of seventeen straight from school, are totally unprepared to start full-time employment.
I love your exaggerations, but they don't impress.
Sorry, as an employer, I've seen the decline in the result of the "end product" over a period in excess of thirty years.
So I know what I'm talking about.
Standards of behaviour in schools have progressively declined since the sixties, when "the Labour Party ruined education."
There's always been bad schools in every era.
Now they just make excuses for them.
But that's what really annoys me.
Maybe I'm living in the past. Maybe I just feel the way I do because English was my best subject and I'm a good speller.
I've found myself having to explain to younger people what an adverb is or a preposition.
What the hell are they being taught? I covered all that while I was still in primary school.
I remember, aged about 11, being asked to make an adjective out of a noun. The noun being the word iron.
So (and I know you aren't supposed to start a sentence with so) I said ironic, which of course it was.
I certainly wasn't a child prodigy. I just think a lot of kids nowadays wouldn't even know the meaning of the word ironic.
That dismays me and if that makes me a dinosaur in the eyes of the trendies, then that's what I am.
How do you know this?
I would say that schools are much gentler and kinder places than they were in the fifties and sixties, when many people were brutalised and humiliated at school by both teachers and fellow pupils.
Very many left young, without qualifications, to go into unskilled work. The majority of the workforce in this country were blue-collar. Today we have very few jobs left for the unskilled - almost every single school leaver today needs to be up to the standard of that very small number of white-collar elite in the "good old days". Which is why teaching has had to improve so much.
Ironically enough
This may be, but you should be telling this to my teacher. Oh no, she died years ago
I was only 11 and I assumed that the teacher knew what she was doing. I couldn't really see either what irony had to do with a metal, but I guessed that had to be the word she wanted and sure enough she was pleased and said she knew I would know the answer.
I mean, I can't really think of another word. Someone suggested iron-like, but she rejected that :rolleyes:
I was trying to make a point. Do kids nowadays know what a preposition is? Or an adverb? Or an ampersand? Or that the plural of thief is actually thieves, not thiefs? And it's leaves not leafs? And what the definite article and the indefinite article are?
Because I get the impression they neither know nor care.
I am very proud that two of my children are teachers primary and secondary schools (the third child is an engineer)
I come from a poor background in a mining village and went to school in the 60s and left school when I was 15, yet I dont think I would be wrong to say that at the age of 15 I would have been able to run rings around the kids of the same age at some secondary schools now
I was by no means a well behaved pupil at scondary school, I was bored and knew I would have to leave as soon as I could to earn a wage because of family circumstances
I knew and accepted that if I misbehaved I would get the cane (which I got a few times) but getting the cane showed me one lesson and that was the lesson of boundaries
I was not an easy child to teach I would now be called a problem or troubled child but instead of letting me get away with my misdemeanors I was punished and IMO it worked for me
I left school worked since then got our own business and also brought up three children
I dont really think the 60s way of teaching failed me
there could be something to the old saying of Spare the rod and spoil the child
Getting back to todays teaching, I have every admiration for my child who is the secondary teacher for the abuse he has to take from the pupils and parents and admiration for my child who is the primary teacher who is so disappointed that most of her pupils parents just seem to see her as a glorified baby sitter
both of my children will stay as teachers for a few more years but they are both taking a bigger role in the family firm as they both see a teachers enthusiasm and authority being eroded by red tape, paper work, targets and unruly pupils they dont see themselves teaching for their full working life unless they get jobs in private schools
I may look at my years at school through rose tinted specs but at least I knew what was what, who was who and when not to step over the line
I think it is worse than that. Now these bad schools have become the standard by which the good schools must be dragged down to.
Dinosaur? No. Just someone who has seen more examples of different education systems than many. As soon as you make your case, the only answer these "trendies" can come back with is "rose tinted spectacle" or "dinosaur". Don't worry, in twenty years time these trendies will be lamenting the decline of education without realising they brought it on themselves.
Teaching has not improved, it has simply changed its focus. Now teachers are expected to carry out roles that should never have been inflicted on them such as "social worker".
Standards have dropped almost exponentially. I was not a great student. I passed five O levels, maths English language, building science, technical drawing and plumbing. Both maths and English were grade Cs.
I tried out a GCSE maths paper on line and found that I could actually calculate most of the maths in my head. I answered every question correctly well within the time period. Yet this is after nearly fifty years of leaving school
I can write without too many punctuation or spelling mistakes and regularly read four or five books a week. On one of those TV programmes where GCSE A* students were set GCE papers, it was found that they could not spell, did not use punctuation and had no idea what paraphrase meant. But I bet they know how to plagiarise.
Standards have dropped considerably and it is time this was acknowledged.
I'm training to be an English teacher and was just about to post about Every Child Matters!
Please bear in mind that this applies to children who wish to study and not only to those who are disruptive. Nearly all of today's effort seems to be going into the disruptive children at the expense of the studious.
Well done on you choice of employment.
I see where a lot of posters are coming from, and watching this programme has reminded me of my high school back in the nineties/noughties and as a result of a few boys being extremely disruptive in my science class during virtually EVERY lesson it was the only GCSE I got a D in as I didn't even think we covered half of what was on the exam. Our teacher would spend at least 90% of the lesson sending the boys to stand outside, sending them to the Headmaster or shouting at them! At the time, I remember looking forward to that lesson because it was "fun" and a chance to get out of working but now am almost resentful because in order to teach primary I need to re-take my Science GCSE to get a C grade or above so for now am concentrating on secondary, but beginning to think it is a big mistake!
You're dreaming, you make it sound like something out of Oliver Twist, when for the most part it wasn't. Unless you personally experienced it, you can't make those sort of judgements.
Find yourself a grammar school on Friends Reunited that was changed to a comprehensive by Labour. Then read the comments from those kids who experienced the change and then you'll know.
Sorry queenie, I almost missed this one.
The misconception here is that every school leaver is up to the standards of the white collar elite.
Mainly under Labour but the Tories are not blameless, the standards level had been brought lower and lower until the certificate are virtually meaningless. Any drop out from our era would easily obtain GCSE certificates. That is the whole reason the CSE and later the GCSE was invented, to supply all school leavers with a certificate of education. Unfortunately a pretty meaningless one.
Blair's idea that 50% of pupils should on to university was one of the whackiest ever. This is why we have degrees in subjects that have no relationship to real life. A university degree in my days was unheard of and if you had a BSc you were the cream of the cream. Today they are ten a penny.
So now thanks to education being dumbed down we have to live with the consequences.
http://www.itv.com/news/2013-06-11/exam-shake-up-test-your-knowledge-of-gcse-maths/
In all sincerity, my 11+ exam in 1958 was harder. We had to work out volumes and percentages within these volumes of other shapes as well as basic equations and trigonometry.
This GCSE exam is an insult to any ones intelligence yet students still fail to answer all questions correctly. I cannot see how any moderately intelligent person could not achieve 100% in these papers.
Successive governments are failing this country in the way in which they have continually lowered standards just so that all school leavers have a certificate. Using this program as an example I also think that because the pupils are not being challenged mentally, this makes them bored and unruly.
For some, this "truth" is that they - and the era that produced them - are flawless and beyond reproach. Everything and everyone that came after them is worthless, ignorant and immoral. They have pulled up the intellectual drawbridge - they need never listen to anyone younger than themselves, or have any new ideas or thoughts, because they learned everything worth learning back in 1955.
Such close-mindedness and, dare I say it, arrogance, are not good adverts for the education system that produced them.
As I approach middle and old age myself, I hope that I will retain a little more open-mindedness and intellectual humility. That way, I will continue to learn until the day I die.
I went to teacher raining college in the mid Seventies and we despaired at some of the nonsense being spouted by the lecturers, who had all been recently indoctrinated and brainwashed by 'the new learning'. The worst thing was that we knew it was nonsense, but had to go along with it at the risk of being marked down.
It's embarrassing when you get graduates coming into an office, who can't be trusted to compose emails that go outside the company.
I thought the same. I was desperate for someone to ask him what was going on at home. I never think it's OK to bring in a parent as a threat in these situations, you have no idea of the consequences at home.
When he looked like he was about to cry when he talked about the teacher who'd taken a shine to him 'and he didn't know why she liked him'. Big red flag there! Poor kid has no self-esteem and that must stem from somewhere.
I personally think a lot of 'ADHD' is kids not learning emotional regulation from their parents and poor diet. I love the idea of teaching Mindfulness in schools to help the kids concentrate. I also think the it's attention seeking, they just want to be noticed, or maybe it's a way to control their environment.
Another thing I think is so important is diet. We really underestimate how important food is with school and concentration and mental energy. And if they are being fed nutritious food at home and having a proper breakfast.
Brain damage indoors says that we have, and that I must have Alzheimer's.
I recall seeing what looked like a trailer for it, with some of the boys getting out of limos, all suited and booted,
and a girl in a red dress pushing up her boobs while adjusting her dress.
However I cannot remember seeing the kids dancing, or being chaperoned by the teachers.
If it has been on, (and it probably has), does anyone remember which episode it was, I'll catch it on 4 - O.D.
Hmm..
You can't beat a good old sweeping statement to dismiss firm beliefs gained over a long time which relate to personal experiences, can you?
What you have to understand Queenie as an infrequent poster, is that not everyone reads a whole thread (this one has nearly 900 posts) and you can't blame them for that, so they'll raise stuff already covered. Those with an opinion already expressed will naturally feel like repeating it, for the benefit of those people, rather than post, "see post (whatever)."
As for the product of my "educational system" I did fine by it thank-you, as did I'm sure, many more contributors to this thread, of a similar age.
I think your rather glib suggestion "that they learned everything worth knowing back in 1955" is rather silly as to my knowledge, no one has said it.
These people would be the first to say as would I, they didn't, but it prepared them a damn site better than some who leave schools today.
I also think that was in trailer too. It's the network trying to raise interest in what is little more than a "reality programme." I'm sure those sequences are still to be shown.
But enough people have said that what has been shown so far is typical, although I've previously said, it'll be mostly things that "make good television" which will be included. The "uninteresting" well behaved kids have naturally been left out.
Haven't suggested otherwise. Most primary school teachers would *absolutely love* to be able to teach principally the 'three Rs' with a few other things added on at their own discretion.
Unfortunately the Conservative Education Reform Act of 1988 brought in the disastrous National Curriculum, which shat on the professional expertise of teachers and forced them to teach a daft array of extra subjects. What does it stand at now for primary pupils?? I think they study about 20 subjects. Your mind would boggle. And that's why they turn up in secondary school unable to read, write or add up a column.
So instead of having a go at teachers perhaps you ought to direct your strident little lectures at that oaf Michael Gove. I'm sure that as an enterprising 'employer' (as you keep reminding us in every post) your contribution would be well received.
As someone who went to school in the 60s and 70s I find your posts to be patronising and just plain wrong.