Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Gove hammered by radio caller
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Liz on
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Why do you assume teachers are not part of a new way of educating or that children will not be taught to read write and add up? This is part of the problem. If anything, ensuring that children have basic skills should be the first thing tackled and they should not move on and up through the system year by year until they can (as they do now) but what of the child that masters these basic skills quickly? Is is not possible to conceive of education that doesn't tie a child to its age group and finds ways to help them develop their abilities in a non linear progression rather than mechanically through a currently dull and repetitive school year? Why does learning stop in the second week of July for 6 weeks for example? Why begin teaching teenagers at 9 am when research suggests they function better beginning later in the day? I could go on ( but don't worry I won't).
I worked for many years in state schools. There were successes of course, kids who could navigate and work the system to their advantage but many more who left with little to show for their 11 years because they didn't fit the narrow definitions of 'educated'. It's not unreasonable to question whether the model itself is wrong rather than blaming teachers/schools/falling standards/ mickeymouse subjects/ leftwing pedagogy/rightwing pedagogy (insert own pet theory) ad nauseum.
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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I didn't see anyone, Gove, Lydia or me, blaming the teachers. It seemed that it was the person questioning Gove who was saying that it was the child who would determine what they were to be taught.
And if you read it again I WAS questioning the model -specifically what is the point of league tables ? And I do question a model where parents want to, and are apparently able to, choose one state school over another. And conversely, where some have to fight for a place at their local school.
As for the talented child, our teachers always had the possibility of placing him/her in a higher or more advanced class if they thought they could cope.
Some were presented to examinations a year earlier than usual and were then able to spend time on other subjects that interested them.
Of course this was Scotland: perhaps things were different here :-)
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Permalink Reply by matt on
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'It seemed that it was the person questioning Gove who was saying that it was the child who would determine what they were to be taught.'
No, he wasn't saying that John. He was asking that teachers and parents be allowed to help each child develop through secondary school in ways that aren't so narrowly prescribed. In other words, rather than have their future determined by Gove's narrow interpretation of success through his proposed Baccalaureate.
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Sorry the league tables are a blind alley. A decision to rank schools via enlightenment models of testing and standardising which assumes all children reach their potential at the same time, in the same place, in a stuffy room in May. I didn't see it as questioning a model because it is part of belief that children can be turned out all the same on their 16 th birthday. League tables are part of a wider industrial model of education. I also assumed that your first comment about children teaching themselves meant you thought I had given teachers the heave- ho, perhaps I misunderstood?
A talented *academic* child can of course be given extra tuition etc but what of a child who learns best through doing? Who learns to read later but is already switched off ? Our current model nevertheless pushes them through the system and continues to test them and label them.
I took English exams early. I am so grateful to the school teacher who decided not to push us into further exams courses as they tend to do now but gave us (guided) freedom to explore literature and language but I was lucky. It's not the answer attractive though it is to parents because it's just pushing some children through the system faster but not changing anything.
Gove may be sincere, nice to folks in private and all that but his proposals are simply rebranding the industrial model and throwing some nostalgia in for good measure and not challenging the fundamental beliefs about education that underpin the current model.
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Permalink Reply by StephenBln on
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Liz wrote: Why begin teaching teenagers at 9 am when research suggests they function better beginning later in the day?
Surely because that when they go out in to the wider world, most employers will expect them to be up and ready to go at 08:00 /09:00 and not by bumming in at 11:00. (like I do - lol)
Surely education is also about how to become part of society and respecting it - not by expecting society to allow younger people to do what everything how they want.
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Is education about preparing you for employers demands? Or developing useful folk that can be taught how to use an alarm clock by paying them to be in work on time? Doesn't take 5 years to learn how to be on time.
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Amongst other things yes.. most will need employers otherwise they'll end up living off the state..
I would suggest that getting into the routine of getting up early takes longer than the five years you mention.. some people never manage it.
Strange that in many other countries with successful school systems school starts earlier than in the UK ..
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I suspect with some it is more to do with climate e.g. Spain, others to do with the countries cultural values. Many also have children who fiinish earlier and are expected to do much more work at home. Many of those countries also test less, have school systems that are less rigidly divided by class and ability to pay and value different skills, but having experienced two European and one Asian system they all have their drawbacks and cultural norms also play a huge part i.e. difficult to export.
If our system is intended simply to prepare children for work and not educate them, then its failing there too as employers increasingly highlight the lack of work skills of new entrants to the work force. -
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Liz, nobody said only 'simply to prepare children for work' although preparing them to able to earn a living is not such a bad thing I would have thought.
And you seem to have forgotten those that don't have the ablities to go on to higher education and should be separated out and sent to vocational schools at 15/16 - learning a trade is just as worthwhile as acheiving a bac. - allowing these young people to start school later in the day is just wrong, it won't help them later.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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If we don't provide children with an education that enables them to earn a living then they will need to be supported by someone else. If you have rich parents you can spend ten years volunteering in an art gallery but if you don't, people who do work will be supporting you through taxation and redistribution.
Whatever is wrong with education (and Kenneth's cod example did not show cause) I don't want excessive molly-codling or CVs filled with A's in media studies.
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Permalink Reply by scott m. on
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I went to school with Michael Gove. We lived in the same area and often shared the bus home. I always liked him, and continue to do so.
He was a decent person then and I have no reason to doubt his motivations.
I continued to come across him in his early career, living in the same city, and I have always liked/respected him. I will continue to do so.
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@stephen you are still dividing children by academic and non-academic and advocating separation of them when they get to a certain age. Yet in the 'real world' the academic and the non-academic are not so clearly defined. Why the rush to label? You seem concerned that by allowing teens to start *learning* at 11 not 8, they are somehow disadvantaged because it means they won't be able to get out of bed to get to a desk or workbench later in life. Learning new knowledge and doing a job they are familiar with are two different activities. Why make a teenage brain try to learn when it is not ready? Why not give them lessons when their capacity to take in new information is at its peak? Anyway it was one small example of how to think differently about schools and education. Simply doing that in isolation would not change the basic industrial model that underpins the education system.
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