I attended the school parent-teacher evening last night. What a load of managerialist cockwaffle.
The fucking teachers were all like huckstering salesman, promising 100% GCSE passes and "high levels of A to C". As far as I'm concerned, it's all just a sign of how fucked education is. There's certainly no fucking sign of the teachers commanding any respect from the scholars and no sign that the teachers know how to maintain any discipline. Everything is done off the back of a spreadsheet and that, my friends, is exactly why the rest of the cuntry is in such a fucking hole.
10 comments:
1986 was a bad year for education.
Well according to my lecturers anyway.
I think that it was Prof Brignell who prophesied the rise of "Spreadsheet Man" some many moons ago...
Hope that was a transcript of your comments to the headmaster?
wv:slumpsio.
no sign that the teachers know how to maintain any discipline
Don't blame the teachers alone; school policies are at the root of much of this. I speak from experience, having been falsely accused of assault by a pupil.
Although there was never a case to answer, I discovered that, at least according to the Head, teachers in this situation are presumed guilty until proven innocent.
I was told by the Head that I should have stood back and allowed the boy to punch his victim in the face rather than gently restraining him. The school would then have dealt with the matter as a case of bullying.
I should perhaps add that the boy in question was much taller and heavier than I am; so much so that an allegation of assault was patently risible.
A lectures job is to convert lectures notes into students notes without going through the brains of either.
In all honesty, though, you can have no idea how frustrating it is to be a teacher unless you are one yourself. Most of what you teach is stuff a chimp could learn between rounds of pelting itself with shit, yet still students and parents think that if the kids aren't learning, it must mean you aren't teaching.
The reality is seriously different: students have a sense of entitlement to educational success that means they view school as a tiresome hoop you're making them jump through to give the thing a bit of legitimate gloss. They will happily waste their own time, and their teachers', then go home and bitch to their parents when they don't get forty A*s at GCSE.
Some parents will blame the child - 'You should have been listening in lessons instead of passing notes that say Pongy Cock Odour'* - but far more will blame the teacher for failing to impose this nebulous 'discipline.' Have you ever tried to convince a room of 25 teenage boys to concentrate on the perfect active infinitive? Especially when they know their parents will bail them out and blame you when they fail their exams? Private schools are easier; the parents get angry if they think their children are wasting their cold, hard cash. But in the state schools, 'society' is paying, and society's money is there to be wasted.
And all the senior management care about are exam grades and, following from that, league tables. And considering that chimps could pass these exams with flying colours, of course the teachers live in fear of censure because they happened to be saddled with students who are less motivated, and in some cases less intelligent, than chimps.
So if teachers stare at you with fixed-on rictus and promise you high passes, excellent 'discipline,' and 72 virgins (or was that raisins?), don't be surprised. It's because they've developed a quite reasonable persecution complex wherein you and everyone else in the world are massive cunts.
*I confiscated just such a note this morning from a GCSE student. I unfolded the paper with every intention of reading the note out loud, only to have the words die in my throat when I realised no way could I announce to the class that one boy had passed a message to another boy containing only the words 'Pongy Cock Odour.' After the lesson I had to ask the culprit what pongy meant.
But I *am* a massive cunt ... :os
I have to echo Bella's sentiments here. I teach at University level and feel utter horror at the prospect that the majority of my students might actually be representative. Discussions with collegues confirms that this is a distinct possibility.
I understood, from my own time studying, that it was primarily a self-directed learning experience and you got out what you put in.
In one of the classes I teach, the students normally have about five pages of size-12 font notes, often less, to read before each lesson. This is so, having covered the basic concepts in this handful of pages, I can spend the lesson teaching them more advanced concepts.
Without fail, every damn week, they haven't read the notes and I spend most of the lesson explaining the basic concepts to them, instead of answering questions they might have had as a result of already reading about them and covering the more advanced material.
One student today was busily scribbling down the diagrams I had been drawing on the whiteboard. I stopped her and pointed out that this diagram was already in the notes - notes which would have taken them less than 20 minutes / week to read.
Sometimes I just want to give up.
On the other hand, with regard to the points Obo has raised, I have to say there is also a very unhealthy targets culture at work, at least in University level teaching.
I shouldn't be fitting my students to a fucking Bell curve, swayed one way or the other by current university policy. If they work hard, they should be rewarded with high grades, if they slack off and can't even be bothered to cover the basics, they should fail. End of.
Also, having had the chance to compare our domestic students with Erasmus students (exchange students, usually from Europe, who complete their degree dissertation at the host institution), I am utterly terrified of what the British workforce is going to be like in a decade compared to our European peers.
Every single Erasmus student I have had the pleasure to deal with has been a first-class student (and they also always found time and energy to play hard too), and not by a small amount either; their commitment to study - even in a second language! - is absolutely stellar compared to what I've seen of the home-grown crop.
Further to what Bella Gerens and Katabasis have said:
some students understand the need to work hard, but many/most don't.
Some teachers are twaddle-spouting twats,but many/most are not.
I have a lot of contempt for those who embrace the language of targets and tables.Management-speak is often an exercise in non-accidental obfuscation,which I prefer to xcall deception.
In every school/college there are people who dedicate their working lives to getting out and staying out of the classroom. They write reports,analyse trends, produce statistics and do almost anything except educate.But they seldom lead.
Having run away from problems into a supervisory role they then shy away from solving the problems,and they become part of the problem.
They are cunts.
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