An impassioned plea, for education, against Gove

[bluesuperted]

Another EDF forumite (she knows who she is!) posted this on FB today and it has stayed with me all day. This spoken word performance is beautifully put, passionate and infuriating that this is what is happening in our schools.

Anyone who supports children, progressive state education and teachers, please watch:

http://bit.ly/Pp0X3E

[intexasatthe moment]

Just heartbreaking .

Wow .

[bluesuperted]

Yup. I cried watching it. Just crap for teachers, crap for kids, particularly disadvantaged kids. This plus Ofsted's latest non-evidence based codswallop re nurseries and 2 year olds makes me anxious and sad about the future of our society, education is everything and it's being treated like it's nothing at all.

[Otta]

Really powerful stuff. And she's not exaggerating abiut their workloads. No bloody way I'd ever teach.

[bluesuperted]

The sad thing is there is no need to exaggerate any of it, it's like a bad joke/bad dream but it's real.

[DaveR]

Anybody who cites Rosa Parks and Arthur Scargill in the same sentence has sacrificed any credibility they ever may have had. I thought it was a load of crap.

Edited to add:

all the evidence is that state schools have been getting better and better at exactly the same time as teachers have been protesting that it is being destroyed. Funny that.

PS - what is progressive education? Is it different from effective education?

[tiddles]

I really despair at the moment with the ever moving goalposts and stresses on teachers. My children seem to have secondary school teachers who work most saturdays, most days of the half term, and seem to be working most of the oncoming easter holidays.

I get personal emails and phone calls up to nine o'clock at night.

Great for me, Cannot help thinking this is not a good thing for teachers. Burn out anyone????

ps - I'm sorry, but I don;t care if children in china and south korea are a couple of years ahead of my children in maths. We are a creative culture, and if you examine the teaching regimes, I would prefer my children to have a life.

[Otta]

DaveR Wrote:

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> Anybody who cites Rosa Parks and Arthur Scargill

> in the same sentence has sacrificed any

> credibility they ever may have had.

I admit I cringed at that.

> all the evidence is that state schools have been

> getting better and better at exactly the same time

> as teachers have been protesting that it is being

> destroyed. Funny that.

Depends how you define better. And the point is they put the effort in, but their working conditions are becoming too much, they're not just having a moan over nothing.

Modern state education is little more than an exercise in performance management.

[bluesuperted]

By progressive I personally mean:

Creative, engaging/motivating, useful in real life, inclusive, developmentally appropriate, child-centred (which should all make it pretty effective).

And not:

Dated, irrelevant to modern world, rote-learning, exam-only based, elitist.

Ken Robinson's speech/TED talk on creativity is really insightful re: what education should/could look like, he talks about how the traditional approach basically prepares us to be academics/professors, which clearly only a small proportion of the world end up becoming. He argues this in turn extinguishes a lot of true creativity and talent at a very young age. I find this fascinating, and I say this, personally loving exams, academia, further/higher study. But I know that the world is made up of plenty more people who don't - and quite right, if everyone was researching niche areas and reading endless research papers, we'd be rather stuffed - and in trying to push everyone in this direction, many are left disengaged

and disenfranchised...

Re: schools getting better, I think that trend is likely to reverse, as more and more teachers leave the profession, and teaching morale is low NOW, it wasn't anywhere near this bad a few years ago (pre-2010 election) in my opinion.

[DaveR]

So are we agreed that the link in your original post was to a load of simplistic superficial nonsense, making zero contribution to the real and complex debate about what effective education looks like?

[bluesuperted]

Nope, we are totally not agreed on that!

She touched upon a lot of the above but it's a bigger (massive) issue clearly than one poem. Just because it's simple doesn't mean it's nonsense or not valid as part of the wider debate. Like the student nurse's speech from the nursing conference last year, I think spoken word performances are powerful and often very accessible ways of bringing issues to the fore.

[bluesuperted]

Tiddles - agree. My sister is a secondary teacher and she was on jury service for two weeks. Every single night after court she had to go into school for one reason or another, working for several hours. All the teachers I know work every school day evening and at weekends, the recently reported stats are true.

[Otta]

DaveR Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> So are we agreed that the link in your original

> post was to a load of simplistic superficial

> nonsense, making zero contribution to the real

> and complex debate about what effective education

> looks like?

Dave it's a poem, a pice of art. You wouldn't expect a protest song to lay out all the arguments in great detail, it's more of a war cry. And whilst some of it is a bit cringe worthy, she does touch on a lot of real issues.

[DaveR]

If the OP had said 'here's a link to a piece of art that is not intended to be anything other than an overemotional representation of one extreme view of current education policies, that you may entirely sensibly disagree with' I'd have no objection.

Even then I'm afraid Parks/Scargill means it's a load of crap

[bornagain]

I thought the piece spoke for many teachers present? and past.

I started my career as a secondary teacher more than two decades ago. This was the time of Ken Baker, Maggie Thatcher and the start of the dictation of the curriculum from the centre through the imposition of the National Curriculum. We protested and striked, much like today but to no avail.

I worked every weekend, every evening. In those days though we were lucky that generally holidays were proper holidays. We did not have to go to school during them to hold revision lessons etc. On the other hand, in the days before internet, you tube, even wide scale use of videos and photocopying, I had to write out every worksheet by hand and crank them out on the banda machine!

I left after a few years, fed up, unwilling to work like this for the rest of my working life.

It is depressing that the same old same old is still going on now. I think the teachers that I have met through my children's education are all fantastic. I respect them all. They are committed, professional and I hope they have more staying power than me.

As for Gove, it is heartbreaking to see him reversing the curriculum bit by bit. I was around when GCSEs first came in. I remember how we teachers rejoiced in the freeing up of the exam system from the rigidity of the old GCEs. We were thrilled that the assessment should be criterion based and not based on normative ranking. All reversing now to the bad old days. The man is beyond contempt.

[James Barber]

I used to know a Canadian Teacher. Every seven years they were entitled to a sabbatical year. With so many teachers burning out in thE UK something like this could make the teaching profession attractive again and ensure our children have teachers with renewed energy and verve.

[Saffron]

bluesuperted Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> By progressive I personally mean:

> Creative, engaging/motivating, useful in real

> life, inclusive, developmentally appropriate,

> child-centred (which should all make it pretty

> effective).

>

> And not:

> Dated, irrelevant to modern world, rote-learning,

> exam-only based, elitist.

>

> Ken Robinson's speech/TED talk on creativity is

> really insightful re: what education should/could

> look like, he talks about how the traditional

> approach basically prepares us to be

> academics/professors, which clearly only a small

> proportion of the world end up becoming. He argues

> this in turn extinguishes a lot of true creativity

> and talent at a very young age. I find this

> fascinating, and I say this, personally loving

> exams, academia, further/higher study. But I know

> that the world is made up of plenty more people

> who don't - and quite right, if everyone was

> researching niche areas and reading endless

> research papers, we'd be rather stuffed - and in

> trying to push everyone in this direction, many

> are left disengaged

> and disenfranchised...

>

> Re: schools getting better, I think that trend is

> likely to reverse, as more and more teachers leave

> the profession, and teaching morale is low NOW, it

> wasn't anywhere near this bad a few years ago

> (pre-2010 election) in my opinion.

Do you have a link to that TED talk? It sounds intriguing. I'd like to know what his take on the 'traditional approach' is, because my take on the traditional approach is that it is not necessarily even any good at turning out adequate academics. And it's definitely rubbish at preparing professors.

Academics need to have creativity too. And increasingly, I'm noting a need for a return to a style that I would refer to as much older than simply 'traditional'. Academia needs individuals who've been educated in what I'd call a 'classical' style, i.e. integrated arts/humanities/sciences, beyond traditional school-house rote learning.

I think rote-style, stream-lined learning damages potential academics as much as the failure to provide creative technical learning damages potential non-academics. And although in many senses state schools are better than they were historically (in some areas), the current excessive workloads experienced by many teachers cannot be seen as anything other than an impediment to their ability to deliver the very best in any curricula.

The gap between what should be done about it, and what is being done about it, is discouraging to say the least. xx

[DaveR]

Bornagain, I'm sure the piece, and indeed you, speak for many teachers (thanfully not all, or even the majority) who have opposed every reform of state education over the last 30 years (under both Conservative and Labour governments) despite the overwhelming evidence that the system waas failing children. As I said above, all the evidence suggests that the changes have been positive. GCSEs and assessment, every teacher I know is in favour of the move away from assessments because of the endemic gaming of the previous system.

The teachers that I have met through my children's education are also generally committed and professional, and appear (unsurprisingly) to have a much more nuanced, sophisticated understanding of current circumstances than someone who got out 20+ years ago.

BTW, whenever a serious area of policy is reduced to a single name - "Gove" - you know that you're going to get a political rant thinly dressed up as rational argument. See also 'Thatcher' and 'Blair'. And as for Ken Baker, if (as the OP claims) you have any interest at all in education that is 'useful in real life' you should be cheering him on now:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/schools/kenneth-baker-open-your-eyes-gove--this-is-what-pupils-should-learn-8463992.html

[Otta]

DaveR Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> all the evidence suggests that the changes have been

> positive.

I think that very much depends on how you measure "positive".

[bornagain]

DaveR, I do not have to defend my views or experience to you.

Yes the piece on Ken is interesting. Good to see him supporting that.

[bluesuperted]

'Impassioned plea' suggests subjective not objective medium of expression.

Saffron I agree with you re creativity in academia too, my supervisor (scientist) is incredibly creative/dynamic and that's what makes her so fantastic.

Here's the TED talks:

There is also a beautifully animated version, similar content:

[????]

As is often the case 'conservatism' is manifest in those that would no doubt class themselves as progressive....

I tend to agree with DaveR

[Otta]

DaveR's points have been about how schools have improved, which MAY be true (again, depending on how you measure improvement). But it doesn't take in to account the expectations on teachers, a lot of whom are working under really really difficult circumstances for what is actually pretty rubbish money when you actually look at the hours they're working.

The great pyramids of Egyps are a towering sucess and great acheivement, but I bet the poor fuckers that built them would have gone on strike had they been union members! ;-)

[Saffron]

I agree that reducing serious areas of policy down to one-word bites (i.e. "Gove") is often seen as associated with qualitative rather than quantitative arguments, although everyone is entitled to make their qualitative arguments of course. Nothing wrong with that in my book. It is, if nothing else, a measure of how badly out of touch many people feel with Gove's change to education policy that there is such a vehement qualitative argument against him.

HOWEVER, the thing that has really confused me was reading that Labour party officials have indicated that in the main they would not reverse the policy changes that Gove has installed. These issues are broader than a single political party then, no?

[Otta]

Definitely yes. I think education and other public services like social care (health a very different kettle of fish here) have been improved / screwed depending on your view point by Thatcher's gov, Blair's gov, and now Cameron's gov.

Performance indicators are evil. I understand why they want them so that they can quantify results, but in these services they just make things harder for the workers, and make the actual service worse. Then performance managers are brought in to make things look great, so, for example, certain kids won't be allowed to sit certain exams in case they have an off day and hurt the school's results.

It's shit and it's not just this government that are getting it wrong. Although Gove does seem spectacularly clueless.