Following on from yesterday...
Amid the furore about regulation of home education, with certain jumped-up teachers demanding to know what makes home-educating parents think they know better than qualified professionals, comes this little gem. It’s about a special kind of lesson that is being implemented, but only twice a fortnight, and only in 30 schools across the country. This, along with the jumped-up teachers, is probably a very good reason to consider not sending your child to school.
"Assistant head teacher at Ashton Park, Steve Moseley says Enquiring Minds lessons help motivate pupils by focussing their learning on things that interest them."
Well, how innovative. Who (other than a teacher, of course) could possibly have imagined that children might be motivated to learn by being allowed to focus on things that interest them?
He says this is particularly important at his school where teachers struggle to get all pupils achieving five A*-C grades at GCSE.
Hmm, well, this sounds like it’s got to be a problem with the child and/or their unsupportive family. Nothing whatsoever to do with an increasingly outdated school system and a curriculum whose content and delivery is irrelevant to many children, dooming them to 21st century social malaise and economic failure.
"We're getting the kids switched on to education, because we can't rely on the parents to do that," he says.
Ah, yes, the unsupportive families. And of course, parents themselves now believe that they can’t be relied upon to know anything about their child’s education, precisely because there are pompous asses like Steve Moseley promoting this opinion and thus protecting their own professional statuses. Only weirdo, child-abusing home educators would presume they could be relied upon to switch their children on to education, what with their radical notions about letting their children learn about things that interest them.
He believes middle to lower-ability children in particular benefit from the lessons, which take place at his school three times a fortnight in place of personal health and social education lessons.
Middle- to lower-ability to children – is this in accordance with the school’s narrow definition of “ability”, perhaps? Could this be precisely why, given a different environment or context, they too show how well they can learn? This is a superb illustration of how our state education system fails children by attempting to give everyone the same educational package – children are not clones and this is not equity. But it is heart warming to see that Steve attempts to switch children onto education three times a fortnight – we wouldn’t want him to go overboard and spoil them, would we?
"They get the most out of it because they're doing things they don't do naturally. Bright kids will do it naturally - they'll pick up knowledge and enquire for themselves.
Well, yes, the "bright" kids will succeed in spite of the system, but the middle- to lower-ability children are now “doing things they don’t do naturally?” You patronising pillock, Steve. You are the embodiment of all I find odious about our state education system. All human beings, including children, will “pick up knowledge and enquire for themselves” if allowed to in their own way, but your increasingly controlling, framework-driven and standardised system ordinarily discourages all but the most compliant, the most “normal” (according to your subjective definitions) and the most doggedly robust.
If you remained in any doubt as to the ability of some teachers, continue to read and weep:
Steve Moseley says Enquiring Minds lessons need teachers with specific skills.
Oh god, Steve. Please don’t say what I think you are going to say.
"We need teachers who are in to kids, who are interested in friendly discussion. We need teachers who can think on their feet."
You did. Imagine... teachers who are into kids! Teachers who are interested in friendly discussion! Teachers… who can think on their feet! Well I never. Only a few years ago, I would have assumed that these qualities were prerequisites for all teachers, whatever their subject area. Steve confirms that I was, indeed, a mindless idiot for far long.
"Enquiring Minds is about discussion, listening and reacting. It's very reactive as opposed to proactive.Some teachers like to prepare and deliver lessons - Enquiring Minds is about reacting to what happens on the day."
It’s official. Steve, an assistant head, and, one might imagine, a reasonable reflection of so-called progressive teaching and school practice, does not even acknowledge the problem elephant in the classroom - teachers who only teach according to their own standards and definitions, as encouraged by key stages, standardisation, testing and examinations. Teachers who know or care little about real, valuable, ever-relevant learning.
He doesn’t seem concerned that teachers who are into kids, interested in friendly discussion and able to think on their feet are only required in his school for three lessons a fortnight. Or that an independent charity, rather than his school, is responsible for implementing this scheme, which is hardly innovative, if you have even half a brain. He doesn’t talk once of the relevance or benefits of a less structured and prescriptive, more child-driven approach to education at large.
Instead, he is happy to blame parents for not being reliable enough to switch their children on to education, he labels children as “average- or low-ability” according to his own tightly defined definition of what ability is, and assumes that they can’t naturally pick up knowledge and enquire for themselves - despite clear evidence (in the form of these Enquiring Minds lessons) to the contrary. He sees the children and their families as defective, not the education system.
For too long, too many of us have accepted that what the so-called experts say goes when it comes to something that should rightly belong to all of us. Do you really trust schools to do what’s right for your child on your behalf? We have to start questioning society’s widely-held assumptions about what’s good and bad when it comes to education and learning - before it’s too late for another generation of children.
