Turning a Blind-Eye to Terrible Teachers

September 28, 2011

One seldom reads an article about an inspirational teacher, because such things are not considered newsworthy.  You do, however, read about the incompetent teachers who abuse the trust bestowed on them.  Today I read of one such teacher.  A teacher so destructive and irresponsible, one wonders why it took so long to get rid of her:

Roslyn Holloway, who taught at the Lord Silkin Trust Secondary School in Telford, Shrops, threatened to use the bizarre ritual to drown the unnamed student if he didn’t stop misbehaving in class.

In a series of other incidents, the special educational needs teacher tore the hair out of a pupil’s skull after he did not stop talking in class while she also engaged in sexual-based conversation with another.

A General Teaching Council panel was told that she struck another different boy on the forehead with the heel of her hand in the school corridor, referred to him as an “idiot” in front of his classmates and threatened to bang his head on the table.

She was formally cautioned by police for battery, for the hair pulling incident involving one of her students in November 2009, but failed to notify her employers, which breached her employment conditions, even though they were aware of caution.

The assult left the student with a red mark and a lump on his head.

Holloway, who taught students aged 13 at the school from September 2003 until her suspension in January last year, also racially abused other pupils by calling them “black boy”, “Pepsi Max” and “ginge” during class.

I am sympathetic to some of the teachers condemned by the media.  I understand that teaching can be very difficult and I am aware that it is hard to keep ones emotions in check when chaos in the classroom ensues.

But I have no sympathy for this woman if the allegations against her are indeed true.  What I do have, is a very important question:

Why did it take so long for a teacher who transgressed in so many blatant ways to be deregistered?

It is unbelievable how meek the initial response was:

After the parents of two children complained that they had been left “distressed”, she was counselled by her bosses to change her methods, which she failed to heed.

So when you get a spokesperson saying the officials place “the safety, health and welfare of its students first”, I don’t believe them for one second.

As far as I’m concerned, this story isn’t merely about a volatile and unprofessional teacher, it’s about a system that takes too long to respond to serious incidents.  The “blind eye” approach might work in the general workplace, but we are talking about young children here!

More needs to be done to detect such teachers before the damage is insurmountable.

 

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Posted in Child Welfare | 1 Comment »

Primary Schools Forced To Give Sex Education

September 27, 2011

I don’t object to Sex Education lessons in Primary Schools, but I do object unreservedly to schools continually being forced to undertake programs.  Schools should be able to decide for themselves what extra programs they wish to take on.

Some primary schools are being forced by local authorities to teach sex education to their pupils, a report has claimed.

The research, published on Monday, raises concerns over the “considerable level of inconsistency” across the country. Many local authorities are incorrectly informing primary schools in their area they will not be eligible for the ‘Healthy School’ status if they did not teach sex education, it suggested.

Every week a new program is being established for schools throughout the world.  If it’s not Sex-Ed it’s suicide prevention, bullying, cyber bullying, cyber safety, hygiene, traffic safety, Stranger Danger etc.  Whilst all these initiatives have good intentions and are worthy causes (with perhaps the exception of Stranger Danger), it causes a great strain on teachers already struggling with time constraints.  The more programs undertaken by schools the harder it is to cover the curriculum.

At some point in time we will have no choice but defer some of the responsibility of sex-ed on the parents of our students.  After all, educating ones child about sex is a perfectly reasonable thing to expect from a parent.

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Posted in Education Policy | Leave a Comment »

Students Are Not Allowed Opinions Anymore

September 26, 2011

As a teacher, it isn’t uncommon to confront opinionated students.  Of course, many of their opinions I don’t personally agree with (some of which are a reflection of their immaturity).  That being the case, I still feel that it is much healthier for a child to have too many opinions that to have none at all.  As our job description includes nurturing each childs’ critical thinking skills, you would have thought that the canvassing of opinions is vital to a functioning classroom.

But you would be wrong.  More than ever before, the powers that be have been stifling debate, silencing contrasting views and imposing a mantra of political correctness.  Take the case of Dakota Ary:

The mother of a Fort Worth student said she unhappy her son was given in-school suspension for making a comment in class about homosexuality and Christianity.

During a discussion in his German class at Western hills High School on Tuesday, freshman Dakota Ary said he commented to a friend that his religious beliefs say homosexuality is wrong.

“I said, ‘I’m Christian and, to me, being homosexual is wrong,'” Ary said. “And then he (the teacher) got mad, wrote me an infraction and sent me to the office.”

It is my view that you don’t change a person’s viewpoint by silencing or suspending them.  Whether I agree or disagree with my students is immaterial, they are still entitled to share their views with the class.  Usually views materialise from only considering one side of the argument.  A healthy classroom discussion often features a range of insights and perspectives.  This healthy discussion often leads kids to change or alter their views and accept differences of opinions.

Unfortunately, in the age of political correctness opinions are becoming a thing of the past.

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Posted in Education Policy, Political Correctness | 4 Comments »

The Case in Favour of Homework

September 24, 2011

I used to be philosophically opposed to homework in all forms.  That was, until I witnessed how my students used their after-school time.  It was then, that I realised that ten to fifteen minutes a night would constitute the only meaningful activity some of these students would take part in on a given night.

I am still hardly a proponent of homework, but I do share some of the opinions of author and teacher, Katharine Birbalsingh:

The radio presenter Alan Jones doesn’t believe in homework because children should have time to play outside and learn skills that only time after school with your family can teach. Normally, I would agree. But do children today have these types of experiences after school?

Families are so busy working that when children come home, they often sit in front of the TV for hours or play computer games. Children spend hours every day networking on Facebook. Exhausted parents do not realise just how dangerous these modern technological tools can be.

Technology can open a world of excitement to children. Yet it can also glorify gangster lifestyles through MTV, and encourage the use of bad language and ”text speak” in social networking.

An hour of homework a night distracts children from such activities and enables them to practise what they were taught at school. Excellent learning requires constant revisiting, and homework is the perfect tool to reinforce facts and skills. Teachers often find that children forget what they learnt the day before. At high school, you may not see your history or geography teacher for a few days until the next lesson. Without any homework in between to bridge the gap, often teachers take two steps forward, then one step back in the following lesson.

It is the school’s responsibility to inform parents that homework has been set – easily done through a diary system. The school should also ensure the homework set is of quality and not some assignment that can essentially be downloaded from the internet. Equally, it is the parents’ responsibility to ensure homework gets done.

I object to her call for an hour of homework per day, but I do currently favour 10-15 minutes of revision work, to consolidate on skills and concepts currently being covered in class.
Anthony Purcell from the brilliant blog Educationally Minded employs a similar strategy for homework inspired by his will to see his students gain some confidence from working independently:
Well, I have taught math in the past. My thoughts on homework was that if students had homework, they didn’t get finished in class. I never assigned homework. Homework was there if they didn’t get finished in class, but most times students did.

Now that I teach Science, it’s the same way. A lot of what we do is in class, hands-on activities. Homework are the questions they didn’t get to because they were goofing off or not focused in class.

In my opinion, teachers who teach the entire period and allow no work time are not good teachers. Students need to know they are being successful and have confidence. They can’t have a teacher telling them they are correct when they are at home.

This topic remains a very contentious one.  I look forward to reading your opinions on this much discussed issue.

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Posted in Homework | 2 Comments »

Big Tobacco Funding Primary Schools

September 23, 2011

In today’s age, knowing what we know about the risks of smoking, how is it possible that tobacco companies have access to schools?  As important as it is to take into account cultural differences, China has no excuse in allowing tobacco companies to make their pitch to impressionable young children.  The cost of a quality education is not worth it if it comes with lung cancer, heart disease and emphysema.

MORE than 100 primary schools in China are sponsored by tobacco companies in a move described by anti-smoking campaigners as hunting for the next generation of smokers.

The schools often have the names of Chinese cigarette brands, such as Zhongnanhai or Liqun, over their gates and in some cases have promotional slogans in the playground.

”Talent comes from hard work – Tobacco helps you become talented,” says one slogan, in foot-high gilt letters, on the front of the Sichuan Tobacco Hope Primary School.

Tobacco helps you become talented?  No China, tobacco helps you die well and truly before your time!
Unfortunately, the message is successfully getting through to China’s underage demographic:
There are 16 million smokers under the age of 15 in China, 6.3 per cent of the youth population, according to the Chinese government.

For a country that is reknown for its strict regulations, it is mistifying that there is no regulations prohibiting tobacco from parading their brands in schools.

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Posted in Child Welfare | Leave a Comment »

Not Enough is Done To Curb Bullying in Schools

September 23, 2011

Parents are right when they express a lack of confidence in the way bullying behaviour is being handled by schools.  Schools just don’t seem to find dealing with the problem anywhere as near a priority as performing in standardised tests.  Schools nowadays use simplistic and inept anti-bullying policies to point out to parents that they are proactive on the issue.  In truth, all anti-bullying policies really does is protect a school from lawsuits.  If policies worked the problem would’t be getting worse.  But it is.

Detective Tim Toth, head of the youth services division of the City of Tonawanda Police Department is absolutely right:

“It’s great to tell the parents we have a bullying program in place, but until they take it serious and until the kids know there are consequences with what they do, the program is no good,” said Toth, who has also spent several years working at the high school as a resource officer.

I however disagree with Toth’s conclusions on cyberbullying:

“We don’t have the legal authority to intervene in a situation which exists between one child’s computer and another child’s computer when they are not being supervised when they are off school grounds,” noted Crawford. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t care…and it doesn’t mean we don’t make efforts to intervene when we can. But we need people, when we do attempt to intervene, to respond to us.”

That is a very poor response to an increasingly massive problem.  Schools MUST intervene when it comes to cyberbullying.  They MUST take more than a passing interest.  Schools, police, parents and the wider school community must join forces to curb cyberbullying.  It must be seen as a wider communal problem rather than something each and every stakeholder hides from.

Schools have got to ramp up their responses.  Programs, procedures and policies is not enough.  They will not work and never have.  Appealing to kids to improve their communications wont work either.

Bullying hurts and sometimes kills.  Surely schools have got that by now …

 

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Posted in Bullying | 2 Comments »

Private School Teachers Are Not Necessarily Better Teachers

September 21, 2011

Whilst I like the idea of experienced and outstanding teachers helping to mentor student teachers, I am very bewildered by a proposal to have private school teachers mentor public school teachers.

Who thought of this crazy plan?

It is such a simplistic generalisation that private school teachers are superior to their public counterparts.  So what if private school kids get better academic results.  We all know that the credit doesn’t solely fall on the classroom teachers.  Private school students are given higher expectations by their parents and often have tutors to help them when they are behind.

That is why it was refreshing to read an article by lecturer, James Williams:

The results that private schools achieve may be impressive – but results are one thing, raising aspirations in a cohort of disaffected youths, when your experience is of children with Cath Kidston pencil cases who holiday in the Bahamas is quite another.

The problem with such debates is that they miss an important point.

Not all teachers, regardless of how they have been trained, can teach in all schools.

The reality of teacher training is that there is no ‘one method’ of training that instantly produces excellent teachers who can turn their hand to any school, any challenge and any system.

An important skill for those who are teacher trainers, like me, is recognising your trainee’s strengths and weaknesses and guiding them to teach in the right school for them.

It is very good to hear that teacher training is under the microscope.  For too long the problems to do with teacher training was swept under the carpet.  Teachers spend years of their lives slaving away for a degree that ultimately does precious little for preparing them for the realities of the classroom.

I like the idea of a mentor system, I just don’t like this one.

 

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Posted in Teacher Training | Leave a Comment »

Education vs Self-Expression

September 21, 2011

Last week, my colleague and I taught the most wonderful creative writing lesson.  My colleague wrote the beggining of a sentence on the board  – “As the ball bounced higher and higher …” and we told the students that they had 10 minutes to write a story of their choosing starting with the words on the board.  We told them that we weren’t going to correct spelling, grammar, paragraphing etc.  We just wanted them to have a go and let their imaginations steer them in the right direction.

Everly child bar none wrote frantically.  Those that lack certainty, didn’t.  Those that struggle with composing letters and information reports lapped up the lack of protocols and structure that this activity offered.  Why was this simple lesson such a success?  Because it allowed the students to express themselves.

Curriculums and educational trends have made it harder for teachers to help students find themselves.  It has continued to downplay the importance of The Arts in favour of skills and concepts that many of our children will never use.  The Fibonacci Sequence might be fascinating, but who decides that this is more important than a clay modelling session?  Since when did single-celled organisms have a greater importance in a child’s life than the chance to perform to an audience?

Nowadays the emphasis is on memorising facts, studying for standardised tests and rote learning.  Even when the system purports to be encouraging self-expression it’s often a sham.  The system dictates what literature the students study, how they should think and what they should be feeling.

I remember telling my teacher when I was a student that I was bored by Robinson Crusoe.  You should have seen the look on his face!  He asked me how I could be bored with such a classic.  I told him that I wasn’t interested in reading page after page about details.  I wanted tangible feelings I could connect with.  My teacher was astounded.  He reminded me that Robinson Crusoe was one of the most popular books of all time.  I wanted to reply that Jurassic Park was one of the most popular films of all time, but thought better of it.

There are a multitude of kids who are simply not adjusting to the style of education offered.  So what do we do?  We tell them to smarten up and pull their finger out.  We remind them that if they don’t adjust their potential will be wasted and their career prospects will be hampered.  What if it isn’t the “spoilt” children’s fault they are not thriving at school?  What if it’s actually the narrow-mindedness of the system?

The fact that the writing session was 10 minutes and no longer was key to the success of the lesson.  According to my colleague when they are given more time their work suffers.  It reminded me of a great scene from the film Six Degrees of Separation.  Donald Sutherland recounts how whilst the Grade 1 and Grade 3 teachers at his childs’ school weren’t able to extract great artwork from the students, the Grade 2 teacher was responsible for a classroom of art geniuses.  He confronted the teacher to ask her what her secret is, and she replied that she knows when to take the brushes out of their hands.

The reason why we need to take the pencils out of their hands after only 10 minutes, is that up until that point they haven’t had the time to think beyond their natural instincts.  If we let them continue they would slowly stop writing out of instinct and start writing to please their teacher.  They would consider the structure that teachers have been duty bound to impart to their students (such as containing a problem, resolution and foci).  This very structure leads to boring, formulaic writing.

Our students are crying out for some structure and routine in their lives, but by the same token, they are also crying out for an opportunity to express themselves.  We are all different and sometimes society doesn’t give us the freedom to express it.

It’s time to take the brushes out of our students’ hands and let them show us what they’re really about!

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Posted in Teaching Methods | 3 Comments »

One-in-Five High School Students ‘Learn Nothing’

September 20, 2011

There is a 1983 film entitled Teachers, which while universally panned by critics and eventually bombed at the box office, stands as one of the most accurate portrayals of schools caught on celluloid.  Starring Nick Nolte, the film is a satire of American Government High Schools.  Those not familiar with the way a school runs found it over-the-top, unfunny and irritating.  Whilst the film is badly made, it contains some insights and observations that are perceptive, extremely funny and just as relevant today.

There is no better example of this than the fact that the school in the film is being sued by a former student that was allowed to graduate without being able to read or write.


Now contrast that scene with these findings:

The UK is falling behind international rivals because one-in-five children “learn nothing” throughout their secondary education, according to the head of Britain’s top private schools’ group.

Figures show that almost one-in-five pupils left primary school this summer without reaching the standard expected of the average 11-year-old in reading. Some one-in-10 boys had the reading skills of a seven-year-old or worse.

Perhaps what worked most against the success of the movie Teachers was that it was too clever and too accurate for its own good.

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Posted in Education Matters | Leave a Comment »

Tips for Parents on Helping Their Children Overcome Obesity

September 19, 2011

It was great to read a list of suggestions by Joanna Dolgoff M.D. with suggestions for parents with obese children.  It was a welcome departure from the “name, shame and threaten” methods being employed by some sections of society on parents who clearly require support.

These suggestions are steeped in common sense and encourage a positive approach:

What Parents Can Do to Help

Be supportive: Overweight children need support, acceptance and encouragement from their parents. Children’s feelings about themselves often are based on their parents’ feelings about them. It is also important to talk to your children about weight, allowing them to share their concerns with you.

Don’t use food as a punishment or reward: Withholding food as a punishment may lead children to worry that they will not get enough food which may result in overeating. When foods, such as sweets, are used as a reward, children may assume that these foods are better or more valuable than other foods. For example, telling children that they will get dessert if they eat all of their vegetables sends the wrong message about vegetables.

Set a good example: Children are good learners and they learn best by example. Set a good example for your kids by eating a variety of foods and being physically active. Involve children in food shopping and preparing. Children may be more willing to eat or try foods that they help prepare.

Teach healthy habits: Teaching healthy eating practices early will help children approach eating with the right attitude: Food should be enjoyed and is necessary for growth, development and essential energy. Guide their choices rather than dictating foods. This will help your children learn how to make healthy food choices. Encourage your child to eat slowly. A child can detect hunger and fullness better when eating slowly.

Cut down on some fats: Reducing fat is a good way to cut calories without depriving your child of nutrients. Simple ways to cut the fat in your family’s diet include eating low-fat or non-fat dairy products, poultry without skin and lean meats, and low-fat or fat-free breads and cereals. However, make sure not to cut out healthy sources of fat such as walnuts, almonds and avocado.

Healthy snacking: You should make snacks as nutritious as possible, without depriving your child of occasional chips or cookies, especially at parties or other social events. Healthy snacks include: applesauce, carrot sticks with hummus, peanut butter on apples, yogurt, dried fruit, fruit juice popsicles, low fat cheese etc.

Increase your physical activity: Regular physical activity, combined with healthy eating habits, is the most efficient and healthful way to control your weight. Some simple ways to increase your family’s physical activity include the following: Plan family activities like walking, dancing, biking or swimming.

For example, schedule a walk with your family after dinner instead of watching TV or playing video games. Overweight children may feel uncomfortable about participating in certain activities so it is important to help your child find physical activities that they enjoy and that aren’t embarrassing or too difficult.

Instead of judging parents with obese children negatively, I feel it is important to encourage, educate and support parents.  Dr. Dologoff’s list is a reminder that the answers lie with positive change and the adcocation of healthier living.

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Posted in Childhood Obesity | 1 Comment »

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