England's schools

I append a link to a sad letter written by a new teacher.  http://t.co/rWQ94M6jeP

I challenge you to read this and not be both moved and scared by the content.

Moved, because this individual is patently not someone who has led a cossetted existence and now been thrown to the wolves.  She,  I believe its a woman, is from this environment but seems to have been absent from the 'front-line'.  During her absence the whole ethos of teaching has moved.  Now it is 'child-centric'.  That is 'Guardian speak' for everything revolving around the child - as if a child knows what or how it wants to learn by some kind of osmotic process that it picks-up from its environment.  Consider that in many cases, these children are from homes where the standard of their parent's education is already low and you can see the kind of downward spiral that looms.

Rant time - Is it any wonder that given, in many cases, the lack of personal discipline exercised by their parents, this isn't the cause of the unwillingness to exercise any discipline on themselves, by children/pupils/students/learners (or however these young people are called).  And yet, this 'child-centric' approach is based on the child being able to 'manage' its own interactions with society and to do so in some kind of 'adult way'.  What absolute tosh!  If a child doesn't know the difference between what is right or wrong and gets no pointers from the home environment, then from where will these values be developed?

Scared?  Well, I strongly suspect that the picture painted by the author, is all too typical of how teaching is practiced today, throughout England (maybe the rest of the UK, as well).  Teachers are not taught to teach but to act as some kind of 'baby-sitter' service.  They are members of a trade union, who having pushed this crazy (and patently failed) approach for years, must now defend it in every irrational way possible rather than admit it is wrong.

Maths without numbers?  English without reading or words or writing?  History without dates? In what sick mind could such teaching methods be considered in any way sensible?

I was educated in an Inner London comprehensive school, in the late 1960s / early 1970s.  It was at this time that student teachers were starting to leave Teacher Training Colleges, with the prevailing education methods being challenged.  I experienced some of this, with teachers telling us to 'call me Ron or Beth or whatever' but fortunately my school still had enough 'traditional' teachers to get me through.  By 'traditional' I include teachers who didn't find it necessary to push the latest left-wing ideology or communistic reading of every act that has ever occurred, down my throat.

History teachers taught history.  They didn't comment in great detail on the iniquities of slavery, they just gave the dates of abolition and details about the 'triangular trade' (look it up!) such that I was armed with sufficient information to go off and develop my own thoughts and opinions on the subject.  It was 'chalk and talk' and it was in a disciplined and respectful environment.  I have been fortunate that my children have been mostly privately educated, abroad and so not been subjected to these English education methods.  It is worth noting that in places like, South Africa, Dubai, Norway and Malaysia, the style of education that I received is still the way it is practiced there and no one gives a thought to changing it to some kind of 'child-centric' utopia.  Do you wonder why?