If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.
Did anyone see the programme Mr. Drew's Boys on C4? It struck me that the boys involved all seemed very bright but profoundly unhappy and their bad behaviour due, I think, almost entirely to the parents not the teachers. I think teachers get blamed too much for things which are entirely beyond their control.
I did.
A few things struck me.
These weren't the worse behaved youngsters I have seen by any means.
But, what seemed to be the principle strategy was to rely on discussion as a way of them gaining self awareness.
Telling people that they have to behave with a list of consequences etc is precisely the strategy that has failed in the past.
People who study theatre often talk about "embodied experience". If someone is so disconnected from the world that their internal narrative is the strongest thing then being given a "talking to" will have no effect at all.
What does work isn't a return to "old style discipline" but well planned and structured activities that show by experience other ways to be.
I also worry about these kind of TV shows, there's more than a little prurient "look at the bad lads" about them so the rest of us can feel smug about our own "little angels". I'm not sure that the new found "celebrity status" that they will achieve is an all together positive thing?
Many of these children appeared to be classic examples of being denied attention at key points of their childhood, so that they had developed an inability to distinguish between "good" attention and "bad" attention. When folks are so screwed up as that, having the police come round is hard to distinguish from getting a hug from your grandmother.
I return as ever to the National Curriculum - an official attempt to force square pegs into round holes. We were not born the same, so official statements - "all children will..." only store up trouble for the future, when increasing numbers do not measure up to the quango's expectations.
I return as ever to the National Curriculum - an official attempt to force square pegs into round holes. We were not born the same, so official statements - "all children will..." only store up trouble for the future, when increasing numbers do not measure up to the quango's expectations.
Surely the problem is also one of limited imagination in what constitutes "success" ?
If (as with the NPME) we assume we all mean the same thing without REALLY finding out then we are likely to miss out on so much.
Questions such as, "what is school for" ? and so on seem to be off the agenda as its assumed that we ("WE" ? ) all have the same answer and its somehow a "waste of time" to investigate epistemology.
Surely the problem is also one of limited imagination in what constitutes "success" ?
If (as with the NPME) we assume we all mean the same thing without REALLY finding out then we are likely to miss out on so much.
Questions such as, "what is school for" ? and so on seem to be off the agenda as its assumed that we ("WE" ? ) all have the same answer and its somehow a "waste of time" to investigate epistemology.
'Paul Dodd, OCR's head of GCSE and A-Level reform, said Mr Gove "had a particular dislike for Of Mice and Men and was disappointed that more than 90% of candidates were studying it".'
To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men are among US novels dropped by an exam board after Education Secretary Michael Gove said more British works should be studied.
Nothing surprises me any more where this useless and dangerous man is concerned. There's nothing more dangerous than someone who thinks he knows everything.
When we hear from a Department for Education "spokesperson", why are they always anonymous. Is it because they are afraid to admit who they are because they are spouting Gove-speak under orders?
A little satirical song about the Right 'Honourable' Michael Gove (the Secretary of State for Education here in the UK) whose policies we disagree with (to p...
Comment