Interesting as it was this was yet another example of how kids, whose parents have failed them, are being lavished with attention. In schools nowadays the "average" and "high-flyers" are ignored while the under-achievers have all the attention heaped on them. The persistent truants are awarded with days out if they attend for 3 afternnons a week. Their day doesn't start till 11a.m. since they can't get up in time for anything earlier. Their travel to school is by Taxi because the bus service is not to THEIR timetable. Meanwhile the rest look on and wonder why they should bother to work at all! Sort out the parents and tech them how to parent properly and we will remove the majority of kid's problems at school.
Originally posted by C4 Ed: Have the Unteachables failed at school or has School failed them?
Why are the schools themselves to blame? How about the people who make up the rules about how the schools are run (ie the government, the local councils and the senior management within the schools).
It is such a difficult job to be an ordinary teacher in this day and age. I've only been teaching for 7 years but I've noticed huge changes in such a short period of time.
I do think society as a lot to answer for, there is too much emphasis on self these days and not enough about community. Children are taught to stand up for themselves, to look out for number one, they are taught that they have rights... which is true and its good that they know that. However they are not taught to respect other people, they do not know that other people also have rights and if they are selfish and only think of themselves then other people are not getting their rights.
Another thing is that social inclusion has totally changed the playing field in the classroom. It does work for some children, ones with disabilities for example, where its just about making the school more accessable. However pupils with severe learning and behavioural problems do not benefit from being in mainstream education.
The children with severe learning difficulties end up spending most of their lessons in SEN bases drawing pictures and playing with water and sand, then they go out into the playground and try to mix with the other kids... who tease them about being in those bases. They are being excluded within the school, and without the proper resources they would have got in specialist schools.
And the ones with behavioural difficulties, like on the programme... well they are let loose in the classrooms, where teachers who have not been trained to deal with them end up spending too much time trying to keep them in line and cannot actually teach an effective lesson, so other children end up missing out. And the teacher ends up getting stressed out.
And as Average Joe said, these kids end up getting rewarded for this behaviour, and the schools are reluctant to exclude them when they are really bad because they are under pressure from the government to keep their exclusion rates low.
I love teaching and I really get a lot from it, it is so rewarding to see a pupil achieve, and I love it when ex-pupils come back and visit or when you see them on the streets and they make a point of coming over and saying hey. But at the moment i think its going to keep getting worse, till all classes are like this one. There is just not enough respect in this country and people are all too bloody selfish!
Hi, I'm a little confused, I saw the unteachables and thought perhaps I might have something worth contributing in the way of views etc. Errm... this forum seems the obvious place although, without having had a good look, it does appear, not surprisingly, to be dominated by children. Your post being an exception but little in the way of a reply,, surely this suggests that this is not the best place to be discussing these matters, then where?
Anyway, about the main question – who’s failing who? On The Unteachables the teacher was discussing various intelligences; if I’m not wrong this comes from Howard Gardeners (sp?) work in the 80’s; I’m only familiar with this from what I’ve read in a book called Emotional Intelligence – Daniel Goleman.
The teacher also said something about not making any apologies for ‘dumbing down’ as it were. I’m presuming that he was using these seven (I believe there’s seven) intelligences in a rather dumbed down kind of way. This may be appropriate under the circumstances but having dropped out of school myself, back in the late eighties, I’ve done a lot of reflecting on what went wrong and why etc.
It seems to me that a lot of ground has been made in trying to understand the diversity of learning styles, attributes, capabilities… whatever, that people have, especially since the 80’s. I’m currently re reading a book called Thinking Styles by Robert Sternberg, nearly already ten years since being published. Why then does it seem that so called ‘education’ systems seem to be so slow in advancing what I believe to be such a crucial, and frankly, rather common sense approach to developing… well, Civilisation?
On skimming through a book like Thinking Styles it may appear to be rather dubious ‘American’… stuff – personally, I admit, I haven’t given much time to the questions and answers section – I do think, however, that it is worth a careful read. If even 50% of it was bogus (to put it crudely), though not dangerously misleading… even if only 10% of it was worthwhile then it shouldn’t be ignored. I believe it has considerably more than 10% of insightful reading.
For those who aren’t familiar with Thinking Styles, I’ll attempt to explain the basic idea, hopefully without doing more to confuse the issue and put people off.
Sternberg quite reasonably explains that our current forms of government evolved over a long period of time, they weren’t just arbitrarily put together, they reflect society in its broadest sense. Some, including Sternberg may contest that, I’m certainly not quoting him directly. He takes the basic elements of government and applies them to individuals. It’s certainly not straight forward, and I’m not swearing by it as the revolutionary answer to all our problems but I think it certainly helps to contrast humans, and their diverse attributes, with the systems that we create, in a way that reveals conflict of interests, preferences, styles and abilities etc. He goes to some trouble to distinguish ‘styles’ from ‘abilities’ but I’ll not go into that right now.
For my part, and this is a very very crude application of the ‘thinking styles’ scheme, I’d say that I was basically not very ‘executive’ at school or out of school, for that matter. Referring to Goleman’ Emotional Intelligence, my lack of the ‘executive’ style may have more to do with some sort of impairment with my ‘working memory’ or, if I’m not wrong, the prefrontal lobes (executive centres) of my brain.
Nature/nuture aside, I wasn’t very quick on the up take and not very good at executing tasks, as it were.
It would appear to me that for most of human history, especially up until the end of the second world war, that external affairs, in particular, have left us with little choice but to be rather expedient and therefore the ‘executive’ aptitude has been a crucial and, not surprisingly, dominant feature of so called progress. Maybe we need to grow out of this tendency whilst we have some sort of a window of opportunity, though I fear, with the onset of global warming, that any such endeavour could collapse back in on itself.
Originally posted by C4 Ed: Have the Unteachables failed at school or has School failed them?
Why are the schools themselves to blame? How about the people who make up the rules about how the schools are run (ie the government, the local councils and the senior management within the schools).
It is such a difficult job to be an ordinary teacher in this day and age. I've only been teaching for 7 years but I've noticed huge changes in such a short period of time.
I do think society as a lot to answer for, there is too much emphasis on self these days and not enough about community. Children are taught to stand up for themselves, to look out for number one, they are taught that they have rights... which is true and its good that they know that. However they are not taught to respect other people, they do not know that other people also have rights and if they are selfish and only think of themselves then other people are not getting their rights.
Another thing is that social inclusion has totally changed the playing field in the classroom. It does work for some children, ones with disabilities for example, where its just about making the school more accessable. However pupils with severe learning and behavioural problems do not benefit from being in mainstream education.
The children with severe learning difficulties end up spending most of their lessons in SEN bases drawing pictures and playing with water and sand, then they go out into the playground and try to mix with the other kids... who tease them about being in those bases. They are being excluded within the school, and without the proper resources they would have got in specialist schools.
And the ones with behavioural difficulties, like on the programme... well they are let loose in the classrooms, where teachers who have not been trained to deal with them end up spending too much time trying to keep them in line and cannot actually teach an effective lesson, so other children end up missing out. And the teacher ends up getting stressed out.
And as Average Joe said, these kids end up getting rewarded for this behaviour, and the schools are reluctant to exclude them when they are really bad because they are under pressure from the government to keep their exclusion rates low.
I love teaching and I really get a lot from it, it is so rewarding to see a pupil achieve, and I love it when ex-pupils come back and visit or when you see them on the streets and they make a point of coming over and saying hey. But at the moment i think its going to keep getting worse, till all classes are like this one. There is just not enough respect in this country and people are all too bloody selfish!
Rant over.
I am glad to see that someone else has seen a change in Education. Imagine how I felt after an absence of 20 years, in which I was a College Lecturer, when I returned to classroom teaching. Educate the parents first and teach them to interact with their children, teach them respect for others and for others property and many of todays problems will vanish
Hmm… Well, as I suspected, this probable isn’t the best place to be trying to establish a dialectic. I’m doing too much to try and find a more productive discussion board right now.
“Educate the parents first and teach them to interact with their children, teach them respect for others and for others property and many of todays problems will vanish”
Educate the parents? Maybe, had the parents had a schooling that was more sensitive to ‘thinking styles’ they would be ‘good’ parents.
John Carey wrote an interesting book called The Intellectuals And The Masses. If I recall, correctly, the basic idea was that due to education reforms in the late 19th century there was a new educated class, as it were; probably the defining moment of a socio-cultural transition referred to as ‘meritocracy’. This was probably a great thing, and sure enough, before long you had an upwardly mobile class, so to speak, who were largely characterised as ‘clerks’. Clerks were held in disdain by a certain social strata that we shall think of as the ‘intellectuals’. I’m more inclined to think of the ‘clerks’ as the modern ‘executives’. That was probably great for a time, the executive type certainly got results, but those results have perhaps had far, far too much ‘success’ and thus the sort of paradigm of ‘success’ that holds sway is perhaps more synonymous, in more recent times, with ‘yuppies’ ‘red tape’ ‘bureaucracy’ ‘discontent’ ‘frustration’ ‘drugs’ ‘selfishness’ ‘crime’ etc etc etc, I’ve gotta go.
Reading some of the replies I am left in no doubt as to why we are in the state we are in! New ideas! Thinking styles? how did the rest of us get where we are today without these people? The very reason our kids can't read, write, count or punctuate is that so-called "new ideas" were introduced into schools. Rote learning of tables was banned, spelling homework was banned and yet today we now here that there are plans to reintr oduce these very same practices. maybe the old ways were the best after all! Save me from "intellectuals"!!!
I watched the programme tonight and have always felt that the curriculum as it stands at the moment is a total waste of time for these pupils.
I remember watching the film "To Sir with Love" quite a few years ago which was about kids with behavioural problems. Sidney Poitier who played the teacher turned these kids' lives around by teaching them basic social skills and self esteem. It's a pity something like this couldnt be arranged for these type of children today instead of wasting money teaching subjects they simply are not interested in. These children IMO need to be encouraged, not coerced. It's all very well blaming the parents but sometimes it isnt always the parents' or teachers' faults. It's the system of rules determined by the government. I have lived to see kids like this, once out of school learn better at college because:
1. They like what they are doing
2. They are treated in a more mature manner
I say get rid of the academic snobbery which can also be a contributory factor to behavioural problems within our schools today and focus more on vocational training giving opportunity to everybody.
Originally posted by Average_Joe: Reading some of the replies I am left in no doubt as to why we are in the state we are in! New ideas! Thinking styles? how did the rest of us get where we are today without these people? The very reason our kids can't read, write, count or punctuate is that so-called "new ideas" were introduced into schools. Rote learning of tables was banned, spelling homework was banned and yet today we now here that there are plans to reintr oduce these very same practices. maybe the old ways were the best after all! Save me from "intellectuals"!!!
I totally agree. The old methods were a lot easier to understand. Thank goodness I'm not at school nowadays. I'd have a nervous breakdown by now.
Distoney makes several important points both about the present school system and the behaviour of kids ate college. The system today is not geared to cope with the "lower" end of the educational spectrum, i.e. the kids who are not switched on by languages or science or heavy maths. Many of these kids show skills which lie in practical areas and these are often the subjects in which they do best. Many boys and girls do well in Home Economics or Woodwork/Metalwork etc. but our system is not geared up to meet their needs. We need to find a way to filter off those with other skills and educate them in a way which is meaningful to them. This will still entail Maths and English etc. since many of the "trades" today are complex and require these additional skills as well as the practical expertise. Look at the current shortage of plumbers today with those who are qualified able to charge almost what they want for jobs. I believe that the French have a system which caters for the more practical-favoured element in schools and perhaps it would be worthwhile looking at this. Unfortunately schemes like Skillseekers or other Youth Training schemes were not terribly successful for a number of reasons. The rewards were small for both the participants and the trainers with funding being made ever more dependent upon achievement, something this and previous Governments seem to have a thing about. They do not seem to realise that not everyone is able to pass qualifications and simply adjusting the pass mark so that most do is not a solution. It angers me when I hear figures being quoted about how many kids have achieved awards at Bands 1,2,3 4,or A,B,C,D etc. We know and employers know that a grade of more than 3 or less than a C is a fail. Kids say they have "passed" 8 Standard Grades (in Scotland) and have grades like 3 at band 3 and the rest at band 6! You probably get a band 6 for turning up on the day! Add to this the dubious question of continuous assessment and what is the award worth at the end of the day? I know kids whose parents redraft their homework for them in order that they get a better pass (most times anyway!). This element then counts towards their final assessment - hardly fair. I remember teaching a class a Module on Microscopy and Histology. One student passed every assessment at the firs attempt. Another required at least four attempts for each assessment. At the end of the day they both had a certificate saying that they had achieved the Module!!!! Where is the sense in that? We need a complete revamp of the Education system and we need the Government to accept that "Certificates for All" is not a viable option. As one ex-Department Head said to me "You can't make sirloin steak out of Sunsilk Soap" How true!
Well, it seems to me that some sensible things are being said, and, I’ll admit, that perhaps the things I discuss, rather roughly, are more an unhelpful distraction to the, perhaps, more appropriately ‘local’ (immediate) specifics of the issue of education; but I won’t necessarily let that stop me.
I wouldn’t like to think I’ve done Sternberg’s research a disservice – To be sure, ‘new ideas!’ aren’t always such a good thing but then ‘Thinking Styles’ aren’t really new, they are an interesting way of considering, understanding, the diverseness of how people have been since… well, for a very long time anyway. I’d like to think that most people in education have an instinctive, empathetic, understanding of thinking styles; for the most part I think they do but to cater to such diversity, perhaps, requires too much in the way of leaving the ‘comfort zone’ and I daresay there’s many a ‘clerkish’ person who has made themselves comfortable on the back of dubious notions of ‘meritocracy’, all the while being quite exclusionary in the process; or perhaps just more comfortable or endowed with Machiavellian Intelligence. In other words, you may need to start reassessing your expectations of a pension; but then, I didn’t need to tell you that. Call me irrational and twisted if you must, but then, there’s an awful lot of it about.
I have a headache just reading your patter twice! I consider myself to be reasonably educated having a B.Sc in Pure Science a Dip. Sec.Ed and various other Diplomas etc. God forbid that I should ever start spouting jargon like that.
Something I notice time and time again when watching documentaries in schools,is the meaningless rules which take the teacher most of the lesson to enforce.For instance,wether a child chooses to wear their coat.Obviously in the teachers eyes,this is far more important and must take up 20 minutes of a lesson,than ignoring the coat(if its too hot,the pupil will take it off!) and continuing with the lesson. No wonder children are becoming less and less interested in attending school. How would a teacher feel,if the children spent 20 minutes insisting she remove her ear-rings before she begun the lesson. It was interesting to hear Mr Atkinson pointing out how repsectful he was being to the kids while using their first names and then insisting they call him Mr Atkinson or Sir.Much better,he had called them Mr or Miss .....too. Obviously I am not saying they should feel they are equal to him but if he must insist on equal respect then it works both ways.
I wonder whether Ladygodiva has ever had any experience of teaching? Pupils are asked to remove outdoor coats for a number of reasons including the fact that it settles the class in the first few minutes so that the teacher does not have a succession of people removing coats throughout the length of the period. Secondly kids secrete a host of objects in coat pockets including chewing gum (which perhaps LadyG would allow them to eat and then stick under the desk), mobile phones and various other artefacts. Thirdly in a lesson such as science there is no way that outdoor clothing would be acceptable in a Health & Safety manner. As for respect I always ask pupils in a polite way to do or not to do things. I thank them constantly for doing things and basically treat them as I would wish to be treated. I do believe however that young people should show respect to older people and sadly this appears not to be the case in this day and age. I would have no hesitation in referring to pupils as Miss or Mr. I do however take offence to pupils who wave at me and shout "awright" when they see me, as if I am the best friend in the world.
I was disapointed to see Dale expelled almost as soon as he got there. The headmaster knows that they are all there because they misbehave. The idea was that he should cure them of that, not send them home because of it! The schools can do that anyway!
But of all the kids there I thought Dale was one that could be brought round with a bit of patience. In fact I think I could get through to him, and that's saying something! Yes, he was cheeky - but humourous cheeky, not agressive cheeky. He was not completely disobedient, if shouted at a couple of time to 'come back' or 'look at me' he would do so, if only for a second or two! And he seemed good tempered. I found something appealing about that boy! He could have been worked on with good effect I think. I feel that the headmaster has let him down!
Originally posted by Average_Joe: I wonder whether Ladygodiva has ever had any experience of teaching? I do however take offence to pupils who wave at me and shout "awright" when they see me, as if I am the best friend in the world.
Yes I do have experience of teaching,mostly teenagers but also younger children. What a shame that you should think it rude when a pupil greats you in a friendly manner!
The problem is that some of the rules are not explained to the pupils.A girl wearing her Parka in class may be glad of its warmth or comfort and has not thought about its flamability or the encumberance when doing a practical task.Ofcourse she may be wearing it to hide her 'Mobile' or sweets or worse but might equally conceal these things in her school bag or even her pocket.
I think Dale did not receive adequate reasons for the demands made on him.He was a tiresome boy but it was not explained to him,why he must stay on the bus,climb with the ropes,etc
I do think most of these children receive little discipline at home and so cannot handle any form of criticism. Some may even be reinforced for their antisocial actions by parents who challenge the rights of neighbours and teachers,to reprimand their children.
A lot of the time lack of communication is the problem.Mr Beadle took 2 of the boys aside at the start of his first encounter with the chidren and asked them what it was they did not like about lessons. They were suprised but forthcoming. When Kirsty(the Graffiti artist) was confronted with her actions by the student council and Mr Atkinson,she could see why her actions had been unreasonable.
I started school in 1935 and left in 1947 so I really went through the days of strict discipline! In those days we did not have kids who behaved like the unteachables. That sort of behaviour was stamped out by the time they were ten or eleven. Nobody, but nobody, interrupted classes in those days! These days they are said to be hyperactive or suffering from some symdrone or something.Some must have had the same sort of complaints in my day, but if they did they had to bottle it up until school had finished! We all sat in class as quiet as mice and could only speak when told to!
The threat of having your parents told of bad behaviour was enough to keep things under control in most cases during my school days(60's and 70's). My own father would have dished out a hard handed punishment. I can remember several dynamic teachers(like Mr Beadle and Mr Vince from 'That'll teach em') who hardly needed to reprimand anyone because their lessons were kept interesting and fun.
I have a headache just reading your patter twice! I consider myself to be reasonably educated having a B.Sc in Pure Science a Dip. Sec.Ed and various other Diplomas etc. God forbid that I should ever start spouting jargon like that.
Well, thank you Average Joe for addressing me directly; I’m not about to apologise for your headache, surprise, surprise. It would appear that you are rather well ‘qualified’, I’m not so sure about educated; all things relative. I have no qualifications, unless you count a driving licence. To answer your question – I wouldn’t say I talked like that, necessarily, I think my conversation is generally fairly good. I do perhaps let ‘jargon’ get the better of me but some people seem to appreciate the way I write.
I’m not sure what you meant by ‘God forbid that I should ever start spouting jargon like that.’ I’m sure you’ll not be surprised to know that I take it as something of an insult. Maybe that’s a good thing, maybe I deserve it, perhaps you could educate me as to how I might improve myself.
Maybe you could have said something like.
BNK – do you talk like that all the time? I’m really not sure as to what you’re going on about or getting at. You seem to have succumbed to unhelpful jargon. I mean, you say you dropped out of school, and therefore perhaps it is, to some extent, commendable that you obviously go to significant trouble to find reasons for your apparent problem(s); probably better than the many destructive alternatives but maybe far better still if you channelled your energies elsewhere, though I’m afraid, I don’t think it’s for me to say where, have you tried...
Or
BNK, I think I see what you’re getting at or at least partially anyway. You might have some good points but actually I think it’s more likely that you’re out of your depth and really need to do a lot more home work on such matters rather than confuse the issue that is really at hand. Maybe you should try and respond more directly to what is being discussed.
