Teachers' Strike!

[Clint Planet]

I guess you're not an economics teacher,then.

No. Though I did get an A in my Economics 'A' Level back in the day.

 

[Tubey]

That's a red herring, as the study is around basic numeracy i.e. the %age who are at level 1 & the standard has fallen 4% in the last 8 years, but no, excuse those actually responsible for the task like, that's fine.

It's not a red herring at all!!! The mechanisms in place for teaching it are incorrect from the very start, as the system for early childhood teaching is utterly abysmal here.

It's like trying to dig a hole with a stick instead of a spade - teachers just don't have the tools or the system to do the job, they're hamstrung from the start.

So when you see kids get to the age of 16 and ditching Maths, it's the system which has let them down. Again, this isn't "Tubey's View", there's hundreds of studies and journals on the subject, and a lot of them are very recent because as a country we have been stuck in a rut of doing the same wrong things generation after generation, because it was easier to lessen expectations via targets than to improve standards by understanding the root cause of failing schools.

Britain sucks hairy balls in regards to effective educational frameworks and has done for a long, long time.

 

[Clint Planet]

See here http://obs.rc.fas.harvard.edu/chetty/value_added.pdf

The variance between a good teacher and a poor one are enormous.

I'm sure. And how do we attract talent to a profession? By denigrating it and eroding its pay and conditions? It's simple really - you want to be able to pick and choose the best (and thus weed out that small percentage of, frankly, poor teachers) - make the profession attractive and valued in the eyes of graduates. You want a situation where we have to make do with what we can get (and thus have to keep those poor teachers) - carry on like this.

As any fule kno.

 

[Coach]

[video=youtube;E92fOy4jXDU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E92fOy4jXDU[/video]

 

[evilwebby]

[video=youtube;VihlsPKMh4U]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VihlsPKMh4U[/video]

 

[Foot Long Hot Dog]

It's not a red herring at all!!! The mechanisms in place for teaching it are incorrect from the very start, as the system for early childhood teaching is utterly abysmal here.

It's like trying to dig a hole with a stick instead of a spade - teachers just don't have the tools or the system to do the job, they're hamstrung from the start.

So when you see kids get to the age of 16 and ditching Maths, it's the system which has let them down. Again, this isn't "Tubey's View", there's hundreds of studies and journals on the subject, and a lot of them are very recent because as a country we have been stuck in a rut of doing the same wrong things generation after generation, because it was easier to lessen expectations via targets than to improve standards by understanding the root cause of failing schools.

Britain sucks hairy balls in regards to effective educational frameworks and has done for a long, long time.

Pupils ditching Maths at 16, is a different issue to kids leaving school without the basic numeracy skills ffs.

Your excuse that it's the systems fault & has been for supposedly decades, doesn't explain away why the standards have fallen 4% in the last 8 years either.

To lay 100% of the blame at the door of the 'system' & in doing so excusing those responsible in the classroom of their part in the failure, is delusional imo.

The annual cost to the public purse of children failing to master basic numeracy skills in primary schools is £2.4Bn. Source: KPMG 2008

 

[orchard]

I'm sure. And how do we attract talent to a profession? By denigrating it and eroding its pay and conditions? It's simple really - you want to be able to pick and choose the best (and thus weed out that small percentage of, frankly, poor teachers) - make the profession attractive and valued in the eyes of graduates. You want a situation where we have to make do with what we can get (and thus have to keep those poor teachers) - carry on like this.

As any fule kno.

That's the vulgar mantra mate, but it doesn't seem to work necessarily, it will be more attractive financially but that's not the only aspect surely.

 

[evilwebby]

Personally I feel that we place too much reliance on the education system for providing kids with a a basic education. Of course, it's important, but somewhere, pretty damn early, parenting comes into it too.

It cannot be a schools fault where kids leave school who can't do basic maths and, worse, think that it's ok to speak like a gangster demanding respect. These kids went to the same school, had the same basic opportunities as their peers, why didn't they get the most out of them? Somewhere along the line the parents need to look at themselves and take responsibility.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

I'm sure. And how do we attract talent to a profession? By denigrating it and eroding its pay and conditions? It's simple really - you want to be able to pick and choose the best (and thus weed out that small percentage of, frankly, poor teachers) - make the profession attractive and valued in the eyes of graduates. You want a situation where we have to make do with what we can get (and thus have to keep those poor teachers) - carry on like this.

As any fule kno.

This is the thing though isn't it? What is it that makes a great teacher? Even programmes such as Teach First have pretty sketchy metrics over how those people actually performed. It all seems to revolve around how happy the head teacher was.

As it is, there's a great deal of research into motivation, which as an economics student I'm sure you're aware of, showing that salary is often little more than a hygiene factor, and the real motivation comes intrinsically. Teachers talk a lot about it being a vocation, yet only ever seem to go on strike over finances. It just seems very inconsistent.

It's just all a bit meh to be honest. The Guardian article by the teacher at the start of the thread spoke about the hours put into things like marking, so why has it taken an ex investment banker to suggest flipping the classroom and making technology do the marking? Why do such innovations not come from within the profession given that it's such a pain point?

A big part of the whole free school concept for me is to invite experimentation into education, to figure out if there are better ways of teaching, yet you and no doubt many other teachers are against that process, despite international performance indicators suggesting Britain does poorly compared to our peers. Why are teachers so opposed to learning how to be better teachers?

 

[TheFinnFan]

So why are they on strike?

 

[Clint Planet]

That's the vulgar mantra mate, but it doesn't seem to work necessarily, it will be more attractive financially but that's not the only aspect surely.

Oh, of course. I really do think the best teachers are "born" to teach. But the fact remains, my last school, twelve or thirteen years ago, was recruiting South African NQTs over the phone because there was a shortage of people joining the profession. They weren't very good. When the last government improved pay and conditions, more people applied to be teachers and suddenly my school could afford to pick and choose again.

Now,I'm on strike for far more complex reasons than that but, hey, that's what happened in my school. I usually only chuck that one out because Bruce is such a free market economist until it comes to talented people working for a pittance.

 

[Tubey]

Pupils ditching Maths at 16, is a different issue to kids leaving school without the basic numeracy skills ffs.

Your excuse that it's the systems fault & has been for supposedly decades, doesn't explain away why the standards have fallen 4% in the last 8 years either.

To lay 100% of the blame at the door of the 'system' & in doing so excusing those responsible in the classroom of their part in the failure, is delusional imo.

The annual cost to the public purse of children failing to master basic numeracy skills in primary schools is £2.4Bn. Source: KPMG 2008

It's the same issue for obvious reasons - if kids struggle with the system throughout the educational experience, they won't take it further beyond the age of 16. Don't be facetious, it's obvious what the link is.

Literacy has seen synthetic phonics adopted and it's already paying off even with only a recent introduction:

Last year's Skills for Life survey suggested that the National Literacy Trust's drive to improve literacy was working, with almost six out of 10 people in England having strong reading and writing skills.

But the same figures also suggested that high-level maths skills in England were declining.

Only 22% of people have strong enough maths skills to get a good GCSE in the subject - down from 26% when the survey was last carried out in 2003.

Which obviously indicates that teaching isn't the issue, the method is, because if teaching were to blame then everything would decline.

So there you go - it's not delusional, it's fact. Nothing I've typed is "Tubey's mad theory of the world" here - I love how you think it's "my excuse"; I guess it's easier to claim it's me being mental and disregard a decade of academic study from hundreds of people just to fit your agenda!

 

[Coach]

Teachers talk a lot about it being a vocation, yet only ever seem to go on strike over finances. It just seems very inconsistent.

The law only allows them to strike over terms and conditions.

They can't go on strike over having to implement Gove's ideas.

However in 2013, for the first time in history, the three main teaching unions (NUT, ATL, NAHT) each passed a vote of no confidence in the Minister for Education.

 

[Clint Planet]

Teachers talk a lot about it being a vocation, yet only ever seem to go on strike over finances. It just seems very inconsistent.

Not at all. I love my job. Really love it at times. But it's tough, too. 60 hour weeks, ever increasing workload, hugely emotionally draining and loads of right-wing pricks telling me I'm sh*te. I'm not going to do it for nothing, mate. Nobody would. You know that thing about the straws and the camel's back? You gonna stand there and mutter, "Bloody hell, I thought Camels liked carrying heavy loads!"?

And I really am getting disheartened. Was talking to a colleague yesterday - a very talented, committed one - and it basically revolved around us both feeling "You know what, [Poor language removed] this. Enough is enough. What else is out there?"

Whether either of us will leave the profession remains to be seen but I'll tell you this, mate. We're both great teachers. And that, my friend, is a crying shame.

Gove is driving down standards by driving talent out of the profession.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Now,I'm on strike for far more complex reasons than that but, hey, that's what happened in my school. I usually only chuck that one out because Bruce is such a free market economist until it comes to talented people working for a pittance.

Well there's an awful lot of examples out there of people doing things for free, be that Wikipedia or Linux. Even Khan Academy was created for free.

It's an oldie and all, and I'm sure you've seen it already, but

[video=youtube;u6XAPnuFjJc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc[/video]