PS Won’t happen, but any progress towards would be good

@John Blake. Your comments may be set out grammatically with full paragraphs, but they would be a lot easier to read on screen, and then digest, they were much shorter.

FWIW Gove used the wrong term when he talked about vocational training as it implied no further academic training. Whether this is what he meant I don’t know, but John appears to have taken it that way.

Whilst I am a failure of the Grammar School system and my son failed the 11+ I still support the concept, but not the one envisaged by the Tories.

Where I grew up we had a 3 tier system – Grammar, Technical and Secondary Modern. The 11+ was as much about aptitude as academic ability at that age. This was because the pace learning in each school differed and they were trying to fit pupils into what suited them best.

The Grammar was an academic hot house which taught at a ferocious pace. There was little in the way of vocational training (carpentry for example) because the pupils were unlikely to use those skills, mainly because they were nerdy types, and there wasn’t time. It was also unforgiving of those who couldn’t keep up, no matter how middle class their parents.

Technical schools were slower paced but still provided all the academic subjects. However they tended to concentrate on the more practical side. Teaching electronics instead of physics – one and the same but starting with the problem and explaining the theory afterwards, for example.

Secondary Modern schools recognised that their pupils may have had ability but it was the pace that defeated many of them. They still taught all the subjects to those who could cope, but also had fine woodwork and metalwork rooms, taught car mechanics,paining and decorating and other practical skills.

I knew of people who moved between them at 14 and also many who left Secondary Modern schools to go to University.

I found out from experience, and against the wishes of my parents, that Grammar Schools weren’t for me. Yet at the one I ended up at there was a cross section of society. More than a few were from single parent homes (unique for the 60’s and many for from working class backgrounds. This wasn’t a surprise since it was Harold Wilson’s alma mater and they encouraged children from working class areas.

I accept that it wasn’t a perfect system, it failed me, maybe 11 is a bit too young for such a divisive test, but I am prepared to bet that the products of all three schools were better educated academically and socially than they are by throwing them all into one heap and treating them as academic equals.

Here’s another observation. The only real bullying I saw at school was at the Comprehensive I eventually ended up at. The bullying was by those who were in the lower (Secondary Modern) steams of those in he upper (academic) streams. I’m convinced that because of this some of the brightest were hiding their abilities and so under achieved.

That’s not ironic; that’s you getting pissy. And instead of saying, ‘Ha, yes, my remarks could use a little tightening up’ – you know, like a robust person would do – off you run. *shrug* Have it your way.

How ironic, Bella, that this dialouge, which began with you accusing me of ad hominem attacks and attempting to avoid things that were too “haaaaard”, has ended with you making ad hominem attacks and complaining that these things are quite difficult to understand.

Farewell.

There must be better ways, but people like you are so busy arguing that since ‘no standards’ is the only alternative you can imagine, these highly dubious methods of determining quality must remain. Why must it be the status quo or nothing with you?

And frankly, John, your colourless prolixity is starting to bore me.

Suffice to say, I don’t agree that your charaterisation of the educational problem in Britain: literacy and numeracy have increased in the past 10 years. The SATs results are utter cobblers, but the OECD’s comparative (and much lower stakes) tests confirm the general trend of improvement, if at a much less impressive rate than SATs suggest. The continuing failures to educate everyone to a standard considered acceptable is sad, and in certain ways reflects poor choices about education made by both major parties; however, it also reflects profound social inequalities in the UK which have left generations of people in poverty. No doubt you’d think that this constitutes some sort of excuse-making for failure – so be it, but if you aren’t willing to engage with the profoundly complex social context of education in Britain, then I’m not going to take any of your comments on it seriously.

Bella, if you don’t want my notional MA, then don’t get it, your school don’t seem to need any teaching qualification to employ you, they’re private, good on them. But without a professional teaching qualification, you won’t be able to work in a maintained school, and I would argue that is perfectly acceptable. Results are not the sole determinent of teacher quality – getting an A* in GCSE History doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a good historian (although History GCSE has improved significantly since its creation, with the requirements now being closer to those of proper history); getting an A* also doesn’t necessarily mean your teacher is very good. As you say, your school makes the judgement about whether you are the cause of your students’ results, and whether you are also teaching them beyond the curriculum (if that’s what your school wants) – you’re happy with that, fine. I, on the other hand, would rather have a system where the school’s decision is not the final arbiter, but instead that other qualified professionals and academics make a decision about the professional quality of a teacher, one which is comparable across the country, rather than one decision made by one school (which is the point of the qualification, indeed of all qualifications, that they are portable and trusted). I believe that is a good thing – teachers making the decisions about what constitutes good teaching on the basis of diverse experience and academic training, rather than government or management (who have quite different desires and interests). It also involves other teachers in making decisions about what is bad practice in teaching, which can thus be removed – teachers aren’t currently very good at policing the borders of our own profession and disposing of the crap (of which there is some, although not nearly as much as the ignorant would like to believe).

Of course, this does constitute a form of guild – I have no problem with this (there are, after all, other players within the education system to balance the powers of teachers); it also favours me, since it protects my profession and my pay (assuming I am found to be a good professional) – you’ll just have to take my word for it that I’d be in favour of it even if it didn’t.

Or can it be that the reason that you went to university was not because you wanted to become a teacher, but because you wanted to spend other people’s money on your own selfish mental masturbation?

Oh, and because you wanted to hang about playing with yourself for another three years, rather than do some work?

What I’m saying, John, is that you went to university because of your own selfish desires and not because of some oh-so-noble community-minded, socially-responsible motivation.

And, having made productive people pay for you to play with yourself for three years, you would now like them to have to support you in perpetuity; on top of that, you would now like to protect your turf—and shore up your salary—by ensuring that anyone who comes after you has to invest even more than you had to.*

DK

* This is called “rent-seeking” and—apart from being personally spiteful and immoral—it is a deeply stupid way to run any business or profession.

Good, because it’s not.

As far as I am concerned, you can take your PGCE and stuff it up your arse—and, in fact, you may as well do for all the good that this pathetic qualification does for the children that you are supposed to be teaching.

The fact that over 50% of the people in this country are of “low literacy”—and, of those, that 20% are functionally illiterate—is a fucking disgrace to the teaching profession, and a shocking indictment of the political policies governing education in this country.

Frankly, I am as fed to the back teeth of you bloody teachers’ excuses for your utter failure to do your jobs as I am of the doctors’.

Your ability to do the job for which you are paid seems to decrease in proportion to your qualifications.

DK

The leads me nicely on to my point in response to the disdain for the PGCE. First, to re-iterate, I am not saying the current PGCE system is a good system, I don’t think the best way to encourage teachers to teach is to demand they survive on a bursary which is only 1/3 of the lowest starting salary they will face. The government acknolwedges this and has created other ways to enter the profession in maintained schools: TeachFirst and Gradute Teacher Programme, for example. Although these give people a salary from day one, it minimises the academic content of the training, which I think is both sad (the academic aspects of history education are facinating and hugely enjoyable to study) and wrong (teachers should have this professional knowledge – that’s why it’s a profession).

Bella, what independent schools choose to do or not to do is entirely their own affair. I’m not going to question your success or your abilities, but I don’t think you should be allowed to work in a maintained school until you have undergone, or rather are undergoing and being moinitered about, a professional training in teaching. I imagine in your current school, you are being observed, assessed and performance managed and being offered appropriate opportunities for continuous professional development. All to the good – if the MA I envisage existed, all your school would need to do is register these things, ensure their levels of assessment are comparable to other institutions, and you’d be on your way to a professional qualification and an MA. Maybe you don’t want one – but the logic of my response to Nick seems clear: teachers might not be able to actually kill a student (or rather, professional training is unlikely to prevent this – my PGCE did contain a very brief “don’t hit them” instruction, which was pretty much all that was needed) but since good teachers can make such a positive difference to a child’s life, bad teachers can make a negative difference. As such, a professional qualification aiming to ensure that basic professional standards are met, and that opportunities for professional growth can be provided and appropriately recorded which doesn’t improverish those who are trying to become professionals seems to me both good and necessary. [On the bankers thing, getting them to become teachers won't work - it happened at the end of the 1980s in recession, so I am told by those older in the NUT than me, and most of them left because it was too hard.]

Surely, your plan would act as a massive disincentive for the single mother to actually get a job? I want welfare money to be paid to support people and prevent their impoverishment whilst encouraging people to work for their living – I don’t want everyone to be employed by the state to do nothing. And I am so confused by the idea that a libertarian would suggest this that I am sure I must have missed something.