Are you just going to ask a thousand questions or attempt to offer an opinion at some point?

The questions I am asking illustrate how laughably simplistic your “discipline problems and lack of qualifications are results of kids being bored -> teachers are failing to interest the kids -> fire the teachers who aren’t interesting enough” model of education is. This is why you’re now dodging the question.

why do you need to be a teacher to have an opinion of the education system, we all spent time going through it, so everyone has an experience of it

You don’t have to be a teacher to have an opinion. If you needed to know anything about a topic to have an opinion, half the internet wouldn’t exist. But having been in hospital doesn’t mean my opinion on MRSA management is going to be worth anything and having read a newspaper doesn’t qualify me to spout off about editing a weekly newspaper.

Ok, that clears lots of things up. Please see Konabunny’s answer above.

But having been in hospital doesn’t mean my opinion on MRSA management is going to be worth anything and having read a newspaper doesn’t qualify me to spout off about editing a weekly newspaper.

While I might not agree with everything Seosamh says, in fairness, the one difference with school is that you spend quite a lot of time going through it. As a son and brother of teachers, I’ve heard the “what would you know” line all too often wheeled out against anyone without a BEd who has anything to say about teaching/schools/education. I’ve met plenty, who didn’t take long to leave the impression that I’d never want them teaching my kids. I’m coming across youngsters who are applying for PGCEs now, only to stave off RealWorld™ for a year. All the vocation seems to have been taken out of it. You don’t seem to have to want to teach anymore.

The questions I am asking illustrate…

Questions illustrate bugger all.

Anyway, we have digressed…good and bad teachers could be a whole thread by itself. 🙂

I’ve heard the “what would you know” line all too often wheeled out against anyone without a BEd who has anything to say about teaching/schools/education

The important thing isn’t whether you have a PGCE, bachelors or master’s in education. It’s whether you spout reductive toss or not.

Improving the education system is going to be a case of tying together all sorts of slow, unrewarding and complicated factors around funding, systematic reforms, the relationship with social and medical professional support, the job market for kids, parent/guardian employment, whether apprenticeships can be revived, crime and juvenile justice, housing, benefits, teacher recruitment/ retention/ education/ monitoring and a whole bunch of other stuff. Any proposed solution that thinks everything can be solved by just hitting kids more or by just making classes more “interesting” or by excluding the kids that just “aren’t suited to school” is simplistic crap.

konabunny – spot on with that last post. Nicely put.

You don’t seem to have to want to teach anymore.

In my opinion you do, despite the holidays and our tax payer robbing pensions its a bloody hard job and if you dont have any inbuilt desire to help kids it wouldnt be worth it. I would also add that if you are a crap teacher its the worst job in the world.

The questions I am asking illustrate how laughably simplistic your “discipline problems and lack of qualifications are results of kids being bored -> teachers are failing to interest the kids -> fire the teachers who aren’t interesting enough” model of education is. This is why you’re now dodging the question.

I notice you completely ignore my point about people not being suited to academia, so clearly i don’t place all the blame on teachers, alot of the blame goes to a system that isn’t set up to suit these people…And i gave a couple of options, not just fire teachers, but keep them away from classes they can’t control, seems fairly sensible to me..Also I’ve also said that these aren’t a complete solution, fairly clear that the problems are more complex, I was hoping to promt discussion, not the defensive nonsense i’m hearing, this isn’t an attack on your personally.

ps going through school for 11 years is a wee bit different from being in hospital for a couple of weeks, i’d imagine if i was in hospital for a 11 years i’d have a pretty good sense of the place.

Konabunny,when you become a headie, can I come and teach history at your school?

deadlydarcy – Member

DD; I don’t want to suggest I know more about my own job and working enviroment than you, but I haven’t seen all these probationers who are just trying to avoid a “real” job for a year coming through yet.I have just seen the usual mix of people who will make excellent teachers,right down to those who try really hard but don’t have the spark. Can’t really see why you would expect to actually pass probation with the mindset you mention. But if you say that is what is happening,then I better keep a very close eye on the probationers this year. 😉

EDIT;based on below, that is a fairly serious misconception about what it takes to become a teacher.

a_a, what I meant was that to train in the first place, you don’t seem to have to be crazy about doing it. A few weeks here and there in a school and a well worded personal statement seems to do it (looking at doing it myself at the moment 😯 )

a_a, what I meant was that to train in the first place, you don’t seem to have to be crazy about doing it. A few weeks here and there in a school and a well worded personal statement seems to do it (looking at doing it myself at the moment )

But then to get into an actual job, you have the joy of teaching applications where you have 150 people applying for one post. At least in primary that appears to be the case. I imagine they are quite choosy about who they pick, and actually wanting to teach / being good at teaching is quite helpful for getting jobs at that point.

Joe

the one difference with school is that you spend quite a lot of time going through it.

I spend a lot of time on a bike can I advise the pros about riding then?
I spend a lot of time on the internet can I advise STW on upgrading the hamster?

I’d imagine if i was in hospital for a 11 years i’d have a pretty good sense of the place.

yes I am sure they would let you run the place and listen to your every word on medical matters.
Can I save time here and note the phallacy of equivocation just to see who really “knows” …see what I did there
You can know something by doing, you can know something by reading, you can know something by being a patient in a hospital or by being educated in school or by being a teacher or by being a doctor
The know is not the same in each case. To claim that someone who “knows ” about school or hospital because they were a pupil or patient “knows” the same as a doctor or teacher who has worked there for the same time is obviously a bit daft as they “know” different things.
Just because we “know” a little about something does not make our insights useful or well informed as threads on the internet often show

I have had an organ transplant but seriously don’t ask me for advice on this or the procedure etc. I can tell you what it is like to have the op which presumably the Doc cannot do as easily.as I can as I “know” it in a way they do not.

This is getting boring… Do you have to be an expert to discuss anything? Be a pretty boring world if that was the case. Good ideas can come from anywhere, now i’m not saying my ideas where great, but if there was an attempt to discuss them openly and develop the conversation, rather than view it as an attack, well maybe someone(who is or isn’t an expert) could well have pitched in with a great idea, but we’ll never know since this developed into a nonsense.

Any proposed solution that thinks everything can be solved by just hitting kids more or by just making classes more “interesting” or by excluding the kids that just “aren’t suited to school” is simplistic crap.

Of course it is, but those factors are worth discussing and refuting, no? As you’re much more knowledgable about these things, you could pass on a bit of that experience to other people in the same way that Joe Marshall has.

There is, for example, a pretty simple comment to be made about one of Sams points regarding the number of failed kids coming out of school. Here you have an opportunity to point out something he hasn’t considered in a reasonable way. Can you do it, or should I? I’m not a teacher so won’t have the same depth of answer, but it’s a simple response.