Last week there was an item on the radio about education. It stated that in a survey, 20% of teachers had been hit by a pupil. This is shocking.
Many teachers had been sworn at or even spat at by pupils, too, and also threatened by parents. So what is going on.
Firstly, I think that parents don’t take enough responsibility for their children. I see kids running around in supermarkets, chasing each other up and down the aisles while the parents take no notice. I hear parents swearing at their children, too, so it’s no wonder they don’t see it’s wrong to swear at their teachers.
Admittedly, there are some teachers who antagonise the children, deliberately or otherwise, and those who ‘demand’ respect but don’t realise that that is something that has to be earned.
But I think the biggest problem is the way we teach our children.
We assume that a ‘one size fits all’ education is the ideal. This has children sitting at desks (and I’m talking secondary here, as I know that primary doesn’t do this all the time), with the teacher teaching in an academic way.
The subjects, too are mainly academic, and everyone has to take the GCSE exam. Now, the Government, in its wisdom, has decreed that all youngsters have to be in some form of education until the age of 18.
Now this is regardless of aptitude, ability or interest. Everyone has to follow the National Curriculum. Everyone has to study the same things.
The 1944 Education Act stated that all children must attend school until they were 15. There were three kinds of school set up.
1 Grammar Schools. These were for those pupils who could benefit from an academic education. They were formal, and run much like all schools today. In order to get a place at a grammar school, pupils took an examination in 3 subjects that were called, in my day, English, Arithmetic and Non-verbal Reasoning (or intelligence!). Parents had to sign that they would keep the child in school until aged 16, and they did ‘O’ level exams.
2. Technical Schools. These schools taught in a more hands on way. Subjects such as Woodwork, Metalwork, Bricklaying, Printing, and other engineering courses etc were taught, and typing and shorthand, too. I don’t know what exams the pupils at these schools did, though. But I’m sure they must have done some.
3. Secondary Modern for the rest. No exams were expected of these pupils, although when I taught in Salford in the late 1960s, the council had produced their own exam for these pupils called the Salford Certificate. But the way of teaching them was the same as in Grammar schools. I taught English and the set books for the course were The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde, Shane by Jack Schaefer, or a book about a boy living in an African village. Nothing they could relate to at all.
I understand why this was done. It was considered unfair to label children at age 11, but we now have so many kids disillusioned, bored and hating their education.
I really think that the way we teach our children should be seriously looked at. I know from experience of teaching a wide range of ages and abilities that you cannot have the same way of teaching, nor the same curriculum for every pupil.
Thank you for reading my rant. I have no idea how to cure it, but I think that this is one of the main problems. If pupils were engaged in their education, they wouldn’t be attacking teachers, disrupting lessons and bunking off.
Dragons Rule OK. V.M.Sang (author) 