Post by celyn on Mar 11, 2011 20:58:44 GMT -1
Ah now, are you quite sure that's not the St. Andrew's Building? ;D Muphry's Law strikes again!
Its suggestion that new trainees could face tests in reading, writing and maths"...
Are they saying that currently they're not being tested??? WTF??
I suppose one would have imagined that they already could read and write and so on. If they can't, that's pretty bad. However, I still harbour a great dislike for a person who wrote "sattisfactory" on my report card, and that was in the early 1970s. Tiresome bloody cookery/sewing teacher, grrr.
Mar 10, 2011 22:23:56 GMT -1 @rolo said:
No, Oz, IMO the people with the best skills are simply not working in teaching any more. There are plenty literate and numerate people working in other industries who could be recruited for basic teacher education....
I do suspect that has long been the case. Think back to being a wean. Wasn't there a difference apparent even to pupils (whether primary or secondary) as to which were good teachers and which ones had somehow gone into teaching but didn't really belong there?
Mar 10, 2011 22:23:56 GMT -1 @rolo said:
...Raising basic teacher standards would be no bad thing but at the same time, it won't solve the problem of kids aged 5 going to school still drinking from trainer cups and unable to use a toilet. Our illiteracy and innumeracy issues are WAY broader than simply the ability of teachers.
Oh ye gods, if weans five years of age cannot drink from an ordinary sort of cup/mug and can't use the toilet unaided (apart from any special needs sort of problems, obviously), what is going on at home? Seriously, does that mean that Mammy and Daddy always have to be on hand to do some wiping up in the bathroom? You would think they would get bored with it and that, if nothing else, would make them teach the wean.
Of course, there could be weans who CAN do these things but are sufficiently flummoxed and insecure for the first wee while at school that they backtrack a bit.
Mind, I will absolutely insist on it being all right to go to primary school when still tying shoelaces in a strange way. Oh yes, nothing wrong with that at all. ;D Come to think of it, I don't think I have ever learned the proper science of shoelaces.
Who indeed? I suppose the ones who have a supply of punctuation marks might be able to help. Muphry et al. at it again. ;D
I think I can pretty much remember all the basics of the arithmetic I learned in primary school... except long division...
Boo and lots of "Boo Hiss!" at long division. I once had a great horror, when volunteering to help with Adult Literacy (but it got mixed up with OTHER STUFF), I had this nice woman who wanted help with long division and fractions and all of that. I think she did know, logically, that it was all right to use a calculator these days, and pleas of "no, please let's not go around dividing fractions" from me didn't work, so I would be desperately teaching it to myself on the 'bus to the place. To be fair, I'd say she KNEW this was not necessary, but it was more that she was aware of having missed a lot of school in childhood and wanted to be sure she would now feel that she had caught up. Not practically useful, but perhaps psychologically useful. Of course, it also served to remind me, that no matter how much I hate the numbery stuff, it has its own internal logic, making it somehow easier, although less interesting, to explain than the English language. It means, though, that even weans who are a bit short-changed whether by family or system, CAN make it up afterwards, if support is in place.
Mar 11, 2011 1:53:22 GMT -1 @rolo said:
...come from a home where education was deemed important. But so many kids don't have that. Even at the wean's school in the year 2011, so many kids leave school at the first possible opportunity age just 16 because their parent/s want them out to work and contributing to the household bills....
I wonder just how that works, though. I mean, I could be a meringue but I thought they could not claim Jobseeker's Allowance at age 16, so they (or their bossy parents) would have to be damn sure that the wean/young adult could walk straight into a job. That sort of thing blighted some of our parents' generation: my mother, for instance, had to go out to work - never mind going to the grammar school, 'cos your the oldest and you'd better get out to work" Grrr. A lot of "grrr" but also a lot of "how horribly sad".
However, there is also the fact that in some cases, getting in at the bottom level of a good job might be a better investment of time and opportunity than some degrees or college courses.
Mar 11, 2011 1:53:22 GMT -1 @rolo said:
... It's an exceptional school that works under exceptional conditions. And the people who send their kids there are highly motivated so it's not comparable to Glasgow (or even Scottish) state schools.
If only it were the norm
Highly motivated, and rich enough to buy into the right place, as I think you have remarked before. So that the parents get to say, "oh, of course we thought it fair and good to send the wean to a state school" without mentioning that they only did it through money.
“Oh dear me, the world’s ill-divided.”
Personally I think very strongly it is because our political and business masters do not want ordinary people educated as they might have the effront to question why certain things are being done...
Hah! It has worked until now, hasn't it? I do tend to think that getting the reading and writing learned, as long as they continue to use it, will be of more use than bloody log tables or whatever. Oh, and teach them thinking and cynicism. Read a lot and question a lot.
Sorry, people, I have had problems of dead computer lately, so when I re-appear, I do tend to ramble on.
I am also sure, that given my joky snarkiness at others' writings, I have made umpty many boo-boos myself, it being the nature of the world. If so, well, have at it.
