Excellent piece Mike. I'm going to sound like a dinosaur - I started primary/intermediate teaching in 1967and finished 35 years later after experiencing many different parts of the country, classes from New Entrants to Year 8 and up to Principal level. In all those years the teaching and learning that took place in classes where teachers understood child development, provided a wide learning experience in and out of the classroom and, most importantly perhaps, enjoyed teaching and children (not all did), provided a brilliant foundation for later learning and enjoyment of it. Of course, there were children who struggled and the level of support for those children was patchy or poor but in general they would come to school in that environment with a positive attitude. Standardised testing is as far from that approach as you can get and won't improve educational outcomes nor will it encourage innovative, creative and committed people to enter teaching.
A well written synthesis of the concerns many of us hold about the direction of the initiatives proposed at the moment. The brave administration would propose that education is no longer a political football and create legislation that forms a bipartisan approach if they want to create real and sustainable change... but alas, we have not have an administration brave enough to even bring it to a public debate.
An excellent read thanks Mike. I don't have a teaching background but through my own 2 boys going through the education system this is all what I suspected.
How someone with no history of teaching at all can dictate as to what will be taught and how defies belief.
Excellent piece Mike. I'm going to sound like a dinosaur - I started primary/intermediate teaching in 1967and finished 35 years later after experiencing many different parts of the country, classes from New Entrants to Year 8 and up to Principal level. In all those years the teaching and learning that took place in classes where teachers understood child development, provided a wide learning experience in and out of the classroom and, most importantly perhaps, enjoyed teaching and children (not all did), provided a brilliant foundation for later learning and enjoyment of it. Of course, there were children who struggled and the level of support for those children was patchy or poor but in general they would come to school in that environment with a positive attitude. Standardised testing is as far from that approach as you can get and won't improve educational outcomes nor will it encourage innovative, creative and committed people to enter teaching.
A well written synthesis of the concerns many of us hold about the direction of the initiatives proposed at the moment. The brave administration would propose that education is no longer a political football and create legislation that forms a bipartisan approach if they want to create real and sustainable change... but alas, we have not have an administration brave enough to even bring it to a public debate.
Amen to this idea Megan!
An excellent read thanks Mike. I don't have a teaching background but through my own 2 boys going through the education system this is all what I suspected.
How someone with no history of teaching at all can dictate as to what will be taught and how defies belief.
Thank you Mike. As a current teacher of Year 7s, the current governments education policies terrify me.
This synthesis of yours was absolutely spot on.