Quote:
Originally Posted by Roadhousezamora
I'm only starting my 5th year of teaching so can't comment brilliantly on the situation but from my experience there seems to be more pressure on teachers from the leadership teams at schools. Schools are desperate to do well in the league tables as well producing a score over 1000 for their value added. This has in my opinion forced teachers to focus completely on making sure the pupils pass the exam and to ignore what the teacher feels may benefit said pupil in the real world. This may also explain universities and employers complaining of pupils who are unable to think for themselves. Pupils are trained to pass exams and nothing more.
I will also say that the introduction of modular exams with sections of multiple choice answers makes it easy for me as a teacher to guarantee marks for my pupils along with coursework which is left to the classroom teachers to oversee, mark and submit.
I'm not sure what the emphasis was 30 years ago, if others could let me know i'd be interested to listen.
|
Well, here we go: "leadership teams"
, "league tables", "modular exams", "emphasis" ... just a bunch of jargon
As Hamlet says: "Words, words, words." I realize that a lot of us olde fartes are into the ubi sunt thing, yearning for the golden years that probably weren't all that golden; but the education system we went through did its job ok. All you old Accy Grammar lads remember "Ben" Johnson, "Sam" Wignall, "Pug" Portno, "Jock" Bentley ... old fashioned doesn't come close to describing them. And they were more than a tad politically incorrect. But look what came out of that bastion of beatings and clips round the ear ... was poor John Wallwork terrified into failure? Did "Jock" Bentley brutally destroy John Virtue's creativity.
We knew that it was up to us to succeed or fail. We were given both opportunities. I could have done a lot better at school. But I was, and still am, lazy. I like to take the easy route. I know that, and I knew it then. I didn't blame E. J. "Gobbin" Owen for my poor showing in Algebra ... I blame myself, took resposibility for my actions, or inaction.
But even though I consider much of my life to be a catalogue of missed and wasted opportunity, I still managed to struggle through to be Dr. Eric, B.Ed, B.A. (Hons., magnis cum honoribus), (Sask.), M.A., Ph.D (Queen's), Bar Tender, Cab Driver.
