27
01
2008
RELOADED: Modern Education is Rubbish Part 2. What Should We Be Trying To Do?
Posted by: oldandrew in UncategorizedThis entry can now be found here.
Entries (RSS)
January 27th, 2008 at 7:27 am
[...] RELOADED: Modern Education is Rubbish Part 2. What Should We Be … [...]
January 27th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
The shools you describe sound exactly like my school. I was wondering if you and your colleagues have tried union action. At my school, we are currently trying to move things in that direction. After all, Health and Safety covers the stress caused by abusive and aggressive behaviour. My school has many of the problems you describe, but I am quite convinced that a decent head, rather than the weak sap we currently have, could turn the place around in a year. Do you know of any schools where a unified, unionised staff has actually bben able to make a difference?
January 27th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
“Do you know of any schools where a unified, unionised staff has actually bben able to make a difference?”
All the examples I’ve heard of that come anywhere close to that have been in primary. In secondary the staff tend to join different unions and have no effective voice at all. Although individual union reps can be very helpful the unions on the whole are part of the problem rather than part of the solution, they are particularly prone to supporting the “levelling down” ideology mentioned above.
February 2nd, 2008 at 8:22 am
Hampton Park Secondary College, in Australia, had an effective strong union branch, which helped it get the best teaching conditions in the state of Victoria. I have posted on some aspects of the school at:
http://oldandrew.edublogs.org/2007/05/
This is not directly on behaviour, but on giving the teachers time to prepare professionally - a minimum of 40 per cent of their loads, not the 10 per cent that apparently applies in the UK.
I have put a few more thoughts, and some repetition, at:
http://www.tes.co.uk/section/staffroom/thread.aspx?story_id=2571607&path=/school+management/&threadPage=1
May 13th, 2008 at 6:14 am
Narrowing the Curriculum: “Recent national education reform efforts here in the United States that require school accountability for student outcomes in reading and mathematics have received a considerable amount of push-back…”