school discipline, or the lack thereof

[flimsier]

Here's another thing to bear in mind. The majority of students questioned say they like school. The majority behave well (source for both= OFSTED). A vast majority at my school (deprived; big behaviour problems in some lessons) prefer being in school to the school holidays - usually because of the stability (ie discipline).

So a simple paragraph about most bad behaviour being because schools are all about preparing workers for capitalism is focussing on one aspect of how those students view school and is way too simplistic to be taken seriously.

 

[flimsier]

as for the issues you raise, i believe they're just rearranging the deckchairs, as i see some of the roots for the issues i raised in the op in the role of schools in late capitalism and the introduction of the national curriculum in the 1980s, also wider malaise within capitalism where the expectations of pupils founder on the perceived experience of their parents in work or unemployment.

So what should teachers do?

 

[flimsier]

I don't see why it makes any difference. It seems to me that PM was enquiring about the relationship between discipline problems in the classroom and the changing role of education in society, which is a perfectly reasonable line of questioning. Why assume it's some criticism of teachers, when no such opinion has been expressed?

I don't think it was a criticism of teachers actually, though

good

is hardly helpful.

 

[Fruitloop]

What do you suggest teachers should do in the light of recent national curriculum changes? Particularly the national strategy? What about with the new SEF and OFSTED framework?

Then why did you cough up all of this guff so early in the thread?

 

[Fruitloop]

It seems to me that a contributing factor is that the myth of social mobility under capitalism is coming apart at the seams. With little prospect of bettering your social and economic standing through education, I can empathise with those who can no longer be bothered.

 

[flimsier]

Then why did you cough up all of this guff so early in the thread?

I was asking for more detail on what PM suggests from his first post.

That certainly had nothing to do with thinking teachers were being blamed. You clearly misread my post. I know what I do - and I know what my NUT group are doing, but I was asking PM. In effect, I thought he needed a lot of help putting meat on the bones, so to speak.

For what it's worth, for example, I'd like to have seen Tomlinson utterly change the qualifications system, not making vocational courses second standard courses. Of course, that wouldn't stop clients being 'prepared to be workers' but that's what they want at 15/16 anyway; to be taught how to do a job they want to do. Unfortunately, Tomlinson, imo, left the system as it is with only very minor changes.

In terms of what teachers can do; I think it's still a case of campaigning and arguing for more time (primary school teachers get a lot more from December if their school is on track, for example), and smaller class sizes, plus more money. A decent workload equals interesting lessons. I think teachers should challenge the rigid aspects of the national curriculum and be willing to depart from it bearing in mind that the clients want to pass their exams - so you have to give them the chance to do so. I'd like my union to be a hell of a lot more militant about it, however.

 

[Fruitloop]

The question that occurs to me is, if vocational training is to be seen as the primary aim of education, why bother with secondary school at all? Wouldn't it be easier just to get people to the stage where they can read and write then enrol them on an apprenticeship of some kind? This was a route that my brother took and seemed to be far more successful than the people who ended up in the same trade but had remained in full-time education to the end.

 

[flimsier]

The question that occurs to me is, if vocational training is to be seen as the primary aim of education, why bother with secondary school at all? wouldn't it be easier just to get people to the stage where they can read and write then enrol them on an apprenticeship of some kind? This was a route that my brother took and seemed to be far more successful than the people who ended up in the same trade but had remained in full-time education to the end.

Exactly. Though you don't need to have one-or-the-other. You can do both, or a combination. But vocational courses or training, in secondary schools or colleges, are like second class qualifications. Wrongly.

 

[Fruitloop]

the thing that alwasy bugged me about education was that it was too focussed on tests and qualifications. Even undergrad, and increasingly postgrad, seemed to be simply a process of jumping through hoops. The problem is that an ability to jump through the right hoops and perform well in examinations etc doesn't necessarily equate to any aptitude or acquired skill in the subject - if the purpose of the undergraduate course I attended was to select the people with the greatest interest and ability to go on to the next stage then it was an abject failure - nearly all the talented people left and the bunch that remained were a proper gaggle of drongos.

From what I saw of my brother's career in a less academic endevour, a similar process seemed to be at work, and the result was that the employers didn't trust the qualifications that people had from training institutions, and instead preferred someone with a demonstrated ability to actually do the job in question.

 

[flimsier]

That's pretty much obvious as well though, isn't it?

The SATs/ and increasingly tests to show value-added at all years have meant that clients spend over one academic years of their schooling just sitting tests (ie learning bugger all).

Employers have never trusted qualifications as a qualification can't teach you how to do a specific job. They'd expect to train whoever. A qualification just shows your aptitude to learn (apparently).

 

[Fruitloop]

So if a qualification just shows your aptitude to learn, why make them vocational? Why not just teach them Latin and Greek and let them acquire the necessary skills for employment when they get there?

I reckon I would have been disruptive if I'd had to sit a year's worth of tests

 

[flimsier]

So if a qualification just shows your aptitude to learn, why make them vocational? Why not just teach them Latin and Greek and let them acquire the necessary skills for employment when they get there?

I reckon I would have been disruptive if I'd had to sit a year's worth of tests

For employers it basically does. Obviously there are some skills you can transfer, but few people get to use their degree skills in employment, so the point stands.

You know what I mean, but in essence, you're right.

 

[Pickman's model]

is hardly helpful.

tough. it was a perfectly reasonable reply to Kid_Eternity's post.

 

[flimsier]

So just as we salvage some discussion from a shit thread, you pull it back to where you started it.

You didn't want a discussion at all, it seems.

 

[Cloo]

I’d disagree, Pickman’s. It all starts at home – I become more and more convinced of this by the stuff I read in the editing work I do in education and early learning. My reckoning is that a lot of it starts with a simple enough mistake – parents thinking ‘My kids not going to be like all the others round here – they have no discipline. So I’m going to be really strict and tell my child off all the time so they’ll not be naughty’.

Child grows up – the slightest misdemeanour, even things that are accidents, attract shouting, recrimination, disproportionate punishment. So the child learns that authority is always unjust, is against you and that there’s no point behaving, you’ll get punished anyway. They don’t get much praise or support and they grow up thinking they’re a bad person. Also, young children are often not being ‘naughty’ when they say, draw on a wall, break something while playing around with it – they’re often just being curious, trying out how things work. If they grow up being treated as though they are ‘wrong’ and ‘bad’ and being punished excessively just for being curious – is it any wonder such a child isn’t interested in finding stuff out and is resistant to discipline.

Now, I guess some people might say ‘But we didn’t have this kind of behaviour in the past when discipline was harsher and there wasn’t any gubbins about self-esteem’ – well, a) I’d dispute there wasn’t any bad behaviour and b) more interestingly, the rules of society were different. It was made clear to children that they were the subjects of adults and had to obey them and didn’t have any rights etc. Of course, that wasn’t good, but the payoff for giving children more freedom to have opinions and generally in life is that they need sensitive boundaries more than ever. And those, a lot of kids now are not getting. Why now, I don’t know – more stress and less time to devote to the fine nuances of childcare, perhaps.

It takes a critical mass of kids like this and then others around them, by secondary age, will get dragged into their behaviour.

 

[reallyoldhippy]

PM, do you think that those kids who kick off at school have perfectly acceptable social behaviour outside the gates? IME not! The time they spend in school is but a small proportion of their lives. I think schools are crap, but to concentrate on them to the negation of other factors might be missing the point somewhat.

 

[flimsier]

That's a good point, but kids are often utterly different at home to in school.

I'd also dispute that behaviour in schools in so much worse than last year, or five years ago, or ten etc, but most teachers disagree with me.

 

[reallyoldhippy]

That's a good point, but kids are often utterly different at home to in school..

One of my ex-pupils has just been convicted of a nasty robbery. She is now waiting sentence for that and contempt of court, after telling the judge "I'm going to get my brother to shoot you". A threat which is alarmingly common at school and, judging by the shooting statistics here, not totally empty.

I think the borderline kids can be different at home: sometimes their parents are genuinely shocked when presented with CCTV evidence of what their little darlings have been up to. But some are areholes wherever they are - the drive to increase attendance is motivated more by a (government) desire to get the problems off the streets than an interest in educational advance. For some, school is used more as a temporary holding centre than an educational resource.

 

[flimsier]

I was actually referring to Cloo, but you made a good point too!

 

[flimsier]

I think we're babysitters for a lot of 14-16 year olds.

 

[Cloo]

Pickmans, to address your points. Purely opinion, being neither teacher nor parent:
a) bored
Well, if they’ve grown up with 300 toys around them all the time, unregulated TV in their bedrooms and so on (and this is not wealth specific) then it’s not surprising they can’t relate to anything that doesn’t flash up with pretty pictures every three seconds if that provides the majority of their stimulation.


b) averse to a discipline which appears arbitrary and pointless, &/or
Maybe, but perhaps they learn to see it as such from the example at home (see my last post)

c) finding it very hard to see where what they're being taught fits into life outside school
I can see that. The problem is that in one way or another, they haven’t been taught about ‘learning’ in itself and 'how to learn' (see also 'being bored). Too many may see anything they don’t already know as not worth knowing and have no interest or pleasure in gaining knowledge from others, especially from those they regard as ‘authority’ who they have learned to find unworthy of their respect.

d) not too happy about being turned from human beings into workers in waiting.
Not really, I don’t think most schools today are like Mr Gradgrind’s in ‘Hard times’ where the children are ‘empty vessels ready to be filled’ with ‘facts, facts, facts’ and I don’t think kids think of that way. The worst behaved ones probably have good reason to believe the best they can prepare for is prison anyway.

 

[reallyoldhippy]

It seems to me that a contributing factor is that the myth of social mobility under capitalism is coming apart at the seams. With little prospect of bettering your social and economic standing through education, I can empathise with those who can no longer be bothered.

One of the problems is that too many people on all sides of the debate see the purpose of education as an economic one. The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, the joy of learning, the fascination of curiosity, the time to create are all out the window. Everything must have a purpose, a target and a test. And a price.

 

[Trufflepig]

One of the problems is that too many people on all sides of the debate see the purpose of education as an economic one. The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, the joy of learning, the fascination of curiosity, the time to create are all out the window. Everything must have a purpose, a target and a test. And a price.

With you there totally butty, the number of times I asked questions in classes, out of interest, or to confirm my understanding, only to be met with an incredulous "why do you want to know if it's not on the exam?" from the teachers.

There is all the difference in the world between knowing a fact, and understanding it. If you truly understand something you do not need to revise it. Sadly it seems there is little time to develop a good understanding, given the constant testing.

I reckon the old style university finals had something going for them, hard if you messed up on the day, but given the huge breadth it would be too much to cram for, so you would really need a good understanding.

I can feel a rant coming on....