Wednesday 22 July 2009

Tock Follows Tick


Two articles, same paper, same day. That one problem follows on from the other is fairly obvious, but Ed Balls is buggered if he can see it.

Teachers in England 'poorly trained'

Teachers are England are among the least-qualified in the developed world, according to research.

Not too surprising considering the fact that the pressures placed upon them, for a not too impressive wage, have increased with every target-driven, dogmatic diktat from Labour. As former inspector of schools, Chris Woodhead, confirms.

he said teachers were now expected to be more focused on "the challenges of social diversity than the excitement of teaching an academic subject".

"These days student teachers and aspirant headteachers are lobotomised into an unthinking acceptance of the Government's plans," he said. "Who would want to be a member of this non-profession?"

Zackerley. And as the lustre of the profession wanes, and teachers leave as a result, so must the entry criteria be lowered to fill the places required for a pupilship which is increasing.

Just a brief scan of some highlights (or lowlights) of the Puddlecote boy's 2008/9 experience can attest to the priorities Labour have placed in primary schools, for example.

- For Easter, a trip to the town centre, picking up litter to save the enironment.
- For Black History Month, an extended study of Nelson Mandela (the Celts and Romans followed 6 months later).
- For end of term concert, a song and lecture of how far Africans have to walk to get water.
- Walk to school week. Difficult when you live 2 miles away, the parents actually work, and the kid is 8.

Not the sort of thing that trainees dream of teaching, I suspect, and not representative of the recruitment ads for the teaching profession placed on TV, either.

Inspirational teachers, if utilised in imparting real education as opposed to PC bullshit, don't really have to work too hard in other areas. By engaging their charges, the subject matter becomes almost like playtime and knowledge is sucked in by osmosis rather than by process of rote.

Boring the fuck out of them by instructing purely for a regular series of game theory assessment tests, lobbing in the odd bit of lefty conditioning along the way, isn't very appealing to someone who dreamed of expanding knowledge at training school, one would assume.

It is also rather counter-productive to self-imposed discipline within the class, and with the deterrents to unruly kids being diluted to next to nothing by righteous nannies, the whole In Loco Parentis concept comes crashing down too.

As such, something has to be done. And as teachers have their hands tied with regard to discipline, the obvious answer to Labour, who caused the fucking problem in the first place, is to blame someone else.

All parents to sign 'behaviour contracts'

Pupils and their families will be required to agree to the deal - setting out minimum standards of behaviour and attendance - before the start of term. Contracts, known as Home School Agreements, will also establish parents' responsibilities for the first time.

All parents? Surely this should just be the troublemakers? Apparently not.

Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, said the changes would help stop a single student disrupting the education of his or her classmates.

"If the large majority of parents are doing the right thing but a small minority do not engage you can have one lesson for 30 kids disrupted by one child," he said.

"Every parent will have to, as part of the admissions process, say they take on board the obligations in the Home School Agreement, and every parent will be expected to reaffirm that every year."

The usual Labour trick of collective punishment again. And, as usual, it is the many who are stuffed by the very few who Labour created with their blinkered, ideological defence of stunning ignorance.

Listen, Ed, you myopic fucktard, would it not be a good idea, instead of tying the hands of good teachers from the moment they leave teacher training school, to let them have some kind of autonomy in what they teach, how they teach it, and the discipline they are allowed to administer.

That way, perhaps the good ones wouldn't leave the profession and you wouldn't need to go through the effort of having a parental contract at all.

You'd have to stop being an empty-headed socialist cock first, but if you could just see your way clear to installing a course in personal responsibility, common sense, and the benefits of free-thinking, perhaps you could sit on one of those arse-busting small chairs yourself, be enthralled as the kids would, and see how advantageous it could be in the cause of tackling future anti-social behaviour.

Just a thought.




10 comments:

timbone said...

The worst thing that happened was the 1988 Education Act, more commonly known as the 'Baker Act' (Kenneth Baker, Tory Education Minister). This included the National Curriculum, totally unnecessary as Education Authorities and schools already had a curriculum and targets. The National Curriculum just created Ofsted at great expense and a pile of paperwork and stress for an already hardworking profession.

This 1988 Education Act created, among other things, many good teachers and headteachers taking early retirement through exhaustion, ill health or both.

The next equally bad thing was that when the Labour Party came to power in 1997 they did not tighten the reigns on this already destructive education act, they released their blind education minister (in more ways than one) to accelerate what the Tories had already begun.

Anonymous said...

DP... while it's undoubtedly true that these commie fucks have wreaked havoc on standards of edumacation.

But, I remember going through the same PC bullshit (poss except Mandela) as happens now.

At age 8, I was quite capable of seeing what a load of old toss it all was. Hatred of the socialist fabian norm was ingrained into me from an early age by virtue of waking up to the game these mongs were playing.

Also, why can't an 8 year old walk 2 miles to school...? Or on a bike?

I don't understand.

Are you a bubblewrap-dad?

Aj

Dick Puddlecote said...

Unlucky with the PC BS Al, I wouldn't remember any in my education as I left the comprehensive system when I was 7. The schooling I had after that didn't involve any of that stuff.

As for the boy*, he'd have to go on his own due to working times of Mrs P and I. Considering he is also on the small side, I'd expect social services at my door on the first day.

(* My bad, I think it's just over 3 miles btw)

Anonymous said...

Fair enough DP.. is this at the bottom of it all? That parents are terrified of social services getting involved if they let their kiddies roam free and they come a cropper?

And there was me thinking it was pusswad parents..

I was cycling to school at that age.. albeit not quite 3 miles.

Despite all the PC bollox, there wasn't terror of litigation etc.. British Bulldog was very much on the playground menu. We'd done our cycling proficieny at school aged 7, and were then positively encouraged to cycle in.

Maybe I'm a bit older than you (35)?

AJ

Anonymous said...

bt.w. Tim - good call on the Baker act...

As I left 6th form in circa 1992, I looked over my shoulder with the distinct feeling that I was in the last cohort that would get a proper education in the state sector.

That said, I also remember the months and month of strikes during which we missed more than 100 lessons in 1st senior.

AJ

Sue said...

I must admit we never studied any of that tripe either. We did however, study English, Greek and Roman History and we even had Latin, Physics, Biology and Chemistry. No calculators in maths and we had to show the workings (in exams too)..

We even had competitive sports and nobody was emotionally scarred for coming last!


Our teachers were mostly older men and you could hear a pin drop during classes. Step out of line and you got chalk or the board rubber thrown right at you...

We behaved.

We stood when a teacher came in the door and had to open doors for older students before you went through yourself.

We were taught respect and courtesy as a matter of everyday life, not as part of the curriculum.

We were not given nicotine gum or condoms and we weren't preached to about alcohol or pregnancy. That was seen as the responsiblity of the parents.

I walked to school 3 miles there and back everyday, but the roads were safer and gangs of knife wielding yobbos didn't roam the streets waiting to rob you for your mobile (we didn't have them anyway).

It was better. I would hate to have a child at school now, I would probably home tutor. We've already lost one generation to labour's idea of education, we can't afford to lose another.

They're a complete disgrace, ruined by Labour's attempt to cover their utter failure.

BTW. Primary schools were always local to where people lived, they've closed down too many of them now and children have to travel too far to get to them.

I certainly wouldn't send a child under 10 to walk 3 miles to school everyday on their own.

It's not a nice or safe country to live in anymore.

Anonymous said...

You forgot to mention, Dick, that parents will be encouraged to snoop and report other parents who aren't toeing the line eg letting the kids stay up too late. What a truly despicable, disgusting Government this is. I fantasise about marching into a meeting of the Cabinet to vent my spleen although I'd probably be too apoplectic with rage to get the words out!

As for the calibre of new teachers - I imagine that the sketches of Alexander Armstrong and Ben Miller are pretty spot on.

banned said...

The Conservatives brought in the National Curriculum to counter the lunatic teaching policies of various Labour run Socialist Republic Local Authorities and their maniac teaching sylabuses. That this has now been hijacked for their own purposes by those same maniacs was only to be expected so the tories remain guilty. It's All Their Fault.

I was lucky to be in the first Comprehensive intake of a former Grammar School; though the staus had gone the ethos remained and I was taught, by and large, by the remnant Grammar staff ( all male except for Art ). We jointly retreated up the hill as my seven years went by, leaving the 'jungle', as we termed the junior classes, to the savages ( both pupils & new staff from the Polytechnics).
Walked 2 miles there and back, with me mates.

Dick Puddlecote said...

Fair enough DP.. is this at the bottom of it all? That parents are terrified of social services getting involved if they let their kiddies roam free and they come a cropper?

Maybe not just that, AJ. It's also perhaps the opprobrium from fellow parents at the school gates who have been indoctrinated by such shit.

And there was me thinking it was pusswad parents..

Yes, there is definitely a lot of that, hence above.

Despite all the PC bollox, there wasn't terror of litigation etc..

Therein lies a major part of our present problems IMO.

Maybe I'm a bit older than you (35)?

Nope, a tad younger ... but I'm still newish to the fuck up that is the comprehensive system. You still have that to come (if ever, judging from your previous pronouncements) ;-)

Unknown said...

We had some good teachers back in the sixties when I was at my comprehensive school. But as is always the case when politicians interfere, the system begins to fall apart. My first few years at the new comp were spent in total confusion because there was no set curriculum. As a result I left with poor grade CSEs (anybody remember them) and found working life very difficult.

However, one thing caught my eye Dick in your post. For Black History Month, an extended study of Nelson Mandela. Primary school children being made to learn about this man…why? Of what possible interest is he to this country of ours.

Let’s remind ourselves why he came to notoriety. He was arrested and convicted of terrorist offences during the apartheid era, spending 28 years in prison on Robin Island.

Last week there was a concert celebrating his 91st birthday with all the attendant luvvies, I expect Bonio sorry Bono (Bonio was a dog biscuit in the 80s) was there warbling his bollocks to death. Mandela has also been invited to Downing Street; in short he’s been feted by this curry favouring country of ours for no other reason than he was once notorious.

Our politicians got there panties hot and sticky over apartheid in the seventies and eighties, but not one spoke out against Pol Pot and his Kehmer Rouge murdering millions in the killing fields of Cambodia.

Contrast Mandela with Henry Allingham, first world war veteran who died a few days ago aged 113. This man was one of the founders of the RAF, and was until he died the sole survivor of the Battle of Jutland. This man defended this country with honour, pride and integrity. Shamefully it was left to France to award Henry one of its highest accolades – making him officer of the Legion d’Honneur.

You will note that while we can lick Mandela’s arse nice and clean…we cannot honour Henry Allingham…a man that did so much for this green and rotten puke-pile, that we call Great Britain!

Nelson! Come here Nelson…ah! Here you are…now then, bend over…let me just undo your trousers and drop them to the floor. My, my Nelson you do have a nicely shaped botty! So, let’s give it thoroughly good licking eh?

Lickity lick, lick slurp, lick slurpity lick lick! How does my big fleshy moist tongue feel…it’s a real joy for any self-respecting ring piece – eh?

Hey, come back Nelson…I’m a British politician…I want some more brownie points!