Where have the radical teachers gone? - Issue 8

[ukyp]

By Bubatunde Williams, Deputy MYP for City of London

http://www.ukyouthparliament.org.uk/203361.html

I am speaking as one of many young people who have entered the state school system and have come out feeling let down as have so many of my contemporaries.
In comparison to our private school counterparts we are lagging behind, and it is obvious to see that, however one might phrase it, a price has been put on education. The wealthy will always be able to afford a better form of what is meant to be seen as “priceless”. Today I lay the blame for my weaker education at a different door to the Government, for although they are to blame, everyone has forgotten the other culprits. The teachers’ unions.

In the Seventies the social militants of the unions fought both for their members’ pay packets, and also for social advancement. In my view they have become backward and insular. Since the Seventies, unions, especially the teachers unions (and RMT), have used trade action simply for monetary purposes. I have no dispute with this as teachers were previously paid the minimum in relation to other civil departments. However times have changed. Teachers are offered many monetary advantages (not enough in my mind), from help with housing, to a clear and progressive wage structure, dependant on their length of service, and title. Yet, they refuse to change tack, and pay lip service to issues such as anti-racism campaigns, which the average person is not made aware of, though when teachers are not being paid enough, you know about it. Looking at a teaching union’s website the second link down after “join us” is “lobby your MP on pay,” the twelfth link down is education!

The teaching unions have forgotten their voice, and have let the government dictate the terms under which they work. This is to the detriment of the students, who have rigid teachers following rigid guidelines, who are no longer allowed to express themselves through teaching in an individualistic manner. Yet, the unions are able to strike and fight if the pay scales do not meet their wishes, though they go unheard when the government shackle their staff and prevent them from doing their jobs to the fullest of their ability. Are their priorities misconstrued? Are they willing to work in their current conditions as long as they are paid adequately?

What annoys me most is that the teachers will moan amongst themselves about government interference and how it is destroying the most important parts of any young person’s life. Parents and students alike have heard the same quote “the
Government won’t let me do my job” a hundred times. Yet, if the Government tomorrow said they were going to cut teachers’ wages, the amount of teachers striking would be phenomenal. Schools would become ghost towns. Yet no one strikes for the futures of the children, no one stands out and is heard nationwide from the unions in regards to overbearing government, and now business interference.

In a politically correct society, teaching should be the one art form that refuses to conform, that breeds radical ideas and questions, that instigates dreamers to make their dreams a reality. If the teachers and their unions remain silent when all that makes what they do beautiful is falling apart, then our education system has no hope. Teachers, unions, decide now, is teaching a job or a profession?

[Paul]

Why did you go to a state school in a neighbouring borough? The City of London sponsors 3 independent schools (1 for boys, 1 for girls and 1 mixed) - and 3 city academies.

[babs.aka]

Good point... if the article were about my choice to pay twenty thousand pounds a year for private school, or paying nothing for a state school, your point may just have been relevant.

Those three city academies? only one of them is listed as excelling, but then again that is in sports only.

Did you go to a private school i ask? and if you did then how the hell could you understand the point between one who pays for better version of something that is "priceless", and someone that doesnt? and if you did go to
state school maybe you should try to compare the standards of education you recieve to your private school counterparts.

then again only guilty people do the torturing.

[make.me.smile]

I understand how hard it must be for teachers to try and make lessons interesting for their students and to try and even engage them; when they have to follow such a strict curriculum.
I don't think you have any right to say that they are letting us down in any way and I don't see how private schools offer these "radical teachers" over state schools. Just because you are disillusioned with the state school system does not mean that it is inadequate.

[Gotlieb Alexander]

It's time to abandon the comprehensive school experiment

[Marcus89]

I, like many people I know - all attended state schooling, all achieved at college, are all at Universitiy and are on on the path to recieving 1sts in our exams this year.

If you have the ability, you will achieve regardless of which school you attend.

[Anonymous]

Originally Posted by Marcus89

I, like many people I know - all attended state schooling, all achieved at college, are all at Universitiy and are on on the path to recieving 1sts in our exams this year.

If you have the ability, you will achieve regardless of which school you attend.

I disagree. I got 99% on my KS2 sats Maths. KS3 I got 84%. My Maths GCSE that I took a year early I got A. My teacher in Y9 and Y10 was really really bad. I could have easily got 2 more 99% maths because I had that talent. I just didn't have the right person to teach it to me. I had to learn everything for my statistics exam, that the school entered everyone at foundation for but I asked to do higher, over the internet because the teacher didn't know how to do it. I got an A, but poor teaching coupled with schools caring more for how they are seen, than they care for the individual is the reason.

[TheAngriestLeftyInTheWest]

My history teacher's a communist and he's the best teacher in the school!

[Gotlieb Alexander]

Originally Posted by Anonymous

I could have easily got 2 more 99% maths because I had that talent. I just didn't have the right person to teach it to me.

Sometimes teachers are rubbish in which case you have to compensate, which is possible.

No matter how good a teacher is they can't teach you more than you are willing to learn, so it comes down to effort in the end.

I know I'll get called an elitist for saying it but I believe that independent schools do better because their pupils work harder, and this is because the teachers make them. Of my friends there were a few of us who taught ourselves courses, and all of us got grades consistent with the ones we got in the subjects we'd been taught, so I don't think the teachers necessarily hold you back.

[EmmaGallen]

Originally Posted by Gotlieb Alexander

It's time to abandon the comprehensive school experiment

I feel the oppostie! I'm at what would be seen as a comprehensive and we are pretty much the only one in NI! The way our education system works in general is that if you did well in the 11+ (usually down to having been tutored) then you go to a grammar school where there aren't that many teachers, most of them just hand you out work and expect you to be able to understand. The students are then either smart enough to understand or rich enough to get a tutor.

Then there are the secondary schools where there are some really amazing teachers who just are given a nightmare job having to deal with kids who won't be given a chance by the state because they aren't "smart".

Here we have the best GCSE and A Levels results but we also have the worst. It is just complete extremes.