Ex forces members as schoolteachers, (Panorama tonight?)

[GabbyLoggon]

Are they being unreasoable?

Its a government idea copied from America
(suprise, suprise)

Training ex forces members to be schoolteachers (It has always been open for them to do that.)

Is it a gimmick? The trouble is Cameron learned from Blair the art of regular publicity stunts.

So it is difficult to know what to take seriously.

What do the teaching profession think of it? "Gabby"

Every career glamourises itself. Including teaching!

Ahem, KatieWatie - don't forget those sporting various shades of blue

Ohh I wish I'd gone for Blue (light or dark) rather than green - Blue is much more my colour and I'd look a lot less like a sack of potatoes in a sky blue Harrington jacket than I do in CS95.

"He's passionate about Science, and I couldn't think of anyone I'd rather teach my kids SCIENCE than him"

As I said best teacher at DCs school was just out of army teaching science. He had a quiet calm who commanded respect. He was an excellent teacher, just a pity he is on paternity leave

Well I am ex-forces - and was a secondary school teacher (in a rough area of Glasgow) for a while before I joined.

There are a few people on this thread who seem to think that ex-military individuals only have one set of skills when it comes to leadership/mentoring and they are based around bellowing This is VERY far from the truth. Basically, the military is one of the very few places where everyone from an NCO upwards is given extremely focussed training on leadership, role modelling and how the importance of how they present themselves. That training is NOT just about issuing orders and screaming at people - it is about respecting others in the way you lead them, appearing confident, engaged and focussed and displaying a 'can-do' attitude and a passionate interest in your subject.

Not all ex-military people have the wish or the skills to be a teacher, however for those that do, their career has prepared them better than most for the challenges of the classroom.

"Well, if you think a 22 year old who is an NQT has 'years of honing teaching skills' you are sadly mistaken. They'll have had a year if they do a PGCE."

I think you are stereotyping now, I attend a university with one of the best PGCE courses in England and have a few freinds who study exactly this subject there including my DP.

My DP is in his early twenties but far from how you describe. He has been actively seeking and attending work experience places since he was 18 to observe, interact and learn in a school environment. This is because he was himself considered a lost cause as a young black male at school and wanted to do better as a teacher and role model for young men now in the position he had been in then. He takes it very seriously and has spent years honing skills by even watching the teachers channel, training videos, seeking training from experienced teachers he knows and a lot of work experience placements. He is not the only person I know like that, I have a freind going into primary school teaching who is the same and I myself am going into teaching with the same intentions and the same background. Plus, a lot of the NQT's I know are mature students in their 30's and 40's with life experience and transferable skills.

I posted earlier that I agreed with you that some NQT's are as you have described, unfortunately I would say they outnumber NQT's like my partner and the few others I know. But not all NQT's are like that at all so please stop making generalisations. I actually think that the reason this has been the case ( I know I will get flamed for this) is that the teaching proffession has up until recently been the reserve of middle class offspring who lack direction in what career path to choose and just think teaching is easy and go for that avenue; there are quite a few like that at my uni too.

I do know people who have joined the military and have known people who have left the military too. The older men of my family were fighters in the Middle East way back when, and I also have family who faught on the British side in the second world war and I understand the effects of that kind of lifestyle and training to an extent. I am not just going on stereotypes.

I don't understand how military personnel coming to a school and talking about joining the military to kids as young as 11 right through to 16 is not seen as sinister.

Forget the generalisations thing, I am definitely making them too so won't judge on that.

"I don't understand how military personnel coming to a school and talking about joining the military to kids as young as 11 right through to 16 is not seen as sinister."

Erm, the military is not a cult! No one is press-ganged or forced to sign up on the spot, so how is having a military recruiter talk to children about their career options any different to having, say, a bank manager come in to school and talk to the children about how great it is to work in a bank

Its about as sinister as someone from McDonalds coming into a school (which happened when I was at school for their Mangt Trg Courses) ..... neither would be saying 'Join us or else' they would both be saying "Have you ever considered a career in XXXXX?, this is what we could offer you if you did"

What is sinister about that?

X Posts CaveMum LOL

There are good teachers who have chosen it as a first career and good teacher who have chosen it as a second career. Neither group is superior to the other.

Oh and I don't think all military people are killing machines who like to scream at everything that moves, my own experience tells me otherwise.

But I do believe that not all military people can automatically have the right qualities or tranferable skills to handle a classroom of very hormonal, rowdy and unruly kids because teaching is not just about that anyway.

By the older men I include my dad and uncles in the previous statement so it was not that long ago.

And I don't see why they are going to get preferential treatment as someone pointed out earlier.

But like I said, I may very well be wrong so please take my posts with an acknowledgement that I may just come back and say you were right I want to do a bit more looking into this topic.

LtEve - great minds, etc, etc

Because it is a career that can lead to death or as I stated in my example before, an 18 year old boy with no limbs.

It is not the same as frying chips at McDonalds.

MillyR I agree, what I mean is people who choose it because they lack direction as to what career path to take and choose it because it seems safe and easy, which it is not.

Maybe check death rates for young men alongside the other checking you are doing - the military comes quite low on the list - its just that other deaths arent so widely publicised.

ANY career can lead to death though - heck I used to ride horses for a living and we all know what happened to Christopher Reeve.

What about all the positive things you can get out of a career in the military? Opportunity to study, career progression, travel the world (there are plenty of overseas postings that are not in war zones - DH has been in the RAF 11 years and has spent time in Poland, Canada, the Falklands, Ascension Island, Denmark to name but a few), etc.

The fact is that most military personnel are not front line these days. As I said, DH is RAF and, to all intents and purposes, flies a desk! He has to go to a firing range once a year to prove he can point a gun in the right direction if needed and that is the extent of his "killer" training.

As long as the recruiters don't say "You'll be 100% safe 100% of the time" then no one is being deluded or misled.

This is an old story - but may be relevant Here

I can see a flaw with this:

I've spent years working up to applying for a PGCE (would like to teach SEN). Access, degree, MA in Autism 2 / 3 completed- plan to apply next year.

Can I find any work placements? nope, nothing. Admittedly living in sight of a big teaching college doesn't help but still......

Will keep trying but no placement = years wasted for me. Have wanted to do this for twenty years!
Cannot help at ds's schools as they have ASD and it confuses them.

Would the ex forces staff bypass the experience requirement, or would the Government require schools to take them I wonder?

I don't think the services are going to be doing that much recruiting in the next few years anyway....

I said LDNMummy that I had far better experiences with mature NQTs and students with life experience who were going onto teaching as a second career than I did with fresh from uni grads, so I am not stereotyping/generalising, but talking about my experience with mentoring students and NQTs in my classroom. If you had read my post carefully, you would have seen that.

I'm sure your dp does take it seriously, but your average 22 year old does not have the years of honing teaching skills that you claim; I know, I did my PGCE with several of them.

'But I do believe that not all military people can automatically have the right qualities or tranferable skills to handle a classroom of very hormonal, rowdy and unruly kids because teaching is not just about that anyway.' By that token neither do many civilians. Teaching is about handling the unruly and disruptive sadly, don't kid yourself otherwise; a large proportion of your day will be spent dealing with consistent, wearing, low level disruption, and getting the best out of them as well as getting the best out of those who aren't disruptive. It is a fine balancing act. We go in fired by a love of subject and a passion for education, but it ain't like that in reality. Reality is a 60 hour week, no family time, constant planning and marking, and some weeks very little sleep. There will be classes you dread teaching and those you love teaching.

It's a great career, don't get me wrong, but I am more likely to recommend a military career to my ds than I would teaching.

Some people have odd views on what it is like in the military! That soldiers do what they are told purely because the person telling/asking them to holds more rank and because they want to be there may have applied once, but it doesn't any more. There aren't really huge consequences to not doing as you're asked these days either it seems.

I know a lot of people who have left the army and gone on to a teaching career. It's not a new thing. From what I can gather, those ex forces I know who are now teachers are good at what they do. Although one does joke that given the choice between facing his class of teenagers some mornings and facing the taliban, he'd choose the latter...

Lots of ex-forces go into teaching/education and yes, many do already have degrees and 'in-service' training that is very beneficial; many that don't use their resettlement time and money to train so are hardly being offered the job on a plate. This is nothing new, just a publicity/appeasement exercise.

I think you would be surprised at the kind of 22 year olds or people in their early twenties that I know including myself. The average 22 year old from inner city London or my socio economic background, like myself and my freinds, have experienced more than most thirty something year olds who have not lived the kind of life we have had growong up.

Most of them would make far better teachers IMO than military people who have had a life primarily steeped in military discourse, ideology and doctrine. Yes you can travel and experience things but your training is with a singular goal in mind and does not take into account diversity for instance. In the military the people you primarily interact with are cut of the same cloth as yourself because the people who make up the military are part of a culture within a culture, that is why there are military people and civilians. There is a clear distinction and always has been between the two types of social groups.

Military culture is based on the use of lethal force, violence, weaponry etc... People who are trained this way cannot just transfer their skills to teaching, they lack an understanding of life skills outside the military of how to relate to people who do not come from this kind of background.

I know the realities of teaching because my DP is doing it, I live with it.

Apologies if I missed the part about your experiences with mature NQT's, as I said, I think it is because of the history of the kind of people who would usually go into this kind of career. From what I am seeing this is changing now.

I think a 22 year old boy from an estate or working class background who has actual street knowledge and experience of what it is to be a young person in todays society means, will have a better chance as a teacher than military person who has led a completely different kind of life to these young people and who doesn't know how to relate. They may have the ability to put chalk to board and teach, but they will not have the interpersonal skills required to actually reach some of these kids.