To think that each our government members should spend the day walking in the shoes of the people they represent.

[FontSnob]

The most obvious, from my point of view, being the delightful Mr.Gove. I think that he needs to spend some time in a bog standard secondary comprehensive, teaching a full timetable for a week and doing all of the marking, parent evenings, meetings etc.

This is not because I think teaching is the hardest job in the world but because I don't think he has a clue as to who our kids are. He makes decisions and spouts his expectations of what he thinks our kids should do and be and then stated we should make a return to Victorian values! He tells the teachers they don't do their job properly, but I don think he actually knows what our job is. I think a stint teaching might bring him back to the 'real world' a little.

I don't think it's just Gove who should spend some time at the coal face, he is just my own particular example.

Aibu or is anyone else fecked off with being told what's right by people who haven't got the first clue?

I don't think he ever went to a comprehensive school! He went to an elite indie!

Fantastic thread and great ideas - loved snoopdogg's.

Agree about Nick Clegg - maybe he could shadow a tramp or something ie someone with no particular role in society? And just because it would be rather fun to watch.

Fraidylady unlike the labour lefties who just all grew up in work houses lol

maypole
the real issue is that those setting the policy should have a BREADTH of knowledge about how the WHOLE of the system works.

I went to Nayce Gels private and then GDST and the RG

until I started work (temping) I had NO IDEA that there were genuinely thick people and that other people had no self motivation

many of the people writing policy today are as blinkered as I was at 21

that scares the crap out of me (and all my graduate / phd / prof friends)

TalkinPeace2 to be honest they cant do any worse i work with sw on a daily basis and they seemly had the insider scoop and i would be scared shitless if any of them were running things or making policy

my oh agrees he is a nurse and his mangers are a bunch of twats who wont pay them over time but instead hire agency nurses at triple the cost

you don't need to walk in someone's shoes you just have to have your wit about you and someone common sense

schools don't need more money

rigour, discipline and zero tolerance are free
only something like 10 teachers have been sacked in the past 40 years we all knows their rot in the state system don't need to put someone's shoes on to see that

bad teachers are simply asked to leave quietly given a good reference as a bribe then the issue is moved on

plenty of school don't seem to have the leadership that will help them enforce school rules
(shame they don't strike about that really) instead with the system on its knees they strike about their own wage packet

the real scandal is not that pensions are being cut is that so many children age 11 leave school unable to read

But Maypole
my lovely GDST brushed under a very large rug the fact that the HT was a disaster and half the cohort had to retake their exams elsewhere
the HT was given a GLOWING reference to move on.
Her next (high profile Gels school) had two years of chaos till they fired her
the GDST fired the governors of my old school and the WHOLE thing was hushed up
even more effectively than the state system does
BUT
our parents were paying thousands per year for the privilege of that shite management

the first my parents knew that I had not attended any lessons for a whole term was my A level results

my kids state school would NEVER be so lax

Problem is Maypole that Gove doesn't seem to have a CLUE about who our kids are and the best ways to communicate with them. Not a clue. It's not about more money, its about sorting our the constant stream of drivel that gets passed down to us from the govt. Yes you get crappy teachers/heads/managers, but they aren't running the entire system. He is, he needs to know, how can he not?

FontSnob well its a shame its the only thing they seem to strike about of all the things teachers could strike about the lack of discipline or support when a allegation is made the fact bad teachers are left and make it harder for everyone else, sats health and safety mu god the list gose on

But in the end the teachers strike about money

And to be honest I think bringing back the old school discipline is what I want as a parent I don't want media studies I want history taught, I want sports days brought back and no every ones not a winner can't do worse than the last lot they well and truly fucked things up

Well, we have sports days, and history is taught...so i'm not sure I get your point.

"We should recover something of that Victorian earnestness which believed that an audience would be gripped more profoundly by a passionate, hour-long lecture from a gifted thinker which ranged over poetry and politics than by cheap sensation and easy pleasures."

Once in a while they would do this, generally the technological age that they are brought up in means that the way they concentrate, learn and communicate is a tad different to the days of the Victorians. I've said it before, we need progressive thinkers, not someone who thinks that returning to some long ago glory day (what % of childern went to school until age 18 in the Victorian age?) is the educational ideal. As for discipline, yes absolutly teachers need support from the head down, it also needs to come from parents and It doesn't help when parents give their children the day off to play the latest COD.

He can very well do worse than the last lot, he is going to alienate many children from school.

northeastofeden Why do I think that Lansley should follow nurses and HCPs rather than the consultants and registrars?

I don't really know if I'm honest. I think that he'd see being a nurse or HCP as being 'beneath' him, so I think to have him shadowing there so he can see how hard it is at the bottom of the tree wouldn't do him any harm. I'd feel sorry for the patients and staff he was with though.

The same as I'd want Gove to follow a class teacher, rather than a headteacher. Headteachers don't work any less hard, but it's a different job to be doing analysis and paperwork and dealing with the LA and perhaps teaching a couple of classes, than being in a classroom 25 hours a week.

I'd love Gove to come to my school. I'd show him the effects of his government's budget cuts on the school. I'd show him the exceptionally weak Y7s who are now struggling to keep up in a large class because we had to cut their small support group. I'd show him the C/D borderline groups who might now not get a C because we had to cut their extra support. I'd show him the number of teachers who are now teaching outside of their specialism because we had to make teachers redundant and then fill the timetable gaps where we could. I'd show him the classrooms I teach in, with the leaky windows and holes in the walls, the ancient flaky paint and the freezing cold portacabins and hark wistfully back to the days when we thought we'd get a new school building from the Building Schools for the Future fund before the Tories scrapped it. I'd get him to talk to our TAs who will mention how so many of their colleagues lost their jobs and the SEN children who are going unsupported as a result.

And then I'd tell him to take his King James Bible and fuck off.

I'd possibly tell him to shove it up his bum, alongside his victorial values, in rank order. It would be so much fun to get him for a webchat.

flisspaps that makes sense, I hope Lansley doesn't see nurses and HCP's beneath him! It seems to be hard at all levels for front line staff in the NHS from what I've seen. On a recent visit to A&E followed by admission onto a ward for DH for a few days the thing that impressed me the most, especially about the nursing staff was their ability to keep smiling in spite of everything. Don't think I could do it!

Great idea.

I was a bit that George Osbourne did history at uni. WTAF?! How is he the chancellor???

it would be nice for someone to have a clue what it is like as a Carer with no idea where the top up money for bills will come from in 6 weeks.

I actually think its a daft idea. Gove isn't a teacher so obv he wouldn't be any good at it. Should he spend time being a GP, police officer etc too?

Serenity that's the EXACT reason that Gove should do it because he's not a teacher.

but he doesn't need to be a teacher, hes a government minister. People who do these jobs (teacher, policeman etc)don't have the skills to write policy,make nationwide decisons etc, so why shoud he have the skills to be a teacher? makes no sense.

They're different job, one "being the boss" of the other. Its like saying the CEO of coca cola should do the receptionists job for a month so they know how to use the switchboard. The CEO doesn't need to know how to use the switchboard to make strategic decisons as the employer.

I would dearly love good ol' Dave to experience a few weeks living in a council flat riddled with damp, on benefits with a kid or two to boot, and see how he copes. He seems to have a real loathing of single parents, yet seems to have no idea how they manage.

I'd equally like Twat face May to spend some time in an immigration detention centre.

Because his decisions have such far reaching implications. He should have more than a dry theoretical understanding of how things work.

And you do get organisations where senior staff have done the lower ranked jobs or job shadow.

well I disagree. He'd have to work as a teacher for a long time to get a true understanding, and then he'd lose sight of his purpose.

He isn't there to please everyone- he can't be stupid enough to not understand that cuts= more problems in a school. He doesn't need to be actually shown all of them, case by case.

Who said he should see all of them? Who said he should become a teacher?

It's about recognising that human beings are being affected nnot numbers on a page. Which is clearly what he thought when he decided to cut or halt schools building programme in a hurry when starting in office, meaning many schools are screwed.

Serenity
he can't be stupid enough to not understand that cuts
Oh yes he can.

serenitysutton another poster made the point earlier that many people in government have never experienced life outside a wealthy middle class bubble and they have no understanding at all as to how their decisions affect individuals. How can it be a bad thing for them to experience how the other half live? You can't make good policy on behalf of the people you are (supposed) to represent if you do not have the first clue about them.
We'll end up with our very own Marie Antoinette telling us to eat cake!
Remember politicians are here to serve us, not their own ends, not the ends of the wealthy or big business, but all of us. So far they are doing very well as serving themselves and their big biz buddies. Not their job.