to wonder if school staff rooms involve much parent bashing?

[lottielou39]

A comment below (in the thread about childcare being too expensive for people to do poorly paid part time work) from someone who worked in a nursery and said the weekly meetings were mostly about parent bashing, got me wondering. What are school staff rooms really like? I'd love to be a fly on the wall. Are parents slagged off on a daily basis? Which parents cause the most dread? Is it ever possible for a parent to have a valid gripe (in the eyes of the school staff room) or are they always stupid and annoying?

Its a shame you're close minded and have little respect for knowledge development.

In fact, there's a real irony in your attitude if indeed you are a teacher...

If you think that the fact that I am not interested by some random clip from youtube does reflect the fact that I have little respect for knowledge development, then that's fine by me. And yes I am a teacher.
Good luck on your crusade.

You're being extremely defensive... You didnt have to post, just don't watch it... Your comment about you tube was ridiculous, obviously you can't see that...

And I love the dismissive tone... Your little crusade. You really should work on your attitude...it's not very becoming of someone who is significantly responsible for shaping children and adolescents. I guess you know that already.

A bit busy right now. I've been up since 4.00.a.m.marking essays, finishing a model essay for my students started when I got home from work at 6.00.pm after a day beginning at 7.30.a.m. Oh, that day actually began at 5.00.a.m. with a brisk hour's marking.

That sort of thing.

I understand you don't have time, I know it's not an easy job and that's not down to you but the restrictions and demands placed upon you. There should be time made for you to be able to research, that's my point. I don't really get the defensiveness. In most other professions, research and development is key to being effective, however, this seems to be lost in the teaching profession. I'm not saying you're not doing good job. I'm saying more emphasis needs to be placed by the government on research and development.

There's quite a lot of R and D around. Unfortunately quite a lot is shite, or some bit gets cherry-picked, twisted about and foisted on teachers as the key to teaching and learning.

Brain Gym

Learning Styles

WILF/WALT

I'll take a look, thanks for posting.

I think it's not so much closed mindedness, as we get a LOT of 'latest thinking on the science of learning' chucked our way in INSET & so forth.

Some of it's quite useful, some of it is trendy for a year or two then quietly dropped (Thinking Hats? VAK?).

As a teacher, you quickly realise that the signal-to-noise ratio of stuff being trumpetted as cutting edge is pretty low, & develop strategies for filtering out the 'less likely to be useful'.

Random youtube links aren't getting past the filter unless they come recommended by someone other than erm, some random poster on t'interweb - if it's THAT amazing, honestly, it'll be coming to an INSET day near me sooner rather than later!

ravenAK that reminds of something I once read about how to account for VAK in your lessons:

Visual - read this
Auditory - listen to what I'm saying
Kinaesthetic - write this

:o

I agree all these methodologies you are getting bombarded with might not work and will be forgotten before they even start. The link I posted is higher level, it's not a specific methodology for teaching, it's a high level presentation on scientific findings about the plasticity and brilliance of the brain an how it changes with age, plus how malleable it is and how behaviours can really significantly change your capabilities. I found it very interesting.

Some background on me... My son was severely delayed due to visual impairment, we have played with him I'm targeted ways to build functioning in certain areas of his brain. 6 months later at 2.5 years old, he is no longer delayed...

I've been teaching a long time, and I've seen so many bandwagons come and go. What was last year's miracle solution to a problem becomes this year's snake oil sold by a shifty person with a hidden agenda.
So I like the idea of keeping up to date on appropriate strategies and theories, as long as someone develops a fool-proof crap filter so that we don't have to wade through the endless sludge whilst singing 'It's the best of all possible worlds'
Some parents are truly dreadful, many are far too egocentric and negligent to be allowed a breeding license. Most are doing the best job they can with reasonable success and some are fantastic and memorable and should be teaching the rest how to do it.
You could say the same of teacher. doctors or lawyers.

That sums it up.

Agree...