Reading all the experiences of pages being ripped out makes me sad.
What’s the point?
It’s outrageous that teachers are under so much pressure to show that all their students have ‘perfect’ books… to the point that they have to physically remove any trace of the learning process. Erasing reality.
It’s like a fucking filter on Instagram. What does this teach children?
Mistakes are proof you are trying.
And if the mistakes are genuinely unacceptable or deemed worthy of such drama then bloody well correct it and own the corrections… the corrections are meant to remain in the book to help the child with their progress- to refer back to and to document their development.
Who are these books for? Does the child have no ownership?
Or are they just for Ofsted?
What message is being given to children? That a mistake is so awful you need to physically remove it from ‘the perfect book’. That you can ‘magic away an error’. If it’s not there it didn’t happen? That’s not teaching accountability.
I found a load of my old school books in my mum’s loft the other day and I was amazed at the progression they documented and the mistakes, comments, re-written work etc. I’d be bloody pissed off if that had all been replaced by some perfect book, with no ‘working out’, no documentation of reality or the journey I went on.
Now I work in the NHS… where there are real issues with blame culture- people too afraid to get in trouble, too scared to speak up when mistakes are made because instead of being supported to learn from mistakes they fear the weight of an anxious institution crashing down on them.
And all the posters saying this couldn’t possibly have happened… what planet are you residing?
At school I saw:
a dinner lady lock a disabled child in an empty class room and scream at him because he was crying (he was distressed about not having his usual wheelchair- as it was being repaired). I saw two other adults watch in horror and do absolutely nothing.
my best friend forced to stand in front of the entire class and read the definition of ‘arrogant’ from the dictionary, then the teacher said, “that’s what you are”- my friend needed counselling not an arsehole for a teacher.
a year 5 teacher demand his students hug him.
a teacher shout at a 5 year old with undiagnosed absence seizures, saying “now the whole class will have to sit and wait because x has decided she is so much more important than everyone else that she has decided not to listen and is daydreaming again”… then a teacher shouted at the same 5 year old for vomiting on the ‘brand new carpet’ after having a seizure because they didn’t tell anyone they felt sick (they did but were told to go back to their table and carry on with their work).
teachers ignoring racism.
a teacher erasing a recording (for French oral gcse) because the student got the answer wrong and so they stopped the recording, told them the correct answer and rerecorded it.
a religious studies teacher have a breakdown whilst teaching a year 10 class and started screaming and handing out detentions because they were unable to take their chairs off their tables and place them on the floor COMPLETELY silently.
a physics teacher who sat at the front of the class and dictated out of a text book for an entire lesson, with the class writing down everything she read… and occasionally she paused to say “everyone hates me”.
a cover teacher who came into the classroom, he was meant to be teaching Latin… but, and I kid you not… proceeded to switch the lights off and tell the class to be quiet so he could sleep. Which he then did, in almost pitch black.
teachers making homophobic comments during a duke of Edinburgh expedition.
a teacher shouting at a 4 year old who was crying after the death of their three month old sibling.
a teacher in a primary school bullying a child with autism and physically dragging him out from under a table where he was hiding.
as an aside, I was waiting in line at an airport once and a man struck up conversation, half way through he said he used to be a school teacher… then informed me that people with Tourette’s ‘just need a good slap’… and that he wouldn’t have put up with any swearing or spitting in his classroom.
a teacher who scratched big red crosses all over a 5 year old’s maths and threw the book back on the table because they decided they got the answers wrong deliberately. The same child with the absence seizures… who was missing half the lessons whilst in epilepsy land.
an by au pair who pulled down a 7 year olds pants and smacked them so hard ‘for not staying in bed’ that they child lost control of their bowels.
adults who think they can behave any way they like because they’re bigger and stronger and more believable.
Obviously I’ve met outstanding teachers, teachers who deserve giant medals made out of chocolate and wine. Teachers who change lives and inspire young people to excel.
But that doesn’t mean bad stuff doesn’t happen.
So we shouldn’t be so bloody quick to assume either way. Listen to children… for better or worse, these formative years shape the adults they become.