Quirky Teacher: 'How I wish more parents would read my blog'

[allchildrenreading]

wp.me/p5b7Us-4w

This teache is always worth reading but this one is particularly relevant for parents - it's a good read, too! It will be interesting to hear Mumsnetters' response.

OMG! Sorry about the outrageous multiple post! I don't know wtf my phone thinks it's doing.

LOL at Holmes : report one of them to MNHQ and they will tidy up the thread for you!

I think quite a lot of the children who he felt were doing badly also did badly in the old system.

Children have always fidgeted and been punished for it, in schools. Read his earlier post on lack of concentration and apply it to someone with sensory issues and you see where he lacks understanding.

The music teaching blog again slightly misses the point. Those who cannot read music or do maths (Music is of course technically very mathematical) but love listening and participating are going to be told that they are not allowed to progress to the next stage because they haven't mastered the building blocks?? That would be as outrageous as telling someone who cannot hold a pencil properly that they are not allowed to paint with colours.

"Traditional teaching methods, particularly those relating to behaviour, simply would not work on today's pupils."

Holms...I'm interested in what you have in mind here, and why you think it wouldn't work?

I don't recognise the picture he paints at all from my experience in primary school so far. Although I'm in Scotland so perhaps that is the difference.

He doesn't found like he has very much respect for either parents or his colleagues. From that blog, I'm glad he's not teaching my children.

Kestrel - well, corporal punishment for a start. I have heard people (often of the older generation) say that the cane should be reintroduced. Now clearly that's not going to happen, because it's illegal. But I think what they fail to realise is that the ways in which teachers seem to have dealt with naughty pupils in the past (corporal punishment, standing in the corner, humiliation, having the board rubber thrown at you, running laps round the school field etc) just either wouldn't have the desired effect or the pupils would simply refuse to put up with it.

The old ways of dealing with kids were used at a time when that respect for (or fear of ) teachers still existed. I wouldn't want to return to that, but the 'Who the hell do you think you are, telling me what to do?!' attitude isn't great either.

Do you not think that a return to a time when we respected others would be a positive thing?

Um, I read the list and only found myself agreeing with number 15. Maybe my children's primary school is in a parallel universe?

Having read some of quirky teachers post I think they are in the parallel universe

Or maybe just struggling with teaching in a school that sounds like it has some issues?

The picture painted is nothing at all like the good state primary I have experience of with my kids for the last 6 years.

I've read some more.

It reads to me like someone who has a very idealistic view of what the coalface job actually entails.

Let's face it, how many teachers have time to do fancyschmancy blogs?

I'm glad my daughter's primary teachers were busy, y'know, doing the actual teaching tbh. They were brilliant, dedicated and hard-working. They had their moans about the system, who doesn't? But when teachers throw themselves into these online campaigns to Get Things Changed Because They Know Best, I do wonder about the efforts they are putting in to their current classrooms given that change, whilst good (in some cases) necessary (in others) and inevitable (more or less) is probably not going to come around because of a pile of blogs.

Let's face it, how many teachers have time to do fancyschmancy blogs?

Are you for real? What the hell is wrong with you.

Have we really reached a stage where it is ACCEPTABLE for a teacher not to have enough of their OWN TIME in a week to tap out 1500 words?

That is going to be about 2 hours, give or take.

Teachers are not expected to have 2 hours free within a week for their own hobbies and interests?

What if the teacher is a parent. Does spending 2 hours a week with their children make you wonder if they are doing their job properly?

Do you advocate slavery?

But when teachers throw themselves into these online campaigns to Get Things Changed Because They Know Best, I do wonder about the efforts they are putting in to their current classrooms

So you want teachers to follow blindly like sheep when they are in a position to see that the policies and principles they are forced to follow is detrimental to the education of their students.

Do you expect them to dedicate happily dedicate their lives to fucking up the education of children?

Of course, that is why they wanted to become teachers in the first place

So your view in a nutshell, is teachers are not allowed to care about the chaos and crap going on all around them, and heaven forbid that they should have an hour or two free during the week, they should have their noses to the grindstone, churning out chaos and crap as instructed 24/7, with no respite.

I have been teaching for 21 years.

As you were.

seriously, GET OUT.

You have lost all sense of reason, and proportion.

You have been completely subsumed into the system.

You need to get out straight away.

But I'll bold back at you if that's OK?

Have we really reached a stage where it is ACCEPTABLE for a teacher not to have enough of their OWN TIME in a week to tap out 1500 words?

Of course not. Don't be so silly. I have managed to write 50,000 words of a book over the last two years.

Teachers are not expected to have 2 hours free within a week for their own hobbies and interests?

See above.

What if the teacher is a parent. Does spending 2 hours a week with their children make you wonder if they are doing their job properly?

I am a parent. What on earth is your point here? I don't know if the blogger is a parent. Nor do I care.

Do you advocate slavery?

No. That's one of the reasons I don't wear clothes from Primark. Again, your point being?

So you want teachers to follow blindly like sheep when they are in a position to see that the policies and principles they are forced to follow is detrimental to the education of their students

Why would I?

Do you expect them to dedicate happily dedicate their lives to fucking up the education of children?

See above.

Of course, that is why they wanted to become teachers in the first place

No, I expect it was because of the holidays. (NB: Charis, as you are clearly a very literal bear, that was a joke)

So your view in a nutshell, is teachers are not allowed to care about the chaos and crap going on all around them, and heaven forbid that they should have an hour or two free during the week, they should have their noses to the grindstone, churning out chaos and crap as instructed 24/7, with no respite

No. No. No and to your last non-question, No.

You really need to read things properly and think about stuff before you come charging onto threads shouting and bawling. You do make yourself look silly.

Of course teachers should care, and should shout loud and clear when something isn't working. I believe wholeheartedly that 99.9% of teachers went into the job because they cared. I believe that 99.9% of them do a fantastic job.

What I think about educational bloggers who think they've reinvented the wheel is another thing entirely.