Teachers - what is your opinion? Please look!

[Donk]

I am in a lovely school on a placement from my Return To Teaching course. I have had the opportunity to observe a number of lessons, including year 12 at play during their study skills week. The atmosphere is calm and welcoming. The students courteous (don't faint with shock). The students seem very happy. The staff work hard - and get excellent results (82% with a very comprehensive intake, albeit low FSM and virtually no EAL). The school work very hard for their results with a great deal of personalised learning and they have a good CVA.
BUT the students are totally spoon fed in pursuit of the exam results and are very passive learners who are not good at independent learning/taking the intiative.
Does it matter?
If so, what can be done about it?

It does matter, but I'm sure you'll find it's not uncommon.

Can set kids a topic to learn by themselves and maybe get them to present it to the class (giving them OHT's to prepare wrks well) - or maybe they can make posters for the class room explaining a topic..

Get them to mark their own/other stduents hwk (can save you work too!!).

I always insist that my students check and self-mark work and attempt corrections before they give it in so that I can concentrate on real problems, which encourages good study skills. (I'm a maths teacher, tis might not work for your subject)

I think that kids who are spoonfed at this stage often fall down later on, but tbh it's getting to be the norm, and formal exams every 6 months doesn't help

As teachers we are judged on exam results, from the age of 6 upwards so it's inevitable that spoon feeding goes on, after all the teachers know the syllabus / mark schemes / topics covered etc so that your students get the results and you don't get the SMT on your back!

I agree with ninja about encouraging them to ask questions about the subject and research around subjects.

I use my wikispace to get them to produce resources and answer questions.

We are instigating the Opening Minds Curriculum at our school.
We need to turn our pupils into young adults prepared for the future. Too much spoon-feeding has turned them into wimps!

Have a look at the videos on Teachers TV about Opening Minds as well

TBH, I've found that the schools I have worked in with the best exam results have relied on spoon feeding to get those great results. One school even used to have a teacher to enforce silent study periods when the kids had free periods - and that was for the 18 year olds. Its a shame, because I think sometimes students do need the freedom to work it out for themselves, and for some that will mean failing. But, with league tables schools can't afford to do this. That's life, but not all that uncommon I'm afraid.

I worry that

1. If students are spoon fed all the time, how are they going to cope when they go to work/university/other?
2. The effect of this passivity on their intrinsic motivation. What happens when nobody else is cracking the whip?
3. The effect of this passivity on their ability to cope when the learning isn't so easy - what happens when (dread word) they fail? Will they dig deeper or, having never had to, just give up? Learning to recover from/bounce back from failure is a vital ability. If we protect students from failure how are they supposed to become resilient? This is not to say that we should just let them go hang themselves (so to speak) - but surely they need to learn that failure is not the end of the world, and that they can move on from failure to succeed.

I also use a wiki space and a message board to let them explore stuff for themselves

They are passive and we do spoon feed too much.

Agree totaly with the last poster, mates of mine who teach at university say that this is becoming a real prolem for them in the student that they see,.

Kids need to fail sometimes, so that they can learn from the experience, grow more reslient and become more independent.

We are also far to worried about hurting their poor feelings to tell them honestly when their work is below standard. when then get to the world of work if the repot they produce is crap their boss will tell then, not fanny about saing, 'Well I think the font you chose was excellent and the binding looks stunning' He or she will say 'This is crap, do it again!'

Donk, it is really sad.
I remember my mum telling me to think of original things to say in my exams. Eg Not what I'd read in Brodies notes about Hamlet!! I did and got top results.

But now, teachers get so much stick when children fail from parents. It can get quite scary. All my dh did was tell the truth about a pupil and parents attacked and blamed him. (said that child really needed to think for himself, take a bit more responsibility for work and not expect to get spoonfed answers/coursework ideas etc) Luckily, it was mocks and this kid pulled his socks up in time.

Thank God there are some lovely ones out there that make trying to be a good teacher worthwhile for him!

Sorry, didn't suggest much that can be done about it!!
What I meant to say was that however hard a teacher can try to get them to think outside the box some of them need to be spoonfed to maximise chances of a good mark. Very sad.
Ah, my teachers were mostly very good. A long long time ago.....

From a parent of ex school children who are now home edded. My eldest in particular, who is 10, can't bear to get anything wrong, to the extent she will try to discuss every answer with me before even attempting to write it down. Slowly she is becoming more able to accept that she has to do it herself and then discuss what went wrong if anything. If she'd been taught at school that she was supposed to do her own work in her own way and deal with the outcome herself then I think she'd be a stronger person all round.
just my opinion though

I have worked with 'G&T maths' children who were only interested in getting 'the right answer'. As you say they were very good at passing exams -they got the top 10% results for KS2, thus the label attached- but their enthusiasm for learning and investigation was disappointing.
It is hard when the curriculum demands that the only demonstration of education is passing exams, I tend to try and devlop open ended activities which ultimately bring about the same end 'learning goal' but try to encourage the children to discover for themselves. Its easier if you start them early, its much harder for those who have been in the spoon feeding system and have not been encouraged to take responsibility fo rtheir learning. School has so long been about getting the right answer that children lack the confidence to explore for themselves. Its this confidence in learning to get it wrong that we need to develop.

Donk, I fully agree. I now teach at a college, where the students have to work off their own bat, some do fail and do get kicked out of college - but the reputation is nowhere near that of the previous two schools I taught in. Yet, I would say that at the college, the students are much better prepared for uni and life. But still, we struggle against parents choosing other institutes because their results are better, so it has a better rep (but that is achieved by spoon feeding). So its a viscous circle....

Nell12, the Openminds programme looks interesting although I note that Campion School who strongly promote it have just got a notice to improve from Ofsted - on the other hand they got an outstanding for their 6th form. Maybe you have to wait that long to see the results?