That glass ceiling! Part 2

[var123]

Continuing the discussion about artificial limits placed on G&T children, and the resulting impact on their health and happiness (not to mention futures).

Do they really matter less because they have a perceived "advantage"?!

original thread here:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/gifted_and_talented/2507232-The-glass-ceiling-for-very-able-children?

Then I'm a bit confused - you have said that textbooks are required for you to trust a teacher. But textbooks are only used at home? So if DS has a Science textbook, which he keeps at home, then that would make his teacher more trustworthy than if he didn't have a Science textbook? And his Science teacher, who has provided a textbook, should be regarded as more trustworthy than his History teacher, who has not? And by extension, the Science department more trustworthy than the Histiry department, despite the fact that absolutely all the evidence in terms of teaching quality, results, leavers' destinations etc points absolutely the other way?

opioneers,

It will vary somewhat by institution and by level. In my Primary PGCE, it was part of the 'Pedagogy and Management' thread, of which there were two term-long units, each as far as i can remember with several lectures / seminars a week. I genuinely can't remember for how many weeks of those courses we covered G&T - i did my final assessed esay ion it, so i did quite a lot, others will have just done the lectures / seminars.

I don't know whether in secondary there is more focus on 'teaching the gifted in your specific subject', because there isn't such pressure to 'cover how to teach all the primary curriculum subjects as well as pedagogy' IYSWIM?

No - textbooks live at home (children live at home). They may be used at school though I would rather teachers taught at school most of the time. In accordance with the logical progression of the text book but adding to that experience eg DD is going to see a play of the Iliad next week before the DC read it. They are studying antiquity in history and myths and legends in French. They've also been to look at Greek remains in the Louvre. Done some presentations. But they constantly refer to/revise from a textbook.

"In accordance with the logical progression of the curriculum and school scheme of work but adding to that experience eg DS is going to see a Shakespeare play before the DC read it."

"But they constantly refer to/revise from the curriculum materials that their teachers have prepared as part of the school's scheme of work, that can include a textbook but may include other materials, on paper or alternatively proprietary or carefully selected online materials"

Oops, bold fail in the second part. I appreciate that in some cases, the more flexible provision from the English school may in part be a pragmatic response to the constant changes of curriculum and exam requirements - so easily-edited selections of different materials are used rather than a fixed textbook. But it is not a choice between 'textbook or unstructured free for all' IME.

Bobo what you are describing of the French system is very much what I have experienced too (and I know is still in place. A few of my friends are teachers there).

YY to their respect of teachers, even though people in France would tell you that this respect is getting eroded there too.

I would say that it goes further away than that. It's an issue with respect for knowledge and studying.
Just look around at what people are saying. 'Oh xx isn't interested in school anymore. He'll just do an apprenticeship and I'm sure he will be fine' or 'you don't need to go to Uni to have a high powered job. If you have it in you, then you can do like and still earn plenty'

There is no incentive in the general population to value studies and schools.
What is valued is how much money you are making and self made people. Not the academic ones or for that matter, anyone who did really well at studying and got to a top University. You are more likely to get a 'oh yay but he went to Oxford so what do you want me to say?', ie meaning Oxford = private schools, posh, elite (and not in the real world), in effect, not meritocracy on the ground of hard work and/or high abilities but on the ground of wealth and been born in the right class.

I hear around me lots of people who would literally cringe at the idea of the DC going to Oxbridge. It's not seen as a good thing rather as a hindrance that stops you from seeing the real world and stop you from learning things that are actually useful.

"Just look around at what people are saying. 'Oh xx isn't interested in school anymore. He'll just do an apprenticeship and I'm sure he will be fine"

Well for a lot of people that is true...........Why is an apprenticeship such a bad idea?

As an example, I had a conversation with a few other mums about their dcs applying to University.

First thing that was said was 'oh yes so and so DC is going to Durham/Oxford. Well ... That's very academic isn't it? Not at all like xx Uni that is much more vocational' read there more practical and useful than these places where you just learn 'knowledge'. (Comment actually made like this).

Or comments about 'things been done like in the industry and not just theoretical knowledge' so that it's actually useful stuff.
Except that what you are doing now in the industry isn't going to stay like for every. If you don't have the 'theoretical knowledge' how are you going to adapt to new ways of doing things?

Tbh I've found that all the way. If it's not immediately useful, then it's not worth teaching (even though it might be a very helpful first step to be able to master xx technique).
Learning to write is a good example of that. Children are taught to write letters. They aren't taught to hold a pencil, do a straight line or follow a dotted line. They aren't tight about proportion either (especially when they are tight on white sheet of paper like my dcs were)
The result are children whose writing is atrocious and you are struggling to read them (compare that the level of hand writing in France...). And anyway 'people don't write anymore. They use computer so it doesn't matter'....

bet it is when you are talking about totally able children who can't be bothered to make the effort.

It is symptomatic of the idea that knowledge isn't important. Being clever might be.

So yes for some children, it's very much the right choice. But for others, it's just an easy way out.

I think it's also linked with a lot of other cultural pov (such as attitude to work etc)

Not making the effort is a different thing.

It's perfectly possible to be very able, but not interested in pursuing an academic path.........

It's also perfectly possible to be very able and not want to go to Oxbridge- it isn't for everyone.

I got a place to read English at Oxford, but ended up going to art school instead and never looked back ...

I'd be perfect happy if my daughter decided to do, say, a vocational course in sound engineering (she's a musician) instead of going to medical school as she claims to want to do. In fact she often tells me that studying medicine (she likes the idea of pathology - strange child) is her fall back in case her musical career fails to take off .

There is probably somewhat more respect for learning in France, but this is largely because the job market requires people to be ridiculously overqualified in order to get work (before he set up his own business, my DH was applying for accounting jobs requiring several years' experience but still barely paying more than the minimum wage).

Although it is fair to say that there is more appreciation of the value of a broad education here (what the French call "culture generale") and that even students doing post-16 vocational courses have to study a range of general subjects.

I wonder if the change in attitudes towards the teaching profession is linked to the greater number of parents being exposed to post 16 and tertiary education?

When I was a child, teachers were one of the vanishingly small groups we had contact with who had been to school beyond 16. The other group were doctors.

In short, teachers knew more, so parents trusted them (sometimes naively).

Today, parents are far more likely to have had a similar or better education than their children's teachers. And even those that haven't, have access to the internet and social media. Thus the gap between what a teacher knows and what a parent knows has narrowed/disappeared.

Couple this with the fact that previously voiceless groups are no longer prepared to be silent (particularly women) and perhaps the erosion of unquestioning respect was bound to happen?

Even though they are much disliked by the teaching unions, don't the free schools, academies and some independents provide individual teachers with a chance to break free from it all?

I teach in an academy, the government keeps banging on about how these have all these freedoms, but at the chalk face it actually means bog all. We still have ofsted, our results still go into the league tables, and we still have to put up with all the bull that the government decides, like SATS resits in Y7, and everyone having to take the ebacc. And actually, being an academy which is part of a multi academy trust means that although new teachers might apply for a job at my school, their contract is a MAT contract, so the school can say 'here's your timetable, btw some of your lessons are at one of our other schools in the next town along'.

Eric but that suggests that teachers don't deserve respect, and the eroding has been a sort of 'scales falling from eyes' process.

Certain areas of the media hate teachers and are always willing to do a hatchet job on them. It's amazing how many people think that we finish at half 3 and have an easy life with tonnes of holidays.

We do have tonnes of holidays, but not an easy life!

Trust?

Ok, thinking back over the teachers who I have trusted the characteristic that they've all had was honesty. Using buzzwords - like resilience and mastery - are a red flag. They make me look up sharply to find out what you are trying to hide. If you look me in the eye and get your message across in a normal way, then I'm on your side, even when I don't like your message.
e.g. the Y4 teacher sat me down in September and told me that DS2 was too far ahead. She knew he was ready for the next level but she knew she wouldn't be able to deliver it because she had too many children who were behind where they should be. My reaction was to understand her position and completely respect her professionalism.

On the other hand, some frank admissions aren't acceptable. The MFL teacher who said she'd received a list of children who had SEN but had never bothered to open it, didn't leave a great impression. Nor did the HoD who didn't know that Ds1 was quite able in his subject, even though he was their prize winner for highest attainment the previous year.

Distrust sets in, however, when the teacher offers scepticism when you ask about extension work or G&T. I can live with it for the first couple of weeks, but after that I am scornful that they haven't bothered to read the previous teachers reports or note their own test scores.

The other necessary component was that they knew my child. (In secondary that means not having to sneak a look at the desk plan to put a name to the child's face across the desk from you at parent's night. Actually knowing something about their ability in your subject is a bonus).
At primary, its a bit more. You want the teacher to maybe be able to say a whole sentence about your child that shows they "get" them.

That's what makes me trust my Dcs own teachers. However, trusting the teaching profession as a whole is harder. I think it comes down to your unions and how they mis-manage the media. Bow Crow of RMt used to routinely try to wind up the public. He needed them to be angry so that the govt would be pressured into doing whatever it took to get the tube running again. He didn't care how the public perceives his drivers because they were nice and safely distanced from the passengers.

Teachers cannot take that route. The teaching unions need to remember that they are representing a body professional, decent, honourable people and present you in that light. You don't make "demands", you make reasonable requests. You don't go on strike because you see the classroom as an inadequate work environment, you see the classroom as a place for children and you each struggle with your conscience when going on strike and only do so when you feel there are no other avenues open to you. (Then you ban anyone with orange, purple or green hair or with tattoos on display from standing under a NUT banner in a march).

Eric - my teachers at school were better educated than my mother, though of lower social class. Currently, I am better educated (by far) than all DD's teachers and in a whole other socio-economic universe. It really doesn't make things easy. French middle school is not where the best teachers end up - primary was quite different, as was the DSSs' lycee, so I have something to compare to the current situation.

French teachers as a group also talk about the erosion of unquestioning respect. I always feel like saying "but this is a good thing. Surely you want to be good enough at your job that you earn the respect of pupils and parents? Who wants unquestioning respect, which is meaningless?"

Hang on- are you saying that teachers should be better educated than their pupil's parents? Or am I misunderstanding?

There is no should, Bertrand. It's a statement of fact that the relative educational attainment of parents and teachers has changed. It's not a value judgement.

I also suspect that the change in relative educational attainment of teachers and parents goes some way to explaining the entirely irrational attachment to PGCE/QTS. Being a "qualified teacher" confers status upon teachers versus parents that their degree and socio-economic status does not.

Soooo- anyone who teaches a child of mine should have a PhD and three degrees. Oh, no, hang on. Dp's got a PhD...........

Bobo- do please tell me you're taking the piss now...........

You seem not to understand the conversation, Bertrand.

Bobo

mistigri and Bert my post was talking about a very specific issue. not about the fact that Oxbridge isn't for everyone. I'm sure we will all agree to that. Sighh.

I'm talking about attitude to knowledge and whether knowledge is valued as such (as it would in academic places such as durham) or it is only valued when it has a direct use.
I'm talking about value put onto learning and education as a whole, whatever it means for a specific individual.
Is knowledge something that is valued in the UK? What do you think? Or working and being an active member of the societry who doesn't rely on the state/their parents/whoever else is actually much more valued?

If knowledge isn't valued, why would the people who are there to transmit knowledge (ie teachers) be valued?