Teachers - what are your views on education? Are you for a creative curriculum or more traditional styles of teaching?

[magdalene]

"There are two fundamentally different views of education. On the one hand, there is the emphasis on the child. The insistence that everything must be relevant to the child's experience and to the perceived needs of society. The argument that the teacher should be the mentor or coach who facilitates the growth of the child's understanding. The current obsession with personalisation. On the other, there is the belief that the school is an institution in which children are initiated by teachers, who are authorities in their subjects, into a body of knowledge which has no immediate connection to their lives or necessary relevance to the problems of society. I believe in the latter" Chris Woodhead

What are your views? I think education should be a combination of the two. I am concerned that the 'creative curriculum' has gone too much the other way and acquiring knowledge is seen as Victorian and dull. If you have inspiring teachers with excellent subject knowlege then they can make their lesson lots of fun!

I'm with you OP, it's all about finding the balance.

Thank you. Teachers at my DD's school have been saying that children should teach themselves instead of teachers 'teaching'. I find this ridiculous; what is the role of the teacher if they are not there to teach? And when I asked what was wrong with teachers standing at the front, I was told some children can't sit still for ten minutes!!!

Well in one sense I'm all for autonomous learning, motivated children will learn themselves... But there's a limit IMO, in a school environment anyway (homeschooling is different obviously!)

I've not much recent experience, but as long as my DD keeps feeling that learning/finding out is wonderful I think she will be ok.

Well personally, I feel that if I can't engage on a meaningful level with the kids that I teach, I have lost them. For me, it's all about making learning accessible, relevant and fun. I'm sure most teachers would agree. Woodhead is an arse.

And as dodgy as fuck to boot.

Yes, cat64 - there is always an aspect of 'hard slog' or drudgery and children need to learn that. What happens when they get to secondary school and have to work at something difficult but they are so used to doing what they want to do the whole time..
I actually think Woodhead cares very passionately about education and wants all children to succeed. I can understand why teachers loathe him though!!
I worry that the 'creative curriculum' will create an even bigger divide between what is being taught in the state and private sectors. Also, my DD is hungry for knowlege; asks questions all the time! She wants to know about earth, space, gravity, the sea etc and needs a teacher to answer these questions for her. Wow, those questions are really interesting

"I can understand why teachers loathe him though!!"

Can you? And this includes the dodgy sex with his 17 year pupils while he was a married man then, yes?

Oh yes! Not the best thing to do! Didn't think it was more than one though!I know he is not a popular guy at the best of times because he says it is sometimes.

One of the difficulties if you don't fully agree with either position, is the problem finding a balance. Can you have it both ways - ceding authority to the teacher for some aspects of the curriculum, and some to the child? This can cause confusion in the mind of the child, let alone teachers - who is in charge of which bits? I've come round to the conclusion after many years that I as teacher/adult have a better idea than small children what needs to be part of the curriculum. I do get children frequently telling me that I am wrong and they do not need (want) to learn this or that. Taking charge of the curriculum does not go hand in hand with making it dull, or 'irrelevant'. But small children are not the best judges of relevance beyond the immediate IMHO.

I think you can have it both ways ... but there are somethings that simply have to be "taught".
Presenting it in an interesting, meaningful context and allowing children the chance to use taught skills to strengthen their learning and independence makes sense.

Yes mrz - TOTALLY agree! And Malaleuca - great points! please can you both come into my DD's school and drill some sense into them? Is this child-centred approach taken from Ofsted? For what it's worth, I think Ofsted are a pile of poo but many parents take a lot of notice of them.

my feeling (and i'm not a teacher but work in informal education) is that education in 21st century should be about skills rather than knowledge.

with the access we all have today to 'facts' the issue isn't about lack of information it's about knowing how to find out information, knowing about sources and evaluating information and understanding why information requires critical evaluation.

in my opinion, education should be about skills in communication, ciritical evaluation of information, numeracy and other mathematical skills, learning a second (third) language, dexterity/craft/art/music.

the problem is that these skills require more sophistocated examination than the acquisition of information does, and we as a society are obsessed with examination.

But somewhere along the line there seems to be a lack of general knowledge. My intelligent 16 year old would be hard pressed to name a list of capital cities, English counties, birds, fish, currencies, peoples, kings and queens etc. I know it's not life or death but I realise now that these types of things are not learnt by rote as they were when I was at primary school in the 60s. Then we had a list of spellings every week that were e.g. countries of Africa and even if you didn't get them right you would probably remember what they were.

but what is the point in knowing those lists of things?
if she can find something out quickly when she needs to know it or it comes up - where is tripoli?, what's the capital of bahrain? then surely that's what counts.

afterall, who decides what capital cities, counties, birds etc should be learned? none of us can learn everything as lists.

There is a huge lack of general knowledge because the curriculum became so overloaded some teachers stopped covering anything that wasn't required.
I do a fact a day book with my class before registration (most arrive 15 mins before school starts) and our Y6 does a similar thing with his class (what's in the news).

I think it's just conceivably possible that some children learn better with the former method and some with the latter.

I think children should not go to school until 6 and not receive homework. At any age.

I think philosophy should be taught in schools and children should be encouraged to ask questions, not find answers.

And Chris Woodhead is a twat of the highest order.

And yes, I am a teacher.

And arf at the idea that there has been a 'creative curriculum' for the last 20 years.

Non-teacher here but wanted to say how impressed I was with yr2 teacher recently. For science they had benn talking about 'matter' and materials. She had clearly made the lesson come alive with a microwave & popcorn.

Sounds good mrz.

I recommend Sporcle quizzes to any of the GK guzzlers in the class I work in.

Thanks

Sporcle is awesome :o I've learned UK counties, Europe countries/capitals, US states/capitals and all 118 elements

Should probably do something history based next as my knowledge of that is awful!

Mrz - I like your approach. Interesting that in the past the national curriculum was 'overloaded' and how sad it has been watered down so much.
Tehthersend - what do you have against Chris Woodhead? I also think children should start school t 6 and don't see the point of homework. But that's on the 'why is mumsnet obsessed with reading?'thread. It doesn't mean though that I think that from year 3-6 kids should be just making junk models and steering their own learning the whole time. Hovuspontas - I do agree with you about lack of knowledge nowadays. There seems to be a general lack of awareness of other countries etc. It is also viewed with suspicion in this country to know a lot. Science and maths for example are not valued in the same way the arts are. If you don't like Shakespeare, you're a philistine. If you can't do basic adding up etc, people sympathise and say they found maths hard/impossible/boring at school.

We've just introduced a new Maths approach and it has really raised the children's interest and confidence

So mrz do teachers have a say in how they teach? If there are teachers at my daughter's school who do not like the 'creative curriculum' can they just teach in a different way? Who decides what will be taught and how - is it the head?