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!

Creative curriculum is also about recognising those situations when they present themselves and not being afraid to accept unplanned opportunities for teaching concepts.

"I totally agree with mrz that children are not encouraged to think for themselves; they just don't know how to start." This isn't just (or even perhaps predominantly) the fault of schools and teachers, though. Thinking for yourself is a skill that ought to be fostered by parents right from the start and very often isn't...

I attended a conference a few years ago and many university representative were saying many of the students who had only experienced NC didn't know where to begin when asked to complete assignments. They wanted to know not only the title of the book to find information but the page and paragraph ...

Yes pointydog - agree with you on 'learning styles' and 'children's choice in their learning'. If you have great teachers then the learning will be exciting and interesting.

Yes, mrz children have been 'spoon fed' but my point is this: there needs to be a lot of inspiring and creative TEACHING that goes on before a child can have ideas and opinions and the ability to think in an abstract way. My issue is with teachers who don't think the knowledge is important. The NC should be scrapped and rewritten by educationalists.

Is this 'creative curriculum' one of ofsted's ideas? If so, I am even more against it!

I think a problem with university level students not knowing how to approach assignments could arise as much from the fact that they had not been taught basic research skills, as from the fact that independent thinking had not been nurtured in them. I used to work in a uni language department and many mfl tutors despaired becuase, with no grasp of grammatical terms in English, it was difficult to explain the grammatical rudiments of an additional language. I am all for creative teaching, as long as basic skills are imparted, and that inevitably involves a degree of effort and discipline.

I agree ninah. There needs to be a lot of hard work on the part of the teacher before the children can use this knowledge to have innovative ideas and form arguments and think of solutions to questions. But there is enough scope to be creative with when you think of the richness of English and Literature, History, Geography etc etc.

ninah the opinion of the university represented at the conference was that the reason for it lay with the fact that they have been spoon fed all of their school careers and never asked to discover things/information for themselves.

The 'creative curriculum' is here to stay so might as well accept it. I will do a lot at home with my kids. Thanks for the feedback