Teacher concerns?

[Hoppinggreen]

Without any previous concerns about the school in general or the teacher would you be worried if you heard your sons experienced, mature teacher say the following (within the same 10 minutes) to her Y6 class?
They speak Spanish in Brazil
Hitler wanted to reunite Germany because it was divided by the Berlin Wall

Booboostwo

You aren’t taking account of what the teacher needs to know to do her job at KS2. Obviously a History teacher at secondary who is teaching the Cold War/WW2 who believes the Wall was a factor in WW2 has big subject knowledge gaps. Fine (although such things start as development gaps, not competency issues). A teacher teaching Primary, with a broad but not deep curriculum to cover and - one would assume - far more specialist knowledge in some areas than others, will definitely have lots of gaps in specialist areas of every subject. This is just one example of that. It doesn’t speak to her competency because the children don’t need to know it.

The Berlin Wall fell on November 9th 1989 (although of course something so large wasn't completely demolished overnight). The reunification of East and West Germany was made official on October 3, 1990, almost one year after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/witness/november/9/newsid_3241000/3241641.stm

Last year Berlin celebrated 30 years since the wall fell it was heavily reported

Norestformrz

But I didn’t say fell. I said came down. And it didn’t come down until 1990, like I said. In your eagerness to show how clever you are you made an error.

@Jolly: "Came down" is another term of understood as " being opened" in the context of the Berlin Wall (see here: m.dw.com/en/the-day-the-berlin-wall-came-down/a-51099267 or here www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/history-and-civilisation/2019/11/why-berlin-wall-rose-and-how-it-fell). Unless you mean by "came down" the demolition of the Wall, which started officially on 13 June 1990. I think it's funny that you're trying lecture someone who was there when it happened to be honest.

Sorry, meant to say "Came down is another term for being opened in the context..."

thejollyroger and LolaSmiles your views on what it counts to be a competent knower are very narrow. Good teachers are not the ones that can parrot the curriculum, anything can come up in class. To teach effectively the teacher has to have background knowledge in a variety of subjects and the ability to think critically. A error that crosses multiple decades and involves multiple misunderstandings is evidence that a teacher is not a competent knower. As I mentioned in my first post there could be mitigating circumstances, but purely on the face of it, a deep error is cause for concern about the reliability of one's knowledge than a shallow one.

Take for example thejollyroger's approach in this thread. Presumably she has a point to make but instead of arguing for it she nitpicks on other posters for making shallow factual errors. There could be mitigating circumstances but on the face of it this fallacious reasoning strategy suggests that thejollyroger has poor reasoning skills.

thejollyroger and LolaSmiles your views on what it counts to be a competent knower are very narrow. Good teachers are not the ones that can parrot the curriculum, anything can come up in class. To teach effectively the teacher has to have background knowledge in a variety of subjects and the ability to think critically
This is rather ridiculous.

Because I don't think someone making a couple of general knowledge mistakes in a show and tell warrants questioning their professionalism, long term planning ability and comeptency, you now think you can make quite ridiculously feel the need to point out the obvious that good teaching is more than parroting the curriculum (the implication being that Jolly and I must somehow think it is)

I work with staff to improve subject knowledge and lead CPD and think this would be a ridiculous conversation:
"Hi TimJane, yes we know you're doing a good job and students are learning and there's been no concerns about your performance in the classroom until last week. Unfortunately you made two general knowledge errors one afternoon and that means they we now have serious concerns you lack general knowledge and the ability to think critically. Who decides what is 'basic general knowledge'? Oh well the thing is that this requirement changes depending on who enters the room and what their general knowledge is like, so right now you're not professionally competent."

**edit
You now ridiculously feel the need to point out the obvious that good teaching is more than parroting the curriculum (the implication being that Jolly and I must somehow think it is)

TooGood2BeTrue

It’s irrelevant whether you were there. You erroneously corrected me. The wall itself came down (in the sense I meant) in 1990. And I checked this fact before I posted, so you really have no grounds for your attempt to prove how knowledgeable you are. I know exactly what I meant and am correct about it.

Take for example thejollyroger's approach in this thread. Presumably she has a point to make but instead of arguing for it she nitpicks on other posters for making shallow factual errors. There could be mitigating circumstances but on the face of it this fallacious reasoning strategy suggests that thejollyroger has poor reasoning skills.

But again, when the errors are those of the people on this thread, the very people who seem so concerned with the teacher’s level of accuracy, they are suddenly shallow and minor and I am nitpicking. Sheer hypocrisy.

This is rather ridiculous
and this is a case in point about poor reasoning skills.

thejollyroger and LolaSmiles your views on what it counts to be a competent knower are very narrow. Good teachers are not the ones that can parrot the curriculum, anything can come up in class. To teach effectively the teacher has to have background knowledge in a variety of subjects and the ability to think critically.

Again, no. Those criteria do not exist in the Teaching Standards. You are arbitrarily imposing your own notions of what good teaching is, whereas I am speaking from my firm knowledge of what is required of the teacher.

Jolly, please provide a reliable link that proves that the Wall came down in 1990.

Here you go.

You really are intent on being right here, aren’t you? You’re not, because again I didn’t say the fall of the Wall, I said when it came down.

But my point is the same: we all make mistakes. It doesn’t always speak to competence.

thejollyroger ah the appeal to authority, took you long enough although LolaSmiles did hint at it previously in her role as advisor to other teachers. Sorry to burst your bubble but if anything this is further evidence of poor reasoning skills. Trust me I am an academic philosopher.

Booboostwo

😂

As a teacher who does the job you are talking about, I absolutely feel better qualified than you to comment on the necessary attributes of it. Trust me or not, I don’t care.

So you do mean the demolition of the Wall, which is not the same as it coming down [open borders] and the way this term is used across of a variety of accounts and sources about this topic. And I very much doubt that the teacher would have meant the demolition when she talked about it.

thejollyroger If your common sense knowledge extended to an understanding of the term "academic philosopher" you'd know I am also a teacher. If you were less arrogant than you come across on this thread you would consider the possibility that other people are also responsible for training teachers...sometimes at a national level...sometimes as recipients of a couple of million pounds worth of government grants for education...just saying. But glad I gave you a laugh.

So you do mean the demolition of the Wall, which is not the same as it coming down [open borders] and the way this term is used across of a variety of accounts and sources about this topic. And I very much doubt that the teacher would have meant the demolition when she talked about it.

This has nothing to do with what the teacher thought. I am using “came down” in the common English sense of literally came down. You are using the symbolic meaning (synonymous with “fell” or ceased to be relevant). You were entirely wrong in your correction of me, so try to be more careful next time.

Booboostwo

“Academic philosopher” - a term you invented for your job? Stop trying to big yourself up, you sound bloody ridiculous.

Apologies, it seems that IS a real job. Who knew? See: we all make errors. Nothing to do with “common sense”.

It's not about appeal to authority (though given your ramble about people being arrogant whilst some have millions of pounds of contracts for education, it seems you're very much resorting to this despite not being in schools). Given millojs of pounds get thrown at consultancy firms, think tanks, governmental pet projects, national initiatives of mixed quality and ideological persuasion, it's not really relevant to a discussion where people seriously seem to think someone's professional competency can be rubbished based on two errors in an afternoon.

It's a case of knowing there is a difference between someone making a general knowledge mistake and someone lacking subject knowledge for their subject area.

It's a case of knowing there is a difference between making a couple of mistakes in show and tell is different from having substantial subject knowledge issues that would leave questions about someone's professional competency.

The difference between those things is fairly important when making assessments of someone's competency in the classroom.

LolaSmiles

And actually, appeal to authority or not, and whatever an “academic philosopher” does for a living (philosophy teacher?) it’s irrelevant: Booboostwo either uses the Teacher Standards or he or she does not. If she does use them, she should know what’s in them (no requirements for common sense, general knowledge or “critical thinking”, whatever is meant by that), and if she doesn’t, she is less qualified than I am to talk about the teacher’s competency. Pretty much the top and bottom as far as I’m concerned.

I agree.

It's good to have a broad general knowledge, but that's not a teacher standard. Good general knowledge helps, and I'd certainly say my general knowledge of politics helps improve my subject knowledge for literature, but forgetting when someone was prime minister once wouldn't be a sign I lack intelligence.

I have a good general knowledge and there are things I think are fairly obvious and basic, but I wouldn't decide it's embarrassing for someone else not to know them because I'm sure there's elements of their general knowledge they consider basic that I wouldn't know. The problem with general knowledge is it's very easy for it to translate to "things I know that I think others should know".

Critical thinking is often thrown around as some sort of nebulous skill, but really it links quite closely to subject knowledge. Criticality would look different in history to drama, for example, and neither of them would be linked to knowing the capital city of Slovakia / other random general knowledge fact. The idea that someone's lack of general knowledge in one area can be linked to a judgement on their critical thinking ability is ridiculous.

To assess someone's competency in the classroom needs to be linked to the standards, curriculum and student progress, not "do they know facts I think they should know".

To assess someone's competency in the classroom needs to be linked to the standards, curriculum and student progress, not "do they know facts I think they should know".

Exactly. And the person doing the assessing needs to understand what the standards mean.