Michaela head: Children are horrible

[noblegiraffe]

“You will find in other schools children are not kind at all, they are horrible. And they are horrible because nobody has taught them how to be kind,” Birbalsingh says."

www.theguardian.com/education/2016/dec/30/no-excuses-inside-britains-strictest-school

In an article that slates pretty much everyone else (other teachers = crap, other schools = crap, other kids = crap), it was probably the assertion that kids in other schools are just horrible because they aren't taught kindness that got me most.
On twitter she said that children will tear insects apart without thought to their pain unless taught otherwise. It struck me as a religious position to assert that children are born bad, and indeed she confirmed further on in a discussion that she believes in Original Sin (is she catholic?).

If you know any kids that are kind, by the way, who don't go to her school, then they must have been taught kindness from someone else, maybe a kind aunt or someone.

She also believes that most teachers think that the children know as much as them.

I'm a bit

When the school checked my reading age it was literally off the scale, I was 13, reading scale goes up to adult.

Still dyslexic.

It still was affects on various parts on my life and I am not going to stiop being dyslexic.

It makes it harder to read, doesn't mean you are behind with reading. It affects short term memory and organisation. It varies day by day, sometimes I can read with no problem, sometimes I struggle.

I just read that Guardian article. I find the whole idea that all children are inherently horrible without intervention incredibly offensive.

As for those essays - wordy meaningless crap. In Yr 8 both my DDs could have written better essays, without the flowery extraneous bullshit and getting straight to the heart of the content of the topic.

My apologies. The part of the post I deleted may have made my whole post a bit clearer. I know that there are other symptoms alongside an apparent difficulty in reading or writing.

I stand by my point that good inclusion and intervention deals with the specific needs of the pupil, whatever those needs are and not just the label. I did mean all the needs of a child with dyslexia, rather than just reading and writing but I can see how it might have come across as otherwise.

As far as I know, Michaela does actually provide support for things like organisation for children who find that difficult. Whether that's effective or not I have no idea.

It does seem a bit of a stretch to suggest that the SENCO shouldn't be working there based on one flippant tweet taken out of context.

Having read the article, I'm tickled by the idea that "We believe the teacher knows more than the children. Most teachers in Britain do not believe that. "

IME the teachers I've come into contact with in dd's years in both primary and secondary school have been quite thoroughly of the belief that they know more than the children (not unreasonably!)

As far as I know, Michaela does actually provide support for things like organisation for children who find that difficult.

I don't think they get it. The only way to improve organisational skills is to have someone follow them around at all times.

Putting in place organisational skills is great if they remember them. DD cannot remember two things together. Running for a train and holding her Oyster Card constitutes 2 things so the Oyster Card gets dropped.

How does putting in place organisational skills equate to getting a detention if the pen is missing. It wouldn't matter how many pens dd bought at the beginning of the day she would still not remember where she put them

What do people think of the idea that children should never congregate in groups of more than 4 at break time?

I get the idea that large groups of children can be intimidating or cause trouble, but 4 seems a very low cap.

What do people think of the idea that children should never congregate in groups of more than 4 at break time?

I think it sounds like an ideal opportunity for bullying, in an environment where the approach to such behaviour is very much, 'we don't allow it to happen, so there is no need to worry about it', rather than, say, encouraging young people to learn how to live, work and socialise together, including dealing with inevitable conflict in an appropriate and constructive way.

I agree that not allowing children to congregate in groups of more than 4 could lead to a lot of exclusion. It's very easy then for children to say "oh, you can't sit with us, we'll get in trouble." 4 is a tiny number at secondary school and I can see this making the school feel very cliquey.

I can't see how they are preparing children for the real world, or even college or university. Surely knowing how to socialise and make yourself heard in larger groups is a life skill?

I also think 4 children can be just as intimidating as 10 or 20, particularly as this rule probably means there will be more children on their own.

3 or less sounds like North Korea so they set the cap at 4 for it is to be more acceptable :)

On a more serious note, I grew up in a very strict environment/education system/country and it was still sound more relaxed than this. However, if parents decide to send their children there then hopefully, they are in support of the school's ethos.

About teachers, I think she is wrong to say the teachers should know more than the children. I was thinking the same way when I started teaching, but the more I teach the more I realise that there are a few pupils who know much more than me about my subject, even in the areas that I am supposedly good at. But that's not the same with the idea that I can't teach them. I can still teach them and guide them to go on to greater things. By saying that the teachers know best, she already sets a limitation on what they can achieve. Maybe, it is right for her school's intake but implying it for the whole country is just ignorance and arrogance to the extreme.

I think the teacher should know more. There will always be kids in your class who are cognitively quicker than you, and I've taught some who have worked out a complicated piece of grammar in seconds. But I think that largely if you have a degree in a subject you should know more about it than your Year 9s for example.

I get what she's saying with the whole 'guide on the side' versus 'sage on the stage' thing but I don't think even any die hard discovery learning teacher actually thought the kids knew more than them. Otherwise what's the point of school!

The bit in the blog about the teachers from Abu Dhabi asking about group work and ICT did make me laugh. It's like she really can't compute that group work might have a part in 'traditional' teaching or that you can teach computing without lowering standards.

The whole thing is offensive. As I'm sure people are aware you could say I'm a 'traditionalist' in some ways in education (I fell out with my PGCE lecturer as she said my expectations were too high). However, my traditional style is more due to lack of time and resources. I wish I had the computer access to do the excellent research activities in our RS year 7 textbook.
More and more her school sounds like a weird form of performance art. The sad thing is it's an actual school.

I'm more of a traditional teacher in terms of teaching style, I abandoned card sorts and group work years ago when I realised they weren't as effective as telling kids stuff then getting them to practise a lot.

However I'm not particularly authoritarian. I tried it in my NQT year and didn't get on with it at all as it doesn't fit with my personality - I'm more likely to jolly along than tell off (although obviously all teachers do both).

I don't like how this uber-authoritarian style of not giving the kids a single inch anywhere in their day has been linked with 'traditional' teaching and if you're in favour of one, you're supposed to be in favour of the other.

GHGN - I absolutely know more than my students. Some of them may be brighter than me, or may go on to be much better at English, but here and now, at this stage, I have much greater knowledge than they do. And much of that is simply about being alive for 45 years as opposed to their 13-18 years of existence. If I hadn't gained more knowledge despite having been alive for over three times as long, I'd be pretty shit at my job tbh.

uber-authoritarian style of not giving the kids a single inch anywhere in their day has been linked with 'traditional' teaching

But with traditional teaching you have traditional play time where the kids ran around together to blow off steam.

Here there doesn't seem to be any break.

Someone on the other Michaela thread pointed out that the kids taught teachers silly dances and stuff during their lunch break which showed that the teachers were not just unsmiling and strict.

It does raise the question of why the kids were playing with teachers during their free time. Even downtime appears to be heavily supervised. This would seem to come from the 'children are horrible' philosophy rather than any notion of traditional versus progressive teaching.

I think they've linked the trad with the ultra authoritarian thing. It always seems like their model is something you'd come up with if you were a prog teacher trying trad but had only read about it.

I think trad v prog is probably a false dichotomy anyway. Maybe Michaela is what you end up with if you think of it as two opposing sides rather than a spectrum.

Yup, like you noble I jolly along but am traditional in style.
If a student preferred spending time with teachers than their peers at lunchtime I'd be mentioning it to their form tutor.

I find the whole "no bigger than 4" thing exceptionally odd. What is she scared of?

A revolution?

Apparently the rule comes from Mossbourne school

www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/2014/03/17/mossbourne-community-academy-ridiculous-dispersal-rule/

In one of her blog pieces the Head does actually list the schools she has taken ideas from. In the book none of these other schools are mentioned - Mossbourne, KSA etc. -schools which do have a track record of outstanding results to point to. The book implies that all these brilliant ideas are unique to Michaela.

Incidentally aren't some of the politicians praising Michaela the same ones who knock teachers for being "lazy" and not running masses of extra curricular clubs? After school activities seem extremely limited there. One rule for government favourites and one rule for the rest?

The thing is, Mossbourne also has a bit of a reputation for achieving those results by doing its best to keep nasty inconvenient children with SEN out - www.theguardian.com/education/2012/aug/20/academy-loses-challenge-special-needs

Good review of the Michaela book here: schoolsweek.co.uk/reviews/battle-hymn-of-the-tiger-teachers-the-michaela-way/

"Each subsequent chapter uses a similar format: criticise “most schools in England”, intersperse with “research says” then triumphantly announce “we did this and it works perfectly”. It became tiresome. Whatever magic the teachers believe they possess, it is overshadowed by criticising “most” schools."

Why does that not surprise me?

It's the same tone they seem to make in all their outpourings. I'm surprised by the number of people on twitter who seem to have swallowed this unquestioningly. It's got the language of 'cult' written all over it.