I am not a teacher and I have a DS at primary school. But I don't think that invalidates my opinions. Michael Gove is not a teacher but the changes that he makes will affect you and all other teachers. I have tutored children many years ago and of course I have been a pupil in schools and have been a management trainer, so through my life experience, I have developed my philosophy of what works in teaching children and adults. I also was a straight 'A' student like Emily and also one of the most disruptive pupils in the class. I think that has given me an extra insight into human nature, since I had both good and bad and knew all of the tricks. For example, I think Dylan doesn't understand the importance of the competitive instinct in children, even though he is a professor and one of the country's leading educationalists. He couldn't understand why Emily and the other top students didn't want to be shown to get things wrong. He also didn't understand that not all studenst are equally motivated, his quote was "they all want to show you what they know". That is rubbish. Some kids are deliberately disruptive as I was, and I didn't want to show the teacher what I knew at all.
"Comments not grades, that sums up the collectivist anti-competition progressive philosophy."
"No it doesn't. It gives them some pointers as to how they can imporve their work. If you are just told you got a C, all that tells you is which grade you managed achieve to this time. Does it tell you anything about how to gain a B? Unfortunately, you can write half a page of useful comments for a pupil, but if a grade it there, they tend to focus on that and forget the rest. There is a time and a place for grades and levels. But they don't need to be given for every piece of work."
I agree that grades are not enough, they should be combined with comments. But comments without grades are not enough at all, as all teh children told Dylan repeatedly. The reason kids want grades is again because of their competitive spirit, which Dylan seeks to erase. They want to measure their performance against their peers and against their previous efforts. The comments were not enough. Dylan said that "grades were bad" and he tried to get the kids to understand that. They will never understand that because they are right and he is wrong. He wants to get rid of grades because he believes that it makes the poor performing students feel discouraged, he wanst to wave a magic wand and eliminate that problem by removing grades. He wants a feel good touchy feely environment where there is no such thing as failure or the perception of failure. To him, everyone's a winner and everyone deserves a prize. This eventually will lead to rthe scrapping of grades in exams themselves, to which you sade "yeah right". Here are some more top educationalists in the country advocating just that
www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/5312799/Exam-grades-should-be-scrapped.html
To summarize, both grades and extensive comments are required, but as all the students said, including some of the poor performers, the grades are the most important thing.
"Failure masked as success by feel good comments and no grades to prove what level they are at."
"What do you count as "failure"? Anything less than an A*? Comments are seldom "feel-good" if used properly. They are constructive, and should give pupils something tangible to work on, and a chance to show they have done this later.
Am I a failure for aiming to run a half-marathon in under 2 hours when Paula Radcliffe runs it in about an hour? Or is it good that I have set my own achievable target and that I gain a lot (in terms of fitness etc) through training for it, and doing the best I can do?"
I don't think an E grade is a failure if the child has tried their best. I realise that not all children can get 'A' grades. It is Labour and their grade inflation policies that want everyone to get an 'A' grade. What I mean by "failure masked as success" is that Dylan's policy is a cop out and one that New Labour would love. It removes grades so that there are no objective measures of success that are easily understood by students, parents and employers and replaces them with comments, which cannot easily differentiate pupils. It is deeply unsatisfying to the pupils, because as they said repeatedly, they want differentiation. It also can hide a failing education system, which suits politicians. I agree comments are vital, but I fear Dylan's way would lead to no grades and comments that mask a deteriorating education system.
"The highfliers became disruptive and their behaviour deteriorated because there is no point in them performing as they no longer feel that they get any individual rewards."
"Then it is the teacher's job to make them feel less disenfranchised. It doesn't make the ideas rubbish. And why do they matter more than the pupils who are at the "bottom" of the class and struggling?"
Exactly, it is the teacher's job and good teachers can do that without traffic light systems. I think the ideas that Dylan was imposing on the teachers, quite often against their advice and against the advice of the students, will eventually hamper the teacher and lead to further disenfranchisement, disassociation and disruptive behaviour, as we saw when top students like Emily and her friends arrived 15 minutes late for lessons, which she had never done before. I don't think it was Emily's fault, but a natural result of Dylan's methods. I think that the bottom of the class is equally as important as the top of the class, but I think there are other ways of engaging the whole class and asking them all questions which don't involve lolly sticks selected at random. I think the teacher's judgement is crucial and I think that random questions based on drawing of lolly sticks could lead to problems within the class.
"The only reward is the Alton Towers collectivist reward. That will work in the short term but will wear off in the long term, and the top performers will be levelled down."
I actually agree with you on this. The novelty will wear off pretty quickly unless it is constantly reinforced by good teachers who have respect from the class."
Exactly. Again, I think that Dylan's methods, with his student observers etc. will eventually undermine respect for the teacher, as will the use of mini whiteboards over the long term. This is disastrous because without respect, disruptive behaviour will ensue.
"There were positive aspects such as an increase in confidence of the lower achievers, but this could be obtained in other ways without impacting negatively on the high performers."
"Okay... so they've tried to do this. You agree it's a good thing to try to do. Any other suggestions? We can only try these things. Then a good teacher will take onbard aspects of all of them and tailor them to their own class. As others have said, none of this is exactly new or cutting edge. But all the techniques can be effective if used by a teacher that understands the class and has a good relationship with them."
Again I think that the low achievers can be engaged and asked questions in different ways to Dylan's ways.
"Whatever the rights and wrongs of "experts" like Dylan (and I'm not saying I agree with everything he said), at lease some of what he said and suggested is based on experience."
I think he has read lots of research and has been introduced to special student in the States, but I think he lacks real understanding of human nature, motivation, competitiveness etc., which is why I think that he believes the things he does and tried to implement a flawed system.