Ex-chief inspector of schools Sir Chris Woodhead dies

[weltweit]

Teachers were never going to like a chief inspector, and I think his statement that 4% or whatever were not up to scratch irritated a lot. However my experience of secondary and then polytechnic was that yes 4% or whatever were crap.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Teachers were never going to like a chief inspector, and I think his statement that 4% or whatever were not up to scratch irritated a lot. However my experience of secondary and then polytechnic was that yes 4% or whatever were crap.

4% is a both a conservative and comedically specific estimate IMO.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Myself, as usual. Only person around here who talks any fucking sense.

But also the people who are saying that everything Woodhead and pals did was universally opposed by all teachers. If that's true, then they weren't opposing it very hard because it all happened anyway.

Hang on, you blame teachers for not stopping harmful reforms?

Were the miners at fault for the closing of mines also?

 

[SpookyFrank]

Hang on, you blame teachers for not stopping harmful reforms?

Were the miners at fault for the closing of mines also?

Yep, those are the same thing. Two identical situations.

 

[weltweit]

My main issue with Ofsted is that it has expanded out of all proportion from its initial aims. That childcare is now inspected has resulted in vast increases in the cost of childcare and the formalisation of what used to be a combination of family friendly flexible arrangements. I think that was counterproductive, damaging, and I am only glad my son was only partially affected by it. As for inspecting schools, it has to be done.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Yep, those are the same thing. Two identical situations.

Same logic. Bad thing done by those in power. Those it was done to could have done more to try to stop bad thing from happening. Evidence: bad thing happened.

 

[chilango]

I work with kids on a voluntary basis. I've heard plenty of them tell me about how their teachers have written them off.

Yeah, and I've heard kids claim that I've "written them off" when they and I both know that that isn't the case, but that they say this as part of defence mechanism, or expressing anger towards so one who it is safe to do so, or for a million other reasons. Kids often do feel written off, it doesn't mean that they are, or that they are blaming the correct target.

Of course, some teachers no doubt do write some kids off. Some teachers are wankers.

But chucking around claims of a "difficult25%" being written written off is nonsense in so many ways.

I help them with homework they otherwise wouldn't be able to do because they haven't been taught basic stuff, or because the fact that English isn't their first language hasn't been taken into account.

What are the reasons behind the lack of the "basic stuff"?. I guarantee you that teachers HAVE to take language etc. "into account", that this might not work is not necessarily because of cynicism or laziness on the teacher's part (though, again, I'm sure there are instances of it.

I see report cards that just say 'show up on time' and 'don't cause disruption', and nothing about actually learning anything.

What do you mean by "report cards"? If a teacher wrote a Report that just said that their line manager would've hauled then in to re-write it. Reporting is taken, universally, very fucking seriously indeed and teachers simply can't get away with slacking in this area anymore.

However, is it possible, that these "report cards" are intended to record behaviour/engagement and to issue simple targets in this area to reduce obstacles to learning? Maybe?

And it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. School don't give a fuck about them, so they don't give a fuck about school. It was the same when I was at school, pre Woodhead, twenty years ago.

The "system" might not give a fuck, the "school (whatever that means) might not give a fuck, but I see (a majority of) teachers who really, genuinely do care. I see teachers who go out of their way to ensure kids get breakfast, get to go on trips, teachers who buy shit out of their own pockets, who give up their free time to spend time supporting kids, teachers who might in some cases I see, being pretty much the only people who do "give a fuck" about some kids.

But you don't want to talk about that?

Of course teachers don't talk about writing kids off, that doesn't mean they don't do it. Maybe the system they work for forces them to do that, quite possibly it does, but they choose to work for that system so there has to be some responsiblity there somewhere.

Bollocks.

See my paragraph above.

Every single day I see teachers going out of their way, regardless of the system they work within, to make a difference to the kids, and for the kids, they work with.

Does that make them saints? Of course not.

Does that mean that there are no shit teachers, no lazy, cynical teachers, no wankers abusing their authority? Of course not.

It does mean that if you want your critiques of the education system to be credible, to be valid, to actually start to root out the causes of the flaws, then you've got to do better than sling around half-assed generalisations and to avoid lining up with likes of Woodhead to put the boot into teachers.

Because the education system is terribly, terribly flawed and it is vital that we fight to make it better.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I've been guilty on here of slagging off schools and teachers on the basis of my own experience as a kid. I accept that things have changed for the better, despite all the head-fucks. I also accept, if I'm thinking reasonably, that more of my teachers were ok than were cunts (and I wasn't always an angel, of course). But we remember the cunts, that's the problem - it only takes a couple.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Many of the opponents of corporal punishment were teachers who because they worked with children, knew that it harmed not only the child but the teacher who was expected to administer it.

I find the comparison between tormentor and victim extremely distasteful, regardless of what pressures the tormentors may have been under to behave as they did. Quite apart from the question of who is getting hit and who isn't, one party has agency and the other has none.

Similarly, I don't much like this talk of Woodhead's reforms as something that was done to teachers. It was done to children, and teachers got stuck in the middle. They could have walked away from it all, the kids could not.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

I find the comparison between tormentor and victim extremely distasteful, regardless of what pressures the tormentors may have been under to behave as they did. Quite apart from the question of who is getting hit and who isn't, one party has agency and the other has none.

Similarly, I don't much like this talk of Woodhead's reforms as something that was done to teachers. It was done to children, and teachers got stuck in the middle. They could have walked away from it all, the kids could not.

.
"They could have walked away from it all". Yes and many did. Schools are having difficulty recruiting suitable teachers and there are shortages in some subjects.

It is not just Ofsted that is making life difficult for teachers though. The rapid succession of changes that has occurred in education particularly the examinations has had the effect of de-skilling professionals who learned and practiced their trade under previous educational regimes.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I find the comparison between tormentor and victim extremely distasteful, regardless of what pressures the tormentors may have been under to behave as they did. Quite apart from the question of who is getting hit and who isn't, one party has agency and the other has none.

Similarly, I don't much like this talk of Woodhead's reforms as something that was done to teachers. It was done to children, and teachers got stuck in the middle. They could have walked away from it all, the kids could not.

Not sure where you're going with this. First part - largely agree. Second part, don't really see the 'similarly' bit. Teachers didn't have any power, largely, to oppose Woodhead's reforms while still remaining teachers. That doesn't give them too much in the way of agency. And the children suffer from bad reforms, of course, but they suffer the effects through their teachers - those teachers not leaving the job but staying and working within a bad system, and also, surely, good teachers leaving because of bad reforms is also something that affects the children.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I'd happily believe that Woodhead was a cunt, but lets not spend too long singing the praises of a profession that had, at the time of Woodhead's tenure, only recently been forced to stop beating children.

Recently as in about 7 years (although the majority of LEAs enacted a de facto ban in '84).

 

[chilango]

Similarly, I don't much like this talk of Woodhead's reforms as something that was done to teachers. It was done to children, and teachers got stuck in the middle. They could have walked away from it all, the kids could not.

Who do you think stood inbetween the reforms and the kids? Trying to block those measures harmful to children eh?

Teachers.

One example from the NUT's history...

The Union’s boycott of SATs from 1993 to 1995 won the end of league tables for seven year olds.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

Recently as in about 7 years (although the majority of LEAs enacted a de facto ban in '84.

I also heard that the cessation of caning in particular was helped by shortage of canes with the only source of them being from Ann Summers type shops.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I also heard that the cessation of caning in particular was helped by shortage of canes with the only source of them being from Ann Summers type shops.

The headmaster at my school just had a sheaf of bamboos that got issued for use on the likes of me!

 

[Hocus Eye.]

The headmaster at my school just had a sheaf of bamboos that got issued for use on the likes of me!

What literally a sheaf, on his back rather like a 15th Century archer?

 

[Wilf]

I work with kids on a voluntary basis. I've heard plenty of them tell me about how their teachers have written them off. I help them with homework they otherwise wouldn't be able to do because they haven't been taught basic stuff, or because the fact that English isn't their first language hasn't been taken into account. I see report cards that just say 'show up on time' and 'don't cause disruption', and nothing about actually learning anything.

And it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. School don't give a fuck about them, so they don't give a fuck about school. It was the same when I was at school, pre Woodhead, twenty years ago.

Of course teachers don't talk about writing kids off, that doesn't mean they don't do it. Maybe the system they work for forces them to do that, quite possibly it does, but they choose to work for that system so there has to be some responsiblity there somewhere.

The teachers who are 'writing these kids off', assuming they trained in the last 20 years, are actual products of the Woodhead era - the (even earlier) national curriculum, various teacher training reforms, the targets culture, the managerialism. Oh, and if you knew anything about industrial relations in teaching you'd know it was the various disputes in this period - along with increases in testing and associated paperwork - that started to reduce all the after schools activities.

 

[Wilf]

Similarly, I don't much like this talk of Woodhead's reforms as something that was done to teachers. It was done to children, and teachers got stuck in the middle. They could have walked away from it all, the kids could not.

Really, really? Something like Sats? Try page 7 of this report:
https://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/people/staff/galton/NUTreport.pdf

 

[ViolentPanda]

What literally a sheaf, on his back rather like a 15th Century archer?

Not quite! A big bundle of canes from which one would be extracted.
Oh, and archers have their sheaf of arrows in quivers!

 

[Wilf]

Teachers were never going to like a chief inspector, and I think his statement that 4% or whatever were not up to scratch irritated a lot. However my experience of secondary and then polytechnic was that yes 4% or whatever were crap.

4% (or, indeed, whatever) produces an extraordinary 96% of teachers are good. To be honest, I've no interest in presenting teachers, nurses or whoever as 'angels', mounting that sort of daft, romanticised defence of the public sector. However I do want to defend the public education and the workforce - and we have to recognise the obvious, that a generation of reforms in education (most of which Woodhead was in post for) were about reducing terms and conditions and government taking power back from classroom teachers.

 

[ViolentPanda]

4% (or, indeed, whatever) produces an extraordinary 96% of teachers are good. To be honest, I've no interest in presenting teachers, nurses or whoever as 'angels', mounting that sort of daft, romanticised defence of the public sector. However I do want to defend the public education and the workforce - and we have to recognise the obvious, that a generation of reforms in education (most of which Woodhead was in post for) were about reducing terms and conditions and government taking power back from classroom teachers.

"Taking back"?
More like "taking from". centralisation of power back to central govt has always been part of the British neoliberal project.