Educationalists, have they let the education system down?

clunked

Just thinking about the current state of our education system and the current dispute, I have been thinking about those whose job is to think about education policy. Leaving aside the politicians, do we as teachers, who everyday work on the front line have good reason to curse those who intellectualise and theorise about the craft of teaching?

I feel that current proposals are all pie in the sky, don't really address the issues that teachers face on daily basis in the classroom hence the strength of feeling from second level teachers. They would add significantly to an already busy workload. I don't see anyone from the NCCA, a government special advisor or Professor of Education taking a football or hurling team, preparing a schools debate, orgainising a rehearsal for a school musical outside of their contracted hours for example. As we know all these things and much more add a huge value to those whom we educate.

Of course it is disappointing not to have a single educationalist actually support their second level colleagues but that is perhaps an intellectual arrogance because many or most of them feel above actually sitting in front of a class of 30+ young teens and teaching them.
The media have of course being constantly being attempting to find holes in the teachers arguments too but I guess we would not be suprised given INM's prominent status there.
Interested to hear peoples views.....

TheQuietFella

Coming from a family who have had quiet an amount of teachers in the system for decades & still continuing today, the work that is done goes largely
unseen & under appreciated.

I think that in no other career there is so much expected & given by a genuine group of people. I personally wouldn't!

peckerhead

clunked wrote: »

Of course it is disappointing not to have a single educationalist actually support their second level colleagues but that is perhaps an intellectual arrogance because many or most of them feel above actually sitting in front of a class of 30+ young teens and teaching them.

I think a lot of academics (not just in Education) are lukewarm about the teachers' strike simply because they see it, rightly or wrongly, as being more about "the few bob" than about the welfare of JC students, or the "academic integrity" of an exam which most would agree is not fit for purpose.

As for the charge of intellectual arrogance, I guess it's about as warranted as the kind of sweeping, reductive generalisations that secondary school teachers regularly hear trotted out about their profession. Sure, there are plenty of caricatural, ivory tower academics, pontificating on matters of which they have no day-to-day experience (many of these are former schoolteachers who "got out" because they couldn't hack it in the classroom). But that stereotype is about as valid as the "cute hoor", couldn't-give-a-shíte, lazy and incompetent teacher who puts feck all into their day job because the cash-cow private grinds they dispense from their sittingrooms in the evenings and on weekends are far more important.

Lazy stereotypes work both ways, is all I'm saying.

To answer the original question, though — yes, a lot of wrong-headed policies and practices have been foisted upon teachers and teacher educators by DESS mandarins and Teaching Council politicos. But it's not primarily the lecturers and researchers actually working in HEIs who are to blame.

evolving_doors

There is the joke about the HDip lecturer and a new teaching approach he witnessed in an observation...

"Wow that was a really good thing you did there John"....ponders to himself for a few seconds... "I wonder would it work in theory? " ...rushes back to college.

My take is that we do the same old Irish thing of trying to ape little bits of other countries praxis. Its a post colonial inferiority complex.

Why not stand up and say "Our system is great" lets keep it going, let the teachers adapt themselves (which they do). The 'best thing any politician can do to support education is reduce the class sizes, pure and simple.

They said books, radio, TV, VHS, CD, DVD, Computer, Interactive Whiteboard, Internet, Software would all do away with the need for an excess of teachers. Meanwhile we're still around with larger class sizes and students we can barely get time to get to know.
The education is in the interaction, not the flavour of the day 'best practice' based on some other countries ' system... chances are, that other country just believes in their teachers and facilitates them rather than ramming the latest political whim down their throats in substandard conditions.

To me, educational research is about the 'cult of the new and foreign' but it adds up to Chinoise when handed over to gombeen politicians to play buzzword bingo with.

spurious

In another thread, I mentioned a 'down with the kids' type who gave an entire class the choice of staying in his class or leaving the room, with the obvious result. Last I heard of him he was lecturing on a teacher education course. There you go. Experts.

man_no_plan

If you take Pasi Sahlberg for instance, as someone who says Finland got it right.

It would be very easy to jump on him and say its all his idea and rubbish all he says.

What never gets reported us that he also says that just because it works in Finland it doesn't mean it will work everywhere.

There is probably a very different version if education that would serve our students very well. If we weren't so keen to dance to the tune of IBEC , we'd be be a lot better off. They want work ready drones. We think we should develop kids holistically, third level thinks whatever it thinks but nobody sits down and talks about it openly.

Then you cant have quality change without investment. Should we switch back to vocational and academic streams? Even just in senior cycle??

acequion

At the end of the day kids will be kids. They’re young, immature and see school as a chore. And it’s the same with the older ones for whom school is also a chore. From very mature to totally immature, from very focused to couldn’t care less, from extrovert to introvert, that’s the way it is and always will be, because that’s human nature and no amount of ground breaking research will ever change that, thank god.

So, I agree that very many theories are indeed pie in the sky because in order to work they require ideal conditions and the kind of self-discipline that only comes with maturity. New ideas and theories are always welcome. Experimentation is always good and every teacher likes to freshen things up. But what is not good is change for the sake of change, change for the sake of money and change which is force fed despite widespread opposition.

But then again, is that not the Irish way!