Education but not as we know it...
I haven't read anything much this week and I'm glad of that. I'm especially glad I've stayed off Facebook and twitter. This weekend has been spent catching up with newspapers that have been piling up on my coffee table for days now.
Today I found last Sunday's National. Mostly, I like the Sunday National supplement. Not recently, because it often consists of extracts from famous books by Scottish writers. I've read most of these a long time ago and canny be bothered reading them all again.
But often the columns by people like Stuart Cosgrove and Andrew Tickell are worth a look. Sadly, before I got to them this week, I found a column by someone else. She's a mother and for that reason it seems she's an expert on educating children.
She's not happy with John Swinney's approach to lockdown during the coronavirus. And I just want to make a few points. I don't know if the columnist in question is involved in education. I used to be, and maybe that makes my views suspect too, but here goes.
Nobody is happy having our children off school for three months. It'll be at least 5 months by the time they get back to school. We don't really want kids learning about the discovery of the giraffe (as Kirsteen Paterson describes it) or reading stuff with bad grammar and syntax on the internet. All this out of context and without any kind of framework.
So let's work out what has actually happened in our schools - and frankly, parents mostly haven't a clue. That's how it should be. Teachers are professionals and parents are not. John Swinney might understand because he's also a parent.
Headteachers and local authorities spend a lot of time on planning education. The inspectorate demand that and they check up on it. The curriculum has to be well thought through. HTs need to know what staff are doing in the classroom and council education departments spend time checking up on that too.
But one day, you're following your plan - language, maths, social subjects, arts, PE, etc - and keeping your kids - mostly - onside and then you get the message it's all changed. The kids are going home. They won't see you or each other for a while because there's a virus out there so dangerous that they can't come to school.
For a lot of children and young people, school is a refuge. And don't you forget it. Even in modern Scotland. My first ever headteacher told me in the 1970s: Some pupils come to school because it's better than what's at home. And I can't say that's changed.
Some kids are carers. They may not want to be. They don't get the choice. They just have to do it.
Other kids have no idea what they're going home to every day. I've met kids who went home to find their mother had sold the furniture to pay for heroin.
And now, school - the one stable part of their environment - is gone.
And that's before we even talk about who's feeding these kids during lockdown.
Or the fact that school is where most kids' social life is. After all, this is where they make and meet their pals.
Somehow the curriculum - the planning, the targets, the tests - don't matter so much when you look at all that.
But what have teachers been doing during Covid? Well, one day you go into school. You've got your curriculum plan, your resources are all lined up and you've trained your kids so they know what they should be doing. You all get on with things - and then you're told that the school is closing because of C-19. You're going to have to change your teaching. Completely. In the classroom, you have a captive audience: the kids have to be there and by and large they get on with things, but now...Do you know anything about online learning? Can you find your way around the Education Scotland website? Can you handle recording lessons for children and young people to watch at home? Are you ready for the phone calls and texts telling you parents are unhappy with the way things are going? Can you handle the phone calls telling parents their kids are refusing to take part in online lessons? What about the exams?
Have you planned for August? Got maths, language, social subjects, PE, etc all worked out for your class? Got the layout of your classroom worked out with one-way systems and social distancing? Can you get your pupils safely out to enjoy playtime? Who's supervising lunch and what's the - god help us - protocol for that?
Today I found last Sunday's National. Mostly, I like the Sunday National supplement. Not recently, because it often consists of extracts from famous books by Scottish writers. I've read most of these a long time ago and canny be bothered reading them all again.
But often the columns by people like Stuart Cosgrove and Andrew Tickell are worth a look. Sadly, before I got to them this week, I found a column by someone else. She's a mother and for that reason it seems she's an expert on educating children.
She's not happy with John Swinney's approach to lockdown during the coronavirus. And I just want to make a few points. I don't know if the columnist in question is involved in education. I used to be, and maybe that makes my views suspect too, but here goes.
Nobody is happy having our children off school for three months. It'll be at least 5 months by the time they get back to school. We don't really want kids learning about the discovery of the giraffe (as Kirsteen Paterson describes it) or reading stuff with bad grammar and syntax on the internet. All this out of context and without any kind of framework.
So let's work out what has actually happened in our schools - and frankly, parents mostly haven't a clue. That's how it should be. Teachers are professionals and parents are not. John Swinney might understand because he's also a parent.
Headteachers and local authorities spend a lot of time on planning education. The inspectorate demand that and they check up on it. The curriculum has to be well thought through. HTs need to know what staff are doing in the classroom and council education departments spend time checking up on that too.
But one day, you're following your plan - language, maths, social subjects, arts, PE, etc - and keeping your kids - mostly - onside and then you get the message it's all changed. The kids are going home. They won't see you or each other for a while because there's a virus out there so dangerous that they can't come to school.
For a lot of children and young people, school is a refuge. And don't you forget it. Even in modern Scotland. My first ever headteacher told me in the 1970s: Some pupils come to school because it's better than what's at home. And I can't say that's changed.
Some kids are carers. They may not want to be. They don't get the choice. They just have to do it.
Other kids have no idea what they're going home to every day. I've met kids who went home to find their mother had sold the furniture to pay for heroin.
And now, school - the one stable part of their environment - is gone.
And that's before we even talk about who's feeding these kids during lockdown.
Or the fact that school is where most kids' social life is. After all, this is where they make and meet their pals.
Somehow the curriculum - the planning, the targets, the tests - don't matter so much when you look at all that.
But what have teachers been doing during Covid? Well, one day you go into school. You've got your curriculum plan, your resources are all lined up and you've trained your kids so they know what they should be doing. You all get on with things - and then you're told that the school is closing because of C-19. You're going to have to change your teaching. Completely. In the classroom, you have a captive audience: the kids have to be there and by and large they get on with things, but now...Do you know anything about online learning? Can you find your way around the Education Scotland website? Can you handle recording lessons for children and young people to watch at home? Are you ready for the phone calls and texts telling you parents are unhappy with the way things are going? Can you handle the phone calls telling parents their kids are refusing to take part in online lessons? What about the exams?
Have you planned for August? Got maths, language, social subjects, PE, etc all worked out for your class? Got the layout of your classroom worked out with one-way systems and social distancing? Can you get your pupils safely out to enjoy playtime? Who's supervising lunch and what's the - god help us - protocol for that?
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