Tuesday 8 November 2011

Are teachers the only ones who can teach?

Of course they're not.  Teachers are just people with a degree, who are then taught the best way to teach 30 children at a time.  A parent teaches a child all they learn up to the age of 5, so why can't they just carry on the job they're doing?  Well they can!  I see evidence of it all the time, and much better than even the best teacher in the world could do in a class of 25 - 30 children.  One on one tuition is second to none, adding that to the fact a child is learning is a safe and secure environment, their home, also aides a child's learning.

At the moment a good friend of mine has felt the system is letting her eldest down.  Her child is obviously very bright and the school is struggling to give her the attention she needs.  They're also humiliating the poor girl pulling her up to the front of the class and telling all the children how naughty she is and they need to keep an eye on her!  Appalling behaviour, even if she had been naughty!  In my opinion she wasn't it was just another one of those times when children are meant to conform to school structure and the lack of time they have to get everything done.

Children are so often put under so much stress and pressure to reach targets in school.  Some children are even being allowed to be let slip through the net, simply because the teacher is failing to get them to 'standard'.  They do this to allow time to ensure that the ones reaching targets more easily are concentrated on to help schools stats!  It's just wrong.  What's worse is some of these children who are falling behind are simply floating through school, day dreaming and bored because they are bright and potential high achievers who get wasted.

Of course, now my friend is looking in to home education, they are doing all they can to convince her that home education is a bad place for a child to be.  Their list is ridiculous and contrary to truth.  Apparently home educated children don't do, academically, as well; how wrong they are!  A child in home education won't be able to socialise as much as a school child; wrong again, homeschooled children often socialise with others far more that schooled children and with wider age ranges.  Then of course making a parent feel they will not be able to educate them well enough, that they will not have the resources.  Are they implying that parents are thick if they have no teaching qualification? 

It frustrates me so much.  If a parent is to tell a state school that they are sending their child to a private school, would they care?  No.  So why do they care when a parent chooses to educate their child privately at home?  Is it pure ignorance or pressure from authorities to keep the children under the control of government?

I'm constantly hearing about parents made to feel that they are doing the wrong thing when all they want to do is take the responsibility for their own child's education and welfare full time, rather than leave it in the hands of so called 'trained' strangers, otherwise know as teachers.

When I first home educated I was not completely anti school, I just believed home education was best for us.  I am now, if I were to be honest, anti school.  Schools were set up because the poor had no way to educate themselves.  We all read and write and do basic maths for ourselves.  I just want to know why people hate it so much when some of us wish to exercise our rights in this country.  The freedom of choice is something we should all celebrate.  Whether that is the freedom to put our child in school, or educate otherwise.

4 comments:

  1. As an ex-teacher I would agree with most of what you say. But the problem is not, as is hinted at by what you say, the teachers; rather it is the system they inhabit. It was designed as you also say for the Victorian poor and was a great social experiment of its time. It fails children now because it does not attempt to teach them but to push them towards arbitary standards, which themselves are created by the products of a very different kind of education generally.

    Then there's the class size thing. Why do public schools have classes of 10-15? Because anything larger than works only for a very small percentage of the children within it.

    My greatest sorrow as a teacher was the thought of those I failed. The bright kids who'd switched off, the middling kids who were too quiet and polite to scream for attention and so got left behind, and the desperately struggling ones who needed so much more than I could give. In the end, I nearly killed myself trying to be what they needed.

    So I say bravo to the home educators. And bravo to the teachers to the teachers who struggle on. And I'd say something very different to policy makers if I ever got my hands on one...

    ReplyDelete
  2. I really feel sorry for the good teachers. My daughter had a brilliant one, who got it in the neck from parents and other staff because she stood no nonsense and didn't accept excuses. We've kept in touch with her and she's very happy in the private sector now.

    So no way am I anti-teachers. I'm anti laziness and form filling over thought and compulsive box ticking and I'm very anti the National Curriculum. School as an institution doesn't match the world we're living in any more, but there are too many vested interests for it to be allowed to change.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ezzie, you are a brilliant person and I know there are brilliant teachers out there. I was meaning the state system is a mess and classes are simply too large.

    Anne, I too agree there are super teachers out there. However, there are the teachers out there, like the ones I've heard about all day today, who make parents who choose to take their kids out of school feel incapable and wrong to to do so.

    I am anti-state school system and against teachers who make parents feel the way I have mentioned above. I am not anti-teachers on the whole. I am really sorry I came across like this, it was not my intention.

    Lisa x

    ReplyDelete
  4. @Lisa: I didn't think you came across as anti-teacher at all, and sorry if I made you think that. I agree with your comments about teaching and teachers in general and certainly agree with your feelings about the state system.

    The real tragedy is a country that spends so many tax pounds on a system that fails pupils, parents and teachers alike; gives no one what they need and creates a "product" that is often ill equipped to meet the world it emerges into.

    Ezzie x

    ReplyDelete