The latest from dougbelshaw.com/blog
- Google Apps (Education Edition) vs. Microsoft Live@Edu
- Things I Learned This Week – #30
- Weeknote #11
- One week until #GTAUK
- 3 things I need to maintain my productivity.
- Motivation comes from within.
- Intention vs. Effect
- You are what you habitually do.
- Is it time to get rid of secondary schools?
- Productivity: value your time
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The tension at the heart of education
80 CommentsAlmost as soon as I’d boarded the train yesterday to take me back from an examiners’ standardisation meeting, the following image kind of popped into my head. On reflection, it’s a tad over-simplistic, but ideas do not have to be fully-formed to be useful to others!
Perhaps someone could take it and run with it? More arrows need to be added – teachers aren’t just pulled in two directions at the same time (if only!)
(the image is in Fireworks PNG format if that helps anyone)
Published on June 17, 2007 · Filed under: Uncategorized;
80 Responses to “The tension at the heart of education”
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In dealing with the issues surrounding two teenage sons in high school, I wonder if teachers aren't also held in tension between the child-as-student and the child-as-person. I would imagine that this must be especially true of good teachers, and of teachers with years and years of experience.
Tomorrow I must attend no fewer than five meetings with teachers who have requested to see me in connection with my sons' performance at school. In the case of my older son, I know what the deal is: he is expected score As and A*s across the board for his GCSEs and he's currently performing at nowhere near that level in his coursework. That I can deal with.For my younger son it's a far more complex issue. The poor kid is falling to bits under the high school system, and his school work is suffering as a consequence. The teachers are contacting me to enlist my intervention to get his school work back on track, while I am more concerned about the increasing depression, disaffection (disaffectment? disaffectation?), withdrawal, disengagement, truculence, petulance, morbidity, defiance, disobedience, demotivation, loss of appetite, loss of friends, etc. At least one of the teachers I must see views his academic performance in isolation, and has no interest beyond that. I don't expect pastoral intervention from every member of staff, but I do expect them to see him as a person rather than just as a student. I have the same objection to some doctors who seem to see their patients as a life support system for a pathology, rather than as a person with an ailment.
Is this sort of tunnel vision the result of the pressure to achieve results? -
At least one of the teachers I must see views his academic performance in isolation, and has no interest beyond that. I don't expect pastoral
intervention from every member of staff, but I do expect them to see him as a person rather than just as a student.Karyn, this is absolutely the heart of the matter. Until we have some joined-up thinking that looks at the student as a complex emotional creature rather than numbers on a spreadsheet, the unfortunate situation you describe with your son will continue. :(
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