I don’t teach.
Having been on a PGCE course I know how to teach but I don’t teach.
Why? I don’t think I’d be any good at it.
Maybe that’s down to self confidence or maybe is down to recollections of woeful, uninterested teachers that taught me at secondary school and the thought of me being like them (woeful, not uninterested) is enough for me to have found employment in another role within education and leave teaching to those who are good at it.
Another reason I don’t want to teach is from my observation of the education system as a whole. Teachers, it appears to me anyway, are now employed to get students through exams and nothing more. Learning, creativity and enrichment are all secondary to getting students to memorise information and regurgitate it in the exam room.
A great example of this is a ‘web friend’ of mine tweeted about his students’ GCSE results were lower than expected. Now this particular teacher is knowledgeable, a published author on his teaching specialism, a doctoral level student himself and, more importantly, passionate about his subject.
What was one of the reasons why he think he’s ‘failed’?
Because he tried to move away from the usual chalk-and-talk style of teaching and introduce a little creativity, using various Web 2.0 tools.
How can a teacher try and get their students more creative, more independent and yet more connected in their learning if they have the fear of being beaten with the poor results stick?
The school I work in is a great example of this kind of no risk taking. The GCSE results are fabulous, around 83% A-C’s inc English and Maths.
Now, which teacher in my school, under immediate pressure to maintain the schools existing high standards and meet the expectation of 80+% GCSE results, will take the ‘risk’ and dispense the chalk-and-talk method of 2-dimensional drumming of information into our students and allow a little 3-dimensional creativity to permeate into our classrooms?
I’d like to say “the inspirational teacher” or “the one who can see the bigger picture” or “the one who actually cares about the skills he’s passing on to his students” but I’d probably have to be realistic and say “the one who’d probably lose their job”.
I’m glad I don’t teach and until things change I will never ever contemplate going back and retake my training to be a teacher…
But to the point of the post… the video. It’ll probably prompt polar responses, but I found it inspiring… hope you do too.
Enjoy
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