It's Your Time You're Wasting by Frank Chalk

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Originally Posted by cafolini

I think there is a lot of exaggeration as to the lack of instruction at school, as well as the lack of ability of the parents to dialogue with teachers and correct problems. Of course those who are in what I call the paranoid express will disagree with me. But I think the school system is better than ever, more flexible than ever and injecting knowledge more than ever. Discipline is no longer an issue as it should have never been. The most important thing in a person's life is motivation and that cannot be taught one way or the other, least of all imposed. And most likely, under the current programs, that's what flourishes a lot more in the long run.

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With that I can tell you haven't been inside one of UK's 'sink' schools in the last 10-15 years. Either that or you set school policy - or both!

Believe me there is no exaggeration, all the horror stories you read about here are for real, I wish it were otherwise.

Discipline is essential in education and life in general. If you haven't got the discipline to start then you have got no hope, you might as well preach to the wall.

Motivation is essential, as I said above, agreed. Most of this comes from parents who instil this in their child, which brings us back to the parents again and the area in which they live.

Granted there are some great schools out there for which the system is fine. I've been to them and seen them myself. I once taught a class of Y8s and it was like I'd been transported to a different planet, a different universe and not just 5 miles the other side of town (where the life expectancy is 8 years higher!)

No, if I was you I'd read the book if you want to know what it's like without stepping into class. It's much safer.

Of course you are going to have places where poverty drives and you have problems based on that. But the people in those places never had a chance before and they have to evolve.
I think motivation comes long before discipline. The latter is a matter of training.
Even the toughest guys in the US Armed Forces will tell you. You don't become a Seal through discipline. They'll tell you that they can only make it if they are highly motivated first, not later. Yet, looking at the results, people most often think that the discipline comes first. You see it in every sphere. People try and try to get motivated through discipline. They fail miserably.

Previous to this Frank had fallen into the rookie error of writing "YOUR NAME" on the board of which several students had of course done just that, and proceeded to write "YOUR NAME" on the front of their labels, complete rookie error, but always amusing.

I almost spit my coffee out reading this.:smilielol5: So American students aren't the only ones this dumb. I cannot tell you how often I have told the class... repeatedly... "Put your name in the upper right hand corner of your painting"... and then I wrote "Your Name" on my example on the board in the appropriate place, turning again to the students and telling them... repeatedly... "Now don't write the words "Your Name" but rather Dionte or Lakesha or Debresha or whatever your name is." I'll even tell them how some student in every class... in spite of all my instructions... will write "Your Name" on their paper, and they all laugh at how stupid this sounds... and yet invariably one or two kids in every class will still put nothing but "Your Name" at the top of the paper and with 40 students in a room and only 40 minutes (subtracting the 5 minutes to settle down... if I'm lucky, and the 5 minutes to clean up) I simply cannot write all of their names for them.

I don't know how I missed this thread until now. I'll be browsing over the next day or so.

:wave:

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Originally Posted by Neely

Last week at my school Y11s took mock exams in English. I asked about 11 or 12 of them afterwards how they had got on. Now what do you expect they said? Too hard, too easy, OK but struggled on question 4? Ran out of time? This is what I foolishly expected. No. "It was boring" was the response of just about all of them. It was boring? It was an exam what did they expect?...

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I used to find exams an interesting challenge. Perhaps teachers shouldn't tacitly agree with students that exams are inherently boring.

Did you ask them why they found the exam boring? Was it too hard for them? Instead of admitting their lack of capability did they sublimate their discomfort? Or was the exam just too easy? Or were they just parroting a sad mantra?

Why not get them to write an essay - "Why I find exams boring"/"Why I find exams interesting"?

Oh yes Stluke's the "Your Name" thing is certainly not only to be found in American schools. Last week we spent 20 minutes trying to get a class of Y10s (14/15 year olds) to write their name on the right-hand side of a piece of paper and the title in the middle - total nightmare - "no Shaney, that's the left hand-side, the right-hand side" etc, etc followed by the title mantra of "the title's on the board, the title's on the board" etc, etc, typical day...

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I used to find exams an interesting challenge. Perhaps teachers shouldn't tacitly agree with students that exams are inherently boring.

Did you ask them why they found the exam boring? Was it too hard for them? Instead of admitting their lack of capability did they sublimate their discomfort? Or was the exam just too easy? Or were they just parroting a sad mantra?

Why not get them to write an essay - "Why I find exams boring"/"Why I find exams interesting"?

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I believe they were bored because they had to read a whole article (4/5 paragraphs in length) about the environment. In short, they just don't like reading anything because it is deemed to be "boring".

The exam wasn't too easy and most of them didn't answer all the questions, so there's no sublimation going on.

I think they just miss the purpose of exams which is to test them, not to entertain. Most kids think that everything is there to entertain so they often get confused. Teachers didn't tacitly agree with the boring bit. Getting them to write an essay is a bad idea because that involves writing, so it is no, no. They don't like writing either. Writing is boring.

Well, the kids are smart and courteous. As they write, your rigth hand is their left. They mean to please the teacher.

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Originally Posted by cafolini

Well, the kids are smart and courteous. As they write, your rigth hand is their left. They mean to please the teacher.

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Yep, it could be that or...

I've finished the second Frank Chalk book which was just more of the same from the first, but still very good.

I've downloaded a sample of another similar type, about a teacher in a top school who quits his job, lives in a camper van and then goes on supply in rough schools for the 'experience'. :out: Yes that is what I'm thinking.

Teachers only work in schools like ours for two reasons:

1 They can't get a job anywhere else.

2 They believe that they can improve the chances of the kids.

I always think the latter kind of teachers are very noble. After a bit, though, they usually go mad, or quit with stress, or become deeply cynical about everything.

I can only nod my head in agreement. I've worked with at least 3 teachers over the last few years who I can only describe as having serious mental issues. Beyond these I know of one who had her entire class jump a student and another who had a second grader receive oral sex in her class without ever noticing. One of the most insane took his class to a ball game without any proper parental (or school) release forms. When it was time to go he was so much into the game he told the kids to catch the bus home.:frown2:

So many who really know and love their subject and have a passion for teaching and seriously want to make a change become burned out and cynical after years of dealing with the same insanity... more from parents, administration, education reform "experts", and politicians than the kids.

qimissung- Sounds like an interesting book! It actually sounds a great deal like the school I teach at, which is an inner city school.

I'm not sure I understand the references to his supposed liberality, though. I work with teachers, some of whom are conservative and some of whom are liberal. I have always considered myself somewhat liberal. What am I supposed to be learning about myself or my environment that would change my viewpoint?

I think that what Neely refers to is the fact that many teachers enter the field with noble ideals of correcting inequalities in society through education of those students most in need. After some time in the system dealing with incompetent coworkers, continual educational reform "experts", gutless and/or vindictive, administrators horrible parents, and politicians who speak continually of "accountability" but never apply this term to parents, administrators, the education experts, the students, or their own incompetent meddling many teachers become rather cynical and start to agree with conservative individuals like Brian.

I find the entire question interesting in light of one of the most enlightening books I have read on education: E.D. Hirsch in his book, The Schools We Need (and why we don't have them). Hirsch' book addressed many of the problems with Progressive/Liberal teaching methods.. Hirsch was a great champion of the truly Liberal idea of public education... the notion that all children should be given an equal access to the quality education needed to succeed in our society... an idea one would hope that everyone... regardless of political leaning, is on board with. Hirsch noticed that a great many of the liberal/progressive educational strategies (such as the "feel-good/no losers" approach, the failure to hold students responsible for their behavior, the extremes of Inclusion, and the avoidance of memorization of objective "facts") actually had the exact opposite effect... especially in the poor schools which needed education the most. Hirsch discovered that the Italian politician and theorist, Antonio Gramsci (imprisoned by Mussolini) had recognized the problem of progressive education as early as the 1930s:

"The new concept of Schooling is in its Romatic phase (ala Rousseau) in which the replacement of "mechanical" by "natural" methods has become unhealthily exaggerated... Previously pupils at least acquired a certain baggage of concrete facts. Now there will no longer be any baggage to put in order... The most paradoxical aspect of it all is that this new aspect of school is being advocated as being democratic, while in fact it is destined not merely to perpetuate social differences, but crystallize them in Chinese complexities."

The "Romantic"/progressive/liberal concepts of schooling avoid the learning of "facts" because it is feared these will perpetuate stereotypes... the notion that one writer, one artist, one historical personage is more important than another. This was seen as unacceptable to educational progressives as "Multiculturalism" and "Egalitarianism" became the catch-phrases of the day. Egalitarianism is behind the push for the extremes of Inclusion as well as the refusal to hold students responsible for their actions. This, in the US, is then combined with the lack of any real federal or national standards resulting in a system in which almost every school has its own curriculum... makes its own choices about what books to read and what facts to present. When this is further combined with No Child Left Behind which has resulted in schools focusing more upon teaching strategies for taking tests as a means of grabbing the needed scores as opposed to actually teaching a curriculum that is aligned with what the student will be tested upon, the result is an absolute mess in which we cannot be certain that a child in this school at this age will be expected to have mastered the same knowledge and skills as a student in another school just around the block... let alone across the country. Such an approach to teaching is surely not conducive to developing critical thinking, either. Indeed, if anything, one can imagine it would lead to a deal of frustration, cynicism... and even the increased occurrences of cheating. After all... if schools spend more time trying to cheat the system than teach facts and skills, these facts and skills surely must not be something of the greatest importance.

Hirsch recognized that in order to succeed in education and in our society one must accumulate a certain agreed upon body of knowledge. One cannot master reading... let alone "higher order thinking skills" such as analysis, comparison, synthesis, etc... without a body of concrete facts. Progressive educators argue that a curriculum based upon such facts is inherently bound to be racist, sexist, nationalistic. The problem is that the alternative handicaps those very students it claims to assist. The reality is that public education is not the end-all/be-all. Once a student has mastered certain facts, reading, math, etc... he or she is certainly free... and more important, able to branch out and explore other alternative ideas and voices... and certainly higher education should be expected to offer just that. At present, however, higher education needs to begin at a remedial level... teaching many of the basic skills and body of knowledge that should have been mastered in elementary and secondary school.

Hirsch's own schools have show impressive results... but in many ways they have the same advantages of any other elite private school or charter school in that his schools are able to "cherry pick" students. We are still faced with the reality of dealing with students of vastly differing abilities as well as the problems of discipline and continual interruption of the educational process. Only recently in the US the government as part of the No Child Left Behind initiative has actually polled students with questions about what they likes of disliked about their schools. Invariably the issues of constant disruption, chaos, concerns about their personal safety, anxieties as a result of on-going name-calling and fights are major factors in the Conditions of Learning ratings of a majority of urban schools.

One of the most obvious causes of the problems with schools as they are run today is the manner in which they are still based upon the grossly outdated "Industrial Model" first imposed nearly a century ago (or probably longer in Europe). The industrial model assumes that all students learn (or should learn) in the same way, at the same speed and at the same age. Students are socially promoted in the belief that preserving their fragile egos is more important than placing them at the appropriate learning level. Thus we get 8th graders reading at a 1st grade level. Ability tracking was done away with in the name of Egalitarianism... with the results that resulted when separate schools for Black and White students were done away with: all students are thrown together and allowed to sink as a whole. Ability tracking was wrong when the bright students were given the best education while the slowest students were given a crap education in the assumption that they won't amount to anything anyway. If we do away with the very idea of the industrial model... the notion that all students will learn in the same way (we know some are aural learners, some need to read to learn, some need to see examples, some need hands on) at the same speed and the same age, and instead we treat each as an individual... moving on at their own speed... we would likely see far better results. This system was not unlike that employed in the 19th century in the one-room schoolhouses where older students helped the younger.

Of course such an individualized approach to education would be far more expensive... demanding more individualized attention to each student's goals and needs... and in spite of all the talk of politicians, education remains of minor importance. There is still too much of a stigma attached to education: It's "woman's work"... "It involves kids"... thus it can't be taken seriously... it's just child's play... anyone could do it. We hear these comments all the time. If "If can teach my kids right from wrong..." or "If that private school that get's to cherry pick the best behaved, the brightest, and the most motivated students does so well on the tests why can't you get the same results...? In a room of 40 students... 10 of whom are coded "special education", 5 of whom have serious behavioral disabilities, another 4 or 5 of whom should be coded as having the same disabilities... but the psychologists are a year or two behind on assessments. Why can't you get them motivated about algebra or grammar or art or history when 99% are living below the federal poverty level and will have their only meals of the day as part of the free breakfast and lunch program. Any number of whom will walk to school past gangs-bangers, crack-heads, whores, child-abusers drunkards and boarded up houses.... if they don't live with the same gang-bangers, crack-heads, whores, child-abusers and drunkards.

But of course this is all just exaggeration. The schools are better than they ever have been. Discipline is no longer an issue.

And who was it mocking the ignorant religious "fools" for their adhering to fantasies?:frown2:

In old days, of course teachers were seen as absolute symbols of authority and knowledge: simply because they were so. Teachers were among the lucky few who actually went to school (beyond the elementary stage) and acquired some "knoweldge" and, in most cases, parents felt they had to trust the teachers' judgement.

However, things have - luckily - changed. Now, parents have expectations and are able to ask questions. This is not to say, of course, that there are some who take advantage of this opportunity or even abuse the system but, looking at the bigger picture, I think it is great that teachers are accountable and challenged in this way too.

Why do I get the feeling that:

A. Sher has been teaching for less than 5 years... or...

b. Scher teaches at a nice cozy suburban school.


Of course I could be wrong... but from my experience the whole question of "accountability" is about laying the whole blame upon the teachers and avoiding the accountability of the parents, the administrators, the community (who repeatedly reject taxes needed to fund schools while passing levies to fund new sports stadiums), the education "experts", and the politicians.

Fatcat teachers and their commie unions spoiling our kids. That's why we all need too homeschool our children.

Are you still stuck working at Taco Bell?

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Are you still stuck working at Taco Bell?

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If he is, he has job security, because fast food and liquor store jobs aren't going anywhere.


I don't know why but I keep envisioning Neely like this :banana: before he reaches retirement. I can't get it out of my head!

[QUOTE=stlukesguild;1089323I think that what Neely refers to is the fact that many teachers enter the field with noble ideals of correcting inequalities in society through education of those students most in need. After some time in the system dealing with incompetent coworkers, continual educational reform "experts", gutless and/or vindictive, administrators horrible parents, and politicians who speak continually of "accountability" but never apply this term to parents, administrators, the education experts, the students, or their own incompetent meddling many teachers become rather cynical and start to agree with conservative individuals like Brian.[/QUOTE]

If conservative individuals had stood up to the 'progressive tendency', which also included many teachers, and held their ground, the horrendous faults that you and Neely have highlighted would never have come to pass. In a contest where liberalism versus conservatism in schools, or anywhere else for that matter, it's obvious that there really is no contest: if by conservatism we mean commonsense backed by discipline.
I recall an instance when, as a schoolchild, I and the rest of the class were given new exercise books and asked to print our name on the front. Every child in the class printed his name on the front and I'm pretty sure that would have been the response in schools throughout the land.
Educational reform, as with reform in general, is an ongoing thing, but at the point where it produces the opposite result to that intended, it should be rejected for the nonsense that it is.

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In old days, of course teachers were seen as absolute symbols of authority and knowledge: simply because they were so. Teachers were among the lucky few who actually went to school (beyond the elementary stage) and acquired some "knoweldge" and, in most cases, parents felt they had to trust the teachers' judgement.

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I've been debating whether to say this or not.

In the old days, parents worried that their child would miss out on a whipping, not that they would be whipped when they didn't deserve it.

Regarding that last part that I bolded:

Kids didn't used to be coddled and pampered and protected, and all that. That kind of thinking was foreign to folks long ago.

When my mom was a little girl, she once stayed later than she was supposed to at a friend's home. My grandmother went to bring her home and took the switch, and my mom said every time her foot touched the ground my grandmother wrapped the switch around her legs.

But my mom says that at least grandma didn't "cut the blood out" the way my great-grandmother always did when she took the switch to my grandmother.

And there's a very long tradition in my family of children behaving in church.

It's funny that now there has to be daycare in churches because the kids can't be expected to sit in the pews next to their parents. In the old days the kids sat through church. It only took one encounter with the switch and then they sat like little angels right through the service. (Now I'm not necessarily advocating this, I'm just saying that this is how it worked.)

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Originally Posted by Neely

Yep, it could be that or...

I've finished the second Frank Chalk book which was just more of the same from the first, but still very good.

I've downloaded a sample of another similar type, about a teacher in a top school who quits his job, lives in a camper van and then goes on supply in rough schools for the 'experience'. :out: Yes that is what I'm thinking.

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Interesting observation.

@ Emil Miller
"The main problem is a lack of discipline and this is as a direct result of the post WW11 attitude inculcated by the 'We're the masters now', idiots that took over the UK in 1945. Dismantling the existing system was what they were about in the name of a spurious equality, and the result is what we have now."

The man who said "We are the Masters now." was Sir Hartley Shawcross, Attorney General in the post- war Labour Government. It was said in a debate on the subject of Trade Unions. He admitted that it was a mistake to say it. He did not stay in the Labour Party but went to the Lords as a cross-bencher, though his nickname was Sir Shortly Floorcross!

Free Secondary education was not introduced into England & Wales until 1902 administered by Local Education Authorities. Between this and the 1944 Education Act, approximately 75000 children from the age cohort would have a Grammar School place while the other 225000 would go to an Elementary School where the leaving age was not even 14 until 1921.

These children would have no chance at all to take the Matriculation Certificate which was essential for Higher Education.

The goal of Elementary schools was Literacy not Education. And if some schools now, for reasons discussed above, don't manage even that for every child... that is nothing to do with the 1944 Act.

The 1944 Act wasn't perfect but it gave the opportunity for bright working class children to be admitted to a Grammar School and proceed to Matriculation and University...and all free of charge!! Personally I thank my lucky stars for being born at a time to take advantage of it. My mother, born 1910, who was as bright and promising as I was,was forced to leave school at 13 to look after 6 siblings and her father after her mother died.

The equality of opportunity which was established by the Act was in no sense a spurious equality It established an equality, which though limited, replaced a system where there was none at all.

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Originally Posted by Seasider

@ Emil Miller
"The main problem is a lack of discipline and this is as a direct result of the post WW11 attitude inculcated by the 'We're the masters now', idiots that took over the UK in 1945. Dismantling the existing system was what they were about in the name of a spurious equality, and the result is what we have now."

The man who said "We are the Masters now" who was Sir Hartley Shawcross, Attorney General in the post- war Labour Government. It was said in a debate on the subject of Trade Unions. He admitted that it was a mistake to say it. He did not stay in the Labour Party but went to the Lords as a cross-bencher, though his nickname was Sir Shortly Floorcross!

Free Secondary education was not introduced into England & Wales until 1902 administered by Local Education Authorities. Between this and the 1944 Education Act, approximately 75000 children from the age cohort would have a Grammar School place while the other 225000 would go to an Elementary School where the leaving age was not even 14 until 1921.

These children would have no chance at all to take the Matriculation Certificate which was essential for Higher Education.

The goal of Elementary schools was Literacy not Education. And if some schools now for reasons discussed above don't manage even that for every child that is nothing to do with the 1944 Act.

The 1944 Act wasn't perfect but it gave the opportunity for bright working class children to be admitted to a Grammar School and proceed to Matriculation and University...and all free of charge!! Personally I thank my lucky stars for being born at a time to take advantage of it.

The equality of opportunity which was established by the Act was in no sense a spurious equality It established an equality, which though limited, replaced a system where there was none at all.

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I am aware that it was Sir Hartley Shawcross who said it, in fact he features as Britain's Attorney General and chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials in my book Pro Bono Publico. Interestingly, it was reported in Hansard that he was supposed to have said: "We are the masters at the moment and shall be for some considerable time." This was disputed by a member who was actually sitting behind him when he said it.
The 1944 Education Act was introduced by a Conservative Education Minister R.A.Butler with the principal intention of providing increased numbers of grammar school places for children than had previously been the case.
As I have said, it was after 1945 that a Labour government began the process of loosening the constraints that would eventually lead to the abandonment of those very grammar schools that Rab Butler had engendered and replacing them with what we have now; all in the name of a spurious equality.
You were indeed fortunate in going to a grammar school before they were destroyed by Labour politicians. There's not much chance of able children going to them now. Incidentally, education at any level is never 'free', somebody has to pay for it in one form or another.

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Originally Posted by Emil Miller

As I have said, it was after 1945 that a Labour government began the process of loosening the constraints that would eventually lead to the abandonment of those very grammar schools that Rab Butler had engendered and replacing them with what we have now; all in the name of a spurious equality.
You were indeed fortunate in going to a grammar school before they were destroyed by Labour politicians. There's not much chance of able children going to them now. Incidentally, education at any level is never 'free', somebody has to pay for it in one form or another.

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The 1944 Education Act was passed by a Coalition Government, not Rab Butler on his own, and was implemented from '45 by Ellen Wilkinson, the first Labour Minister of Education
There was no Labour Government to change the system between 1951 and 1964.

The Comprehensive School movement was not piloted by a group of doctrinaire Labour MPs, but by parents and teachers of all political stripes who recognised the essential unfairness of the prevailing system. Some LEAs had 10% Grammar School places, others 30+%. There were many more Boys' GSs than Girls'. So your gender and your location. not your intelligence, determined whether you had the privilege of a Grammar School education.

What happens in schools now, pace Frank Chalk and others, is to do with the particular social, economic, cultural and political conditions of the 21st Century in Britain...not the Post-War Government who gave us The National Health Service, Free Education from Infant schools to University and National Insurance.

But even so, at least the old grammar school system allowed some students from poorer backgrounds to get to the top universities. Now there is virtually no chance of even a very bright student who attends one of these types of comprehensives getting there. It is a fact that there were more state school students attending Oxford or Cambridge in the 1970s than there are today. As Frank says for "99% of people nowadays their future is sealed from the moment they are born." So much for social mobity, what a joke.

The problem is that all parties do not support a return to the old system, as Frank highlights:

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None of the main parties agree with me - David Willets, the current Universities Minister declard in 2007 that the Conservatives will not support any kind of academic selection. He forgot to mention the fact that he was lucky enough to be able to go to a Grammar school himself (and sent his own chldren to privatre schools).

David Cameron, who was fortunate enough to be educated at Eton, rushed to enthusiastically support him. Nick Clegg (who attended the exclusive Westminster School) [both of which cost around £10,000 per term] has declared that he also opposes selection in schools.

On the other side of the house, Ed Balls says that Grammar Schools are responsible for making pupils feel like failures. I think that crap comprehensive schools wher you can just muck about all day and not learn anything are far more likely to make their pupils feel like failures (a few years after they leave with no qualifications).

Ed forgets to mention that he was sufficiently privileged to have parents who could afford to send him to a nice public school in Nottingham where he recieved an excellent education which enabled him to get to Oxford University.

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The bottom line is that these comprehensives are failing. The two tier system was not perfect for sure, but what we have now in the state sector (of bottom schools) is failure for all; students and teachers alike.

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Originally Posted by Seasider

The 1944 Education Act was passed by a Coalition Government, not Rab Butler on his own, and was implemented from '45 by Ellen Wilkinson, the first Labour Minister of Education
There was no Labour Government to change the system between 1951 and 1964.

The Comprehensive School movement was not piloted by a group of doctrinaire Labour MPs, but by parents and teachers of all political stripes who recognised the essential unfairness of the prevailing system. Some LEAs had 10% Grammar School places, others 30+%. There were many more Boys' GSs than Girls'. So your gender and your location. not your intelligence, determined whether you had the privilege of a Grammar School education.

What happens in schools now, pace Frank Chalk and others, is to do with the particular social, economic, cultural and political conditions of the 21st Century in Britain...not the Post-War Government who gave us The National Health Service, Free Education from Infant schools to University and National Insurance.

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There was a lot of controversy surrounding comprehensive education when it was mooted and it remained controversial until it was implemented and it still does.
Here's what Wikipedia says:
Circular 10/65 is a Government circular issued in 1965 by the Department of Education and Science (DES) requesting Local Education Authorities (LEAs) in England and Wales to begin converting their secondary schools to the Comprehensive System. For most of England and Wales, it marked the abolition of the old grammar schools and secondary moderns, and the Eleven Plus examination. Circular 10/65 was the initiative of recently appointed Education Secretary Anthony Crosland; it is sometimes called the Crosland Circular. It reflected the Labour government's view that the existing Tripartite System of education was flawed, and had to be replaced with comprehensive schools, which had been increasing in number over the previous sixteen years.

That comprehensive education was the product of politicians is beyond doubt, here's what happened in relation to the Crosland Circular.

During the Circular's drafting, there was a debate in Whitehall over how strongly worded the Circular ought to be. Secondary education was not under the direct control of the DES, and all changes had to be implemented by the local authorities. Those firmly in favour of the comprehensive system believed that the Circular should convert all schools into comprehensives. Those preferring to preserve the balance of power between the DES and LEAs thought that the word should be "request".
Upon release in July 1965 [1], the Circular used the word "request". In practice, the DES used its financial muscle to make opposition to the change harder. Local authorities relied on the central government to pay for the large number of new schools made necessary by the post-war baby boom. The DES refused to pay for any new secondary school which was not a comprehensive. As a result, a number of LEAs otherwise supporting the tripartite system, such as Bromley and Surrey, found it necessary to go comprehensive.
Within days of the election of a Conservative government in June 1970, the new education minister Margaret Thatcher withdrew the Circular. The replacement, Circular 10/70, allowed each authority to decide its own policy.

As for doctrinaire politicians here's the well-known infamous quote from Anthony Crosland, then Secretary of State for Education. You may choose to believe Roy Hattersley's denial but I wouldn't.

In her biography published in 1982, Susan Crosland claimed her husband had told her "If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to destroy every ****ing grammar school in England. And Wales and Northern Ireland", although close associates such as Roy Hattersley have doubted that the quotation is genuine. The outcome has been a source of controversy ever since.

Frank Chalk's book highlights problems that have been ongoing well before the 21st century.

I think you exaggerate how bad things are to an extent. I went to a public school that was ranked 26th out of 27 English language schools in Montreal, the only one behind us was the one servicing the Mohawk reserve. I managed to receive a reasonable quality education and attend the top ranked life science university in Canada, and a top 20 internationally.

There is a problem with the idea of getting rid of the "egalitarian" principles, which is can we really trust the ability of the system to accurately predict the ability of students? The difficulty with tailoring education to the needs of individual students is, like stlukes said, the issue of cost. The likely end result is that the system will just reinforce social inequalities and funnel privileges towards children already coming from better environments, because that would be the most cost effective use of funds.

One thing we should probably consider is why Canada (3rd in reading, 5th in math and science) and Australia (5th, 9th, and 15th), which are culturally very similar to the US (14th, 25th, 17th) and UK (20th, 22nd, 11th), rank higher in international performance. We have a comprehensive school system, and teacher's unions, so why do we not have the same systemic education problems? How is the education system in the US and UK differing from that in Canada, or other top performers for public schools like South Korea and Finland.

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Originally Posted by OrphanPip

I think you exaggerate how bad things are to an extent. I went to a public school that was ranked 26th out of 27 English language schools in Montreal, the only one behind us was the one servicing the Mohawk reserve. I managed to receive a reasonable quality education and attend the top ranked life science university in Canada, and a top 20 internationally.

There is a problem with the idea of getting rid of the "egalitarian" principles, which is can we really trust the ability of the system to accurately predict the ability of students? The difficulty with tailoring education to the needs of individual students is, like stlukes said, the issue of cost. The likely end result is that the system will just reinforce social inequalities and funnel privileges towards children already coming from better environments, because that would be the most cost effective use of funds.

One thing we should probably consider is why Canada and Australia, which are culturally very similar to the US and UK, rank so much higher in international performance. We have a comprehensive school system, and teacher's unions, so why do we not have the same systemic education problems?

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Well tell it to Frank Chalk, he's the guy with the direct experience of the problem which has been consistently highlighted in the UK media for many years. I've no doubt that some UK comprehensive schools function well enough under the comprehensive system but the fact that there are many that don't shows that it is no panacea. Whether Australia or Canada find the system congenial has no correlation in UK terms where the density of population and cultural mix is far greater than either. This has much to do with immigration policies pursued by British politicians that have had a noticeably greater effect on the UK than that of many other countries.

I love it. StLukes makes a wonderfully sensical, coherent argument, and this is Emil's recap: Conservatives GOOD, Liberals BAD. :lol:

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Originally Posted by Emil Miller

As for doctrinaire politicians here's the well-known infamous quote from Anthony Crosland, then Secretary of State for Education. You may choose to believe Roy Hattersley's denial but I wouldn't.

In her biography published in 1982, Susan Crosland claimed her husband had told her "If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to destroy every ****ing grammar school in England. And Wales and Northern Ireland", although close associates such as Roy Hattersley have doubted that the quotation is genuine. The outcome has been a source of controversy ever since.

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I'm afraid I don't regard hearsay, and second-hand hearsay at that, as having any place in a serious argument.

Inner city schools have all kinds of reasons for failure. Like all Comprehensives they are neighbourhood schools and conditions will reflect that. Neighbourhoods marked by poverty, urban decay, crime, unemployment, lack of aspiration etc will import these conditions into schools. And teachers, however good they are cannot be a panacea for all ills.
This Government is edging towards the opinion that the problem may be solved not by any improvement in social conditions but by Discipline and Latin!!! Academies?? Watch this space!

I think you exaggerate how bad things are to an extent. I went to a public school that was ranked 26th out of 27 English language schools in Montreal, the only one behind us was the one servicing the Mohawk reserve. I managed to receive a reasonable quality education and attend the top ranked life science university in Canada, and a top 20 internationally.

I cannot speak for Neely, but I will state that there is no need for exaggeration in my instance... and as bad as these conditions may be, I have heard from teachers at other schools in the same district... or other large urban districts... where the conditions were even worse.

I should not that I do not expect that the conditions I or Neely speak of are commonplace in public schools across the nation. My own personal experience of public schools in a middle-class suburban district was quite different. The conditions for learning at this school... and I would surmise at a majority of the public schools in the middle-class and wealthy neighborhoods is quite good. The scoring of the American Schools is being dragged down predominantly by the poor urban and rural schools.

Pip raises a good question of why there is this disparity in scores between US and UK schools on one hand and Canadian schools on the other hand, considering that the demographics are largely equal. I will not attempt to speak to the British schools, knowing nothing of them or the demographics first hand. I will, however, look at the issue from the US perspective. According to available numbers the Canadian minority population (16.2%) consists of aboriginal or First Nations (3.8%), Asian (7.9%), Black (2.5%) and a remaining mixed minority population of (1.9%). By way of contrast the US minority population consists of a minority population of 36.3%. Of these the largest groups are Hispanic (16.3%), Black/African-American (12.6%), and Asian (4.8%).

The Asian population, which makes up Canada's largest minority group, has historically been very supportive of education and very solid in terms of family structure. The Black population in the United States has had a long adversarial relationship with education, owing, no doubt, much to slavery and racism... but also to poverty and the failure of the Black American families. In many of the poor Black communities single-family homes... usually headed by a woman... are the reality in 90%+ of the instances. The Hispanic population as a whole has been no less successful in supporting education of their children in the US.

Much of this ties over to poverty. The Black and Hispanic communities are continually ranked among the poorest in the US. The US poverty rate as a whole is over 15%. The Canadian poverty rate lies somewhere between a a little under 5% (according to Conservative polls) and a little over 10% (according to liberal polls). If we estimate that the reality lies somewhere in between and split the difference we find that the US poverty rate stands at double that of Canada.

If we look at Norway we find a rather homogeneous culture. The largest non-European minority is that of Pakistanis who account for a mere .7% of the population. This homogeneous character carries over into language and religion as well. Looking at poverty, the percentage of Norwegians living at or below the poverty rate is estimated at 4.3%.

One can certainly use such data to help explain the disparity between school scores in the US, Canada, and Norway when we recognize that poverty is one of the largest indicators for academic success and that the populations most susceptible to poverty in the US are the Black and Hispanic populations who both have a long history of distrust and lack of support for public education.

Of course there are undoubtedly other factors as well, including the homogeneity of the culture as a whole, the structure of the school systems, the Federal support (or lack thereof) for national standards for both students and the education of teachers, the degree of respect for education and educators, etc...

The great problem now faced by public education as a whole in the US is that the notion once almost universally held that all children should be given an equal access to the quality education needed to succeed in our society is challenged by those of conservative views such as MortalTerror who are willing to throw the majority of the urban and poor rural student population into the trash heap because the education of these students has become "too expensive". If public education were eliminated in the US tomorrow and replaced by for-profit private schools the quality of education in most middle-class and wealthy neighborhoods would not change much. In the rural schools and urban schools where the costs of education are far greater due to increases in violence and need for security, increases in needs for special services to deal with large populations of developmental, emotional, behavioral, and physical handicaps (directly tied to poverty), increases in needs for psychological services to deal with increased abuse (sexual, physical, emotional, alcohol/drugs), etc... the quality of education would decline drastically... as can be seen in the scores of private charter schools which have opened in urban neighborhoods. The results will be a further level of locking children into the economic state that they were born in, and an increase in the divide between the rich and the poor... something that is already carrying over into the colleges and universities in the US.

If we, as a society, are to decide that it is OK to write off large portions of the population figuring that the strongest will survive, no matter what the conditions are, and the rest simply aren't worth the cost, we should consider the long-term economic ramifications of such a policy. The continued education of the poor urban and rural populations is indeed expensive, and a great many students within these schools continue to fail in spite of the best efforts of teachers, parents, administrators, and other forms of intervention. What, however, will be the cost of supporting the whole of this population on Welfare and Food Stamps, and subsidized housing, and free health-care (to say nothing of prison) if we write the population as a whole off assuring that they will largely be unemployable in today's economy? This was a possibility 50 years ago when the student who couldn't read beyond a 4th grade level dropped out in the 8th grade and yet was assured of a good job working in the booming American industrial market. This is no longer the reality... and if we recognize that we now live in an global market where we need to be able to increasingly be able to compete with the "hungry" and driven populations of China, India, South America, Korea, etc... then we need to take the education of the entire population seriously and stop all the political games.

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Originally Posted by Emil Miller

Whether Australia or Canada find the system congenial has no correlation in UK terms where the density of population and cultural mix is far greater than either. This has much to do with immigration policies pursued by British politicians that have had a noticeably greater effect on the UK than that of many other countries.

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While there is certainly a greater population density in the UK (although most of Canada's population is packed in large urban centres, like the US), Canada is actually more ethnically diverse than the UK, and it also has the highest immigration rate, per capita, in the developed world. Of course, we don't have the history of slavery or problems with illegal immigration like the US, which is very likely the most diverse population in the West.

Issues of ethnicity do tie into problems of systemic poverty, but blaming the immigrants doesn't seem like an adequate explanation, just like blaming the system doesn't seem to work quite well when the same basic aspects of the system work in other places. The focus should be on pragmatic examination of ways to improve performance and help deal with the systemic problems that make the system work in one place and not in another.

In Quebec, the public system snaps the poor kids up quickly, they get integrated into the national daycare program from as early as 3, where there is the beginnings of an education program. A big problem with systemic poverty is that a great deal of a child's cognitive development happens way before they ever end up in a classroom with a teacher. There's so much more at play than any ideological bogeyman of "liberalism" in the schools.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

I think you exaggerate how bad things are to an extent. I went to a public school that was ranked 26th out of 27 English language schools in Montreal, the only one behind us was the one servicing the Mohawk reserve. I managed to receive a reasonable quality education and attend the top ranked life science university in Canada, and a top 20 internationally.

I cannot speak for Neely, but I will state that there is no need for exaggeration in my instance... and as bad as these conditions may be, I have heard from teachers at other schools in the same district... or other large urban districts... where the conditions were even worse.

I should not that I do not expect that the conditions I or Neely speak of are commonplace in public schools across the nation. My own personal experience of public schools in a middle-class suburban district was quite different. The conditions for learning at this school... and I would surmise at a majority of the public schools in the middle-class and wealthy neighborhoods is quite good. The scoring of the American Schools is being dragged down predominantly by the poor urban and rural schools.

Pip raises a good question of why there is this disparity in scores between US and UK schools on one hand and Canadian schools on the other hand, considering that the demographics are largely equal. I will not attempt to speak to the British schools, knowing nothing of them or the demographics first hand. I will, however, look at the issue from the US perspective. According to available numbers the Canadian minority population (16.2%) consists of aboriginal or First Nations (3.8%), Asian (7.9%), Black (2.5%) and a remaining mixed minority population of (1.9%). By way of contrast the US minority population consists of a minority population of 36.3%. Of these the largest groups are Hispanic (16.3%), Black/African-American (12.6%), and Asian (4.8%).

The Asian population, which makes up Canada's largest minority group, has historically been very supportive of education and very solid in terms of family structure. The Black population in the United States has had a long adversarial relationship with education, owing, no doubt, much to slavery and racism... but also to poverty and the failure of the Black American families. In many of the poor Black communities single-family homes... usually headed by a woman... are the reality in 90%+ of the instances. The Hispanic population as a whole has been no less successful in supporting education of their children in the US.

Much of this ties over to poverty. The Black and Hispanic communities are continually ranked among the poorest in the US. The US poverty rate as a whole is over 15%. The Canadian poverty rate lies somewhere between a a little under 5% (according to Conservative polls) and a little over 10% (according to liberal polls). If we estimate that the reality lies somewhere in between and split the difference we find that the US poverty rate stands at double that of Canada.

If we look at Norway we find a rather homogeneous culture. The largest non-European minority is that of Pakistanis who account for a mere .7% of the population. This homogeneous character carries over into language and religion as well. Looking at poverty, the percentage of Norwegians living at or below the poverty rate is estimated at 4.3%.

One can certainly use such data to help explain the disparity between school scores in the US, Canada, and Norway when we recognize that poverty is one of the largest indicators for academic success and that the populations most susceptible to poverty in the US are the Black and Hispanic populations who both have a long history of distrust and lack of support for public education.

Of course there are undoubtedly other factors as well, including the homogeneity of the culture as a whole, the structure of the school systems, the Federal support (or lack thereof) for national standards for both students and the education of teachers, the degree of respect for education and educators, etc...

The great problem now faced by public education as a whole in the US is that the notion once almost universally held that all children should be given an equal access to the quality education needed to succeed in our society is challenged by those of conservative views such as MortalTerror who are willing to throw the majority of the urban and poor rural student population into the trash heap because the education of these students has become "too expensive". If public education were eliminated in the US tomorrow and replaced by for-profit private schools the quality of education in most middle-class and wealthy neighborhoods would not change much. In the rural schools and urban schools where the costs of education are far greater due to increases in violence and need for security, increases in needs for special services to deal with large populations of developmental, emotional, behavioral, and physical handicaps (directly tied to poverty), increases in needs for psychological services to deal with increased abuse (sexual, physical, emotional, alcohol/drugs), etc... the quality of education would decline drastically... as can be seen in the scores of private charter schools which have opened in urban neighborhoods. The results will be a further level of locking children into the economic state that they were born in, and an increase in the divide between the rich and the poor... something that is already carrying over into the colleges and universities in the US.

If we, as a society, are to decide that it is OK to write off large portions of the population figuring that the strongest will survive, no matter what the conditions are, and the rest simply aren't worth the cost, we should consider the long-term economic ramifications of such a policy. The continued education of the poor urban and rural populations is indeed expensive, and a great many students within these schools continue to fail in spite of the best efforts of teachers, parents, administrators, and other forms of intervention. What, however, will be the cost of supporting the whole of this population on Welfare and Food Stamps, and subsidized housing, and free health-care (to say nothing of prison) if we write the population as a whole off assuring that they will largely be unemployable in today's economy? This was a possibility 50 years ago when the student who couldn't read beyond a 4th grade level dropped out in the 8th grade and yet was assured of a good job working in the booming American industrial market. This is no longer the reality... and if we recognize that we now live in an global market where we need to be able to increasingly be able to compete with the "hungry" and driven populations of China, India, South America, Korea, etc... then we need to take the education of the entire population seriously and stop all the political games.

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Frankly, I don't think you understand the American system and the richness of the human resources we have here. And what is poverty measured by? When an American tells you poverty is 15%, it is measured by what we consider poverty level, not by any international standard, which in the first place does not occur beyond the propaganda machine. The poorest hispanic in America has an effective standard of life 7 to 10 times better than in any Spanish country. The poorest black has a standard tens of times better than in any African nation. It's not for nothing that the petitions for resident visas to come to America are hundreds of times higher than for the rest of the world. And it will continue to be so.

[QUOTE=Vonny;1085488]Qimi, I think the confusion is that what you and I call Liberal and Conservative is different from what they call liberal and conservative. All the time I fall into this, where I am conservative, however I'm not Conservative. I'm also not Liberal.

In our country everything is so controlled by the C & L that many aren't able to think outside the box anymore.
QUOTE]

Thanks, Vonny, to you and Stlukes for clearing up the conservative/liberal question. I think we do the whole question of how to deal with our schools and particularly our low-performing schools a disservice when we divide the issues and solutions into liberal or conservative camps. For one thing you've immediately decided that some things will work on not based solely on whoever thought them up, which is ridiculous in itself. Secondly, when we do that we demonize whole portions of humanity who have committed the sin of not thinking as we do, which is also ridiculous.

I'm afraid, Emil, much as we might want to bring back the good old days of caning recalcitrant students, that those days are gone for good. There are things that can be done that would be effective, if only....we'd be practical and ask questions:

Is it truly supportive?

Does it really help?

Is this really working?

The qualifiers are really necessary, I think.

I just started reading "Freakonomics" by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (I realize I'm probably the last person in the Northern Hemisphere to do so, but there it is) and I skipped ahead to the chapter titled "What Makes a Perfect Parent" and found this:

"...school choice barely mattered at all.It is true that the Chicago students who entered the school choice lottery were more likely to graduate than the students who didn't-which seems to suggest that school choice does make a difference. But that's an illusion. The proof is in this comparison: the students who won the lottery and went to a "better" school did no better than equivalent students who lost the lottery and were left behind."

What did seem to help a significant portion of the students it goes on to say, was having a technical school or career academy, something I have long wished for at our school, which has systematically been doing away with these classes for the last ten years. I wondered if in wishing for this I was shortchanging our students, but I still feel that such programs would help, provided it is the students choice to go into them. In the United States they could still go on to get a higher education if they wanted too later.

Unfortunately, in Texas at any rate, we are striving to have one hundred per cent of our students go to college. Against their will, usually. Honoring what these young adults want is never encouraged. They are simply enrolled in classes and handed a schedule. If they passed the state-mandated test they may find themselves in AP classes from which they cannot withdraw unless they bring their parent or guardian to see the counselor.

In high schools, also, the principal is paid according to the number of students enrolled. For a long time that meant that we took any kid, even those not any longer welcome in other districts.

And as far as teachers mollycoddleing the students, it seemed to me that it was the administrators who did not back up the teachers that often caused the problems. The other day I had a student who wanted to leave the room. I told her no; she walked out anyway. I was furious and planning to write a referral. She came back and pretty much demanded re-entry. Finally the assitant principal came and explained the situation to me. All that trouble could have been saved if he'd only bothered to write me a note or her a pass.

Yesterday the same student told me again that her doctor told her she shouldn't carry a notebook for health reasons. I told her I would have to see a note from her doctor before I would accept that. Then she told me she had to leave early again. I told her that the asst. principal had told me that that was in effect only through last week. Guess what? She walked out again.

Of course I went back to the assistant principal. He told her what he told me and said he hoped I would write a referral. It was such a relief. The last principal we had took the students side over the teachers.

Frankly, I don't think you understand the American system and the richness of the human resources we have here. And what is poverty measured by? When an American tells you poverty is 15%, it is measured by what we consider poverty level, not by any international standard, which in the first place does not occur beyond the propaganda machine. The poorest hispanic in America has an effective standard of life 7 to 10 times better than in any Spanish country. The poorest black has a standard tens of times better than in any African nation. It's not for nothing that the petitions for resident visas to come to America are hundreds of times higher than for the rest of the world. And it will continue to be so.

And your grasp of the reality of American poverty is based on what? How many years of first hand experience in the poor neighborhoods of urban America? Or perhaps a couple years of college that have led you to think you are an expert in everything?

Yes the standard of living of the average American living beneath the poverty level is undoubtedly far greater than that of the child living on the streets in the Sao Paolo or a great majority in war-torn Somalia so we should just tell that to the America child who relies upon the free lunch programs at his public schools for the only meals he will have this week because it's the end of the month and Mom is out of money until the first of the month and her Welfare and Food Stamps arrive. The fact that he or she has to walk past drug-dealers, crack heads, whores, gang-bangers, and boarded up houses to a decapitated school built in 1903 with one bathroom in the basement, inadequate heating, and no air-conditioning in the summer months is OK because... hell it could be worse. he or she could be living in Afghanistan.

:patriot:

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Originally Posted by OrphanPip

In Quebec, the public system snaps the poor kids up quickly, they get integrated into the national daycare program from as early as 3, where there is the beginnings of an education program. A big problem with systemic poverty is that a great deal of a child's cognitive development happens way before they ever end up in a classroom with a teacher. There's so much more at play than any ideological bogeyman of "liberalism" in the schools.

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I think this is it, right here: The battle is won or lost LONG before the child begins first grade.

And Qimissung, I'm not in on the conservative/liberal debate. Are Emil and Stlukes on opposite side of that? Because both of them make sense to me. I can even see Mortalterror's point, homeschool if you can.

Qimissung, who is paying for all of those kids to go to college who don't want to go? Are they forced to take out loans? And then there are not many jobs anymore for people who do graduate from college. You certainly don't want to major in Education!

Reading all the posts on this thread encouraged me to go back to the book which I had downloaded earlier this year.

I was reminded that Frank Chalk claims to be a Supply Teacher...one who substitutes in cases of staff absence.

I have held both permanent positions and done supply work and it was my experience that however much the teacher disliked the latter, this was exceeded by how much pupils disliked having constant changes of teachers.

When I was training I was made aware of the necessity of forming a relationship with your pupils and being consistent in what you expected and and what you rejected. Pupils preferred certainties of routine and rules and reacted badly to arbitrary changes, which might only be in operation for a day, or even a lesson.

I went back into Supply Teaching for 18 months after 20 years in Higher Ed and I could not believe how hard and stressful it was when compared with my earlier experiences.

What struck me was the fact that the class did not like having to get used to someone else just for a couple of days, and demonstrated this by hostility and often rudeness.

My discomfiture was not helped by some established teachers speculating on why I was having difficulties with Class X or Y, while he/she found them no trouble at all!

Of course this one aspect does not explain or excuse bad behaviour. The reasons for much of it have been cogently argued by previous posters. But I think it is disingenuous of Chalk to lay the blame solely on the pupils.

And apart from that a book about quiet, well behaved, hard working pupils and happy fulfilled teachers would never have achieved the sales of the two books he has written,which may have enabled him to leave the classroom behind.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Frankly, I don't think you understand the American system and the richness of the human resources we have here. And what is poverty measured by? When an American tells you poverty is 15%, it is measured by what we consider poverty level, not by any international standard, which in the first place does not occur beyond the propaganda machine. The poorest hispanic in America has an effective standard of life 7 to 10 times better than in any Spanish country. The poorest black has a standard tens of times better than in any African nation. It's not for nothing that the petitions for resident visas to come to America are hundreds of times higher than for the rest of the world. And it will continue to be so.

And your grasp of the reality of American poverty is based on what? How many years of first hand experience in the poor neighborhoods of urban America? Or perhaps a couple years of college that have led you to think you are an expert in everything?

Yes the standard of living of the average American living beneath the poverty level is undoubtedly far greater than that of the child living on the streets in the Sao Paolo or a great majority in war-torn Somalia so we should just tell that to the America child who relies upon the free lunch programs at his public schools for the only meals he will have this week because it's the end of the month and Mom is out of money until the first of the month and her Welfare and Food Stamps arrive. The fact that he or she has to walk past drug-dealers, crack heads, whores, gang-bangers, and boarded up houses to a decapitated school built in 1903 with one bathroom in the basement, inadequate heating, and no air-conditioning in the summer months is OK because... hell it could be worse. he or she could be living in Afghanistan.

:patriot:

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There are disagreements of all kinds in America regarding poverty level and how to establish canons. The point is that this idea of international standards is false. There are none other than the ones established by propaganda machines and do not and cannot occur.
Considering the amount of services and the assistance the poor people get in the actual three-dimensional experience of America, makes them many times richer than in most countries in the world.
Of course we have a lot of mongers that think otherwise. But that has always been the case in America while in the reality of everyday experience we have overcome the warnings for catastrophe with actual progress in all spheres. And people ask: "What are you talking about? Even your own Americans tell you that you are in crisis, in deep trouble."
This is true. Complete freedom of speech in America (and we want to keep it that way and we will) causes a certain havoc in the media which has no actual empirical foundation. It has always been that way and will continue to be so. Our resources are so far ahead of the times that the rest of the world cannot understand their outreaching capabilities. And the meaning of money is being redefined constantly. Behind the scene of the mongers from the GOP (and many are not mongers) our so-called CRISIS is a Pistachio Parfait. Have fun. A salute from the land of the free and the home of the brave.

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Originally Posted by Seasider

Reading all the posts on this thread encouraged me to go back to the book which I had downloaded earlier this year.

I was reminded that Frank Chalk claims to be a Supply Teacher...one who substitutes in cases of staff absence.

I have held both permanent positions and done supply work and it was my experience that however much the teacher disliked the latter, this was exceeded by how much pupils disliked having constant changes of teachers.

When I was training I was made aware of the necessity of forming a relationship with your pupils and being consistent in what you expected and and what you rejected. Pupils preferred certainties of routine and rules and reacted badly to arbitrary changes, which might only be in operation for a day, or even a lesson.

I went back into Supply Teaching for 18 months after 20 years in Higher Ed and I could not believe how hard and stressful it was when compared with my earlier experiences.

What struck me was the fact that the class did not like having to get used to someone else just for a couple of days, and demonstrated this by hostility and often rudeness.

My discomfiture was not helped by some established teachers speculating on why I was having difficulties with Class X or Y, while he/she found them no trouble at all!

Of course this one aspect does not explain or excuse bad behaviour. The reasons for much of it have been cogently argued by previous posters. But I think it is disingenuous of Chalk to lay the blame solely on the pupils.

And apart from that a book about quiet, well behaved, hard working pupils and happy fulfilled teachers would never have achieved the sales of the two books he has written,which may have enabled him to leave the classroom behind.

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It is a fair point. Certainly it is harder doing supply work and covering absent teachers, it brings out the worse in students as they see it as a ‘free lesson’ and think that they can get away with things they otherwise wouldn’t. I did this for five years myself. However, the sort of behaviour he describes is not exaggerated and even very experienced teachers have lessons like he describes in this book all the time. Last week I was working with one of these and we had to get rid of 5 students from a class of 17 just to function somewhat ‘normally’. So it’s not just supply who get the brunt end of it all the time, just perhaps more often.

Chalk doesn’t lay the blame solely on the pupils, perhaps I’ve mainly focused on that, but he doesn’t do that. In his books he points to other factors including the lack of support from above, social and economic circumstances, poor teaching, the comprehensive system, the hippy buzz methods and so on, so he definitely doesn’t lay the blame solely at their door, though there is never any excuse for poor behaviour as you say.

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A salute from the land of the free and the home of the brave.

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Oh dear! The Queen says ‘Hello’.

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Originally Posted by Neely

Oh dear! The Queen says ‘Hello’.

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The Queen is eternal gossip in the UK. Most likely it is Thatcher from Faulklands. You entreprenourial weasels can sell the house of lords to Australia. I know you hate being small brothers, but look at the price of the English pound. We are doing a good job. Aren't we? And didn't we pay attention when you closed Gaddafi's embassy? Euro for Europeans and Catholics with Big Imaginary Bang in the shores of the Cam. Don't abandon Newton, please. We honor you. Be good.:leaving:

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Originally Posted by Seasider

I'm afraid I don't regard hearsay, and second-hand hearsay at that, as having any place in a serious argument.

Inner city schools have all kinds of reasons for failure. Like all Comprehensives they are neighbourhood schools and conditions will reflect that. Neighbourhoods marked by poverty, urban decay, crime, unemployment, lack of aspiration etc will import these conditions into schools. And teachers, however good they are cannot be a panacea for all ills.
This Government is edging towards the opinion that the problem may be solved not by any improvement in social conditions but by Discipline and Latin!!! Academies?? Watch this space!

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Before WW11, neighbourhoods were marked by poverty, urban decay and unemployment to a greater degree than today -I won't say lack of aspiration because it's not a thing that can be meaningfully measured and punitive sentencing tended top keep crime relatively low- and yet I have a photograph taken in 1939 showing the class of an inner city school. The pupils are all sitting behind desks with a well-dressed teacher standing at the back. There is no sign of hooliganism and the boys, all from working class families who were living through hard times according to the man who originally owned the photo, look relatively relaxed. Post-war improvements in social conditions don't seem to have had the effect that you claim for them, so perhaps the opinion that the government is edging towards is correct.
And now abideth discipline, Latin, academies; but the greatest of these is discipline.

One piece of hearsay and one photograph...not much of a case.

In 1939 the School leaving Age was 14 so the age group which most people find the most troublesome were not in school but at work if they could get it.

The Thirties is a decade supposedly dominated by poverty, social deprivation and so on, but in fact there were many areas outside the older industrial conurbations where new industries were springing up and unemployment was not the norm...the motor industry in Luton, Bedford and Oxford were examples of this as was the construction industry. The Thirties was also a great period of house building, the development of the suburbs and road building did provide employment for working class boys. and for girls there was still the opportunity of domestic service.

So the profile of the school population in the Thirties is very different to that which exists today. So comparisons of behaviour and attainment then and now are not comparing like with like.

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Originally Posted by qimissung

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Originally Posted by Vonny

Qimi, I think the confusion is that what you and I call Liberal and Conservative is different from what they call liberal and conservative. All the time I fall into this, where I am conservative, however I'm not Conservative. I'm also not Liberal.

In our country everything is so controlled by the C & L that many aren't able to think outside the box anymore.

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Thanks, Vonny, to you and Stlukes for clearing up the conservative/liberal question. I think we do the whole question of how to deal with our schools and particularly our low-performing schools a disservice when we divide the issues and solutions into liberal or conservative camps. For one thing you've immediately decided that some things will work on not based solely on whoever thought them up, which is ridiculous in itself. Secondly, when we do that we demonize whole portions of humanity who have committed the sin of not thinking as we do, which is also ridiculous.

I'm afraid, Emil, much as we might want to bring back the good old days of caning recalcitrant students, that those days are gone for good. There are things that can be done that would be effective, if only....we'd be practical and ask questions:

Is it truly supportive?

Does it really help?

Is this really working?

The qualifiers are really necessary, I think.

I just started reading "Freakonomics" by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (I realize I'm probably the last person in the Northern Hemisphere to do so, but there it is) and I skipped ahead to the chapter titled "What Makes a Perfect Parent" and found this:

"...school choice barely mattered at all.It is true that the Chicago students who entered the school choice lottery were more likely to graduate than the students who didn't-which seems to suggest that school choice does make a difference. But that's an illusion. The proof is in this comparison: the students who won the lottery and went to a "better" school did no better than equivalent students who lost the lottery and were left behind."

What did seem to help a significant portion of the students it goes on to say, was having a technical school or career academy, something I have long wished for at our school, which has systematically been doing away with these classes for the last ten years. I wondered if in wishing for this I was shortchanging our students, but I still feel that such programs would help, provided it is the students choice to go into them. In the United States they could still go on to get a higher education if they wanted too later.

Unfortunately, in Texas at any rate, we are striving to have one hundred per cent of our students go to college. Against their will, usually. Honoring what these young adults want is never encouraged. They are simply enrolled in classes and handed a schedule. If they passed the state-mandated test they may find themselves in AP classes from which they cannot withdraw unless they bring their parent or guardian to see the counselor.

In high schools, also, the principal is paid according to the number of students enrolled. For a long time that meant that we took any kid, even those not any longer welcome in other districts.

And as far as teachers mollycoddleing the students, it seemed to me that it was the administrators who did not back up the teachers that often caused the problems. The other day I had a student who wanted to leave the room. I told her no; she walked out anyway. I was furious and planning to write a referral. She came back and pretty much demanded re-entry. Finally the assitant principal came and explained the situation to me. All that trouble could have been saved if he'd only bothered to write me a note or her a pass.

Yesterday the same student told me again that her doctor told her she shouldn't carry a notebook for health reasons. I told her I would have to see a note from her doctor before I would accept that. Then she told me she had to leave early again. I told her that the asst. principal had told me that that was in effect only through last week. Guess what? She walked out again.

Of course I went back to the assistant principal. He told her what he told me and said he hoped I would write a referral. It was such a relief. The last principal we had took the students side over the teachers.

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Qimissung, I have a few questions. For one thing, I've often thought that some type of on-the-job training should be a part of high school. And I think a tech school or vocational training or career academy would be a great thing. However, one problem with this is that if you train people to be electricians or plumbers, or to do manicures, there isn't enough demand for these service jobs to give everyone work.

The other thing is that all of these career colleges are a big scam right now. They charge horrendous fees and the education isn't quality. People graduate and can't find employment, and then the have a ton of school loan debt that they can't even get out from under through bankruptcy.

And then, on a separate issue, when you have an insolent and arrogant teenager, who will lie to a teacher, or defiantly walk out of the room - basically, all this is is a complete lack of respect - something has gone wrong in the development of that individual. Even if you can get the principle or authorities to force that child to do something at a certain time, there's something going on in that child's logic that is going to doom her/him to failure, don't you think?

One other question Qimissung, have you read the Little House books? I'd like to ask Stlukes this question, but I have a sneaking suspicion that he hasn't read them, which has left a large gap in his education. (I intend that comment with some humor, but not sarcasm.)

Going into my own personal experience again... own brain is formed differently. I would not consider being defiant to a teacher, or boss or doctor, or anyone like that -- unless I thought it through intellectually and there was some reason to do that -- it isn't a part of my nature. The reason for this is that after my father left, my brothers raised me. I was left at home with my brothers and we had no babysitter. And I knew that if I back-talked them or tried to throw my weight around, they would stomp me. They would absolutely stomp me into the ground.

What was the effect of the stomping?

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Originally Posted by cafolini

What was the effect of the stomping?

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A child would learn to never do it again...though even correct behaviour management would do that, instead now we have no boundaries and seem puzzled when things get out of hand.

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And apart from that a book about quiet, well behaved, hard working pupils and happy fulfilled teachers would never have achieved the sales of the two books he has written,which may have enabled him to leave the classroom behind.

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Yes I know, I bet there are teachers/classroom assistants up and down the country kicking themselves, including me! Come to think of it, Frank McCourt wrote an interesting one based in his experiences in American schools in his book Teacher Man, which is also an interesting read and not too dissimilar to Frank Chalks own accounts. Someone has always got there before you.

The effect of the stomping was that I learned to respect authority figures. As an adult I will question them, etc., but I'm not insolent and arrogant. My brothers were whipped with a belt, or garden hose. I once saw my dad hit my brother Mark in the nose and blood ran down his face. Mark works today and has never been in trouble with the law. My brothers had to obey and respect my dad, and today Mark has a very difficult boss that he gets along with fine.

I read all of Frank McCourt's books. He grew up in the worst possible conditions, something like Laura Ingalls Wilder, and both he and Laura had a great, insatiable thirst for learning and literature. Frank was very disappointed with trying to teach, and he finally worked into the job at Stuyvesant High School where he was able to do some good.

I don't want to diminish at all what Stlukes was saying about the conditions under which kids in big urban cities live. I honestly don't think I could live there at all. I would rather be dead. But there are people who live in very deprived and desperate circumstances who still want to study and learn.

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But there are people who live in very deprived and desperate circumstances who still want to study and learn.

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Absolutely, and therein lies the most frustrating aspect of all; watching these students fail, or be failed, constantly by the schools they are trapped in. A teacher who works in schools such as the one Frank describes will see thousands of these types ignored and forgotten in the desperate fight to control unruly behaviour. At least under the old grammar system these had a chance to escape into a decent school with decent future prospects, instead of being lumped into the nearest comprehensive madhouse.