I may be wrong but . . . . I get a feeling that supporters of government moves to introduce literacy and numeracy standards in all primary schools have adopted the mean-spirited strategy of pointing to teachers, with their presumed vested interest, as the main opponents of the policy.
I was a secondary school teacher for 5 years back around 1970 and that experience, which I found was way too hard for a person of my temperament and constitution, has imprinted in my psyche the conviction that teachers do an important job, that it is not easy work, and that the majority of teachers are professional and have pupils’ interests as a leading priority. (But I would acknowledge, again from personal experience, that as with any profession, a small minority of teachers are less altruistic in their motives.)
Over the years I’ve heard teachers slagged regularly, almost always by people who have never tried it. The holidays, the teacher-only days, the short official working day, the lack of interest shown by their Charlie’s teacher in their son’s academic endeavours, etc. Sometimes I just let it pass, other times I suggest the critic try the work themselves.
I well remember the boss in one of my later places of employment, a long-time bachelor, business man and occasional morning-tea critic of teachers, who late in his working life married a woman who was a good teacher. It was astonishing (and gratifying) to hear his tearoom conversations turn 180 degrees after he realised, presumably from seeing how hard his new wife worked, how tough teachers had it and how dedicated they were.
It is with some annoyance and concern that I’ve heard several times in the past few weeks prominent opponents of the government’s new “national standards” policy (and particularly of the intention within it to make the results public and therefore used for league table rankings of schools) saying that the main opponents are teachers who have a closed shop mentality and don’t want their work to be open to view or “accountable”.
The National-led government clearly has decided this is the easiest tactic in getting the voting public onside. I’ve heard both the PM and the Education Minister saying that they won’t be swayed by the teachers unions and academic educationalists. And the right-wing commentator Matthew Hooten, who normally I credit with considerable intelligence, went ballistic on Kathryn Ryan’s radio programme a few weeks ago, trying to convince listeners that teachers are trying to run a Soviet-style education system and are afraid to open their work to public gaze. Did you forget your medication that morning, Matthew?
I know many, many non-teachers who are firmly against this policy. It’s NOT just a clique of self-interested teachers. They are convinced by evidence as well as common sense that building an education system around publicly-scored standards is just too limiting in today’s evolving society.
[...] sub-text to the national education standards “debate” I wrote back a few months ago about my concerns that the so-called debate over national education literacy and numeracy [...]