Most people who comment on the recent demand by the teaching union The National Union of Teachers to limit teaching to four hours per day have probably not tried teaching, not recently. As a former trainee I have a lot of sympathy for this demand. Teaching is becoming much more like entertaining. There is much more to teaching, mathematics at least, than standing in front of 30 students and showing them how to solve a particular problem in a particular way. We could debate what are the best ways to teach. Social Constructivism is the soup du jour of learning theories. I have my doubts about this. The father of this theory was a committed Marxist, though his theories were buried by Stalin and only came to light a few decades ago. However, previous learning theories adopted by the education system were proposed and promoted by Communist sympathisers and had direct genetic routes to the Illuminati via Leipzig.
Being an entertainer for four hours per day is plenty. You try it. You try entertaining 30 students while at the same time teaching them mathematics. It is not easy. It takes time to plan such lessons, time and imagination. But as I said, the current method may not be the best and most appropriate method. The problem is that OFSTED and Teaching Standards demand such lessons, with verifiable paperwork, but at the same time ALL the learning potential for each student must be considered and catered for. So what is the problem with that? Two major points are these:
1. special educational needs (autism etc)
2. speakers of other languages (immigrants)
Ten or twenty years ago classes in schools in England did not generally have anyone with a special educational need (SEN) or a significant number of students for whom English may not even be their third language. Special educational needs were taken care of by special schools, but due to these being shut down to bail out the bankers, students with SEN are now all too common in typical state schools. And immigration in the last decade or so has been a huge problem. A teacher who spends time trying to teach something very basic in English to an immigrant child who cannot speak English is not going to have the time for interaction with white working class British students. I'm sorry but that is the obvious truth. It is not racist or xenophobic. It is plain common sense. Yet the teacher is expected to plan for and deliver lessons that enable students of all abilities and speakers of all languages to learn. Believe me, it is bloody hard work.
I was prepared for this. But I encountered stubborn plastic teachers who thought they were God. I didn't like them. They did not make me feel wanted in the profession. And some of the comments I have read from attendees of the NUT conference have been laughable. One comment suggested that teachers barely have time to speak or go to the toilet. That is total bollocks. The staff room was frequently busy with staff discussing anything they wanted, including one group of female staff discussing oral sex! That is the truth, Ruth! I tried to speak to history teachers, TWICE, about what happened to the Venetian empire after the 15th century. Their response was, "the what empire?". And these people teach children?
So
1. the government is asking way too much of teachers, putting stress on them, their families and thus their teaching, but
2. there is a borg left-leaning mind of "the teacher", into or oblivious to world government, green tyranny and trendy teaching methods proposed by Marxists that are unproven and possibly time-wasting.
Four hours per day of teaching would relieve stress, and restricting total time to 35 hours per week is a reasonable demand.
The Illuminati/Marxist influence must be removed from the education system immediately.
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