Academies will be allowed to employ people with no formal teaching qualifications in a move that could sideline both the unions and the established teacher training colleges.[source : Michael Gove tells academies they can hire unqualified teaching staff, The Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jul/27/gove-academies-unqualified-teaching-staff, 28/07/2012]
Education secretary Michael Gove has decided to bring academies into line with private schools and the government's flagship free schools, which can hire professionals such as scientists, engineers, musicians and linguists to teach even if they do not have not have qualified teaching status (QTS).
This has upset teachers and teaching unions who say such a move will devalue the teaching profession. They, and apparently parents too, believe that anyone who stands in front of a class of students should be fully trained to teach.
Unions described the move as "perverse" amid fears that it will devalue the status of the profession.
...Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said the decision was a "clear dereliction of duty" and a cost-cutting measure dressed up as flexibility.
A poll conducted by the union in anticipation of such a policy change last year found that 89% of parents want their child to have a qualified teacher , with just 1% "comfortable about those without the teaching qualification taking charge of a class", said Blower.
I have a lot sympathy for this view, but with caveats. I applied for teacher training because I think there is a need to understand the alleged psychology of learning mathematics, but also having a PGCE and QTS increases the chances of gaining employment. There are also classroom management skills to learn and apply, among other things.
But this raises a big question about training. For example, what kind of training do MPs receive that qualifies them to run the country? NONE! As long as they went to Eton/Oxford/Bilderberg and love The City of London with its cocaine-fuelled derivatives traders and infinite rehypothecation, that's all the training you need.
No school teacher taught me about Bilderberg.
But also, what has happened in teacher training, teaching and teaching unions since the 1980s? Two days ago I posted the results of a report for The House of Lords into current standards of teaching.
Standards in schools have slipped so low that GCSE maths now amounts to little more than "glorified numeracy" while even those with top grades at A-level are woefully ill-equipped to study maths and science at university.[source : Top universities forced to introduce remedial maths classes, The Daily Telegraph, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9420771/Top-universities-forced-to-introduce-remedial-maths-classes.html, 24/07/2012]
A combination of the "modular" A-level system, which allows pupils to bypass certain fields such as calculus, and a "race to the bottom" between competing exam boards are driving the problem, the House of Lords report has said.
Many pupils are even applying to study scientific subjects such as engineering and chemistry at university despite dropping maths at 16, meaning they arrive without even a basic knowledge of key fields like mechanics and statistics.
If current and recent methods of teaching have been so great, as unions and teachers and parents appear to claim, then why have standards fallen so much?
In mathematics perhaps all that teachers have done is that they have been able to teach more students to add 2 + 2 but it now takes longer? If so, is this deliberate?
Most of the students who will have made up the aforementioned study will have been taught by teachers with QTS. So why the fall in standards? Is it something to do with activities external to the classroom, such as playing violent computer games until 3am every week day? Or is it because of the new methods, such as Connected Mathematics, which breaks the mathematics curriculum into six distinct areas which students investigate and find the connections between the areas? And is Connected Mathematics part of Agenda 21? (I shall answer this last question later).
But one question that can be asked is, if a teacher with QTS cannot be found to teach a subject then should there be no teacher at all?
What does this phrase 'qualified to teach' mean if standards have fallen so much?
But are teachers striking because of falling standards? Apparently not.
The two biggest teachers' unions are threatening strikes in the autumn in England and Wales over workload, cuts, pensions and plans for local pay.[source : Teachers' unions launch joint industrial action threat, BBC, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-18233883, 28/05/2012]
The NUT and NASUWT announced a wide-ranging joint campaign over what they call the "denigration" of teachers.
The NUT SecGen replied to the aforementioned report on falling standards.
“Yet again we are seeing the exams season hijacked by doomsayers, criticising not just the system but undermining the achievement of hard working students.[source : Maths Teaching - press release, NUT, http://www.teachers.org.uk/node/16291, 24/07/2012]
“As we have long advocated, if young people are being encouraged to stay in education until at least 18 years of age then we need to look closely at the range of courses available. Of course it is important that all young people leave school with maths skills, but there is also a demand for a qualifications system which can address the need for mathematical skills for all while accommodating the more specialist skills required to access STEM courses at advanced level, degree level and beyond. The NUT supported the 2004 Tomlinson Report's recommendation of an overarching diploma system, which would have addressed some of these issues.
“The review of the National Curriculum for secondary schools, when it eventually reports back, may well address this. Our optimism is not encouraged, however, by recent stories that Michael Gove's planned reforms to GCSEs will mimic the two-tier system of the past. This will only serve to lower aspirations and exacerbate inequalities in society, with even fewer young people having the opportunity to study maths or STEM subjects to a high level.”
No mention there of going on strike to raise standards, is there? No apology either.
It is not just the government, be it Conservative, Labour or ConDem, but also the teachers and teaching unions, as well as inspectors, who have overseen the education of millions of teenagers in this country since I was at school. I got poor grades in my history exams. Why? Because what I was taught at school, mainly the Cultural Revolution and some medieval stuff, I found boring and irrelevant, and I always had this feeling that what we were being taught was utter utter crap. But what really fired my interest in history was David Icke's The Biggest Secret. I already had some interest in the JFK assassination before reading that, but what Icke did was connect some dots, some very big and bloody dots, such as wars and revolutions, and the monetary and banking system that enables a cabal of satanists to create gerzillions out of thin air to finance wars and revolutions for their selfish diabolical plans while the rest of us struggle to survive.
Have a look at the History curriculum. CRAP, BORING AND IRRELEVANT!
Have a look at the Economics curriculum. CRAP, BORING AND IRRELEVANT!
Students are also taught other stuff that makes them a 'good citizen', such as belief in man made climate change.
But how many teachers have heard of Agenda 21? And how it has affected the curriculum they teach? And are they implementing it, wittingly or unwittingly?
Dr Ziegler, Chairman of the Educational Committee of the council on foreign Relations, Drs. John Dewey and Edward Thorndike, paid members of the Communist Party of Russia and 10 others met for the sole purpose to destroy American schools. After 1hour and 45min “Modern Math” was created. The new math was filled with memorization and not reasoning. Math is supposed to be logic and reason. Dr. Ziegler said,” That is what we want , a math that pupils can not apply to life situations when they get out of school.” This radical change was in 1952. So if students come out of high school, not knowing any math, don’t blame them. The results are supposed to be worthless.”[source : Agenda 21 Today, http://americanfreedomwatchradio.com/?page_id=137]
Is this going on in the UK too? You betcha'! Have a good look at the GCSE Maths curriculum, the curriculum of Connected Maths, and Agenda 21. They are intimately linked.
There probably is a lot of truth to the allegation that this sneak move by Gove is related to saving money rather than giving schools more 'freedom'. But if a teacher with QTS cannot be found to teach a subject then should there be no teacher at all? I may well be forced to take such a teaching job without QTS in an academy if I cannot find a job and have been claiming JSA for too long.
I would prefer some kind of training, that's why I applied for a PGCE.
But if I need a job and kids need teaching...?
Yes, campaign for better working conditions, pay, pensions, etc.
But please have a good long look at what is being taught, why it is being taught, and where it came from.
I may even consider starting and running my own free school!
Free Schools are all-ability state-funded schools set up in response to what local people say they want and need in order to improve education for children in their community.[source : Free Schools, Dept of Education, http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/leadership/typesofschools/freeschools/]
The right school can transform a child’s life and help them achieve things they may never have imagined. Through the Free Schools programme it is now much easier for talented and committed teachers, charities, parents and education experts to open schools to address real demand within an area.
Imagine the books of David Icke or Webster Tarpley, and the American System of Economics forming part of a school curriculum?
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