On Teaching and Work Experience (rant)
After a day, I had decided that I never want to teach in a primary school.
Firstly, government methods are AWFUL. I won't go into huge ranting detail, but basically it involves simplifying things until they are WRONG (especially in Maths and so-called Phonics). The kids are just gonna have to learn to do it all again at a later stage! This stuff may work in the short term - but what happens later?
Also, intelligent children suffer. There's a Maths system called multibase which involves using sticks and blocks to count. This one kid? INCREDIBLE mathematician. He can look at ANY sum and just do it in his head. He's a little genius - and that should be encouraged not only for its own sake but because he isn't very good in other subjects. However, when you ask him to use sticks and blocks to work things out? NOT A CLUE. And because he can't do it? He's in bottom set Maths.
How is that right?!
I could never teach something I don't agree with.
I did Maths without these stupid blocks and it never harmed me.
All the crazy safety policies drive me mad too, and the way there's essentially nothing you can do if the kids misbehave. And the Biblical stuff. I don't agree with shoving religion on children - especially Bible stories read at the end of the day involving children being murdered for parental sins!
I have discovered that I like order and student independence and discussion, too, which just isn't happening with year two (though I adored working with year six last year in another school).
The main problem, though, is that the teacher I'm placed with is ridiculous. She doesn't discipline the children, she criticises instead of praising and improving, and she constantly undermines me in front of the children (one girl I was sitting near scribbled a word out in her book and the teacher came up to me and WAGGED HER FINGER at me all, "We don't scribble in our books!"
I'm not your pupil. Go away.
Why should the kids respect me if she doesn't, you know?
I am incredibly passionate about my subject (Religious Studies) and I want to see that in primary school teachers as well as secondary. It just isn't there in so many of them (some teachers are incredible, don't get me wrong, and this must be the worst school I've been in - but things as a whole need to be improved. I mean, teachers are so underqualified in RE (the average Education degree only does four weeks on RE) that they were teaching kids the wrong number of Gurus in Sikhism and having to ask *me* why Jews wear the special clothes where they do.
Also, colouring in religious symbols does not count as active learning about other cultures. What about eating religious foods, visiting places of worship, learning prayers and chants from other religions, using Hebrew words when you're learning about Judaism? When I teach RE, the kids I teach will for all intents and purposes belong to the religion they are learning about. Because how can you really learn about another way of life without getting a taste of experiencing it? And that's what it's all about, really - people and how they live and what they'd fight and die for, what they're passionate about, what they believe in against all the odds. Not some coloured in symbols and incorrect stuffy powerpoints.
Rant over.
Sixth form, here I come.
Firstly, government methods are AWFUL. I won't go into huge ranting detail, but basically it involves simplifying things until they are WRONG (especially in Maths and so-called Phonics). The kids are just gonna have to learn to do it all again at a later stage! This stuff may work in the short term - but what happens later?
Also, intelligent children suffer. There's a Maths system called multibase which involves using sticks and blocks to count. This one kid? INCREDIBLE mathematician. He can look at ANY sum and just do it in his head. He's a little genius - and that should be encouraged not only for its own sake but because he isn't very good in other subjects. However, when you ask him to use sticks and blocks to work things out? NOT A CLUE. And because he can't do it? He's in bottom set Maths.
How is that right?!
I could never teach something I don't agree with.
I did Maths without these stupid blocks and it never harmed me.
All the crazy safety policies drive me mad too, and the way there's essentially nothing you can do if the kids misbehave. And the Biblical stuff. I don't agree with shoving religion on children - especially Bible stories read at the end of the day involving children being murdered for parental sins!
I have discovered that I like order and student independence and discussion, too, which just isn't happening with year two (though I adored working with year six last year in another school).
The main problem, though, is that the teacher I'm placed with is ridiculous. She doesn't discipline the children, she criticises instead of praising and improving, and she constantly undermines me in front of the children (one girl I was sitting near scribbled a word out in her book and the teacher came up to me and WAGGED HER FINGER at me all, "We don't scribble in our books!"
I'm not your pupil. Go away.
Why should the kids respect me if she doesn't, you know?
I am incredibly passionate about my subject (Religious Studies) and I want to see that in primary school teachers as well as secondary. It just isn't there in so many of them (some teachers are incredible, don't get me wrong, and this must be the worst school I've been in - but things as a whole need to be improved. I mean, teachers are so underqualified in RE (the average Education degree only does four weeks on RE) that they were teaching kids the wrong number of Gurus in Sikhism and having to ask *me* why Jews wear the special clothes where they do.
Also, colouring in religious symbols does not count as active learning about other cultures. What about eating religious foods, visiting places of worship, learning prayers and chants from other religions, using Hebrew words when you're learning about Judaism? When I teach RE, the kids I teach will for all intents and purposes belong to the religion they are learning about. Because how can you really learn about another way of life without getting a taste of experiencing it? And that's what it's all about, really - people and how they live and what they'd fight and die for, what they're passionate about, what they believe in against all the odds. Not some coloured in symbols and incorrect stuffy powerpoints.
Rant over.
Sixth form, here I come.