Nanny seems to be really losing the plot at the moment, maybe it's because Bliary is about to retire and there is a certain lightheadedness in the bunker at number 10.Anyhoo, Nanny has decided yet again to come up with another ludicrous "initiative" wrt educashun.
This time she has decided that the centuries old practice of children sticking their paws in the air, when answering a question, needs to be abolished.
For why?
Seemingly it doesn't give the children who are quiet the chance to answer!
Dear God what utter bollocks!
Life in the adult world is tough, no one is going to blow your trumpet for you; you have to blow your own trumpet, and make your own success.
Nanny, by not imparting this lesson early on to the future adults of this country is doing them a major disservice and stunting their intellectual and personality development.
Hey, that's what she does though isn't it?
Anyhoo, Nanny has become concerned about "invisible children", who often try to avoid drawing attention to themselves in lessons.
Their work is neat and they are generally well behaved, but they need a different approach from teachers to help them make progress, Nanny's report found.
Nanny's chum Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, said:
"We need to make sure that no-one is left behind at any point
from the most gifted and talented children at the top
of the class, to the quiet child who is well-practised
at hiding from the teacher's gaze at the back of the class."
As an aside, I was always rather reticent at school to stick my paw in the air; but look at me now!...
Oh s**t...maybe Nanny has a point then?
Anyhoo, I digress, Nanny has recommended a range of strategies which teachers could use in the classroom to help these children.
The methods included choosing which child to question in class, instead of inviting all the pupils to put up their hands if they know the answer....wouldn't that humiliate the poor kid if he/she didn't know the answer?
Children could also be given 30 seconds "thinking time" before being asked to answer, or told to discuss, questions in pairs before answering.
Nanny doesn't get it, it's the competitive edge that pushes the children to maximise their performance push their boundaries.
Holding the class back to keep up with the slowest will do neither the brightest nor the slowest any good whatsoever.
Hey, what the fark, let's ban teaching altogether and let pupils "discover" educashun by themselves!
How typical of the idiots ruining er, sorry, running, education in this country at the present time. Instead of concentrating on proper issues they have to come up with this tripe. My educational experiences suggest that this "initiative is completely unnecessary, like most of Nanny's ideas. When I was at school, back in the 1960s my teachers often picked on someone to answer the question who DIDN'T have their hand up and, if you didn't know the answer you felt a right twit I can tell you! This is speaking from personal experience, although on the whole I was reasonably intelligent, except at Physics and some aspects of Mathematics, even if I say so myself.
ReplyDeleteI spent most of my time at school becoming "well-practised at hiding from the teacher's gaze at the back of the class", and it's served me well the rest of my life.
ReplyDelete*Hey, what the fark, let's ban teaching altogether and let pupils "discover" educashun by themselves!*
ReplyDeleteNot so crazy as you think - Home Educators are doing just that with great success.