Kids of Today

Here's a bizarre BBC News article where a man in his early 50s goes back to the rather nice school he once attended and wonders why it it's full of aspirational, well behaved, mature young people rather than mindless yobs, vandals and dropouts. (Which of course is exactly how it would have been when he went there).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21922893

Did the BBC never think to send him to St Thickchilds? Our inner city hell hole could have supplied him with plenty of miscreants to keep him happy. I'm sure that his face would be a picture of delight when some 'rebellious pupil' swore at him or spat on him as he walked under a classroom window. Just imagine how proud he would be on returning to his car to find that it had been scratched with a key by some young 'challenger of society's values'.

Most kids today are fairly sensible. Most kids always were.

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Facts and Learning

When I did my teacher training in the late '80s, advocating any sort of rote learning (or indeed any learning) was about as wise as openly declaring your love for Margaret Thatcher. When I asked how kids were supposed to learn their tables or spellings, everyone laughed at my old fashioned foolishness. This is the modern world, our lecturer told us. There are new and more exciting ways to teach nowadays (and one day there may even be telephones that do not have to be plugged in to the wall.)

This is still the situation today. Critical thinking, group projects and working things out for yourself are far more important than simply learning facts. Why would children need to waste their time and clutter up their brains learning things when we have Google, which can tell us anything we wish to know.

Now my problem with all this is that if you have no facts to compare an answer with, then you can never judge it's authenticity. For example, if I ask you what the Gross Domestic Product of the UK was back in 1970 and you tell me that it was £25, then I need some related knowledge before I can say whether this is likely to be correct or not. We have been brainwashed in teaching to regard everyone's views as equally important and we think that simply having an opinion somehow has some value in itself.

Now whilst I'm not saying that everything should simply be learnt off by heart, I don't agree that it is a waste of time. Rote learning teaches young children to concentrate. We are forever hearing that pupils have much shorter concentration spans than they once had and this is blamed on the increased pace of modern life. Why don't we try and improve their concentration rather than just accepting it? There's also a nice calming effect which we could really do with later on as well.

Repeated practice is also immensely effective and enables you to recall a skill or fact years later. I still say "amo, amas, amat..." whenever anybody asks me whether I did any Latin at school, whereas I just stare blankly with my mouth open if they enquire about anything I did in Geography. I also never had a clue how long division worked, but was perfectly capable of doing it. Debates and peer-centric review? No, just learn and practice and you'll be fine.

(By the way, this post is not meant to offer any support for the teaching of Latin in school, which is a complete and utter waste of time).

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Snow Again

Apologies that my recent output has been less than a Cypriot cashpoint machine, but I've been busy. (Well by my standards anyway).

Right, here's two things that have caught my attention recently

1) Many young teachers seem to be applying for promotions incredibly early on in their careers. Eg  a second year teacher got a deputy head of department job and another became a Head at 31. Now this either means that they are incredibly aspirational and talented, or that there is a preference for younger staff, or simply that older teachers just don't want the extra workload and stress that comes with these positions.

2) If the parents of kids at the top or bottom of the ability range at Secondary school ever found out how much resources are concentrated on the C/D borderline kids, there would be uproar. Getting Harriet an A* grade or teaching Jayden to read is of no importance whatsoever. The best teachers along with extra revision classes and intensive tuition days are thrown at that one important group.

(Oh, for those of you outside teaching, the A* grade was brought in because the ordinary A grade became devalued as they were awarded for little more than filling your name out correctly)

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HS2

Well I suppose we can hardly complain about Britain's infrastructure and then whinge when those in charge try to fix it, can we? Mind you, wouldn't a couple of extra lanes on all our motorways help more, cost less and not spoil anybody's garden?

I also wish that we wouldn't make ourselves sound so ridiculous by quoting a finish date that is decades away. It just doesn't sound very likely to actually happen. If we are really going to do it, why can't we do it right now?

Also, I couldn't help but laugh when I saw that Sheffield's station is going to be at their out of town shopping centre. Residents in the South West of that city (the only group who will be able to afford to use the new service) will probably see their journey times to London increased.

Finally, I've just noticed that my 'autobiography' has more reviews on Amazon than Richard Branson's. That's got to mean something, but I'm just not sure exactly what.

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Eyes and Stuff

As there has been a sudden Email interest in my health, I will answer all questions in one go:

1) No I am not about to croak.

2) Several readers have asked "What are the symptoms?" So far I have resisted the temptation to reply that they are a little yellow cartoon family on the telly. The truth is that I noticed a small dark grey patch in the bottom left corner when looking through my left eye which (for those of you who did not pay attention in biology) means that the retina has started to peel off in the top right corner. If  you notice the same effect, then go to your nearest hospital straight away. DO NOT EMAIL ME!

There, hopefully I've done my bit for the public's health.

3) How long did I have to wait? It's classed as an emergency, so they did the operation within 24 hours.

4) Local or General anaesthetic? It's up to the patient- the op. can be done under both. I had local and it's pretty weird. Not painful at all, but you have to be able to keep your mind focused on something else. The operation lasts an hour and then they put a bubble of gas in your eye to push against the retina to keep it in place. (Don't ask what the gas is- it annoys the surgeon).

3) Afterwards? You lie face down feeling sorry for yourself for an hour, wear a patch for a day and you can go home once the pressure in your eye is below 30. (Nobody knows what the units are and only people like me ever enquire). One in three suffer from elevated pressure in the eye for a while (which feels exactly as you'd imagine it would), but it's easily treated with eye drops. Don't forget to take the eye patch home with you for future Adam Ant/ Pirate dressing up amusement.

For ten days you have to maintain a certain position as much as possible in order to keep the gas bubble pushing in the right place- in my case I had to have my head upright during the day and sleep on my left side at night. (I had the easiest regime- some poor sods have to lie face downwards or on their side for the first ten days.) You take drops and tablets for a couple of weeks, which unfortunately don't have any interesting side effects. All your friends will be moderately sympathetic until they tire of you shouting "Who said that?" every time they ask how it's going.

Outcome? It's like looking through a bowl of water at first then the bubble gradually disappears from your vision over a few weeks and now I can see one between one and two lines less on an eyesight chart. This isn't a major problem as I wore contacts anyway, so I just get a new prescription. Apparently the vision may improve over the next six months or so. (Or so my optician hopes, so he can sell me another contact lens).

Anyway, that's it. Now that you have all convinced yourselves that you have a detached retina, I shall await the News at Ten report that every Eye Department across the Nation is under siege.

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NHS Bed Shortage

About six weeks ago, I had to go into hospital to have an operation on my left eye, as I had suffered a slight retinal tear. Worry not, as the procedure went well and the next day I was told by the surgeon that I could go home.

"Hoorah!" I thought and paid no attention to the rest of his sentence: "- just as soon as your drops and tablets have been sent up from the hospital pharmacy."

Four and a half hours later, they duly arrived. According to the nurses, there was nothing unusual in this timescale and they assured me that it was much worse at weekends, or Bank Holidays.

"You can be waiting 8 hours then!" One of them added cheerfully.

Several times during my long wait, I thought of simply going home and picking them up later. However I couldn't drive, so would have had to scrounge a lift. It would have been an hour's round trip and no, the staff can't phone you when your medicines are ready. So I stayed put, wondering how much my bed cost per hour.

I finally received my bag of drugs, said goodbye to the others in my little ward and as I walked out I could hear the man in the bed opposite me asking the nurse how much longer his prescriptions would be (He had already waited over three hours).

Bear this story in mind the next time you hear on the news about a hospital beds shortage.

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Teachers' Pay

So a Government Education Minister has finally decided on the radical step of paying good teachers more than bad ones. Needless to say, everybody is up in arms.

Introducing any kind of real-world market forces into Teaching never goes down well. The Unions oppose it because they have to be seen to be opposing things, the hopeless teachers don't like it because they will get paid less and the good teachers say they oppose it in the staffroom, but are secretly delighted. The main objection is that 'it is too difficult'.

Bradley and Jordan from Year 9 have used that excuse in the past to great effect.

I'd go further and pay more to those who teach subjects for which we are short of teachers. The howls of protest would put a werewolf to shame.

Here's an story about a Saudi Arabian man who got a bit carried away with his love for education.

Finally, best of luck to my good pal Jez Bragg who is starting today on a 3000 km run along the Te Araroa Trail in New Zealand. It goes North to South across both islands and you can follow his progress on his blog  here and on Twitter here  (He is hoping to be able to pronounce the name of the route by the end of January)

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