On my (early) arrival at school I met Frank
(from the School on the Hill) and had a chat which meant that the morning
meeting hit me in the middle of my photocopying and caused a set of Year 7
material to go missing.
The thrust of the morning meeting was an
announcement of, or rather encouragement about “Teaching Excellence Awards”
which the company which runs the school has decided to institute. This is a belated initiative following their
introduction in England and Wales. The
headteacher emphasised that nominations could be self-nomination or for another
person.
I totally reject such messy industry-driven
initiatives. These are out of place in a
professional environment and are viciously divisive. They cheapen the teaching profession and make
it tawdry.
The prize-giving ceremonies are pale imitations
of the Oscar shenanigans, and the fact that there are various awards for films
and filmmakers does not mean that they are a justification for teachers. There are “good” commercial reasons for
having a whole series of publicity heavy festivals in the film industry. Education is not an industry. The commercial incentive is not there and the
teaching awards tend to accentuate (vide “Teach as though your hair is on fire”)
the “dedicated” individual whose entire life is given over to education.
The link to recognition of pupils’
achievements not only academically but also in sporting achievements as a
justification for teaching excellence awards is spurious because teachers are
providing a professional service. To my
mind it is akin to instituting best patient awards for those individuals who
get better more quickly than others! And
just as useful. Teachers deal with
living, sentient beings where there is a reciprocity of effort and the
quantification of that relative effort is difficult.
Do we really want payment by results? With the sophistication of statistics we are
now given a series of predictions at Year 7 level which indicate the probably
performance at Year 11. With the use of
“Value Added” assessment we can tell if a school is performing according to the
outline direction and make adjustments – awards in this context seem at best
irrelevant and at worst positively destructive.
Superlative individual teachers are
wonderful human beings and their reward, surely, is the reaction of their
pupils and in the way that they learn. I
am much, much more concerned about the sturdy professionalism of the majority
of the profession who do a good job and also have a life outside education as
well.
The presence of teaching “saints” in a
school whose hallowed status is recognized by an award automatically turn the
rest of the staff into a bunch of second class citizens and create conflict
where a collegiate should exist.
And, to the question about what would
happen if no member of staff nominated any other member of staff for an award,
the headteacher said that he would nominate teachers himself. A more certain way to sow discord I cannot
imagine!
As one person perceptively pointed out in
the meeting, she was more concerned about a general pay rise rather than the
recognition of a single person or small group of persons. Too bloody right!
My OU teaching materials have finally
arrived and I have started the annotation.
The web sites are up and running and there is some communication between
members of the incredibly disparate tutor group that my tutor, Roza, has to
cope with. So far, apart from residents
of the North of England, I note that there are people in Malta and Italy as
well as my good self in Spain. I do not
think that the tutor’s hope that we will meet soon is likely to be realized!
Today, Halloween is one of those depressing
days when the rain and overcast nature of the weather make you think that the
sun will never again shine. However, I
have faith in the way that the Spanish climate works and this cold snap must
have its end soon – even if it is winter!
I have been told by the school that my
presence will be needed next week so I will probably be here for another four
days. Not five.
Today, to add to the jollity of nations, there
is a bus, underground and taxi strike.
Next week on Wednesday there will be a General Strike - hence my
four-day week.
This school, like the School on the Hill
will probably be open in spite of the horrendous conditions that will probably
prevail. In my view the school should be
closed purely for Health & Safety concerns but, as David always took great
delight in reminding me, “Remember Stephen, this is not Britain!”
Many of the kids have dressed up in various
versions of what might pass as costumes for Halloween with some inventive and
effective attempts – especially in the area of face painting.
My single student for my lesson second
period is now ensconced in the IT room doing first hand material gathering from
the web for a case study on cyclones and I with, I have to say an
uncharacteristic selflessness have released a colleague from the durance vile
of supervising the study area for the sixth form. Her expression of astonished delight was
something to witness when I actually had to encourage her to leave!
The only two other classes that I have to
take today are, as far as I can work out, are during the parade of Halloween
which should see me sitting pretty and doing very little. I feel I deserve a little space after giving
of myself so generously!
I did not, of course, have that little
space. I was dragooned into being a
judge of the Halloween Parade which took over two of my teaching periods and
was, I have to admit, very enjoyable.
The key factor in the whole enterprise was
the control and restraint of the kids – high as kites at one moment and then
brought back to reasonableness the next.
I shudder to think what the whole experience would have been like in an
inner city secondary school in Britain!
My three-day week is now over and I am as
exhausted as if I had been there since September! Today has been one of those complex days when
various things happen any one of which might have been sufficient to make the
day interesting.
Firstly I have agreed to go back on Monday
for a full week of supply. This was
certainly not my intention when I went there this week, but the request was
made and it would have been churlish to have refused. I think.
I also made the acquaintance of a part-time
teacher was is a published authority on Art History and who has publishing
links with David Hockney and who could talk about art and did. She latched on to the fact that I could
string together a few sentences on major artists with the sort of avidity that
I would have shown if someone had said that they had been a fan of Nielsen’s
orchestral music! It was a delight to
talk about art with someone who had worked in the National Gallery and who had
also seen that precious jewel in exhibition terms, “The Post Impressionist
Exhibition” in the Royal Academy.
My conversations with other teachers were
valuable and refreshing and I feel as if I could have a place in the school –
but an extra week will be more than enough.
And, in any case, I am off to the UK a day or so after the General
Strike which is now in about a fortnight.
I even managed to get a scrap of learning
done by making a few brief annotations in my first course book!
A day well spent.
Now to gird myself up to luxuriate in a
four-day weekend!
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