Teaching

I've started to wonder what teaching was like before there was any such thing as school. Is it possible that we've somehow killed teaching with school, just like hospitals generate illness or a Ministry of Defense can generate war?

I'm reading through some openings to Gothic novels which I set as a creative writing task for my year ten students, and most of them have gone to town on it. Tried to incorporate the Gothic setting and characters into an original script, making use of twists or red herrings to lead the reader on... Basically they've ticked all the boxes, and in some cases, tried to do something new or interesting. But Claire, one of my brightest students, wrote a tale called: "Bruce the Emo Shark Who Cuts Himself" in which she derides this shark for being 'emo', or as the kids understand it, a depressed, self-indulgent Goth who takes himself too seriously.

I'm sure this is a crucial part of her path to fulfilment; rebelling against her English teacher by deriding the writing task and seeing if he'll pick up on it. In the Freudian sense, it's all very healthy, normal and adolescent. But a part of me muses as to what Claire is doing taking up a seat in a classroom. Wouldn't she be better suited to doing something else? She's coasting her way to a mediocre GCSE, for whom exactly? Certainly not for her own benefit.

Before there were huge buildings called schools which housed dozens of classrooms, interactive whiteboards, book cupboards, libraries, canteens, and absolutely mind-numbing amounts of paper (where does it all go???), people still got an education. They paid for it, or offered their labour in exchange for training. They picked stuff up, trained at things to be considered worthy of a trade, or made damn sure they were found in the right place at the right time by people who needed them.

I'm sure it was all quite undemocratic and class-biased. Just like school still is today, mind you; nobody is fooled by the comprehensive school's used of streaming by 'ability'; it's basically a social segregation. But ok, it could be a little more meritocratic than depending on the size of your father's address book for your career prospects. But nonetheless, I wonder if education systems kill education.

At the moment my Year 11 class is one week from their study leave. Only for them, that means a week from holidays. They basically refuse to work now, and I have to kick out 4 or 5 per lesson to have any peace and quiet from them. They've given up, imagining that somebody will rescue them out of this. And they're probably right.

The paradigm in the UK is that education is the problem of the educators. Teachers are responsible and accountable for how much students achieve and learn, and parents are only consulted for a 5 minute interview once a year, where in fact they are told what they should or shouldn't be doing to support the school. So it's not their problem.

Plus, when a kid does mess around and give the finger to the whole system, they're basically taken off to a room, a programme or a college which will give them another option for 'success', which basically amounts to somebody else telling them something less difficult they're being offered in exchange for cooperation. At no point does anybody really say: "Either you perk up or you're out", and actually mean it.

I certainly don't think education should be a privilege of the well-behaved and the most able. But I do think somebody should call Claire on her talent at scraping through year after year of school without learning anything, by telling her to perk up or face the consequences. It means treating kids like adults. Do we have the guts?