This blog has a new home!

I got fed up of looking at other people's super professional looking blogs so I decided to get an edublog!

Update your bookmarks!

Book Free Libraries!

I kid you not!

This article in the Times Higher paper highlights a worrying trend in our schools, a movement towards digital information as the only information available in schools. Google replaces librarians and their dewey decimal system and website replace books and newspapers as the source of all knowledge. 

I know I'm not the only person who loves books, many people do, and like most people my love of books and reading comes from plenty of exposure to books and libraries when I was young. By getting rid of libraries we risk marginalising books as sources of information and pleasure for a whole generation of children!

If we take a moment to think of schools purely as places where we prepare young people for the worlds of work and higher education (which I don't, but just for arguments sake) there is still a case to be made for libraries. Using a library teaches you to sift through a mass of information to find what's relevant. You have to do this on the internet too. When writing essays for university I frequently had my allowance of ten books out at any one time, and often had to do triage or photocopying to get the information I needed. I also copied or took notes from multiple print journals which were unavailable online, despite the fact that literally thousands of journals are. If I'd only used online sources I doubt I would have passed. By getting rid of libraries and information skills we risk narrowing the skill set of state pupils and putting up another barrier between them and the elite universities.

I always took great pride in announcing during tours of campus that our library housed 'over a million' books. This was something to be proud of, and often visitors were more interested in this than the computer suite right next door. My university is a very young one, but great, top 5 or six in the country every year, because it prides itself on links with business and constantly keeps itself up to date, yet it values the library, staffs it with subject specialist librarians and has just spent money redeveloping it and modernising it. Yes, there are more computers in the library than I would like, but the books are still there. 

State Schools - The Truth!

I recently read this article on the Independent. Chris Parry, a former rear admiral and the new chief executive of the Independent Schools Council (ISC), spoke out on his view of state education and was accused of snobbishness by the NUT and of being 'misguided' (i.e. wrong) by the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

His views was as follows:

1. State schools are 'struggling with unteachable children, ignorant parents and staff who don't want to be there'

2. 'Comprehensive school pupils cannot be expected to get into top universities if they are bullied by classmates from "disadvantaged backgrounds".'

3. 'There are too many leaders but not enough leadership, there are a lot of managers but not enough management. There aren't enough teachers and aren't enough teachers in the subjects we need. It's lacking human, material [and] financial resources."

This seems to be a fairly accurate view of the situation, albeit very generalised. Of course schools are struggling, when inclusion forces them to take children who should be separated from other kids for their own protection, when parents insist that their little darling has done nothing wrong and 'Miss X' is just picking on him, and when they have teachers exhausted from working all the hours God sends for no respect. The comment about leaders has been fully covered on Old Andrews blog Scenes From the Battleground here and here, and he has much more experience in these matters than me. The TES forums to tend to support this view though. 

The one point I do have experience on, however, is the second point. In many ways mine, and many of my classmates', success is despite the state education system, not because of it. As much as the powers that be would like to deny it, even when I was at secondary school (about 10 years ago now) it was not a good idea to do well (except at sport). 

Here are my tips for surviving state education:

Never voluntarily answer a question in class, certainly don't ask any. 

Make sure you have at least one 'popular' friend (I had one from primary school) who will make sure you're generally left alone.

Help a Chav with their work if they're sat next to you, that'll gain you some respite.

Grow a very thick skin.

Take up a sport, that'll gain you credibility and make sure you're not the last one picked during PE.

NEVER take the school bus, and don't walk to or from school alone. 

Ensure you have a lot of people around you at break or lunch, better still immerse yourself in extracurricular activities, they are a haven from the chav invested waters of the school yard. 

Keep up with the fashion, rolled up skirts, tiny ties or thickly knotted ties, scrunchies, perms, straightened hair, friendship bracelets etc. Any of these can prevent serious teasing.

Break the odd rule, living a little bit dangerously now and again can get you a bit of respect.

Do not behave in a confrontational manner towards anyone bigger, or meaner, than you.

There are many other things to bear in mind, if you have anything to add please press the comments link!

Teacher Bashing!

In my opinion there is way too much of this in todays society. In the opinion of many people teachers get too much money and too many days off. Why should teachers strike for a pay increase? They already earn loads. Arguments about teachers working long days and using holidays to reclaim some of this time fall on deaf ears. We work unpaid overtime too, and don't get nearly that much holiday. Teachers should work just as hard as we do! Does anyone else see that fault in this argument? This society places too much emphasis on work! We should be working 80 hour weeks for 40 hours pay - otherwise we're not working hard enough. This is the underlying issue. In my opinion we should all go on strike - or at least everyone should work the hours they are paid for, nothing more. This would improve life immensely.

Do people really want their kids taught by teachers who are overworked and burned out? Do they really want schools to give their children hardly any holiday - just so teachers have to work a more 'fair' number of days? Perhaps teachers should spend their holidays doing pointless INSET training, planning lessons and marking books.... oh! That's what many of them already do.

I'm not stupid, I know that holidays are a perk of the job and they are one of the reasons teaching appeals to me, but I see it like school or university holidays, yes there are no classes, but that doesn't mean that there isn't still some homework to be done.