| Subject: Re: How commonly do schools Actively and/or Pasively Discriminate? |
Author:
Shirley
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Date Posted: 10:36:53 02/06/11 Sun
In reply to:
Keith
's message, "How commonly do schools Actively and/or Pasively Discriminate?" on 23:06:50 01/06/11 Thu
Dear Keith,
I am sorry you had a terrible experience at school. I have been teaching for almost five years and I would like to share my opinion with you.
In most schools in Britain students are set into what the education system sees as their 'ability'. This usually means that you will have a 'bottom' class or a few 'bottom' classes and all of the students in the 'bottom' class will be aware of this problem. This, for me, creates more problems and doesn't work. However, it is how it is usually done as it apparently makes it easier for the teacher and the parents seems to like the idea too - especially if their children are in the 'top' class. I work at a school that doesn't believe in setting children into these catagories. I believe it is my responsibilty to be pro-active in helping my students. I started to do the on-line course on this website as I wanted to find out ways to help my students who had reading and writing difficulties. In my school we have a learning support dept and I think it should be a joint effort between the learning support dept and the individual teachers. You are right in thinking that some teachers do not see this as their responsibility - but they can hardly call themselves teachers if they only want to hand pick the 'best' children.
You said that people see learning difficulties as an inconvenience and that students are just lazy. I have seen students come into my school and when they don't get the help they need and the motivation and encouragement from teachers and parents - it can seem that way. Many students give up and believe that they are lazy or stupid. This is very annoying as a teacher and not the student's fault.
Part of the problem also is the standardised testing system we have in place. Everyone is worried about how well the school is doing in comparison to other schools and we have lost the essence of what it means to educate. To me it means you should care and nurture - not be constantly worried about your CV and whether you have a 100% pass rate - which is usually a lie anyway, as any child thought not to be able to pass the exam will be excluded from taking it.
I would like to share one of my favourite videos with you about education. I hope it helps in some way..
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
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