Mad moments in Education

crap

The government are a little upset that children don't know how to cook and know very little about feeding themselves in a healthy way (actually I think they are more upset about the cost of treating obesity). Again the NC has much to answer for. Food Technology (awful title) lessons cut to 1hr 10mins, 20 pupils, 6 ovens (if you are lucky they will all be working)and a 'Design and Make' didactic from the powers that be who havn't got a clue.
Lesson 1. Talk about scones
Lesson 2. Make a basic scone and evaluate it. Say how to improve it.
Lesson 3. Make improved scone (ie add fruit or cheese)
Lesson 4. In groups decide how to batch bake scones.
Lesson 5. Each group makes a batch of scones (ie one pupil makes scones while the rest mess about)
Lesson 6. Make a box with a label to put scones in
Lesson 7. Oh sorry there wasn't a lesson 7 for this group as they now had to go off to another technology lesson and do something else equally worthless.

Yes trisher I am so glad to be out of it. The pity of it now is that all the teachers who have come into the profession in the last 20 years thinks that all the c* is normal.

Ha ha - your tale of that boy reminds me of a time when DD was struggling with her maths homework and I helped her by showing her a much easier method I had learnt.
Teacher said 'well done Jalima Junior, all correct but the wrong method. Did your mother help you'?
If the end result is correct who cares about the method?

But isn't it nice to be out of it tiggypro and to reflect that you did the best you could for all the children you taught over many years, and that it had B*** All to do with all the initiatives and innovations that were thrown at you whilst you were getting on with teaching.

How many of us knew that what we were asked to waste our time doing was exactly that - a waste of time. To me teaching the kids was what I was there to do so in order to do that there were certain things I 'missed out'. One of these were sheets, supposedly very necessary, filled in for each class twice a year. They were then to be placed in the correct place in the filing cabinet so others in the department could look at them. I was always 'just on with them' and for at least 5 years never did them. No one, not even my HoD, ever noticed because NO ONE ever looked at them.
Do you remember those big thick subject specific, ring binders we were all given when NC first came about. We were to read and follow them as they were our new bible. Each year another one came and it was always thinner than the previous one. Don't ask me what they were about as I never read them and maybe that is why my exam results were as good as they could be.

You have touched a nerve with me trisher and no doubt I shall be remembering yet more !

Thanks for all of these.
I remember the Numeracy Strategy and trying to teach some of the most complicated ways of addition ever invented. One bright child informed me "It's much easier if you do it like this," and did one in seconds. I had to say "Yes, but today please can you do them the way I have shown you." He gave a long sigh and went back to his desk. Had to have evidence that I had taught the methods, the head collected and examined books each half term, checking them against your planning.

It really is a miracle our children survive and do as well as they do.

What amazed me about Sports Day was how the mums who didn't want their children to be competitive were transformed into screaming combative banshees if there was a mums' race

Elrel& Co I would have driven you mad. I started in 1953 with Marion Richardson writing but moved school when I was eight to a school where italics were taught.
Add to that what I eventually discovered was my dyslexia my writing was appalling.
I still cannot always get the right letters or words to come off my pencil. I used to hate writing because I cannot write without making mistakes or I have to write very slowly letter by letter. As for Marion Richardson How am I supposed to write a "k" .???

Darn it! I could have been ahead of the game. ?

ps it ended up reconstructed in my tummy!

I remember the DT practical session where we're taught how to 'disassemble' a cheese sandwich.
fiorentina that could be very useful these days, as 'deconstructed food' is very fashionable.

I had a 'deconstructed Black Forest cheesecake' recently in a posh pub

Your sentence was perfectly phrased J52. My mistake. I have no idea what vertical grouping is.

I will never forget school sports day (which parents were not allowed to attend) a lovely boy won a running race, waved his hands in the air and got a massive ticking off from the head for exhibitionism!!! All children were then given a certificate for 'competing'. So pupils were allowed to be good academically but not on the sports field. Ridiculous nonsense. All change now and the school is doing so so much better.

Oh my! ?

Oh fiorentina I had forgotten about the disassemble malarky. I had a textiles student who wanted to teach Y9 how to make hats. She started by letting them loose on a range of hats she had bought at charity shops. The kids were meant to take them apart to see how they were made. They would then be able to design and make their own hats. What fun! What chaos! What waste! I knew what the outcome would be when she came up with the idea but as she was a final year student I was told I must let her do what she wished to do and of course it was my job to pick up the pieces after she went back to uni.

At Teacher Training college, I remember the DT practical session where we're taught how to 'disassemble' a cheese sandwich. I was a mature student in my forties.
You can imagine my thoughts!

Baker Days were named 'School Organisation Days' by one of DD's teachers and he had SOD OFF SCHOOL written in the appropriate column in the register!

With regard to the I T A , the Robin comic had a paragraph written using the I T A . My infant age daughter read this paragraph straight through although she had been taught to read without benefit of the I T A. When she had finished she looked up and said," Mummy, was that French?". Made me smile!

gillybob I was referring to vertical grouping not ita. Sorry, I should have phrased my sentence better.

ita - an LEA used to advertise for teachers to 'cum teech in waerly' or similar. It helped early reading but many pupils found transition difficult.
Ashtrays - when my top infants had their introductory morning in the junior school classroom they came back very impressed 'Miss, in the juniors they have ashtrays in the desks!'
Elsewhere a successful sporty tracksuit clad young teacher was always ' just sprinting down to get some fags' except when he sent a trusted pair of 10 year olds. Oh dear! ?
Those Baker and inset days. One head booked a day at a local hotel starting with breakfast muffins. Just for us to learn first aid and lifesaving techniques from the St John Ambulance. Same woman boasted about a head teacher's training weekend at a Stratford upon Avon hotel. She was especially proud that other rsispdents had complained about the noise in the early hours.Also dodgy in many ways. Stellar SATs achieved, odd that ?
Another school, another head, Infant and junior schools amalgamating so all staff had a Friday night at a local Hilton for a Saturday of psychological processing. She did not reign over the larger school for long, some 'MH problems' with financial symptoms ...
Mid 80s, some union action necessitated all staff leaving the premises for the pub, every day, yes, every day.

An infant teacher was moved, towards the end of a 40 year career, to comment at the the end of a day course. It was entitled on 'Realisation of recycled materials or some such pomposity. She stood up to remind the perpetrator ' This is the Junk Modelling we've been doing since the 1960s, isn't it?' They didn't like it.

I liked ita but I was already reading by the time I started school and both my parents were teachers so I suppose I saw it as fun. I loved Marion Richardson writing; the patterns and the special lined notebooks

It might be a coincidence but I did pass my 11+ despite being taught using the ITA method in primary school J52

Can any teacher or ex teacher tell me what an "in service" day is and what it is/should be used for ? During a recent meeting the LEA said they did not count in service days as days when the teaching staff were in school. My answer was then they must be extra holidays . This was dismissed but I am still non the wiser.

My eldest son learnt ITA. It was brilliant. He could read before he went to school but enjoyed learning this new system. He is brilliant at spelling, too, so that's not down to ITA.
What it meant was that he could use the system to spell any word he wanted to without worrying. He was also the first one in his class to transition to TO. Again, no problem.

The maddest thing of all was the National Curriculum. That's when I got out of teaching. I knew what was going to happen. Can't have a national curriculum without testing all the enjoyment out of teaching and learning.

I remember Baker days - as a parent!
I used to have to take a day off work and would sometimes see the teachers from DD's school in the supermarket at 12 noon - all finished for the day having been taught how to suck eggs for two or three hours that morning.

Meantime, another day of my holiday entitlement used up.

National Curriculum and technology. How to destroy creativity in one easy step.
When it first reared its ugly head all 200 technology teachers in the area were invited to a full day meeting to tell us how to teach this new subject. It was so exciting that I have no idea what we did (probably talked at) in the morning but the afternoon was BRILLIANT !!! All 200 of us sat around a 20" television to watch a video. The 'expert' talked to us in a quiet voice and every few minutes fast fowarded the video. Fortunately our little gang had rightly assumed that the afternoon session would be as mind blowing as the morning so chose seats at the back. We had to wake one colleague from his slumbers when it eventually ended and the rest of us planned a few lessons and made our shopping lists.
Future courses had to be better than that one but not much and more often than not a waste of time and money but we were expected to attend.
Can I also add in 'Baker Days' !! They should really have been called 'How to earn more than your Granny by teaching her how to suck eggs days'

A so called 'expert' would come to address us at an in service training day to tell us about this teaching method that would solve all problems for the children. I muttered to my friend that we had tried this before and it hadn't worked then. I got a telling off from the head. ( I suppose it was a bit rude) But when you have been teaching for over twenty five years, you really have seen it all and I could have put that time to better use. I wouldn't want to be a teacher now but I wouldn't have changed it for any other profession.