Hi again.
I’ve got a gripe!! Not with you, but with the education system. Hmm – people who know me will probably be thinking, ‘She’s got a gripe??!!! Just the one??!!! Never….’
Actually they’re right – I have so many gripes about the education system…. kids not being able to read, not being able to add up a few numbers, not being able to do so many things that they should be able to do…. The list is endless.
Do you know what really gets me the most? That kids are being let down. Pure and simple – kids are not being given the education and upbringing they deserve. They’re being allowed to shuffle along into their adult lives without the basic skills they need to have the confidence and to be the adults they should be.
So there….
But that isn’t today’s gripe….. No, today’s gripe is about training teachers -well strictly not exactly training them but not training them.
No, that probably doesn’t make much sense. My point is that student teachers are not being given training in an essential skill that they desperately need to be successful in the classroom. Nothing, zilch, and I’m asking, why?
What’s missing then? No good griping if you don’t tell people what the problem is.
I’ve had a student teacher in my class for a while. She’s great – she’s a natural and has the potential to be a really great teacher. She’s full of life and enthusiasm and wants to make a difference to children’s lives. She asked to come to my class because she wanted to see what I do and how I do it. Great – I love having people in my classes who who want to learn.
During her teacher training course (she’s just going into her final year) she’s had absolutely no training whatsoever in effective behaviour management. She learned more from me in one day that she’s learned in 3 years – well she’s been taught nothing in 3 years so that’s hardly surprising, is it??? It’s unbelievable. It’s a scandal. Thousands of students entering the teaching profession without the basic behaviour management skills they need.
Controlling and managing children’s behaviour is about timing, using your voice, body language and many other things that can be taught and practised very easily – but people have to know what to do and be able to do it with confidence and consistency. It’s a disgrace that students are being left floundering about a subject so essential to their own well being and that of the children they are in charge of – it’s bordering on abuse.
No wonder the most common reason for young teachers leaving the profession is children’s behaviour – their unacceptable behaviour and the behaviour that anybody can learn to manage if those in charge of teacher training took the matter seriously.
Don’t they think its important for heaven’s sake?? If not why not??
These students are being let down. Stress in the teaching profession is sky high. This leads to teachers’ ill health, absence from work (often long term) which leads to dependence on supply teachers, who with the best will in the world don’t provide continuity and haven’t the relationship with the school or pupils that is so essential to children’s progress and achievement.
I teach effective behaviour management skills to teachers, students, teaching assistants continually. We need more people in the profession confident to manage children’s behaviour from the start – not just muddling along, often getting it wrong and then getting so disillusioned that they leave their jobs or worse becoming ill and their whole lives being blighted.b
So, that’s my grip – but who’s going to do anything about it???
Cheers for putting up with a mood from Liz Marsden @ Behaviour Bible.