Read Confessions of a teacher: Because school isn't quite what you remember it to be... for Free Online Page A

up-to-date with the latest educational jargon, the tons of paperwork that never gets done for lack of time and preparing detailed lesson plans so complex they are worthy of being framed. Queues are forming at the photocopier from 7h30 in the morning and reforming at the end of the day till 8h00. The one and only photocopier is doing so much overtime that the 'out of order' sign is now one of its permanent features. Nothing like an inspection to make people frantically run from one corner of the school to the opposite like headless chickens. At times like these, we increasingly resemble the child who suddenly realises he hasn't done his Maths homework and is desperately trying to remediate the situation before his next Maths class. Except we do our homework. So all things considered, it is more like the kid who isn't sure he has done the correct homework and is desperately trying to do all the exercises in the entire Maths book.
     
     
    I've got one more period to go before the end of the teaching day and I have a free period before I meet the chimps. Jack is sitting at the computer as I enter the base. Lea and Caroline are also there, getting on with work and chatting to Jack at the same time. As I walk in, I catch Jack's last sentence.
    - Of course, you need to know high order priority questioning, Bloom's taxonomy.
    - huh? comes the unified answer.
    I have heard all the words in that sentence but wouldn't know how to combine them together to get something that makes sense. By the quizzical look on my colleagues' face, I can tell that I'm not the only one. I'm starting to get a sense of what the chimps feel like when I ask them a question.
    - Yes, you know, high order priority questioning - Bloom's taxonomy...
    I wish he would stop repeating these words like a lullaby. I heard them as clearly as the first time round but still can't make sense of any of it.
    - We talked about it at a meeting last year.
    - Ah, the three of us reply before Lea plucks up the courage to ask what exactly that is.
    It turns out that Bloom's taxonomy is nothing more than the art of asking open questions rather than closed ones. For example, one shouldn't ask 'what is the answer to...' but 'why is ... the answer to...'. There is a whole range of questioning techniques which all of us have been using since we started teaching except we've never called them by any name, let alone something like 'high order priority questioning, Bloom's taxonomy'.
     
     
    The world of education loves jargon. Every few years a new curriculum is forced down teachers' throats with a fancy name such as 'Five to Fourteen', 'Higher', 'Higher still'. There are starting to run out of ideas for a new name. Where do you go when you've gone higher still? If they'd asked me I could have suggested 'the sky is the limit' or 'reach for the stars' but they didn't ask me and they never will. The new one they have come up with is 'Curriculum for excellence'. They have truly limited themselves with that one and the only way forward can only be 'Curriculum for perfection'. In any case, we have now been teaching 'Curriculum for excellence' for one year and are still no further forward as to what it entails aside from Bloom's taxonomy. All schools in the country are overflowed with documents that are supposed to tell you what it means. Two buzz words have emerged as strong representatives of Curriculum for excellence: Experiences and Outcomes. What it really means is everybody's guess. Should you endeavour to find out more, the official line states:
     
     
    " The experiences and outcomes are a set of statements (to be found in an equally mesmerising and lengthy document) which describes the expectations for learning and progression for each of the eight curriculum areas.
    The title experiences and outcomes recognises the importance of the quality and nature of the learning experience in developing attributes and capabilities and in achieving active engagement, motivation and depth of