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

learning. An outcome represents what is to be achieved (and what nobody has a clue about).
    The experiences and outcomes for each curriculum area build in the attributes and capabilities which support the development of the four capacities. (Huh?). This means (it actually means something?) that, taken together across curriculum areas, the experiences and outcomes contribute to the attributes and capabilities leading to the four capacities".
     
     
    I rest my case. The problem with Education is that it is overseen by three groups with very different vested interests. The thinkers of Education who have, more than likely, never set foot in a classroom but who are paid to come up with new learning strategies and new curriculum. They are idealistic but to be fair to them, not all their ideas are bad. The general opinion that teachers are stuck in their ways and reluctant to change is erroneous. Some of the concepts in Curriculum for excellence are good but they do not fit in with the reality of what happens in schools. Getting the kids involved in research projects that assess their skills in various ways is exciting but the bottom line is that I have one single computer in my classroom. It dates from the last decade and takes ten to fifteen minutes to start in the morning. Invariably, teachers are left with the task of deciphering documents, interpreting them the best they can and implementing them in a practical way that is not best served by existing working conditions. What angers us isn't the change but the fact that everything has to be implemented now without any given thought to how it translates into practice. It is up to us to figure it out as we go along. The second group consists of the politicians who don't really care that much about experiences, outcomes, attributes and capabilities. All they want is to be able to convince the general public that the nation is now breeding an ever increasing number of academic geniuses. They are far more interested in statistics and league tables. They don't really care how they get these results as long as they get them. The third group is those who hold the money: Politicians again, local authorities and school managers. Their concern is being cost-effective. They love the woolliness in the academic lingo because they can interpret it any way they want and find many opportunities for saving money. Teachers are caught in the cross-fire of three different agendas and seem to be the only ones who genuinely care about education. The bottom line for me is that the bell has gone and I have to attempt to teach something to the chimps, with or without the help of Mr Bloom and his taxonomy.
     
     
     
    The chimps are a funny breed. You can usually jolly them along if you don't make extra demands on their virtually non-existent intellectual capacities. However, like all wild species, they will occasionally become quite unpredictable and prone to a certain display of aggressivity. This is the last period of the day and I'm afraid I've taxed their energy too much by asking them to do one final exercise in their jotter. Only two of them are following my instructions while the rest blatantly ignore me and continue their private conversation, leaving me no choice but to do what any respectable teacher would do: threaten them with the almighty punishment exercise. It's not the threat that gets them suddenly quiet but the tone of my voice. I don't like it. There is something eerie in that unexpected silence and the glare in their eyes. I've been teaching long enough to know when mutiny is in the air. Sure enough one starts to hum, quickly followed by others. Within seconds, the chimps have turned into bees and the entire room is buzzing. When a child does something wrong, you have to turn the mild irritation inside you into a mask of real anger. With humming, there's no need to pretend. The anger is very real. As much as you can challenge individual pupils about their behaviour, with humming