A red tick - yesterdayhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6236463.stm
Forgive me, but I simply don't understand this news item. Since when were teachers supposed to not know about their pupils' progress until exam results come out? Maybe during my time in the classroom I simply got it all wrong by believing that my job was basically to conduct an ongoing skills audit, or 'test' of the effectiveness of my teaching in order to set targets for my pupils rather than simply deliver prepackaged 'lessons' into the ether and simply hope that they would end up being educationally useful. I thought I was supposed to analyse my students' work according to the skills I know they need to learn and improve on rather than just put a red tick at the bottom of each page. To whoever is suggesting that this is a good idea instead of endless pointless testing, I apologise because in the past years I've not been parroting out prepacked exam preparation, but trying to educate my pupils.
For all that time they kept telling me I was wrong, not giving me the time or resources to do my job, questioning my judgement and blindly insisting to me that their way was best. And now - irony or ironies - that exhaustion, depression and disillusionment has led me to quit, they have changed their minds.
Forgive me, but I simply don't understand this news item. Since when were teachers supposed to not know about their pupils' progress until exam results come out? Maybe during my time in the classroom I simply got it all wrong by believing that my job was basically to conduct an ongoing skills audit, or 'test' of the effectiveness of my teaching in order to set targets for my pupils rather than simply deliver prepackaged 'lessons' into the ether and simply hope that they would end up being educationally useful. I thought I was supposed to analyse my students' work according to the skills I know they need to learn and improve on rather than just put a red tick at the bottom of each page. To whoever is suggesting that this is a good idea instead of endless pointless testing, I apologise because in the past years I've not been parroting out prepacked exam preparation, but trying to educate my pupils.
For all that time they kept telling me I was wrong, not giving me the time or resources to do my job, questioning my judgement and blindly insisting to me that their way was best. And now - irony or ironies - that exhaustion, depression and disillusionment has led me to quit, they have changed their minds.
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