Formal education: A tyranny of numbers: why I’m quitting teaching part 2/11
View this post on Hive: Formal education: A tyranny of numbers: why I’m quitting teaching part 2/11
I've moved to Hive, along with most other people, following Justin Sun's takeover of Steem in the Spring of 2020. I believe hive is a lot more decentralised than Steem!
I got a migraine just thinking of having to do all those things! I do hate the "bureaucratisation" of schools and all the hoops you have to jump through to prove kids are learning something and all the assessments to progress. And the government has their required assessments on top of the schools tests which is a mess of things that are a pain to as a teacher to mess with. Focusing on preparing kids to take these tests of academic progress forces teachers to worry more about preparing them to pass the test rather than on quality education.
I really hate the "Course evaluation surveys." I once taught 100 student classes and those killed like 20 minutes of a class. I had to stand in the hall while another teacher did them. Sometimes I'd have to come in on off hours to give someone elses class evaluations. Only complaint was students hate I didn't give them my powerpoints forcing them to actually take notes on their own. It was a total waste of paper and time.
As to the former it's a bitter irony that 'teaching to pass exams' is easier than actually teaching - because in massive classes with compulsory teaching you can't really teach properly anyway. Myabe with smal groups of 4-5 ? Or even less!
As to latter, they are something of a joke among the regular staff - but there was a section in our latest staff meeting about how we can most effectively feed back the results of those surveys to the students. I shit you not (this is precisely one of those ideas that can only come from a colonised mind).
As to migraines - sorry about that, you should try experiencing the anxiety-soup I have to battle through every Monday morning. Still, the end is in site.
PS - If yr critiquing a current job online I'd be careful - I'm only doing this noe as I know I'm leaving shortly and I'm fairly sure steemits not that visible yet!
I commend you for speaking out about the issues at hand. It is incredibly sad that children's education, and even value, is placed in the hands of a system that thinks a bunch of tests can measure their knowledge and ability. I imagine it is very hard as a teacher, who invariably chose the profession to help children, to have to conform to standards you know to be inadequate.
Thanks, saying it like it is - it's a cathartic process!
The teaching to the test thing has been going on a long time. I remember teachers, teaching to the test when I was in high school 20 years ago.
Also the bureaucratic non-sense you are subjected to isn't just a education issue. I am in construction and we are subjected to a ridiculous amount of safety regulation. So much so that if we followed everything we would't be getting anything done.
I'm all for work place safety but it isn't just the safety practices, it's the paperwork that goes along with it. You have to document all the steps you are taking to be safe in case something should happen, or an inspector shows up, you have a paper trail to show you are safe.
I spend a good portion of my day, up to an hour, just filling out the damn safety paperwork so we can avoid fines and work stoppages. Even with all this, if an inspector is having a bad day I guarantee there would still be something they could fine us for. It leads to a lot of unnecessary stress.
Yes - it has been going on for a long time. And don't even get me started on the safety culture thing! Ridiculous..
Sounds like a nightmare. This is not how people should learn.
Precesily why I'm getting out - at least with sociology the subject material is inherently interesting and you do have to 'think critically'so the exam taint isn't as bad as it could be - probably why I've lasted so long - but now the net's closing... fast!
Lucky to have you here on Steem where you can undoubtedly make a larger impact as an educator and passionate human in general. It'll be a no-brainer for kids to spend time places like here as the content grows and becomes more valuable / useful for learning.
Hey thanks - although being objective about it Word Press is still a better place for educators to store their material. But I do have a crazy plan to use steemit for teaching purposes next year.. although given that my target market is mainly 16-18s, I'm not sure how popular the idea will be with safety conscious parents !
I dunno - safety conscious parents wouldn't let them - with total open access and anonymous people on the platform, and a discord server for private chat?
Keep in mind that most educational instutions operate in lock down mode as the norm - i.e. CRB checks, web filtering, closed moodles - most parents wouldn't see past that.
I'm thinking about just limiting my first yr expt to >17s to counter this. Ideally itd be >18 but logistically I wouldnt get thenumbers if I did that!
best regards @revisesociology
I am safrizal my account @gurusosiologi
i am a teacher at high school in indonesia
I am very glad that there is also a lover of sociology in steemit.
i can learn a lot from @revisesociology
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