*rant warning* Not entirely aimed at your comment, just I always get enraged by the "A levels are getting easier" debate that rolls around every year
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I had similar experiences doing teacher training, very uninspiring. I found the SATs stuff particulary depressing, because it's not like the kids even get anything out of it by way of qualification, and what they lose is a decent education.
I loathe and despise the way the same tired old "A levels are getting easier" story comes around every bloody year. It annoys the crap out of me.
I hate the trend for learning by rote instead of learning until something is understood, but I also hate the smug "oh, it was so much harder in my day..." guff that people often come out with.
I agree to a certain extent about the paperwork and so on. A lot of it is unecessary SO LONG AS YOU ARE A GOOD TEACHER. A good teacher can walk into a classroom and totally own it, improvise a lesson with no preparation and be able to recall details about everyone they teach with little effort because they care enough to bother to do so. However, so few people are good teachers. I'd like to say I am but I am not sure that is true. I just know my own weaknesses enough to hopefully avoid them
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"I agree to a certain extent about the paperwork and so on. A lot of it is unecessary SO LONG AS YOU ARE A GOOD TEACHER."
So rather than have good and bad teachers (and work on sorting out the bad ones) the government has seemingly decided to standardise everyone by beating as much individuality out of them a possible. Hurrah for averageness! Averageness is inclusive! Averageness doesn't leave anyone feeling left out!
God yes.... lets make sure everyone is the same... Not a good situation. Its slightly better in FE than in schools, though. More individuality is allowed in general, which is good.
There's a simple reason why results keep getting better. Teachers and students get used to the curriculum and examinations and get better at preparing for them, learning from the mistakes of the previous cohorts. You'd think this would level off, and it should. There's a catch. Every three to five years some idiot in Whitehall who hasn't set foot in a classroom for decades decides it's time for yet another overhaul of the whole system, but now we're dealing with an unfamiliar environment, so perform worse (in some absolute sense) than the previous year. However, because said idiot wants the initiative to look good, grade boundaries are set so the pass rate stays relatively constant - and we've got the room for improvement by getting the exam tachnique back until the next overhaul.
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I hate the trend for learning by rote instead of learning until something is understood, but I also hate the smug "oh, it was so much harder in my day..." guff that people often come out with.
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So rather than have good and bad teachers (and work on sorting out the bad ones) the government has seemingly decided to standardise everyone by beating as much individuality out of them a possible. Hurrah for averageness! Averageness is inclusive! Averageness doesn't leave anyone feeling left out!
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Its slightly better in FE than in schools, though. More individuality is allowed in general, which is good.
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