When it comes to discipline, Europe/US and Asia are like chalk and cheese. Discipline problems can seem to fill you up completely but it also pays to see what other teachers have to deal with. Here’s an article about teaching in the US: What are they going home to? Makes you glad to teach where you teach?
Thanks to Gumby for the link over on the forum.
Looking forward to seeing you all in Austria this weekend!
Asia and Europe? Yes, the analogy about chalk and cheese is an understatement.
Aren’t we all sick and tired of the continual barrage of advice given out by academics concerning discipline problems? The current theory doesn’t work? Never mind, there will be another one published shortly promising you the perfect solution to your problem(s); the only drawback is that it will contain principles based on the modern liberal teaching methodologies that are continually failing.
The UK, once the leader in secondary education is now an estimated fourth from the bottom in comparison tables with other European countries. University student’s are failing in droves because the politically correct theory of equality states that 50% of working class student’s must attend University. (Yet they’re not allowed to fail, so we create alternative Degrees in ‘David Beckham Studies’ to prove the point)! Hundreds of teachers in the UK are assaulted every year in the classroom, some seriously. All these aren’t age old phenomena; they’re recent events and occur on the back of changing teaching methodologies within the education system. We now have disruptive and challenged student’s within the classroom, again in the interests of equality and political correctness. There are no more ‘special schools’, day care centre’s for adults are now ‘community colleges’ and dumbed down comprehensive schools abound, in which let no one dare suggest that anyone fail or not progress to the required level.
I teach in Asia. Asians love all things western and in the majority are developing countries. They’re continually looking to the west for acceptance and inclusion. Unfortunately and to the detriment of their own education system, they too are now beginning to adopt western based teaching methodologies and the effects are dire. It is now entirely possible to progress through a secondary education here without having learned even the basics of the English language and having passed every exam. No one must achieve less than the required 50% pass mark and student’s work in groups. The group theory is taken to mean that the stronger student’s help the weak, but in reality it means that the strong simply become representative voices of the weak and so only the strong progress. Yet the ‘group’ pass and as there are no failures it must be a superb system?!
My main points are these. Teachers, you are not to blame. You have been given the impossible task of competing against face book, twitters, mobile phone texting and computerized games. Add to that bags of testosterone and hormone levels, plus a ‘student centered’ and equality based approach to education and there’s no competition. You lose every time. Rather than focus on the quality and approach to teaching, could we now have some academic remind us of student, (self discipline), responsibility, (less drugs, promiscuity and violence), or perhaps the parents role, (behavior and as a role model)? What about society itself where seemingly there are no more rules and standards of behavior? In a world where no one is allowed to fail, is it the teacher’s fault that few progress?
Hmm, I have heard this type of criticism many times, I work in Asia too, the children are very disciplined but there is not much room for individuality either. Your comment on the equality issue, is it such a bad thing if a government would like to see more of the working class educated? I come from a working class background and I often find the criticism of this leaves a slightly bad taste in my mouth. Who should be educated then? Many middle class students get throught their studies because their parents can afford to pay for extra tuition, so they may not necessarily be passing exams because of any natural apptitiude. Working class students as I found in my university may have different pressures at home, perhaps a parent is not working, maybe they have to work and study, which in turn can affect motivation and results, I agree that marks should not me doctored or massaged to make them pass but it is not as if everyone is starting on a level playing field is it? Just to blame “liberal ideas’ does not quite cut it for me.