So, first a quick update about my PGCE and what is going on in my life. Today, we were handed back our first assignment (a report on the use of Target Language in the MFL classroom) and I received super positive feedback which makes me really happy. It's funny that something which was considered a weakness in my first degree, having and expressing your own personal opinion and relating data to your work, is now suddenly a strength a lot of other people from the course have trouble with. Further, today was also a good day, because I heard that my workshop proposal for the AERO conference 2010 in Albany, New York got accepted!! My article on the last conference was just published a few days ago in the AERO magazine and I am extremely excited to be chosen to hold a workshop- only have of the proposals that were submitted got accepted! I am going to talk about the alternative education network in Europe and there is hopefully going to be a discussion on how we can bring the different branches and the states closer together.
I had a pretty interesting weekend with lots of time with my friends, a bit of Pilates, going out and enjoying the gorgeous autumn weather here in Cambridge. Somehow, I ended up at the market place Sunday evening and hear people singing in a beautiful church nearby. I am not a Christian but sang in a church choir in Germany many many years and could not resist having a peak inside. As it is the habit in churches I was ushered inside and sat down before I could say no and although I was not too excited about being stuck in the middle of a church service I must say that it was a pretty powerful experience to sing again with hundreds of people and be part of a community, even if I knew nobody there and in a way was only pretending to be part of the group. I should really get involved in one of the uni choirs- it was such a peaceful end of the week! :-)
Oh dear, but I digress! Let's get down to the dirty business. A couple of newspapers have posted comments on the Primary Review and they range from agreement to outrage. Minette Marrin from the Sunday times blames the 'low attainment' of British students on bad teachers and argues that it does not make a difference at which age children go to school. As a teacher, I am of course quite angry about a comment like that- the situation is much to complex to blame one party involved!- but on the other hand have to agree partially: yes, education can be made or break with the teacher. Ironically, Ed Balls, the UK schools' secretary, announced plans today to encourage parents to send their children to school with four years of age!! This is, and I quote, so that children can 'hit the ground running' and to 'close the gap on their peers'. What the hell!? How can you send children to school with the attitude that they are already behind? The two brain sides of human beings are not even properly connected until the age of six!
In one way, today's university seminar on assessment had quite a drastic impact on how I see the UK's education system and this day will go into the books as the moment when I decided not to work in the English state system. This is because firstly, teachers are only encouraged to teach students how to pass exams. Everything depends on how 'students' perform and if they don't do well, eg don't meet the exam criteria, they are seen as a failure and so is the teacher. Secondly, students are only graded on how much of the subject knowledge they are able to cram in their heads. Whereas 50% of the overall grade in any subject at German schools is 'oral', ie the teacher continuously the students' effort during the lessons, nothing like this exists in the UK. Nobody cares if you work hard: It is only the mark at the exam that counts. This is extremely sad and although I am still enjoying my course and the teaching, this is not a system I want to support in the future! The PGCE will give a great range of fantastic skills and will be fantastic for opening up opportunities in the future but I can't wait to get involved with alternative education! :-)
Another thing that was discussed widely in this weekend's newspapers is the idea off the British government supporting small schools which are being founded by parents who can not afford to send their children to private schools and are outraged about the standard of the state schools near them. These new schools might be able to get funding from the state and will be tied to the following of the National Curriculum. Somehow this whole movement has been connected to the Montessori schools but I have honestly no clue how the two groups are linked- there are already many Montessori schools in the UK and surely no untrained parents can just open a school like that? More investigation to follow! In general I think it is a great scheme that should give parents a great deal of autonomy in the education of their children within the local community.
In the Sunday Times I also read an article about Fleur Britten, a 21 year old student at Oxford who was home educated. It's amazing to hear how she just learned about what she wanted and now has a skill a lot of other students of our generation are missing: Knowing what you like! The organisation that connects many homeschooling families in the UK is Education Otherwise and I am excited to get in touch with them in the next months in preparation for my AERO workshop.
I am sorry if the blog reads a little bit like a newspaper reviews- it is rare that I find the time to read stuff properly and I thought you might be interested in a few quick updates about what is going on in the world of education in Britain! :-) On a last thought, yesterday a few friends and I were talking about schools reflecting the local society and culture we live in. It is a micro-cosmos in itself but surely every school should prepare children for the world that is waiting for them once they leave the school. This is quite an exciting thought for me because it is yet another reason for the idea that exams in schools is wrong: When do you ever take an exam outside of an educational context?
I hope you had a good start into the week! :-)
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