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December 11, 2003
Dunces' corner
I suppose it had to happen. The logic of the Education Department's relentless dismantling of the very essence of education and of teaching is ... schools without teachers. I kid you not. The Times Educational Supplement reports: 'The school of the future need employ just one qualified teacher, Government officials have said. The controversial suggestion is contained in a Department for Education and Skills paper, seen by The TES, setting out priorities for the next phase of school workforce reform during 2006-8. Entitled Workforce Reform - Blue Skies it says that schools are able to operate under new "freedoms" brought in by the workload agreement without any qualified classroom teachers and this should be further exploited'. Of course! How silly of us to think that teaching children required actual teachers. Professionalism, knowledge, expertise are all to be thrown on the bonfire. Anyone can take a class. That's the new 'freedom' that we must all celebrate. After all, this is 'learnacy' in which children can educate themselves by osmosis, and the great thing is that it will take a lifetime and they'll still not get to the knowledge once held by a 15 year-old. That's what the Blairites call the 'knowledge society'. That's why we have 'blue skies' thinkers in the government, to take us into the stratosphere of surrealism and nihilism; and if there are hundreds of thousands of human casualties and our culture atrophies into savage ignorance and mindlessness -- well, hey, the blue skies are the limit for the amoral wreckers of Blairism.
Posted by melanie at December 11, 2003
Comments
i have to say that i've been expecting such a move sooner or later. there's significant pressure at the university level to create "distance learning" courses, sometimes using the 'net, sometimes using old fashioned video. ultimately, where this leads is to a reduction in the "need" for faculty to teach in a classroom or laboratory environment. after all, the sum knowledge of the faculty member will be stored either on the 'net or in a set of video tapes or dvd's. isn't that the same thing? Posted by: ruminator at December 12, 2003 04:42 AMThey want the same with Medicine.....they think there is an inexhaustible supply of nurses to do doctors' jobs with only the affluent seeing doctors.........it is called de-skilling.......the Us has done it for years and now the consultants are selling the recipe.......this is why McDonalds is sometimes called "a restaurant" whereas most people regard it as a "fodder-station" Posted by: Romulus at December 12, 2003 08:12 AMof course, this will just create a greater gap between the elite that can afford to go to proper schools and the poor saps who get state edukashun. This elite includes, of course, the children of cabinet ministers. So that's all right then. I also fail to see that if school is considered as a socialising environment by Labour thinkers, how mechanised teaching can possibly achieve that. I imagine that the end result will be "schools" that are holding pens for lawless mobs of anarchic kids, with the main employment going to security guards -- sorry, carers. What a wonderful movie this will make. Posted by: Dave F at December 12, 2003 09:31 AMI wonder how the mass of 'educators', who are so vociferous in supporting all things socialist, will feel at what, is at best, a betrayal by their political masters?. Just how will their all powerful unions explain that one away?. Perhaps this is what they call 'progessive' politics at work. Posted by: ernest young at December 12, 2003 06:56 PMHow about this for a system? Strand A Strand B Strand C Strand D Very Limited Dole at the end of it all. Lies are only a problem when you believe them. Posted by: Matlaga Doug at January 22, 2004 04:52 AM |
