The Energon Pub

[Blast Cannon]

Why do we not have one of these? I could probably post in here daily on my own.

As some of you may know I'm a UK secondary school teacher. I teach History to 11 - 18 year olds and the topics range from Medieval England to US Civil Rights and seemingly everything in between. I have organised and delivered tours to the Battlefields and cemeteries of Europe, Auschwitz concentration camp and London for the kids I teach. I get into school for 8 in the morning and start teaching from 9. The school day finishes at 3 but I stay in school until about 5 to plan the next day's lessons. I then drive my busy commute home, which usually takes an hour and a half. I then spend the rest of the night until 11.30pm marking books. I'm mentally and emotionally drained most nights.

Recently my school was subject to an OFSTED inspection. OFSTED are government inspectors who judge how well a school is doing; the school is graded between 'Outstanding' to 'Special Measures'. My school was judged to require Special Measures. In this scenario the school is subject to further inspections, a 'Super Head' on an astronomical salary is parachuted in to oversee the current head and all staff are put under intense scrutiny in terms of results.

In any job you are judged by your results. The added dimension and difficulty to this in teaching is that your results are dependent on the performance of children. If those children do not progress at the rate that the government dictates that they should be, then you as their teacher are not doing your job properly. Now I am somebody who believes in accountability but to put a person in a position where they could possibly lose their job because children are not doing as well as they should, on the basis of a made up target system, is completely ludicrous.

The school where I work is in a high unemployment working class area of Northern England. Many of our kids come from third or fourth generation unemployed families and motivating them to do well when they have little to no aspiration is challenging in itself. Now I have the added pressure that my job is potentially on the line. I've just bought a house with my girlfriend, who is also a teacher at the same school as me. We're both feeling the strain.

I find it grossly unfair that my school, from the area that it is, is being judged against schools in affluent areas in the South of England. It isn't right. There is a political agenda from the current government because education is still in the public sector. Many 'failing' schools are being taken over by private enterprises and turned into privately owned 'academies' which can set their own employment terms for teachers and are designed to, like a business, operate at a profit.

How the UK is sleepwalking into a privately owned education sector run for profit by multi-millionaire franchises is beyond me. But being in the eye of the storm, living it day to day, is Hell.

And breathe.

[cybercat]

I teach college in the US, but believe it or not I can totally relate. We're told federal funding relies on us doubling our graduation rates, but our workingclass, heavily unemployed, heavily unmotivated students...just plain old don't do the work, half the time. And I can't really blame them, but I can't, you know, pass them.

It's incredibly stressful, and it's also hard to pour your heart into a job when you feel that the people above you, whose job it should be to make your life easy so you can do your teaching better, are really out to get you.

We're not privatizing as much as trying to push MOOCs and free education for everyone where essays are graded by robots: a different kind of soulkilling evil.

CC,

[ZeroWolf]

Blast cannon@ I wouldn't say we're sleepwalking into privatization, more people have been lied to, being told that it's better for everyone thus are welcoming it cause they think it'll help, which of course it won't.