It would be great if this sort of article filled the press at the moment, however what concerns me a little as that the teachers are reported as using (and undoubtedly) misusing the very vocabulary that AHEers use. This is dangerous ground. It is one thing for loving, facilitating parents making things available to the children to say they are 'facilitators' another for a teacher who can not in any way genuinely fulfill that function. HE will be blackened falsely (yet again), if this type of reporting continues.
But I must add that these employers should perhaps turn to the HE community! My DS (despite few recognised qualifications) had great feedback from the work place before he returned to education e.g. professional, reliable, putting in the extra mile, good teamplayer. Maybe we could deliver this message somehow? They should look elsewhere than at strings of As...
I think this is completely right. From what I can see of teens who have been much less coerced than others, (ie: many HE kids), they almost always have the sort of skills you mention.
Have been trying to work out why this should be so and of course, any answers are purely speculative, but with that caveat, I think it might be to do with these people being well practiced at managing their own lives, at working out why you do things, why and how certain ways of behaving work well, about why things are worth doing, about how to work co-operatively, and doing all these sorts of thing on their own initiative, rather than taking instructions from above.
All these skills have great value in the work place but the top-down ethos of schools does not allow for practice in the development of the necessary autonomous initiative that underpins the development of all these skills.
It would be great if this sort of article filled the press at the moment, however what concerns me a little as that the teachers are reported as using (and undoubtedly) misusing the very vocabulary that AHEers use. This is dangerous ground. It is one thing for loving, facilitating parents making things available to the children to say they are 'facilitators' another for a teacher who can not in any way genuinely fulfill that function. HE will be blackened falsely (yet again), if this type of reporting continues.
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But I must add that these employers should perhaps turn to the HE community! My DS (despite few recognised qualifications) had great feedback from the work place before he returned to education e.g. professional, reliable, putting in the extra mile, good teamplayer. Maybe we could deliver this message somehow? They should look elsewhere than at strings of As...
ReplyDeleteI think this is completely right. From what I can see of teens who have been much less coerced than others, (ie: many HE kids), they almost always have the sort of skills you mention.
ReplyDeleteHave been trying to work out why this should be so and of course, any answers are purely speculative, but with that caveat, I think it might be to do with these people being well practiced at managing their own lives, at working out why you do things, why and how certain ways of behaving work well, about why things are worth doing, about how to work co-operatively, and doing all these sorts of thing on their own initiative, rather than taking instructions from above.
All these skills have great value in the work place but the top-down ethos of schools does not allow for practice in the development of the necessary autonomous initiative that underpins the development of all these skills.
I get great feedback from the work place before he returned to education e.g. professional, reliable, putting in the extra mile, good teamplayer.
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