Blaming Teachers While Students Self-Destruct
Two recent articles, and published comments, unfairly incriminate teachers as those who fail students. One comes from The Independent today, “‘Exam Factories’ Conditions at School Causing Children to Self-Harm, Says New Research”and is about the serious issue of students there harming themselves due to the high pressure of exams.
The other article, from yesterday, by Jay Matthews, “Why Can’t We Have More Teachers Like the Ones We Loved?” of the Washington Post, might seem like a folksy good nature yarn about highlighting the great teachers in one’s life, but the message I see is, how can we make all the bad teachers like the few good ones we have known.
Let’s look at the article out of the U.K. first. The report is serious, could have likely been reported in the U.S., and is worthy of grave concern. Students are hurting themselves due to high-stakes exams. It notes that harmful testing came from previous Education Secretary Michael Gove, but some of the comments blame teachers. Here are a few of the U.K. statements that criticize teachers:
If our teaching profession was excellent with regard to the phonics provision in the first place, there would be more than enough time to be creative and no need to pull children out for intervention year after year.
And another:
Generally I can manage to sympathise with the ‘teacher’s lot’ when it comes to the Blaming Teachers While Students Self-Destruct: