The new teaching model?

Trainees will be taught about restraining techniques, legal powers to search pupils and practical tips to manage low-level disruption as part of an overhaul of teacher training, it has emerged.

New style courses will also place a greater emphasis on tackling bullying – particularly homophobic abuse – in schools.

The changes come amid concerns that training for many student teachers is too “theoretical”, leaving them ill-prepared for the realities of classroom life.

Army style training with assault courses? I think the next step would be to let the army educate them, seeing they seem to have the right expertise...

Rapper is dissing Cambridge?

Who would reject a place at Cambridge University to study? Well, Franklyn Addo did. And he has written an article after speculations that he did so because the music scene in Cambridge was not good enough (!) for the black teenager. He decided to stay in London and study at London School of Economics instead. But what he does say about who can study at the best universities is worth crying out from the tallest tower for all to hear:

People from deprived areas must assess their way of thinking and begin to understand that society is becoming increasingly meritocratic and that anything is possible with hard work.

Furthermore, schools and colleges should encourage people who have the academic ability to apply and help them with the process – as my sociology teacher at Woodhouse College in Barnet, Nazia Rahim, did with me. She provided me with extracurricular help, a mock interview for Cambridge and was pivotal in developing my understanding that I can achieve what I set my mind to. Schools and authority figures should be active in empowering the local community to aim high from a young age and encourage young people to take part in extracurricular activities so they are attractive applicants to whichever university they decide upon, or whatever career they decide to pursue.

Technology and vanity (and wind turbines)

Having seen the disaster on my blog - only I (on my snazzy laptop with an image of a fruit on it) have been able to see the articles I've been referring to - I'm thinking of reverting to pre-technology living, and seeing the twenty odd wind turbines being erected just outside Exmoor National Park, I don't have to go far. Only this morning I read that the owners of the wind farms are being paid to turn them OFF when there is a windy day, as they then produce too much energy that causes surges to the National Grid. Hmm...

Skolan är över - länge leve skolan!

PJ Anders Linder kommenterar i SvD en utredning som kommer fram till att det inte lönar sig att utbilda sig till lärare om man tittar på livsinkomst - inte mycket till nyhet, egentligen. Sverige har i decennier ägnat sig åt att skatta ihjäl och racka ned på högutbildade. Men det är aldrig försent att göra bot. Tar man denna artikel tillsammans med gårdagens debattartilkel av Helena von Schants, som förordar ett återinförande av studentexamen och ledarsidans svar idag, inser man hur långt det är till någon form av konsensus om skolans framtid. Man debatterar exakt när nedgången i kvaliteten hos eleverna inföll och missar därmed målet helt och hållet: Helena von Schantz har förmodligen satt tidpunkten korrekt. När man tog bort studentexamen (under en väldigt stark vämstervåg) sågs betyg, lärare och hela den gamla skolan som något ont. Betyg togs bort, ända upp till slutet av högstadiet och lärare skulle vara kompisar med eleverna. Gick själv i en skola där vi dansade på mattelektionerna och teckningsläraren undervisade i såväl svenska som samhällskunskap (han hade inte lärarbehörighet). Denna tid inföll nästan exakt mittemellan borttagandet av studentexamen som kommunaliserandet av skolan.

De flesta inser att kvaliteten på utbildningen har sjunkit betydligt och att inget tyder på att den har planat ut. Väldigt få verkar ense om vad som behöver göras. Och under tiden fortsätter nedförsbacken och de som i slutändan får betala priset är de som tvingas gå igenom en skola som inte klarar av att leverera. Kanske skulle eleverna få rösträtt så att de betyder någonting för beslutshavarna?

This post is covering a debate in Sweden about low-paid teachers (Yes, same old same old as in the UK) and an article in the daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter yesterday that advocated bringing back the Swedish equivalent of the English A-level system, with external exam boards and national exam papers.

A disaster course at uni

The number of emergency-management programs in higher education has jumped from about 70 in 2001 to at least 232 now, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In 1995, the year after FEMA began encouraging the development of new academic programs to supplement training at its Emergency Management Institute in Maryland, there were just five. In addition, there are now at least 112 “homeland security” programs, which focus mainly on terrorism — all of them begun since 9/11.

State University of New York is offering a course in emergency management and disaster response according to The New York Times. These programs have multiplied as a result of recent terrorist activities and weather disasters such as the Hurricane Katrina. I don't know what to make of it really.

Summer holidays in Swedish debate about the crisis in its education

A Swedish newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, has been publishing a series of articles by Maciej Zaremba, over the past few months dealing with the crisis within the Swedish education system.

That there is a crisis most people have realised as teachers flee the system and the pupils leave the state schools to go to Free Schools and the academic standards have been falling for the last twenty years (yes, 20 years!). The problem with the debate is that while politicians and more or less self-styled education gurus debate whether it is the free choice of school or the lesson is delivered from the front of the classroom that is the root of the problems, the students are getting a poor education. From an English perspective (England and Wales have their own educational system, Scotland and Northern Ireland their own) I want to tear my hair out. We have similar problems and the same undermining of the teacher role as Sweden has been suffering from the last three decades (at least) and politicians who tear up school reforms before they have been implemented properly to put their own in place instead. There is a lack of respect of the students' right to a consistent and good quality education from those responsible in both countries I believe and there is perhaps time for the citizens to voice their concerns. In England this might happen with the introduction of Free Schools. They will vote with their feet.

Should we close down the Free Schools in Sweden?

During the spring there has been a lively debate in Swedish media in response on a series of articles about the alleged serious problems in the Swedish state schools. This is of special interest to a British audience with the plans to establish a string of Free Schools alongside the existing ones. One of the results from this series of well-written articles has been a debate about parents' and students' right to choose schools - and that must be an inherently good thing. Another result, and a bit confusing to me having first hand experience from education in Sweden (and not a very good one), is that many people blame the current problems on this very right to choose. Free Schools were established long after I left education, but the problems in many state schools (lack of discipline, violence, bullying and academic results falling year on year, one supply teacher after the other) I recognise from my own years in primary and secondary education in a rather affluent area of Stockholm - and we had no choice whatsoever! You go to this school -period.

Research has showed that Free Schools are doing better than the state schools as there are fewer Free Schools among the failing - and this is seen by many as a problem. The solution would be, according to this quite loud group, to shut down the Free Schools and force the students back to their designated state school. I prefer the idea put forward by one person working for a Free School organisation, namely to have a register where the schools' results are being shown. Great, I think. But why has it taken twenty years for something as obvious as that? Most people like to be able to compare different brands before they make an informed decision, so why not when it comes to such an important aspect as your children's education? If nothing else it might give parents the ammunition they need to go to their council and demand a better school for their children.