Many thanks to 'Donald Clark Plan B' blog, where I read this excellent article on the classroom and the constraints it places on teachers and the children. I like to apply this to some of our disaffected children and think that the problems are multiplied manyfold.
"If you wanted to create an education environment that was directly opposed to what the brain was good at doing, you probably would design something like a classroom. And if you wanted to change things, you might have to...start over." Dr John Medina
Teaching hadn’t really changed in the 30 years since I’d last been in a classroom as a boy, with exactly the same dynamic between largely distracted learners and hard working teachers.
...as young people become increasingly less compliant as learners, it can be depressingly ineffective, erupt into a hothouse of hostility, sometimes collapse into chaos
Classrooms are often cramped, pushing young people into uncomfortably close contact with each other, causing niggles and a never-ending series of petty distractions.
This is why the job is so exhausting. The children go to school to watch teachers work.
First published 13 Feb 2009
Read this great article here
Teaching hadn’t really changed in the 30 years since I’d last been in a classroom as a boy, with exactly the same dynamic between largely distracted learners and hard working teachers.
...as young people become increasingly less compliant as learners, it can be depressingly ineffective, erupt into a hothouse of hostility, sometimes collapse into chaos
Classrooms are often cramped, pushing young people into uncomfortably close contact with each other, causing niggles and a never-ending series of petty distractions.
This is why the job is so exhausting. The children go to school to watch teachers work.
First published 13 Feb 2009
Read this great article here