Sunday, December 02, 2007
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Telling the Inconvenient TruthCynic or sceptic? I’ve come under attack in the TES Staffroom as the former. For the record I’ve never had any time for teachers who just whinge, in my time as a teacher I’ve always tried to ‘walk the walk and talk the talk’. If you want to judge my record – read the book.
It’s just that I don’t think I have to justify myself with reams of planning and to me testing children to death is a waste of time and effort. I didn’t come into teaching to ‘fill the pail’ but to ‘light the fire’.
As ever the TES Staffroom is the home for tedious pedants, one of them picked holes in my writing. Well I don’t profess to be the greatest writer and by its nature blogging doesn’t always give you the time to reflect, revise and edit. Strange though, they never offer any pearls of wisdom themselves.
If people want to correct me on factual errors that’s fine (thanks for the correction – it’s Higher Level not Higher Learning Teaching Assistants) and challenge me on ideas any time, that’s part of the process of genuine debate.
And while I’m on genuine debate, thanks to the Teaching Assistants Forum posters for their constructive comments. To mention the TES Staffroom again, most of the longer threads involve two people exchanging insults – haven’t they got anything better to do with their time, like marking tests?
Thanks for a great comment from Beckton Boy about my post on CPD, he’s written a tremendous piece on ‘training’, more please.
This is all coming round to this announcement - I’m suspending the blog for a few months, I’m involved in another project that will take all of my time, no it isn’t illegal and I haven’t been sacked… well, not yet anyway.
So let’s hope more primary teacher bloggers will pick up their pens and tell the ‘Inconvenient Truth’.
Labels: Writing
