h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well you know what 'they' say...

Those that can, do.
Those that can't, teach.
Those that can't teach, teach teachers!

t.

And those that can't teach teachers become Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families.

"But isn't there also a problem with the people who teach teachers to teach often having minimal experience of schools themselves?"

No, I don't think that's true.

One university Education Department that I knew quite well was almost entirely staffed with former teachers - often former head and deputy head teachers, former heads of department for their subject, former year heads, and so on. I guess it's fair to say that for some of them, direct classroom experience was a long time ago, but contrary to the myth, you don't get to teach trainee teachers without having had a successful career as a teacher.

When a new fashion or theory arises, as they do in education, do the people teaching teachers generally have any experience of using the new idea themselves to teach children before they tell people how it works?

Oxymoron alert. If they had any experience then it wouldn't be a new idea.

I think that it's more a case of teachers frustrated with extant systems so that, when they get into administration, they keep trying new untested ideas. "Whole Language" for example.

This certainly isn't grounds for giving up as conservatives demand, it just means that we have to keep trying.

Maybe we should just track the ex-students of the various systems and decide from their varying successes which systems works best, then try to improve those that work.

An idea can be new to education at large, but will presumably still have been tried out on some students before being recommended.

I was just wondering if the people suggesting/requiring that new teachers should use a new method would generally have had any practical experience of using it themselves to teach children, even if only in an experimental situation.

Many recent education innovations were instigated on the 'its obvious' principle, and thus experience wasn't needed.

Obviously this explains the falling standards in numeracy and literacy in 11 year olds.

Blicky's ridiculous assertion that I was promoting the idea of leaving children with paedophiles is typical of the arguments brought by the left to favour legislation.

Many things are managed by society, but when you take responsibility for them out of society, then people tend to expect the state to do it for them, and thus abrogate their responsibility. Once being a scout leader was seen as helping keep boys entertained and introducing them to new skills. (I still recall our scoutmaster (a butcher) showing us how to skin a rabbit.) Nowadays the first thought is paedophile, I would suggest that the media has much to blame for this way of thinging, but the assumption of this government that everyone is a paedophile unless proved otherwise encourages this way of thinking.

"Many things are managed by society, but when you take responsibility for them out of society, then people tend to expect the state to do it for them, and thus abrogate their responsibility."

Everything is "managed" by the House of Commons and always has been since 1688. The reason we get more and more legislation is because of a) the passage of time and b) like it or not, public concern. Why can't we have members of public engaging in dangerous activities on TV any more? Because someone died performing a stunt for a TV show in the '80s. Why do we have so many health and safetly laws? Because people kept getting hurt and people wanted to know what was going to be done about it. The statutes are full of odd little laws, past and present, that were enacted due to some public concern or other at some time in our history.

"Once being a scout leader was seen as helping keep boys entertained and introducing them to new skills. (I still recall our scoutmaster (a butcher) showing us how to skin a rabbit.) Nowadays the first thought is paedophile, I would suggest that the media has much to blame for this way of thinging, but the assumption of this government that everyone is a paedophile unless proved otherwise encourages this way of thinking."

It's not "the government" that's done this, that's *you* passing-on responsibility. The government acted as it did because of public concern due to high-profile cases of child abusers who had access to children despite previous convictions or cautions. The public demanded a way to stop this happening, the government gave them what they wanted. Blame society, not the state. The latter responds to the other.

Incidentally, despite what you said about "the left", it's the rightwing press who have pushed hardest for more legislation to protect children from abusers. The left, in the main, have been calling for a more cool-headed approach.

>>"Why do we have so many health and safetly laws? Because people kept getting hurt and people wanted to know what was going to be done about it."

But do we actually *have* that many H&S laws?

Chances are, when some newspaper moans on about someone not being able to do something because of Health-and-Safety laws (or the EU, or whatever), if the story isn't actually made up or distorted beyond belief, it comes down to someone deciding not to do something they didn't want to do anyway and dishonestly blaming H&S, or people (usually on a committee) being too scared to approve of something once someone has suggested that it might just possibly not be entirely safe.

If there's a headteacher banning competitive playground games and blaming H&S, it's probably as likely down to them never having liked games themselves, due to being too unfit or cack-handed or unpopular to get picked when they were a child, or never having won many, than it is an actual safety issue (or an issue of it being 'unfair' to have winners and losers).

It certainly doesn't help when there's a culture among *some* people of someone [else] always being to blame, and possibly sueable.
If a kid on a school trip does something they've been told not to do and breaks a leg, some parents would reach for the lawyers before thinking about why their child doesn't do what it's told. Unfortunately, they'd probably be the same parents who'd also reach for a lawyer if their child was banned from a school trip because they were too badly behaved.

"The left, in the main, have been calling for a more cool-headed approach."

I beg your pardon ? Have you read the bill from the DCSF ? It is the most generalised badly thought out piece of tosh I've ever had the misfortune to be expected to implement. It's full of inconcsistencies and contradictions, and it's got Ed Balls' name all over it. Have you read the Badman report ? You need to be CRB cleared if you want to educate your children at home ! Just think about that for a little while.

The politics of fear are generated by weak governments responding to sensationalist and lazy journalism with hastily conceived legislation.

It required no extra legislation to prevent the kidnap of Sarah Payne, or the deaths at Sowham, it merely required existing laws to be implemented ~ but there is no political profit in enforcing the law - make a new one ~ show you're responding.

Head teachers generally ban some sports or pastimes because they fear being sued if a child is injured. Did you read about the scholl head teacher who was sued because a little boy jumped down some stairs and died ? We have been threatened with court action because a child tried to swallow the chewing gum he was told to spit out and it stuck in his throat.

I knew this list was about somewhere...

It is inconceivable to me that a waking nation in the full consciousness of its freedom would have allowed its government to pass such laws as:

the Protection from Harassment Act (1997),
the Crime and Disorder Act (1998),
the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000),
the Terrorism Act (2000),
the Criminal Justice and Police Act (2001),
the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (2001),
the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Extension Act (2002),
the Criminal Justice Act (2003),
the Extradition Act (2003),
the Anti-Social Behaviour Act (2003),
the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act (2004),
the Civil Contingencies Act (2004),
the Prevention of Terrorism Act (2005),
the Inquiries Act (2005),
the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (2005),

not to mention a host of pending legislation such as

the Identity Cards Bill,
the Coroners and Justice Bill, and the
Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill.

All examples of 'The Left' not introducing laws to inhibit our freedoms.

So.... the Labour government = "the left", then? I think that's something of a controversial view....

>>"All examples of 'The Left' not introducing laws to inhibit our freedoms."

Wondering what freedom the Protection from Harrassment act took away from you?
Presumably you weren't thinking of harrassing other people or putting them in fear of harm as a right?

>>"It is inconceivable to me that a waking nation in the full consciousness of its freedom would have allowed its government to pass such laws as:"

I think that probably says more about you than about the nation.
I'd advise you to write it off as a lost cause and leave as soon as possible, unless you're confident that a more right-wing government would repeal all those laws which you clearly identify as being anathema to any right-thinking person.

Of course, if a Tory government did leave more than the odd law in place, that *would* tend to suggest you were pretty much out of touch with what people actually care about.

Well potholer, here's one interpretation of the Harrassment laws -

http://www.sluggerotoole.com/index.php/weblog/comments/protection-from-harassment-act-being-used-to-suppress-dissent/

" The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 is, on the face of it, a sensible piece of legislation defending people from stalkers. But when it was drafted, several of us warned that it failed to distinguish between genuine harassment and legitimate protest. Harassment includes “alarming the person or causing the person distress”, which could mean almost anything: you can alarm someone, for example, by telling them that pulverised fly ash contains mercury. It requires a “course of conduct” to be pursued, but this means nothing more than doing something twice. If you take two pictures of workers felling trees, that counts. Conduct also includes speech.

Worse still, the legislation was the first of several “behaviour acts” which blur the distinction between civil and criminal offences. The victim of the course of conduct may take a civil claim to the high court. On the basis of far less evidence than a criminal case requires, the court can grant an injunction against the defendant. If the defendant then breaks that injunction - by continuing to talk to the people he is seeking to dissuade, or to march or picket or protest - he then commits a criminal offence, carrying up to five years’ imprisonment.

We warned that the legislation had the makings of a new sedition law. No one took us seriously. But the first three people to be arrested under the act were peaceful protesters. Since then it has been used repeatedly to stifle what should be legitimate dissent."

Its true that the equivocal nature of much of Labours legislation has an "Old Right" feel to it despite the openess and honesty promised by "new Labour".

However I still maintain that there is nothing wrong with using readily available records to check if the people you are leaving your children with are people who have a record of harming children. The latest proposals were doomed to failure but the ongoing plan is to revamp the system with a "coaching license". This is supposed to mean that rather than carrying an out of date peice of paper round with me I will show my license and people will log on to a site enter my number and be able to see my upto the minute record or lack thereof.

This is the state being efficient and useful. Its not people choosing to abrogate their individual responsibilities. The state is simply using a central resource individuals could not afford.

>All examples of 'The Left' not introducing laws to inhibit our freedoms.

Yep, Labour have been in power since 1997 and they passed some laws in response to terrorist attacks and anti-social behaviour. Conservative governments would never do such a thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_Justice_and_Public_Order_Act_1994#

Oh.

"# Sections 34-39, which substantially changed the right to silence of an accused person, allowing for inferences to be drawn from their silence.
# Sections 54-59, which gave the police greater rights to take and retain intimate body samples.
Section 60, which increased police powers of unsupervised "stop and search"."

You can almost hear the state shrinking.

You seem to be saying that a Conservative Government would have passed the same laws - that's a pretty weak argument. The fact is that Labour DID pass those laws, along with others that seem to have made it illegal to photograph a policeman.

Should the Blair/Brown machine roll into town I will be very careful not to repeat any of my accusations.

Incidently I should have said the list wasn't mine - it was Phillip Pullman's.

>You seem to be saying that a Conservative Government would have passed the same laws - that's a pretty weak argument. The fact is that Labour DID pass those laws, along with others that seem to have made it illegal to photograph a policeman.

No, what I was saying is that a Conservative government also passed laws which restrict individual liberties and empower the state and that it did so for much the same reason Labour has. I was challenging your claim that only a Labour government would ever pass such laws.