Too many teachers have no respect for authority and are hampering schools’ attempts to improve standards, chief schools inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw said on Thursday.Yes, those permissive society chickens are coming home to roost!
He warned of headteachers being “undermined by a pervasive resentment of all things managerial” by some of their teaching staff.Do they transmit this to the kids, or do they pick it up from the kids? It’s an interesting question to ponder…
Speaking at a conference organised by the Westminster Education Forum in London, he added: “Some teachers simply will not accept that a school isn’t a collective but an organisation with clear hierarchies and separate duties.”Very reminiscent of the attitudes of so many of their charges when they join the world of work!
It isn't, of course, just a problem of subordinates not being subordinate:
Sir Michael also warned heads not to try and “curry favour” with their staff, adding: “What’s worse (is) far too many school leaders seem to believe that they don’t have a right to manage, either.
“They worry constantly about staff reaction. ... They seem to think they cannot act without their employees’ approval.
“Yes, you should consult with staff, Yes, you should explain. But never confuse consultation. We must take the staff with us at all costs, the misguided head would say. “No, you mustn’t. Not if it means leaving the children behind.”Applause!
Heads must come up with a vision for their school which is more than “a natty slogan” which is put on its stationary (Ed: sic. But come on, this is the Grauniad, after all…) and parroted by all the staff. “It’s pointless concocting grand plans if the school playground is in a mess, uniforms are slovenly, staff are too casual, children pay more attention to their mobile phones than to the teachers and the school reception has all the charm of the check-in desk at Ryanair.”
Teachers, he argued, should also be bold enough to exert their authority and remind pupils who is in charge.
“There is absolutely nothing wrong in my view in saying to youngsters ‘do as I ask, because I am the adult - I am older than you - I know more than you and, by the way, I am in authority over you,” he said.I can imagine that this, however we may cheer it on, will go down like a cold cup of sick in staffrooms all over the country...
8 comments:
"Do they transmit this to the kids, or do they pick it up from the kids?"
Neither. They are the kids. This approach dates back into the 1990s - the 'child as god' mentality worked its way through school, then through university, and now its early recipients are teaching.
Dear Julia
Do not be fooled by Wilshaw's rhetoric. In fact, his miserable organisation is part of the problem. It is Ofsted which is at the front of pushing child-centred rubbish and stopping traditionally minded didactic teachers from doing their jobs. The irony is that Ofsted crap is used as a mantra by school management teams, who make sure that anyone who is doing their best to give pupils what might be called a Grammar school style education are pressurised out the door.
Teachers are actually a fairly supine bunch who fail to stand up for themselves and "proper education" time after time. The view of them plotting revolution in their Che Guevara caps while hurling copies of Das Kapital across the staffroom bears no semblance of the subdued, cowed reality.
Most school management is entirely undeserving of being taken seriously, as in many, many cases their actions have lead to the early retirement of decent people who deserved some respect.
He's nailed the Common Purpose ethos beautifully and rightly rejected it.
My daughter's school is swarming with Them and I keep getting cornered, when I set foot in the place, to sign her up for Young Leaders.
I'm resisting, natch, and so is she.
Viva La Resistance !
XX Teachers, he argued, should also be bold enough to exert their authority and remind pupils who is in charge. XX
HOW Wilshaw?
Sending 16 year olds to the "naughty step" does not WORK, arsehole!
Riding crops and the right for teachers to use them accross the face, or any other available body part of misscreants! And THAT includes chav bastard "parents" who turn up to complain...no matter WHAT their "colour(!)"
THAT is the only way you are going to bring discipline back in school after this shower of commy bastards let it go as far as it has slipped today.
I believe that teachers (state school that is) do not just resent authority all though many of them will be very authoritarian in their dealings with others. Also I believe they wish to run schools for the benefit of themselves and not their pupils using the template of the most lazy and incompetent teachers as to the structure they should do it by. Having seen my children educated in both state and private schools having taking them out of the former for the latter out of pure frustration I have some qualification for saying so.
Wilshaw is not much of a historian. He began teaching in the slums of south east London. Used to wear a wig hence "Wiggy".
"Neither. They are the kids. "
Good point!
"It is Ofsted which is at the front of pushing child-centred rubbish and stopping traditionally minded didactic teachers from doing their jobs. "
Perhaps another organisation undermined on the front lines, no matter what those at the top say?
"THAT is the only way you are going to bring discipline back in school after this shower of commy bastards let it go as far as it has slipped today."
Very true!
Discipline in schools? As in Wilshaw's colleagues punching 11 yr olds in the face. Well 'ard, they should have joined The Met.
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