Some Feedback

In light of what I was saying earlier about Optimism, the following is some feedback I received recently about my blog by Private Message on the TES website . It is by no means atypical:

Dear oldandrew,

I’m reading a thread on the Bevaviour Forum at the moment, on which reference is made to your blog.

I just wanted to say (as someone who only did their PGCE year not that long ago, and have read your blog for a few years now) what an excellent site it is. I knew teaching wouldn’t be an easy job to do, but I was quite shocked at what actually goes on in many schools these days. During my PGCE I was verbally abused, had someone walk out of my lesson, and encountered racial abuse targeted at me. I was at least heartened (if that’s the correct term) when I started to understand that it wasn’t just me when it comes to the poor behaviour I have seen, and at least it is normal for it to happen in many lessons. That didn’t actually make the job easier in itself, but at least I have come to understand that it isn’t something I have done myself, or that I deserve it!

I enjoy the job in that I think it can be a very rewarding career, but I did somewhat become cynical during PGCE lectures with regard to some of the strategies and whether they would actually be effective. Some of the advice you have written on behaviour management I have found to be very good (and have put it into practice). I also decided to stop reading ‘getting the buggers to behave’ which, going back to the start of this, I found made me feel like everything I had encountered was my own fault.

Thanks

I thought I’d share this as it sets out exactly what this blog is for. It is not one long whinge, nor is it a place for people who have already had enough. It is for teachers (and others) who are interested in the truth about what is going on in our schools, and what can be done about it.

Hiatus

I’m sorry to have to do this, but due to other pressing commitments I am going to have to take a break from regular blogging. I may pop in from time to time if there’s any interesting news or developments, and I will continue to read any comments posted. I can also be contacted through the email and facebook details in the sidebar. If you have anything you’d like to see posted here during the hiatus, just email it to me and I’ll see what I can do.

Normal service will resume in February.

In case you’re interested …

A couple of friends have drawn my attention to these discussions, and yes I couldn’t avoid getting involved:

Schools today, good kid, bad kid

How does he know?

The first link is probably best described as a site for liberal Christians. The second is a political blog by a prominent Hackney councillor.

New and Improved Scenes From The Battleground

Hello, and happy half term (what’s left of it).

If you are reading this on a newsreader, please follow this link to the Scenes From The Battleground homepage and keep reading.

I have redesigned the look of the blog and added a number of new features.

There are two in particular I’d like you to take a look at:

1) Battleground Forum (follow the link in the header bar). This is a space for discussion and debate, but that is only possible if people join. There should be details there on how to get an edublogs login. Once you have a login, please introduce yourself and feel free to join in any existing discussion, or start a new topic for discussion (so far it’s only me).

2) How’s my blogging? (Top of right hand sidebar). This is a place to let me know how you think of this blog. There are a list of ratings (from “the best” through to “the worst”), please pick the one you feel best describes this blog and Blog Hop will compile the results. Also there is a button entitled “Vote for me”. If you are a fan of this blog, please click on that bottom and help recommend this blog to Blogs Top List.

Thanks for reading.

Welcome (or welcome back) to the Battleground

Hello. This is the new location for the Scenes From The Battleground blog. Due to the demise of the INFET website I have had to find a new home here on edublogs.org

I am currently busy publicising this new location and sorting out the entries, some have suffered a little in the transfer (for instance some have changed my name to “James”) particularly where they were linked to other pages on INFET, but I will hope to get back to regular blogging ASAP. A small number of the older posts haven’t been transferred and I will be looking to revise and represent them. Apologies to anybody who had posted a comment that has now been lost due to the loss of INFET.

If you are new to this blog then allow me to reintroduce it:

It is intended to be an honest description of what is going on in secondary education in this country. The title of this blog indicates that I genuinely believe that education has become a battleground, or more accurately several different battlegrounds. Students who don’t want to study, managers who don’t want to manage, and even teachers who don’t want to teach are all too common obstructions for anyone that actually believes children should be learning in our schools. These everyday obstacles are combined with an entire education system that at every level doesn’t seem designed for education. For that reason it is often a fight to get to the point where the kind of teaching and learning, which would have been taken for granted less than a generation ago, can even take place.

This blog will detail both my personal experience of fighting the battle to teach and also my take on the system that has turned our schools into battlegrounds. I plan to include different types of writing throughout the blog. As well as those detailing my experiences as a secondary school teacher and will share opinions and advice related to this experience, other entries will discuss and comment on bigger issues relating to education, often in several parts under more general titles such as “Bad Ideas for Dealing with the Behaviour Crisis” and “The Laws Of Behaviour Management”.

I intend to rewrite and update the entries about the big issues (and this introduction) as I go. This is because over time I intend that they should form one single coherent viewpoint about the state of education today, and so as I develop my arguments further I may need to review what I have already written in light of further thoughts, and comments and discussion made about the content. I will bring any major redrafting to your attention when it happens.

The posts relating to personal experience I don’t intend to rewrite in any major way, although I will be grateful for any corrections to spelling and grammar. Please be aware that unlike most blogs these will not be in chronological order and wll not reflect the most recent events in my life as a teacher. They will mainly come from two different schools, the first is Woodrow Wilson School, a large city comprehensive with a very mixed intake where I taught immediately after I qualified. It went through a series of management changes and my time there was marked by infighting between Senior Management and the department I was working in, based on consistent efforts by Senior Management to blame all problems in the day to day running of the school on classroom teachers – the “culture of blame”. The second is Stafford Grove School, a school with a much more challenging intake but which had strong results when I joined. Over the time I was there I saw results tumble and my department fall apart and learnt first hand how complacency over discipline could create a disaster even in a school with a long history of effectiveness,

Finally I will be encouraging debate and discussion on the issues raised in my blog as I go. As well as the “comment” facility on the blog itself, I also intend to encourage discussion on the teacher forums I post to, particularly Opinion and Behaviour on TES. I look forward to reading your feedback.

Thank you.

Introduction to the Blog

You can say [our] future is threatened by racial bigotry, or the breakdown of the family, or by national naivete toward world economic forces, or by a strange spiritual malady which has rendered us low-minded and irresponsible. And you would be right on each count – each is a contributing factor. But the major cause is ignorance. Again and again we do not see the main issues clearly enough or long enough. Again and again we do not discern which actions would truly be in our best interest. We take the wrong action or settle for wrong headed inaction. The cure for ignorance is education. But our schools, especially our inner-city schools, have broken down. This is a crisis in education.

Joe Clark (1989) talking about US schools then, in words which could apply to British schools now.

Hello and welcome to my blog.

It is intended to be an honest description of what is going on in secondary education in this country. The title of this blog indicates that I genuinely believe that education has become a battleground, or more accurately several different battlegrounds. Students who don’t want to study, managers who don’t want to manage, and even teachers who don’t want to teach are all too common obstructions for anyone that actually believes children should be learning in our schools. These everyday obstacles are combined with an entire education system that at every level doesn’t seem designed for education. For that reason it is often a fight to get to the point where the kind of teaching and learning, which would have been taken for granted less than a generation ago, can even take place.

This blog will detail both my personal experience of fighting the battle to teach and also my take on the system that has turned our schools into battlegrounds. I plan to run two different threads of writing throughout the blog. The first will detail my experiences as a secondary school teacher and will share opinions and advice related to this experience. The second will discuss and comment on bigger issues relating to education, under more general titles such as “Modern Education is Rubbish” and “A Brief History of Education” each divided into several parts.

I intend to rewrite and update the entries about the big issues (and this introduction) as I go. This is because over time I intend that they should form one single coherent viewpoint about the state of education today, and so as I develop my arguments further I may need to review what I have already written in light of further thoughts, and comments and discussion made about the content. I will bring any major redrafting to your attention when it happens.

The posts relating to personal experience I don’t intend to rewrite in any major way, although I will be grateful for any corrections to spelling and grammar. Please be aware that unlike most blogs these will not be in chronological order and wll not reflect the most recent events in my life as a teacher. They will mainly come from two different schools, the first is Woodrow Wilson School, a large city comprehensive with a very mixed intake where I taught immediately after I qualified. It went through a series of management changes and my time there was marked by infighting between Senior Management and the department I was working in, based on consistent efforts by Senior Management to blame all problems in the day to day running of the school on classroom teachers – the “culture of blame”. The second is Stafford Green School, a school with a much more challenging intake but which had strong results when I joined. Over the time I was there I saw results tumble and my department fall apart and learnt first hand how complacency over discipline could create a disaster even in a school with a long history of effectiveness,

Finally I will be encouraging debate and discussion on the issues raised in my blog as I go. As well as the “comment” facility on the blog itself, I also intend to encourage discussion on the teacher forums I post to, particularly Teaching And Education on INFET, but also Opinion and Behaviour on TES. I look forward to reading your feedback.

References:

Clark, Joe, Laying Down the Law, 1989, Regenery Gateway