Bad Teachers

A lady, called Zenna Atkins, has said that every school needs a "bad teacher". She outlined that poor teaching staff gave pupils the invaluable experience of coping with incompetent people later in life. Who the hell is this moron? Well, Zenna Atkins currently holds the chair of the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED) in the UK, essentially putting her in charge of inspecting schools in the England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and ensuring they live up to standards. As a teacher, society should not tolerate bad teachers one bit! It is not good enough to suggest that they have a role in our children's social development! Poor teachers make good teachers look bad! Full stop!

I firmly believe that teachers play a vital role in society and to allow schools to be filled with teachers below a certain standard does little to promote our fine profession! It is my opinion that bad teachers should not be tolerated. In Ireland, teachers only complain about wages. Class sizes might be mentioned once or twice a year and the ASTI or TUI will utter something about behaviour every couple of years. But we (generally our unions) don't dare mention the elephant in the room - standards! Maybe if our unions addressed the standards issue it might make our claims for addition reward more compelling. I think we all need to be accountable for the work we do. I don’t believe we should be judged on the results our pupils attain in terminal examinations necessarily but I do believe we need to have some level of assessment – even if internally. Our inspectorate does little in this regard and their reports are often vague, never highlighting very poor or, possibly even more importantly, exceptional practice. We need to assess how teachers perform and reward the teachers that go beyond the minimum standards.

What do we do with “bad teachers”? Well we re-train them, give them advice and incentivise them. Teachers, the majority of them anyway, are keen to learn new and better ways to teach. Many of them don’t have the confidence to tackle a new approach. Many of them might not have the necessary skills, in ICT or otherwise. Let’s give “bad teachers” the skills they need to improve. I for one would love to get formal assessments. Sure, I would be “sh**ing myself” before hand but, if it lets me develop as an educator, I welcome it with open arms. (I would like to stress also that Irish school should not be exposed to the excessive levels of administration evident in UK schools.) A simple, fair and unbiased system of assessment, including some self assessment, should be in place. We do not need to make excuses for bad teachers like Zenna Atkins who, in actual fact, is making excuses for herself and the role she plays in OFSTED. She clearly hasn’t been able to assess teachers properly and give them the tools required to up-skill. I am deeply surprised by her statement as the education system really failed her. Mrs Atkins is dyslexic and claims to have been illiterate at the age of 11. She could only manage an O level in biology, having failed English three times. She is now a very successful business woman and social entrepreneur and is trying to give something back to education. But justifying poor teachers isn’t beneficial. There is more on this story in the Sunday Times, but since they now charge you to read it online here is a link to the Daily Mail story instead! Click here.