Feel The Divisions

Be it young or old, whether a mind carries a lifetime of experiences and thoughts or, whether it is innocent and naïve (that’s not to say an experienced person can’t also be naïve), it is essential, to get the best possible future from anyone, they must at some stage be ‘inspired’. Any teacher, has the wonderful prospect, and the potential, to do just that. ‘If’ they are truly serious about their teaching? If, it is their true vocation? It will be apparent very quickly. I have met some, who consider it enough to simply turn up to class each day, every year, with a preset lesson (from previous years, and even the same schedule of days). Boy, were they (and are they still), the first to complain when the curriculum is changed, usually for one political decision or another (Never mind the education, look at the curriculum). They miss the real opportunity to engage with the inquiring mind before them. For every mind must inquire at some stage. I cannot believe that a person can go to school and not have at least one question they are wanting to ask. How, that question is answered by the teacher before them, may well guide much of their future approach to learning.

Those who are simply turning up, will usually produce students who will do the same. Simply turn up. Their level of interest in the information that is being ‘told’ to them (certainly not involving ‘learning’) may lose interest in any other teacher, simply because of the response to this type of teacher. When you consider most children spend their first year or two with one teacher (often thought of fondly as they get older). And in most cases they are delightful and engaging about a lot of ‘interaction’ but not necessarily education. They do the basics, and encourage the students, but it is more the older classes, that begin to exert any real influence the level of engagement.

I once suggested that there are three ideological versions of general education existing in this country, Socialist, Feudalist and Capitalist. As very young students, in our preschool and first primary school levels, we engaged in a Socialist format. Controlled by the benevolent dictator (the teacher).  Everyone got the same of everything. Everyone did the same thing, at the same time and, we all ate the same foods. Then, in the next level of schooling, it became the Feudal system. There, the bigger the noise by a student, then the more the attention (both in class, and in the playground particularly). This is where the old saying ‘King of the castle’ proved to be not just a playground game. This was the ‘King of the castle’ who knocked you down, and, pushed you aside to get what they wanted. There was no fairness or real negotiations. This is also where real divisions start in schools. The forming of the ‘clicky’ groups (the ‘in’ crowd), the process of selection (or mainly rejection in my case.... it's okay. I coped. Sort of) for class games, playground games, and even study groups.

(Continued tomorrow)