Alternative Learning
We were having brunch in the Hemisphere where the old recruitment centre used to be. The Argonaut and I were catching up with the filthy datastream oozing out of the old place, and when we had finished the data transfer and affirmed our separate happinesses at the way things were turning out, we began to talk about solutions.
The problem, as many of you who have read older posts here may gather, is the quality of the teaching service in Atlantis. We have many teachers. About 20% of them are of reasonable quality and the rest are, sad to say, incompetent in various ways. Of the 20% that are any good, 60% of them will leave before fulfilling their potential — a potential that isn't even assessed fairly or well. That means only 8% of the teaching fraternity of each batch will make good.
Why is there such a high failure rate? When I did my earlier dissertation on the reasons for this (although I was made to change the title so that it didn't sound so biting), I found out a few interesting things that should be taken into consideration when thinking about both success and failure.
Firstly, if you think of teaching as a divine calling with a divine purpose, you are much more likely to stay, and much more likely to try to improve the way you teach. Whether this indeed results in being a better teacher is hard to assess, but it seems like a good start. As a somewhat related point, consider that teachers who don't believe in divine callings or divine purposes but do want to improve the way they teach tend to end up in things like insurance, sales and advertising — occupations in which you attempt to convince people that you are offering them a better deal in life, much like teaching.
Secondly, if you are male, you tend to stay in service longer. This is because a) you aren't likely to get pregnant, and b) you must be pretty dedicated to want to be a male teacher in what is traditionally a female preserve. However, there are serious caveats to this. One is that there are some rather lousy reasons why you might want to be a teacher, and men are more likely to join up because a) the external economic environment is bad, b) the holidays look better, or c) they like being utter bastards to the people they teach. Men, once promoted, tend to stay on the leadership track longer and ossify easily — most 'permanent' vice-principals are male.
Thirdly, good teachers don't change the system — they survive, endure, tolerate, and circumvent it. Very few good teachers make it to become heads of schools. Why? For most such positions, you need extra capacity for presentation skills, political savvy, social alertness and project handling. If you have all those AND you teach well, you are a rarity. The rest of the time, the system continues to grind along on mediocrity.
How can we raise the success rate of teacher 'production'? One thing that has yet to be tried in Atlantis is competitive market forces. Why not have more than one school of education? Atlantis has more than one school of medicine, more than one of most kinds of higher institution.
Another thing is open appraisal. By this, I mean that all teacher portfolios should be made public and parents should have a right to know the qualifications, awards, and success rates (adjusted for various relevant factors) of every teacher in a school. If a teacher is teaching a subject for which he or she did not qualify, the public should know. And the grades a teacher is awarded by his superiors should also be made public. (Actually, it would be great for this to be done for doctors and lawyers and other professionals as well.)
I am quite sure that there are arguments against both these measures. But can Atlantis afford not to allow such transparency and reform?
The problem, as many of you who have read older posts here may gather, is the quality of the teaching service in Atlantis. We have many teachers. About 20% of them are of reasonable quality and the rest are, sad to say, incompetent in various ways. Of the 20% that are any good, 60% of them will leave before fulfilling their potential — a potential that isn't even assessed fairly or well. That means only 8% of the teaching fraternity of each batch will make good.
Why is there such a high failure rate? When I did my earlier dissertation on the reasons for this (although I was made to change the title so that it didn't sound so biting), I found out a few interesting things that should be taken into consideration when thinking about both success and failure.
Firstly, if you think of teaching as a divine calling with a divine purpose, you are much more likely to stay, and much more likely to try to improve the way you teach. Whether this indeed results in being a better teacher is hard to assess, but it seems like a good start. As a somewhat related point, consider that teachers who don't believe in divine callings or divine purposes but do want to improve the way they teach tend to end up in things like insurance, sales and advertising — occupations in which you attempt to convince people that you are offering them a better deal in life, much like teaching.
Secondly, if you are male, you tend to stay in service longer. This is because a) you aren't likely to get pregnant, and b) you must be pretty dedicated to want to be a male teacher in what is traditionally a female preserve. However, there are serious caveats to this. One is that there are some rather lousy reasons why you might want to be a teacher, and men are more likely to join up because a) the external economic environment is bad, b) the holidays look better, or c) they like being utter bastards to the people they teach. Men, once promoted, tend to stay on the leadership track longer and ossify easily — most 'permanent' vice-principals are male.
Thirdly, good teachers don't change the system — they survive, endure, tolerate, and circumvent it. Very few good teachers make it to become heads of schools. Why? For most such positions, you need extra capacity for presentation skills, political savvy, social alertness and project handling. If you have all those AND you teach well, you are a rarity. The rest of the time, the system continues to grind along on mediocrity.
How can we raise the success rate of teacher 'production'? One thing that has yet to be tried in Atlantis is competitive market forces. Why not have more than one school of education? Atlantis has more than one school of medicine, more than one of most kinds of higher institution.
Another thing is open appraisal. By this, I mean that all teacher portfolios should be made public and parents should have a right to know the qualifications, awards, and success rates (adjusted for various relevant factors) of every teacher in a school. If a teacher is teaching a subject for which he or she did not qualify, the public should know. And the grades a teacher is awarded by his superiors should also be made public. (Actually, it would be great for this to be done for doctors and lawyers and other professionals as well.)
I am quite sure that there are arguments against both these measures. But can Atlantis afford not to allow such transparency and reform?
etched with acid at 1:20:00 am
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