aghh – we’ve been infected / it’s spreading through the system / we’re losing our files … / it’s taken out the processor … / I, I can’t open with this program anymore … / it’s scanning me – / I’ve got to buy a Virus Protection Program / from it …

Tags

2012, advert, assessment, belief, boredom, bureaucracy, education, education system, educational behaviourism, expectation, identity, learning, measure, process, processor, program, pupils, relevant, slogans, speech, system, targets, teaching, training, uniform, virus, water

 

 

 

                                              aghh – we’ve been infected
                                              it’s spreading through the system
                                              we’re losing our files …
                                              it’s taken out the processor …
                                              I, I can’t open with this program anymore …
                                              it’s scanning me –
                                              I’ve got to buy a Virus Protection Program
                                                              from it …

                we process education
                                and pupils get measured
                we condition education
                                and pupils find their selves
                                defined or confused
                we target education
                                and pupils lose their trajectory
                we measure education
                                and pupils believe it
                we make education relevant
                                and pupils get bored
                we sloganise education
                                and pupils wear uniforms
                we teach education
                                and pupils ‘don’t get it’
                we teach learning in education
                                and pupils just remember
                                at best or not
                we train ourselves in education
                                actually we don’t anymore
                we workshop education
                                and pupils fill out forms
                we expect in education
                                and pupils leak like water

                here and there a teacher teaches
                                and a pupil learns
                but that soon stops because everyone
                                is too busy
                we teach, pupils learn … something
                                but there is no
                                education

 

I published this a while ago and no one noticed it – it probably went in to most peoples’ spam box; as I go through my haemorrhage from school some of these pieces will re-surface, I’m afraid … wait ’til you see ghosts with opened wounds again – it’s coming, can’t you hear it rattle; ‘well no, that’s the whole point!’ …

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

education wormhole: Dear Sir/Madam,
identity wormhole: my / superpower
learning wormhole: the stance of Buscema // qualitatively
speech wormhole: impressionism
targets wormhole: just saying, is all – III
teaching wormhole: dream career // groggy
water wormhole: clouds

 

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I don’t think I could do it anymore

Tags

2012, 6*, bureaucracy, career, communication, creativity, disempowerment, expectation, identity, managerialism, performance management, professionalism, question, recognition, resource, teaching, teaching craft, voices

 

 

 

                                              why
                do you ignore what I think
                                then tell me how to construct

                                              why
                do you ignore what I have constructed
                                then tell me how to communicate

                                              why
                do you ignore what I have cognitively modelled
                                then tell me how to be professional

                                              why
                do you ignore the craft of my plan and resource
                                then expect the art of communication

                                              how
                do you ignore the presence of what I think and create
                                then tell me that I am valued

                                              how
                can you work in education
                                and not see the psychology of what you wreak

                                              so
                tell me Principal Principle are you never tempted to get back into the classroom
                                ‘no, I don’t think I could do it anymore’

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

career & teaching wormhole: the Big Stage
communication & performance management & recognition wormhole: Teaching career: much like Monet’s ‘Impression: soleil levant’
creativity wormhole: as they wish
disempowerment wormhole: Resource
identity & voices wormhole: in verse / question / m a r k ?
managerialism wormhole; teaching: which is it going to be, procedure or nurture?
professionalism & teaching craft wormhole: The Future of Teaching: performance or capability (‘oh, not ‘teaching’ then?’)

 

Apologia

Tags

agenda, anxiety, AST, Big Picture, bureaucracy, career, compromise, creativity, dialectic, education, management, managerialism, organic education, performance management, politics, professionalism, resource, responsibility, results-led education, truth, value-led education, values

After years of struggle, isolation, stonewalling (Hadrian-walling!), silence, evasion a teacher might, quite out of the blue, be offered a role or responsibility so that their work might be developed and disseminated for the benefit of educational- (for the Benefit of All!) provision.   At last, recognition!   But then, minutes later you are being led to your desk in a temporarily-divided corridor room (in which you will have to battle for desk space by pulling back the desk through the temporary wall), there where you will practise your advanced skill (by bottling it up into a tube and sending it through the tube system), your very own prison cell …

Recognition (in the system which has systematically repulsed work which is not constructed, developed or packaged in the pre-scribed manner) is the opportunity to be exploited.   Responsibility is the means through which you will be exploited (given with laurel and epaulets into your own hands).   Opportunity is the (‘very interesting’) work of making your skill ‘fit’ into the Big Picture.   Experience is the history of compromise through which values and ideals will be lost into the Big Picture.

Success in the Big Picture Bureaucracy entails that truth is an agenda over which you have no control, principle is declarative, creativity is a formula, debate is a compromise, influence is an exercise of power, delivery is an over-riding Tough Decision, professionalism is the exercise of abstraction.   A skill (in teaching, say) is developed (despite Continuing Professional Development) through a dialectic between the Provision (the Teacher) and the Receptor (the pupil).   This dialectic yields truth which is explorative within the service (not pre-defined or even pre-determined), a principle which is exercised freshly, uniquely and adjusted-ly each time, creativity which comes from the minute detail of the dialectic, debate which is the (means of the) dialectic, influence which is an agreement, delivery which is the nurture to see the dialectic through, and professionalism which is effective (dialectical) giving.

The compromise is not evil, but it is misguided, borne out of an impatience with the progress of organic education, wanting to direct and control the progress of an education which has become ‘intensive’ as a result.   Why was there an impatience?   Because education came to the attention of politicians (themselves caught in their own compromise borne of neo-conservative power-control-agenda in the face of emergent globalisation) and the regulation of education became a propaganda (both ‘outside’ and ‘in’ the service) through which to justify Global Truth as Control…

Therefore I offer my work – itself borne despite recognition, support, investment, enthusiasm from the School – not to the school but wide open to the world of anyone who might culture it.   I will publish it (with a view to balance the paucity of alternative-values educational publication compared to the whole wash of government-published material), I will not make money or career out of it (in order to avoid the Compromise), I will offer it anonymously (as long as I can, in order to avoid becoming a Voice which must be accountable to an agenda item and not the dialectic).   I will cast it as a seed.   Let it stick in the dirt.   Let it grow.   Organically.   If it will.

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

compromise wormhole: just what
managerialism wormhole: nightmare
professionalism wormhole: there was a call and far from no response
resource wormhole: the ghost with open wound
results-led education wormhole: ‘once upon a quarter century …’
value-led education wormhole: through a cracked glass greenly
values wormhole: the path / no echo

 

Are You Being Served?

Tags

2011, 5*, Big Picture, bureaucracy, business, career, CPD, G2O, managerialism, performance management, politics, power, statistics, teaching, teaching art, teaching craft

 

 

 

                                     Are You Being Served?

          Performance Management; CPD; A*-C passes; Budget Cuts; Good to
          Outstanding; Interventions; Big Pictures; Tough Decisions
                                                 going down

          culturing openings; tiered discovery; consultative mark-books; widening
          containment; practice-led nurture
                                                 Take the Stairs
                                                 First Floor Only
                                                 Important Decoration in Progress
                                                              Indefinitely

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

career wormhole: ‘fallen and injured …’

managerialism & performance management & teaching & teaching art & teaching craft wormhole: the ghost with open wound
politics wormhole: through a cracked glass greenly
power wormhole: