As I was proceeding with a newly minted Sunday ritual of a cuppa and a newspaper at the Starbucks near my house, I was intrigued by a large two page article in The Observer. “Revealed: a disturbing portrait of inequality in British schools” read the headline. As a new supply teacher in London through Protocol, I have been conscious to try and keep up with the latest on the British educational system and I have found a reliable platform of information through The Guardian and The Observer. Of course, I had to read on.
The article is divided into four categories that were investigated by a new government report: Gender, Bullying, Poverty, and Race. Some of the largest equity issues to be dealt with in any school system around the world. The main points that are hit include: the large gap between expected reading and writing levels between boys and girls by age 5, the fact that four out of five children with disabilities report being bullied regularly, that ethic differences in terms of GCSE scores still tells a story about racial differences in the classroom, and that children living in poverty continue to fail to reach a good level of development. As a new graduate I have read and debated about these sorts of equity issues as recently as this past school year…the point is, they’re not new. These issues and many more have been plaguing our school systems for generations. It has been almost a state of shock for those in the government receiving this new report (released Monday) as Britain is a region that prides itself on being leaders in the world and ahead of the curve when it comes to social systems. For these issues to still be perpetuated in the school systems it becomes apparent that something is not working.
Now, I didn’t major in politics in university and I don’t want to start any sort of argument with this blog post. What my main concern is, and what I really wish everyone reading this would think about; is what can we do to stop it? Although a student’s home life plays a large role in determining their participation in some of these categories, their time in the school itself is just as important. As teachers we are on the front lines in the classrooms and we are the go-to role models for a lot of students in the class. Children look up to us and it becomes important for us to become examples of what we expect our students to be. As a supply teacher, it’s difficult to develop some relationships in the classroom because we are only with some classes for very short periods of time, maybe only once the entire time we’re here, but I think it’s important for that always to be in the back of one’s head.
You might be at this moment saying to yourself “Self, I learned all of this in Teacher’s College, I know I have to be a role model and I’m pretty sure I accomplish it without any struggle.” To everyone out there reading this, I issue a challenge. When you are in the classroom, take moments to truly reflect, on the fly if possible, how you are treating the groups of students you have. By this I mean to really see if you might be accidently be falling into some of those categories laid out in the article mentioned above. I’d like to share a bit of an example for you all from my own teaching experiences to show you what I mean.
Today I was in a lovely secondary school completing a day of work for Protocol. I was in a period 4 class that was assigned a set of questions to do for revision in Maths prior to a test they would be writing the next period. Since this was revision I found no issue allowing the class to chat with their neighbours to work out the questions and make sure they understood the concepts, provided they keep the volume level to a minimum. Being a supply teacher in the first place the volume level already goes up by a few decibels, so I make sure to keep them on task and to a lower volume throughout the period. As I sat back in my desk for a moment I took a chance to survey exactly who I had been spending the most time disciplining to continue working. No surprises, it was the group of boys sitting in the back corner together. I had had these guys on my radar since the moment they sat down thinking to myself that this was only going to be trouble….but why is that? There were plenty of pockets of girls that were chatting fairly loudly and being distracting (whom I still quieted down) but I just seemed to have an extra pair of eyes for this group. Maybe it was social stigmas being imbedded in my brain to immediately assume they would be up to no good…after all I had never seen these kids ever until today. There are a lot of potential answers to why this was, but I realize that it was wrong to assume the worst from the moment they walked in. This is an issue that this study deals with, the fact that boys are immediately considered to be up to no good. Because of this they get yelled at and disciplined, which makes them think they are “bad boys”, which cause them to act out even more until a cycle begins that puts the child in a very angry place.
This is just an example of my own teaching life in comparison to what’s been depicted in this article. I’m sure there are many more out there that fit in to all the different areas identified in this report. So, next time you are in the classroom take a moment to step back and make sure you are really being the person you want your students to be watching and modeling themselves after for one day or every day. As teachers we can contribute to these divisions in equality as much as anyone else who interacts with a student. My question to you again is: what can you do about it?
You can read the article online at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/oct/10/britains-divided-school-system-report
~Erik
No comments:
Post a Comment