Sunday, July 11, 2010

We Need Bad Teachers!

There is a great article on the front page of today's Sunday Times (I can't link to it unfortunately) where Zenna Atkins, chairwoman of Ofsted (whose job it is to maintain standards in state schools) announces that "every school should have a useless teacher"

I was inspired by this comment and have immediately re applied for my old job.

Her rationale is that "children learn how to identify which teachers are good role models and become adept at exploiting incompetent ones, which is a valuable skill for playing authority in later life" (seriously, I'm not making this up)

Hopefully those recruiting for other jobs (such as airline pilots or nuclear power station controllers) will take Zenna's wisdom on board and stop this ridiculous drive to only take on people who are good at what they do.

It does make you wonder though. How exactly did Zenna, who apparently left school with just one 'O' Level; manage to become head of the education standards watchdog?

5 comments:

jaljen said...

My school is sadly deficient in useless teachers but I think we may lay modest claim to a couple of moderately idle ones. Does that count? Is it essential for an OFSTED outstanding?
I could do them all a favour by perhaps striving to be useless. Especially if I get special status! And more pay.

jaljen said...

It also occurs that a preponderance of good teachers may be a very bad thing for it would give students a misleading impression that a workplace is full of dedicated and energetic individuals whose sole desire is to serve!
Surely we should be preparing them properly for an adulthood with a fair share of surly waiters, avaricious car mechanics, sloppy decorators and deceitful politicos?

Brian, follower of Deornoth said...

She's clearly female so that's the sex (sorry 'gender') box ticked. I've no information about skin colour, religion and sexual orientation but we can all assume they are very PC. But worse is that this stupid cow is also one of the Lords of the Admiralty. If we had a fleet too large to fit in a bathtub, that'd be very worrying.

Dack said...

She quit last month and was meant to be leaving in November next year. Now it seems she's going in August this year. Any connection with the announcement I wonder...

Dack said...

Meanwhile David Cameron, speaking as a parent rather (rather than a PM?) claims to be 'terrified' by the lack of decent secondary schools. (Should try teaching in some of the ones I've been in...).