incentive payments for teachers or no funding?
Wednesday, February 21st, 2007I have 3 children, 7 grandchildren and 3 ( nearly 4 greatgrandchildren ). The children and grandchildren have all gone to public schools and obtained different levels of attainment ranging from top professionals to simple passes in HSC. I presume that they all had the same level of teachers and so the different level of attainment wasn’t due so much to the teacher’s skills as it was to the students desire for success and the drive and encouragement obtained from the parents.
If I look at the students in any one class that my offspring attended, though they all had the same teacher at any one time they didn’t all obtain the same academic levels. So in any one class, if I look back, there are students that ended up ranging from doctors, teachers, engineers, etc down to in some less fortunate cases, criminals. Which level obtained do we reward the teacher for?
It seems to me that it would be more appropriate to grade the parents of students, this is where the motivation springs from. Nowdays parents seem to want the teachers to train the children in self discipline, morality, social responsibility etc, and also to have their little Johnny or Mary end up as top scholars. It is not a viable proposition, our teachers should be able to teach their students to think for themselves and learn the subjects set. The other things are for the parents to teach outside the school gates.
If we had more parents that instead of buying boats and other luxuries (supposedly for the children but really to satisfy their own egos) that would sit down for only a half hour or so a night with their children and try to teach manners etc as well as to help with their home work, then we may have a better education system.
As for the threat to cut off finances if the state school teachers don’t comply with this arrogant education minister’s edict, she should realise that the money she is talking about is our money and we have paid it in not for her to obtain political advantage but to finance a decent education system.
If she has a logical argument it should more likely follow the line of testing all future parents for their suitability and perhaps mark them out of 100 and adjust their income accordingly!