| 201106teacher_strike_email_text.pdf |
June 2011 - teachers strike.
Extracts from my response to two newspaper articles. The journalists were writing about last Thursday's teachers strike.
...
There is a distinction to be made here between those who know, or at least suspect, they can do better, and those who just don't realise what is possible.
Typically the latter bully the former.
Sadly it seems that many teachers and politicians, including the NUT, just don't realise what is possible.
It seems to me that the key .... Is to show in small steps how people can be successful. I keep mentioning Gillingham as her method of teaching literacy works for everyone. Further the techniques can be applied to all subjects - and indeed all of life.
While Gillingham is written for one-to-one teaching, and as such will always be uneconomic, I suggest that Gillingham can be applied back to whole class teaching - which is where it came from the first place. In Japan classes of 60 are taught literacy with similar techniques to Gillingham - very economic, and embarrassing for both our teachers and the NUT.
As I wrote this morning in response to another article;
The great weakness of the teachers and the NUT is their failure to teach literacy skills and much else. A failure that has been growing for at least 40 years.
Such is the size of this failure that those that have failed to achieve adequate literacy, at least 25%, cannot read about the concerns of the teachers and their pensions.
The illiterate can though see the teachers dutifully marching through the streets.
Oh that the teachers might step out of line and start teaching effectively.
There is no shortage of people to teach: adults as well as children. Think of the enthusiasm and hope that will be generated when those marks on the page come into focus and mean something.
Pure joy.
Michael Lea
Extracts from my response to two newspaper articles. The journalists were writing about last Thursday's teachers strike.
...
There is a distinction to be made here between those who know, or at least suspect, they can do better, and those who just don't realise what is possible.
Typically the latter bully the former.
Sadly it seems that many teachers and politicians, including the NUT, just don't realise what is possible.
It seems to me that the key .... Is to show in small steps how people can be successful. I keep mentioning Gillingham as her method of teaching literacy works for everyone. Further the techniques can be applied to all subjects - and indeed all of life.
While Gillingham is written for one-to-one teaching, and as such will always be uneconomic, I suggest that Gillingham can be applied back to whole class teaching - which is where it came from the first place. In Japan classes of 60 are taught literacy with similar techniques to Gillingham - very economic, and embarrassing for both our teachers and the NUT.
As I wrote this morning in response to another article;
The great weakness of the teachers and the NUT is their failure to teach literacy skills and much else. A failure that has been growing for at least 40 years.
Such is the size of this failure that those that have failed to achieve adequate literacy, at least 25%, cannot read about the concerns of the teachers and their pensions.
The illiterate can though see the teachers dutifully marching through the streets.
Oh that the teachers might step out of line and start teaching effectively.
There is no shortage of people to teach: adults as well as children. Think of the enthusiasm and hope that will be generated when those marks on the page come into focus and mean something.
Pure joy.
Michael Lea
