Accountability and Resilience - Give Me Your Vote

There's an election in around 6 months, a troubling time for every public service as controversial policies are either rushed through before a party is voted out or idiotic statements by desperate politicians searching for your vote are made. The latest fad amongst the political classes regarding education is character, resilience, grit and the ability to pick yourself up and have another go. A couple of links are below (there will be more as the election looms):
BBC Education
Telegraph

It seems that the military are going brought in to teach "grit" and "character" and teachers must back this up, with Labour's Education spokesperson Tristram Hunt stating that if he were in charge then all new teachers would be trained to teach "character", which would no doubt be eye opening.

As you've probably guessed, I have a couple of issues with these noises emanating from the offices of Westminster.

1. At what point do parents get involved in the process of bringing up their own offspring? It seems to me that parenting has all but been abolished by government and the various agencies/quangos that claim a stake in education. The number of times I get a note in a child's diary to tell me that a child didn't understand (despite links to tutorial videos that apparently can't be accessed or weren't known about) or that the child "had a busy weekend" just shows how a complete lack of resilience, grit or any other character trait that might aid a young person in the big wide world is condoned by parents in general. And if parents won't allow their children to have "grit" what chance have teachers or military personnel?
2. Why do students at school need resilience nowadays anyway? Students have no responsibility whatsoever regarding their academic outcomes; teachers claim all that whether they want it or not. Students know this and realise that if a teacher wants to avoid capability proceedings then the teacher will essentially do the work for them, in fact only recently this very problem hit the media (The Guardian's coverage is here). DfE and Ofsted obsession with data, or in layman's terms, exam results means that this is an ever increasing phenomenon; kids aren't stupid, they know it and literally let the teachers get on with it. The days of "you get out what you put in" are no longer with us for some, but fortunately the majority of students are conscientious.
3. What on Earth are MPs doing telling anyone about resilience and grit? The first whiff of scandal and there's a resignation and expensive inquiry.

Politicians in the UK need to make their mind up and choose one of the following two options:

1. Insist that parents play a role in the upbringing of young people rather than just blindly blaming public sector workers.
2. Remove every newborn from their mother at birthand bring them up in their own vision in thousands of state sponsored workhouses.

I'm pretty sure they'd prefer the second option but it's unaffordable in times of austerity. More importantly it might lose them a vote, so it's definitely off the menu.

Rewards - something for nothing?

This news story was floating about on social media today, a story about a middle school that held a "mufti day" only for those who had reached their accelerated reading targets. Click here to see the full story from the Telegraph.

This got me thinking about the expectations of students about to sit their GCSEs and A Levels. The Easter holidays have just begun but many secondary teachers will spend some time in school delivering revision sessions, or in the case of many of their charges, "desperation" classes for those who didn't listen in class first/second/third time around and can't be bothered or don't have the discipline to revise independently.

I had a conversation with a colleague the other day who described this telephone conversation with a parent about their underachieving child in an option subject (names have obviously been changed):
Teacher: I was just ringing to say that Alice is currently on about a C grade but is very capable of getting an A grade if she puts in a bit of effort and knuckles down for the remaining 5 weeks or so at school.
Ms Smith: "Knuckling down" isn't really Alice's I'm afraidt.
Teacher: It really wouldn't be that arduous, in fact I can tell her specifically what she needs to improve upon.
Ms Smith: I really can't see her doing it, but it's great that she's capable of getting the A grade. Is there any way she could get the A grade without putting in the work?
Teacher: Not really I'm afraid, but I was thinking that if you had a quick word that might give her some encouragement.
Ms Smith: It won't work so I probably won't, but I look forward to her A grade in August.
Teacher: *Sigh*

I'm not embellishing this conversation; it actually happened. It's not untypical in the school I work in either. Something for nothing is almost expected. The entire culture of holiday and after-school revision sessions is a toxic one that encourages this "something for nothing" attitude; one no longer has to bother to listen in lessons as you will get numerous other opportunities to be taught what you've missed. After all, teachers have to do all they can to get their classes through 4 levels of progress or whatever ministers and their quangos decide is acceptable nowadays. Ofsted's and the DfE's obsession with data/exam results is the root cause.

And who can blame the students exclusively? At home students receive rewards for nothing. An obvious example immediately springs to mind: a student who has had to leave one school due to his behaviour and is lucky to still be at his current one received but a brand new vehicle for his birthday, despite being woefully below target in every subject on his timetable. So what chance have we, as a school, got? None is the short answer.

Deadlines are not deadlines and students know that if they wait long enough a teacher will essentially be forced to write coursework for them, having been pressurised by a nervous SLT who fear a visitation if the following summer's results are below par. No wonder employers think that schools don't produce young people ready for the workplace (as this story from January 2014 highlights). I'd have to agree that they don't, but aren't allowed to, despite what ministers say.

So when a headteacher tries to highlight the fact that if you work hard you get rewarded, like the workplace, loads of people moan and pick out that those who miss out, for whatever reason, have their self-esteem damaged. You can't win.

How will those children, future members of the workforce no less, how will their self-esteem be when they can't get a job that feeds their excessive lifestyle that they see in the media because they didn't work hard? Where do you draw the line? They have to learn the lesson at some point.