2. it gives whole new meaning to the term giving it your 110% effort

3. true story, i worked for NCS-Pearson …which is a mega monopoly on standardized testing business-wise for the US…on their NAEP Project (national assessment of education progress [or lack thereof!] –what’s typically referred to as the “Nation’s Report Card”. i engaged in countless shenannigans of statistical manipulation of a varying nature which not only was tolerated by managment, but which was rewarded by my getting promoted quickly as a matter of fact. it was deemed a win-win situation if you will.

4. i went to school as a white person at a HCBU (historically black college & university) and i saw an onus on teachers to do this same very thing that you speak of…find ways to pass people…who would eventually later on get set up for failure either in grad school / other schools / or the real-world workforce.

5. unionized teachers in south africa (peace corps experience) did the same thing. and also, similar to maldives…it didn’t really matter. it doesn’t matter in the philippines either. corruption, high unemployment, political instability, poor infrastructure & sanitation….who really cared if actual merit was seemingly just a state of mind…..people of principles?

I’m not in the teaching profession myself but your commentry on the state of current Japansese standards just seems to reflect a general obsession with targets. It’s not just Japanese schools I’m afraid. UK schools are under immense pressures to have their students perform well.

A recent headline over here went something like “low performing schools advised to improve or be closed down”.

Now that, to me, seems slightly bonkers. Overcrowding is a problem still, as far as I know, and so rather than take a “can do” attitude towards schools that are in need of help from the government, they get a threat of closure instead. Thus leading to kids having to be moved to new schools and that gets us back to the overcrowding issue.

It’s not just schools either. Teaching might not be my thing but I work very closely with the NHS. The doctors, nurses and consultants that I speak to on a daily basis are plagued by targets. Patient care anyone?

Back in my days involved in customer service *shudder*, we were under scrutiny as to how fast we were able to move from one call to the next. Hang on a second….what about taking time to actually help the poor bastard who has been shafted by retailer x?

I’m not surprised that schools “help” their students by boosting their grades. Albeit doing them a disservice in the process.

I’m not surprised that a certain company that I used to work for would phone their own helpines and advise the employee on the end of the phone that it was a “test call” at the end of the month. Thus bringing down the average call length in order to avoid getting fined by the company that had employed them to run their contact centre.

I’m not surprised that hospitals ask for as much urgency to be allocatated to sorting out an issue that means their daily reports might not get presented in time as they do for when their records system has stopped flagging up patients who have recently contracted MRSA.

It would seem that reports that look nice are far more important than the actual goal.

This is my first post on your blog. I’m not normally quite so jaded and cynical.

In my experience the pressure on 11 year olds is unacceptable. The powers that be want children to be like robots, quoting the level they are working at. I hate having children telling me they are a level 4A or 3B, they are a child! Parents are paying for private tutors to ensure their child achieves level 4 (the expected grade for 11 year olds) so they can face the competitive parents in the playground or workplace. We now teach children to write to a formula to achieve the expected level. I hate myself for teaching children to create a checklist before they write to include connectives, clauses, a range of punctuation etc. It doesn’t improve standards in writing, they do it for the test and never again!

As for sports day Bim, I am proud to say we had a competitive sports day this year with children competing in races, with some winning and some loosing. We even had a winning team and three loosing teams! The opportunity for children who do not excel academically to excel in sport was fantastic.

I love my job and wouldn’t do anything else but what makes it special is the times when a the fog clears and a child understands something I have been teaching them. When a child learns something new, the look on their face is priceless. I want children to love learning, to go through life always learning. I have high expectations and expect children to achieve, but everyone is different and brings their own skills to the world. Some will achieve higher grades than others, but the most important thing is to be happy with who you are as a person.

(rant number 2)

K