[BITList] Secret Teacher: My pupils' creativity is being crushed bythe punctuation police | Teacher Network | The Guardian

[HUGH]

Mike,

At Chapelton Primary School and Port Glasgow High School I learned how to read, write, count, parse and punctuate.  And it was painless. There were no PC fidgets analysing our teachers' methods.   An inspector called every so often and inspected - asked us questions.  I recall only two or three such. We were literate by age 6-7, and numerate not very much after.  In the final class of primary school (I was 10), we were asked to write a story a week, any subject, and we had a quiz once a week, teams picked by the class, questions set by Mr Wallace. Learning was competitive.  Not being able to tell a cumulus from a cirrus lost one street cred. Únless it was congenital, an inability to understand and recall the basic rules of grammar did not entitle one to the same marks as they who did understand. I gather this is now seen as victimisation. There were no grades of rightness - there was only one right way. When I was in front of Mr Slater undergoing my 2nd's Orals, he asked me what engines I had built in Kincaids, I told him B&W, at which he asked me what I had sailed with, and I told him Doxfords.  "Tell me about Sulzers then," he said, and I did. Ignorance, however convenient for the lazy, was seen as potentially dangerous.

Hugh.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/pipermail/bitlist/attachments/20160724/7f45a933/attachment.html>