Politicians request a school in elections. Teachers (in statistical reality they are women just after 40) are well over half a million, and in tiny and agrarian environments they form an influential group. Of course, that's why we're talking about the rise before the election.
We think a small little frequently that parents, who are happy with life, read, brilliant, and talented teachers, should first of all request them. It is even little common for us to think that if as a society we gotta advance from generation to generation civilization, then the teachers we employment should be statistically superior to us. Intellectually and... well, materially, too. We entrust them with children for 13 years of schooling, we let them to take care of them, we let them to rise them, they organize the lives of our children from morning to evening for 13 long and crucial years. Instead, we employment them — I apologize for this comparison that offends them in many different ways — like working in black.
We never think of school as 1 of the main reasons why we request a state at all. If not for the education of our children, then — speaking brutally — to care for them erstwhile we ourselves tyras and have no time for them. We never ask why we request school exactly, do we know who to rise and educate?
The question “why?” should in fact concern all lesson and all subject. Why would a kid request a expression for the size of a bullet? What is in it that makes this subject crucial to the point of forcing children to interact with it as part of a school obligation? All at once? All in the same way? Or is it just interesting and the kids would want it? no of the teachers always ask themselves this basic question before the lesson begins. Why do I gotta bother a full class of tens of kids? Why should our children read the Teutonic Knights? Again — is it so crucial that they gotta read? Why? Is this — or is it likely to be — interesting to them?
Well, let's halt at the volume of the bullet. The older of us know by heart: 4 thirds of pi er to the third. We memorized this and then applied this pattern in a series of idiotic “checking tasks” by placing various values under “er”. A small bit of a ray of us understands why this pattern is real. Almost no of the teachers know that. He came up with this pattern 2.5 1000 years ago, Archimedes. A genius most likely burdened with an acute form of autism, if you believe the anecdotes told about him. He could run bare through the center of Syracuse — a large, wealthy, highly civilized city — and stay a respected, admired citizen. This in itself could be the subject of a fascinating lesson. His discovery of the sphere is simply a crucial gain of culture (not boring mathematics, surviving culture!), and the reasoning that led to it is fascinating in many ways. It is an intellectual adventure that can be lived today. knowing these things is accompanied by chills on your back, due to the fact that this is how you experience the mystery. Any of us have survived this adventure? School? No one, although all at erstwhile — at the same time full vintages like Muslims in their orchestrated prostrates around the planet turned towards Mecca — we repeated it “four thirds of pi er to the third” in a senseless choir, due to the fact that that was what “was on the show”.
Is the program overloaded? Yes. But most of all, he's terribly stupid. In today's schools about the ball children are increasingly learning that its volume is “four er to the third”. Without any “pi”. Why? due to the fact that “pi” is inexplicable and teachers no longer know precisely what it means. So it was thought to be about 3 and a simpler pattern was invented. Who needs him? inactive no word. If anyone in any professional work counts the volume of the sphere on the basis of the measured radius, then at most a fewer people within a year. It's the 21st century. Meanwhile, in medieval triviach — simple schools for illiterates (other students at the time) — it was Archimedes’ reasoning, not the ability to “apply a pattern”, that was the subject of knowledge. Those who have survived this adventure, the volume of the ball is not necessary. This individual not only appreciates his own mind, but besides knows something crucial about his nature — not only about the property of the sphere.
Teachers are, on paper, the best educated professional group in Poland. Reality disappoints more or little the quality of Polish higher education in general. Real investigation on the level of teaching competence can dispel any illusion. The level of academic teacher education has been a disaster for a long time. If individual asked whether teachers truly deserve advanced increases due to the level and uniqueness of their own competences, the answer would should be brutally honest: not necessarily. But it's not the teachers' fault. They are educated as best they can, frequently with quite a few hard work. This strategy is terrible. And there's no another way. It is impossible to wait until they mature into their own function and only then give them autonomy in deciding how they will work with children and what exactly. It should be done now. There's no another way.
A lot of another basic things would should be thought about and socially prebaptized to know why we request school, whether it should be state, whether it should be forced and what to look like.
We're dealing with a school-related promise race. 20% rise or 30%. Great! I am convinced that, in fact, 100% is not enough. But possibly school autonomy would be worth considering and full autonomy of teachers. possibly it would be worth asking about the meaning of school classes with children selected by yearbooks without any another criterion, not to mention interests, passions, temperaments and sympathy? possibly it would be worth watching the children learn from each another and see if this is better than “the lessons”? possibly it would be worth a minute to pay attention to the grades and their suitability for anything another than the enforcement of school coercion?
After the experience of Zalewska and Czarnek, and before that of Legutka and Giertych, after a sober assessment besides of “our” ministers of education, due to the fact that no of them were masters, should we come to the question whether we truly want a hierarchical structure of school power, in which all idiot on the seat of the minister decides one-manly the full life of our children, and we are completely defenseless? The decisions of the teachers find the full life of a man, and no of them can be appealed — this is simply unconstitutional. In a political performance of promises, I am terrified to look at “our” politicians. They talk about increases to the satisfaction of teachers. They talk about overloaded programs — to the satisfaction of teachers and parents. Great, but they don't talk about education at all. They do not even mention the education strategy of teachers, from which in fact any real improvement should begin.
In the final account, the simplest problem of teacher pay should be the subject of a contract to which parents are party. So all of us. erstwhile preparing this agreement, it would be worth asking whether we want our children to gain more or less, for example, from policemen. If we decide that more, then possibly another urgent question should be whether the content of school lessons truly is to be decided by a politically appointed minister or by the teacher we just hired. Of course teachers' salaries request to be raised. Of course it should be done urgently and start there. But it is equally apparent that school must be kept distant from politics and politicians from school. We are now witnessing a political assault on the school. We're on it. I'm ashamed.
