Inspire Me!

I was watching the Tonight programme about lack of discipline in schools and I found it incredible that the way that Micheal Gove and Co. want to go about schooling children is akin to going back to Victorian standards. Now I know the Education Secretary was keen to point out that there should be no use of force in a method of punishment but some people will just not understand the fine line between restraint in terms of prevention and/or punishment.

I went to a tough school. High in ethnicity it would have been a ghetto school if it had been in Queens or The Bronx. But it was a great school. It was great because of the inspirational teachers that I had. And because of the inspirational teachers we had we learned to work through our differences. Sure there was conflict but at the end of the day the teachers that inspired us needed no discipline because we wanted to learn, the teachers that were just drawing their pay check ended up with nervous breakdowns.

And to be honest that's kind of how it should be. If you go into teaching you do so because you have a desire to influence the next generations and therefor the way in which the world evolves. If you cannot inspire people or hold their attention then you are in the wrong job and to be quite frank and brutal there are a lot of teachers out there that are in the wrong job.

Teaching is tough and therefor you need tough people. I know I have worked with so many people that society has given up on that I have lost count. But I didn't give up on them because I genuinely believe that everybody brings something to the party.

We all have our unique sets of skills and talents that without those this world would be a far duller place!

The trick is to get those people out of their shells. I have successfully taught neurophysiology and advanced psychology to people who can barely read or write but because I have used that psychology I have taught them in a way that they can understand, relate to and reproduce when on their own.

Teaching is an advanced skill which sadly many teachers do not possess. Outrage I hear you say. Nonsense say I. Ask this question:

How many teachers joined the profession because their academic skills were not good enough to get another job elsewhere? And how many really joined because they were drawn to the profession?

And how many will tell the truth!

Teaching is a key skill and not enough teachers have it. Let us train our teachers better and let us seek to educate not seek to brainwash