Dear Editor,
The Minister of Education seems disturbed by the fact that schools in which the assessment of teachers have been positive, the educational outcomes of students have not been satisfactory.
The truth is that the data showing the outcomes in various schools leads to only one logical conclusion: students can attend any school in the country and and do well. However, it is also true that students can attend these same institutions and fail.
To help him understand why this is so, the minister should revisit the programme he hosted at Campion College while they were celebrating their fiftieth anniversary. During the programme he interviewed a master teacher of English, who explained why her students did well. It was not unusual, she said that when she entered an English literature class on the first day of the school year, she would discover that all her students had already read all the prescribed texts over the summer holidays. She went on to say that on parents' day she would normally be able to meet all the parents of her students. She was not trying to take credit for this, nor was she claiming that some superior type of leadership at the school produced this effect. The point she made was that all her students had a support system beyond the classroom that served to reinforce what she did. I can assure the minister that if he could populate all the schools with such students the outcomes would be just as marvellous.
The observation which he made at the CXC awards ceremony is something else that he should revisit. The students who populated the function came from almost every high school in the country. I would suggest to him that these students differ from their less-successful classmates in that they have support systems beyond the classroom similar to that of Campion College students. What he and the JTA need to discuss is how to help those students who are not getting the support system that their more-successful schoolmates have.
My advice to the minister and his advisors is to spend less time looking at the differences between schools and instead focus on the differences between successful students and their less successful classmates. You will find them in the same schools. The absence of adequate support systems beyond the classroom will not be solved by making it easier to fire teachers, and improving the quality of pedagogy will only marginally improve outcomes if the problem is not solved. He should then revisit a suggestion made by Mr Seaga in an article in this newspaper, that we establish a 'boarding school style' system of prep after school. Such a system would take the form of organising students into collaborative study groups supervised by a few teachers. This is what he and the JTA should be arguing about.
R Howard Thompson
Mandeville, Manchester
howardthompson507@yahoo.com
Success requires more than the classroom
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The Minister of Education seems disturbed by the fact that schools in which the assessment of teachers have been positive, the educational outcomes of students have not been satisfactory.
The truth is that the data showing the outcomes in various schools leads to only one logical conclusion: students can attend any school in the country and and do well. However, it is also true that students can attend these same institutions and fail.
To help him understand why this is so, the minister should revisit the programme he hosted at Campion College while they were celebrating their fiftieth anniversary. During the programme he interviewed a master teacher of English, who explained why her students did well. It was not unusual, she said that when she entered an English literature class on the first day of the school year, she would discover that all her students had already read all the prescribed texts over the summer holidays. She went on to say that on parents' day she would normally be able to meet all the parents of her students. She was not trying to take credit for this, nor was she claiming that some superior type of leadership at the school produced this effect. The point she made was that all her students had a support system beyond the classroom that served to reinforce what she did. I can assure the minister that if he could populate all the schools with such students the outcomes would be just as marvellous.
The observation which he made at the CXC awards ceremony is something else that he should revisit. The students who populated the function came from almost every high school in the country. I would suggest to him that these students differ from their less-successful classmates in that they have support systems beyond the classroom similar to that of Campion College students. What he and the JTA need to discuss is how to help those students who are not getting the support system that their more-successful schoolmates have.
My advice to the minister and his advisors is to spend less time looking at the differences between schools and instead focus on the differences between successful students and their less successful classmates. You will find them in the same schools. The absence of adequate support systems beyond the classroom will not be solved by making it easier to fire teachers, and improving the quality of pedagogy will only marginally improve outcomes if the problem is not solved. He should then revisit a suggestion made by Mr Seaga in an article in this newspaper, that we establish a 'boarding school style' system of prep after school. Such a system would take the form of organising students into collaborative study groups supervised by a few teachers. This is what he and the JTA should be arguing about.
R Howard Thompson
Mandeville, Manchester
howardthompson507@yahoo.com
Success requires more than the classroom
-->