March 14, 2014
It's a Monday morning in Weston-super-Mare and a year 8 class at Worle Community school are doing a drama lesson. In charge is Nancy Powell-Brace, 55, who has been working here for 22 years.
It's the second time I've met her. She reminds me of the teachers who always got the best out of me and my friends when life was all double geography and regular tedium: she has an innate sense of fun and an instinctive bond with her students, but also makes it plain – via the odd well-timed "Shhh!", chiefly – that there have to be limits. The week before I visit her, she was a contestant on Come Dine With Me (she came second, with food and entertainment inspired by The Sound Of Music).
This morning's class of 27 13-year-olds has an hour of drama once a fortnight. Today, they're tackling a morality tale about bullying called The Terrible Fate Of Humpty Dumpty. Watching what happens is a reminder of the magic a good teacher can work. The highlight is an exercise in which seven of the class take on the role of bullies accused of having something to do with Humpty's death – and are sent outside to improvise a fake alibi. Three are then cross-examined by their peers, and it's a hoot; but it's also about teamwork, performance, public speaking and more, and Powell-Brace manages to both critique and encourage them.
Unfortunately, this academic year will be her last. Now that the government has raised teachers' retirement age, she could carry on for at least 10 years, but she wants out. Drama is being sidelined, she says, and teaching is falling into a cold fog of targets, endless new "strategies" and the idea that someone's education is reducible to a set of results.
Fifteen years ago, Powell-Brace would put on annual productions, with a cast of over 100 and the help of 30 other staff: The Wizard Of Oz, Guys And Dolls, The Boyfriend. "Big productions," she says. "The school was renowned for its drama."
Now students in year 11 (fifth form, in old money) can't devote time to such activities in case it disrupts exam preparation; funding has dried up; and the hall is endlessly used for the exams taken in the run-up to GCSEs. In any case, the government sees drama as a "soft" subject, best pushed to the margins of the curriculum.
"I saw something on TV last night, about the rise in stress in 16- to 24-year-olds," she says, "and I think being so driven by results is part of it. We have strategies at school that encourage the kids to want to do better. And of course you want them to do better. But they shouldn't feel that, if they don't, they've failed." The same exacting logic, she says, applies to teachers, too: "You feel you're being judged all the time, not trusted to get on with the job you've been trained to do."
http://feeds.theguardian.com/c/34708/f/663828/s/382e7fb6/sc/7/l/0L0Stheguardian0N0Ceducation0C20A140Cmar0C140Cteachers0Elife0Einside0Ethe0Eexam0Efactory/story01.htm
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It's a Monday morning in Weston-super-Mare and a year 8 class at Worle Community school are doing a drama lesson. In charge is Nancy Powell-Brace, 55, who has been working here for 22 years.
It's the second time I've met her. She reminds me of the teachers who always got the best out of me and my friends when life was all double geography and regular tedium: she has an innate sense of fun and an instinctive bond with her students, but also makes it plain – via the odd well-timed "Shhh!", chiefly – that there have to be limits. The week before I visit her, she was a contestant on Come Dine With Me (she came second, with food and entertainment inspired by The Sound Of Music).
This morning's class of 27 13-year-olds has an hour of drama once a fortnight. Today, they're tackling a morality tale about bullying called The Terrible Fate Of Humpty Dumpty. Watching what happens is a reminder of the magic a good teacher can work. The highlight is an exercise in which seven of the class take on the role of bullies accused of having something to do with Humpty's death – and are sent outside to improvise a fake alibi. Three are then cross-examined by their peers, and it's a hoot; but it's also about teamwork, performance, public speaking and more, and Powell-Brace manages to both critique and encourage them.
Unfortunately, this academic year will be her last. Now that the government has raised teachers' retirement age, she could carry on for at least 10 years, but she wants out. Drama is being sidelined, she says, and teaching is falling into a cold fog of targets, endless new "strategies" and the idea that someone's education is reducible to a set of results.
Fifteen years ago, Powell-Brace would put on annual productions, with a cast of over 100 and the help of 30 other staff: The Wizard Of Oz, Guys And Dolls, The Boyfriend. "Big productions," she says. "The school was renowned for its drama."
Now students in year 11 (fifth form, in old money) can't devote time to such activities in case it disrupts exam preparation; funding has dried up; and the hall is endlessly used for the exams taken in the run-up to GCSEs. In any case, the government sees drama as a "soft" subject, best pushed to the margins of the curriculum.
"I saw something on TV last night, about the rise in stress in 16- to 24-year-olds," she says, "and I think being so driven by results is part of it. We have strategies at school that encourage the kids to want to do better. And of course you want them to do better. But they shouldn't feel that, if they don't, they've failed." The same exacting logic, she says, applies to teachers, too: "You feel you're being judged all the time, not trusted to get on with the job you've been trained to do."
http://feeds.theguardian.com/c/34708/f/663828/s/382e7fb6/sc/7/l/0L0Stheguardian0N0Ceducation0C20A140Cmar0C140Cteachers0Elife0Einside0Ethe0Eexam0Efactory/story01.htm
Εστάλη από το Windows Phone μου
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