Standards: a blessing or a curse?

Imagine the welcome meeting for our new teacher trainees. Over a hundred bright enthusiastic young graduates. Relatively fewer mature students this year.

[I heard that the Teacher Development Agency was recruiting outside Canary Wharf last week then the global banks were collapsing. Watch for a rise in economics trainee teachers next year!]

The team are very experienced and accomplished. Early on they ask the students what their fears were. 'Keeping order in the classroom' and 'Being organised' 'Liking horrible children' were the three front runners. The sense or relief in the room was almost tangible as these 'demons' were named.

Yes, it is OK to feel like that.

My own demon is trying to keep one's sense of humour and perspective when working seventy-five hour weeks for months on end, but no one said that one.

We then went on to consider our 'favourite teacher'. Eccentric, strong personalities who were passionate about their subjects and who cared about the welfare of their students.

Fantastic. Break for coffee.

After coffee into subject groups to hand out the paperwork. Endless forms and copies of the QTS 'standards': objectives against which their teaching will be measured for the first ten years of their careers.

I can see the students collapse under the bureaucracy.

Later, I find myself reflecting on the apparent paradox. No one ever says 'my favourite teacher was one who was spot on with the QTS standards and all his paperwork was always in order.' Yet, you can bet your last dollar that a failure to comply with the standards and the paperwork will guarantee a swift exit from the profession.

The characteristics that defined our good teacher are rather intangible and hard to measure. The QTS standards and the paperwork trail are objective and measurable. We live in the latter world, but aspire to the former.

Think of it like learning to drive. To learn to drive you have to pass a series of objective and measureable procedures. Without that you are not safe to be left alone on the road.

With the skills in place, you can drive to any exotic location you choose.

Teachers who can fulfil all of the QTS standards, but never drive their children to exciting places are rather bland and non-descript. They are definitely the forgettable ones. Safe, but dull.

So, what do we do? We aim to teach our students to drive their classes safely to interesting places. That is the best that we can do.

The background music to today's blog is quite sad and reflective. It is Hejira by Joni Mitchell.