Occasional Tales

Or robot overlords. One of the big ideas this year is to start using a system called Engrαδэ to record things such as attendance and results. I’ve been keeping records of both for some time now, but this is going to take things to a whole new level. No doubt, in the official literature, Engrαδэ is some highly valuable pedagogical tool, but the impression I got about it at the presentation was that it’s a stick with which to beat students. Some people might quite like that idea, but I think it’s also a stick with which we teachers unwittingly beat ourselves because we’re now going to to be giving students tests on a weekly basis; and homework. Why? What’s the point of tests every week? What am I meant to test them on? How is that going to make the slightest difference? How am I going to devise a test which isn’t trivial time-filler?  How are the tests going to be valid if proper test conditions cannot be established in a classroom? What’s the point if each test ...

And we’re back slightly early. It all resumed with the conference last weekend, which was fairly similar to last year’s conference right down to the option events for the old lags to attend. Time for something new. This year’s big ideas are to impose the philosophy on the InterBac programme beyond its native bounds, and to dole out more homework. The former will soon be forgotten where it doesn’t really belong, and the latter seems to be little more than the sinofication [sic!] of the programme. It reminds me of the old mantra, “Reading is important. Students must do more reading. Writing is important. Students must do more writing. Etc., etc… Everything is important. Students must do more every­thing.” The day is long enough, and our students have TOEFL, SATs, piano practice, and numerous other after-school activities to squeeze into their overfull days. Sometimes homework is necessary, but I’d rather not give it for the sake of giving it. We’ve been back at school this wee...