I am finding that school isn't much about education these days. Finding what level a child is every few weeks is nothing to do with educating them. It is analogous to keeping digging up a seed to see if it has grown.
Schools seem to be run on fear these days. Fear that some Bogey man of an education expert will come along and find a school lacking, not because the children are happy and eager to learn, but because the teachers don't have statistics to say exactly how much information is supposed to be in their heads.
Teacher have been reduced to machines, spewing out the lessons the government decrees should be taught regardless of the children's needs and interests, and correlating data every few weeks on how each child measures up to a national norm. This reduces the children to machines also. Each child is unique, with different interests and strengths, rates and styles of learning. How many children would come to school if they had a choice? Hardly any. Shouldn't we be concentrating our energies on creating an environment where children actually want to learn, catering for their interests, rather than reducing them and their learning to statistics?
I keep coming across teachers who have left, or are considering leaving the profession because the joy has gone out of the job.
