COVID 19 has brought
into sharp focus inequalities in the education system. While some children,
supervised by their parents, have had Zoom classes with their teachers, watched
educational videos on Youtube and submitted work to their teachers, others have
simply missed three months of schooling. Primary School children will never be able to catch up,
because the curriculum is so overloaded with content that there’s no time
allowed in it for anything else.
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| A student following a class on Zoom |
In my retirement, (I was a biology teacher), I’ve
helped children with learning to read, with GSAT and now with PEP. I have
looked over class work, assisted with homework and been driven mad by projects,
from grades 1 to 6. My opinions are based on what I have observed during the last
15 years, and not on the objectives stated in the curriculum. I realized that
one blog post wasn’t sufficient to support my argument, so I’m starting with my
list of:
10 Reasons for cutting
curriculum
1.
Children
need to know that they are loved and wanted and that there is a place for them
in society. When children fail to keep up, they lose interest, and start to misbehave.
2.
Children
need to learn how to get along with others and co-operate and have empathy.
These traits are not developed when there is so much emphasis on competition; and
when children are discouraged from expressing their opinions. (See Tracy-Ann McGhie-Sinclair's article on this in the Gleaner.)
3.
Every
child has a strength.
a.
Knowing
one’s strengths builds self-esteem.
b.
Children’s
strengths need to be identified early and coached. Coaching children’s strength
encourages them to perform better in their weaker areas.
c.
Praise
for good performance is a more effective enforcer than punishment for something
done badly.
4.
The
Grade 1 curriculum explains to children that we are all different, while at the
same time expecting all children to learn at the same pace and with the same
attention span. No allowance is made for children suffering from anxiety or
ADHD, or even undiagnosed sight or hearing problems.
5.
The
curriculum is designed to inculcate knowledge, skills and attitudes. However,
knowledge dominates at the expense of the other two, in spite of the fact that
bits of knowledge are soon forgotten. Values and attitudes such as honesty,
courtesy, punctuality and reliability are equally as important as knowledge,
and are learnt for life.
6.
Children
see all assessment as a judgment of themselves. Poor performance in tests
lowers their self-esteem, so children label themselves as stupid. The PEP curriculum claims that
assessments are student centred and formative, meaning that assessments help
teachers identify concepts that students are struggling to understand, and skills
they are having difficulty acquiring, so that adjustments can be made to lessons, instructional
techniques, and academic
support.
Teachers have no opportunity to do this, because PEP prescribes factual
material to be taught in every lesson in every week of the academic year.
7.
One
reason for cramming so much content in the curriculum is that assessment of
students’ performance in grades 4, 5 and 6 is the basis on which they are
selected for the high schools. Competition for ‘brand-name” schools is so
intense that too much attention is given to the children in the top 20% of the
ability range. However
more important than the top 20% having
mastered grades 7 & 8 work in grade 6, is that all the children should be
reading and have mastered computational skills required at their grade level.
8.
Much
of the same material that is in the curriculum for grades 4, 5 and 6 is taught
again at high school. In fact, some of the better performing students are bored
in grade 7, because they’ve done all the work before.
9.
Math
is a building subject. If children haven’t mastered the basics in grades 1 and 2 they
will flounder in higher grades. Hence the dislike and fear of math
in the general population.
10. The best ways of
mastering the English language are by reading for pleasure and by writing one’s
own thoughts to communicate with others. Children who are taught to read with
access to plenty of books they can read on their own are more likely to enjoy
reading. As their reading improves, a whole world of knowledge is open to them.
They don’t have to have it prescribed in a curriculum.
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| Children's reading room at Hanover Parish Library |
I welcome comments on the above.
I written several blog posts on this same topic including
Reflections on PEP and
We are failing our children
I written several blog posts on this same topic including
Reflections on PEP and
We are failing our children
