Correct. It speaks to a simplistic paradigm that what is paramount is subject knowledge, not knowledge and skills connected with communicating or evaluation, emotional intelligence, experience or the development of the learner. It is at least a century out of date, tells us eloquently of a low level of intelligence in the believer and saves money...

When I did my first degree (1969-73) - it was a 4-year BEd - we were told that we didn't need to know much about classroom control or working-class children as we would only be teaching in grammar schools. That is precisely the Gove attitude.

Clearly, there are fundamental skills that can't be learned 'on the job'. I think the idea that children could be taught by people lacking these skills and who perhaps go into the job unaware of the level of planning and commitment involved (and who therefore may end up quitting) is just plain wrong.

I hadn't thought of it in terms of "lefty trainers" but you're dead right.

It's also probably influenced by Gove recalling some rugby player maverick army officer turned teacher from his private school. some of these teachers do indeed become very good, but surely they'd get good quicker with training.
I did some brief unqualified part-time teaching of Latin in a private school- I've recanted, don't worry. The head there seemed keener than Gove on training and would have wanted me to qualify, if I stayed.

So out of date private school policy then.

Bloody hell, how does someone as outright stupid as Gove get to be a Minister? It's really quite scary.

Gove's idea comes from the early days of Thatcherism.
Thatcher distrusted all 'professionals', thinking of them as vested interests. Educationists were amongst the worst - 'closed' profession, left-wing, able to think for themselves. So she tried to hive off education from the DoEd - where she thought civil servants were far too much in favour of education and teachers - into Employment. Education became Training, and Knowledge became Competences. A skill was reduced to a series of discrete, testable tasks, à la NVQ etc. Interesting, isn't it, when someone like Lidl John goes on about NVQ Level 1 'Answering a Telephone' or Level 3 'Handling a Difficult Discussion in the Cabinet Office' they don't acknowledge that this approach to training is pure Thatcherism in operation.

What Gove is doing is using this paradigm as some sort of given, that knowledge takes a back seat to performing a task that can be observed and judged. No doubt his untrained teachers will have sets of competencies to master, though they'll be called something else.

What I do know is that he damn-well wasn't taught like that at Lady Margaret Hall.

Good context there. In brief, institutions are all bad.

The flubbering frog was interviewed by the mighty Emily Maitlis on BBC News about the student demonstrations. Flibflob flibbed and flobbed for a bit, then came up with this:

Flibflob: My heart & mind is changed by reasoned argument and debate.
Emily: So your mind could be changed?
Flibflob: No.

She then asked him if the Tories were giving the Dims the nasty bits to read out in assembly, and then 'hanging them out to dry'.
Well, flubbered Flibflob, Vince Cable is a Dim...
So, pronounced the Awesome Em, you ARE hanging them out to dry...

Cue Fliblob's frog impersonation.

In any sensible government I'd give him a week.

I did like that...

"I like that these people have enough passion to want to discuss the higher education reforms with us."
"So your mind could still be changed?"
"No"

The current system has a lot to do with Mailites screaming injustice.I cant believe I heard Gove saying on the radio that he wanted teachers to be respected more.It was the right in the 80's who demonised them and promoted the idea that parents always knew best.

_________________
Blog...http://itsjustahobby.wordpress.com/

Soon, if we are not prudent, millions of people will be watching each other starve to death through expensive television sets. Nye Bevan

The current system has a lot to do with Mailites screaming injustice.I cant believe I heard Gove saying on the radio that he wanted teachers to be respected more.It was the right in the 80's who demonised them and promoted the idea that parents always knew best.

_________________
Blog...http://itsjustahobby.wordpress.com/

Soon, if we are not prudent, millions of people will be watching each other starve to death through expensive television sets. Nye Bevan

It also assumes that teachers are fair and honest - not always the case when they cock something up and it ends in a confrontation. I had to deal several times with teachers who had lost it, kids who responded and then ended up excluded. In one case a teacher pulled a Rasta's hat off, and a couple of dreads with it. He got smacked in the mouth for that - but who was in the wrong?

Gove was on the BBC easy-interview slot this am, saying that not enough kids get 5 'academic' A-C grades. That is the old equivalent of 5 'O' levels, which was aimed at 25% of the population. Flibberflobber is saying that 33% is now unacceptably poor, and 'failing'.
Either (most likely) he simply doesn't understand, or he wants exams dumbed down, because with the best will and teaching in the world you aren't going to make that much difference - especially using the 'traditional' methods that are all his limited intelligence can envisage, and using ex-squaddies (but graduates - a bit of dysfunctional thinking there) to teach them. And not allowing any 'equivalents' like BTEC.

My heart bleeds for 2 generations of educationalists who did their damnedest to make the system work, and give good life chances to all kids no matter their social class or ethnicity. The pustulent Gove is determined to destroy all of that - wilfully and perversely, on the basis of no more than a primitive backwoods ideology and a populist impulse that comes from the tabloid press and the saloon bar sociologists that infect the conservatives.

Nicely put Malcolm.
But I fear you're being ll too rational with your facts, when prejeudice and name calling is the order of the day.

He's a clueless ugly little runt who ought to be marooned on the ice world of Hoth.

Gove manages to outshine even the contents of his white paper in this interview:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010 ... -education


Having wasted far too much of my time hearing him on literary TV shows pretending he was an intellectual, I am not surprised.

I was listening this morning to the only decent programme on LBC, the Saturday morning discussion with Ken Livingstone and David Mellor. During the discussion, Livingstone referred to Gove as a swivel-eyed moron, and almost absent-mindedly Mellor said "Well, of course." It's fair to say that Mellor isn't particularly keen on Cameron either, so he's hardly Tory orthodox these days, but it was interesting to note that at least some Conservatives can see through Gove.