Freedom of teaching In the current educational system teachers are often walking on fragile ice when it comes to the amount of creativity they put into their lessons This is most prominent in high schools as teachers are under a mounting amount of pressure to help students improve their grades In which students are not helping in any way With the increased pressure and political correctness of the current society teachers have little room for mistakes or unintentional slip ups as their neck is always on the line On a recent poll annual Kappan poll on education the public where questioned what freedom should a teacher have in the way they teach or as the poll said Should education policies require teachers to follow a prescribed curriculum so all students can learn the same content or should education policies give teachers flexibility to teach in ways they think best 70 of people who replied believed that teacher needs the flexibility to teach to the best of their abilities And yet it seems like teachers are more oppressed than ever with curriculums tightening more and more it must be suffocating for teachers The reason Simple Falling grades With the Uk falling behind in education compared to other countries with the UK ranking 27 in the recent PISA math international league table 21 in reading and 15 in science these may not have seemed like bad positions until it is compared to poorer countries who are still placing above the UK in the league such as Latvia With the increased concern of grades parliament has taken an iron grip as to how they wish to get the UK back up to standards by making strict guidelines checkpoints and choking the freedom out of teachers they believe they can achieve the standard they once had Unfortunately the fruits of their labour have to be worse than what they began with overall lower grades and performances a decreased interest in learning from students and worst of all a continuously shortening list of teachers and potential teachers
The solution would seem clear Give teachers their freedom back however there is one major barring question Do teachers want more freedom The answer sadly is not so clear with 68 of teachers wanting to have a more creative approach to teaching as to encourage the students to engage more in the lesson and help them to remember the topics gone over but on the flip side of that coin there were 22 of teachers who prefer the arbitrary layers of compliance and a certain kind of neatly packaged drive and purpose believing that a structured rigid teaching style is more beneficial to students and teachers worse yet there were 6 of teachers who wanted even more neck breaking rules A section from the Baltimore Sun by Tom Askey a teacher spoke about the shortage of teachers He criticised how the government are doing the opposite to what needs to be done to bring more people into teaching as a teacher he has first hand experience of other colleagues leaving their jobs in search of more creative and invigorating jobs he describes how teachers should be given the chance to show themselves off stating that teachers should be questioning processes and methodologies while simultaneously being encouraged to create their own unique and valuable systems that will allow them to flourish in a classroom space The argument for the confined narrow guideline is that it creates a certain target for the teacher to aim for and achieve but is exactly the reason why people shy away from the teaching position
People want to become teachers so that they can ignite passion in their students and in themselves not bore their class half to death with stale and bland lessons It is clear to see that Teachers want their freedom back and if they can not express their ingenuity teaching then there are other jobs more willing to give it to them The impact on students grades and school life if teachers were given more freedom would be tremendous Unfortunately it is not quite certain what kind of impact it would bring whether a positive one which would help bluster students grades or negatively which would only further damage the educational image of the UK Recent research believe that tightening the noose in freedom would help increase the national grade going of from the information that the UK had increased its position in science in the PISA international league from 21 to 15 while this may be true the league actually showed a decrease in the UK s overall position in the league hence tidily put that argument to rest While it can not proven yet that increased freedom would result in increased overall grades teacher would enjoy the chance to test it out and for all we know it might just work out better than we expect and for certain students would thrilled to be given the chance to shine in artistic ways rather than having their creativity suffocated by the oppressive curriculum that fails to provide the wanted grades Bibliography https www theguardian com education 2016 dec 06 english schools core subject test results international oecd pisa http pdkpoll org results state polls https www teachthought com pedagogy how much freedom should a teacher have http www dailymail co uk news article 2479081 Britain lags Lithuania Latvia Hungary worldwide education league table html http www independent co uk news education education news pisa oecd rankings uk schools falling behind leading countries global international singapore a7458751 html https www google co uk amp www baltimoresun com news opinion oped bs ed teacher shortage 20150825 story amp html Word count 908
Write and Proofread Your Essay
With Noplag Writing Assistance App
Noplag. Teachers Deserve Freedom Too [Internet]. January 2020. [Accessed April 25, 2024.]; Availible from: https://noplag.com/free-essays/teachers-deserve-freedom-too
