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
