Brian had some highly intelligent (i.e. complimentary)
His blog led me to this one, and lo and behold, the same theme crops up. It seems teachers everywhere are rising up and starting to rattle their chains! Is this the repetition of an age-old phenomenon, I wonder, or something startingly new?
Bruce’s post reminded me of Gatto’s book, which perhaps can be summarized as a very long and powerful argument against the tyranny of experts in all aspects of our life, not just in education, accompanied by a detailed (and disturbing) description of how (and why) experts have been so exalted in our society.
I wonder tho: are teachers really in the driving seat, as posts like this suggest? Is it actually possible for teachers to reclaim control of what happens in their classrooms? What if teachers are not hired to educate (tho they are permitted to believe that this is their function), but to manage kids? Wouldn’t this go a long way to explaining why teachers feel they are in charge and autonomous, until they start trying to do things that deviate from their manager roles?
On a slightly different note, the above post reminded me of this comment, which I have yet to respond to. It also reminded me of Dave Warlick’s post about No More Staff Development.