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Peter Honey

Peter Honey

26 Jul 2010 | 16:49

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I admit to being highly intrigued by the suggestion of Zenna Atkins, the chairman of Ofsted, that it’s not an “absolute disaster” if every school has an incompetent teacher because pupils can learn how to deal with them.

Most commentators have dismissed this as a ridiculous idea, but I’m not so sure. If we are serious about schools preparing children for life and instilling a love of learning (particularly learning from experience), then I can think of lots of things that should become part of the mix.

Clearly, we would need to give careful thought to the diversity that teachers should portray, not just in appearance but, more importantly, in their behaviour. At the very least we’d need a ruthless autocrat; a bully; a two-faced git; a spreader of malicious rumours; someone who has to win at all costs; an arrogant know-all; a coward; a ditherer; a loser – the list is endless.

And that’s just the teachers. What about the experiences we’d need to build in as learning opportunities? Certainly more punishments than rewards; institutional unfairness; utterly random consequences (some nice, some nasty); intense competition; queuing for hours on end; phoning call centres and having to hang on listening to messages about your custom being valued; being set impossible challenges with totally inadequate resources; failure despite doing your best; not being consulted or listened to; and being ridiculed/publically humiliated.

What fun!

Wait - come to think of it, this explains my education. I wonder why it has taken me so long to rumble that it was all by design!

Comments

1. At 09:21 on 28 Jul 2010, Josephine Ayoubi wrote:

Peter, I love the path you have taken on the 'Do we need incompetency?' discussion. The logical conclusion would be that we would then need to assess people for a certain required level of incompetence in their assessments and annual appraisals, interview for incompetence, and make sure that leadership programmes included a 'Leadership Incompetence Model'.
I'm thinking about writing up an 360 Degree Feedback to measure Incompetence at Senior Manager and Board Level - what do you think?!
Jo
www.tracksurveys.co.uk
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2. At 22:23 on 22 Aug 2010, Sharon Sands wrote:

As my own maths teacher spent more time practising his golf swing than teaching us maths, it's no surprise that math is not my strong point. Usually inspiring Peter, this 'cynical', or is it 'sceptical' published blog, left me cold. Anyone with children still at school will recognise all too well the impact an incompetent teacher can have compared with the inspiration a great teacher has. Have any of us ever excelled at anything at school which was taught by an incompetent teacher? So I am not prepared to moan from the sidelines any longer and have involved myself with 21st Century Legacy's 'Be the Best You Can Be Programme' ran by Sir David Hemery and Les Duggan. Olympians are helping teachers inspire children using coaching, now that's positive role modelling. I expect there will be many readers profiting from coaching the Exec who is role modelling his first boss or teacher and is behaving like a bully. I guess it depends on what you wish for!
Sharon Sands
www.adaptdevelopment.com
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