the way back

Here are a few thoughts thrown together about teaching - which seem to have escaped certain  non-class-based  educators from my 15 years experience in London schools.  Maybe they were overworked.  Maybe they had forgotten what it was like to be class-based.  Maybe they had forgotten the very foundations of teaching, respect and integrity.  Maybe they couldn’t have cared less.  Anyway, i n no particular order, I give you: Attributes that do not make a good teacher: Diplomas/being able to pontificate about pedagogical ideas du jour .  Weeks and weeks of meetings  on fashionable topics such as adaptive teaching, creative curriculum, restorative justice, etc. sometimes only seem to serve the purpose of box-ticking, when far more pressing concerns (such as behaviour management and mental health for instance) could be discussed, and potential solutions implemented.  Being able to create attractive excel spreadsheets , including impractica...

It is a sad state of affairs that in today's world, especially education, nondisclosure agreements  (NDAs)  have developed from agreements genuinely used to  maintain trade secrets to documents serving to primarily protect management by covering up workplace wrongdoing. This is commonplace despite guidelines such as these,  found on the ACAS  website : A non-disclosure agreement should not be used: to cover up inappropriate behaviour or misconduct, especially if there's a risk of it happening again to avoid addressing disputes or problems if it could cause serious moral or ethical issues if it could cause any other negative outcomes or effects I  chanced upon an  article online which looks in more detail at the implications of nondisclosure agreements. Here are some extracts:   "NDAs are supposed to prevent people from sharing technical secrets—trade secrets,” said Kim Scott, author and co-founder of Radical Candor. “They were not supposed to be u...