In yet another effort to improve the educational standards achieved by children in this country, the govenment is now poised to introduce the MTL, or Masters in Teaching and Learning. It’s not going to be compulsory (well, not initially), but let’s face it, given the scarcity of teaching jobs in some areas and some subjects, applicants with the MTL are almost certainly going to be given priority at initial application stage, meaning that those without are going to feel pressured into getting one.
Mike Baker at the BBC says everything much more eloquently than I can, but to sum up the concerns are -
- Increasing the workload of already overworked teachers, especially those new to the profession and/or those working in particularly challenging schools.
- Importing an idea from another country (in this case, Finland) which has a completely different curriculum and educational system; what works there may not work here
- Teachers feeling pressured to gain an MTL in order to secure a position / promotion etc.
And here’s the biggie. Pedagogy changes all the time.
Fashions in teaching methods come and go. Not all are successful.
Usually, though, the damage is limited because not everyone teaches in the same way at the same time, as each generation has been trained in different methods.
There is a risk that certain teaching methodologies will become the pattern for all MTL students.
If all new teachers are being taught the same government-endorsed teaching method, this could become the new orthodoxy, just like the numeracy and literacy hours.
If it works, fine. But if it does not, it could be disastrous, as everyone will be doing the wrong thing.
Personally, I can’t see how this can do anything to raise the status of the profession. From comments on blogs and things I see posted by non-teachers, teachers are, by many, regarded as lucky bastards who get too much holiday, who only do a half-day’s work, earn a lot (thanks to those bloody stupid ads by the TDA claiming we earn £34K) and who still turn out kids who can’t read, write or add up properly. We’re often perceived as people who have no idea what the “real world” is like, and adding yet another academic qualification will, to my mind, only serve to increase that. (Although I will state here, that that final point isn’t completely untrue in my experience – speaking as someone who worked in the private sector before becoming a teacher, I can confidently state that I’ve seen behaviour and attitudes that would have got colleagues the sack had they worked for a private company, but that’s a different story).
And one final thing. Why is it always assumed that whatever is wrong with the system, it must be the TEACHERS’ fault? Why does nobody ever mention or question the quality of the raw material we’re given to work with? I’m not trying to shift the… I hesitate to use the word “blame”… to pupils, but when I have a class of 13 year-olds, some of whom have no idea how to behave, some of whom can barely manage to write a coherent sentence or manage to speak to each other using words of more than one syllable that aren’t swear words … how can that be my fault? How is my having an MTL going to change any of that?
And of course, you know what? In a few years when we’ve all got them, spent so much time studying for them that we’re knackered and burned out and haven’t had time to write decent lessons, the government will decide that clearly having a Masters’ isn’t enough, and we really should all have PhDs.
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June 28th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Agree, agree, agree. This seems like another excellent plan which will ensure that teachers leave the profession even before they’ve finished their training. As it is, the rigours of the training process see quite a few off.
June 28th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
It seems to me that every new initiative these days is simply a knee-jerk reaction in a vain attempt to fix something which goes way, WAY deeper than anyone is prepared to a)acknowlege or b)tackle. The announcement that parents of pupils who misbehave will be fined… yeah, well, does anyone really think that will work, or that it’s enforceable?
June 28th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
And have they looked at what other countries are doing? Here (Australia) masters are becoming more common for the postgrad entry route, i.e. if you had a degree already and want to do teaching it’s moved from a post grad diploma to a masters degree as the norm. Which is fine, if you already have a degree it’s nice to be able to make the second qualification more of a challenge for the student teacher. I’m doing a second undergrad degree because early childhood focus wasn’t offered as a masters anywhere convenient to me, and I do find a lot of the assessment stuff a bit easy because my classmates are on their first degrees and it’s all new to them. But I’ve never heard anything to suggest that the outcomes they expect in the classroom between us (four year B. Education) and the post grad people (B something and a Masters in Teaching) are going to be any different. Like you say, there are so many other factors at play there, most of them related to divisions/issues in our society.
I’m currently a brownie guide leader in a professional, upper middle class area; I used to be a reading helper in an inner city school (large indigenous community, low employment, very low levels of education amongst parents, many of whom are in jail). Kids in both groups the same age (7-9ish). The brownies wouldn’t need to do a day of school ever to be infinity better prepared than the kids in the inner city school, simply due to the literacy levels and attitudes in their homes. The qualification I have won’t change that.
June 28th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
That’s my point exactly. We can have qualifications coming out of our ears (and many of us do!) but if we don’t have the right material to work with in the first place, and the support from home, having the MTL isn’t going to make much difference.
Okay, so we all know there are varying degrees of skill and professionalism amongst teachers – I know teachers I would regard as less than competent, but again, an extra qualification isn’t going to make any difference to that! Most of the teachers I know are dedicated and hard working who always put a lot of thought and effort into what they do, but having an MTL won’t enable us to make silk purses out of sow’s ears.