Anyone Can Teach

The current TV series 'Dream School' in which chef Jamie Oliver puts various celebrities in front of a tough class to teach has caused quite a stir. The underlying assumption of the programme is that if you put a  celebrity 'expert' in front of the class this might be an immediate motivation for the kids – far better than their boring old teacher. To date, it appears to have been pretty much an unmitigated disaster with the celebrities so far being a pretty useless lot. Several have been made to look boorish fools and hardly anyone has come out of it with any credibility. Perhaps it will all change as the series continues. In fact, I’m not sure they are particularly useless – although one or two are certainly boorish fools! The reality is that they have not got, nor have they ever been taught, basic teaching skills – they, like Jamie, have made the mistake of, 'Well, I know a bit about what I’m teaching, I'm an expert so that will make me a good teacher.' It won’t and it doesn’t. It’s perhaps worthy of comment that the only person who seems to have had any success is artist and TV personality Rolf Harris – and he is a trained teacher!

The programme does, however, highlight a real concern.

After a successful 39  year career in the classroom, running a school and working with young/trainee teachers I took retirement. There were many reasons – OFSTED, SATs, league tables, the total irrelevancy of what I was putting the kids  through to gain the required SATs results that put us in the top 5%  and the three OFSTED inspection approvals of 'good' and 'outstanding' for my school.

But amongst all these was another that constantly gnawed throughout the 39 year period – the fact the everyone thinks they can teach. Oliver’s latest programme makes precisely this assumption. It was not unusual for me to have to explain/defend particular school actions, decisions, teaching styles, child management issues etc. to twenty year olds who had produced a child at 15 and then turned up with him or her at my nursery/reception class. It seemed so often to me that the ability to produce a child also magically bestowed upon these people the full knowledge of how to manage children, how to instruct, how to develop learning and understanding, how to manage a classroom, how to teach. The knowledge that I had gathered after 10, 20 or 30 years of working with children - about their abilities and their cognitive, social and physical development - was as nothing to the immediate understanding and wisdom bestowed on the first set of parents who walked through the door.  My knowledge, skills or experience counted for little – because everyone  can teach. It is true that so often people would say, 'Oh, I couldn’t do your job' – but despite this they all had an opinion! Perhaps if the programme had any value (which I doubt) it might have done a little to dispel the notion that teaching is easy and unskilled that anyone with a bit of knowledge can do it.

I never worked out why these same people didn't turn up at the Manchester United training ground to take Sir Alex to task on his training methods or to be included in his football team on Saturday afternoon in the same way that Jamie slots his personalities into the classroom team. In fact that appeals to me.  I was a useful park footballer as a youngster so I have the skills and I have the  experience - I have followed football all my life and visited most big stadiums and attended many big games – so please, Sir Alex, how about giving me a game on Saturday afternoon – and pay me one fortieth (for 1 game out of 40) of Wayne Rooney’s annual salary, that’ll boost my pension by quite a few grand for the next few years! My son,  an accountant and financial director  wouldn’t dream of allowing me to help out in his accounts department – he would rightly remind me that I don’t have the skills. My daughter, as a senior IT worker, I’m sure would be unhappy about taking me into her place of work to write a few programmes – but why? – I am more than computer literate, I’ve even taught computer skills for the past 15 or so years – I have the experience.  I can always remember some years ago, walking into my GP’s surgery and in reply to the question, 'Ah, what can I do for you?' I replied, 'Well doctor, I think may have ...... .'  I didn’t get any further, Dr MacLaren held up his hand and said, 'I’m the doctor, I'm paid to think. You just tell me what’s wrong, not what you think it is. I’ll tell you what it is.' He was, of course, quite right, although I felt a bit put out! Yet, on any given parents' evening, it is not unusual for a teacher to be asked to justify their actions or to be told in no uncertain terms by parents with absolutely no skills knowledge or classroom experience  what the needs of their child are and how he or she should be taught!!  When my car is broken down I rely on the expert skills of the mechanic to fix it. I don’t question him on his motives, his theories as to what he should do or the justification for his actions. But, everyone thinks they can teach and has an opinion – and of course, they are always better at it than the teacher.

For me the really worrying thing about it all is that we have such a low value on education and schools that we happily believe that anyone can do it – let’s send in a few stars to do the business, let’s allow volunteers (shades of the Big Society) to help out – after all, it’s easy, it’s cheap and it’s only the kids we are talking about.

 I’ve got some good ideas for Jamie's next series. How about  unqualified people doing brain surgery and working in the operating theatre – after all, most people  know about it – we’ve all taken aspirins, put on the odd sticking plaster, we’ve all sat in the doctor’s surgery, we’ve even watched 'Casualty’and a few 'fly on the wall'  documentaries about life in hospitals.......and we all have opinions about the NHS! We'd all make great brain surgeons and what a laugh it would be to see these 'stand ins' making mistakes. Or perhaps we he could draft a few people in to run the banks – after all, we are pretty much agreed that bankers are useless at it – most of us have bank accounts, we know about managing our family budgets, we can add up and take away, we can use a computer and a calculator – it would be easy. Err, until someone lost a million quid on the market then all hell would be let lose when Bob Diamond saw his bonus going down the drain or we suddenly realised our savings accounts were a little smaller. But, in schools with our children it’s alright to have perfectly nice but totally unqualified and inexperienced people turn up in the classroom and create mayhem.  Or, what about Jamie allows a few of us to run his restaurants, cook the meals, serve his clients – we can all do that, I’m very handy with the toaster, I can peel potatoes and I always lay the table on Sunday lunchtime! We  all love a good cop show, we all know exactly how it works so how about members of the public leading the next murder inquiry  rather than police officers? Drive around in a few fast cars with flashing lights, batter  a few doors down, shout a lot at shady looking people, take a few finger prints and do the odd autopsy – it’s easy and what good TV. We could even have a follow up arranged by Jamie - draft in a few ordinary souls or stars to be judges and barristers  - wouldn’t it be fun as we watched all these well intentioned people work out their prejudices in the courtroom without any kind of qualifications. I mean, we can all read, we all have an opinion about where we stand on legal matters, we’ve all watched endless courtroom dramas so we know what to do. Why stop at only the jury being ordinary people, let’s throw the whole thing open. It would make such good television  - but I’m not sure that the defendant would be quite so impressed as the noose tightened around his neck.

It wouldn’t happen of course. Barristers, brain surgeons, chief constables, accountants and the like would not want their job/profession trivialised in this way, the work they do is too important and society knows it.  But teachers are fair game – 'cause everyone can teach. The sad thing is that whilst this viewpoint prevails  -  and it is nothing to do with the quality of teachers – there are good and bad bankers, policemen, accountants and the like – the viewpoint of kids will be influenced and teachers, teaching and schools will be perceived as not worthy of respect or that they have something of value. The programme, like Jamie Oliver, is shallow and offensive. More importantly, however, it highlights a commentary upon the value that we place on education and the education of our children in this country.