One of my pastoral responsibilities is to teach Citizenship to my form group, which is interesting to say the least.
Picture the scene: It's last lesson on a Friday afternoon, the scent of weekend hangs heavy in the air, all the children want to do is escape and I'm there telling them about elections and democracy. Bear in mind they won't be voting, in the unlikely event they actually choose to, for at least another four years. This combined with the fact we drift aimlessly from one week to the next make it all a bit of a joke, as I'd come to expect from this school.
The one consolation is that I'm only trapped there for an hour, but there's a limit to how much "informed discussion" you can coax from a bunch of hormonal teens in that hour. They're at that age where they answer everything with a grunt, akin to some primitive creature lurking in a Star Warsian swamp. This, combined with the distraction of imminent escape, make constructive dialogue virtually impossible.
I suppose our aim is to manufacture a generation of informed thinkers, with awareness of their civil responsibilities and who challenge wrongdoing. But any effort we make in the classroom is far outweighed by the prejudiced conditioning they often receive at home. During a recent discussion about racial equality I had a girl tell me that black people were to be treated with suspicion because they were all potential terrorists.
Citizenship is another of these trendy left ideas that serves more to infuriate teachers then inform pupils. It is no exaggeration to say that every week colleagues are queuing up to express their anguish at having to teach such tripe. The Government push this indoctrination of what's right and wrong to the schools because adult society is already broken.
Still, I haven't got much longer to put up with this embuggerance.
Picture the scene: It's last lesson on a Friday afternoon, the scent of weekend hangs heavy in the air, all the children want to do is escape and I'm there telling them about elections and democracy. Bear in mind they won't be voting, in the unlikely event they actually choose to, for at least another four years. This combined with the fact we drift aimlessly from one week to the next make it all a bit of a joke, as I'd come to expect from this school.
The one consolation is that I'm only trapped there for an hour, but there's a limit to how much "informed discussion" you can coax from a bunch of hormonal teens in that hour. They're at that age where they answer everything with a grunt, akin to some primitive creature lurking in a Star Warsian swamp. This, combined with the distraction of imminent escape, make constructive dialogue virtually impossible.
I suppose our aim is to manufacture a generation of informed thinkers, with awareness of their civil responsibilities and who challenge wrongdoing. But any effort we make in the classroom is far outweighed by the prejudiced conditioning they often receive at home. During a recent discussion about racial equality I had a girl tell me that black people were to be treated with suspicion because they were all potential terrorists.
Citizenship is another of these trendy left ideas that serves more to infuriate teachers then inform pupils. It is no exaggeration to say that every week colleagues are queuing up to express their anguish at having to teach such tripe. The Government push this indoctrination of what's right and wrong to the schools because adult society is already broken.
Still, I haven't got much longer to put up with this embuggerance.