This gives me deja vu. Back when I was an arrogant undergrad student studying to become a teacher, I got into an email argument with one of my education professors. While today I wouldn't stand by everything that I said, I do remember clearly that in the exchange, my professor was highly critical that I had sent him a study from about twenty years previous. He literally said that research older than about 10 years was functionally useless in the field of education. In that exact same email, he mentioned how the principles of our college's teacher education program were based primarily around the work of Vygotsky. In my response, I said (among other things) that Vygotsky died in 1934. This interaction with my professor was around six years ago. These talking points don't seem to die...
I'm 18 months out of a MTeach at a major Vic Uni. Behaviour management was not covered in any meaningful way. I ended up buying, and obsessively studying, "Running the Room" by Bennett to partly make up for this shortfall. I also had the privilege of attending one of his sessions last week. It was grouse and the attacks on Bennett are ill-informed and quixotic.
Teacher Ed seemingly has an issue with groupthink and self-censorship whereby the radically progressive elements of the field of education limit discourse to a narrow set of axioms. e.g. testing is bad, quiet students means no learning, linear desks are oppression, textbooks are radioactive, the Elysian Fields are actually Finland, Freire beat Hercules in an arm-wrestle twice, etc.
Wow, that’s a very low blow in that tweet to speculate on Tom Bennett’s mental health when *checks notes* many issues around burnout and other MH issues might be solved with consistent approaches to behaviour management?
The difficulty lies in the fact that training providers can only do so much regarding teaching behaviour as the schools trainees attend will have vastly differing behaviour policies.
He’s barking up the wrong tree!
As a leader, head teacher, if they need somebody like Bennett, to tell then how to organise behaviour, then maybe they aren’t very good as this should be the first step!
Finally, if you feel the need to ‘defend’ against personal attacks and comments then perhaps it’s best to not use personal attacks and comments yourself. It’s hypocritical!
“The difficulty lies in the fact that training providers can only do so much regarding teaching behaviour as the schools trainees attend will have vastly differing behaviour policies.”
An apprenticeship model, where the vast majority of training is in school, would avoid this disconnect.
Jefferson may be off the mark about education here, but she has a point when it comes to Covid and the hysteria and some of the advice called ‘the science’ pedalled out over the last few years.
I think there is lots of data now showing those who were the most skeptical of authorities on COVID did the most dying. Places that followed more precautions make it look less catastrophic but that is survivor bias not the precautions were pointless. Yes some stuff went further than needed but people didn’t know that at the time and avoiding overloading the health system requires erring on the side of caution.
Wait - you're bagging out that woman for only have 13 years experience in a classroom, when Tom Bennett has the same number of years in a classroom? How does that work?
This gives me deja vu. Back when I was an arrogant undergrad student studying to become a teacher, I got into an email argument with one of my education professors. While today I wouldn't stand by everything that I said, I do remember clearly that in the exchange, my professor was highly critical that I had sent him a study from about twenty years previous. He literally said that research older than about 10 years was functionally useless in the field of education. In that exact same email, he mentioned how the principles of our college's teacher education program were based primarily around the work of Vygotsky. In my response, I said (among other things) that Vygotsky died in 1934. This interaction with my professor was around six years ago. These talking points don't seem to die...
I'm 18 months out of a MTeach at a major Vic Uni. Behaviour management was not covered in any meaningful way. I ended up buying, and obsessively studying, "Running the Room" by Bennett to partly make up for this shortfall. I also had the privilege of attending one of his sessions last week. It was grouse and the attacks on Bennett are ill-informed and quixotic.
Teacher Ed seemingly has an issue with groupthink and self-censorship whereby the radically progressive elements of the field of education limit discourse to a narrow set of axioms. e.g. testing is bad, quiet students means no learning, linear desks are oppression, textbooks are radioactive, the Elysian Fields are actually Finland, Freire beat Hercules in an arm-wrestle twice, etc.
My minor masters thesis written 13 years ago did a handbook analysis and found most Victorian universities only set aside 3% of their course to classroom management! https://issuu.com/systemdisco/docs/preparing_to_fail_article_-_the_lack_of_classroom_
mmm, I recall Grattan referenced a few studies that reviewed ITE program classroom management practices, but references are now a decade old. You can find them here (section 6.1.1) if of interest: https://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Engaging-students-creating-classrooms-that-improve-learning.pdf#page=32
Wow, that’s a very low blow in that tweet to speculate on Tom Bennett’s mental health when *checks notes* many issues around burnout and other MH issues might be solved with consistent approaches to behaviour management?
Yes. I hesitated to post it because it's so unpleasant. It's always a line ball call.
The difficulty lies in the fact that training providers can only do so much regarding teaching behaviour as the schools trainees attend will have vastly differing behaviour policies.
He’s barking up the wrong tree!
As a leader, head teacher, if they need somebody like Bennett, to tell then how to organise behaviour, then maybe they aren’t very good as this should be the first step!
Finally, if you feel the need to ‘defend’ against personal attacks and comments then perhaps it’s best to not use personal attacks and comments yourself. It’s hypocritical!
“The difficulty lies in the fact that training providers can only do so much regarding teaching behaviour as the schools trainees attend will have vastly differing behaviour policies.”
An apprenticeship model, where the vast majority of training is in school, would avoid this disconnect.
Jefferson may be off the mark about education here, but she has a point when it comes to Covid and the hysteria and some of the advice called ‘the science’ pedalled out over the last few years.
Yes. I guess we are all now a little more sceptical of anyone justifying social measures with 'the science'.
I think there is lots of data now showing those who were the most skeptical of authorities on COVID did the most dying. Places that followed more precautions make it look less catastrophic but that is survivor bias not the precautions were pointless. Yes some stuff went further than needed but people didn’t know that at the time and avoiding overloading the health system requires erring on the side of caution.
Some good points Stan. Thanks for your thoughts.
Wait - you're bagging out that woman for only have 13 years experience in a classroom, when Tom Bennett has the same number of years in a classroom? How does that work?