Or don’t. I don’t care. But I guess you should. I guess.
Alerted by an AARE blog post, Greg Ashman has written on the AITSL gang having a survey going, as part of a review of the teacher standards. From my having learned of it from Ashman and you having learned it from me, I guess you all now have some homework, which is due 7 August. Make sure you get it in, or you’ll all have to stay in after blog class.
Ashman is annoyed-bemused by the AARE post, titling the fuss as a “moral panic”. Maybe. True, the AARE post is silly in the manner that AARE posts always seem to be, but I’m not sure that Ashman’s panic over the moral panic is any less, um, moral. I don’t understand why anybody cares about any of this.
There is no question, of course, that the AITSL standards are thoroughly idiotic, a bloated mungle of motherhood and madness. What I don’t understand is why the idiocy matters. Who cares what the AITSL standards say?
I appreciate that there are idiotic Deputy Principal types, and the ever-idiotic VIT, who will demand that you label every little plan-fart with a specific standard. But just do it. Just tick a damn box at random, or at semi-random if you think someone is half-watching. They don’t really care. No one really cares.
Of course the standards could be a hell of lot better, and it would be less annoying if they were, and they could also be worse. I would find it distasteful to be required, as the AARE types appear to wish, to tick a box declaring my students have enquired more than Perry Mason, or to be required, as Ashman appears to wish, to tick a box declaring that I have explicitly delivered a big cognitive load of neurodung. But I am not ever going to lose a wink of sleep over it. Ticking some idiotic box for some idiotic beancounter is not going to alter my teaching one iota.
I cannot see how the AITSL standards are more than motherhood statements. Sure, it’d be better to go with Mother Teresa rather than Mommie Dearest. And it would be helpful if Mother limited herself to a few essential standards rather than 95 statements of blather, so we weren’t all screaming “Ma, can you just shut the hell up?” But in the end it is all motherhood, with which a teacher will either agree or disagree and, whichever the case, will likely have zero effect on the teacher’s teaching.
The only micro-minor valid concern that I can see is that the the drivel AITSL standards are and could continue to be very poor guidance for new teachers. This drivel is also then distracting from the clear and helpful and pithy messages new teachers can get from …, um, ….
Which is the real problem. It’s all noise. It’s all grandstanding. New teachers have no simple, trustworthy guide to the nature and the practice of teaching. AITSL is a symptom, not the disease.
But, go fill out AITSL’s survey. Don’t say I didn’t ask.
Yes…
I think they matter.
1. Pretty sure ITE courses are explicitly built around and accredited according to the standards? A decade and a half ago now, but my course content was a comically minute for minute reflection of the standards.
2. People rising through the education bureaucracy need to intone the words (and related words), and the true believers rise fastest. Those people then get to direct the money and the resources and the promotions to the things they care about. I bet the most tenacious CAS-defender at VCAA got their job quoting AITSL chapter and verse.
3. Culturally they send a signal. There are a lot of people out there who don’t have strong commitments on this kind of thing. If the big fancy committee says those are the most important things, then lots of teachers say, “ok, I suppose those are the most important things.”
It’s not that AITSL’s dictates change my day to day practice much. But they change the water I swim in.
Yes, I kind of get all that. But:
1) The ITE courses are gonna be garbage whatever the standards, and with or without any standards. And, if some maverick education faculty wanted to provide good ITE, they could do so, even if they had to genuflect to AARE inquiry twaddle or Ashmanesque CLT twaddle. They’re just stupid boxes. It is not hard for anyone to tick stupid boxes.
2) Ditto for VCAA’s and others’ bootlicking climbers.
3) Yes, I covered that. But, again, AITSL is a symptom, not the fundamental problem.
AITSL does not change the water I swim in. It needn’t change the water anyone swims in, except for ITE tadpoles. I do not see why any teacher, once they have escaped the hell of ITE, needs to pay attention whatsoever to AITSL or whatever twaddle they choose to write.
I love those documents that tell you they are worthless by their format! – all you need to know is that there are 95 standards to know that it’s silly and useless. It’s not running a nuclear reactor.
Just like the Australian Curriculum being a web-based document rather than a simple list tells you it’s silly.
Done.
I am a 5 week final placement away from graduating to be a teacher. The 37 standards are killing me. I have to use AI to understand them !
Why do you have to bother? Who is checking that you understand them, or even read them?
We have a massive assignment where you must provide evidence that you meet the graduate level standard. The evidence would be something from our teaching so far. Without doing this I won’t get my degree.
I see. Idiots.
Tom, Don’t stress – it does not help.
Read the standards carefully; make a list; then work through the list adding evidence from your course. You will gain more evidence from your upcoming placement.
This may be time consuming, but it’s not that hard, and by the time you have finished it, you might even have found it to be a useful exercise.
Let me make a suggestion to show you what I mean. For example, take
1.4 Strategies for teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.
Here it expected that you will “Demonstrate broad knowledge and understanding of the impact of culture, cultural identity and linguistic background on the education of students from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds.”
Read that carefully. Note the phrase “broad knowledge”. In the other standards in section 1.X, you will “Demonstrate knowledge and understanding…” Note the difference. When I was on placement I did not teach any students from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander background in my classes. So I met with the teacher who was the liaison person who supported students of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander background in the school, and we had a lengthy discussion on this matter. This provided me with a great deal of information.
Good luck. There is more to being a mathematics teacher than teaching mathematics!
Thank you, Terry.
Wow, thanks heaps Terry.
And, once you are done, keep it all for 12 months down the track when you get to deal with Marty’s (least) favourite organisation… the VIT.
At the moment, I have a *lot* of least favourite organisations.
Hi All
Not sure where to post but needed to talk to someone 🙂
A few weeks into my 5 week last placement teaching year 7 maths. Working with a student who tries hard. Revising fractions with them. They are attempting to answer a fractions multiplication question by finding a common denominator. I’m knew to this and I realised they have no idea what it all means. I supported them, but to be honest I sort of felt sad. Better toughen up
Welcome to ITE Lifeline. How may we help?
Sigh. Thanks, Tom, and my heart goes out to you and to the kid. It is such an unmitigated disaster. If the kids don’t understand fractions then they have a snowflake’s chance of understanding algebra, and then they are royally screwed. And so, so many do *not* understand fractions.
I’m not sure if you’re looking for advice or resources or the correct blog post, or you just wanted a place to howl. If the latter, fine, and howl away. If the former, I’m happy to chat online or off, and do whatever.
Many thanks for the reply Marty. Much appreciated.
Cheers
Tom
Opps, that last comment was from me. Thanks Marty.
When I finish my placement and the degree I’ll look to you and the others here for advice.
At 52, the reason I wanted to teach was to help students like that one in my placement class.
No worries, Tom. I edited the comment to add your name. And definitely feel free always to ask for advice. Not from me: my role is just to remind me people that there is such a thing as sanity and common sense. But there are some very experienced teachers who read the blog and are generous with their ideas.