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Quote:What emerges most strongly from the pages of Teacher Man is that no amount of government policy or school guidelines matter as much as the simple human dynamic between teacher and taught.It was true in the age of Tom Brown's Schooldays and Mr Chips;it remains true in the age of students who come to school with mobile phones and iPods."
spendius said
Quote:This suggests what I have been saying in various ways all along;that the Dover debate has nothing to do with the kids and is simply a farcical battle played out by idiotic adults for a range of motives some of which I've alluded to from time to time and some of which,no doubt,I haven't thought of yet or found too indecent for the innocent eyes on this thread.None of them give a flying fornication for the kids and,in my view,are in danger of damaging them.
I don't think so, spendie. It suggests something quite true about (what I define as ) good teaching but it doesn't tell us much if anything about content taught, a second aspect which clearly
does have importance for the kids too and for future culture.
As a student teacher, I taught a lesson once in Human Origins to a class of 11, 12, and 13 year olds. I reached fairly far past their text materials, setting chairs out in a line (with branches off) across the school football field in sequence (and in proper scale) from australopithecus through to we folks. Each chair held a representation of the version of hominid in question. They understood, so well as I could explain, the tentative nature of these categories, dates and branches. At the end of the lesson, two girls approached me with some anxiety evident in their faces and they asked me "Mr. Latham...but what about the bible story?"
As it happened, I was partnered with another student teacher who was a serious christian and he spoke up saying, "Girls. I agree with you." I just replied that there were two stories here and they could go with either, but that they would have to make some accounting for the bones.
I was not upset that I had upset those two girls. I was delighted. Once bones get dug up, it's too late.