You will note that the article is talking about primary school. Presumably, their system is similar to ours in that, until at least fifth grade, students are taught every subject they learn (with the exception, perhaps, of music, art, phys ed) by one teacher.

It strikes me as unreasonable to expect an equally high level of personal competence in pure mathematics AND English Lit from a person we expect to teach addition and spelling to our seven year olds.

And people who publically criticize other's interpersonal skills are typically a little short on those same skills themselves.

I suspect that the Scottish education system is in similar shape to culturally-similar, similarly-funded systems around the world. I have plenty of criticisms of our own systems, particularly their driving need to pound square pegs into round holes, but would tend to focus on systemic issues rather than descending to personal judgment of entire groups of people.

I have seen some seriously obtuse primary teaching in Canada and some brilliant teaching. You can not ignore individual skills when it comes to something like teaching... and if, collectively, skills are deficient then it is appropriate, even essential, to say so.

We lived in Scotland for about nine years. Our daughter was largely schooled there. And both here and there I have seen communications from teachers that reveal startling illiteracy, poor interpersonal skills and poor numeracy... and others that have been excellent. I do think it matters and that putting it all into a basket called systemic is an evasion of responsibility (and reality).

A long time ago, a friend in New Zealand who was a educationalist and researcher, put it to me that we should really locate our most qualified and widely educated teachers in the primary system, to get young children curious and interested in nature, their own culture, the stars and physics, music and science... just give them a desire to know and and interest in life. Then put the less gifted and knowledgeable teachers into high schools where the kids could cover the gapos by pursuing their own passions and interests. It was a compelling argument but I don't think it has ever been applied...

 It was a compelling argument but I don't think it has ever been applied...because it is a bizarre idea.  (I'm assuming it was tongue in cheek?)

Subject specializations are irrelevant in primary school.  Teachers need to know how to teach those little ones how to read, write and do arithmetic....in many different ways for many different kinds of learners.   A grade 2 unit on dinosaurs does not require a degree in paleontology, but a primary teacher needs thorough training and practice in how to break down the incredibly complex skills of fundamental academics, and then build them up in children.  Perhaps teachers in Scotland are concerned because they are not being taught how to teach?  

I have concerns about our teacher training programs here in BC  (for example, students with special needs have been included in public schools since 1990, and mandatory special education classes are BEGINNING in our universities in 2012) - and our public school system significantly outperforms that of Great Britain.  Perhaps it is the universities in Scotland that need an overhaul?

( & btw - just in light of the title of this thread, "Just a Scottish thing?", which seems to be opening the door to another round of bad teacher anecdotes and public school bashing, I'll just point out that in the latest round of international testing, the only western, inclusive school system that topped Canada was Finland.   In spite of all its challenges, we continue to have one of the very best education systems in the world. )

 Diana, it wasn't tongue in cheek. It was a desire to see realised what she HAD seen in several situations, where distinguished scholars had fired the imaginations and curiosity of young children: I knew two of them. One was an entomologist who could spot a slater (a 14-legged isopod that's quite common in New Zealand), pick it up and spin stories about it in kiddy language that got them fascinated about "bugs" in general and nature and the cycling of oxygen and carbon.... I actually saw this with a bunch of ordinary, mixed "skill" 6-9 year-olds at an after-school daycare centre where his two kids spent time. He showed them carbon from a burned match (he smoked) and told them about the black stuff in plants.... his match having come from a plant. He had in awe. Another was an ornithologist who would turn beach walks into scavenger hunts, all around birds. I remember him making a kite from feathers kids collected among seaweed. That was at a staff picnic I went to donkey's years ago

My educationalist friend had a number of stories like this and was convinced that young minds didn't separate "hard" ideas from "easy" but, in the right way, could be drawn into to the simple excitement of getting to know about stuff... once they saw connections, they'd be pestering adults with interesting questions.

She compared this sort of "ideas adventure" with kids sitting at rows of desks in classrooms repeatedly forming the letter 'b" between ruled lines and reciting times' tables. That, she felt that, too often made education a narrowing of mind and experience, and -- by making it the opposite of what kids naturally do -- something to be dreaded... kids are taught that it's "hard". 

But most primary school teachers themeselves were not curious and excited about knowledge but harnessed to conformities about syllabus and inspector visits and paper work and gradings and all the rest of it.

A grade 2 unit on dinosaurs may not require a degree in paleontology but it would benefit from some passion about the way dinosaurs developed into birds and grew feathers and their descendants  fly all around us... and where they travel to, and what they eat and how they fit in with our lives today.... from chicken dinners to deep-ocean food chains... dinosaurs are still "with" us.

The other thing is this totally irrelevant international comparison crap. It has nothing to do with young minds falling in love with learning. It has to do with teachers' priorities, and education officials' concerns.

Scotland has some deep problems in its education system that are worth knowing about because they are mires inherent in the model of education we subscribe to. There are schools and classrooms in Scotland where a teacher does well to control the violence. There was advice to teachers while we were there that they should not try to control bad language, even when a kid screamed every filthy word a sailor might ultimately learn in their faces. When a kid pulled a knife on you... THAT was when you took them to see the principal if you could politely persuade the kid to accompany you, with anoth teacher as a witness, to the principal's office. 

In so-called tough areas remarkably young kids were already hardened drug users, with all the behavioural pyrotechnics that go along with it. In areas where a job meant stocking supermarket shelves or being a call centre serf, kids were told if they worked hard they would get a job when they grew up. Why would they want jobs like their parents.... you had more fun as a drug dealer.

I have often thought that elementary teachers should have to pass a wide ranging general knowledge quiz before being set loose in a classroom.  This is based on the appalling lack of that commodity in some elementary teachers.  I realise that we can't all have all the knowledge - but they should know which continents major countries are on - which animal lives where -  the basics about food - the names of local birds and animals - basic science etc. Mostly I think they need the ability to help the children learn to read, write, develop curiosity, find answers to questions and improve their communication skills. 

I also think that all our students at every level should be exosed to art, music, and recreational phys ed.  I really don't think they all need football or basketball - but during there school years they should get opportunities to try curling, skiing, hiking, swimming - the things that they may do when they are adult.

 I've had elementary teachers who had good understanding of the material, but weren't the best teachers.  I also had a teacher who was great, but math and science wasn't her strong point.  When teaching unit conversions she got slightly confused and gave an example backwards ( something like 1cm = 10000km) and just looking at the numbers I immediately knew that was wrong.  She asked if I could explain why otherwise than just thinking in a general sense, and she let me teach for a few minutes the way I was doing the conversion.  To this day, I do not use the 'move the decimal' method that is taught and have a better grasp than if I just learned the 'move the decimal'.  The class also got the benefit of learning two methods and using whichever made sense to them.

Splitting teachers among a class so that you have a teacher for science, one for english etc. at younger grades might be an idea, so that the jr. high structure starts a bit before grade 7.  Math, english and science does start to get more complex by the older elementary grades.

Kay, I don't know how such a test would work.  Continents sure, but animals?  There are just so many.  There's too much 'general knowledge' out there that is wrong, who would write the test to avoid wrong information being included?  A test about what they teach would make sense.

I suspect the author has a point. I'm not sure if the situation in Scotland is the same or similar to here, or if the level of competency of the teachers in question is comparable.

I think a teacher should have a high degree of competency in the subject matter and level of the grade they are intending to teach. In other words, it should require a higher level of academics to teach a grade 7 classroom than a grade 1.

As a parent, I have felt that the best way of attempting to understand what is going on with the teaching staff, understand the politics of the school yard;/classroom and understand how to best help my kid was to be in and around the school as much as possible.  All and any excuses work.

I have been taxi, PAC member, unauthorized T.A., general volunteer, pain-in-the-but, saint, and I have been the Scholastic book fair rep for the last 5 years and will be for 3 more until my youngest leaves grade 7.   This is the first year when I have not had a reason or excuse to walk through halls and into classrooms at least once a week, and it will only be for one year, while I am at school full-time.  Even having a full-time job will leave me a little leeway in getting in on field trips or helping kids read.  One year I was even able to volunteer to teach a poetry and fiction section to my eldest daughter's class.  It lasted about four months and was fantastic.

The kids still feel I am "one of them" and like to come to say "hi," when they see me.

Teachers seem to need to be everything to everyone and there always seems to be some new area we need to master.  This I find especially true for elementary and middle school teachers who have to teach all subjects.  Though even in small high schools it can be an issue in finding a wide enough set of teachers to fill each subject area.  For instance I as an English and Social Studies teacher ended up teaching Biology 20.  I think I did a good job and it was an interesting experiment in resource uses, and student centric teaching. 

Sorry if this is a bit rambly but I feel that the reality is that teachers typically are making the best of a difficult situation.  Elementary teachers who need to teach all subjects (no real other option) to high school teachers who need to teach outside their specialyt and all the while trying to balance a mastery of subject knowledge and a mastery of teaching skills.

PEace

Joel

Sadly I think it isn't practical to expect an elementary teacher to be an expert in the subjects she/he teaches.  Too many subjects.

but i shudder when I think that some  teachers have a "minor" in math or a "minor " in science and then become the science/math teacher/ history.........

I agree that a teacher needs to be enthusiastic and passionate.  Some of my teachers kids have been just that.  Others have successfully used other teachers or even parents to raise up the level of the subject. 

I sometimes wonder if even at very young grades we would be better with subject teachers.  To have someone enter the class for French, which is pretty much standard in school but the class teacher do history or math when perhaps they were an english major in university seems to imply that anyone can teach math or science or history.  While that may be true, wouldn't they get a better or at least more enthusiastic lesson from a specialist?

My grade 10 science teacher understood politics and economics better than most of my political science teachers at University.  It was interesting because, really, the only person that came close to my grade 10 science teacher's ability to convey his particular understanding  which was richly guided in history but was really grass root and not socialist idealist as would be thought of by someone who was able to live and work in Alberta, was the Marxist ideologue at University ( All the other prof's were far too liberal to understand even what they knew.)  The grade 10 science teacher was a Ph.D. chemistry drop-out and did also, know quite a bit about chemistry. 

The education I've acquired I owe firstly to my mother who refused to let me be bored; then to a primary school teacher who encouraged my curious interest in Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queen when I was eight years old (my mother, also a teacher, gave be a copy for my eighth birthday and I loved it... even had a bit of the wondrous language and a knightly coterie going); then I had a wonderfully eccentric biology teacher in high school who taught me to "hear" an ecosystem by closing my eyes and remaining very still and silent and make a sound map of it all in my head. And, finally, a linguistics prof at university who ignited my awareness of the richness within cultural diversity, and the collective worth of all of the expressive arrays of human-discerned wisdom, insight and knowledge in the world. Since then, I've been pretty insatiable. And my wife, a UCC minister, has been my inspiration to faith... and sustains my habitual awe and wonder.

It has never been the content of education that's thrilled me or motivated me, but the inspiration to curiosity. I think we stifle that early with alphabet and times tables recitations and  syllabus compliance. I got into the content once I felt I needed to know and usually found myself driven beyond the classroom to find it.