Gillard seeks to fire under-performing teachers, principals or even merge schools if they still do not perform after an injection of funds.

I’ve been through what I will call a good primary and secondary education. Bar a few teachers, I’ve had great teachers and definitely one excellent and loving principal (Mrs Tan!! <3). When I entered College though, I was utterly appalled. Don’t get me wrong, there were still a mix of good and bad teachers, but it was more bad than good.

There were the obviously racist ones, the ones who can’t speak english (and actually have to use them to teach classes and explain difficult terms), the obviously elitist ones – including the principal herself – and only a handful that truly cares for the students both in and out of school. What trully amazed me was also the fact that all the ones that were horrible were also the ones in position of power: Principal being elitist, a racist one being the one to choose student council representatives etc…

Whatever they think they were doing to improve the school’s performance though? was not working. we were fluctuating every year. that’s not to say they had an advantageous position when it came to picking students, and equally the students ourselves were perhaps not very motivated nor cared as much especially towards the end.

Eventually though, it was recognised that the school wasn’t performing nor really helping the performance. Some teachers were demoted, others had their efforts recognised and promoted, still others were chucked into “dead-end” corners of the department and the school was eventually merged with another.

What I want to say to all that is this:

There were some teachers in my life, and in my friends’ lives, that motivated us to do better than what we were. One of the worst way to motivate me though, were the constant verbal and emotional abuse, the insistence that I was going to become “nothing”. They had my parents called in and told to prepare myself to be a useless person to the society, and then consistently bashed me up during classes.

I stopped going to their classes and actually performed better.

That, to me, felt like we don’t need bad teachers and their ways to improve. We need good ones to get better, good ones to motivate and go beyond just “better”.

So yes, if after the funds are being injected, some of undergone training/re-training and the schools are still under-performing, the teachers should leave.

Current Mood:  sore