Hugh Reilly: Lack of clarity on CfE is far from excellent

Published on Tuesday 31 August 2010 21:43

The world is watching with great apprehension as the trapped workers come to terms with the reality of their situation. For many of these unfortunates, the initial excitement and bravado has given way to feelings of depression and desolation. Yes folks, teachers are having to dig deep to make the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) a success.

On the eve of the new school session, the education secretary declared that teachers were "excited" about the impending implementation of the ground-breaking initiative. It's only anecdotal but most of my colleagues exhibited the kind of excitement normally only found in a colour-blind Catering Corps private who has been seconded to the bomb disposal unit.

For most chalkface teachers, CfE does not mean dramatic change, i.e. it's more evolution than revolution. There has been no bonfire of lesson plans, just careful audits of teaching materials and a reappraisal of teaching methodologies to be used in the classroom. 'Chalk and talk' – the didactic method – has gone the way of the dinosaur.

To be fair, its extinction predates CfE. While Aristotle's students listened submissively to the master, Scottish teenagers had doodled gang slogans and billets-doux as Sir droned on in the background.

Much of the responsibility for learning has been passed to the pupil, with the teacher adopting a more passive role, e.g. booking a school's ICT suite to allow his eager students access to online learning. To a concerned taxpayer, this may look like slacking on the part of the schoolmaster but, in educational terms, this is called empowering the pupil. Computing and Business Studies staff who, for decades, had steadfastly defended their God-given right to make life difficult for any teacher nave enough to believe that such resources should be shared, suddenly find themselves swamped by enthusiastic chalkies desperate to get kids using the latest teaching programmes.

The increased uptake in PC use has created problems. For example, school intranet and internet systems are notoriously unreliable.

A no-life nerd friend said the problems are due to thin pipes and fat servers or was it fat pipes and thin servers?

Whatever the cause, entire teaching periods can be ruined by frozen screens and kids growing facial hair as they wait for a page to load.

Much emphasis has been placed on children presenting work in a variety of forms. Producing confident individuals is one of the four capacities of CfE and, in my experience, there is no shortage of confident dolts who love to stand in front of the class and orally address their peers.

I may be going out on a limb here, but if this scenario is to become a part of my everyday experience in school, I demand the use of an autotune gizmo to filter out the annoying nasal whine popular with some of our fine young people. If this is not possible, I demand to be able to place a 'Nil By Mouth' sticker across the lips of these language stranglers.

Youngsters can also be effective contributors by way of producing colourful, insightful posters.

I wish I had used my insider knowledge to buy shares in companies churning out crayons, posterpaper, scissors and glue. The classroom is a hive of activity, spookily resembling an audition for overly enthusiastic Blue Peter presenters. Just last week, I'm sure I overheard one say: "Get down, Patch!" As the poster nears completion, Sir is inevitably caught in the horns of a dilemma. Should he change the poor spelling and allow the opus to be pinned to the wall, warts and all? Or, considering that literacy is one of the key aims of CfE, should he amend the awful jumble of letters? If he chooses the latter course of action, will this undermine 'the successful learners' capacity? Oh, decisions, decisions.

The most difficult aspect for teachers is how to assess some of the skills promoted by CfE. Presently, there is a great deal of wooliness, a state of affairs that causes much angst in teachers and parents. There will be disquiet when more problems with CfE surface.