Just watched the Attitude programme on Dean Buckley.  What a remarkable young man!  He ought to know however that lacking confidence, low self esteem, and inability to speak on the spot are challenges that are faced by many others in the world as well.  I couldn't speak publicly with confidence or say"boo"to a goose until I was in my early thirties.  I still struggle to think on my feet. If you haven't watched this episode go to TVONE Attitude 

How incredibly difficult to have to tackle the hearing world at school, set such tough challenges for himself and be afraid of coming out as gay!

Al;l credit to him and his family and to the attitude team for such an honest portayal.

"Normalising" and "standardising" the most dangerous and misleading strategies we use in education.

When each of my three sons were born, we enrolled them with Plunket. This is an organisation that has been in existence since the 1940s and was designed to help young parents (mothers) with the development and health of their young families.  One of the key aspects was measurement; weight, and length.  This was then plotted against "normal" growth graphs.  Now, none of our three sons grew at normal rates. This was the cause of much (unnecessary) angst by my wife who wondered what she was doing wrong!  The simple reality of course was that these boys were healthy and growing at their own rates and have grown to be healthy young men.  Had there been any need for help, or concern this would have been obvious in just by knowing the individual, not by benchmarking against an arbitrary "normal"graph!

To really help children learn and develop, we have to lose the obsession with data and attempts to measure value add!  These are not designed to enhance learning of students, but rather an ill informed attempt by the purveyors of the market economy to have teachers stump up.

Reality is, the value a teacher adds is largely immeasurable.

Why don't we use evidence to inform education policy?

Simple, all current reform is based on false beliefs centred not around what works for students but around economics and the flawed belief that the data from test results can indicate the "value" a teacher has added to a students life!!