Sorry nanabev, I can't agree with that at all. We got a much better education in my day, the 50s, than any of my kids have had through our schools. This despite class sizes in the 40s. Our kids had classes down to below 25 at times, but with incompetent lazy teachers, this was no help at all.

If we had not been able to help, in some subjects, & been able to afford the necessary coaching, by competant people in other areas, our kids would be as poorly educated as most of their peers.

So true Dasyton, you would not give many of today's primary school teachers a job stacking shelves in a supermarket, it would be beyond their capacity.

We had great teachers. Not only did they know their subjects, they wanted to share their knowledge. Two of my kids had a senior math C teacher who could not have passed any exam on the subject. A friend, a biology teacher, resigned when told he was to teach senior math C, a subject he did not understand. He was horrified when told to "just muddle through".

Yes as with the Finns, it was only the very good who got a teacher’s scholarship to Uni You needed at least a couple of first class honors to get a company scholarship for any subject, so many top students took the teachers scholarship, & served their 5 years teaching that entailed. Many stayed on & were really great teachers. Today it is one of the last options ticked

Hasbeen, we are the same vintage, & mostly agree re our education system.
We differ where the blame lies. ??Teaching subjects outside their training ?? unruly and physically abusive bullying students with knives and weapons including furniture in class. Teachers NOW have children with medium to severe degrees of learning and behaviour difficulties , & children with poor social skills ( in normal courtesy or toilet & health training).
The Education Depts try many new fandangled ideas in teaching subjects (often failed ideas from the USA) on a whim, trialling them and discarding them with gay abandon. The years of my children/grandchildren's education there were 5 variations of primary school math. University lecturers of all sciences & maths based courses, have complained for years that students High Schools assessment requiring flowing essays on subjects that need answering with clear dot point presentations of the facts, have 'lost' real maths/science oriented students who often dont excel at english. NOT TEACHERS CHOICE, and now, new teachers are products of their poor education system
English in trouble... Education Depts instructions over the years ...ignore correct spelling, then reading became a memory test with flash cards, no instruction how to read a word you have never learnt before, then grammar became a no no, as well as punctuation. What's left of the English language after that!
Many other subjects have been similarly maltreated.
THE TUG OF WAR, BETWEEN DIFFERING IDEALISTIC FACTIONS IN THE STATE EDUCATION DEPARTMENTS, IS AT FAULT, AND NOW THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS ENTERING THE FRAY AS WELL.
Also the inordinate amount of teacher time needed for form filling for statistics, health and safety, (school trip organisation is a real nightmare)ETC.

I agree... sad standards, students in high school & cant read( cant upset & tell a parent in plain english that their primary school child is not coping). I also believe there is too much "fluffy" stuff in the first years . A child who reads competently can broaden their own education and will enjoy learning enthusiastically and confidently. SO READING AND WRITING COMPETENCY SHOULD HAVE THE MAXIMUM EARLY ATTENTION.

The campaign to make teacher’s working lives worse by increasing class sizes needs to be resisted. I have dealt with many of the issues at http://community.tes.co.uk/forums/t/576719.aspx?PageIndex=22

nannabev wrote 5 March 2013 8:49:35 AM:

>Tomw the only situation where class size is not relevant is if exams are set as multiple choice questions marked by computer technology.

No, research has shown that class size does not improve student learning, in classrooms with teachers, face-to-face. The research also shows that e-learning is just as effective as face-to-face teaching, but that is a separate issue.

> Any education situation, such as in primary and early secondary school, where personal mentoring, individual guidance and marking of assessments, provision of social training and parenting ...

Yes, I teach postgraduate professional courses at university where those issues are still important. But they have little to do with "class size".

>... IMMEDIATELY DEMANDS A CAP ON CLASS SIZES, otherwise there will be little time to actually teach !

You appear to be confusing class size with the number of students per teacher. In "Educating Gen Wi-Fi: How We Can Make Schools Relevant for 21st Century Learners" (ABC Books, 2013) Australian educator Greg Whitby provides a practical prescription for better education: http://blog.tomw.net.au/2013/02/making-schools-relevant-for-next.html

Much of Greg approach is the same as being implemented at university.

The main thing is to get rid of all the political correctness & bring back streaming.

My teachers had no difficulty with large classes, but the disruptive elements distributed through out classes today, were all off doing woodwork, or agricultural studies, or some such. Not only were they much happier, doing something they could see some point in, & enjoy, & therefor much less disruptive, my teacher had 40 kids, but 40 kids who wanted to get a good result at exam time.

Yes that's right, real exams, with real marks, & actual places in the class.

Part of the reason I did 3 honors was that it allowed me to drop history. I hated history, & was always near the bottom of the class, as you would expect. I did not like that, much better doing physics honors, which was hard, but I was one of the top students.

So class size in no problem, when the kids in the class are there to learn, & because they want to be there.