What do you want from your school? If your school was a restaurant, would it be Aria, or would it be McDonald's?
My wife and I are fans of Aria. The degustation menu is an experience like no other. A group of passionate people, led by a visionary, have worked very hard to create something truly mind-blowing.
At Aria, freedom to innovate results in a sublime experience. At McDonald’s standardisation rules.
If Matt Moran was a teacher, I suspect that he’d have left the profession long ago. Standardisation dulls creativity. It feels safe, but it kills initiative. Programs that attempt to raise standards simply add paperwork. The requirements are mind-numbing. Do you want a teacher with a numb mind?
In Alan Moore’s 2011 book, No Straight Lines, he describes the outcome of this way of thinking on education.
“Government edicts describe in several educational courses not just the scope of the learning but the minute-by-minute, blow-by-blow instructions as to exactly how lessons are to be run. If anyone is good at their job, are they going to want to work like that?”
If you stood behind Matt Moran, telling him how to cook, he would be pretty cranky (he’s a big guy, so I wouldn't try it). If you do it to teachers, they become discouraged and move their creative efforts elsewhere. Matt Moran, Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay are all excellent cooks. Their excellence is derived from their individuality and creativity. Would you tell them how to cook? Would you tell them to comply to a bewildering set of criteria that have little to do with their day to day work and have been shown to have no substantive benefit to the desired outcome?
Let teachers teach. Provide them with resources and get out of their way. Train them meaningfully and give opportunity to improve if there are problems.
Incidentally, in preparation for this post, I typed “Why teachers” into Google. Before I could type “quit”, Google suggested the word “drink”.
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