Max,
I can't remember it being discussed much in the UK media - probably
nobody cares - I certainly can't see Daily Mail readers caring beyond
the expected initial 'How awful, culture's gone down the drain, and
aren't our teachers crap' etc.
There are so many different issues going on behind this that I don't
know where to start. But notice the contradiction in the article -
compare this
"A report by Ofsted has warned that classic poems are disappearing
from schools
>
> in favour of nonsense verse and rhymes that are easy for children to
> imitate.
> It said 'too few' poems were 'genuinely challenging' and only a
> small minority
> use poems such as Daffodils by William Wordsworth or Robert
> Browning's The Pied
> Piper of Hamelin."
with this
"The former Children's Laureate, Michael Rosen, has warned that poetry
is being
>
> squeezed out of primary schools by the demands of testing and Ofsted
> inspections.... etc"
They can't both be right? Can they? Each is essentially talking about
the other. Here we have two completely different notions of the
importance of poetry, and each of these notions has both an ideology
behind it and a structural network to propagate itself. The structural
network of Ofsted is in the ascendance, but once it was Rosen's notion
that was the prevailing ideology. And teachers are in the middle of
this. I am simplifying, but don't blame the teachers because this is
not down to them.
Tim A.
On 8 Apr 2010, at 21:49, Max Richards wrote:
> [I spose this was discussed better in other UK media...? how's it
> going now?]
>
> More than half of primary teachers 'are unable to name three poets'
> By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
> Last updated at 8:36 AM on 9th October 2009
>
> More than half of primary school teachers cannot name more than two
> poets, a
> study has shown.
> Research found 58 per cent could name either one, two or none at all.
> The study, by academics at the Open University, Cambridge and
> Reading, warned
> that teachers' 'very limited' knowledge of poetry is damaging
> children's reading
> skills.
>
> Dead poets society: An alarming study has found that half of primary
> school
> teachers 'are unable to name three poets'
> They found 22 per cent of 1,200 teachers quizzed could name no poets
> at all.
> Just 10 per cent were able to mention six - the number they were
> asked to name
> by researchers.
> The findings emerged after a separate study revealed how comics and
> magazines
> have overtaken story books and poems as children's favourite reading
> matter.
>
> More...
> Scottish pupils fall behind English counterparts... despite costing
> £1,400 more
> per student
>
> Both reports will deepen concern over 'dumbing down' following a
> damning world
> league table which exposed falling reading standards among England's
> ten-year-
> olds.
> In just five years, our schools fell from third to 19th in a table
> of reading
> achievement.
> Research commissioned by the UK Literacy Association showed many
> teachers when
> asked to name poets, found it not an 'easy task'.
> Most mentioned authors whose verse 'might be seen as light-hearted
> or humorous',
> such as Spike Milligan.
> Judith Palmer, director of the Poetry Society, told the BBC: 'There
> are
> obviously an awful lot of young people writing and reading poetry,
> with teachers
> encouraging them.
> 'However, there are also a lot of teachers who do not know and
> understand poetry
> and can't then communicate it.'
>
> The research found that not many primary school teachers could name
> William
> Wordsworth as a poet
> Research commissioned by the UK Literacy Association found that
> while teachers
> enjoy reading for pleasure, they have a 'relatively restricted
> repertoire'.
> They were found to rely on a 'limited range of authors when it comes
> to
> classroom practice and are not therefore in a strong position to
> recommend texts
> to young readers'.
> A report by Ofsted has warned that classic poems are disappearing
> from schools
> in favour of nonsense verse and rhymes that are easy for children to
> imitate.
> It said 'too few' poems were 'genuinely challenging' and only a
> small minority
> use poems such as Daffodils by William Wordsworth or Robert
> Browning's The Pied
> Piper of Hamelin.
> The former Children's Laureate, Michael Rosen, has warned that
> poetry is being
> squeezed out of primary schools by the demands of testing and Ofsted
> inspections.
> He demanded a curriculum for poetry because it was currently being
> 'frozen' in
> the 'ice' of Government literacy policies.
> Teachers covered it superficially by using poetry collections which
> ticked the
> required boxes in the National Literacy Strategy, he said.
> And staff were under pressure to follow the 'implied requirements of
> SATs and
> the demands of Ofsted'.
> But poetry needed to be 'on the walls, in assemblies, in corners and
> in the
> books'.
> The row emerged as a BBC poll, which attracted 18,000 votes, named
> TS Eliot as
> the nation's favourite poet.
> The American-born writer inspired the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical,
> Cats, and is
> also famous for penning The Waste Land and The Love Song of J Alfred
> Prufrock.
>
>
> Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1219130/More-half-primary-
> teachers-unable-poets.html#ixzz0kXogruKi
>
>
>
>
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