Targets under fire
Thu, 03 Nov 2011 14:11:00 GMT
TARGET and league table culture is damaging Britain’s educational institutions, in the opinion of Christine Jarvis (pictured), who is Dean of the School of Education and Professional Development at the University of Huddersfield.
Newly-appointed a professor, she heads one of the UK’s largest Schools of Education, with 5,000 students. Competition to join courses is intense – with some 500 applications for every 20 places in some cases. This means that Professor Jarvis questions Government assertions that recruits to teacher training have poor qualifications.
“Teacher-training is an incredibly popular option and we have to be very, very selective. To gain a place on a course, students have to be of the right calibre. And it is not just about academic ability, because the interview counts for a great deal. Students have to demonstrate that they have a genuine interest in children and young people,” said Professor Jarvis.
But all too often the scope for trained teachers to respond imaginatively and effectively to the needs of students is held back by league table culture.
“As soon as you have league tables, measuring institutions against specific criteria, then they have to focus on those whether they believe they are right for students or not, because the penalties are so severe otherwise. We work closely with schools and colleges and we have some superb partners. Teachers do amazing things with and for their students. But they are hindered by restrictions in the curriculum and by the need to hit narrowly-defined and ever-changing targets.
Professor Jarvis is also surprised by the common belief that teachers are not trained to manage student behaviour. Blaming teachers for lack of discipline is common, but in fact “we give trainee teachers all kinds of strategies for how to control and organise classes and schools and colleges are often havens of calm and order for children and young people whose home lives may be more troubled,” she says.
“But if students have no sense of order or discipline at home, teachers face huge challenges getting them to concentrate and behave appropriately when they are in education. Issues relating to behaviour are issues for the whole of society, not just for teachers.”
Professor Jarvis came to the University of Huddersfield in 2006, having previously been Head of Education and Humanities at Sheffield Hallam University. Grimsby-born, she had wide -ranging teaching experience before moving into Higher Education.
As a researcher and innovator she has pioneered the use of popular fiction in her teaching including romantic fiction plus books, TV shows and films about teen vampires.
It was when she was teaching in the Further Education sector in the early 1990s that she began to develop her interest in using fiction and popular culture to engage people’s interests.
“I discovered that some of the people I was teaching felt that what they enjoyed reading, usually popular fiction, was some kind of guilty secret. But such material is a very rich source for analysis and for engaging with themes about social change. So I began to use the kinds of texts that people were reading on an everyday basis and using them to analysis wider social issues.”
As a result, Professor Jarvis’s list of publications includes articles on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, and how witches and Wicca are represented on contemporary teen fiction. Currently she is completing a conference paper on Bella Swan, heroine of the wildly popular “Twilight” series of vampire novels and movies.
Professor Jarvis has also researched TV and film and is just about to work with childhood studies students on the use of fairy tales.
Her innovative approach and deep interest in widening access to education led to Professor Jarvis being awarded a coveted National Teaching Fellowship in 2010.
