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Eric Kalenze

The melody of education: what should we be accountable for?

2015-10-08T09:25:46+01:00October 6th, 2015|leadership|

Not every end is a goal. The end of a melody is not its goal; but nonetheless, if the melody had not reached its end, it would not have reached its goal. A parable. Nietzsche This is the third in a series of posts about what I'm calling Intelligent Accountability. Peter Blenkinsop pointed out that a problem with holding teachers to account for their professional judgments is that we may not all be playing the same melody. I've written before about the battleground that is the purpose of education. The problem with trusting schools and teachers to do what's right is that we [...]

How do we know if a teacher’s any good?

2020-07-23T15:07:13+01:00May 9th, 2015|leadership|

Obviously enough, not all teachers are equal. But how do we know which ones are any cop? Well, we just do, don't we? Everyone in a school community tends to know who's doing a decent job. But how do we know? Rightly, most school leaders feel it important to evaluate the effectiveness of their staff, but how can they go about this in a way that's fair, valid and reliable? Over the past year or so I've spent a fair bit of time explaining why lesson observation cannot be used to evaluate effective teaching. Mostly, the message has been received and understood. [...]

A few thoughts about character education

2015-05-10T14:42:51+01:00April 27th, 2015|leadership|

The idea that schools should be educating students' character has been gathering momentum in recent years. But the once distant drums have become increasingly urgent; politicians and professors, hucksters and headteachers, all kinds of apparatchiks - even the occasional edu-blogger - have all waded into the debate. Unusually for me, I've mainly stood back, listened and pondered. Last year I visited Kings Leadership Academy in Warrington and although I was hugely impressed by much of what I saw, philosophically I tend towards the belief that teaching character isn't really what I think education is about. But until now, I haven't really been [...]

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