Quando a Escola exige demasiado dos seus actores

For many people the highlight of 2008 has been the Beijing Olympics, where the athletic elite of this country competed against the rest of the world and succeeded magnificently. It certainly impressed me, particularly as I reached my athletic peak at the age of 11 and have not really progressed much further since then.

Luckily most people accept that each person has an upper limit of achievement in sports and are quite content to allow them to continue to enjoy taking part at whatever level suits them - no one pushes a pub footballer to play in the Premier League. But unfortunately the same sort of thinking does not apply when it comes to academic achievement. The idea that some people are not capable of achieving A levels or degrees is deemed to be not just incorrect but also morally wrong. Anyone who says this is held to be elitist, a viewpoint that would be laughable if expressed in the context of professional sport. Such views are spreading downwards from ministers through the education system. Many school heads and deputies are beginning to follow this misguided philosophy.

The comprehensive secondary school in which I work serves as an example of the effect that this thinking is having. There, the education of the students is being twisted in order to hit preconceived targets that bear little resemblance to reality.

Fonte:

STANDPOINT