Primary Education & Post Plowden Legacy :: essays research papers

Primary educational activity & Post Plowden LegacySubject Primary Education & Post Plowden LegacyINTRODUCTIONThe task assigned was to read exclusively six chapters provided, select one and producea critique on the subject matter. The chapter selected was number six whichanalysed pupils and work. Firstly I press to presently summarise the entirechapter, highlighting the argonas which I considered to be the most important,these areas forget then be examined in depth and their merits or shortcomingsdiscussed.Firstly a summary of the chapter is needed to put into context the areas that bequeath be discussed later. The all told chapter can be split into two main areas ofdiscourse- relationships and work and duologue.As there has been little research into pupils approaches to schoolwork, the generators chief concern is that of the pupils perceptions of , and approaches to,schoolwork, and the first distributor point s/he makes is that there are differences amongst teachers and pup ils ideas of what constitutes worthwhile work. Theauthor sets out to define the meaning of work and in doing so draws ourattention to differences between pleasurable work and labour. Workmanship,it is argued, has been replaced by unskilled labour and people now work as ameans to an end seeking enjoyment through different avenues such as hobbies andrecreation.Teaching methods and school ethos in general are seen as outmoded and alien tothe cultural and social influences on pupils. Therefore, there is greaterresponsibility on the teacher to make work expect more utilitarian and attractive.Research revealed that many pupils felt that work was spare and invalidunless it was undertaken in preparation for forthcoming exams. However, workthat may be deemed pointless or onerous by both sets of pupils (exam and non-exam) could be wedded validity by the teaching strategy employed. Pupils seemedto be more interested with the status of the work and their personal relationshipwith the teache r, therefore the pupil reaction to any given task dependedheavily on these two criteria. It is determine that pupil-teacherrelationships are extremely important and they contain many concealed aspectswhich will be discussed in Part 1.A prevalent feature of pupil-teacher relationships is the negotiation that takesplace and teachers will offer incentives to pupils in order to encourage the growth of work. It is interesting to look at the way in which teachers can utilise their experience and maturity to manipulate or cajole pupils intoperforming a given task, and this will be examined in Part 2.PART 1 - RELATIONSHIPS & WORKThe first key issue in this chapter that I wish to examine is that of pupil