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Teachers should stop calling bright pupils “clever” for fear they might not be thought “cool” by classmates.
So, according to the BBC today, says the Professional Association of Teachers (PAT).
Having last year demanded that the word “failure” be replaced with “deferred success”, this year Simon Smith, a teacher from Essex, will tell their conference:
If we were to use the word ’successful’ rather than ‘clever’ we could all achieve it at our own level and in our own way.
I suppose it was only a matter of time before this lunatic fringe had another go at undermining the brightest pupils. Kids have not been allowed to be ‘dim’ for a long time. They are not allowed to be ‘different’. They are not allowed to be ‘individual’. And now they don’t want them to be ‘clever’.
It’s true that being clever, bright and intelligent can potentially lead to a difficult time at school. The not so clever kids have had it drummed into them that they can achieve whatever they want to achieve because, little Jimmy, “You’re not dim – you’re just deferring success”. It must come as a shock to many of them to discover that there really are genuinely cleverer kids than them. They are almost encouraged to mock the bright ones as ‘uncool’ because they have been indoctrinated with the belief that ‘deferred success’ is the very pinnacle of coolness itself.
The world desperately needs clever kids. We should be nurturing intelligence. We should be setting higher and higher challenges for the intellectually able. We should be letting their intellect soar to new heights and teachers everywhere should be rejoicing at the few truly gifted kids that cross their paths. We need clever kids to grow up into clever adults to help us solve the problems of the future. That’s what clever people do. The rest of us? We sit and wait for the clever ones to do it for us.
It’s “Politically Correct”. Basically, if you stop telling stupid people that they are stupid and intelligent people that they are intelligent, you “could” possibly help to make everyone “normal”
That’s what you get when you have too much time and too many lawyers.
Hi stabani:
The question is who the hell in heir right mind would want everyone to be the same?
“equality for all”
ps: liking the new comments formatting
PC and equality my arse. What’s ‘normal’ anyway. I was furious with the ‘deferred success’ label suggestion. I’ve worked with kids who quite honestly will never get a GCSE even if the continue to try til their hair turns grey. For the most part, there are things that they are good at and they should be encouraged to nurture that. Not everyone is academically minded just as not everyone is good at the practical stuff. But the idea that it’s not cool to be clever and stupidity is a goal is just plain wrong and this is just reinforcing the idea. Clever is as clever does and PAT seem to prefer being PC cool rather than smart.