A two way street
“If a pupil gains valuable knowledge, for instance in history, but does not get a grade four [C], they will still be better educated for having studied it.”
Amanda Spielman, the head of Ofsted, recently gave a speech in which she repeated the call for disadvantaged pupils to not be denied an academic education.
And who could disagree with that - we don't want to deny anybody an education do we?
Yet I notice this is a one way street. We don't want to deny disadvantaged students an academic education but we are quite happy to deny advantaged students a vocational education.
It is fine to come out of school able to identify pathetic fallacy in romantic poetry but unable to put up a shelf or cook a meal but not the reverse. Why?
It clearly isn't due to utility of knowledge, the financial payback over a lifetime (compare the earnings of a qualified tradesman to an English teacher) so it must be cultural.
And whose culture is it? Debates rage over the contents of the curriculum, behaviour policies, difficulty, teacher training, how much "fun" should be allowed in the classroom but this debate is pretty much entirely driven by those who enjoyed, succeeded and return to work in education.
What about those (50% don't go to university, 15% with no qualifications at all) for whom academia doesn't appeal? Where are their voices in the debate? Does anybody consider their point of view?
Do we just tell them they lack grit, character, growth mindset?
If learning to cope with failure is so great why do we only inflict it on the left hand side of the academic success distribution curve? Talk to anybody who flourished at school and ask them about the thing the didn't enjoy, and didn't come naturally to them, and often you get "Oh I hated PE, it was humiliating coming in last in every event". That is what 95% of the time table is like for some of your former classmates.
I was once involved in a quiz in which a lot of very academically successful Oxbridge types participated. There were the usual rounds of questions; geography, history, culture, sport and there were lots of happy faces and nodding as answers were agreed upon. Then came the unusually long popular culture round with questions on X-Factor winners, I'm a Celebrity etc. All of a sudden the questions were deemed to be rubbish, it was a waste of time, people got very disruptive, nobody could possibly know or care about something so trivial. All these people who would have been star pupils in their school life and praised for their knowledge suddenly didn't know how to behave when they didn't know the answer. "Sorry I actually have a life". As if anything at the bottom of their hierarchy of knowledge is irrelevant and inferior.
Now I'm not saying X-Factor and I'm a Celebrity should be part of any national curriculum, but I am saying that I believe the academic pupils would benefit from stepping outside their comfort zone. It isn't healthy to only experience praise or to thrive at everything. You can't promote growth mindset and grit for the struggling but allow those who are thriving a diet of only praise.
My solution would be a complete realignment of priorities in education so that practical skills/knowledge became far more prominent in education from 4-16 at least. I'd want at least 2 of 5 days dedicated to physical activities, practical construction and engineering, cooking, health, social care, drama, art, music, debate and much, much more. If that means less time for classic literature and advanced mathematics I'd take it. I believe increasing the amount of joy, and exposing children to a wide variety of experiences is more important than a slight increase in attainment in formal studies. In fact I don't believe there would even be an overall drop in formal academic outcomes at 18. PISA outcomes tend to cluster in the western world whatever the school system. The main reason this won't happen is financial. Far cheaper to have classroom based learning and cram children into office block conversions than offer a rounded education.
But maybe one day we'll be able to throw open those workshop doors, get digging those foundations, care for the young and the old, fire up those woks and unblock those drains. Get a better mix of the academic and the vocational and make it a two way street. Show kids how everyone has something worthwhile to offer, how you don't have to be the best at everything and how to respect and appreciate other people.
Amanda Spielman, the head of Ofsted, recently gave a speech in which she repeated the call for disadvantaged pupils to not be denied an academic education.
And who could disagree with that - we don't want to deny anybody an education do we?
Yet I notice this is a one way street. We don't want to deny disadvantaged students an academic education but we are quite happy to deny advantaged students a vocational education.
It is fine to come out of school able to identify pathetic fallacy in romantic poetry but unable to put up a shelf or cook a meal but not the reverse. Why?
It clearly isn't due to utility of knowledge, the financial payback over a lifetime (compare the earnings of a qualified tradesman to an English teacher) so it must be cultural.
And whose culture is it? Debates rage over the contents of the curriculum, behaviour policies, difficulty, teacher training, how much "fun" should be allowed in the classroom but this debate is pretty much entirely driven by those who enjoyed, succeeded and return to work in education.
What about those (50% don't go to university, 15% with no qualifications at all) for whom academia doesn't appeal? Where are their voices in the debate? Does anybody consider their point of view?
Do we just tell them they lack grit, character, growth mindset?
If learning to cope with failure is so great why do we only inflict it on the left hand side of the academic success distribution curve? Talk to anybody who flourished at school and ask them about the thing the didn't enjoy, and didn't come naturally to them, and often you get "Oh I hated PE, it was humiliating coming in last in every event". That is what 95% of the time table is like for some of your former classmates.
I was once involved in a quiz in which a lot of very academically successful Oxbridge types participated. There were the usual rounds of questions; geography, history, culture, sport and there were lots of happy faces and nodding as answers were agreed upon. Then came the unusually long popular culture round with questions on X-Factor winners, I'm a Celebrity etc. All of a sudden the questions were deemed to be rubbish, it was a waste of time, people got very disruptive, nobody could possibly know or care about something so trivial. All these people who would have been star pupils in their school life and praised for their knowledge suddenly didn't know how to behave when they didn't know the answer. "Sorry I actually have a life". As if anything at the bottom of their hierarchy of knowledge is irrelevant and inferior.
Now I'm not saying X-Factor and I'm a Celebrity should be part of any national curriculum, but I am saying that I believe the academic pupils would benefit from stepping outside their comfort zone. It isn't healthy to only experience praise or to thrive at everything. You can't promote growth mindset and grit for the struggling but allow those who are thriving a diet of only praise.
My solution would be a complete realignment of priorities in education so that practical skills/knowledge became far more prominent in education from 4-16 at least. I'd want at least 2 of 5 days dedicated to physical activities, practical construction and engineering, cooking, health, social care, drama, art, music, debate and much, much more. If that means less time for classic literature and advanced mathematics I'd take it. I believe increasing the amount of joy, and exposing children to a wide variety of experiences is more important than a slight increase in attainment in formal studies. In fact I don't believe there would even be an overall drop in formal academic outcomes at 18. PISA outcomes tend to cluster in the western world whatever the school system. The main reason this won't happen is financial. Far cheaper to have classroom based learning and cram children into office block conversions than offer a rounded education.
But maybe one day we'll be able to throw open those workshop doors, get digging those foundations, care for the young and the old, fire up those woks and unblock those drains. Get a better mix of the academic and the vocational and make it a two way street. Show kids how everyone has something worthwhile to offer, how you don't have to be the best at everything and how to respect and appreciate other people.
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