Education debate "academic"
Caught a splendid little quiz on the wireless last week. On 大象传媒 Radio Scotland, of course.
Tuned in midway so I鈥檓 not quite certain of the format but it seemed that school pupils were pitted against adult programme guests.
The pupils - who were from the great and noble city of Dundee - performed splendidly. Their accompanying teacher sounded bright and enthusiastic.
All dandy - until the teacher was asked, en passant, aboout standards in contemporary schooling.
The habit of texting, she said, tended to compound problems in spelling and grammar. But there were 鈥渙ther methods of communication鈥 which were valid.
I understand. As a teacher, you want to encourage. You don鈥檛 want to spend every waking minute correcting spelling and syntax.
But, to be frank, those words sound to me like surrender.
Those "other methods of communication鈥 may work in a social environment.
They don鈥檛 work in the office or the wider world of employment which is likely to become more, not less, demanding with international competition.
You can use text dialect as a shorthand alternative, provided you can also deploy standard written and spoken English, consistently and well.
I thought of this today when musing over an that an OECD study has suggested reforms to Scottish education, including phasing out Standard Grade.
Our secondary schools, according to the report, are too academic and should provide earlier opportunities to pursue a trade.
I confess my spirits sank. A comparable sensation, I imagine, trickled down the collective spine of Scotland鈥檚 staff rooms.
Yet more change, yet more reform, yet another exam to be abandoned or changed. If, of course, ministers assent to these suggestions.
Let me stress that I am offering no view either way on these particular ideas, including the notion in the report that all pupils should be subject to testing.
I would merely comment that so much of this debate seems to me to be, in itself, academic. It is conducted among strata of researchers, analysts and observers.
They seem to me like eager young medical students, clustered around the bed of an ailing patient.
Enthralled, they discuss the symptoms, pore over the diagnosis, float various cures 鈥 then move on to the next bed, leaving the patient bemused and unsure.
I'm 
Comments
What do people need from primary and secondary schooling? Education - so what is education?
The most important in my experience is being able to read, write and add up, the rest of secondary for me was surival. As for it being too academic I would agree, perhaps there needs to be more subjects to expose youngsters to. I found it was later in my life that I turned to academia and saw the importance of it.
"... they discuss the symptoms, pore over the diagnosis, float various cures 鈥 then move on to the next bed, leaving the patient bemused and unsure."
Yet, as you point out, it is up to them to suggest, up to parliament to debate and set policy, and up to government to implement. If all three corners of the triangle stick to their job and think critically at all times then the patient (Scottish education) should get the best treatment available.
Constant reform is always painful, that's true, but education in the 21st century is in a state of flux. The employment world is changing rapidly, employment prospects are changing rapidly, and the way in which we conduct business is continuing to change rapidly. Education must follow. The moment education stops attempting to keep up to date is the moment we fall behind better educated countries such as Sweden or Finland.
Of course, it's difficult to balance. Without testing, we can't know how well we or the students are doing. Too much testing does nobody any good.
A sensible education system must strive to teach the students *how* to learn, and to *enjoy* learning. That's not to say that everybody will find every subject interesting (nay, quite the opposite will still be true), but everybody should be encouraged to engage in the subjects/activities they *do* find interesting. (Of course, this should be founded in a bedrock of mathematics, english, sciences, secondary languages, and some balanced religious education to broaden the viewpoints and horizons of the Youth of Today.)
People naturally enjoy learning about things that they enjoy. Perhaps encouraging this might help lessen the culture we have of school being "boring", thus helping everybody's prospects out in the long run.
Just a thought.
Hi Brian,
My first reaction was like yours. I was feeling a little edgy about forthcoming changes.
Your medical metaphor intrigued me. Should the educational system keep taking the same tablets, or should it change to something else? If the present tablets are those of mediocrity and inappropriateness, then shouldn't the education department be seeking a better way forward. Better that than saying let's do it this way because that's how it's always been.
Doesn't the word educate come from the Latin educare -- to lead or to draw? Surely educationalists should be taking the lead and drawing on reflective practice and pedagogical theory to find the best way forward. IF that means a new prescription, then Amen.
Teachers are the unsuspecting enemies within our education system and have been since the 1970s; teachers feel that only they know how education needs to be structured yet they speak from their closeted safe and inwardly looking cocoons that are today鈥檚 education establishments.
Very few teachers have real experience of the real world so how valid is their claim that they alone know what is required to prepare their charges for that 鈥榥asty outside world鈥 that teachers have only read about?
If our aim is to produce a balanced workforce from our schools and colleges we require training to be commensurate with those ideals; there is no point false claims that all students should get the chance to go to university when the reality is that at best less than 30% of students could be capable to complete courses in the serious subjects to be studied in further and higher education.
1) All pupils should be treated as individuals, subsequently each should be educated at a level commensurate with their abilities.
2) Teachers have to decide whether they are educators or peers of the pupils; teachers cannot be friends of the pupils, teachers who feel they are friends of their pupils are deluding themselves, I would suggest in situations such as this it is the pupils who are in control.
3) Teachers will never gain the respect of their pupils if the merely try to befriend them; this will be seen as a sign of weakness of the teacher to be exploited.
4) What we require is a tiered level of education; there must be a reintroduction of vocational studies, if nothing else to let pupils get their hands dirty in work related routines, equally teachers must be honest with pupils, all pupils will not all become managers.
5) Much of class disruption is to cover struggling pupil鈥檚 inadequacies, many pupils are struggling at the levels they are being taught, rather than admit they are out of their depth they choose to disrupt in order they are not included and if they do not succeed they in many cases go the whole hog and push the exclusion destruction buttons.
6) Teachers who feel there are more important things than spelling, syntax and numeracy should be hounded out of the education system, for it is they who are the failures.
Bang on Brian. The educational establishment and "experts" in Scotland have had a field day in "improving" Scottish education for the last ten years. You name it...our troubles were over. All would be cured by Higher Still, 5-14 and now the Curriculum for Excellence. Formative assessment (get the kids to mark their own work, get the kids to teach each other, there is no such thing as a wrong answer....yes folks, I was told that at a recent inservice!)is the latest and coming to a school near you. The result...look at the OECD report. The "experts" are now an industry curing the problems they created. Cynical teacher? You bet!
Peter of Fife (post 4)
Loved your closing comments about the importance of spelling, syntax and numeracy.
Care to check your use of the apostrophe in point 5? Should it not be " pupils' "?
Still, you'll know best.
To Peter of Fife (post 4)
Loved your closing comments about the importance of spelling, syntax and numeracy.
Care to check your use of the apostrophe in point 5? Should it not be " pupils' "?
Still, you'll know best.
Peter of Fife
Teachers don't live in the real world? They don't have life experience?
Come on these people (teachers) have an incredible difficult job. Teachers teach, are subject to know it all charlatans from the general public who think they know best. They are under scrutiny from the government.
The teachers that I know are amazingly dedicated people. I recommend reading, "What Keeps Teachers Going?", by Sonia Nieto. Maybe you will get a different view of the teaching profession. Also, check out the TES website -- you will be astounded at the dedication, hope, energy that these people display. These are not people locked up in ivory towers -- these are people living in a pedagogical word that is often harsh and challenging.
"I would merely comment that so much of this debate seems to me to be, in itself, academic. It is conducted among strata of researchers, analysts and observers.
They seem to me like eager young medical students, clustered around the bed of an ailing patient.
Enthralled, they discuss the symptoms, pore over the diagnosis, float various cures 鈥 then move on to the next bed, leaving the patient bemused and unsure."
Well said. Your observations are spot on. Unfortunately however, this has been happening for decades. These so-called "education experts" are more concerned with their career prospects than they are with children's education. It's about time the teacher's were allowed to teach and the "experts" were dumped!.
It's easy: back the the Qualifying Exam to separate wheat from the worst of the chaff at age 11. Another split after two years at an old style Senior Secondary, "hothouse" the memainder, but no more than 10% going to university.
But no failures in the system. Junior secondaries can provide the basis for much needed trade and craft preparation for the less academic, who just don't want the ordeal of French, science theory or high maths.
Equality of opportunity for all, but a recognition of limitations in most people.
Very few jobs actually require a degree. But it's easier to get than, say, a plumber.
It's not difficult to see where the problems lie. Most secondary teachers have never earned a living outside of education and have no idea what the outside world expects, so the system passes pupils through higher exams when their spelling and grammar are so bad that any serious application forms they write will be immediately rejected. This ignorance of the outside world also leads to people complaining about pupils and students taking part-time jobs, when, in reality, the slightest experience is worth more than a battery of indifferent qualifications. Many teachers, particularly many of those who went to school after about 1985 (I am of that generation) have never been taught grammar, so can't pass it on. The existence of sub-basic skills 'qualifications' (Foundation, the Accesses) means that the profession can kid itself that no-one fails and therefore we risk nothing by having extremely low expectations of the weaker pupils. These qualifictions, as far as I can see, exist largely to protect the jobs of over-specialised subject teachers. Bottom sets (and hidden bottom sets within mixed ability classs) spread around the school fill teachers' timetables, acting in our interest. If the system acted in the interest of the pupils, they would be in basic skills classes, learning something useful.
Finally, for many years the public has swallowed the myth that Scottish education is the best in the world. In reality, for those who do not go to university (about 70%), it provides little that is useful. Our national skill levels are very low, which is why we can't hold onto manufacturing jobs (high wages are only a problem if you're not productive). Too many of us view the skilled trades as dumping grounds for pupils who behave badly, leading to a massive failure rate among skillseekers and a country that must import its tradesmen or fail to build its national infrastructure and housing.
Thank goodness we are finally focusing on the basics.