Let them read books…

1001 books you must read before you die. That’s equivalent to about just 10 a year if you live to be 100?

There’s been a lively debate recently about Mr Gove’s suggestion that all children should read 50 books a year. This presents some interesting problems, not the least how the books will be selected, who will pay for them and how each child’s reading will be monitored, and of course, most importantly, assessed. How long will it be before the smartest children simply buy a copy of ’1001 books you must read before you die’, which neatly summarises each one?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/1001-Books-Must-Read-Before/dp/1844034178/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1302461606&sr=1-2

or as one reviewer has put it:

‘you don’t have to actually read all those classic and influential novels, because this superb reference book provides enough information in itself to give the reader an excellent literary overview. With this single volume, you can avoid feeling that you’ve read so much that dying might be a merciful release from all that goddamned literature; instead, each pleasantly brief entry provides enough to grasp the essence of the book in question’.

Meanwhile for the less ambitious, there’s always ’501 must-read’ books. That’s just 5 a year…
http://www.amazon.co.uk/501-Must-Read-Books/dp/0753713438/ref=reg_hu-rd_dp_img

Of course another really good solution might be to equip every child with an iPad-type touch tablet, loaded with the 550 books they are expected to read as they move through school (or 650 if they stay on to the Sixth Form).

And why exactly 50 a year one wonders? According to the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/mar/22/gove-50-books-children-laureate
it seems Mr Gove picked up on the idea while visiting the USA, so we can safely assume it’s been worked out as one a week, stupid. Err.. does that mean children are excused from reading a book during Christmas week and Easter week then, or….?

It’s a sad reflection that something that is actually potentially worthwhile ends up being widely ridiculed just because it’s been said by an education minister whose pronouncements can only now be read as a bit of a joke…

Educashun still isn’t working

I was recently clearing out some old papers from the loft when I came across a newspaper cutting from the early 1980s. Entitled ‘What employers want’ it was a report of speech given by the director of the Manpower Services Commission at an NUT conference. It included a list of what employees wanted from school leavers:

• the ability to read, write and do arithmetic
• some understanding of the need to produce and sell goods at prices people could afford
• an appreciation of the need to work consistently, quickly and accurately, and to be punctual
• an understanding of the different types of jobs and industries
• the ability to communicate, to join in group discussions, and to use a phone
• the ability to produce practical solutions to everyday problems
• the capacity to learn from experience
• the ability to get on with a range of people, and to recognise the need to share knowledge and skills with them

The speaker also called for a new look at the the effect of university entry qualifications on decisions about which courses of study to follow in school ‘that go far beyond traditional academic disciplines‘. He called for subjects to be grouped with clear academic and vocational aims, and that ‘a new approach is required‘ to improve young people’s knowledge of the world of work than is covered in the traditional curricula.

Now, there’s more to education than simply preparing people for the world of work of course, but nonetheless, some thirty years later, we are still pursuing a university-led system in which vocationally-related areas of study are seen to be soft options. And the basic needs of employers are still under-valued in terms of formal assessment, particularly when one now adds in such things as team-work and flexibility. At the same time thousands of school leavers with sound academic A level qualifications are now having to look for employment instead of gaining a place at a university.

But I guess there is one thing that has improved since the early 1980s – now at least, most young people seem to know how to use a phone…

Just In Case

In my Polyunsaturated facts post I mentioned the concept of Just In Time learning, in which one only learns what one needs when it is specifically needed. Since then I came across this item in which the author interestingly discusses what he calls Just In Case education, referring to the approach in our schools of filling children up with knowledge ‘just in case’ they need it in later life.

Indeed ‘Just In Case’ is a way of life we are used to: “Eat up you lunch just in case you don’t manage to get any supper tonight”; “Buy some extra tins of soup just in case you can’t get to the shops again, or they run out”, etc.

While ‘Just In Case’ is indeed quite a good description of the rationale behind a lot of education provision, the more interesting question is how does the current model need to change to accommodate the world of information snacking?

For starters, we need a ‘must eat to survive’ course which provides everyone with the absolute essentials for life – how to read, write and do basic maths along with some basic communication and creative problem solving skills.

Then on to the main course – a ‘choose what you want and eat as much as you like’ tasty smorgasbord of interesting and unusual wider contextual knowledge and understanding of the way the world works – a general sense of language, geography, history, the science of the universe, logic and creativity, analysis and evaluation, the physical and psychological needs of ourselves and others, attitudes and values, order and chaos, risk and change, learning how to learn, etc. These are not so much pre-cooked stodgy school dinners, but more like delicious, tasty take-aways, individually chosen according to one’s tastes and dietary requirements and the needs of the local community.

And finally for dessert, the icing on the cake – a more in-depth study of a narrow range of ‘subjects’ that reveal the need for detail, accuracy and quality in life and the world of work.

Although this alternative curriculum is described here as a three course meal, there’s no need to consume them in that order or manner. Indeed there are many who suggest that six smaller meals a day is better than three large ones.

So there is no longer any ‘Just In Case’ learning here, but the foundation of a sensible diet that puts information snacking into context, and provides everyone with enough starting questions and potential sources of information to explore when the time comes.

Training Tomorrow’s Teachers Today

A recent comment on another post has raised important issues about the current provision for initial teacher training. If nothing else, we are certainly going to need a highly capable, committed and motivated workforce to deliver the appropriate and effective educational experiences that we need to start to provide in the 21st century. Which is why it was worrying to read the account of an ITT lecturer’s experiences of preparing tomorrow’s teachers today. Are five A*-C GCSEs and three C grade GCEs enough to qualify someone to train to be a competent teacher?

Here’s what ‘Roberta’ wrote:

“After 35 years in education (secondary and higher), not including my own, I think that perhaps we do need to take a pragmatic stance on primary and secondary education. Perhaps it is for the production of employable people who will be able to take on the roles required by their employers, people who are punctual, civil, creative, responsible, curious, eager to learn new skills and information, who are literate and numerate. I am not talking about ‘factory fodder’ here, but young people who will join the professions.

Universities are now experiencing ‘bad behaviour’ amongst a large proportion of first year undergraduates, these include Primary Teacher trainees, whose antics are those that one might expect from Year 10 and 11 pupils. This inappropriate behaviour is manifesting itself in the lecture room, a situation which has never occurred before this year, with the open use of mobile phones and MP3 players, laughing and talking over the lecturer’s voice and during session tasks, absenteeism, eating and drinking (including alcohol) and complaints when asked to make contributions to teaching sessions.

Admonition is greeted with complaints that lecturers are being patronising and since the students are paying fees, they are able to do as they please.The idea that they may be disrupting the learning of others does not occur to them. Their refusal to carry out tasks, unless they contribute to formal assessment and final degree classifications, is bewildering for those of us who see learning as a continuum. The idea of engaging with learning because that is why they are attending university seems to be beyond their comprehension. This is from people with a minimum of three C grades at A level.

For the most part, these are young people who have chosen this career path, not ‘ended up’ teaching through Clearing, due to unexpectedly poor A Level grades. They are recruited to Initial Teacher Education early in the academic year before they finish secondary school and references and good predicted grades are being given by their schools. What is happening? If this is deemed to be acceptable behaviour by these young people, who are our future educators, what hope is there for those who emerge from the secondary school system barely literate and numerate with a disaffected attitude towards society?

In addition, the government’s QTS tests in English and Maths, taken towards the end of their undergraduate (and postgraduate) teacher training, are proving a really difficult hurdle for many, to the extent that Michael Gove has announced that a Conservative government would limit the number of times that they can be re-taken by trainee teachers. What is this saying about the level of education of our young people, if those with fairly decent A levels are struggling with literacy and numeracy?”

I’m reminded of a recent cartoon in which an excited sixth-former had just opened a letter offering him a place on a teacher-training course. “All I need” he is announcing to his parents ” is an A, a B and a C. And they’ll teach me the rest of the alphabet when I get there…”

So any suggestions as to how this situation needs to be changed that don’t involve the traditional reaction of  the need to get back to the good old days of formal academic education? As always I look forward to your comments…

Going for Gold

Did you see this recent news item?

2012 Olympic Games Medal Shock!

‘The Olympic Games Committee made a surprise announcement today in which it stated that in future Gold medals will only be awarded to the winners of the 100 metres, which it considers to be the only true test of an athlete. Winners of other track events that involve at least some competitive speed running will only be awarded Silver medals, while other, so called ‘soft sports’ such as pole-vaulting or horse-riding will only gain winners Bronze medals. Team games, in which it is impossible to identify a single winner, and sports that can be played professionally, such as football and boxing, will still be offered as recreational fringe events, but no medals will be awarded. A spokesperson said ‘It’s essential not to further devalue the gold standard, and we hope that this action will encourage more athletes to train for and compete in the 100 metres’.

Crazy, and of course quite untrue. Except that in the UK that’s exactly how we view the current education system – we prepare everyone for success in one event that only a small proportion of entrants are capable of succeeding in. What makes it worse is that the one event is, by definition, ‘academic’ – theoretical rather than practical. An academic is ‘a person who works as a researcher (and usually teacher) at a university, college, or similar institution in post-secondary (tertiary) education’. Why is it that we all want our children to be brilliant academics, but are quick in a discussion to dismiss an idea as being ‘academic’, i.e. of theoretical rather than any practical relevance? As a result we have a nation full of trained 100 metre runners, the vast majority of whom have no chance of ever achieving Gold, and frequently see themselves, and are also seen by potential employers, as failures and as such un-equipped  for any other event, such as work in the outside work. And how much longer will the ‘essay’ and the multiple choice question remain the main format for assessment, given that few jobs involve a great deal of essay writing or answering mcqs.

This attitude is by no means new, and has been something that as a society we have been dearly clinging on to for centuries, while other countries seem to have been able to move on and value technical and vocational education in a far more positive way. Somehow we need to bring about a major shift in the way we perceive and value education in the UK, and re-naming schools as ‘academies’, making A levels more difficult and getting more people to study subjects such as English and History to degree level is not the direction we should be going in. In just about every area of business, commerce, health, defence, housing, farming, etc., there have been changes during the past 60 years on a scale that make them unrecognisable from the way they were in the 1950s. The single exception is education where, apart from the largely inappropriate use of computers, little has altered except in name. If the UK is to remain, or even become, in any way competitive in the global market place, it’s much too late therefore for a slow, evolutionary incremental shift in public opinion and institutional structures, curriculum and teaching method. We need to think the unthinkable. Nothing less than a short, sharp revolution in needed.

I have no grand plan or costed strategy for development, but here are a few of the sort of things we ought to be currently considering:

• We need a shift away from the idea that we all attend compulsory full-time schooling between 4 and 16. It’s always struck me that the single most inappropriate environment for a 14 year old is to be required to sit still in silence for hours on end listening to adults who think they know everything.

• The traditional school structure and organisation is entirely outmoded for the modern age. We need to develop institutions that facilitate a more effective daily mix of exposure to teaching styles and learning experiences, essentially including independent learning.

• Students need to be given and take more responsibility for their own learning, utilising the innovative possibilities of innovative computer technology, rather than simply using IT to reinforce and automate traditional approaches.

• The use of the slogan “What have you learnt today?’ could be used to prompt a genuine approach to lifelong learning for all in which the act of learning something new everyday is recognised and valued by individuals and employers.

• How can all intelligences and abilities come to be seen as being equal, and none more equal than others? The emphasis on academic education is only appropriate for the roughly 5% of the population who are suited to it. We need some sort of single national award system that recognises a relevant comparative ‘gold’ standard across all courses.

• In this day and age are we really still unable to teach every child how to achieve basic standards in literacy and numeracy? Standards have improved slightly over recent years, but there’s clearly something badly wrong here that needs sorting out.

• We need to introduce of a valued certificate or ‘qualification’ of basic achievement that recognises the practical application of reading, writing and arithmetic in daily use, alongside a similarly valued certificate of personal learning and creative thinking/problem-solving skills, both taken at any age when the learner is ready.

• Currently teachers have five training days a year which are mostly spent on being introduced to new administrative procedures. There needs to be a major investment in effective and compulsory in-service training / CPD (Continuing Professional Development) for teachers to enable them to keep up-to-date with their rapidly changing subject knowledge and with the new substantially different methods of teaching and learning afforded by developments in IT.

• By narrowing the range of knowledge and understanding that is now examined we have successfully raised the number of students gaining A level passes and going into Higher Education. We have steadily improved the number of children who get five GCSE A* to C grades. But when are we going to start doing something for the other 50% of learners who have limited qualifications and remain alienated by an education system that has little to offer them?

• In terms of a quick fix, one of the problems is that children’s attitudes towards school and learning is heavily influenced by their parents’ experiences. Most of today’s parents were at failing comprehensive schools in the 1970s and 1980s and remain unconvinced of the value of education. Today’s children, who have grown up in a narrow assessment-led National Curriculum culture, will become parents in the next two decades. How do we ensure that they will have a different, more enlightened view of education to pass on to their children?

Ironically, sadly all these things are probably somewhat ‘academic’. It’s difficult to see future governments or administrative organisations initiating or welcoming change on this level. Somehow we need to find a way to take control of our own future learning and growth.