IoI Education Forum Opinion

Education Forum Podcast No. 25: The Education Forum's Response to A Framework for the National Curriculum

2012-01-21T07:40:00.001Z

The latest EducationForum podcast is available for download now. Education Forum memberMark Taylor leads the Education Forum response, with additionalcomments from Kevin Rooney, Alka Sehgal-Cuthbert, Denis Hayes andToby Marshall.

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Education Forum Podcast 24: what is history education for?

2011-12-19T21:28:00.000Z

The latest EducationForum podcast is available for download now. Education Forum memberMark Taylor discusses history education with Simon Jenkins (author ofA Short History of England), Dr Sean Lang (director of the BetterHistory Forum) and Professor Gary McCulloch (Institute of Education,London).

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Battle in Print: Should schools be engines of social mobility?

2011-12-19T07:32:00.000Z

EF member Sally Millard argues against the government's social mobility strategy
To read this Battle in Print click here

EF member Dave Perks rethinks science education

2011-12-19T07:20:00.001Z

A BBC Four Thought programme

EF member Toby Marshall argues that schools should not be seen as 'engines of social mobility'

2011-11-13T08:01:00.001Z

Blog in The Independent

EF member Mark Taylor makes the case for history

2011-11-13T07:59:00.002Z

Article in the Times Educational Supplement

Education Forum Podcast No. 23 Should England's Schools Become 'Engines of Social Mobility'?

2011-11-07T21:54:00.003Z

Education Forum Podcast No. 23

Should England’s schools become 'engines of social mobility'?

The twenty-third EF podcast is available to download now. Listen to a debate over social mobility and education with: Christine Blower, general secretary, National Union of Teachers; Professor Stephen Gorard, director, College of Social Sciences Think Tank, University of Birmingham; Siôn Humphreys, policy advisor, National Association of Headteachers; Sally Millard, founder member, IoI Parents Forum; David Skelton, deputy director and head of research, Policy Exchange.

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A new blog by EF member Dennis Hayes

2011-11-07T21:02:00.003Z

Education Forum member Dennis Hayes now writes a blog for The Huffington Post

EF Podcast No. 22: Does every child need a classical education?

2011-09-11T21:29:00.001+01:00

The latest Education Forum podcast is available for download now. Education Forum member Professor Dennis Hayes argues that all students need a curriculum that is true to the spirit classical education.

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July Education Forum

2011-07-22T17:56:00.003+01:00

Click here to read coverage of the recent Education Forum on classical education in The Times Higher Education Supplement

July Education Forum

2011-07-06T21:19:00.005+01:00

Does every child need a classical education?

Professor Denis Hayes will lead a discussion on classics this month.

Films, TV programmes and popular books about Greek and Roman history are undergoing a revival. A book about Socrates is a best seller. Almost 16,000 pupils studied GCSE Classical Civilisation last year. Latin is in the EBacc and Toby Young will ensure that all children in his West London Free School take Latin. Government is backing the revival and schools minister Nick Gibb answers the critics with a glib: “Are you saying working class children can’t do Latin?” Does all this mean that we are on the verge of a second renaissance? Or has the true spirit of a classical education gone? And is there more to a classical education than learning Latin?

Monday Monday July 18th 2011 at 7pm at the Art Workers Guild, 6 Queen Square, Bloomsbury, London, WC1N 3AT. Contact marktaylor@instituteofideas.com for further details.

EF Podcast No. 21: Do we need a ‘nappy’ curriculum?

2011-06-22T19:39:00.002+01:00

The latest extended format Education Forum podcast is available for download now. Josephine Hussey, child development researcher, introduces a discussion on the Dame Tickell’s review of the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum.

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June Education Forum

2011-06-02T10:33:00.001+01:00

Do we really need a 'nappy' curriculum?

Researcher Josephine Hussey will lead a discussion on the early years curriculum this month.

Dame Tickell's review of the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum has been welcomed by many, particularly her calls for a reduction in bureaucracy. Sadly, few have asked the most obvious question: do we really need a 'nappy' curriculum? And if we don't, what are the alternatives?

Monday June 13th 2011 at 7pm at the Art Workers Guild, 6 Queen Square, Bloomsbury, London, WC1N 3AT. Contact marktaylor@instituteofideas.com for further details.

Education Forum Podcast No. 20

2011-05-17T21:30:00.004+01:00

Reflections on The Importance of Teaching:

The Case for Knowledge About Education

The latest EF podcast is available for download now. Toby Marshall, Education Forum member and Programme Development Secretary for SCETT argues that all teachers need to know their subjects and to have a knowledge of education.

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May Education Forum

2011-05-05T19:21:00.003+01:00

Reflections on The Importance of Teaching: is teacher-training at a turning point?

Far-reaching changes to initial teacher education and training have been proposed in the Coalition’s Education white paper The Importance of Teaching. Trainees will now have to have a 2.2 in their first degree if they wish to receive state funding and psychometric tests have even been proposed to see if trainees have ‘resilience’. Significant changes have also been proposed to the content of teacher training. The white paper seeks to develop this approach and suggests a focus on ‘key teaching skills’ - such as maintaining classroom discipline. Education Secretary Michael Gove has argued that teaching should be understood as a ‘craft’, which is ‘best learnt as an apprentice observing a master craftsman or woman.’ However, sitting uneasily with these developments, the EBacc proposals imply a greater focus on subject knowledge, which would have different implications for training.

At the same time, institutional changes are also proposed. The number of training places allocated to Teach First - which seeks to recruit academic high achievers - is to be expanded, whilst a new network of practically oriented 'Training Schools' will be developed as an alternative to university-based training pathways.

So should teacher training and education become more practically focused? Will teaching be improved by a closer focus on subject knowledge? Do teachers require knowledge about education itself? Or is educational knowledge and theory an unnecessary diversion from developing their craft practice? And is all this so different from what the previous government attempted? In short, is teacher training at a turning-point?

Monday May 16th 2011 at 7pm at the Art Workers Guild, 6 Queen Square, Bloomsbury, London, WC1N 3AT

Education Forum at the Battle of Ideas 2010

2011-03-26T06:28:00.005Z

Highlights from the Battle of Ideas 2010

Can you parlez-vous?

So why are languages so unpopular? Are we all too ‘thick’, too lazy, too provincial to learn them? Is the teaching that bad? Does it even matter, if, after all, English is the ‘global’ language. Sarah Cartwright (language teaching advisor, CILT, the National Centre for Languages), Dr Lynn Erler (research fellow in second-language acquisition, department of education, University of Oxford) and Sabine Reul (society and politics editor, NovoArgumente and founder, writer and translator, Textbüro Reul GmbH) discuss.

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March Education Forum

2011-02-25T18:44:00.003Z

The English Baccalaureate – one step forward, two steps back?

In the third of a series of discussions focused on the Coalition's new white paper, Education Forum members David Perks and Kevin Rooney will debate the merits of the Coalition’s English Baccalaureate (EB).

Coalition plans to introduce the EB can be regarded as a return to sense – a pruning down of an overcrowded curriculum in order to focus attention on academic subjects. Or it can, and has been, interpreted as an example of government interference and prescription – another mechanism with which to make schools accountable.

Other criticisms of the EB regard it as representing nothing more than the arbitrary choice of an individual – and a posh politician at that. Or the focus on traditional academic subjects is condemned as elitist – suitable for upper or middle class pupils, but not for all children – who may have other non-academic interests.

In a world that seems to be ever changing, are traditional subjects still relevant? Are they the best way to prepare young people for adult life? Is an academic curriculum a precondition, or an obstacle, for a child’s development ?

Love it or loathe it, the English Baccalaureate raises important questions about what should be in the school curriculum and for what reasons; as well as who should decide what our children learn at school.

Monday 21st March, 7pm at Art Workers Guild, 6 Queen Square, Bloomsbury, London, WC1N 3AT.

Education Forum Podcast No. 19

2011-02-20T07:48:00.001Z

Reflections on The Importance of Teaching: Citizenship is Dead. Long Live History?
The latest EF podcast is available for download now. Professor Gary McCulloch, author of The Struggle for the History of Education, assesses the future of history teaching in schools with Education Forum Member Mark Taylor.
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February Education Forum

2011-01-27T23:08:00.003Z

Citizenship is dead. Long live history?

In the second of a series of discussions focused on the Coalition's new white paper, the speaker will be Professor Gary McCulloch, Brian Simon Professor of History of Education at the Institute of Education, London.

Education Secretary Michael Gove has recently announced a review of the curriculum. In relation to history, he has stressed the importance of both facts and historical figures. ‘One of the problems that we have at the moment’, Gove has argued, ‘is that in the history curriculum we only have two names.’

However, some feel that Gove has already started to qualify his commitment to the discipline. In particular, they refer to his proposed English Baccalaureate, for which students are only required to sit exams in Geography or History at 16.

So is History teaching in schools in crisis? If it is, how should we characterise this crisis? More positively, why do we teach History? Should it be mandatory for all students up to 16? Can it and should it transmit values? And, most fundamentally of all, what history should be taught?

February 14th 2011 at 7 PM in the Art Workers Guild, 6 Queen Square, Bloomsbury, London, WC1N 3AT

Education Forum Podcast No. 18

2011-01-19T19:03:00.001Z

Reflections on The Importance of Teaching: All Quiet on the Phonics Front?
The latest EF podcast is available for download now. Tom Burkard, author of School Quangos: A Blueprint for Abolition and Reform and Inside the Secret Garden: The Progressive Decay of Liberal Education, reflects on the importance of phonics and the politicisation of reading instruction.
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Education Forum Podcast No. 17

2010-12-17T07:03:00.002Z

Education Forum Podcast No. 17
Why isn’t education educating?
The latest EF podcast is available for download now. Frank Furedi, author of Wasted: Why Education Isn't Educating reflects on educational developments and opportunities since the formation of the UK Coalition government.
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Education Forum Podcast No. 16

2010-12-15T07:43:00.001Z

Education Forum Podcast No. 16
Why are FE and HE students revolting?
The sixteenth EF Podcast is available for download now. Listen to Education Forum members Alka Sehgal Cuthbert, Denis Hayes, Shirley Lawes, Toby Marshall and David Perks discuss the proposed increase in university student tuition fees, as well as the withdrawal of funding from non science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) degrees and the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA).
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Forthcoming January Education Forum

2010-12-07T19:10:00.004Z

All Quiet on the Phonics Front?

The first of a series of discussions on the Coalition’s white paper The Importance of Teaching.

The next Education Forum will be held on January 17th 2010 at 7 PM in the Art Workers Guild, 6 Queen Square, Bloomsbury, London, WC1N 3AT

The speaker will be Tom Burkard, expert in reading instruction and author of many publications, including Inside the Secret Garden: The Progressive Decay of Liberal Education and School Quangos: A Blueprint for Abolition and Reform.

Is the battle over reading instruction now over? Is the evidence for the effectiveness of systematic synthetic phonics as compelling as is claimed? If it is, why have results not improved, in spite of the widespread adoption of phonics in schools? Is the issue how programmes based on this method are developed? Should they be devised by teachers, or by government? And is there a danger that teachers will teach to the new mandatory phonics test? If they do, will this result in the exclusion of other approaches that teachers see as valuable?

An updated PDF version of the Education Forum Battle in Print Special is now available

2010-12-05T20:13:00.002Z

You may have heard that Education Secretary Michael Gove intends to bring back Subject Based Education and to ensure that the next generation learns our "our island story." Sounds good? Think again.
This document can be viewed or downloaded by clicking on this link

Education Forum Podcast No. 15

2010-11-28T07:32:00.001Z

Education Forum Podcast No. 15
The Case for Subjects
The fifteenth EF Podcast is available for download now. Listen to Education Forum member David Perks make the case for subjects, whilst assessing the educational opportunities presented by the UK’s new Coalition government.
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Education Forum Podcast No. 14

2010-11-03T18:51:00.002Z

What Makes a Good Teacher?
Live at the Battle of Ideas 2010
The fourteenth EF Podcast is available to download now, with Sonia Blandford (professor of educational leadership and innovation, University of Warwick), Tom Burkard (director, Promethean Trust), Dennis Hayes (professor of education, University of Derby) and Sir Alan Steer (pro-director, Institute of Education).
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Education Forum Six Part Battle in Print Special

2010-10-23T05:36:00.002+01:00

You may have heard that Education Secretary Michael Gove intends to bring back Subject Based Education and to ensure that the next generation learns our "our island story." Sounds good? Think again. Read the Education Forum's six part Battle in Print special on the challenges of Gove's restoration plans.
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Education debates at Battle of Ideas 2010

2010-10-23T05:34:00.003+01:00

The Education Forum has a series of debates at the Battle of Ideas this year, which may be of interest
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Education Forum Podcast No.13

2010-10-10T07:54:00.001+01:00

Free schools: do parents or teachers know best?
The thirteenth EF Podcast is available to download now. Listen to the ‘Free Schools’ debate with: Anastasia de Waal (Civitas); Sally Millard (IoI Parents’ Forum); Fiona Millar (author, The Secret World of the Working Mother); Kevin Rooney (IoI Education Forum); Siôn Humphreys (National Association of Headteachers); Ralph Surman (SCETT).
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Forthcoming debate that might be of interest to readers

2010-09-25T20:58:00.001+01:00

“Free schools: do parents or teachers know best?”

Monday 4th October, 7.00pm to 9.00pm, NUT HQ Hamilton House, Mabledon Place, London, WC1H 9BD.

This Battle of Ideas satellite event will critically explore the new relationship that is being forged between parents and teachers. It is clear that the Coalition’s Free Schools initiative will increase parental engagement in education, but is this a welcome development? What are the implications for teachers’ professional autonomy? And will Free Schools only benefit those children who have pushy parents?

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Education Forum Podcast No. 12

2010-09-25T20:36:00.005+01:00

What makes a good teacher? Education Forum Podcast No. 12 is available for download. With university based teacher education increasingly under attack by the UK Coalition government, Education Forum member Toby Marshall asks colleague Shirley Lawes: what and who makes a good teacher?
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This is topic will be explored further at this year's Battle of Ideas festival

Interesting article by Stuart Waiton in The TES

2010-06-22T09:51:00.003+01:00

Should teachers feel sympathy for Peter Harvey?

Education Forum Podcast No. 11

2010-05-10T21:07:00.001+01:00

UK General Election and education posting
The eleventh EF Podcast is available to download now. Listen to Education Forum member David Perks introduce “We must do better – an election statement”, with Dr Ruth Cigman, Editor of Questa, responding.

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Read Education Forum members Denis Hayes and David Perks comment on the education and the 2010 General Election.

Education Forum Podcast No. 10

2010-03-07T19:37:00.004Z

The tenth EF Podcast is available to download now. Listen to Education Forum members Dennis Hayes and Kevin Rooney battle it out over private schools. Kevin argues that too many educationalists are ignoring access to resources, so much so that inequality appears to have become naturalised. Dennis, by contrast, suggests that there is no point even raising this issue when we don’t know what schools are for.

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Education Forum Podcast No. 9

2010-03-07T19:20:00.008Z

The ninth EF Podcast is available to download now. Listen to Education Forum member Mark Taylor on the future of schools under New Labour, followed by educational publisher Philip Walters assessing the Conservative alternative.

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Forthcoming debate that might be of interest to readers

2010-02-01T19:56:00.003Z

Shouldn’t teachers teach?

Real Action and the Institute of Ideas Education Forum will be holding a pre-election charity debate entitled Shouldn’t teachers teach?

It will be held at 6pm, Thursday 18th February 2010, at the City of London School, Queen Victoria Street, EC4V 3AL.

Speakers include Professor Frank Furedi, author of Wasted: Why Education is not Educating; Nick Gibb MP, Shadow Schools Minister and Harriet Sergeant, author of Wasted: The Betrayal of White Working Class and Black Caribbean Boys. Respondents will include Shirley Lawes, Dave Perks and Mark Taylor from the Institute of Ideas Education Forum.

There is a special reduced price of £10 IoI members. This includes drinks and canapés kindly provided by Patisserie Valerie.

For tickets contact: marketing@realaction2010.com.

Education Forum member, Dennis Hayes, comments on Conservative policy for teachers

2010-01-26T19:41:00.002Z

Brazen Effrontery Won’t Change Teaching

David Cameron’s ideas to make teaching ‘brazenly elitist’ miss the point. What is missing in schools today is the idea that their priority should be education. Under New Labour this was simply forgotten as schools were made to abandon teaching in favour of political projects that included everything from social inclusion to weight watching. Now the Tories are continuing the tradition of tinkering not thinking. Unless they state clearly what education is and why it should be valued for its own sake, no playing around with the entrance qualification to the job, or with pay as Cameron’s critics suggested, will make teaching an ‘elite’ profession. What is elite about teaching is that it should offer children the possibility, as Matthew Arnold said, of learning ‘the best that is known and thought in the world.’ That should be the motto of any new Department FOR Education set up by the next government.

2010-01-08T10:46:00.002Z

Education Forum member, Kevin Rooney, argues that public schools should be banned

Kevin also reviews Overschooled But Undereducated: How the Crisis in Education is Jeopardizing Our Adolescents by John Abbott with Heather MacTaggart

Why has Ofsted failed? asks Education Forum Member Michele Ledda

2009-12-22T15:07:00.002Z

When everyone is accountable, no one is responsible

The intractable problems in the regulation of public services that have emerged in the past few years have finally come to a head. Barely a day goes by without a national newspaper or news bulletin highlighting major failures and inconsistencies, or the absurdities of ‘regulation gone mad’.

The failings of Ofsted have become so obvious, the problems so unmanageable, the rules so abstruse and confusing, the outcomes of inspections so unpredictable, that even those whose careers depend on implementing government initiatives, such as headteachers and directors of children’s services, have started to speak out. And as the schools and hospitals regulators are being lambasted from all sides, Ofsted responds by blaming boring teachers, while the Care Quality Commission (CQC) thinks the problem is an excessive reliance on numerical data.

One thing is certain: public confidence in the system has been undermined. Many now realise that often the reports that are supposed to guarantee the quality of public services are not worth the digital paper they are written on. How can Ofsted give Haringey children’s services three stars one moment and fail them the next? How can hospitals that have just received a good rating by CQC then be failed by Monitor? And how can the same hospital trust, South Manchester, be rated one of the ten safest in the country one year and a failing hospital the next by the Dr Foster report? Have the people who work there suddenly become incompetent? The same point applies to public examinations. How can both GCSE and A-level examination results improve without fail every year? Surely one would expect to see some cycles, even if the longer term trend is upwards? The media have treated the recent very slight fall in primary SATs scores as a scandal, but cycles should be normal. The real scandal should be the artificial increase in scores. There must be a degree of creative accounting in this ‘system of accountability’.

Unfortunately, with the regulators and the regulated shifting the blame onto each other, the part of the system that should be held responsible the most, government policy, has been let off the hook. This should come as no surprise, since the purpose of regulation is precisely to shift responsibility away from government policy and onto ‘systems of accountability’. In order to understand this shift, it is worth reflecting on the difference in meaning between the adjectives ‘responsible’ and ‘accountable’. They are often used as synonyms, but they refer to very different kinds of ethos.

Those who are responsible follow their own judgment and take full responsibility, as far as it is humanly possible, for their activities; those who are accountable only take limited responsibility. Their responsibility is limited to following the rules and fulfilling the targets they have been set and for which they are accountable. If they have followed all the rules to the letter and a patient still dies, a child is abused or remains ignorant, they cannot be held responsible, and rightly so, as the rules, not their own judgement, are responsible.

A responsible teacher exercises his own judgment and concentrates on teaching his subject to the best of his abilities, while an accountable teacher worries about teaching to the test, telling children about levels and assessment objectives, filling in lesson plans and writing WILFs (What I’m Looking For) and WALTs (We Are Learning To) on the board, and all the worst practice Ofsted enforces. Similarly, a responsible doctor exercises her own judgment and acts in the best interest of her patients, while an accountable doctor practises defensive medicine and worries about meeting targets.

A responsible politician will try to implement a policy that embodies a particular vision and public spirit, whereas an accountable politician will ask focus groups and independent inquiries what to do. Accountable politicians will say that vision should come from consumers and that what matters is ‘what works’. In this way, government policy is not judged according to a particular ideal of public service, but only assessed on whether it meets the targets it sets for itself, or that have been set by an ‘independent’ body.

Of course, real people in real life situations are never entirely responsible or entirely accountable. Since no system is perfect, professionals have always had to cover their backs to some degree, as well as exercising their judgment and following the ideals of their profession. Life doesn’t follow precise rules and in the real world you do need to exercise your own judgment. Without human judgment, nothing would work at all. Yet today there are more and more powerful pressures on the increasingly regulated to abandon judgment and responsibility and to embrace accountability.

When a tragic death occurs that captures the media’s attention, an independent inquiry will be set up, taking both the heat and responsibility away from politicians. Lord X or Sir Y will make proposals for new and more stringent regulations with the promise to make another tragedy more unlikely ... until the next one happens, that is. In the process, the ability of professionals to exercise their judgment and take responsibility is further restricted. They are more and more encouraged to follow guidelines and cover their own backs. This only creates a vicious circle of anxiety, which leads to more and more regulation and less and less responsibility.

Many seem to think that we could not live without a ‘system of accountability’, that it would be impossible for public services to function without a regulator. Yet there was a time when people thought they could not live without guidance from the Church of Rome. Then they realised that it was possible to read and interpret the Bible by themselves, to exercise judgment and be directly responsible for their own actions.

I think that we need a similar shift from external guidance to self-government, and that the best and most efficient way to run public services would be to inject some public spirit into them and establish a system of responsibility. In order to do that, we need a government that knows what it is doing, but also autonomous professionals who refuse to tick boxes and citizens that refuse to behave like angry customers and decide to take responsibility instead.

Battle in Print: Is Philosophy Becoming Therapy?

2009-12-21T20:38:00.002Z

Education forum member, Dennis Hayes, examines the teaching of philosophy

Link below:
http://www.battleofideas.org.uk/index.php/2009/battles/3557/

Battle in Print: Explaining the Public's Perceptions of Education

2009-12-21T20:34:00.003Z

Education Forum member Toby Marshall explores public responses to education

Link below:
http://www.battleofideas.org.uk/index.php/2009/battles/3560/

Battle in Print: The Empty Staffroom

2009-12-21T20:30:00.002Z

Richard Swann, English teacher and Vice Principal of the Harvey Grammar School, reflects on the empty staffroom

Link below:
http://www.battleofideas.org.uk/index.php/2009/battles/3433/

Battle in Print: Rethinking Therapy

2009-12-21T20:28:00.002Z

Education Forum member Kathryn Ecclestone Rethinks Therapy

Link below:
http://www.battleofideas.org.uk/index.php/2009/battles/3435/

Rethinking Therapy Culture

2009-12-21T20:20:00.004Z

Education forum member Dennis Hayes chairs: Nicola Barden (University of Portsmouth); Professor Kathryn Ecclestone (University of Birmingham); Professor James L Nolan
(Williams College) and Professor Andrew Samuels (University of Essex) at the 2009 Battle of Ideas.

Link below:
http://www.archive.org/details/BoI09_Therapy

Professor Frank Furedi Rethinks Education

2009-12-21T20:11:00.002Z

Link to podcast from the 2009 Battle of Ideas:
http://www.archive.org/details/BoI09_Education

Forthcoming Debates at the Battle of Ideas 2009

2009-10-04T19:40:00.006+01:00

Tuesday 6 October, Forum Member Dr Mark Taylor discussing 'History and Identity.'

Wednesday 7 October, Claire Fox chairs 'Don and Dusted' - a discussion on the academy.

Monday 12 October Dr Mike Fitzpatrick discussing the 'Age of Autism.'

And not forgetting the Battle of Ideas Festival 31 October - 1 November at the Royal College of Art, which has eight events produced in association with the Education Forum.

Details of all the above education debates can be found in the Battle of Ideas brochure:

www.battleofideas.org.uk/index.php/2009/session_detail/2588/

Evidenced Based Education

2009-07-09T19:30:00.004+01:00

Mark Taylor, of the Education Forum, chairs a discussion with Kathryn Ecclestone (Oxford Brookes University), Tony Neal (General Teaching Council UK) and Geoff Petty (author of Teaching Today) on the value of 'evidenced based education'.

Clink on the link to FORA TV below:

http://fora.tv/2008/11/02/The_Battle_for_Evidence_Based_Education

Education Forum Podcast No. 8

2009-06-09T21:40:00.003+01:00

The eighth EF Podcast is available to download now. Listen to Education Forum members Shirley Lawes, Dennis Hayes, Mark Taylor, Toby Marshall and David Perks discuss SATs and Helene Guldburg's excellent new publication "Reclaiming Childhood"

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The Battle Over Homework

2009-06-09T21:29:00.004+01:00

Recording of The Battle Over Homework, a debate held at the Battle of Ideas 2008, chaired by Toby Marshall, with Kevin Rooney, Hilly Janes and Susan Hallam speaking

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Watch out for more education debates at the Battle of Ideas 2009, see www.battleofideas.org.uk

Kathryn Ecclestone finds the middle class depressed by The Class

2009-05-27T20:25:00.000+01:00

In any current poll of ‘the great education films of all time’, it is a depressingly likely bet that The Class will soon trump older favourites like To Sir with Love or Dead Poets’ Society. At my local cinema, this film ran for 4weeks to packed audiences, way longer than the week’s run for most films (and even longer than the run for Mamma Mia). It clearly touches a cultural nerve. In the showing I was at, mostly of middle class parents, teachers and students, there was a depressed silence throughout the whole thing.

The film has been widely praised for being ‘realistic’ and ‘relevant’, the very qualities that teachers increasingly want to bring to their own classrooms. It is a stark contrast to those older films which offered images of a confident, passionate teacher who believed he could transform his disaffected students’ lives through the power of his subject. Watching those, you sensed the scale of the challenge and rooted for the teacher in doing something inspiring.

In Brendan O’Neill’s has already great review of The Class in which he focuses on the crisis of legitimacy of the French state in the face of multiculturalism and the problems this crisis presents for French schools. But there is another crucial theme which is equally telling of the current crisis of education, also picked up by Cosmo Landesman in The Sunday Times, who points out that the teacher resorts to ‘therapeutic education’ in order to gain the interest of their disaffected students and to ‘engage’ them in learning, as the jargon goes.

The film shows how a diminished view of the students’ lack of ability, motivation and basic social skills, held by almost all the teachers in the school, finally leads the main character to abandon his attempt to teach them French. Instead, he asks the children to use the ‘inspiration’ of Anne Frank’s diary to write a ‘self-portrait’. The students are initially incredulous at why he would want to know about their banal and uninteresting lives, and what educational purpose it has. He wins them over with flattery; that it will allow him to get to know them, it will celebrate their lives.

And so they spend hours putting together their portraits. Fleetingly, the task seems to win over the most difficult and disruptive boy in the class. They present their ‘portraits’ which encompass their prejudices about football, race and relationships to the class and the teacher praises them; for a brief moment, they bask in his esteem.

Ultimately, his attempt to distract them from the difficulties of learning French or from having to discipline them to do anything worthwhile is all for nothing. The disruptive boy is expelled, the teachers in the school continue to despair of their students, and the students are contemptuous of their teachers.

In the final scene, the teacher asks his class what they have learned this year. One girl has found Plato’s Republic on her own yet he shows no ability to use this truly inspirational, albeit fleeting sign of her willingness to think and learn to good educational effect. Another girl has learned absolutely nothing and is terrified of going to ‘vocational school’.

The salutary thing is that many teachers watching will probably think that the teacher’s attempt to build self-esteem and get to know his students better is a laudable thing to do in the face of the problems he faces. In the British context, children and young people are increasingly familiar with and adept at doing a host of activities to develop ‘self awareness’ and to empathise and listen to the personal accounts of their peers. And those regarded as ‘disaffected’ are used to this in spades.

Therapeutic interventions for students that teachers regard as impossible to educate might be in the early stages of development in French classrooms. Although the young people in The Class see right through the pathetic attempt to engage with them and build their self-esteem, the film shows all too depressingly the underlying diminished conditions that lead to therapeutic self-portraits and personal development.

Brendan O’Neill’s review of The Class is available on-line:
Class’ http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/6324/.

Education Forum Podcast No. 7

2009-03-06T10:37:00.002Z

The seventh EF Podcast is available to download now. Listen to Education Forum members Shirley Lawes, Dennis Hayes, Mark Taylor and David Perks discuss the 'Rose Review' of primary education, and other education stories.

Download mp3 (24:33) (128kb)

Education Forum Podcast No. 6

2008-12-10T11:18:00.004Z

The sixth EF Podcast is available to download now. Listen to Education Forum members Shirley Lawes, Dennis Hayes, Toby Marshall, Mark Taylor and David Perks discuss a range of educational issues.

Download mp3 (27:36) (128kb)

SATS: rumours of a death greatly exaggerated?- Mark Taylor

2008-11-24T10:05:00.003Z

For many observers, the scrapping of Key Stage 3 SATS for 14 year olds by Education Secretary Ed Balls finally ends the agony for a generation of stressed out and anxious parents, teachers, unions, academics, educational psychologists, government ministers – and of course children. A divorce even more widely predicted than the one between Madonna and Guy Ritchie has now taken place: the government and SATS have finally parted company. Moreover, government and opposition have united on the need for new and more enlightened forms of assessment pioneered by New York schools.

This simple educational parable, or a version of it, appears to be the common interpretation. But it bears a closer inspection.

Formally, according to Balls, Key Stage 2 tests remain in place for 11 year olds at the end of their primary school experience. However, many schools retest the children as they enter secondary school because Key Stage 2 tests are widely seen as unreliable and falsified. So, for many children, these tests never really existed in the first place.

Perhaps Balls is more accurate in regard to Key Stage 3? The immediate response of some teachers appears to be a genuine sigh of relief at their new autonomy. This indicates that there was some truth in the opinion that the SATS had become a caricature of real education, leading to various forms of ‘teaching to the test’. Still, a good teacher, the argument correctly went, could go beyond the tests if he or she wanted.

The starting point for other teachers concerns the way the minister conducts his business. To end these tests without notice might go down as decisive in a Westminster organic farmyard which does not currently know its capitalist egg from its socialist chicken. But it smacks of bad planning to teachers raised - admittedly unimaginatively - on a strict diet of aims and objectives. So Balls has failed in that regard as well.

However, interpretations that assume the tests were preventing genuine education or that Balls is simply an unprincipled opportunist only go so far. It is not even fair to labour the point that Balls is a bit odd, in a Midwich Cuckoos kind of way. These views all miss the wider context. Education has been massively reshaped in the last few years, and many previously intellectual aspirations for children have been subtly and not so subtly replaced by psychological and pedagogical tomfoolery.

Effectively, national subject examinations are being replaced by personal forms of self-assessment. SATS, being neither one nor the other, no longer fit in. But that is precisely the now pointless point. Education has been so transformed that psychological and social policy objectives such as personal development and community cohesion now constitute the heart of Ofsted inspection and school ‘self-evaluation’ criteria. In consequence, previously traditional subjects have been forced to adapt and make their subjects more ‘relevant’. And previously primary school type ‘subjects’ and ‘competences’ have arrived on the secondary school curriculum. This new educational landscape has come with its own ‘personalised’ assessment criteria which precludes any aspiration to a universal standard.

So have the SATS really gone? Far from it. Even an anti-education system requires some form of evidence of progress. SATS have actually mutated. Our children are currently studying for them in a process of generally continuing self-evaluation. Otherwise known as GCSEs.

Alex Standish makes the case for Geography for its own sake

2008-10-27T10:12:00.002Z

At a recent conference of the Association of American Geographers in Boston I was intrigued by a session looking a common challenges faced by geography education in the US and UK. One of the first questions posed was “What is geography education for?” The panel of subject specialists each took their turn to answer the question: geography helps students to make a connection to other places and people around the world, it improves their conception of language, it helps them to relate to important contemporary issues like global warming, it improves their individual capabilities and it makes them better citizens. I was struck by how this discussion danced around from point to point without talking about the discipline of geography itself. So, I asked the panel, “Why do we need all these other reasons to account for geography’s place in the curriculum. Surely, the point of the subject is to learn geography because this has value itself?”

The response was quite remarkable. While I got some sympathetic support from some members of the audience, the panel seemed almost bemused by the suggestion. “But geography plays a role in all these other important areas of education today”, was the gist of their argument. It was as if they couldn’t see another reason for learning geography beyond instrumental aims. Never before has it been so clear to me that some educators no longer see subjects. As subjects like geography have been filled with extrinsic aims of global citizenship, environmental education, cultural tolerance, pre-vocational skills, key skills, etc, etc. over time these aims become the subject. Geographical topics might remain in the curriculum, but for some educators they have become a means to an aim which is extrinsic to the subject itself, rather than an end in and of itself.

Key to geography’s new-found instrumental purpose was the onset of globalization. Policy makers and some subject leaders looked to geography to provide young people with a sense of global connectivity, global perspectives or global citizenship (1). While it might sound like a great idea to national bias inherent to many twentieth century curricula with a truly cosmopolitan approach that cuts across cultural differences, unfortunately this is not what is being offered here. The ‘s’ at the end of global perspectives is all too significant. In general, developing global perspectives, or multiple perspectives, means respecting the contributions of other cultures, viewing one’s culture as an equal among others, and learning about global issues and viewing these from the perspective of others. In other words, its central purpose is not to educate students about the world, but rather to shape the values, attitudes and behaviours of young people. Therefore, global perspectives means respecting differences of viewpoint and culture, rather than evaluating and challenging them. This redefines education as a set of attitudes and values (such as acquiescence to difference) rather than an intellectual pursuit (the search for truth).

While young people should learn about the challenges and problems faced by different people around the globe, the problem with global issues in today’s geography curricula is that their aim is to promote a predetermined set of ethics rather than a genuine exploration of the issues facing humanity. Here, society’s problems have been relocated from the wider political realm to the internal psychology of students themselves. These so called ‘global ethics’ include respect for the environment, respect for cultural diversity, tolerance of other viewpoints, a concern for social justice and empathy towards those in need or different, many of which have become explicit curricula objectives. However, when socio-political values have been predetermined for young people this can only lead to values that are superficial and insincere. This personalised approach to learning about ‘global issues’ (what’s this got to do with me) inhibits the possibility for students to explore the real issues people face in their given locality, gain an understanding of their lives and maybe achieve genuine respect and empathy for them. Therefore, while the national liberal model of education sought to create (as well as influence) moral citizens, global citizenship undermines the moral self of young people, in that the state and professionals have taken responsibility for fundamental aspects of personality, such as values and emotional responses, away from the individual.

This transition in geography is what I examine in my recently published book. While there may well be extrinsic outcomes to learning geography, these will usually be an unintended consequence of the former, and should not be the aim of education. It is important for teachers to understand the difference between the two and where their professional responsibilities lie. The simple contention of this book that the job of geography teachers is geographical education, not political activism, saving the environment, building citizenship, training or something else. Geography is a discipline that deals with the science of space. Its foundational concepts include location, place, links between different places and regions. Through these concepts students learn to know where things are (location), understand different places (place), understand connections between different locations (links) and identify and comprehend spatial patterns (region). All of these are essential if young people are to grow up with a geographical perspective on the world.

Alex’s book, Global Perspectives in the Geography Curriculum: Reviewing the moral case for Geography by Alex Standish, £21.99, is available from Amazon (UK)

The book will also be on sale at the Battle of Ideas festival, London on 1&2 November 2008.

Education Forum Podcast No. 5

2008-10-17T15:58:00.002+01:00

The fifth EF Podcast is available to download now. Listen to Education Forum members discuss Kathryn Ecclestone and Dennis Hayes' new book The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education.

Download mp3 (28:57) (128kb)

Michele Ledda asks: with friends like these, who needs censors?

2008-09-19T11:09:00.001+01:00

The censoring of Carol Ann Duffy’s poem ‘Education for Leisure’ is a disgrace, but so is the instrumental use of poetry. Poets, critics and educators should know better.

In the current controversy over Duffy’s poem Education for Leisure, censored by the same bureaucrats who had chosen it, it is hard to tell which is worse: the argument of the censors and their (few) supporters that discussing the poem could lead pupils to dangerous copycat behaviour; or that of its defenders, such as Michael Rosen, Francis Gilbert and Mark Lawson, that the poem is a wonderful opportunity to get kids to discuss such a topical issue as knife crime.

The ill-advised and panicked reaction of the examination board AQA to just three complaints - leading them to censor a poem that has been read for years by most GCSE students without controversy - is likely to backfire and show the country what kind of philistines are entrusted with the important task of shaping the English curriculum. Yet the arguments put forward by the defenders of the poem essentially mirror AQA’s reasons for banning it. Both represent a diminished, instrumental view of poetry and education.

AQA justified its decision with the need to strike a ‘difficult balance between encouraging young people to think critically about difficult but important topics and the need to do this in a way which is sensitive to social issues and public concern’. In other words, we must use poetry to discuss social issues, but we must ensure that the message is right for our easily-led and vulnerable teenagers and that the discussion is handled with extreme care by their guardians in the classroom. AQA clearly has a low opinion of the average pupil and teacher.

However, those who defend the poem only disagree with the censor about its message. Their implicit argument is that if the poem had been ‘dangerous’, AQA would have been right in banning it. Worse still, they think the poem should not be studied for its intrinsic merits, but used for an external purpose.

‘Of course we want children to be talking about knife crime, and poems like these are a terrific way of helping that happen,’ says Michael Rosen, the Children Laureate, while English teacher Francis Gilbert finds the poem ‘a marvellous springboard for a wider discussion about the causes of violent crime.’

Mark Lawson concedes that fiction is dangerous, as ‘any text can be lethally misunderstood’ if read outside the classroom, away from the watchful gaze of the teacher, but he thinks it can be a useful tool if the teacher, by challenging any ‘perverse interpretation,’ ensures that only the right message reaches her students.

Even Duffy’s literary agent, Peter Strauss was unable to say that ‘Education for Leisure’ is a great literary achievement, preferring to state that it carries the correct political message: ‘This poem is pro-education and anti-violence. It is not glorifying violence in any way,’ he told BBC Radio 4's iPM programme.

While the belief that poetry will instigate children to commit crimes is paranoid, its mirror image, that through the correct political message it will reform disaffected teenagers, is delusional. More importantly, this instrumental view of literature, which unfortunately is widespread in policymaking and educational circles, seriously demeans literature and education. In this discussion we seem to have forgotten what literature lessons should be about: literature.

Students of poetry should be free to discuss all sorts of issues and the socio-historical context, so that they can understand the meaning of the text. If they concentrate on studying poetry as something worth knowing for its own sake, children will indeed learn about the world, refine their moral sense, sharpen their analytical and linguistic skills, and expand their imagination, because this is the very stuff of poetry and education.

Education Forum Podcast No. 4

2008-07-16T16:23:00.003+01:00

The fourth EF Podcast is available to download now. Listen to Education Forum members Toby Marshall, Mark Taylor and Dennis Hayes discussing the knife crime and schools. Also this month, the educational 'Hero and Zero' of the month and Tuck Shop, where the latest daft idea in education is exposed.

Download mp3 (15:56) (128kb)

NY Salon event: 'You can't say that!'

2008-06-26T12:10:00.003+01:00

Watch Dennis Hayes, Education Forum convenor and founder of Academics for Academic Freedom, speaking on academic freedom in New York:

Reviews of The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education, by Katherine Ecclestone & Dennis Hayes

2008-06-26T11:22:00.004+01:00

'Infantilised' students and staff rapped, Melanie Newman, Times Higher Education, 12 June 2008

Schools' therapy culture leaves children unable to cope, Laura Clout, The Daily Telegraph, 12 June 2008

Emphasis on emotions creates 'can't do' students, Alexandra Frean, The Times, 12 June 2008

Class therapy 'harming children', BBC News, 12 June 2008

Infantilised students unable to cope with life, book claims, Anthea Lipsett, Education Guardian, 12 June 2008

Childish recruits: Are we infantilising our children?, Personnel Today, 12 June 2008

The lessons in happiness that are making pupils miserable, London Lite, 12 June 2008

Are we breeding a new generation of infantilised students?, My Child, 12 June 2008

Lessons in happiness making children unhappy, Laura Clark, Daily Mail, 11 June 2008

The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education, by Kathryn Ecclestone & Dennis Hayes is published on 14 July 2008. Routledge, £18.99p

Adults, not metal detectors, are what schools need, says Nicki Mason

2008-06-26T10:56:00.002+01:00

Carrying a knife is never a good idea when not on a camping trip. Most children learn this easily at an early age outside school and often without discussing it. Circumstances lead them to discover it is good to be alive, and they begin to value their own and others’ lives. For the majority of schools therefore, knife crime is absolutely not a problem, and knives feature only on the long list of items not allowed in school, along with drugs, alcohol, fireworks, chewing gum and dangly earrings.

Not all children hear the message, however, and a small minority of schools do have to deal with incidents involving knives and the circumstances surrounding them. In my experience the young person who carries a weapon does it for their own 'protection' because they feel threatened. Few have given any consideration to the most likely outcome of a confrontation - that a person or group of people bigger and stronger than them take it and use it against them. Once this is brought to their attention by an adult it is often enough to change their behaviour on the spot.

Children are capable of reason. Introducing metal detectors is to abandon reason and to send the wrong messages:

A metal detector at the school gate says it is acceptable to carry a knife on the street.

A metal detector at the classroom door says it is acceptable to carry one in the corridor.

They do not teach that carrying a knife is never a good idea, and is likely to lead to crime or death. Metal detectors do not change behaviour. Inspirational and passionate teaching of subjects, together with consistent enforcement of clearly expressed rules and discussion of reason, does. Young people are guided by the adults around them. They are inspired by adults who take a genuine interest in their lives and opinions. Every young person needs at least one adult to take a genuine interest and give sensible advice. Many find that adult in a school.

An account of the June 2008 Education Forum discussion, School knife crime ‘overplayed’, by Hannah Richardson, is available on the BBC News website:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7457616.stm

Education Forum Podcast No. 3

2008-05-28T13:32:00.005+01:00

The third EF Podcast is available to download now. Listen to Education Forum members Mark Taylor, Toby Marshall, Shirley Lawes and Dennis Hayes discussing the TLRP's 'Ten Commandments of Pedagogy' and other current education stories. Listen out for two new features - the educational 'Hero and Zero' of the month, and Tuck Shop, where the latest daft idea in education is exposed.

Download mp3 (26:29) (128kb)

Education is not sustainable according to a new book reviewed here by Dennis Hayes

2008-05-27T18:34:00.003+01:00

Austin Williams, director of the Future Cities Project, architect, illustrator, author, and host of the innovative and entertaining ‘Bookshop Barnies’ is something of a renaissance man. His latest book, The Enemies of Progress: The Dangers of Sustainability,* provides a defence of reason, truth and progress that the early humanists would be proud of; but it is no return to tradition. It is an almost unique attempt to reconstruct the drive for a new enlightenment in the twenty-first century. Its style is witty and ironic. Williams does irony very well. One academic described his book as a ‘polemic’. Intended as faint praise, it backfires. ‘Polemical’ books are the thing that academia fears most: books produced by intellectuals outside of universities that have something interesting to say rather than the unreadable research academics produce for the Research Assessment Exercise.

Williams, according to Philippe Legrain, has a ‘gift for lobbing well directed grenades’ and readers will enjoy his ironic explosion of the puffed-up and doom-mongering ideas of the irrational and hysterical individuals who issue quasi-religious edicts about how mankind is an excrescence on the planet, but won’t argue their case.

The enemies of progress that are intellectually coalescing around the reactionary, backward-looking notion of ‘sustainability’ are not just irrational individuals. The enemies of progress are ideas: localism, nihilism, pessimism, primitivism and misanthropy. These ideas spread self-doubt, confusion and fear. In Chapter 4 ‘The Indoctrinators’, Williams uses example after example to show how education about sustainability has become a matter of manipulating children’s minds by scaring them with stories of environmental devastation and destruction that cannot be questioned. The consequence is that ‘critical thinking has been redefined…around the ‘givens’ of sustainability and environmentalism’ (p 74). He agrees with Mick Hume in the claim that Education, Education, Education has been redefined as Indoctrination, Indoctrination, Indoctrination. Because of the sustainability agenda teachers are being transformed into indoctrinators, teaching truths that cannot be questioned.

No sooner was Williams’ book on the shelves than Ofsted issued a report on Schools and Sustainability** calling for all schools to be ‘sustainable’ by 2020. They bemoaned the fact that ‘Work on sustainability tended to be piecemeal and uncoordinated….rather than being an essential part of the curriculum.’ What was needed was a ‘whole-school approach’. There is no question here of a critical – that is educational - approach. Ofsted’s chief inspector, Christine Gilbert, has an entirely instrumental attitude to the question, praising teachers who use ‘stimulating discussion and activities to engage pupils in issues relating to sustainable development’. No more critical thinking then. Gilbert is right though, too many teachers are more concerned with giving children some subject knowledge and teaching them how to think critically and don’t see their job as brainwashing future generations. They remain, for the moment, educators.

Where Williams is wrong is in seeing the transformation of education into indoctrination as ‘underhand’. If this is ‘underhand’, it is hard see what an open-handed approach would be.

In summary, Williams is in favour of the car, roads, cities, planes, travelling as far as you want on holiday, eating food flown in from all over the world and enjoying it out of season (so **** off, Gordon Ramsey). He is for allowing the unqualified development of China, India and the Third World. He wants us to reach for the stars rather than the recycling bin.

Engaging children in stimulating and critical discussion about the human potential these things express would be a start on really defending standards in education. A copy of this book should be sent to every school in the UK. What about that, Christine?

*Austin Williams’s The Enemies of Progress: The Dangers of Sustainability, is published by Societas/imprint academic, Price £8.95, May 2008

**Ofsted’s Report Schools and Sustainability: A Climate for Change, was published on 21 May 2008

Asking ‘Where are the Great Minds?’ makes us all emotional, argues Mark Taylor

2008-05-27T18:26:00.002+01:00

It might be expected that, given the state of educational policies today, one would jump at the chance to join in further criticism of the ‘factory system’ that is so regularly complained about. When Anthony Seldon, Master of Wellington College, asked ‘Where are the great minds that have influenced the test-ridden system that passes for education today?’ * it seemed like just such an opportunity.

Seldon thinks that there are new ‘great minds’ with ‘great ideas’ that should be given more attention than the ‘arcane discourses’ of educational philosophers and dull exam-focused bureaucrats. They are: David Hargreaves (‘personalised learning’), David Hopkins (‘system leadership’); Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam (‘assessment for learning’); Ken Robinson (‘creativity’); Tony Buzan (‘spiritual intelligence’ and ‘mind maps’); Martin Seligman (‘well-being’, ‘resilience’); Arthur Costa (‘habits of mind’); and Howard Gardner (‘multiple intelligences’ and ‘five minds’).

Despite Seldon’s assertion, one would have to be in a very isolated school today not to have heard of the ideas of personalised learning, emotional intelligence, multiple intelligences or assessment for learning. They are very much in the educational mainstream. It is such ‘great minds’ that have actually created the current confusion and anti-intellectual atmosphere in schools.

All the ideas of these ‘great minds’ can all be summarised in two sentences. First, they are against the idea of the collective transmission of accumulated human knowledge to individuals in the form of subjects. Second, they are for the redefinition of ‘intelligence’ in the form of personal feelings and experiences. The unhappy consequence is a refusal to teach children in a systematic and disciplined manner.

In supporting these ‘great minds’ in their promotion of psychological and other processes, dispositions and states of being, instead of an education through subjects, Seldon performs an educational disservice to pupils who are desperate to get the high quality knowledge of the world on offer in many of Britain’s private schools like Wellington.

Seldon complains of pygmies getting in the way of the giants he wants to see dominating schools. No comment.

*Anthony Seldon ‘Influence of the giants simply isn't big enough’, TES, 2 May 2008

Mark Taylor explains why one distinguished educational thinker is talking ‘Pollocks’ about educational change

2008-05-27T18:16:00.003+01:00

In the first of a new series of talks run by the Learning Skills Foundation*, David Hargreaves, research director of the Specialist Schools Trust and ‘personalisation’ guru, outlined his latest thoughts on education. Beginning with a re-statement of his assessment of the problems of the 19^th century ‘factory system’ we have inherited, and the need for more customised education, his focus was on how ‘personalised learning’ now required ‘system redesign’ as a necessary stage in transformation. What is system redesign? Hargreaves sees it as a ‘complex fusion’ of mass customisation and peer
production through innovation networks based on the ‘co-construction’ of learning by previously distinct sectors of teachers and pupils. This ‘system redesign’, he argues, points to five significant consequences for schools. First, a merging of primary and secondary sectors; second, the development of more permeable year groups in a shift away from age-related learning; third, the disappearance of the Key Stage system of assessment by 2020; fourth, the introduction of competence based school days; fifth, the collapse of the traditional division between schools and workplaces and the restructuring of larger schools into smaller ‘home units’.

The talk centred on the development of the internet as an example of the new type of co-constructed learning that is leaving traditional teaching behind. For Hargreaves, educationalists who want to reap the harvest of innovation must capture the tendency by young people to create their own systems. He celebrates not just ‘student voice’, but goes ‘beyond’ it in order to create ‘student leaders’ in every school. The ultimate result will be a system of ‘flatter leadership’ distinct from the traditional ‘hub and spoke’ school model.

Perceiving these changes as liberating, Hargreaves next considered who will lead them and run tomorrow’s schools. It is ‘Generation Y’, otherwise known as anyone born after 1980, or anyone familiar with blogging or Facebook rather than television. In short, the old hierarchical leadership model of teachers and students co-ordinated by government must be replaced by an unco-ordinated one based on babyboomers, Generation X and Generation Y which is left alone by government. And how will it all finally look? Hargreaves asks us to picture a ‘Jackson Pollock painting’ more than a traditional organisational flow.

Hargreaves develops a useful picture of where the ‘system’ may be going – or unravelling. However, there are many problems with his analysis. The first concerns his own refusal to admit responsibility for the changes he describes. As an architect of the specialist school system, he is remarkably unwilling to see how much current ‘innovation’ derives from his own attack on the traditional system. He lacks awareness of how far the ‘factory system’ has already become the future. The fact that that the education system is still considered to be failing reflects badly on him and not just on the 19^th century. Secondly, the key feature of the current system is not, as he thinks, internet-led innovation. Rather, it is the absence of confidence in intellectual authority. The failure of educators to take responsibility for defending subjects as creative triumphs of intellectual development is seen by Hargreaves as evidence of innovation. But it is not. It is merely a readjustment to the collapse of intellectual authority he caricatures as a factory system.

The resulting ‘anti-system’ could end up fomenting a privatised form of charismatic or revelatory leadership by the young instead of defending public knowledge through the impersonal intellectual leadership of traditional subjects. This will leave many schools without a disciplined intellectual core around which to teach the truth as best we know it and to show that every child has a personal stake in universal knowledge. And the unquestionably brilliant potential of the internet may be reduced to little more than cobbled together celebrations of folk wisdom. No educator should have a problem with enabling the young to become leaders or to use new technology, but not at the expense of the disciplined subject knowledge they will require to do so properly – and properly creatively.

Many of Hargreaves’ ‘insights’ are attempts to rationalise and romanticise the breakdown of traditional subject-based education and the failure to replace it with anything of substance - except ‘the internet’. But he has failed to perform the central task of any educator, that is, to offer a system that enables children to judge and think critically through their subject knowledge about the world they are growing up in.

*David Hargreaves: Who runs schools and who should run schools? Learning Skills Foundation Lecture, April 23 2008. http://www.learningskillsfoundation.com/

Michele Ledda thinks Nintendo in the classroom is a no brainer

2008-04-11T10:55:00.002+01:00

A new scheme involving 900 children across 16 schools in Scotland aims to test the effectiveness of Dr Kawashima’s More Brain Training computer games in improving pupils’ behaviour, concentration and achievement in maths tests. The games involve a number of mathematical, linguistic and other problem-solving activities ‘designed to exercise the brain by increasing blood flow to the pre-frontal cortex.’

The scheme follows a small trial carried out by Derek Robertson, of Learning and Teaching Scotland, the authority responsible for curriculum development. Thirty pupils were made to play More Brain Training games on the hand-held Nintendo console for 15-20 minutes every day for ten weeks before the start of the lessons. They were given maths tests before and after the trial, which showed a 10% improvement.

Robertson is very enthusiastic about the scheme. "Game-based learning can provide dynamic and culturally relevant contexts that engage, motivate and challenge today’s young learner," he told the Times.

Anything that helps children learn should be welcomed, but there is a problem. Whatever the scientific merits of the trials - and Robertson has been honest about the limitations of his first experiment - we cannot motivate pupils to study mathematics through a scientific or technological fix.

In 2006, former education secretary Alan Johnson had great hopes for an experiment carried out in County Durham* which would test the effectiveness of fish oil supplements in boosting 'youngsters' brainpower and improve behaviour in the classroom.' Johnson told the Sunday Times: "The government is committed to ensuring that children are provided with healthy food and the nutrients they require during the school day, not just to aid their physical health but to ensure they can study hard and behave well." Now we have an attempt to use the therapeutic and motivational effect of computer games to achieve the same goals.

The problem of pupils' motivation and behaviour does not lie in the brains of modern children, which are not physiologically different from those of their ancestors. Nor does it lie in the impact that modern technology has on children's lifestyle and 'culture' (Robertson calls the current generation of school pupils 'digital natives').

The so-called 'problem of motivation' is an expression of an entirely adult problem that keeps being displaced onto children.

It is a problem of authority, of not knowing what to do. Teachers do not think they have the authority anymore to tell children that it is important to learn maths, English, history, or any other subject. They no find it increasingly difficult to define what is good for their charges and to decide, among other things, what an educated citizen should know by the age of eighteen.

The crisis of authority is not peculiar to teachers. It affects all adults in positions of authority, such as parents, teachers, doctors and, perhaps most of all, politicians, including those who devise education policies.

In this context, trying to borrow the authority of science or technology as a substitute for adult judgment can only exacerbate the problem, by showing pupils that we don’t really believe in knowledge and we are trying to piggyback maths onto computer games. A moral problem cannot be solved by a technological fix. We should instead devise a human-centred solution. We need teachers to regain control of teaching and believe both in the importance of their discipline and in the ability of their pupils.

Children can only be motivated if they see that adults have the confidence and authority to tell them what it is they need to know.

For details of the Durham experiment, and more, listen to BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Defending abstract knowledge does not make you an epistemological dinosaur argues Mark Taylor

2008-04-11T10:34:00.002+01:00

In an interesting debate at the Royal Society of Arts*, sociologist Michael Young made a rarely heard point, namely that the teaching of knowledge matters. More importantly, he pointed out that knowledge is neglected because policymakers assume that there is no connection between knowledge and the needs of the economy. In consequence, the educational system has become a vehicle for a kind of mass vocationalism, based on targets, league tables and outcomes, which have changed the character of schools into places that are no longer distinctive for attempting to give children knowledge that they cannot acquire elsewhere.

Young cautioned against assuming, in response to this change, that schools are democracies or that they should be used to resolve authority issues in the wider society. To understand the place of knowledge in schools today we need to understand that knowledge is both context-dependent and context-independent. With that distinction in mind, he counselled against conflating these two aspects of knowledge in schools, and noted that context-independent knowledge - in the form of abstract ideas - must sometimes be taught counter to the experience of the child. Indeed, the teacher must impose it on the child.

With arguments like these Young comes across as an epistemological dinosaur - if a welcome one - in the present climate of anti-intellectual governmental and academic approaches to education. These approaches were partly expressed in the response of Geoff Stanton. Stanton, in seeking a defence for the anti-knowledge shift observed by Young, claimed that vocational pedagogy is ‘more complex’ than its academic equivalent. It appears that the more the curriculum loses its previous connection (however poorly taught) with academic subjects, the more observers like Stanton claim that new methods are more sophisticated than previous ones. But Stanton’s defence really only justified the replacement of properly examined academic knowledge with the messy and ever-growing range of self-assessed ‘subjects’ currently being thrown at schools. In this sense, Young is indeed right that schools are losing their previously distinctive educational place in society and, with ‘subjects’ as diverse as ‘parenting’, ‘family learning’, ‘happiness’ or ‘health and beauty’, it is increasingly hard to know where school begins and family ends. Clearly, therefore, vocational pedagogy conflates educational process and content and mystifies the crucial fact that all schools ought to provide a rigorous education in academic subjects which - given that all topics of study have underlying academic principles - would then enable progression to their vocational applications to be made.

So has Young got it right in defending knowledge? Not quite. In focusing so much on knowledge per se, as opposed to subject knowledge of different academic disciplines, Young ends up debating the knowledge content of almost everything, rather than defending the distinctive subject content of a general academic education. Philosophically, this may be inevitable, but pedagogically it is problematic, because it allows the acceptance of the potential ‘subject’ in every newly assessed form of modern behaviour. So, instead of challenging the current approaches to education as he would wish, he ironically opens the theoretical door towards a defence of them. For example, in saying that the knowledge base of beauty therapy must be taught as seriously as that of physics and chemistry, he implicitly weakens a defence of an academic curriculum for all pupils, and ends up in the thick of the current contorted ‘debates’ about how many new undisciplined experiences can be thrown into the curriculum to make it ‘relevant’ to the 21st century. After all, through Every Child Matters, the government has transformed ‘enjoyment’, ‘engagement’, ‘health’ and ‘happiness’ into forms of knowledge which they seem to think can be measured. Indeed, the government appears to have a more radical approach to knowledge than some of the social scientists Young criticises.

Although knowledge should be defended in the form of the subjects that explain the world to us, if it is defended at too abstract a level, it parrots in the secondary sector the post-modern confusion evident at university level. The result is the increasing elevation of cross-curricular thematic learning and experiences above the teaching and applying of the core principles of individual academic subjects. Pupils who learn in this way are in danger of turning up at university intellectually confused and lacking in the real subject knowledge they need to challenge their tutors. This is the opposite of what Young intended. He forgot that even the defence of knowledge is context-dependent.

*What are schools for? A debate between Michael Young and Geoff Stanton, RSA, 30 January 2008: http://www.rsa.org.uk/events/detail.asp?eventID=2451

'Being the best' for children means being an educated, and not a just a trained, teacher says Dennis Hayes

2008-04-11T10:10:00.004+01:00

There is a new OfSTED consultation paper on improving inspection of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) which is an odd title as the TDA – the Training and Development Agency for Schools that funds what OfSTED inspects – only talks of Initial Teacher Training (ITT). Some university departments talk without hesitation about training teachers while others cling to the word ‘education’ in the titles of their programmes. One national body representing university departments of education calls itself the Universities' Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET). Another body representing the unions and professional associations calls itself the Standing Committee for the Education and Training of Teachers (SCETT). So are today’s teachers educated or trained? Before anyone gives the easy answer that induction into a profession requires both education and training, let me make a clear distinction between the two.

Teacher Education can be easily distinguished from Teacher Training. Teacher education is built around the study of ‘educational theory’ or what the disciplines – psychology, philosophy, sociology, history – tell us about education. Educational theory in this sense is essential to pedagogical and professional understanding. Teacher Training – as devised and required by the TDA - constructs initial professional development around the achievement of competencies or standards and has often only fashionable and faddish notions such as ‘learning styles’ or ‘multiple intelligences’ as ‘theoretical’ content. Structuring any course around ‘objectives’, whether you call them ‘competencies’ or broad ‘standards’, transforms that course into training.

What teachers get today is this training and, as if to make the implications of this clear, the government has even removed ‘education’ from the titles of the government department dealing with schools for the first time since 1870.*

But what children deserve are teachers who are educated. New teachers’ obsession with practical matters and ‘getting the buggers to behave’ is the result of the philistinism of ‘teacher training’. What else is becoming a teacher about when nothing theoretical appears on the PGCE curriculum?

Many teacher trainers – let’s use the correct term - might believe that the government’s new proposals for a master’s level qualification for all teachers might signal a change of direction**. A master’s level qualification taken over a period of time might enable a generation of teachers to study theory and be educated as professionals. This was always the sanguine intention of those who wanted a longer period of initial professional development. What teachers will get is a Master’s degree in Teaching and Learning (MTL). Much of the detail, beyond the title of the award, is not worked out but it will not be a Master’s degree in education. It looks like an extended set of competencies is going to be required.

I am not collapsing, unlike some of my colleagues in university- and college- based teacher training, into the philosophical fantasy of nominalism – the idea that if we give something the name ‘education’ it will become a reality. The real task is not changing what things are called, but it is to bring back teacher education. That is why getting into an abstract debate about what practical ‘pedagogy’ teachers need to supplement theory avoids the main problem when attempting to 'be the best'. All teacher training is now entirely practical and it’s just not good enough for our children. The message to the children's secretary is to be the best, to be the ‘Education Secretary’, and put the education back in to preparation for teaching and into our schools.

*The Manifesto Club petition to the PM to put ‘education’ back in the titles of government departments takes up this issue. Read about it here, and sign it here.

**The DCSF document 'Being the best for our children: releasing talent for teaching and learning', was published in March 2008. Read it here.

Education Forum Podcast - No. 2

2008-02-29T19:22:00.003Z

The second in a series of post-forum podcasts is available to download now. Listen to Education Forum members Mark Taylor, Toby Marshall, David Perks, Dennis Hayes and Shirley Lawes discussing family learning and other current education stories.

Download mp3 (28:05) (128kb)

Education Forum Podcasts

2008-02-01T10:22:00.000Z

The first in a series of post-forum podcasts is available on the Education Forum Section of the Institute of Ideas website. Listen to Education Forum members Mark Taylor, Toby Marshall, Dennis Hayes and Dave Perks discussing the Children's Plan and several current news items.

Download mp3 (30:40 mins) (128kb)

Mark Taylor thinks that the Children’s Plan is a contemporary 'Minor Carta'

2008-01-31T16:32:00.000Z

Few people appear to have realised the real significance of the name change that occurred when Ed Balls became Secretary of State on 28 June 2007, and promptly created the Department for Children, Schools and the Family to replace the Department for Education and Skills. However, the truth really is in the title: there is no desire to educate the people anymore. Instead, after 10 years in power, the Children’s Plan exposes the intellectual wasteland at the heart of Labour’s education policies.

Balls claims that the plan responds to the desire for more support, and observes that children’s needs must come before traditional institutional structures (although he wants schools at the centre of the newly unstructured structure). The plan wants Britain to be the best place in the world to grow up by 2020, but does not explain how the necessary comparison will be developed with other countries to work out whether this has been achieved.

The plan’s chapters attempt to rationalise – but not really order – the multifarious existing policies which already affect children, from registered childcare to 20 mph traffic zones, to obesity checks, parenting advisers, softer skills, Surestart, testing and zero carbon schools. A unifying theme of the plan is ‘partnership with parents’ and a ‘new relationship’ between schools and parents based on a personal tutor for every child. One conceptual innovation serves to cohere this rationalisation: ‘social pedagogy’, a term I expect we will be hearing more of in the next few years. Unfortunately, it appears, like personalisation, to express the collapse of the intellectual relationship between government and people and its replacement with a behavioural one.

Perhaps this is too harsh a judgement on the government? Surely, there is still education in the plan? Certainly, the case is made for a Master’s qualification for all teachers. But will it make them masters of teaching subjects or masters of diagnosing stages of intervention? And what will they teach if, as the plan states, the curriculum is being built around ‘assessment to identify support and intervention’? Similarly, a system based on ‘stage not age’ testing (another idea in the plan) will ultimately lead to more testing, not less, and people may eventually forget what they are supposed to be testing for (also see my BOI 2007 essay on exams on the website). And will it really be possible for children to think for themselves when involved in so many needs assessments to gauge the required support? And won’t the multiplication of adults in supporting roles simply confuse everyone about the source of intellectual authority in the classroom? In any case, social pedagogy suggests a shift in teacher training away from the theory of knowledge about the world and towards a knowledge of theories about the child. The curriculum, negatively in my view, will therefore tend to focus more on internally referenced psychological limits than externally referenced epistemology. The result may be to further isolate teachers who really want to teach their subjects, and possibly to indoctrinate others in lowering their intellectual expectations. If the plan succeeds, teachers may eventually be seen as just another of the ‘key workers’ who support children. And the voluntary parent-teacher association may become the compulsory parent-state association.

The plan was created from a ‘consultancy’ with adults and children, as well as the convening of three ‘expert’ groups for age groups 0-7, 8-13 and 14-19. With such coverage, the impression can be given that the plan is coherent, and that the public have spontaneously ‘demanded’ support. However, this is far from the case, and the question really has to be asked about whether this is a plan at all, as opposed to an attempt by Ed Balls to understand his remit. The expert groups based their findings around a superficially enlightened desire to offer ‘opportunity’ rather than ‘deficit’ models of childhood. This adds up to less than the sum of its parts, however, because the groups all replace the intellectual liberation potentially offered by academic subjects by stages of childhood. Thus, they are experts on everything but education, and the only debate within their findings is intra-psychological (about when to intervene), rather than educational (about what to teach and when to let go). These reports therefore legitimise the shift expressed in the main plan from the idea of education in academic subjects to intervention in the lives of diminished subjects. References in the main plan to how it conforms to UN articles on the ‘right to an education’ cannot hide the fact that this only means - a more evasive idea - personal development.

In short, a new ‘care elite’ is institutionalising itself in government, more through imaginative default elsewhere than the power of their own ideas. Their increasingly confident educational and political use of the language of support and parenting obscures the truth that people who have become successful principally for social reasons are trying to convince others that success is only rooted in the personal sphere – as long as the latter are supported by the former. This represents a morally dubious conflation of care and authority over both children and adults. Seen this way, the Children’s Plan, in a Runnymede moment, is a contemporary 'Minor Carta'. The question remains whether any children, and that appears to be all of us these days, will really want to be partners in such a diminished view of education, government – and ourselves.

The full text and the Executive Summary can be found at the DfES website (pdf).

Mark Taylor’s 'Battle in Print' essay, 'The debate over examinations is little more than a War of the Poses', can be found at the Battle of Ideas.

Lynn Erler argues that educators need to know about neuroscience to avoid ‘neuro-myths’

2008-01-04T14:37:00.000Z

The Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) is a research initiative funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), running from 2000-2011 and supporting to date over 65 education research projects. The TLRP commissioned a review, which appeared in 2007, of neuroscientific findings considered to be of relevance to education and educators. The review was carried out by UK-based researchers Uta Frith and Sarah-Jayne Blakemore and was followed up by a TLRP seminar series called “Collaborative Frameworks in Neuroscience and Education”. These moves mirror concerns that are world-wide, according to the OECD, over the infiltration into formal education of scientific developments that can alter learners’ thinking and activities in the classroom. In the US, for instance, schools use medications for hard-to-control and difficult-to-teach children.

The short pamphlet, Neuroscience and Education: Issues and Opportunities is based on the Frith/Blakemore review and the TLRP seminar series. It is an attempt by specialists to present an idea of the impact, breadth and influence on education of neuroscience-related issues to non-specialists (educationalists, the public in general) in an accessible way. The contributions are from researchers in neuroscience and psychology, and include 98 references to science publications that are already impacting on developments in education-related industries. Some publications present some clear conceptual models that are useful and can be thought-provoking to people involved in teaching and learning, particularly school-based education.

The 28 pages of the pamphlet contain succinctly presented information about the brain, brain development and brain “care” including neuro-myths, developmental disorders of dyslexia, dyscalculia and ADHD which have supplied the principal thrusts of neuroscience research and consequent alleviation projects and products, explanations of why “brain-based” education programmes may help learners be more alert in the classroom but can be classified as neuro-myths that have little or no scientific basis. “Issues on the Horizon” that cross between neuroscience and education are then addressed in the final section. Scientists have been appalled at what has been done with snippets from ‘scientific’ reports and are looking at the future and have issued here a report that informs but also warns and admonishes for collaboration between science and education to ensure “careful educational and scientific scrutiny at all stages” (p. 24), of what is already possible in the classroom in terms of tracking and controlling brain functioning.

Neuroscientific research findings have been and will continue to inform aspects of education, particularly in areas of disability and learning impairment. However, there have been other “spin-offs” identified by Frith and Blakemore (2000) as neuro-myths, which have filtered into UK schools as commercial “brain-based” programmes. The reader is put straight about several such programmes that “too often do not survive scientific scrutiny” (p. 15). For example while a conceptualisation of “learning preferences [styles]” may be of value in encouraging teachers to use “a full range of forms and different media” for learning materials, the “existing research does not support labelling children” (ibid.)

The document concludes with two strands:

What is already, and will shortly be available from neuroscience in the realm of cognitive enhancers (e.g. Ritalin and drugs for Alzheimers are used by enterprising student who hope for higher exam results), and the use of neurofeedback to increase and improve productivity such as carried out on students at the Royal College of Music.
The limits of neuroscience, which has until now only been able to focus on the individual and which has a long way to go in conjunction with many other disciplines - psychology, social sciences, education - to be able to provide holistic improvements in learning.

The authors of the document wish for collaboration between neuroscience and education to conceptualise frameworks for working together to scrutinise the transfer of concepts between neuroscience and education, to avoid future repetitions of “popular ideas about the brain [that] have flourished without check and are impacting upon teaching and learning already” (p. 24) without scientific and educational evaluation. While brain gym might be considered innocuous and in fact a support for being alert in the classroom, more insidious enhancement mechanisms are already available and are being used, not to mention future developments, which are sure to be said to emerge from “ science”. The pamphlet is an attempt by scientists to inform educationalists and to urge them to action: to become informed and together with scientists to inform, and not to leave developments to the government to regulate.

Just how the collaboration across neuroscience and education is going to take place is not ventured in this document, which is a huge detriment. Clearly an exchange across disciplines must be undertaken and a response from the educational community is in order. To be able to enter into a dialogue and to influence future policies at all levels, however, educationalists need themselves to propose a clear conceptualisation of what it means to be human, what it means to learn with dignity and to be respected for human difference.

Neuroscience and Education: Issues and Opportunities was launched at Portcullis House, Westminster on 15 May 2007.

The pamphlet is available as a pdf: http://www.tlrp.org/pub/documents/Neuroscience%20Commentary%20FINAL.pdf

Mark Taylor on the Battle of Ideas 2007 education debates

2007-11-16T14:08:00.000Z

There were a number of specific education-related debates at this year’s Battle of Ideas festival. The most prominent on Saturday included the opening keynote ‘What is education for?’ and ‘Academic freedom under threat’ as well as ‘All tested out: what’s the point of exams?’ On Sunday, attention shifted to ‘Debating Darwin: should evolution be taught as the only truth?’ and ‘Moralising the curriculum: the battle for children’s minds.’ A number of other debates also included educational themes, such as ‘Toxic childhood’, ‘Teach the world to sing’, ‘Child protection: has adult paranoia gone too far?’ and ‘School sport: selling kids short?’ Inevitably, what follows is only a snapshot of the weekend, as there was (refreshingly) too much choice for anyone interested in these themes, particularly teachers like myself who are drip-fed an intellectually impoverished diet of ‘Continuing Professional Development’ – or constant patronising drivel.

More surprising was how superficially non-education related debates ended up talking about educational issues. This included sessions on ‘The politics of well-being: do we all need therapy?’ and ‘The new heresies’. This unexpected shift possibly validates the idea of education as a ‘pre-political’ intellectual area, and cautions us not to conflate education and politics, although they can appear to be the same thing in times – like ours - of confused political authority.

What pleased me most about the debates I attended was the intellectual movement across the two days as presenters and attendees talked through key themes and ideas. There was a definite sense of collectively working through and questioning of key themes – some of which we had only scratched the surface on at previous Education Forums. Although there were few definite conclusions, the Battle of Ideas really crystallised the long-term work of the Education forum and in many cases enabled us to enter the debates at a high-level of both clarity and rigour right from the start. For example, in the first session on ‘What is education for?’ David Willetts usefully introduced education as the transmission of a fixed body of knowledge between the generations. A few months ago, that might have been a satisfactory starting point (and even finishing-point) for those concerned to defend subject knowledge against attacks from various sources. However, the debate has moved on as the speech from Keith Bartley of the GTC proved. Keith framed his response – following his recent call for ‘active registration’ by teachers in the GTC - as aligning well with David Willetts through a balanced defence of subjects and self-directed learning in the context of the achievements of ‘Every child matters’. However, Frank Furedi pointed out that the education debate at present reflects a wider lack of meaning and purpose because it has lost a sense of foundational authority. Furedi was raising the issue of the wider collapse of educational culture and general expectations of what it means to be an educated human being. Following questions from the floor relating to the tendency to either lower intellectual aspirations or shift educational aims to the understanding of the self rather than the study of the world, it became clear that there was more of a difference between the speakers than was evident in the initial introductions. Willetts response was more of a restatement of his initial position, while Bartley pointed out that there was a big attempt to ‘challenge and engage’ children to a high-level. Furedi – seeking a way out from the two positions - attempted to re-present education as a creatively open-ended bridge between past and present. However, in asking the question what is education ‘for’, perhaps this debate did shift the focus too much towards rhetorical conjectures rather than intellectual assertions, leaving Bartley to think he had answered his critics. I would say that he had not, as later debates proved.

The session ‘All Tested Out’ addressed the crucial question of how we judge the knowledge of another human being – at a time of an increasingly artificial official ‘debate’ about examinations (as I pointed out in my Battle in Print written for this session) and diplomas. Tony Neal of the GTC put the case for exams as useful but stressful and contrary to the happiness and well-being of students. This was developed by Eric Macfarlane, who pointed out that exams often mistake limited educational objectives for the whole process of education. He noted that multiple intelligences are not examined in the current system, leaving the skills of many students unassessed. Macfarlane interestingly added that while head of a sixth-form college he had pioneered the introduction of unexamined courses, without affecting A-level results adversely. Shirley Lawes countered that we need to be careful not to focus too much on how we examine at the expense of what we examine, particularly through the current drive to focus on ‘Assessment for Learning’. She warned that much of the stress perceived in the current system was more of an expression of adult’s lack of confidence in education than the expression of genuine childhood worries. The implication, to recall the earlier remarks of Keith Bartley in the morning, was that ‘challenging and engaging’ should depend more on the internal logic of subject disciplines than the ‘needs’ of the children to ‘enjoy and achieve’. The audience discussion split between those in favour of exams and those concerned that children are over-examined, although many of those voicing the latter view were themselves children getting ready for examinations, indicating the level of interest this debate had generated. Time ran out as Dennis Hayes, convenor of the Education Forum, made the point that examinations are for subjects, whereas assessments are for skills - and observed that the latter are beginning to dominate the former, thus diminishing and confusing the character of education. The audience, wanting more, were left to take the issues away with them to the Royal College of Music for the beginning of the evening.

Sunday began with ‘Debating Darwin’, where the confusion at the heart of modern education was stripped bare in a brief discussion of the theory of evolution and whether it should be taught as the only truth alongside creationism. Steve Fuller entertainingly appeared to call for some sort of ‘teaching the controversy’ as part of scientific literacy. Simon Conway Morris argued for evolution as far superior to intelligent design, without confronting the teaching process. Physics teacher Dave Perks meanwhile stuck doggedly to the need for scientific principles to be taught through the distinct disciplines of physics, chemistry and biology – without formalising the ‘controversy’ in the science curriculum. For a non-expert like myself, the three speakers seemed to encapsulate the confusions of the current debate well. Steve Fuller was like the government, over-actively confusing everyone through the introduction of ‘21st Century Science’; Simon Conway Morris was the voice of pure science, wanting to be left alone to get on with it, but equally aware of pressure to present a ‘public face’; Dave Perks expressed the frustrations of schoolteachers wanting to teach their subject so that the next generation can become physicists, chemists and biologists like Conway Morris – if only they can be allowed to do so.

Later in the afternoon came the session ‘Moralising the curriculum’, designed to consider whether the government was turning every current social preoccupation – obesity, health, work, personal finance, happiness - into a school subject. Robert Whelan, editor of the recent publication Corruption of the Curriculum, stated that the academic integrity of the current curriculum was indeed being drained by the new approaches. This point was confirmed by Alex Standish, who noted the influence of concerns such as ‘global warming’ on the Geography Curriculum – as opposed to the traditional spatial knowledge supposedly at the heart of the subject. Sean Lang, meanwhile, observed that the subject of History should be allowed to deal with the issues raised in new ‘subjects’ such as Citizenship. He added that he had started a petition to argue the case for History to be compulsory to age 16. However, the well-informed Chair Kevin Rooney (who also wrote a Battle in Print) did challenge Lang on whether he had himself contributed to the current problems through previously advocating the introduction of citizenship. This debate really developed well, particularly through impressive audience contributions. One contributor pointed out that, contrary to the speaker’s views, the new national curriculum is actually less prescriptive and allows teachers freedom to make their own judgement on what to teach, especially for those children who are not going to be academic. So, for him, complaints of a moralisation of the curriculum were exaggerated – although he possibly forgot that teachers should be wary of diagnostically deciding who is going to be academic or not. Other contributors pointed to the inevitable relativisation of knowledge entailed in the constant pressures to incorporate more and more unacademic opinion in previously academic curricula. This confusion was well expressed by the young contributor who asked, ‘So am I intellectually ignorant just because I don’t know where places are on the world map?’ For me, he is indeed inferior, as we all are, if we allow ourselves to substitute political opinion for the intellectual core that should be at the heart of the academic curriculum. And I think this returns us to previous points made on Saturday about what education is for. Furthermore, as was articulated from the floor, we ought also to be constantly dissatisfied with our existing level of knowledge – in the sense of Socrates - and seek to improve it and better ourselves.

My final comment on this developing debate was that it usefully and unpredictably revealed – in the best sense of the Battle of Ideas – that something more distinctive is going on than the initial session title revealed. What we are really witnessing is not the ‘moralisation’ but the amoralisation of the curriculum, as the relentless introduction of new initiatives in fact ends up undermining all values and principles, including that of education itself?

The debate will continue at the next Battle of Ideas, 1st and 2nd November, 2008!

Kevin Rooney sets the target of first class education for the working class

2007-10-21T12:48:00.000+01:00

There is much to agree with in the Tackling Educational Inequality report produced for CentreForum, the Lib Dem think tank. For a start it’s refreshing to see that they are prepared to state clearly that social and economic background remains the biggest single factor in determining a child’s educational achievements.

Looking back at the educational reforms over the past thirty years, including Thatcher’s 1988 Education Reform Act and Blair’s Curriculum 2000, it’s quite striking how the question of class inequality is overlooked or redefined as a ‘social exclusion’ or ‘low parental aspirations’ relevant to only certain pockets of people.

However, the problem with Tackling Educational Inequality is its recipe for changing this. While the report does argue for increased funding for the most disadvantaged pupils and schools, it locates the key to the problem of social inequality as further marketisation and the auditing of teacher and pupil performance.

The report sets out a range of proposals which will not only fail to solve the problem, but could make things worse: personalised learning strategies; foundation profiling; more use of the ‘Data Revolution’ to track individual student progress; training school governors in the assessment of school data; opening up the role of the head teacher to outside professionals; giving schools kite-marks on the quality of their data systems using a Michelin star style system and an increase in bonuses and performance target related pay for teachers.

To prove my point, let’s take just one of these ‘solutions’, the ambitiously titled ‘Data Revolution’. This irrelevant ‘solution’ views pupils as figures being tracked along a graph in robot-like fashion, immune from the active agency of the teacher-pupil relationship. Predicted grades, attainment targets, and the general culture of measuring and auditing, are a backwards step and will do nothing to reduce inequality of achievement between the richest and poorest pupils. Likewise, to propose yet more performance related pay assumes that teachers are motivated by financial incentives rather than a spirit of professionalism and public service – luckily, at least at the moment, that is not true!

As to the suggestion that outside professionals come into schools as head teachers – this process has already begun and has done little to combat educational inequality. ‘Outside Professionals’ have so far either been business managers who are brilliant at controlling budgets, or ‘super heads’ who will apparently inspire and give confidence to directionless teachers who don’t know what they are doing – a patronising assumption.

So top marks for this report for diagnosing the illness -but 0 out of 10 for their medicine. Call me old fashioned, but the main way for children from disadvantaged backgrounds to achieve their full potential is to lift them out of poverty. And aside from investing serious resources, the only other way I know of doing that is to offer the poor a first class education. Now that’s my kind of target!

The CentreForum publication Tackling Educational Inequality by Paul Marshall, with Sumi Rabindrakumar and Lucy Wilkins, published in July 2007 is available at:
http://www.centreforum.org/publications/tackling-educational-inequality.html

Dennis Hayes says there's a big hole in the Comprehensive Future

2007-10-14T12:21:00.000+01:00

As Chair of the Standing Committee for the Education and Training of Teacher (SCETT), a body set up in 1981 by all the unions and professional associations with a direct interest in teacher education and training, I know how hard it is to get these organisations to produce any sort of joint statement.

This slight, 48 page pamphlet, from the pressure group Comprehensive Futures, Fair Enough? School admissions – the next steps, is impressive because it is supported by, and contains articles from the leaders of all the major teacher unions. In fact, almost everyone who is anyone campaigning for comprehensive schooling has a short piece in it. I counted over twenty contributions but the themes of all of them are well summarised in the title of Sarah Tough’s article ‘Selection, segregation, life chances and social mobility’.

The most entertaining and the most serious piece is Frances Beckett’ s article on ‘The Word Comp’ (pp 22-3). Becket reminds us of how nice words can cover up crap. You once had grammar schools along side ‘schools for thick working class kids’ called secondary modern schools that were quickly labelled ‘comprehensive schools’ to cover up the poor quality of education on offer.

What this pamphlet and the campaign covers up is something worse. In arguing for fair admissions and an end to selection, in order to bring about a comprehensive secondary school system, they cover up an important distinction, the distinction between comprehensive schooling and comprehensive education. What is missing here is any discussion of what sort of education would be on offer in the comprehensive future. Putting all kids in publicly funded secondary schools on some sort of equal footing is only a worthy aim if they get a decent education when they get there.

A decent education requires an educational curriculum with real subjects in it, science maths, English, history and not the contemporary offering of ‘themes’, ‘skills’, ‘citizenship’ and a dose of ‘personalisation’. If Beckett wanted to expose a contemporary linguistic cover-up it would be covering up with the word ‘personalised’ the sort of ‘curriculum’ that was offered to pupils with learning difficulties, that is, one that focuses on overcoming barriers to learning rather than concentrating on learning. In the case of students with learning difficulties this was the correct approach, but to give this curriculum to all is to treat children as if they all had special needs. With personalised learning all children and not just the working class kids are treated as if they were ‘thick’.

If the various writers happily co-operating here in liberal social engineering were asked to give their views of the content of comprehensive education the result would be friction and some heated debate. Uncomfortable as this may be, it would be a real step towards building a comprehensive future.

Fair Enough? School admissions – the next steps, was published by Comprehensive Futures in September 2007, and is available on line: http://www.comprehensivefuture.org.uk/

Details of SCETT can be found on its web site: http://www.scett.org.uk/

Kathryn Ecclestone and Dennis Hayes ask researchers and policy makers to ‘Leave the kids alone’

2007-10-12T12:26:00.000+01:00

A recipe for educational disaster is this. First, frighten children with horror stories of a world in which we are all doomed because of global warming, unless they are good citizens who recycle. Second, lock them away behind walls, sealed doors and security cameras and treat anyone who comes near them as a potential knife wielding maniac, or a paedophile who must have a ‘criminal record’ check. Third, tell them they are in danger of early death or diabetes unless they give up chips for carrots, and follow the way of Saint Jamie Oliver. Fourth, get them obsessed about their lack of ability to ‘learn to learn’, their low self-esteem, how they find it hard to cope, and make them discuss their feelings endlessly in learning power lessons, circle time and philosophy for children classes. Fifth, make them scared about going to secondary school and make them take part in psychodrama workshops to express their fears through ‘role play’.

These activities are all going on in schools, turning the global, social, physical and mental worlds into frightening and destructive prospects rather than liberating challenges. The recipe for disaster is followed with a seemingly progressive and caring response, namely teaching them a ‘vocabulary of feelings’ through numerous therapeutic activities that claim to help them deal with their free-floating fears and anxieties. More than one parent has been surprised to hear their five-year-old declare: "I’m feeling a little stressy today", or for their nine-year-old to come home saying he’s had "a very anxious day".

And so to the sixth ingredient - the latest in a deluge of reports about the state of children’s emotional well-being, Robin Alexander and Linda Hargreaves’ first offering from the Primary Review, based on 87 discussions with a total of 750 people. It notes the ‘pessimistic and critical tenor’ (p5) of talk about ‘the big issues’, of children being under ‘intense and excessive pressure’ from policy-driven demands, the breakdown of communities and the ‘insecure and dangerous world outside the school gates’ and ‘alarm’ about ‘global warming’ and a fear of crime and a ‘generalised fear of strangers’.

The report acknowledges, sensitively, that it may just be reporting transitory opinions, but concludes nevertheless: ‘This, for better or worse, is what these people say and how they feel’ (p44). Sue Palmer, author of Toxic Childhood, commented on the report for the BBC, saying 'It is very worrying that children are not feeling safe, that they don't even trust their friends'.

Such comments and the numerous recent reports over the past year in a similar vein are blind to how contemporary policy-making works. You make children and young people describe their fears and insecurities and then demand that the government steps in to resolve them. Even when children seem not to be as worried as the adults think, you suggest they are merely 'repressing their fears'. No doubt schools will soon be receiving 'advice and guidance' about how to be trusting and less fearful as a result of the report.

The result of this report and all the interventions currently going on in schools to deal with insecurities and fears is a disastrous spiral of decline into an obsession with safety by politicians, journalists, teachers, parents and children themselves. This obsession is rooted in the very agency – government – that was its cause and is now asked to deal with it.

Children’s fears reflect the policy concerns of the last few years. They are not cooped up and fearful 'battery children' but Blair and Brown’s children singing back to them in angel voices about the moral panics and fears policy makers themselves have promoted. If the DCSF were truly 'committed to improving the lives of children', as they said in response to the Review, they would bow out of the classroom 'leave the kids alone' and give the curriculum and teaching back to the teachers.

The Esmée Fairburn foundation and University of Cambridge University, Faculty of Education, interim report, Community Soundings: The Primary Review regional witness sessions, was published on 11 October 2007. The full report can be read as a pdf.

Kathryn Ecclestone welcomes the first public challenge to the Social Emotional and Affective Learning Strategies for Schools (SEALS)

2007-09-18T12:18:00.000+01:00

The renaming of the Department for Education and Skills as the Department for Children, Families and Schools removes 'education' as a social and political aspiration for the first time in 60 years. This enables the government to tune into popular concerns about unhappiness and well-being and, through 'Every Child Matters', to change the key purpose of educational institutions.

There is an unchallenged assumption that we face an unprecedented epidemic of mental health problems is now a key feature of social and welfare policy in the UK: the chief executive of the charity NCH was quoted in the Daily Mail on 20 July 2007, saying "the lack of emotional well-being amongst our children and young people is undermining the foundation of any social policy to combat social exclusion, deprivation or lack of social mobility. We urge Gordon Brown and his new Cabinet to commit to tackling this hidden and fast-growing problem". The Conservative Party has commissioned a review of children’s unhappiness as has the National Children’s Society.

A political shift from education to welfare institutionalises popular concerns about emotional vulnerability and unhappiness. Emotional interventions attract rising levels of funding. The Social, Emotional and Affective Learning Strategy for Schools cost £10m in 2007-8, with a further £31.2 million ear-marked over the next three years. Anti-bullying schemes cost £1.7 million a year, while peer mentoring currently receives £1.75 million. Another £60 million was added in July 2007 for schools to improve emotional well-being, phased over the next three years to be £30 million in 2010-11.

Unsurprisingly, a huge and lucrative huge industry is flourishing around emotional well-being and emotional literacy. Over 70 organisations and growing numbers of private consultants, including university academics, have created a deluge of interventions, guidance, training courses and text books around slippery and interchangeable concepts such as 'self esteem', 'emotional and mental well-being', 'emotional literacy' and 'emotional intelligence'.

Such initiatives include ‘circle time’, ‘nurture groups’, anti-bullying and mentoring schemes, drama workshops to deal with transitions and bullying, activities to develop ‘learning power’, ‘learning to learn’ and ‘self-esteem’, ‘philosophy for children’ classes, ‘emotional audits’ and ‘whole school strategies for emotional literacy’. There are over 30 different instruments to assess emotional well-being. The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority requires schools to assess young children’s emotional competence in a Foundation Stage Profile while the National Institute for Clinical Excellence is drawing up formal guidelines for primary schools to diagnose emotional well-being.

Until now, there has been no public challenge to all this. A recent report from the Centre for Confidence and Well-Being is the first serious criticism of this policy. It questions the way in which children’s emotions are being formalised, regimented and trained. It points to the poor theoretical and empirical base of evidence for notions such as self-esteem, emotional intelligence and emotional literacy and challenges the government to justify carrying out a ‘national psychological experiment on the nation’s children’. The report challenges the way that policy is founded on and reproduces images of emotionally ‘fragile’ and ‘vulnerable’ people who need ‘support’.

Although the report is right that emotional interventions are founded on dubious evidence and incoherent concepts, it is precisely the lack of evidence and incoherence of underlying ideas that enables government to relate to public ideas about emotional vulnerability.

Carol Craig (2007) The potential dangers of a systematic, explicit approach to teaching social and emotional skills (Glasgow, Centre for Confidence and Well-Being) http://www.centreforconfidence.co.uk/docs/SEALsummary.pdf

Dennis Hayes on a special edition of the British Journal of Educational Studies (BJES) on ‘Citizenship and Democracy’

2007-09-17T12:12:00.000+01:00

Another collection of academic papers on ‘citizenship’! What is there that is new to say about this so-called ‘subject’? A start could be made by pointing out that the cash cow of ‘citizenship’ is a very well-funded New Labour project to protect them from the bankruptcy of their politics, and their constant worry that, like the 400,000 active young citizens who walked out of their healthy school canteens into the nearest chip shops, we might all walk out of the ‘political [third] way’ and start thinking and acting for ourselves.

That said, this collection does manage to do something new. It expresses the profound problem, if not quite the profound paradox, of citizenship theory.

This is best expressed in Elizabeth Fraser’s contribution ‘Depoliticising Citizenship’. She argues that citizenship is being depoliticised, not least by proponents of ‘citizenship’ themselves, and reminds teachers in particular of the importance of the ‘political way’. She reminds teachers that ‘Conflict…is a necessary condition of the political process’ (p259) and that what goes on in schools is so frustrating, patchy and ineffective that it can be, ‘an object lesson in how awful and petty and useless politics is’ (p260).

She argues that citizenship has lost any sense of the political way because ‘liberal democratic political cultures have lost sight of the foundational political power that underpins them’ (p259). To re-politicise citizenship requires that teachers ‘and the rest of us need to practise facing up to the difficulty of political conflict’ (p261).

Fraser does not go far enough in her analysis. It is not facing up to the difficulty of political conflict that teachers and the rest of us need to practise; we need to practise political conflict. Of course, it would be philistine to argue in any other subject than citizenship that theorists should get their hands dirty. However, by the logic of their own arguments, theorists of citizenship have a special duty to be citizens and to take the political way, otherwise they do not combat cynicism, passivity and indifference to democracy, they add to them. The implication of theoretical analyses of the need for citizenship by pure theorists is that active citizenship is not for the clever but for the great untheoretical masses they lecture from the sidelines.

Theorists could say that arguing for the political way is to take the political way, but that would be playing with words.

Citizenship today is not a real topic as it was, for example, during the French Revolution where there was a discussion of citizenship and the role of citoyens actifs and citoyens passifs. Nothing was said then about citoyens théoriques. The armies of citoyens théoriques that exist today - educationalists, consultants, academics and citizenship teachers - are not part of the solution to social and political passivity but an expression of that problem that has the perverse consequence of increasing passivity.

Do these theorists think they are too clever to need to be citizens and that doing theory is all that matters? Or is it just that it is comfortable and rewarding work? Whatever the answer, taking the moral high ground about citizenship and democracy is not enough. Here the example of Socrates shows us what a model theorist and a model citizen can be; endlessly examining every individual about what is the very best thing that they can do. The result of Socratic practice, real citizenship, is never the ‘free maintenance by the state’ that our current citizenship theorists enjoy.

In citizenship theory, theorising is simply not enough, and the eight contributors to this volume could start on the political way by picking a fight or two in the academic, if not the real world.

James Arthur and Paul Croll (eds.) (2007) ‘Citizenship and Democracy’, British Journal of Educational Studies, Special Issue, Vol. 55, No. 3, September 2007. http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/toc/bjes/53/3?cookieSet=1

Sarah Boyes on The Music Manifesto

2007-08-03T12:06:00.000+01:00

The Music Manifesto is one in a long line of educational policy documents aimed at revolutionising the school curriculum, and one of the first to focus on an arts subject. Developed by the DFES, DCMS and Ofsted, boasting a coterie of musicians, music teachers and the musically-minded on its steering committee (headed by ‘Champion’ Marc Jeffrey), its explicit two-fold proposal is for music-making to be central to 4-14 year-old provision, and for instrumental lesson cost to be buffered for all children. The Manifesto addresses a real need for music syllabus change, and has managed to attract a great deal of well-meaning enthusiasm and support from passionate music-o-philes and fed up teachers alike.

But the clue to its real agenda lies in the name, risibly, The Music Manifesto, which is actually bent at unifying and motivating a supposedly culturally disparate and politically apathetic nation. The Manifesto elucidates primarily a waffley political vision, one based wholesale on the power of music. It’s a bit sad really, both for politics and for music.

Early on the Manifesto puts forward what it labels an ‘argument’: everybody can sing, therefore singing is universal, and it bangs on about the importance about developing a universal music provision. It’s as if the only inalienable thing people have in common any more – both politically and culturally – is the fact they can open their mouths and make some pseudo-musical noises, and it’s the Government’s job to let them do it. The problem with this is two-tone: not just is the notion of the ‘universal’ easily shown to be a misnomer ('everybody can poo therefore pooing is universal' proves nothing about the importance of going to the loo); but the fact that music is good only as the last garrison of universalism means no proper discussion of the right way to teach it (free from Government interventionism) can get off the ground.

Because the Manifesto isn’t so much about music education (or ‘provision’), so much as about dictatorially outlining why music is valuable and how it should be engaged with by children and adults alike. The cultural sphere becomes the political. The Manifesto talks about classrooms alongside community centres; music teachers alongside professional musicians; and places the same value on the musical life of adults as it does of that of children. It advocates a no-holds-barred position when it comes to distinguishing cultural life from formal education, and distinguishing private life from public. Music, it seems to say, is important only as a shared phenomenon, where it delivers health and confidence benefits (actually not quite as daft as it sounds), whose highest function is to bring people together regardless of religious belief or cultural background.

To reflect this, it advocates getting kids singing by having a more diverse range of music genres in schools. It rightly says that Classical music is not the only important or interesting sort, but only because other genres – like hip hop, music theatre and jazz – are more relevant to today’s youth. Rather than saying different types of music can be understood and learned about regardless of cultural background or religious belief, it seems to say they are important only because people have different cultural backgrounds.

It misses the proper way to construct universalism when it comes to music, which is to highlight certain features that all music shares: rhythm, harmonic structure and patterns of tension and release. To get at these things, however, takes a principled and formal approach to music education, focusing on music theory and history. Presumably these things are too ‘dull’ for today’s yobs and fly in the face of the shallow concept of a ‘creative’ subject concerned with personal expression.

But the real drive of the Manifesto comes from its excessive insistence on ‘participation’: apparently, nobody has ever ‘participated’ in music lessons before. Marry this with the emphasis on ‘personalised learning’, which allows children to choose what they sing and the onus is on them ‘feeling’ they have an influence in setting the agenda, and music lessons become little more than mini exercises in some sort of bastardised democratic decision-making. Despite the idea that children should make some music in schools being a good one, it becomes lost in a macabre project of behaviour modification, which is not immediately apparent from an enthused reading of the enthusiastic and repetitively enthusing text.

A worrying long-term consequence of the Manifesto comes with its vision for the future of Britain’s music industry. Rather than music education showing children the complexity and diversity of music, giving them tools to explore, create and better it on their own and alerting them to its potential, it advocates arming them with the skills to improve their ‘economic well-being’ through getting music-related jobs. Music copyright should be taught because it’s a hot issue, since much mainstream music is about sampling and rehashing old tunes in order to comment on culture and assert identities; skills in dealing with music equipment are key. This cloying and static picture of what music is and where it can go refuses to acknowledge that music has developed over time and should continue to do so, and this sort of educational system will produce few inspiring and knowledgeable music teachers for future generations.

Worse, the Manifesto leaves little room for a personal and private appreciation of music. Whilst group singing is supposed to iron out inequalities in music opportunities by providing a music education for all, it does little to accommodate the tone-deaf, the potential academic scholars or the musically gifted. It seems to say anybody who isn’t moved by or interested in music – anybody who doesn’t feel the unconquerable need to sing every morning – is a lesser human being. The strange logical inference steps in again, where ‘I like singing’ seems to entail the truth of ‘everybody should sing’. Music becomes a necessarily shared activity, where learning to appreciate a symphony and growing with it over time, listening to the radio or attending a concert, are not sanctioned musical activity.

The Manifesto wants more people to make more noise, but it certainly doesn’t want more music.

The Music Manifesto has a dedicated website: http://www.musicmanifesto.co.uk/.

Colin Christie ponders the educational jargon and flawed proposals in the Secondary Curriculum Review

2007-06-18T12:01:00.000+01:00

The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) in its Secondary Curriculum Review presents us with a bewildering range of new educational jargon: ‘curriculum lenses’, ‘importance statements’, ‘curriculum dimensions’ and ‘key concepts’ among others. As so often, teachers are expected to embrace a whole new vocabulary and frame of reference. Familiar ideas are not developed and expanded within current frameworks but repackaged and relaunched to maximise impact. The result is confusion.

At the heart of the review is the aim of a more flexible curriculum where content overload is reduced and pupils and teachers alike have more room to explore areas in depth and make links between subjects. The implementation of this aim is flawed in several ways.With attainment elevated to such a key indicator of a school’s, and government’s success, published in league tables, one would expect any curriculum review to address the issue of how it will improve and measure attainment. The secondary curriculum review, however, appears to treat curriculum and assessment of learning as two entirely separate issues. The proposals highlight changes to the programme of study (what should be learnt) but nowhere propose revisions to the descriptors of the levels of attainment (what aspects of that learning must be demonstrated).

The argument may be advanced that the level descriptors themselves are in many cases very general and allow for a variety of content. However, this hardly represents a systematic, coherent approach to curriculum planning, whereby new syllabus content has to be grafted onto pre-existing assessment criteria.

Even if one accepts that the existing national curriculum assessment criteria can be fitted into the new curriculum, two questions remain.

Firstly, the backwash effect of the GCSE examination. The current national curriculum for modern foreign languages (MFL), for example, already allows teachers to stipulate content. It has, in effect, been content free since the areas of experience were removed in the last review. In practice, however, teachers import the GCSE specification into KS3. This has the demotivating effect of the KS3 topics being revisited (often in their entirety) at KS4. It is, in other words, the GCSE specifications which drive the KS3 syllabus for MFL as teachers seek to give learners an ‘early start’ to GCSE, taking the long view on maximising examination results. It seems totally irrational not to review the GCSE specifications at the same time, taking the KS3 outcomes as stepping stones to KS4 outcomes.

Secondly, the review states: ‘By its very nature, most assessment is not one-size-fits-all but must be specific to the learner, personalised and therefore inclusive, that is, relevant to all learners in the class’. This statement is simply at odds with the current national, centralised GCSE assessment regime. Alternatives, such as the German Abitur, where teachers submit locally devised assessments for approval by the regional education minister are not discussed. Instead, teachers and senior managers are encouraged to plan the detail of what is taught and how. It is highly questionable as to whether the job of curriculum planner, isolated in a department or even as a whole school, is a teacher’s role. If this is a valid role, it is doubtful that teachers will be given any extra quality time to fulfil it. In the field of MFL, in the late 1970s, teachers came together at grass roots level, in regional groups, to devise graded objective tests for learners. This was a successful enterprise, which formed the basis of the GCSE examination. It will take a similar time commitment for teachers to be able to work together to produce meaningful curriculum documents. Furthermore, it is important for teachers to work within the framework of a shared approach to subject-specific pedagogy, building on effective practice. The development of curriculum programmes on a school-by-school basis will lead to a further erosion of this shared understanding.

Finally, if it is the role of government to establish a coherent curriculum which teachers can then adapt, that coherence is missing. Teachers still have to work with different frameworks which are independent of each other: QCA schemes of work; subject-specific teaching frameworks, programmes of study, attainment descriptors and GCSE specifications. Only a review which considers all of these together would be one worthy of the word ‘coherence’.

Details of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) Secondary Curriculum Review can be found on the QCA web site: http://www.qca.org.uk/secondarycurriculumreview/.

Mark Taylor responds to the GTC’s view of the future of assessment in schools

2007-06-18T11:56:00.000+01:00

The General Teaching Council (GTC) has applauded the Education and Skills Select Committee (ESSC) inquiry into testing and assessment in England’s schools. According to the GTC, England’s pupils are among the most tested in the world, leading to a narrowed curriculum where teaching is ‘to the test’. For the GTC, a broad and balanced curriculum would be better than the current test-based one, which encourages anxiety and de-motivates children.

Unfortunately, the GTC does not provide details of the content of such a curriculum. Instead, referring approvingly to 2020 Vision (see my review on Education Opinion), the GTC notes that the current assessment system ‘may impede the full realisation of new approaches to education, including more personalised learning.’ 2020 Vision is also praised for perceiving that national tests are not ‘diagnostic tools’ of pupils’ learning needs. Furthermore, national tests fail to develop ‘desired skills and aptitudes’.

The GTC also backs the fashionable pedagogical idea of ‘Assessment for Learning’ (because it redefines teacher-pupil interaction) and supports the government’s new 14-19 diplomas: ‘Their introduction provides the opportunity to begin the process of moving away from an assessment system dominated by the purposes of quality control and ….towards a more balanced model with a greater element of diagnostic and formative assessment for learning.’ (Paragraph 18)

This report usefully clarifies the educational aims of the GTC in relation to government policies. For both, there is no longer a connection between subject knowledge and assessment. Instead, assessment means creating ‘diagnostic tools’ to develop ‘desired skills and aptitudes’ in a more ‘balanced’ system. And ‘quality control’ (national testing) should be replaced by ‘cohort sampling’ (local self-evaluation based on ‘professional judgment’ by teachers). Not surprisingly, therefore, the GTC report confirms their opposition to the ‘measurement culture’ set up by the 1988 Education Reform Act, which originally introduced the national curriculum.

This can all sound appealing to teachers weary of government initiatives. But this is not ‘professional judgment’ in the sense that should matter most to teachers – their love of their subject and the way it is taught. And this is not ‘balanced’ in the sense of the education that most members of the ESSC have had. However flawed the 1988 Act was, at least it offered a national curriculum rooted in genuine subject knowledge. The GTC report is really arguing for the replacement of external examinations of subject knowledge with internal examinations of the child’s mind.

The GTC proposals merely aim to replace one measurement culture with another. It is a further indication that self-assessment is becoming the central component of the educational system - and that subject knowledge is perceived as irrelevant. The GTC is right to argue that tests are undoubtedly unimaginative and possibly overdone. However, children are perfectly capable of doing them – and so much more besides, if only they are taught by adults who themselves value a genuinely intellectual education – and the subjects that provide it.

The GTC paper Assessment in the Future: Building the Case for Change was presented to the GTC pupil assessment conference on 21 March 2007.

A paper based on the report was presented to the Education and Skills Select Committee in June 2007.

Dennis Hayes examines some arguments about the demise of subject teaching in a report from CIVITAS

2007-06-10T11:51:00.000+01:00

The Corruption of the Curriculum, a new book from CIVITAS, argues that schools are used to promote political objectives, and fashionable values, whether or not they relate to the discrete subjects that made up traditional education. If a teacher does not pass on the particular ‘grammar’ of the ‘corpus of knowledge’ applicable to subjects, argues the editor, Robert Whelan, then pupils will be forever denied access to those subjects and, we should add, to the knowledge and understanding that constitute our essential humanity.

This theme is pursued by Frank Furedi, in his introduction, who argues that the contemporary crisis in education is unique because education has become politicised. There are three destructive tendencies in this politicisation: the loss of faith in knowledge; a philistine pedagogy that rejects standards of excellence in education as ‘elite’, and the infantilisation of children and young people brought about by seeing them as vulnerable and, therefore in need of therapeutic, or emotional ‘education’. Furedi suggests that we need to depoliticise education, and reverse these destructive tendencies, by arguing for knowledge, for elite education, and by taking children seriously and not denying their potential.

This is the context that explains the dire state of subject teaching in English (Michele Ledda); Geography (Alex Standish); History (Chris McGovern); Modern Foreign Languages (Shirley Lawes); Mathematics (Simon Patterson) and Science (David Perks).

Furedi’s identification of the destructive tendencies that constitute the contemporary crisis of education is a useful starting point as the authors that follow identify several specific instances of these in their own subjects. Ledda shows, by reference to the literature from examination boards, that what has been taken out of the English Curriculum is the canon of English literature, along with standard English, which is now treated as just another dialect. Standish details how geography is a vehicle for environmentalist propaganda and global citizenship training. McGovern tracks the impact of the ‘new history’ from 1972 to show how it brought about a rejection of history as a body of knowledge, particularly its chronological aspect, leading to political selection of topics and the fragmentation of understanding. Lawes criticises the dull instrumental approach that puts pupils off foreign languages and argues that, unless they are defended as giving access to high culture, their decline will continue. Patterson looks at the repetitious and incoherent subject that mathematics has become in the national curriculum, the structure of which precludes student understanding, and puts them off maths. Finally, Perks pulls to pieces the new science GCSEs and argues that, by approaching science through the contemporary academic prism of relativism, they make science uncertain rather than objectively true. He ends his paper with what is a six point manifesto for science education. It should be on every science teacher’s classroom wall.

This book does something different from the mass of works bemoaning the overwork and stress caused by an over-assessed and bureaucratised curriculum. It exposes the anti-intellectual political manipulation of the curriculum that is destroying education.

A young adult exposed to this new curriculum could have no idea who Milton is, be unable to speak standard English, point out important places on a map, know nothing of many major historical events, be unwilling to learn a foreign language, not understand basic mathematics, and see magic as an acceptable alternative to science. This disgraceful situation is not young people’s fault, but that of those who distort their education for political ends.

One general criticism of this book must be made. It is all well and good to describe the crisis of education and to assert that knowledge and the disciplines should be defended. It is another thing to provide a convincing case for what Furedi at one point calls a ‘faith in knowledge’. This book suggests that there is a need for another, In Defence of Knowledge, or the battle against the corruption of the curriculum will not be won.

Robert Whelan (Ed.) The Corruption of the Curriculum, London: CIVITAS: ISBN 978 1 903386 59 0. Price: £9.50. Published on 11 June 2007: www.civitas.org.uk

A summary appeared in the Daily Telegraph on 11 June.

Dennis Hayes on a new book from the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL)

2007-05-17T11:20:00.000+01:00

This book from Johnson et al puts forward one simple idea. Let’s get rid of curriculum subjects! Not merely develop cross-curriculum themes and such like, but replace them entirely with skills. Why be stuck in a ‘subject-based mould which was outdated in the nineteenth, never mind the twenty-first century’ (p8). Why support an intellectual education that was the property of the privileged? Why support a dreadful situation in which education was set out ‘in the form of subjects [and]…Although each subject had its own methods and skills, it was described predominately in terms of its knowledge. [and] Facts were considered non-problematic’ (pp24-25). How dreadful! An intellectual curriculum described predominately in terms of knowledge!

What do they want to put it its place of the ‘knowledge model’? It’s not just academic or work skills but something based on ‘an analysis of what school leavers in the twenty-first century need’ (p71). They admit they aren’t producing a ‘definitive list of skills’ (p96). But they do look at lots of lists that contain things like:

"basic skills, effective communication, thinking skills, team work, information literacy, learning habits, social skills, interpersonal (listening; body language; empathy) and intrapersonal skills (self-esteem; self management), competency in using and working with the physical world, and skills of creativity…"

There is even a chapter on a ‘do-it-yourself’ local curriculum, full of skills oddly described, given the themes of the book, in terms of local ‘knowledge’. All this is claimed to be so much more modern than the old universal curriculum subjects that developed over two thousand years; science, mathematics, history, literature and philosophy!

This ‘radical’ approach is claimed to be a way of motivating pupils and teachers trapped in the over assessed and regulated ‘subjects’ of the national curriculum. In a final moment of bathos, Johnson et al say that their book may be seen as ‘wishy-washy’ or ‘heralding the end of civilisation’ (p148).

The best thing about their book is that they push to the limit the arguments of the government and many educationalists about the importance of skills in a changing world. It is good to have a book that draws out the logic behind initiatives such as citizenship ‘education’, ICT training and the ubiquitous ‘outcomes’ of Every Child Matters.

But Johnson et al have really gone ‘skill crazy’. It is not skills based on what a child ‘needs’ that are modern, but subjects. Of course some school ‘subjects’ are not subjects, ‘citizenship’ being the obvious example. But the broad division of human knowledge in subjects is a way of initiating children into their very humanity. It is the intellectual that makes us human. At a time when scientific knowledge is expanding, and Bacon’s vision of knowing the ‘causes and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible’ is becoming real, Johnson et al want to deny future generations access to this knowledge.

There is a diminished idea of children and young people operating behind this ‘radical’ proposal. The authors give it away when they say: ‘We need a bit of honesty in this analysis. Most people are not intellectuals. Most people do not lead their lives predominately in the abstract. It is not clear that it would be preferable to do otherwise: the world cannot survive only through thought’ (p72). The message here is that ordinary people are basically only fit for training not education.

This is a profoundly anti-intellectual position which, by dressing itself up in criticism of ‘social elites’, masks the fact that this proposal actually takes away education from ordinary children. It is depressing but typical of our times. Politicians and policy wonks, often with Oxbridge backgrounds, have no faith in education for the masses.

How different it was ninety years ago, when policy makers saw that ‘elite’ education was should be for all children. H.A.L Fisher put it well in 1917 when introducing his Education Bill: ‘education is one of the good things in life’ he declared, and that the ‘principles upon which well-to-to parents proceed in the education of their families are valid; also mutatis mutandis for the families of the poor’.

The response to this radical book should be as bold and simple as its underlying thesis but should clearly state the counter thesis: stick to the subjects.

Subject to Change: New Thinking on the Curriculum was launched 9 May 2007. By Martin Johnson, with Nansi Ellis, Alan Gotch, Alison Ryan, Chris Foster, Julie Gillespie and Monique Lowe. ATL: London. £9.99.
http://www.atl.org.uk/atl_en/news/Media_office/releases/curriculum_launch.asp

Joanna Williams on Raising Expectations

2007-03-20T11:07:00.000Z

“If you don’t want to be here, there’s the door,” has been a much used phrase of mine when teaching unruly sixth-formers. In twelve years I’ve only ever had one person actually leave but the reminder of the voluntaristic nature of their presence settles even the most rowdy miscreants. However, new proposals outlined in the government’s Green Paper, Raising Expectations: staying in education and training post-16, look set to change all of this. No longer will youngsters be free to decide at sixteen whether to remain in education or training or to take their chances in the labour market. Raising Expectations sets out plans for “compulsory participation” (p.5) in a bid to ensure that even the 10% of seventeen year-olds not enticed by bribes of Educational Maintenance Allowance payments are forced to remain in education or training.

The main argument to emerge from Raising Expectations is that the economy of the future no longer needs such a large supply of unskilled labour as it has done in the past and so to ensure the employability of the nation’s youth, they must all gain qualifications. Indeed, the gaining of accredited qualifications is actually considered more important than any actual skills youngsters may gain: “in order to count as participating, young people would be required to work towards accredited qualifications,” (p. 6). Assuming the DfES is correct and the economy is changing, there are good arguments to suggest that compelling seventeen and eighteen year-olds to remain in the classroom will not make them remotely more employable.

Most importantly, this legislation will serve to infantilise older teenagers by denying them an initiation into the adult world and prolonging their childhood for an extra two years. At present, even youngsters staying on at school have somehow made a decision about the future direction of their lives. Those gaining even low level employment are forced to grow up and take on board more adult responsibilities. Flipping burgers requires you turn up on time, wear the correct uniform and follow health and safety procedures or you are out of a job and without a wage: a consequence far more real than any idle threats a teacher may come up with. Although clichés, there is undoubted truth in sayings such as ‘the best way to get a job is to have a job’ and that when it comes to gaining employment, ‘it’s not what you know but who you know’. Being cut off from entering the labour market prevents youngsters gaining experience or meeting the adults who may eventually help them find work.

In the classroom, youngsters already turned off by school, perhaps placed on Increased Flexibility Programmes or drilled by former-squaddies in basic skills since the age of fourteen, are not likely to greet a further two years with renewed enthusiasm. Young people are not daft: they will be fully aware that in the future, with everyone working towards gaining accredited qualifications until they are eighteen, those of them with low-level paper credentials will merely be seeking the same employment (and at the same wage) as previously sought by unqualified sixteen-year olds.

This infantilisation has damaging and dangerous consequences, not just for a young person’s employment prospects, not just for teachers forced to think of ever more ridiculous ways to entertain disillusioned youngsters but for education and for the whole of society. Education of older teenagers depends upon voluntarism, teachers assume youngsters are interested in what they have chosen to study. Remove the presumption of free will and what we are left with are dumbed-down containment programmes that certify participation. As a nation we are left with a youngsters prevented from reaching maturity, although physically adult and able to marry and have children, eighteen year olds will still be financially dependent and in a state of prolonged intellectual and emotional adolescence.

The green paper was published on 22 March 2007 and can be found at: http://www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/raisingexpectations/

Shirley Lawes on ‘The Dearing Languages Review’

2007-03-20T11:03:00.000Z

When it was first announced that Lord Dearing and Dr Lid King, National Director for Languages, had been appointed to investigate the crisis in foreign languages in schools, teachers and foreign language specialists welcomed the attention to be given to their beleaguered subject. It was no mean challenge to try to sort out the mess of government policy on foreign languages and to salvage their role as an essential element of the school curriculum.

Their recently published Languages Review is disappointing on both counts. The report seeks numerous ways of reinvigorating foreign languages, calling for ‘action to recover the situation’ and extra funding, as well as placing great emphasis on the importance of foreign language learning in the primary school. However, Dearing side-steps the real problem: in 2004 the government made foreign language learning optional at Key Stage 4 and since then numbers have fallen drastically. As a result of this policy decision, foreign language learning in English state secondary schools is in terminal decline. But, instead of proposing the reversal of the policy, Dearing prefers to recommend ‘incentives’ to schools to encourage greater participation. Only if schools don’t manage to halt the decline in numbers of pupils opting for continuing to learn a foreign language at Key Stage 4, does the report propose a return to statutory status. This is more than a missed opportunity, it is an evasion of the key issue which has the effect of legitimising the prevailing view that languages are too hard for most young people and they aren’t up to the challenge.

The Languages Review notes that the fall in numbers of pupils taking foreign languages at Key Stage 4 is closely linked to social class. He is right, since 2004 schools with higher levels of pupils from relatively deprived backgrounds were first in the queue to abandon compulsory status in 2004. The message went out to schools and young people: that foreign language learning was not for the working class, and as a result they opted out.

Dearing’s attempts to address this issue will only make the problem worse. Instead of defending foreign language learning as part of what should be a good education for all, he recommends that in order to encourage pupils to continue with languages after Year 9, schools should be looking at alternative accreditation to GCSE. He suggests a curriculum development that reflects what has already been introduced in science, that is, ‘alternatives which suit the different requirements of young people depending on their aspirations and aptitude (for science)’. For foreign languages, this means the abandonment of any meaningful learning that sees foreign language as a gateway to universal culture, in favour of formalising a ‘get by’ curriculum for the majority. It will be left to the independent sector, where the study of languages continues to be compulsory to GCSE level, to take foreign language study seriously. Already 30% of undergraduates come from outside the state sector. Foreign language learning is once again becoming an 'elitist' subject area.

The Dearing Languages Review as a whole reflects the prevailing preoccupation with the functional foreign language learning for vocational reasons. Despite a number of individual recommendations that one wouldn’t argue with, like funded immersion courses, trips abroad, and a review of the GCSE exam syllabus, the report offers an impoverished view of what foreign languages could contribute throughout every young person’s education.

The Dearing Languages Review, published on 12 March 2007, is available at: http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/teachingandlearning/subjects/languages/languagesreview/

Kevin Rooney on What schools are for and why by John White

2007-03-20T10:57:00.000Z

Have you ever stopped to consider why we teach the subjects we do in schools? Why is it that no rationale has ever been put forward to justify why English schools teach what they teach? This question forms the introduction to John White's pamphlet, What schools are for and why. The author has spent nearly thirty years thinking about this question. His latest thoughts are significant for two reasons. He goes further than ever before, in attacking most of the current subjects taught in schools as elitist and irrelevant. He also puts forward his own proposals for what the underlying aims and objectives of the National Curriculum should be. The author is correct to point out that the aims and direction of education policy are not the preserve of teachers to decide upon. This is a political question and links into what type of society we want to live in and what sort of society we want to create for the future. However, this is the only point in the book I agree with.

The climate in education today is one in which very few people are prepared to unapologetically defend knowledge content or subjects in their own right. White is hostile to academic learning for its own sake. He goes to great lengths invoking the Victorians, and the Puritans before them, to demonise the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. Throughout the book there are constant references to subject knowledge being a middle class or elitist pursuit.

My concern is that this approach to intellectual enquiry in schools is a view shared by government and QCA. When no one makes the case for a broad based liberal education based on the pursuit and transmission of knowledge then it was only a matter of time before something else filled the vacuum created by the hollowing out of knowledge content in school subjects.
In the past society affirmed the role of schools in terms of the balance between the explicit transmission of knowledge and the implicit socialisation process. Now that balance has been reversed and the transmission of knowledge has been dramatically downgraded to make way for more instrumentalist demands.

The model of a young pupil is no longer a robust curious individual capable of thriving through the study of history, science or a range of ideas. As White himself notes more than half of the time is now spent on developing personal skills and character. The author argues that school should teach more relevant life skills and that these instrumental skills are more relevant and valuable than abstract study.

Unfortunately, this is what schools already prioritise: ‘Be healthy, stay safe, economic well being, sex and relationships, citizenship, participation, cultural diversity. These are now the staple diet of today’s schools. White’s attack on traditional subjects is packaged as radical and egalitarian. In reality he is singing from the same hymn sheet as the educational establishment. There is nothing radical or progressive in denying every young person no matter what their creed, class or colour the accumulated wisdom of humanity. This is a noble ideal and well worth defending. By downgrading subject knowledge and transforming schools into explicit conduits of socialisation tasked with a range of instrumental demands like tackling social exclusion or apathy and poor voter turnout the government make two grave mistakes:

1) they transform schools into philistine institutions more concerned with brain washing and behaviour modification than real education;

2) they look to schools to solve the perceived breakdown in social cohesion be it cynicism towards politics or the crisis of British identity.

The point is…these are political and social problems, best dealt with by politicians and civil society not teachers!

Contrary to White, subject based knowledge and enquiry is a universal aspiration that does not belong only to a particular elite. For me, it drives the very essence of what it is to be human. There is a body of knowledge worth defending. It’s time those of us who value our respective subjects came out fighting and entered the battle of ideas over exactly what schools are for and why.

John White’s What schools are for and why (IMPACT Pamphlet No 14: Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain) was launched on 27 February. Details are available from http://www.philosophy-of-education.org/branches/branch3.asp

Mark Taylor on 2020 Vision: Report of the Teaching and Learning in 2020 Review Group

2007-03-20T09:00:00.000Z

‘Personalised Learning’ is all the rage in current educational debates. The 2020 Vision report makes ‘personalisation’ a central aim of schooling, as a way of liberating children from the perceived failures of the ‘factory’ comprehensive model. Instead, ‘learning guides’ are proposed to support children’s learning in a system where students pay more attention to ‘learning how to learn’ than to subject knowledge. As part of this process, primary school methods are proffered as educational ‘best practice’ for all.

The educational innovators behind this report, although they would reject this accusation, constitute a deeply conservative elite. They appear to debate different approaches to education whether through the idea of our ‘multiple intelligences’, learning styles, or emotional literacy, but they are really rationalising the fact that they no longer believe in a humanistic education for all children and young people.

Their lack of confidence in a universal humanistic education has led them to do a number of things. Firstly, they have begun to dismantle key university departments and school subjects; secondly, they have begun to focus their thinking on subjective intelligence and learning more than public knowledge and education; thirdly, they use an increasingly obscure language with which to explain their proposals. ‘Personalisation’ is now the concept through which they hope to cohere the dismantling of universal humanistic education. Through the apparently anti-elitist language of personalisation they are removing access to the subject based education that initiates young people into human culture in favour of an impoverished idea of human nature based on the idea -- familiar to teachers of children with ‘special needs’ -- that learning to learn is more important than what is learned.

‘Personalisation’ means that the rationale for education becomes increasingly behavioural rather than intellectual -- and the word ‘intellectual’ is put on the defensive. But a system increasingly focused on learning behaviours shifts the emphasis of schooling and parenting. Teachers and parents are increasingly pressurised to ‘support’ or ‘mentor’ the child in their learning. Or, to put it another way, developing learning behaviours is being substituted for the acquisition of subject knowledge.

With the ‘personalisation’ of schooling, children relate only to themselves, and are guided only to learn about themselves. The child, despite the psychological rhetoric about valuation, uniqueness and learning, has been intellectually abandoned. The clearest example of this is the idea that what is needed is not ‘personalisation’ but the even more obscure notion of ‘deep personalisation’ that leaves the teacher and the child floundering in an attempt to construct their personal understanding of the world.

Far from being an educational advance, ‘personalisation’ articulates a proposal to abandon education as we knew it.

2020 Vision: Report of the Teaching and Learning in 2020 Review Group was published on 4 January 2007. It is available at: http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/docbank/index.cfm?id=10783