FOREVER LEARNING: FUTURE AMBITION 

Extracts from this edtion’s essay 

High on my list of ambitions is to develop a far greater respect for education among young people than we currently have … Education, like many other things in society, is taken for granted and it shouldn’t be. 

It should be highly prized as it is in developing countries. From an early age pupils should be taught that it is a privilege to be allowed to learn and attend school on a daily basis … 

Instead of cramming pupils for exams schools should be making it a priority to give them a genuine interest in what they are learning by using methods that will fully engage them in their tasks … 

Would all this “active learning” lower standards of education? I don’t think so. On the contrary the combination of more engagement, more effort and more respect would, I believe, raise standards considerably … 

Most of all it is my fervent hope, and my fervent ambition, that schools will do more to instil into their pupils the essential values and attitudes that will enable them to lead a good life … 

Read the final essay for School Report by scrolling down to Essay. 

FINAL EDITION BUT MORE FURROWS TO PLOUGH 

Monumental self-indulgence – that’s what compiling these editions of School Report has been. An exercise in ego massage if ever there was one and a time-consuming execise at that. But hugely enjoyable. I’m sure my web journal hasn’t been read, or even seen, by many people but it has been useful for lobbying purposes – over the years I’ve sent off extracts to various movers and shakers in the world of education. Whether this has made any difference to anything who knows. 

This is the final edition of the journal which started in 2001 came to a halt for a few years and restarted in 2006. Apart from during the first year I wasn’t able to produce an edition once a fortnight but this does at least make the whole compilation easy to dip into if anyone is so inclined.

I hope that if you’ve read something here you may have found it of interest and thought-provoking. A wide range of issues has been covered from SATs, the school-leaving age and behaviour to universities, aspirations and GCSE maths. If you visit the archives page you’ll see an index to the editions from 26 onwards – I’m hoping to put up 1 to 25 in due course. I like to think that some of the ideas you come across will have an enduring relevance which will make reading them worthwhile.

I'm not planting any more ideas in this location but, apologies for this, I hope to be doing some cultivating somewhere else which will occasionally include a few thoughts about education. I'm hoping to engage in still more self-indulgent commentary but in other directions … on little matters like the future of capitalism, or the failings of representative democracy for example. Ploughing my own furrow, probably, as is my habit.

FOREVER LEARNING: ACHIEVEMENT AND AMBITION IN EDUCATION 

This is the title of a short book I’m writing to bring together some of the ideas I’ve written about over the years in School Report. Extracts from the draft in progress will be put up on my Quercus Publications website.

PLOWDEN’S PROGRESS 

A book that is highly relevant to the ongoing discussion about the future direction of primary education. What was the Plowden Report about? How successful were the methods of the Plowden era and should we return to them? Agree or disagree with its conclusions Plowden’s Progress offers an authentic perspective on primary schools before the national curriculum. 

For more infomation visit: http://www.quercuspublications.co.uk/education.html

POEMS FOR CHILDREN 

If you like poems for children please take a look at my books of old and new favourites. The poems will appeal to all age groups and are ideal for reading at home or in school. They include enduring classics such as “The Owl and the Pussy-cat” and “Puppy and I” as well as modern gems by Michael Rosen, June Crebbin and Allan Ahlberg.

 “…delightful anthologies. I’m sure children will find each anthology a treasure trove, containing as they do, so many memorable poems on a wide variety of themes.”  

June Crebbin, poet

http://www.quercuspublications.co.uk/poetry_books.html 

For The Pied Piper of Hamelin go to:

http://www.quercuspublications.co.uk/pied_piper.html  

BRENT KNOLL: A NOTABLE HILL IN SOMERSET

Anyone interested in learning about the mysterious hill that rises from the levels next to the M5 in Somerset can look on my website for information about the book I've written

www.brentknoll.info

'Congratulations to all concerned with the production of this meticulously researched and beautifully presented book about Brent Knoll. There can be very few locations in the country fortunate enough to have such a comprehensive and readable account of their history and habitat as that which Brent Knoll now possesses.'

FOREVER LEARNING: THE ACHIEVEMENT OF EDUCATION

See the essay in Edition 119.

FOREVER LEARNING: FUTURE AMBITION 

Taking the idea from the title of the classic film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, I called my first essay for School Report  “Many Missions, One Vision”. Anyone reading it in January 2001 would have travelled rapidly through a collection of thoughts on the purpose of education. It was a time when it seemed almost obligatory for every school to have its own mission statement and, whilst questioning whether these were particularly effective in promoting what they intended to promote, I observed that they were a great improvement on the school mottoes of the past. I wrote that schools were places where teachers had hundreds of missions, daily, weekly and termly, and I described some of them. Was it possible, I asked, to determine which of the many missions should be our first priority, the vision to which schools should aspire? I concluded that it was, and the vision which I chose in 2001 remains my vision today. It is my number one ambition amongst the many I have for education.    

There have always been many ambitions for education and these have varied from individual to individual. Although our basic needs and instincts are very similar we don’t all view life in quite the same way and this affects how we see schools, colleges and universities. For some people their main purpose is to provide qualifications that will lead to a successful career, for others their purpose is to draw out pupils’ abilities and talents, while for others still it is to produce industrious and responsible adults. Nevertheless despite these differences I’m sure all of us would agree that one essential purpose of education must be to prepare children and young people for the future by equipping them with the skills, knowledge and values that will be useful to them in their daily lives and at work. More precise aims can be formed when we decide what these skills, knowledge and values consist of, and when we consider how best they can be learned. 

In the previous edition of School Report I outlined the enormous achievements of education and the benefits it has brought to individuals and societies for thousands of years. For individuals it has provided invaluable skills and knowledge to prepare them for life and for work: not only the basic skills of literacy and numeracy but, for many people, advanced craft and vocational skills and, for some, detailed theoretical knowledge which has been the basis for new inventions, discoveries and ideas. For societies, as a result of the combined efforts of industrious, resourceful and talented individuals, it has provided increasingly comfortable and civilised lifestyles. 

But the system isn’t perfect and different people see different weaknesses within it. For example, I happen to agree with the view that schools could be doing much more to improve the behaviour and attitudes of their pupils but I certainly don’t believe there is widespread disruption and indiscipline in our classrooms – which may be the impression that some people have. I also share the opinion that many young people should have a better command of basic English and maths but I know it is wildly inaccurate to say that a large number of them are illiterate. 

The shortcomings that I see will not be accepted by everyone. For me the system has failed – and I’ve failed because I’ve been part of it – when people consume too much alcohol on a Saturday night,  when they smoke cigarettes or use drugs, when they follow the crowd and take part in riots and when they drive unintelligently on motorways.  It has failed when, as professional footballers, they constantly argue with the referee, or when as Members of Parliament their behaviour in debates is boorish and immature – a sad reflection on the education many of them received at their public schools. 

The system has failed, too, when a GCSE maths question asks for the number 1345 to be written in words, something that should have been learned in Year 4 at primary school, when too many children don’t know the Easter story and when 45% of them aged between 6 and 10 can’t find Spain on a map. And the system continues to fail when pupils are not trying hard enough, when they’re not getting the grades they should be getting, when they switch off schooling, when they feel compelled to keep up with the latest trends and fashions in society, when they look down on unskilled employment and when they don’t do enough to help those who are disadvantaged and vulnerable. 

Education, in its widest sense, has, therefore, a lot more to achieve. What it has achieved in the past, and what it is achieving at present, is huge but what it can achieve in the future is mightier still. With further ambition it will undoubtedly achieve more for individuals and more for society. 

In order to fulfil this ambition we need to retain all that is good about the system we have and make changes which address its shortcomings. It would be folly to pull down the whole edifice and try to rebuild it all at once.  Some changes can be made immediately and some can be gradual. Not everyone will agree about what needs to be done and consequently it will be necessary to create a system where different ideas can be accommodated. 

High on my list of ambitions is to develop a far greater respect for education among young people than we currently have. Going to school or college five days a week has become such an embedded pattern of behaviour for children and young people that it is regarded as the normal wayof life – something everyone has to do. Neither they, nor their parents, for whom school is a free child-minding service, spend a great deal of time analysing the purpose and value of this daily routine. Moreover, since state education is free at the point of delivery there is no awareness among those who use this service – which is most people – as to how much it costs and no sense that it should be treated as any other high value commodity or, more accurately,high value gift. Because this is what it is: a gift from the community. Education, like many other things in society, is taken for granted and it shouldn’t be. 

It should be highly prized as it is in developing countries. From an early age pupils should be taught that it is a privilege to be allowed to learn and attend school on a daily basis. They should understand that what they learn will benefit them as individuals and will benefit society as whole. The great achievements of education should be explained to them and they should realise that they themselves are now a part of this grand human enterprise. 

Since the process of being educated brings so many benefits they should treat this process with the utmost respect which means respectful behaviour in school at all times. Everyone must show respect for learning, and respect for teachers and fellow pupils. There must be no disruptive behaviour or discourtesy of any sort. That must be the expectation for every pupil in every school and it must have the unequivocal support of society. Serious classroom indiscipline is rare in schools but low level disruption, casual attitudes and backchat are all too common. They must have no place in the classroom which should be a pleasant and studious environment in which to work. 

It must clearly be seen as a parental responsibility to ensure that children and young people behave properly in school. We need to move away from the idea that it is a teacher’s responsibility. Parents must be as respectful towards education as their children and they must know that society expects them, and not teachers, to deal with any misbehaviour. The centuries old convention that it is the teacher’s role to keep discipline in school must disappear along with the modern phenomenon of school behaviour policies. We must move to a situation where there is simply no need for them.   

Greater respect for learning, and for the goals of learning, will lead to greater endeavour. This will raise standards and will also raise the self-esteem of many pupils who will derive intrinsic satisfaction from working hard to achieve something worthwhile. The combination of respectful behaviour and hard work will do far more to raise standards than any number of initiatives dreamed up by politicians or educationalists. As the saying goes it’s not rocket science.

And raisng standards is another of my ambitions for education. There is still room for improvement in the basics of English and maths. More effort from the pupils themselves will certainly help the cause but in addition there must be a greater emphasis in the classroom on the skills that are needed in the workplace and in everyday life. In English that means spending less time endlessly analysing Romeo and Juliet and more time practising how to write a fluent and coherent piece of text. In maths it means spending no time on cumulative frequencies, quadratic equations or trigonometry– however interesting they may be – and a lot of time on fractions, decimals and percentages. It also means doing plenty of practice, reinforcement and revision in order for the learning to be retained. And that requires hard work and respectful behaviour. 

With more effort on the part of those pupils who are not currently over-exerting themselves standards could be raised dramatically in other subject areas too. The number of A to C passes at GCSE goes up each year, as does the number of A grades and A-stars, but there is still much more potential to be fulfilled. 

How best can this potential be achieved? I take the view that there is more to raising standards than improving exam performance at GCSE . It seems to me there is now a strong case for phasing out this examination. We need a different attitude to learning based on respecting its true value instead of seeing it as a way of amassing good grades for the purpose of opening doors to future occupations. Schools have become glorified job selection agencies to the detriment of the more important roles they should fulfil. The true value of learning lies in the many benefits it brings to individuals, to families and to society at large and not in the way it is used to direct young people into appropriate future employment. Whilst it can justifiably be argued that under the present system good exam grades are to some extent beneficial in terms of financial reward, the constant pursuit of exam success is, however, restricting what education can achieve. 

GCSEs should be replaced with a school-leaving certificate in basic skills taken at the age of 15 when those young people who wish to leave school should be allowed to do so provided they have a job to go to. Other subjects should be studied upto this age for the purpose of providing everyone with the knowledge and skills that will prepare them for a future of gainful employment, family life and personal fulfilment. 

Instead of cramming pupils for exams schools should be making it a priority to give them a genuine interest in what they are learning by using methods that will fully engage them in their tasks. I’m not saying that GCSEs prevent pupils being interested in their work but they do not permit thef lexibility that enables other approaches to be used. 

Approaches such as making a model of a medieval village if that is what they are studying in history. Or doing some spinning and weaving to understand how cloth was made before the industrial revolution, or taking a car engine apart to see how it works or devising simple computer programs. And carrying out surveys of  wild flowers, trees and birds in the local area, and looking at different sorts of rock and knowing how and when they were formed. And visiting heritage sites and old churches, studying the night sky with the help of the local astronomical society, and growing vegetables to be used in recipes chosen by the pupils themselves. 

There needs to be much more of this sort of “learning by doing” at the secondary stage than there is at present. It will not only engage pupils fully in what they are learning it will help secure the content more firmly. This approach should also involve plenty of discussion, plenty of well-planned individual assignments, plenty of recording of observations and plenty of analytical thinking. And as with the learning of basic skills it should involve regular revision to ensure that what has been learned is retained. 

Would all this “active learning” lower standards ofeducation? I don’t think so. On the contrary the combination of more engagement, more effort and more respect would, I believe, raise standards considerably. I would consider standards to have risen if people remembered what they learned at school well into adulthood and regularly used their knowledge for work and for leisure. I would consider standards to have risen if people could discuss any subject and think critically about it. And I would definitely consider standards to have risen if, having investigated them at school, people knew how car engines and computers worked. 

I would also like everyone to know how mortgages worked and know something about basic finance. This is another of my ambitions – that all pupils should learn a wide range of essential life skills. As well as knowing  about financial matters they should know some basic DIY – how to put up a shelf, how to paint a skirting board and how to wallpaper a room.  They should all know how to iron a shirt or a blouse and how to sew on a button. They should know how to cook and to bake, how to keep healthy and how to give first aid. Parents should be doing most of the educating in these matters but schools have a supporting role to play and should certainly be plugging any gaps in their pupils’ knowledge. Abolishing GCSEs would free up time for these skills to be taught to everyone. 

There is no reason why some changes should not be introduced immediately. If the whole system were made more flexible through the introduction of learning credits or vouchers, schools with different approaches could easily be set up. We might find some schools staying open in the evenings, at weekends and during the holidays – for sports, hobbies and extra-curricular activities. We might find small schools being established where pupils engaged in more individual learning or schools where pupils did devise their own computer programs, carry out wild flower surveys and learn how to wallpaper a room. We might even find some schools that were bold enough to free themselves from the shackles of GCSE. 

Needless to say I have other ambitions. At the level of higher education I would look to replace our present university system with something which would also be more flexible. Do we really need tens of thousands of students migrating all over the country to study for degrees when online learning is so convenient and when there are now plenty of colleges and universities within easy distance of nearly everyone? Do we really need the vast number of degree courses we currently have or are there better ways to transmit adavnced knowledge and skills? 

At the other end of the age range, in primary schools, should we retain the system of having one person being responsible for teaching most subjects or should we introduce more specialist teaching? And should we be saying that parents, not teachers, should teach their children to read? 

And what about the whole idea of home education and the view that it is not necessary for children to be herded together in special buildings in order to learn? That all they need are some adults to teach them, some books to read, a computer and some basic equipment. That they can then learn about plants and creatures from what they see around them, about social history from studying the past in their own locality, about geography from the urban and rural landscapes in which they live, about politics and economics from the BBC news and about anything else from the internet. 

Wherever they learn I want young people to be able to think for themselves and to be able to do this for the rest of their lives. I want them to think about the issues which will affect themselves and their families and I want them to to think about the issues which affect society. I want them to think about other people’s needs and circumstances. I don’t want them to follow the crowd, to be easily led, as they are at present, or to adopt society’s prevailing values and attitudes merely because they don’t want to appear to be different. 

I have hopes they will acquire a greater breadth and depth of knowledge and skills than they are acquiring at present. I hope they will acquire a lifelong respect for learning whether this is practical or academic. I hope, additionally, they will acquire a lifelong respect for the concept of working for a living and understand why it is necessary to work in order to support one’s family, to contribute to society and to find personal fulfilment. I hope they will learn to value all forms of employment and understand that those who stack shelves in supermarkets, or clean the streets or drive white vans are doing essential jobs which benefit all of us. 

It is my hope, too, that children and young people can be given the knowledge and understanding that will help their social and emotional development and bring feelings of contentment and well-being. If schools discover successful formulas to raise the levels of individual human happiness then this is something to be welcomed not dismissed. One of the ingredients of any such formula should be to make children feel good about themselves by praising their efforts and not continually labelling them according to their ability. 

Another ingredient should be the message to pupils that, although they will derive satisfaction by trying hard with their schoolwork, there is more to life than collecting A grades at GCSE. Equally they should know that there is more to life than aspiring to have a highly paid job –  often the motivation behind all the striving for exam success. There is nothing wrong with aspirations – we all have lots of them – but we should be teaching young people to understand that contentment and well-being are found in many more ways than having large sums of disposable income to spend.    

Most of all it is my fervent hope, and my fervent ambition, that schools will do more to instil into their pupils the essential values and attitudes that will enable them to lead a good life. I accept that this is first and foremost the responsibility of parents but schools need to reinforce and extend what is taught at home especially when this is inadequate. Instilling proper values must be seen as much more than explaining what these are and having cosy discussions about them. It must be seen as actively shaping young people’s character. This means encouraging positive attitudes and discouraging those which are undesirable. It means spending time speaking to individual pupils about how they are behaving towards other people inside and outside school and involving them in activities, tasks and routines which develop the best of human qualities: activities such as outdoor pursuits and volunteering in the community, tasks such as cleaning round the house and routines such as opening doors for other people to go through first. 

We can safely say that parents and schools have been successful when together they produce adults who work hard, are conscientious and who persevere; adults who are confident, adaptable and resilient and adults who are responsible, trustworthy, reliable, considerate, courteous, tolerant and generous. 

Above all we can say that our education system has succeeded when it has played a major part in shaping human beings who care for each other and work to improve the lives of those who are less fortunate than themselves. This is my number one ambition for education.  It is the vision I wrote about in 2001 when I said it was the first priority among many missions, a sacred vision, a “visionof a loving world where caring for each other, kindness and compassion shape our lives.”  

Mission impossible, many will say, and anyway not the true purpose of education. I beg to differ. Of course schools should be equipping children and young people with the skills and knowledge that will prepare them for the future. And of course they should be teaching them to master the basics of literacy and numeracy, to have a lifelong respect for learning and to think for themselves. But we need to do more than this. 

Could we dare to reduce the role of schools as job selection agencies and say to young people that however fulfilling it may be to have aspirations, and however important it may be to earn a good salary and provide one’s family with a comfortable standard of living there are better ways to attain happiness? Could we dare to say far more often than we do that success in life should not be measured by exam results, job status, personal achievements or material possessions, it should be measured by what we do for others – family, friends and strangers? Could we dare to have a collective ambition for education that seeks to make us better people living in a better world? 

I say let us dare. Let us have all sorts of ambitions for education, those I have suggested and more, but let us have a vision as well. Let us be ambitious for humanity and be able to say some time in the not too distant future that a great ambition has been fulfilled. If we really are forever learning I am hopeful that one day this will happen; that education will  deliver its greatest achievement ever and finally teach us how to lead good and loving lives.