Education

Education - another commitment to change, another alternative, another promise !!!

The Government has announced the start of a new journey the "English Baccalaureate" in their never ending attempt to find a solution to our abysmal attempt to educate our young. Will it work ?
The problems are many and in lots of ways each successive government has tinkered around the edges, as this one intends to do with its focus on the end result, not the totality of the system by which we educate our kids.

The exam system fore instance, has many flaws, not least that there is more than one examination body setting the exam syllabus. Given the mantra that the market place is great at providing the most efficient outcome, we have a competition between exam boards to see who is best !   Instead of improving the quality of the exam system, privatisation coupled with competition produced a rush to secure the highest number of successful pupils. Each exam board strove to make their exam syllabus easier than the other to get more pupils to pass  !!
Anyway the government has seized the initiative and is to set up one exam body with a wider prospectus covering a number of basic subjects the, Baccalaureate and not the sharply focused A level.

But it is not the Governments action that I wish to comment on, rather I want to write about the inadequacies of our dysfunctional educational system and an equally dysfunctional society.

How do we pick the culprits.

1.  School funding
2.  The intransigence to "change" by the teacher. .
3.  The "wasteful" experiment of the comprehensive school.
4.   The wide and "varied" backgrounds of our children.
5.   The "social" and "cultural" norms that effect parents.
 
Each of these headings deserves a "Phd analysis" on its own but in each there exists a question about ourselves and how we view, not only our own roll but our vision for our kids and our view of society at large.         

For those interested I will attempt to answer, obviously from my perspective, each of what I call the culprits, where they went wrong and why, with my  brand of a solution.

1.   School funding.  Money has been thrown at the schools over the last number of years, particularly at the condition of the school buildings and IT systems within the building. The lack of funds and subsequent disrepair, over the Thatcher years, had run the schools down and because of the poor condition was not an ideal environment to teach in.  Head teachers and senior teaching staff have also secured good remuneration package.

Today's money, what there is of it, should now be spent on applying a disproportionate amount of teaching time and teaching quality on the bottom achievers of the school population. Instead of disparaging or generally ignoring the underachievers we should throw resources at them in the attempt to end the classroom apartheid.
To a large extent the clever student will self teach themselves, given the material and the attention when needed.
The ones who battle and need constant, one to one tuition are the ones who "don't get it Sir". A success at this end of the scholastic spectrum and you begin to narrow the gap. As you breed confidence, eventually you begin to remove the unruly element, which currently blights the modern classroom.

I have mentioned before my own experience of the Open University and how this excellent, media teaching tool, the University, offered expertise in computer driven imagery and the representation of mathematical modelling as well as problem solving. Especially relevant to me was the unfurling of an interlinking relationship between the world of equations and the physical world they represent through the use of interactive curves describing the effect of changes to the equation. The black board and chalk never stood a chance !!

These could be the teaching tools to release the teacher from their role of creating the primary understanding (they maintain their secondary roll of reinforcement) and allow more time for their pastoral role within the class. I believe the "proverbial penny's" will begin to drop as the children learn through one of the best teaching tools ever devised. We should capitalise on it now having provided all schools  with an internet connection and the presentation facility of an interactive white board.

Centralised teaching and a uniform curriculum provides a level playing field for all students, not the lucky dip of a good teacher here and a bad one there. 
The teacher is released to spend more time bridging the gap between the quick and the slow learner. A professionally presented media driven lesson allows all to grasp the basic concept and takes away much of the stigma a pupil feels when wishing to ask a question or a request to go over part of the lesson again since the lesson can be handed out to the class for replay at home.

2.  The reluctance to change by the teacher.

We must embrace new methods of thinking and of teaching as outlined above.
I fear that a great deal of inertia will come from teachers, believing their roll diminished. 
The teachers goal must be, up-lifting the pupil from the position, (according to international league tables) that current, "traditional" methods have brought.
We are sinking on comparative league tables in all methods of measurement and evaluation. Its simply not good enough to protect the shibboleth of the teachers training collage and the unions who support the status quo.

3. The wasteful experiment of comprehensive education 

After the Education Act of 1944 (The Butler Education Act) Education was in three tiers, Private (Public ?), Grammar School and Secondary Modern.
Private (fee paying) schools continued to maintain the gulf between the classes.
Grammar Schools, where places to attend the school were awarded on passing and exam at 11 years of age.
Secondary Modern Schools were where the rest went, to spend the next 4 years, marching time, until relatively unskilled employment awaited at 15.

The categorising and in effect, institutionalising children, based on an exam at 11 years, which some primary schools were woefully inadequate at preparing their pupils, was a situation that bordered on the criminal. There were no bridges to escape out from the Secondary Modern. The pupils were the fodder destined for the factory and the mill !!

Comprehensives  were seen as the solution to this inequity.

Doing away with the Grammar School, (notice they dare not interfere with the Private Schools from which the self serving decision makers came) and merging the Secondary School children with the Grammar School child into a Comprehensive, would, so it was thought, mix the academic with the non academic to achieve a hybrid.
Well it certainly achieved that but the hybrid, in many cases, has been seen to fail miserably and no amount of nurturing can make a silk purse out of a pigs ear !!!
It is not to say the experiment did not have merit since it gave the Secondary Modern child the way out and up and removed from that child the stigma of failure at 11 years of age.
The concept of the poorest achievers being up-lifted through their proximity to the more able was skewed and not, on the whole, a success. If anything, it dragged down all but the high flyers. The ethic of "achievement through learning", fostered in the Grammar School was quashed in many Comprehensive Schools, particularly the inner city schools, by the unruly behaviour of some of the pupils.
I believe we should consider returning to the concept of the Grammar School with two conditions. The Primary School must provide the level of teaching to prepare the child for an examination at 11 or 12. Two there has to be a route for the late developer to move up into Grammar School education.
Lastly the teaching emphasis and money has to be focused on the school below the Grammar school status to prevent the school from becoming a sink school.
Examinations have to be available to the pupils of that school equivalent and the same for those who can attain them and it is my belief that they will given the money and teaching skills I feel are necessary to equip the child for life after school.
Which Government will take on the task ? They would get my vote !!!

4.  The wide and varied background of our children 

Children are a reflection of the society in which we live and this society has undergone a tremendous change and is unrecognisable from that three decades ago.
Our educationalists constantly have to adjust to the children and the backgrounds they reflect

These children, from these varied backgrounds and cultures are required, (in the classroom), to mix and are expected to present an homogenised outlook which the establishment  hopes will blend into the conformist society we so desire.
The schoolchild's "badge" of self assessment,and one of the ways to ways they identify who they are, in this multi-ethnic mix, is their ethnicity. The group the child feels closest to. This might not be a Politically Correct view but it is reality. Others outside the group have their own badge and any disharmony or conflict comes when child feels dis-associated and undervalued.

 5.  The "social" and "cultural" norms that effect parents.
Parents have always performed an important roll, perhaps even the most important roll in the education of the child.
The stimulus to learn comes from the success the child sees around them, particularly at home.The home as a place for study, the books that are part of the home environment, the encouragement a parent gives are all ingredients for success. Dysfunctional families, or families where a stressed single parent bares all of the responsibility for being breadwinner,home-maker,cook and bottle-washer, these are environments where potentially a problem can arise. It is exceptional when such an environment, creates for the child the opportunity it needs.
Parents reflect their own inadequacy can become aggressive and demanding, often sighting the teacher as the weakness in the mother/fathers desire to obtain the best for their child.

I believe the more parents, teachers and the school as an academic entity, come together often, not just end of term report back but encouraged  to be as integrated in the school as is possible, throughout their child's school career.
Of course the parent who is prepared to give of their time in this way doesn't usually represent the parent of a troubled child and it is these parents that often are the most difficult. One can only try to take them on board and offer them a partnership. Maybe the concept of a shared roll in the education of their child has escaped them, they see that as the schools job !!
 
Culture plays an enormous part for the parent in the way the academic achievement of their child affects them.
The Chinese and Indian families are famously, ferocious in their desire to see their offspring succeed academically.
West Indian mothers are equally ferocious regarding their children and how they should behave and show respect. Sadly without the backing of the male to reinforce the message the kids grow into teenagers and become difficult to reason with.
The school having to rely on the good faith of a self indulgent, unwritten contract between teacher and pupil have little ammunition to enforce it.