Last night I was invited at the very last minute to accompany a friend to a charity ball. One of those lavish black tie affairs, with free flowing champagne, wine and an auction at the end of the night to raise funds through overprices lots, for a food case, It could have been a dull affair if it wasn’t for the company I had.
An innocent comment relating to my involvement with a group of friends on working towards an education campaign driven to bring about reform led to a ferocious crosstable debate – the kind that involves multiple people talking simultaneously and making various tangential comments without any being sufficiently addressed.
Education is one of those topics that most people have an opinion on and usually, a strong one. This simple underlines its importance since we all have these opinions because of our involvement with education in some share or form. The good thing about this topic is that the urgent need for its reform is undisputedly recognised. Ok, so we all know something needs to be done. The difficulty is figuring out the what and the how.
From amongst all the campaigns, reports and investigations, we are yet to find the solution to how to improve the provision of education. The first question we all need to answer and agree on is what is the purpose of education?
The difficulty in resolving this grave matter is heightened by the fact that education permeates across numerous spheres – society, psychology and economics. Each angle leads to a different conclusion and satisfying all of them is likely to lead to a solution which is impractical – the ”how” is just as important as the “what”.
In my mind the purpose of education is to develop each individual’ potential to help achieve their own best and consequently satisfy the needs of society through the provision of better services and innovation. I believe that individuals perform best when they are enjoying themselves i.e. doing something they are good at an interested in - the perfect combination of where skills meet interest. At this point an individual is self motivated and engaged and very importantly, gives a shit. It’s quite simple. We do something we care about, then we try to do it well and do well at it. What elements of our involvement here lad to overachievement relative to a role that doesn’t match our skills and interest (hereby known as “skint”)?
- Curiosity and exploration because we will apply ourselves (stemming form interest in the subject)
- Competitive nature that leads us to do better (I know about this so I do better than the other guy)
- Attention to detail (coz we care)
Our experience at school needs to lead us to reaching the point of skint. Along the way it needs to help us develop the characteristics above so when we ultimately applied to our skint role, will lead us to flourish.
So that’s the kind of the “what” half of our answer, but how do we get there?
Let’s break down the education reform debate into two – the top down reform such as curriculum, policy related matters, etc and then bottom up reform that deals with the school experience that each student has and that case be affected immediately through altering individual behaviour. The top down reform is a big battle. Battle with government, with educationists, head teachers, parents, etc. We’ll come back to that.
The bottom up stuff is now. You can do it. Each of us can walk this path immediately and make a bi difference. And it costs nothing.
The tangibles to fill this hippy concept – as individuals we react to our environment whether we feel safe, threatened, aggravated or uncomfortable, etc. A young person’s life’s has two broad halves. One that they send in their homes and the other that they spend in school. Educating parents is likely to be an even more ferocious debate than young people’s education so lets leave that for another blog. So then we are back to school. That’s 50% of a young person’s growing up experience.
In the last year I’ve spend some time travelling to different schools around the country, trying to reach different demographics and a broad set of issues to figure out every type of individual education needs to cater to. Clearly I am a long way from comprehensively investigating this but in my experience thus far, there are a few conspicuous common factors that can be changed to make a significant different to this school going experience that impacts 50% of their nurturing environment.
The ideal school environment needs to allow students to relax, gain broad exposure, receive guidance, inspire curiosity, and be challenged along with providing the fundamentals of reading, writing and arithmetic. It is a combination of providing stimuli, engaging minds and then offering guidance towards those aspects of education that are essential and no negotiable (such as literacy) and those which are relating to individual inclination.
Now of course the parental home plays a huge role in determining which students get support to either lead to their so called success or break what might otherwise be a downward spiral. But let’ assume a ceteris paribus, where school influence is the sole determinant. Students who have marched in step till the age of 16 years cannot abruptly be expected to know themselves and follow their unique dreams because until now they have aspired to the goal selected for them. This is one of the greatest flaws in the provision of education generally.
Students need an environment where they are comfortable and are relaxed enough to explore their creativity and ideas whether that leads to success or failure. Let’s not be afraid of failure! Kids need to get comfortable with this concept and not be averse to new challenges for the fear of failing which certainly should not be stigmatised. It is equally important that students are encouraged to set their own goals and hence gauge their own success and failure. Let’s call this the variable element of education. All of this while also providing those certain essentials of an education which includes reading, writing and maths and in the early years an introduction to broader subjects: global current affairs, history, science, foreign languages, community service, music, art, team work and leadership development opportunity. Let’s call this the constant element where students are judged through a combination of objective (examinations) and subjective targets.
From kindergarten through to high school, the balance between the variable and constant elements needs to vary, as does the composition of broader subjects. Starting from a higher skew towards constant elements and all of the broader subjects, students near the later years of school should squarely be pointing towards the variable element with a smaller selection of subjects that they have identified their own interest in through many previous years of exposure. The different between this and the practice today is that this variable element of choice, selection and responsibility should be provided in smaller but increasing doses through school and so gradually reaching a point where students are prepared to face making their own decisions rather than approach this point as abruptly as facing the end of a cliff. At the time of picking GCSE, A Levels and later my university, I failed to empathise with the vast number of my classmates who were overwhelmed with making those basic decisions. How can we expect such individuals to cope with the unpredictability of life?
The method of presenting information (teaching) of course is key. Inspiration is undoubtedly paramount. We all achieved more in classes when we liked out teacher. Students are certainly not homogenous in their interests but in earlier school years, cajoling them to appreciate subjects they may not necessarily have an immediate affinity for (some of the broader subjects in the constant element) is key. This should not be based on the usual answer of “well, do you want to pass your GCSE’s or not?” but on figuring out how a subject can be made interesting for a student and that’s where the importance of teachers lies.
This is about the top down reforms. We need policy to attract and retain the right people in teaching jobs rather than the teaching profession becoming the de facto fall back option for people who cant think of other options they would like to pursue in stead or those attracted by the vacation days.
The content that is taught also needs to be addressed to be made more current, flexible and broader. I don’t think we need to be concerned about overexamining students – it’s the quality of testing and to what purpose, which needs to be questioned. Lets not shy away from increasing the complexity of the subject matter younger ages and neither should we worry about harbouring too much competition through grades that leads to anxious students.
Jeez, come on! The world’s a tough place and every new job throw’s up a steep learning curve so why insulate kids from this when they are young? Instead prepare them to be well-informed, adaptable individuals who can cope with living in the real world.
I went to school in Delhi till the age of 13 and then joined a private school in Oxford my GCSE’s and then moved to North London for my A levels. From the age of 13-17 till I started my A-Levels, I practically did not learn any thing new. The exception being French and some episodes in modern history. Algebra, the periodic tables, dual sciences and surprisingly, my grasp of English, was significantly superior.
I was shocked. The outdated Indian CBSE system is based on what was inherited from the Raj. Clearly the education standard in Britain has evolved tremendously but the decline in standards is unmistakable if I as a 13 year old was aware of concepts, 16 yr olds were being introduced to for the first time.
The UK mainstream system needs major overhauling reform, all around. The content of education, the structure of examination, the provision of information and the purpose of education in fulfilling what individuals and society need must be addressed. Sure, it’ll take time, but one school at a time is not difficult and let’s not hold ourselves back form implementing change step by step because the big picture seems too daunting. We can all make changes today to make an impact immediately.
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