A few weeks ago, I had the terrifying experience of appearing on Newsnight to talk about the government’s proposed changes to the A level system. In the “green room” (which is orange, and contains posters of previous Newsnight guests such as Simon Cowell), I had the chance to talk to Labour MP Barry Sheerman about homeschooling. It was a fascinating insight into how critics of homeschooling view its purposes.

Mr. Sheerman, who was Chair of the House of Common Education and Skills select committee from 2001 – 2007, was concerned that parents were using homeschooling as an opportunity to avoid educating them. He is not alone: the most common objections to homeschooling are those that claim that mainstream school helps to protect children from religiously over-zealous or physically abusive parents. Mr. Sheerman dismissed as fanciful my suggestion that educating one’s children is a natural inclination – and that parents who choose homeschooling have done so because they rate it as more effective than other available forms of schooling.

If that is the case, then today’s UK parents are somewhat exceptional. According to research by the historian Edwin G West, parents in the nineteenth century (before the advent of state schooling) were not just naturally inclined to educate their children; they were willing to pay for it too:

The major nineteenth century legislation, of course, came in 1870 when the Forster Act introduced government (public) schools for the first time.  Yet by 1869 most people in England and Wales were literate, most children were receiving schooling and most parents, working class included, were paying fees for it (West, 1970).

This historical evidence is supported by much of the contemporary evidence coming out of developing countries such as India. In these countries – again – the majority of poor parents are willing to pay for low-cost private schools for their children – in spite of, in many cases, the availability of government schooling.

Mr. Sheerman’s objection to homeschooling therefore poses an interesting question. If 21^st century UK parents are not naturally inclined to educate their children – unlike their forebears, and unlike parents in developing countries – why is this? If MPs are arguing that without state provision, parents would not educate their children, is it not fair to conclude that 130 years of state-provided schooling has turned a natural parental urge into an un-cherished entitlement?

1) An article I wrote for the Evening Standard made the front page!

2) I went up against (or, as it turned out, with) Paxman on Newsnight. Video below…

Free Schools – most important – and other systemic changes

• Gove has made it possible for any primary or secondary school to become an academy. There has been HUGE take up, despite what the unions were warning. Academy status means:
  • Freedom from the Local Education Authority in financing – usually the LEA keeps 10% of the school’s budget to spend how it wants; academies keep 100% of funds.
  • More freedom from the LEA over staffing: hours, holidays, pensions, salaries.
  • No more freedom re: admissions (although academies tend to be more imaginative: e.g. West London Free School has quite a rare lottery system for 25% of its admissions – see point 15)

• Pupil premium: more disadvantaged children get more state money, so teachers get paid more for teaching them.

• Reading tests at six.

Curriculum

• Gove believes that most children are capable of an academic education based on a slimmed-down, core curriculum.
  • His English Baccalaureate (EBacc) ranks schools on how many A* – C they have in English, Maths, 1 Language, History/Geography, 2 Sciences. And it’s working!
  • This is a noticeable departure from previous, more progressive, educational thinking that stressed ‘skills’ as being on a par, or more important, than ‘knowledge’.

• Return to synthetic phonics taught for children learning how to read. (Ruth Miskin appointed as reading tsar)

In the classroom

• Tougher discipline (have appointed a behaviour tsar, Charlie Taylor)
• Less health and safety, especially with school trips

Other points

• Irwin Stelzer hopes that Michael Gove is surreptitiously, through the academies programme, trying to bring in a far more market-driven education system than he has publicly let on.
  • The mark of this would be whether he allowed companies to make profit from sponsoring academies, like Charter schools in the US
• Gove challenged on his philosophy by ex-Blair aide Matthew Taylor
  • Gove’s rather good response

Criticism

Three policies on which he has received most flak: cancelling of Building Schools for the Future; scrapping Educational Maintenance Allowance; raising tuition fees.

Once a fellow believer, my short time in education has convinced me of the utter falsehood of his position, and the troubles that result from this sort of thinking. As the talk is representative of much progressive thinking on education, I thought it would be helpful to point out what I believe to be the three most glaring errors:

1. The ‘Unpredictability’ Argument

KR:

“If you think of it, children starting school this year will be retiring in 2065. Nobody has a clue…what the world will look like in five years’ time. And yet we’re meant to be educating them for it. So the unpredictability, I think, is extraordinary.”

This statement is not so much wrong; it has simply been true of education forever. It was as true in 1911, in regard to 1965, as it is true today. It reveals a common mistaken belief that the pace of technological change is now so fast that knowledge is out-of-date almost as soon as it has been learned. It’s a popular stick with which to bash academic education – with such an uncertain future, why learn Latin etc?

It is the assumptions, rather than the point itself, that are troubling. Instead of boring, outdated knowledge, they argue, we should teach students ‘dispositions’,  ‘habits of mind’, and ‘aptitudes’ that will help them in the future. What are these dispositions? Dubious abstract nouns – creativity, innovativeness, team-work, problem-solving – that are as hard to define as they are to teach.

2. Anti-academia

KR:

“At the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanities, and the bottom are the arts. There isn’t an education system on the planet that teaches dance every day to children the way we teach them mathematics. Why? Why not? I think this is rather important. I think math is very important, but so is dance.”

You can’t be a respected educational progressive without beating up on Maths. Guy Claxton devoted a whole chapter to it. A moment’s thought should reveal the strangeness of this line of argument. There are many competing definitions for the ‘purpose of education’ (to transfer knowledge from one generation to the next; to help increase GNP; to have an educated democratic citizenry; to alleviate social inequality – to name a few). None would allow for Dance to have equal-footing with Maths.

But that is to miss the point. Because like most arguments put forward by education progressives, they are fighting a battle that they have already won. There is dance in schools – to the exclusion of academic education. And at the same time: there is less Maths. We have plummeted in the PISA league tables in Maths. And frankly who’s surprised when Maths, as conceived by the National Curriculum, is defined like this: “mathematics provides opportunities to promote spiritual development, through helping pupils obtain an insight into the infinite, and through explaining the underlying mathematical  principles behind some of the beautiful natural forms and patterns in the world around us.”

3. Educational Romanticism about Talent

KR:

“All kids have tremendous talents, and we squander them…ruthlessly.”

The first half of this statement is Robinson as the father in The Talented Mr. Ripley: “every man must have a talent, Mr. Ripley. What’s yours?” Except that: it’s not true. Most teachers you speak to will admit it – there are some children who do not have tremendous talents. The problem with the current system is not a pessimism about the potential of children, but the reverse: a crazed optimism, an “Educational Romanticism” in Charles Murray’s words, that refuses to discern between the varying abilities of children.

As a result, those who do have tremendous talents are not allowed – whether it is through grammar schools or other selective means – to realize that talent; and those who have less academic talent are not given opportunities to learn the sorts of valuable skills at secondary schools that will enable them to lead valued lives.

One of the big frustrations, it seems, is that there is little opportunity to be entrepreneurial. Production, and even-more-so distribution, costs are still prohibitively high; it’s a world in which new media has had little success inveighing the gate-keepers.

The phenomenal Vincent Moon should give at least a glimmer of hope. I’m hoping to write a fuller post about him shortly; this from his Wiki entry will have to suffice for now:

Chryde, founder of the website La Blogothèque, wanted to shake things up and find another way to share music and Vincent Moon wanted to film music differently. Chryde offered Moon to go and film musicians in Paris. The so called Take-Away Shows (or the French title Les Concerts a Emporter) have existed since April 2006. The large amount of clips is the result of a very fast filmed process with mostly one take recordings in a way comparable to the Dogma 95 concept. Comparable with the field recordings of Alan Lomax or the Peel Sessions of John Peel, Moon has set up a large collection of unique single take recordings enhanced with artistic filmed video footage. The fast filming process he uses is a form of guerrilla filmmaking. The sessions are usually two or three tracks filmed improvised in an unusual environment and as such they often had a rough and ready, demo-like feel, somewhere between a live performance and a finished music video. These live, unusually staged performances differ from the artifice of traditional music videos in favor of single-take, organic and primarily acoustic sessions.

Here’s my favourite of his videos;

and – below – too more videos of exquisite flair:

To keep myself company during my housemate’s 10-day trip to Hong Kong…

- I splashed out on a table-tennis table. I plan to multi-use this as fun magnet AND dining room table: very hip.

- I eventually got round to creating a Couchsurfing profile. But now I’m worried that my table-tennis table might get pinched.

- I have reached CD 4 of Michel Thomas’ Foundation Level French. It’s jolly mouthing out assorted French phrases on my commute to work; it’s effectiveness is very much in the balance. The broader idea is to re-learn the frustration of learning..

- I bought The Rough Guide to Classical Music (being a total ignoramus on the genre). I was a little disappointed that it was an A-Z – I was looking for more of an introductory companion – but I have had fun writing pithy descriptions for composers whose names are far more familiar than their tunes. But how to avoid sappy cliches? My first descriptions are phrases like “regal”, “Christmas-y”, “car advert-ish”. Hmm…

You can see him in two great talks here and here. Wikipedia entry here.

Three points that resonated:

• “School is all manual and no game.” A Professor of linguistics before becoming interested in gaming, JPG argues for the existence of “situated meaning”. Anything we read, he says, makes much more sense if we can relate it to an experience, image, idea, action or argument we’ve already had. (His comparison is with computer game manuals – they only become useful after you’ve played the game for a bit). Most children do not connect with textbooks not because they can’t make sense of the phonics [aside: I had the enriching pleasure to see Margaret Snowling talk about phonics last week] but because the books’ specialist language doesn’t connect with anything out of which children can make meaning.
• Assessment. As JPG says, you don’t need to test a player who has completed the most difficult level of Halo on his Halo-playing skills: the assessment is built into the game. His argument is that there must be some means of mimicking this design when designing, for instance, algebra-learning courses. Would it not be possible for students to only qualify for a more challenging level once they defeated the last, in a way that was built into the whole learning process – and without the endless annual trauma of exams.
• Problem-solving. In just a few comments, JPG brings a breath of fresh air to the turgid knowledge vs. skills debate currently boring the UK. Facts about Science/ French vocab items/ History dates are putting so many children off because, despite teachers’ vigorous assertions to the contrary, they can’t see them as tools. In well-designed games, knowledge is realized as tools. To quote JPG more fully:

“School is locked into content-fetish. It’s all about facts. Biology is the 1200 facts somebody in Biology discovered. Memorise 1100 and get ‘em on paper – you pass Biology. [But] Biology, Physics, Chemistry ARE NOT FACTS; they are problems to be solved. And Biologists, Chemists and Physicists use facts as tools to solve these problems, and once they’ve used them again and again, they can’t be forgotten.”

I have one criticism so far:

• This is a little unfair, as I have only got about fifty pages through it, but I can’t understand JPG’s unbridled support for Marc Prensky’s Don’t Bother Me Mom I’m Learning. The splurge of exclamation marks (+15 per page in some parts) is off-putting; the lack of footnotes unsettling. The hysterically partisan style (chapters are titled with scammy phrases like “But Wait – What About All That Bad Stuff I Hear About In The Press”) is what really put me off, though. Once I’ve finished the book, I hope to post more, but I get the feeling that this stuff is only going to convince the massively-sceptical wider population if its approach is cautious and substantiated with sound, academic arguments.

I thought I’d share it here:

Tutoring: a fresh debate.

Private tuition has entered the national conversation. For long a rather mysterious operation, the media has woken up to its rapid growth – especially after the Sutton Trust showed that 43% of children nationally had received private tuition. This openness in the media is both symptom and cause of a similar openness amongst parents. No longer a whispered secret, recommendations and warnings about certain tutors and agencies are now regularly swapped outside the school gates.

Regrettably, this openness has led to very little debate on the merits and demerits of tuition – or much analysis as to why parents are seeking it in such droves. Some commentators have seen in tuition a desire to recapture the cosy world of governesses and nurseries. Others have reached, inevitably, for the recession as a possible explanation – either that a place in a good school is even more essential in the long march to the furiously-competitive job market, or that tuition is parents’ compensation for choosing state education. Where are the considerations of its impact on learning, or the larger questions posed by its rise?

So: do children (or some children) learn better as a result of a one-on-one tutoring? What sort of learning goes on one-on-one? The answer is that you can regulate the learning in a very specific way: whether you’re looking for focused troubleshooting (fractions, decimals) – or a deeper exploration (“why do we have cases in Latin?”), the form is flexible to the content. The former is the most popular, and areas of misunderstanding (sometimes layered up over years of confusion) can be quickly unblocked with a good tutor. For some subjects and topics in particular, such as Maths and Languages, this creates something of a delicious learning environment. There’s no hiding in tuition, no slouching at the back of the class hoping that you wont be asked a question. Many parents talk about the benefits tuition delivers for self-esteem. It is not difficult to see why, when students are given the opportunity to learn in an environment where questions can be unlimited – and where it is okay to be wrong.

What is lost here? For one, certain subjects are assuredly enriched by class learning. Let us not be dewy-eyed: friends of mine who have taught for 40 years or more have described how rare it is to witness impassioned class debate and the clashing of young minds, even amongst the brightest. What classroom teaching does offer, though, especially in subjects like English, History and R.S are classes that arrive at richer or more correct answers together – building on each other’s mistakes. That’s lost in tuition. The classroom experience also develops other important skills: the ability to concentrate, for instance, WITHOUT someone constantly watching over you, the ability to wait one’s turn.

There are other dangers too. If they’re not careful, tutors can become crutches for their charges/tutees so that students never learn the crucial experience of being baffled, and of working things out on their own. Of greater concern, a tutor who is not in touch with the class teachers can tie confused students up in knots with different methodologies or conflicting comments about the school. It is no wonder that there used to be something of an impasse between schools and tutors, when children would return to school with accusatory comments: “my tutor tells me that you shouldn’t mark work like this!”

The debate about schooling itself would be so enriched by some more examination of these issues. If there is a consensus, say, that basic numeracy is far better taught 1-on-1, let’s be bold and say so. Then the debate can continue: we (as parents, schools, LEAs, governments) can’t afford 1-on-1, it might be argued, in which case school learning should be understood as an economic compromise. Or it might be said that, regardless of the efficacy of 1-on-1, sheer learning is not as much of a priority as concentration, waiting one’s turn, getting on with others – in which case, could we be more creative with school timetables, staffing, bringing in help from outside the school? One last one: what does it say about schooling that some tutors can repeat word-for-word the advice of teachers/parents but that something about the delivery, tone and atmosphere of a tutorial makes it sink in?

Given the Conservatives have put at the centre of their education policy a return to “chalk-and-talk” traditional classroom teaching, these issues make fertile discussion indeed. Tutoring rarely provides all the answers, but the questions it poses feel particularly relevant, if not urgent, at the moment.

I’m glad I re-discovered this passage – a defence of repetition:

We should be suspicious of claims for innate, untrained talent. “I could write a good novel if only I had the time” or “if only I could pull myself together” is usually a narcissist’s fantasy. Going over an action again and again, by contrast, enables self-criticism. Modern education fears repetitive learning as mind-numbing. Afraid of boring children, avid to present ever-different stimulation, the enlightened teacher may avoid routine – but thus deprive children of the experience of studying their own ingrained practice and modulating it from within.”

I particularly agree with reference to a subject like Latin – so much of the joy of what Mary Beard calls the “command and control” of Latin comes from the pencil-breaking frustration of all those mistakes – all that self-correcting – early on.

Imparter of Knowledge, Guide and Personal Search Engine

The last most of all, though. It seems to have gone pretty unnoticed that teachers are strictly not gatekeepers of knowledge these days – rather, they are the sifters, the qualifiers, the challengers of that knowledge.