More on educational conscription

Fabian Tassano has provided the convincing that I needed to support his campaign against extension of the school leaving age. His point is that this is not, as I had erroneously thought, a string attached to an offer of public financial support, but applies to anyone whether they are self-supporting or not.

This is clearly wrong. I'm convinced.

On a similar subject, Instapundit does a podcast today with Dr Robert Epstein who advocates letting teenagers leave school when they want to - providing they can pass the exams. This strikes me as a much more sensible idea for the twenty first century.

The Cultural Revolution

[F]actional fires were fueled by the anger of students frustrated over policies that kept them off the paths of political advancement because the students had the ill fortune to be born to parents who had connections with the Guomindang, the landlords, or the capitalist "exploiters" of the old regime and were therefore classifed as "bad" elements by the [Chinese Communist Party].  There were as well millions of disgrunted urban youths who had been relocated to the countryside during the party campaigns of ealier years, or in line with the plans of Chen Yun and others to save the cost to the state of providing subidized grain suppliers for such city residents. There were those, within the largest cities, who were denied access to the tiny number of elite schools that had become, in effect, "prep schools" for the children of influential party cadres. (With the shortage of colleges in China, and the thickets of complex entrance examinations that still stood in the way of them, only education in this handful of schoools could assure access to higher education.) And finally there were those who felt that party positions were monpolized by the uneducated rural cadres of Mao's forment peasant guerilla days, and that these people should now be eased out to make way for newer and more educated recuits.

Jonathan Spence, The Search for Modern China.

Somehow, familar. 

Jamming

Let it no be said that I won't give credit where it's due. Following complaints to the EU commission by commercial e-learning providers, the BBC has been forced to suspend its e-learning site called BBC Jam. This looks to have been a classic case of a bureaucracy crowding out the competition. Having started with basic e-learning, the BBC was starting to move into virtual reality leaving no space for commercial providers. When these companies complained to Ofcom, they were ignored. Whether this was because Jam was set up at the instigation of the government remains to be seen.

Perhaps now it's time for ITV and Sky to make the same complaints. 

More here and here. 

One size fits all

The latest wizard wheeze from the Government is today's announcement: "Seven year olds to take languages".

"I want languages to be at the heart of learning", Mr Johnson said. 

"The earlier you start learning a language the better. Making language study compulsory from 7 to 14 will give pupils seven years to build up their knowledge, confidence and experience."

Now while I'm sure lots of people think this is a good thing, it's surely worth contrasting this lurch towards compulsion with the government's stated wish to personalise the school system to the needs of each child. I don't suppose Mr Johnson has even considered the possibility that some children might not be cut out for learning a foreign language. Their time might be better spent learning, say, literacy or numeracy? Or speaking?  Not according to Mr Johnson.

He was on the radio this morning, telling us that language learning would be for at least one hour a week (!), and rhapsodising at length about all the exciting languages that would be seen in schools in the future. Apparently schoolchildren will become proficient in Mandarin Chinese on the back of their hour of teacher time. Colour me unconvinced. 

The problem with this announcement is that I'm sure it will have plenty of parents squealing with excitement (if they have not been jaded by the last ten years of exciting new initiatives). But if it ever comes to pass it will fail the children - even the bright ones. When will they learn that, no matter how hard you try, one size never fits all.

Fact of the day

According to a survey conducted by Harvard economists Michael Kremer and Karthik Muralidharan, 80% of Indian government school teachers send their children to private schools.

The state is not your friend. 

H/T Mercatus

Voices from Blair's Britain

We are supposed to be a 'free country' yet it's always like we have to answer to 'Big Brother' I'm really sick of it! I'm sick of being petrified of my postman, sick of being 'scared' to answer my phone! Sick of being answerable to anyone and everyone about what I choose is best for my own child! When will people realise that when you have a child, you have the right, as the parent, to choose what is best for your child, and your decisions should not be questionable?!

A home educator, writing on a private online forum.

There are now apparently between 100,000 and 200,000 home educating families in the UK, most of whom have a healthy scepticism of the good intentions of the state, and particularly of the current incumbents. That could easily be 100,000 votes for any political party which says it will make it easier to home educate and will prevent local authorities from oppressing those who choose to educate "otherwise".

Why don't you stick that in your manifesto DK? 

Random thoughts on education

I've had another post on education floating round inside my head for a week or so now, and it just doesn't seem to want to form itself into a coherent whole. So I'm just going to write it down as a list of points and see what happens. Either it will start to make some sense or it will remain as random thoughts. You should be able to work out which it was.

• Education should be tailored to the consumer. This isn't really a requirement for the 21st century so much as what a good education should be. Everyone is different and will get something different out of the education process.
• Why do children (or adults, for that matter) need to go and listen to someone talking in order to get an education? Does education need to be formal in the age of Google? How much can you teach yourself? If, as Oakeshott said, education is a conversation, then isn't the internet just a ruddy great school?
  
• When you think about it, how much do you actually learn from sitting listening to someone anyway? If it's in any way a difficult subject, a momentary lapse in concentration can lead to you losing the thread and the whole thing becomes a waste of time.
• What should we teach everyone? I would argue literacy and numeracy and nothing much else. The rest depends on the child's interests and abilities. The brightest will need a grounding in the "best of all that has been known" (or whatever the saying is). Many others would be better off out of the school environment learning a trade.
  
• We are probably still going to need schools, if only because of their childcare role. Parents are all out working and either don't want to or can't educate their children themselves. So if someone else is doing the education how do we ensure that they provide a learning experience that is tailored to the child? Can they actually acheive this though?
  
• If schools can provide a tailored education, doesn't that take some of the heat out of the debate over selective schools? 
  
• Brian Micklethwait posted a link to a debate about the speed of change in the modern world and how this affects education. I think we can overdo this. Much of what we want to impart in schools is stuff that doesn't change quickly. History, mathematics, geography, amd critical thought for example. Techies get hung up on the pace of change, but this is something that is mainly relevant to their subject. Not all jobs in the future will be tech jobs. Not all will change quickly.
• Knowledge is not linear. It's more like a network. There are lots of different routes to explore, lots of tangents to go off at.That's what makes learning fun, and it's why the linear approach of traditional schooling turns so many children off.
  
• Could e-learning be a way forward? Wouldn't it be better for child a to watch an online lecture about quadratic equations, while child B did an online assessment about erosion in the Gobi desert (or whatever interested either of them), rather than having them both sleep through a French class? What then, is the role of the teacher? Childminder?
  

It's all very confusing, but the education system is in such a state, I'm sure something dramatic will happen in the next ten years. One to watch.

Twenty-first century education

I've been thinking a lot about education recently and so, it would appear, have lots of other bloggers. I'm sure there are millions of other people trying to work out precisely what the information revolution means for the way their kids are taught at school, or if, in fact, they should actually go to school at all. Or, indeed, if they should actually be taught, when it comes to it.

I mean, if Google can point you to the answer to pretty much everything in a matter of seconds, why would you want to go and sit in a dingy room and listen to a series of slightly crusty and completely unreformed socialists for six hours a day? What they tell you will be largely rubbish, and most of what isn't rubbish will be out of date. What is the point?

As I said, people much more erudite than me have been giving this some thought. Brian Micklethwait posted something the other day. The internet has changed things, he agrees, but he's not positing a thesis about what actually it means for us education consumers in practical terms, apart from the fact that home-ed becomes easier. This of course, is one possible answer to the question. Maybe children shouldn't go to school any more - they should learn at home. I don't think there's any doubt they'll learn more. They will probably become better at learning autonomously which has to be a key skill for the 21st century. But will they develop the people skills that are probably going to be key in the future. Yes, I know that home-ed children have lots of opportunities for socialising, and I know the arguments for socialising outwith their age group. But what about mixing with people you don't actually like? Isn't this important too?

Someone else who has been thinking about education is Sir Ken Robinson, who I'd never heard of before, but I'll certainly be looking out for him again after watching this presentation of his on the subject of education. What a wonderful speaker! Quite why he's not a household name is a mystery to me. He's far funnier than most stand-up comedians I've come across and is inspiring at the same time. He can also say "Al Gore" without spitting, which may be a remarkable skill on his part or may on the other hand be a major character flaw.  Either way, watch the video (not the audio) - I promise you won't regret it. His thesis is that we need to be stop destroying creativity in children, and he may well be right. I'm not completely convinced by all of his arguments though - this kind of creativity will be important in the future but it will not be for everyone. We are still going to need accountants and managers and people who do the boring stuff. His ideas do seem to suggest though  that school, as currently configured, is not the right ambience for developing the talents the creative sector will need.

Clive Davis points us to someone else who has been chewing over the meaning of education - the author Susan Hill. She has a blog here, and on it has posted a piece about whether children should be studying the 19th century greats, questioning whether it might be better to get them to read things they, you know, enjoy. She tells the story of a boy who was fascinated by fishing and was lead to reading by means of fishing magazines. Would he have got anywhere with "The Mill on the Floss"? I'm sure she's right when she implies that he would not. Again, I have to draw the conclusion that the one-size-fits-all approach of schools is failing many children, although in this case it's a failing that has been around for decades.

What does it all mean? What is the optimum way of learning in the new century? I don't know. I need to think about it some more. But it's good to know that better minds than mine are trying to answer the questions too.

More brainwashing

Every so often (monthly? quarterly?) my children are sent home from school with a free magazine with the jaunty title "Whatever!". I've just done an analysis of the contents:

Environmentalism (11 articles)

Saving seagulls from pollution
Tesco opens Britain's greenest supermarket
2007 will be the hottest year on record
Girl wins competition to create cartoon on subject of energy conservation
Rainforest sponsorship
Planting fruit trees
Edinburgh Woodcraft Folk's renewable energy trailer
The green school awards
What does it mean to be carbon neutral
Erich Hoyt - author, conservationist and whale researcher
Beluga whales in Vladivostok 

 Health (5 articles)

Worried about your weight?
Drink lots of water
Healthy pack lunches
Kitchen hygiene 
Take more exercise

Multiculturalism (5 articles)

Chinese New Year
Rickshaws
Multiculturalism
Highland dress
Chinese New Year (again)

Other (1 article)

Thermopylae

In other words half of the magazine is about environmentalism and a large chunk of the rest is about health and multiculturalism. There is virtually nothing on, you know, educational stuff.

The magazine is produced by a company called Whatever News from Aberdeen. It's pretty hard to find out anything about them. Bizarrely for a publishing company, they don't even have a website. As far as I can tell the magazine is funded by the Scottish Executive and advertising - many of the articles are more like "infomercials" than proper writing. 

Either way, the similarity to the primary curriculum is quite clear. Greenery, health eating, multiculturalism. Greenery, healthy eating, multiculturalism. It's no wonder that children leave school unable to read and write. I really, really have to take mine out of school before it's too late.

Greenery, health eating, multiculturalism. Greenery, healthy eating, multiculturalism. Repeat to fade.