Chance of a Lifetime - Your Role
You have arrived at the blog section, now tell us what you think. You will be dealing directly with John Harrison who alone will moderate the blog. So please don’t expect an immediate posting all the time until you are ‘known’ as a serious respondent. John will endeavour to get things posted within 24 hours.
February 6th, 2008 at 10:10 am
I have read the book. Although the proposals seem quite impossible at first, closer examination reveals that, given the will to fight the entrenched school-based education industry, they are actually practical and would seem the one way out of our academically biased dead end.
I would like to see some discussion about the subjects/topics proposed for the School Leaving Certificate.
Langdale and Harrison have opened a door to the resolution of many of the negative aspects of education in Britain today.
February 17th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
This book was an interesting read with some strong proposals for the education system. Hopefully some of the ideas sketched out in the book can be used in the future to improve the education system in this country.
I will be keeping an eye on this debate forum to see what other people think about the book and the education system at the moment.
March 3rd, 2008 at 5:44 pm
In response to your comment, Anthony (for which many thanks), it might be useful if I list the 18 topics which we suggest should be tested as component parts of the School Leaving Certificate. These are not meant to be our definitive list, merely what we think would be apprpriate. They are:
1. Reading (including fact and fiction; reading for information, and understanding)
2. Writing (including stories, accounts, descriptions, play/film or audio scripts, poetry, reports, letters)
3. Speaking (solo and in a group discussion or debate)
4. Listening (including speeches, drama, radio, TV/film)
5. Arithmetic
6. Measurement
7. Financial Management (including mortgages, insurance, tax, pensions, income/expenditure)
8. History
9. Geography
10. a foreign language, perhaps as a practical spoken experience rather than as an academic study
11. Law
12. Citizen’s Rights and Responsibilities (e.g. including local/regional councils, form filling, jury service)
13. Religion
14. Philosophy (including moral issues and thinking skills)
15. Biology (including food, diet, medicines)
16. Environment
17. Home Management (including power sources & appliances, cooking, cleaning, basic maintenance)
18. Information Technology
Naturally, this list raises more questions than it answers; but that is the point. We want you to debate the list, amplify and refine the content.
John Harrison
August 19th, 2008 at 10:49 am
Aware that the idea of the 14-19 (post Tomlinson) paper was to give greater recognition/opportunity to those more inclined towards work related learning, I thought I’d give that a quick scan through before replying to you.
And on the basis of said quick scan (it’s 89 pages, and not nearly as good a read as Chance of a Lifetime), what do I find? 5 A*-C GCSE’s are still to be the goal for most people (with some acceptance that actually functional skills in maths and English are important), and everyone ‘entitled’ (read make it compulsory) to education to 19, double science GCSE, 2 hours of PE, etc… So - you could say, same aims, some flexibility as to when children are supposed to reach acceptable KS3 standards, and provision for accelerated learning or remedial programs for those who don’t conform to the norm, same pupil-centred approach, same acknowledgement that vocational qualifications are as good as GCSE’s. No - stop there - GCSE’s are still to be the standard by which pupils and schools alike are deemed failures or successes. And schools are still to be the place where pupils will pass or fail - for around, I calculate, taking pre-school into account, 16 years of their lives. Oh, and for good measure, there’s a promise to continue to invest in the fabric of the school buildings, even though what’ll really be needed is many more teacher-hours spent with fewer pupils at a time, and not in ’school’.
So…GCSE’s carry on as usual (standard continues to fall, so more people so pass of course)… add some more ‘vocational’ studies, wrap them up with new names so more employers may understand what they mean (they won’t - so they’ll ask for GCSE’s instead), and prolong the agony for all until 19.
I guess one of the differences between your approach and the 14-19 plans are that you take as your starting point the fact that actually GCSE’s are not for the majority. And try as governments might (and have for the best part of a quarter of a century), to prove otherwise, even now this is evidently the case, with around half now achieving 5 A*-C’s (which means half do not). So given the disaffection with school (amongst pupils from all backgrounds and ability and inclination), I find the achievement of a School Leaving Certificate as an incentive to learn the basics for modern living, and treat school as a means to an end rather than something to be endured, very appealing. Like one or more of your initial reviewers though, I do find myself asking why then insist on schooling in any form after passing? Payment for learning in itself could be all that’s needed. It certainly works at 6th form level now, where disaffected, ill disciplined year 11’s who seem incapable of independent thought or action turn up for AS level courses ready to behave like the children we have led them to be for two years (I have had too much experience of this in the past year - a long story which ultimately is a sorry tale of wasting a year of my and pupils’ time - and yes, I am talking about Physics AS!). When asked if they should be doing a course they appear to have no aptitude for or inclination to work on, they point out that they want to stay on to get their EMA payments and the subject fitted in their option blocks. There would of course be some element of this even with choice at 14, but it would not be as bad, and financial incentives to work hard rather than just turn up are not too difficult to devise.
Personalised learning is of course vital for any education system to succeed. At the moment, as teachers we are still expected to provide this personalised learning experience to 30 children of all abilities and maturity and most importantly differing prior achievement, at once. It is impossible to do, and even giving lip service to it in such a way as to satisfy OFSTED inevitably involves differentiating aims and materials, making it quite clear to all, including the children, that there are ‘best’ and ‘not so good’ pupils. There are plans afoot for pupils to learn at their own pace, mainly using IT (that solves the teacher shortage at least). If we can educate the next generation as a whole to become sufficiently independent and self-motivated for this to work, we’ll have solved many of this country’s problems in one go. Seriously though, two things come to mind. Firstly, that kind of learning won’t happen without a basic skills set. Secondly, who needs ’school’ and large undifferentiated classes, and teachers trying to perform the impossible, if this is the way of the future. Teachers become tutors. Lessons become tutorials. Individuals are treated individually.
School certainly needs a radical shake-up.
And it doesn’t come much more radical that abolishing it.
In my somewhat limited experience, if anything, modern secondary school seems to uneducate - motivation, responsibility, independence, and even some basic intellectual skills, seem to be unlearned rapidly as pupils progress through ‘the system’, ever sheltered from the realities of adult life. A good case for abolition I’d say!
On a more personal note - this book makes a good read for any teacher who has come successfully through the system - i.e. has qualifications (as I have). Teacher training includes a great deal about differentiation, etc, etc (of course it has to - it’s only available to those with degrees or A-levels at least), but it’s always useful to look at what happens from the point of view of the disaffected, and a review of how we’ve come to be where we are is always thought provoking.
P. Berry
Secondary School Science Teacher