It dawned on me today that in my struggle to convince other teachers that a different approach can work with all year groups and all subject areas, I feel that I may to concede that we have a lost the opportunity with current secondary school students due to the dreadful learning experiences they have had so far in secondary schools.
Over the past few days I have had a series of group interviews and discussions with lots of students of various ages about the ways they are taught, what education is all about and whether their experience of schooling has set them up for life in the 'real' world.
From their responses, it is clear that their experience is, on the whole, nothing more than teaching to the exam. They see education as means to end and most seemed happy that they go through the 'system' only in order to get the college or university place that they want. They felt that primary school did more to set them up for the 'real' world, and that most of the learning that they feel they need in their lives actually happens outside of school or at best outside the classroom with some teachers that do things differently.
After some discussion, they began to see the problems with this and started to accept that there are alternatives, in fact some started to get frustrated that they are not getting the kind of opportunities that they could and should have.
So it occurred to me that we are neglecting our children, but the worst thing is that they do not even realize it's happening to them. They seem to have forgotten how to learn, many teachers I speak to say that their students can't be independent, but I have seen year 7 students able to work in ways that year 10, 11 or even sixth form just can't do. This institutionalization is now robbing our youth of the ability to learn.
I'd be very interested in peoples thoughts on this. I could be wrong and I know that I have jumped to conclusions and made assumptions about lots of things. Please comment any thoughts.
There have been some incredible developments in pedagogic practice at primary level over the last few years, particularly with reference to the use of cross-curricular learning; providing children with a rich environment that facilitates learning in a purposeful way.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was at BETT this year I watched a presentation by the ever-brilliant Johnny Ball and one of the things that stuck with me was that ‘learning isn’t difficult, its theft’. Receiving and retaining information is not difficult, we are built to do it. If one pupil can learn a fact, so can all the rest. What is difficult, often very difficult, is engaging kids to learn, making them realise that it will help them if them learn.
How often do you here kids saying 'I'm never going to have to use Pythagoras in real life, so why learn it'. Our responsibility as educators should be to provide a educational culture in which these questions don’t exist. The only way of doing this (imho) is by teaching with reference to real life. I never go out and think, today is going to be a maths day, no writing or science or creativity or geography for me today. I’m only going to think in numbers. So why teach kids that way?
I think there is a real danger of creating a generation of confused young people, who experience a primary education that has purpose in the real world, that has a connectedness, which is then gradually torn down brick by brick by the time they reach KS4.
Yesterday at Learning Without Frontiers, Ken Robinson said:
"Politicians always seek to promote same education they had. Dangerous to hold yourself up as best that a system can produce"
Teachers, SLT and policy makers need to be willing to take risks.
I think that subject based learning should be dropped and made more vocational and relevant to real world learning - everything is integrated and more 'project based. This style of learning would lead to greater engagement and a better understanding of why things are being taught and how they impact on students and their future. It adds context to learning and furthers a deeper understanding of the world we live in.
ReplyDeleteI am in total agreement and i echo Doms experience from meeting Johnny Ball that it isnt difficult to learn so as teachers we have to make that learning experience as fun and rewarding as possible.
One question that i think discourages however is how do we as teachers then begin to assess pupils to ensure they are fully grounded and knowledgeable to enter into the real world ? I disagree with the question however its one i have heard in response to 'creative teaching' or 'project based learning' many times.
Assessment can happen in a broadly similar fashion to now. Remember that with PBL, students will still learn the necessary skills and knowledge required for each curriculum subject. So they can be tested in similar ways. One difference should of course come from a 'real world' scenario set of questions and challenges.
ReplyDeleteHow do we assess ability in the work place? By loosening reins, setting tasks and assessing the process and or product.
I don't understand why assessment should be any more of an issue to PBL at 2ry lever than it is at 1ry level.
ReplyDeleteI think back to my experience of teaching on vocational quals like BTEC, where one project would assess the students' ability to meet criteria at different levels of several units / 'subjects'. This is exactly the same at Primary level.
Seems to be a rather confusing hole in the middle with a more subject focussed approach.
And don't even get me started on the potential CPD value for practitioners of collaborating with staff from different departments.
We tried at our school at KS3 to introduce a project/skills based learning curriculum with a whole new set of assessment criteria but eventually people in charge got too scared of a perceived lack of rigour and have scaled it right back until it is as rigid and inflexible as standard curriculum with an assessment framework that is just a mirror of current system. Until school's are freed from external pressures and allowed to try new approaches without fear of negative press I fear the status quo will remain. Inroads will be made my pockets of innovative teachers in non core subjects and the odd courageous school and we can only hope that these can have some influence across education. In my own school I am constantly praised for my innovative practice and levels of engagement but they do not know, or are not willing to risk, how to implement this work across the school
ReplyDeleteFor the majority of my time I work in primary schools and the concern HT's often have is that the transition from working in an enquiry based flexible fun way to being sat in lines and being lectured to is a huge worry.
ReplyDeleteI read an interesting piece about Finland where by removing inter-pupil competition, everyone improved - http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/
In linked this on Ewan McIntosh's blog here: http://edu.blogs.com/edublogs/2012/01/collaboration-2-collaborating-in-hostile-territory.html ...as part of his great series of posts about Collaboration (my fav thing).
Our process for developing skills required to be effective is here if you're interested: www.every1speaks.com/leaves-of-learning