A New Concept of Schooling
By David W. Harris MA, BSc(Hons),NPQH
Principal of Serlby Park (a 3-18 Business & Enterprise Learning Community)
“How on earth did I get here?” is the regular cry of commuters who suddenly, in the middle of the daily trip to work, realise they have reached a point with no recollection of the past 10 minutes of their journey. This example of our brain ‘carrying on without us’ is a good metaphor for the position in which we currently find ourselves in education.
“How on earth did we get here?”
It is often said that if someone was to time travel from the 18th century the only place they would recognise would be the local school. I feel this is rather unfair to many excellent present day schools, but the point is one we all understand.
Why do we separate education into little chunks and then test it?
Why do we think of a building when we talk about learning?
Why do we choose a small square room with an adult at the front as our model of perfection?
A wise friend of mine likened educational leadership to driving a vehicle with a blocked windscreen using only the rear view mirrors. This may explain our current situation rather well. If we are looking at how things have changed in the past and making assumptions about the turns in front of us, it is hardly surprising if we miss the hole in the road ahead!
So instead of using the rear view mirrors, maybe we should start using our crystal ball, and see what the pupil of 2020 might need us to prepare them for. Sadly humans do not have a great record when it comes to future gazing:
• “Well informed people know it is impossible to transmit the voice over wires and that if it were possible to do so, the thing would be of no practical value.” (Boston Post 1865)
• “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible”(Lord Kelvin 1895)
Let’s believe we can fare better than this. We must ask ourselves what the factors are which may influence learning in 2020?
It is generally agreed that the coming decades will be times of great change, and for this reason it is essential that educational provision helps the student of the future meet the changing agenda. So perhaps the question we should be asking ourselves is how can we help the learner of the present day prepare for the future and not the past?
Advances in working of the brain
I think we can quickly discount physiological advances. Professor Robert Winston informs us that evolutionary change is a slow process with little advance in brain function over the past 30,000 years. The internet is alive with suggestions of drugs to enhance brain function, but even if these prove to have some grounding in truth, they would present society with a huge moral dilemma. So it seems likely that developments in the next decade need to focus more on how we use our brains more effectively.
New developments in school buildings
Likewise, we may be looking in the wrong direction if we believe the saviour of future schooling to be bricks and mortar. One only has to examine architectural advancement in the current range of schools being built. Many have an impressive modern façade, but the basic learning space is still a small box. One must remember that the new build of today will not be halfway through its expected lifespan by the year 2020. It is easy to assume that buildings will provide the solutions to all our problems, when in fact they may be limiting the extent of our vision. Indeed our own piece of ‘future thinking’; the amalgamation of three schools to form a single 3-18 learning environment, has the tag line ‘All through schooling is a philosophy not a building’. We currently have a vibrant range of cross-phase learning initiatives occurring in split site buildings well past their best, yet know of purpose built ‘state of the art’ buildings where innovation is rare.
New teaching & learning techniques
Maybe we need to think radically if we are to meet the future agenda, particularly if Dr. William Daggett is correct in his view that “the world our kids are going to live in is changing four times faster than our schools”. So if we are going to try and build our new concept of schooling from first principles, what are the facts about education that we can use as our foundation? Surely after hundreds of years of development we must have a clear idea of the ingredients for success? Barbara Prashnig (in Power of Diversity) questions many of the ‘facts’ that teachers seem to take for granted. She lists 10 false beliefs about education:
1. Students learn best when seated upright at a desk or table.
2. Students learn best in well-illuminated areas and damage their eyes when they read in low light.
3. Students learn more and perform better in an absolutely quiet environment.
4. Students learn difficult subjects best in the early morning when they are most alert.
5. Students who do not sit still are not ready to learn.
6. Eating should not be permitted in classrooms during lessons.
7. Effective teaching requires detailed step by step sequential explanations.
8. Whole group instruction is the best way to teach.
9. Generally the older students are, the easier it is for them to adapt to the teacher’s style.
10. Truancy is related to poor attitudes, home problems , lack of motivation and other factors which have nothing to do with their preferred learning style.
Prashnig claims that whilst all of the above statements are true for some learners, they are not true for all, with more than half of teenagers not fitting the rule. Despite the large number for whom these statements are not true, most classrooms around the world are designed as if they are. We now have greater access to research on the workings of the brain than ever before, yet many of the practitioners who could use this in their work are oblivious to its very existence. Surely this is as strange a situation as developing a new type of car engine, yet not instructing the garage mechanics on its working!
Advances in technology
So perhaps we should focus on the advancements that technology offers us. There is no doubt that computers and the Internet have already greatly increased the access to information and over the next decade one must assume that this trend will continue. However does the increase in availability of information naturally mean improved education? It would seem not. One only has to listen to Alan November explaining the misuse of common search engines which act as league tables of most popular sites (rather than most appropriate ones), or simply look at a random sample of homework to see that we appear to have produced a ‘click and print’ generation. Although we may have 4 beautiful colour pages on ‘Queen Victoria’, the pupil’s contribution to the work may simply have been to click the first link on the search engine and submit. The skills of critical thinking and analysis, vital for questioning the validity of data are often a low priority in many ICT classrooms, or sadly may not be taught at all.
Changes in attitude/ commitment of learner
This brings us to the area covered by Thomas Friedman in “The World is Flat”, who very clearly demonstrates that the communications boom of the past decade has ‘flattened’ the world. He cites many examples of work that is being ‘out sourced’ to the other side of the world where talented individuals are competing directly with each other regardless of their background or origin. The empowering of poorer nations must clearly be seen as a boon to the development of individuals within those countries, but when looked at from the view point of a British student some more worrying conclusions can be drawn. When comparing two pupils of identical ability across the continents, they now have similar opportunities, identical access to information, but Friedman reports that the average Western pupil has a greatly reduced desire to succeed. This lack of ‘hunger’ for knowledge and learning may prove to be the most serious challenge for our new concept of schooling. Unless an enthusiasm for learning can be developed, even the most imaginative building and technology will fail to produce the desired results.
Changes in society’s attitude towards learning/ learners
Roy Leighton in his contribution to The Big book of Independent Thinking makes a strong argument for schools and society to shift from its heavy reliance on IQ as the pinnacle of achievement. He describes the example of two parents who ‘hot house’ their child, impressively raising his IQ to a level far beyond the expected level for his tender years. However, the progress is focused purely on intellectual progress, paying little regard to the emotional development of the child or the family as a whole. The danger of this approach is shown when the young child shows severe signs of stress when he fails to win a chess match, rocking on the chair ringing his hands.
Intellectual development without emotional development creates human beings who are unable to effectively use their knowledge. Schools have tended to place IQ at the core of their work, indeed they are ranked by how effective they are at developing this intelligence! Should our new concept of schooling place equal importance on the development of EQ (Emotional Quotient)? Imagine parents choosing their child’s school based on a league table of the institutions which developed pupil’s EQ the most. In fact I believe it is possible to gauge the importance a school places on developing Emotional Intelligence; simply by sitting in the school reception for 20 minutes at the start of the day, you gain a very clear idea of the empathy and respect shown by both staff and pupils.
Advances in understanding of the brain
So what exactly should be the focus of our new concept of schooling? Subject development or brain development?
Neuroscientist Elisabeth Sowell is clear:
“Now, the brain is like a muscle and needs to be ‘worked out’ to develop in a healthy way. It has to be used to grow. In other words young people have to use their developing pre-frontal cortex in order for it to develop effectively. There is a huge growth spurt in this area that starts in girls at around 11 and in boys around 12½ with thousands of new connections being developed. This is followed by a massive pruning process where those neural pathways that aren’t being used being lost.
School is the most important vehicle for training this part of the brain and developing the young mind, a task that in the grand scheme of things is more important than teaching a child facts from a particular subject matter”
Maybe we are currently guilty of missing the wood for the trees. We have developed a forest of subjects, when we should have been focusing on the roots of this growth, the working of the brain.
Changing demands of the workplace
The days of being born into a career, entering a long apprentiship followed by 40 years in the same workplace disappeared with the decline of the manufacturing industry. We are now in a century where the average person will change career many times and the key desire is therefore to develop quality transferable skills in all learners. It is important that any skills learnt and any qualifications gained enable a person to then specialise in a wide range of jobs. It is now totally impractical for an individual to choose their career path at age 14 and schools must not allow pupils to narrow their potential horizon at an early age. Schools are quickly waking to the fact that a range of new vocational courses as run by many Specialist Schools not only engage pupils who may otherwise have been disenfranchised, but also play a key part in community re-generation.
New forms of leadership
The press love to praise the ‘super-head’, a smiling individual who parachutes into the school laying waste to all around. Sadly this form of ‘top down’ model becomes totally reliant on the individual and rarely produces long-term progress. The leadership model of the future must be less hierarchical and devolve real power across a much wider base
In our own ‘through school’ we have designed a new form of leadership where subject expertise is no longer the key requisite for success at Middle leadership. We have developed a level of TLR1s which have cross-phase (3-18) responsibilities in Teaching & Learning, Personal Development, Independent Learning, Life-Long learning and Core Skills; this team is comprised of both secondary and primary practitioners. The subject leadership is carried out by a cross phase team of TLR2s. This type of structure re-emphasises to both teacher and pupil that school is not simply about the regurgitation of large amounts of subject knowledge.
The learner
In a system with truly devolved leadership, the agent for change must be the individual educator. There is no place in our new concept for a ‘doing it by the book’ or “we’ve always done it this way” attitude. We don’t have to wait for the future to begin this. In the foreword to The Big Book of Independent Thinking Ian Gilbert challenges us all:
“Does the assembly you’re about to give, or that lesson on ‘forces’ you’re about to deliver or that staff meeting you’re about to lead or that new intake parents evening you’re planning look like everyone else’s anywhere else? If so, then what about sitting down with your independent thinking hat on and identifying how you can make it so that we couldn’t drop you into a totally different school on the other side of the country without anyone noticing the difference. Have the confidence to be memorable – the world of education needs you to be great”
An ‘all through’ solution
There is a growing band of schools and academies developing an ‘all through’ approach as their solution to a new concept of schooling. There is no ready template for any of these schools and each has had to develop its own unique response to its community’s needs. It is interesting that in making such fundamental changes the process of change itself seems to have produced many beneficial side-effects. The schools do not suggest that a cross-phase institution is the solution to all educational problems, but by considering education as a process from birth to adulthood, old assumptions are challenged. Each of the all through schools reports a great strengthening of the ethos in their institution, which the new Dfes guide on ‘All through’ education reflects:
“A common ethos can provide:
• purpose and direction for all staff and pupils
• continuity in learning and behavioural approaches or expectations
• consistency in classroom management and practice
• a shared set of core values and goals which provide a strong framework for the social, moral and spiritual development of pupils.”
Passion & vision
Whatever changes are made to a learning community, it all falls apart without three key ingredients passion, vision and action (the most powerful glue around!). Two out of three isn’t good enough in this case! A school with only vision and action knows where it is going but fails to motivate many of its learners, whereas a school with only passion and action may contain lots of excited and enthusiastic individuals, but ones unprepared for the world around them. So the battle cry must be “Passion, Vision, Action”, with this society can produce well prepared, Emotionally Intelligent learners capable of matching competition from anywhere in the world.
So what is our ‘to do’ list for the future?
Innovate Abandon
A relevant curriculum Subject dominance in secondary schools
Removal of age boundaries Dramatic transfers between phases
Shift in the importance of IQ Teaching for the test
New forms of devolved leadership The micro-managing leader
Promotion & development of EQ Impersonal organisations
More community learning School as the only place to learn
Imaginative use of new technology Using new technology in old ways
Quality personalised learning Teaching to the middle
It is important to remember that a ‘paradigm shift’ in pupil’s learning is not possible unless the educators make that same move. We must focus our minds on the great change that is needed across the education system and the great penalty we pay if we leave things as they are;
“ Learning is the greatest game in life and the most fun.
All children are born believing this and will continue to believe this until we convince them that learning is very hard work and unpleasant.
Some kids never really learn this lesson, and go through life believing that learning is fun and the only game worth playing.
We have a name for such people.
We call them geniuses.” (Glenn Doman)
Our challenge is to ensure that the new concept of schooling brings out the genius in everyone!
Dave Harris
June 2006
Go to Dave Harris' profile by clicking here.
Bibliography
Dryden, Gordon , (2001), The Learning Revolution Network Press
Prashnig, Barbara (2003), The Power of Diversity Network Press
Gilbert, Ian et al. (2006), The Big book of Independent Thinking Crown House Publishing
Friedman, Thomas (2005), The World is Flat Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Pinker, Steven (1997), How the Mind Works Penguin Books
De Bono, Edward (2004), How to have a Beautiful Mind Vermillion