To Sir, With Apathy and Indifference

Why is it that whenever there is the slightest threat of snow, Louth’s children can be found huddled around the radio, desperate to hear the name of their school amongst the list of today’s closures?  What happened to those smiling, enthusiastic, happy faces that attended the first year of primary school?  Why doesn’t secondary education engage and inspire our young people?

The Monks Dyke website says, “We pride ourselves on providing an enjoyable and rewarding time to all our students…”  Cordeaux’s head teacher says, “Our students enjoy being here…”  Think about it: how do these statements sit with your knowledge of your children on a snowy day?

It is not that these head teachers don’t care, quite the opposite – most teachers do much more than the minimum.  Many of the initiatives undertaken by all Louth’s schools demonstrate that care.  It’s not even that they have got it wrong; given the degree of freedom available to them, all Louth’s schools have the reputation of being good places to be.  Yet the plain fact is that these schools still frustrate students, do not engage and enthuse them and simply fail to help them become adults who can think for themselves.

Schools are places where specific items of knowledge are transmitted to pupils.  Exactly what that knowledge should be is determined by civil servants as, by and large, is the mode of transmission.  Teachers are merely the instruments of delivery – no wonder many of them have lost the sense of vocation that brought them into teaching in the first place.

The development of flexible, inquiring minds is not the goal of the education system.  Turning students into “proper members of society” is seen as far more important than developing creative thinkers.

Schools are organised around the ideas, needs and challenges of yesterday and they fail even our brightest children by the system’s own measures.

Just consider how we organise lessons: one teacher stands in front of thirty children trying to get each one to the same place at the same time. Occasionally a classroom assistant attempts to help stragglers to keep up or, even more occasionally, gifted children to keep ahead.  This approach assumes that we all learn the same things in the same way – we don’t.  It ignores everything we have discovered about natural learning, which is primarily a process of experimentation and reflection – learning by doing.

Intelligent people question information; they seek support for the premise at hand.  Amongst the questions we will all have heard children ask are:  Why?  How do we know that?  Why is that important?

Such questions are often actively discouraged by teachers who have the curriculum to follow.  There simply isn’t time to address every child’s enquiry.  And so they plough on, often leaving behind the most intelligent students who coninue to seek their own answers, rather than listen to the teacher.  Thus, what we have is lowest common denominator education that, despite the fine words, gives very little attention to individual needs.

And what about that idea of curriculum – the notion that there is a particular body of knowledge everyone should know?  It is generally acknowledged that what we learn in school is largely forgotten and irrelevant to the lives we lead.  When did you last use Pythagoras’ Theorum or need to bake a novelty cake?  Do you consciously avoid splitting your infinitives, or just not do so because you learned English by listening?  Children naturally learn facts about the world because they feel the need to know them; often because these facts will help them do something they want to do. What are the right facts for one may be irrelevant facts for another.

The level of dissatisfaction, disillusionment and anger at the education system has never been higher. Stories of falling standards and inequalities in education abound. And now there is a glimmer of light as this new government seeks to relax the reins and allow schools more freedom.  There is now, for the first time in many years, the opportunity for those parents who care and can raise the energy, to step in and create better educational opportunities for our children than we had ourselves.  Education for lives, not just for jobs.

In the famous scene in To Sir, With Love, fictional teacher, Mark Thackeray, dumps the text books in the waste bin and begins a two-way communication with his class of unruly teenagers.  He talks to them about their lives and experiences and relates those to art, science and maths.  He sets high standards of respect, values and discipline and broadens their perspectives and aspirations.  He engages their interest, fires their imaginations and raises their horizons.  In doing so, he eliminates unauthorised absence; and when they leave, they give him flowers.  Author, ER Braithwaite, knew the answers 50 years ago!

The challenges and dangers that lie ahead for today’s students are unprecedented.  In whatever field one looks, be that anthropogenic, social, economic, political or natural, the threats have never been higher.  Are we producing adults that can meet these threats?  Are we really preparing our young people to meet the future as opposed to the present or the past?

We’ve known about natural learning for decades.  It’s time we put it into action and it is time for parents to demand it.

Do you agree?

Tags: children, education, facts, knowledge, school, schools, students, time, to sir, with love