Knowledge is that which, next to virtue, truly raises one person above another. – Joseph Addison
The TES reports today that “A leading independent school headmaster has warned that the greater focus on facts and knowledge in reformed GCSEs and A-levels may fail to equip pupils for the modern world.”
Well, duh. Anything may fail or succeed in its aims, but this statement sort of assumes that up until now GCSEs and A levels have been doing a bang up job of preparing students for the modern world. I have little doubt that some pupils will continue to be every bit as unprepared as they’ve ever been. But let’s turn the statement around:
A leading independent school headmaster has warned that the decreased focus on facts and knowledge in reformed GCSEs and A-levels may fail to equip pupils for the modern world.
Doesn’t that sound a bit more convincing?
Christopher King, chair of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference has apparently said the following:
To say that the acquisition of facts should be the overwhelming priority of the education system is to look backwards, not forwards, in my view…There’s a point at which if you don’t liberate [pupils] to be able to explore and undertake individual independent research, you’re not equipping them for the modern world.
The trick is to be like the two-head Roman god Janus and look both backwards and forwards. If we don’t look back at what has already been discovered, mulled over and critiqued then what exactly are we liberating pupils to do? In order to explore or research you have to know a thing or two. So, what’s King suggesting pupils learn? Cue the 21st-century learning slogans: children should be taught to “think laterally, think creatively, take risks and be confident in themselves”. Right, but what are they going to think laterally creatively and confidently about? I’d like to belive that what Mr King actually wanted to say was that we should forget to teach children how to critique the knowledge and facts they learn.
He goes on to point out that “there isn’t an absolute requirement to get the right answer every time, and it’s OK to make mistakes and learn from them”. Well, yes, of course. Nobody would deny that learning from mistakes is important but surely what we want pupils to learn from all the mistakes they make is not to make them again? There may not be an “absolute requirement” to get the right answer every time, but it would be great if they managed to get some correct answers eventually.
It’s certainly true that the “learning of facts for regurgitation in tests” [Yes, he really said that! Using this tired cliché automatically reduces any respect I have for its utterers’ hackneyed opinions!] will not in and of itself help young people succeed in the world, but it’ll be a hell of a lot more use than pupils not having a rich knowledge of their cultural heritage.
I thought the exact same thing when I read the article. Typical, it’s always the ones with the amazing education who seek to deny the same excellent education to successive generations of children and they always trot out this twaddle about thinking creatively/laterally/on one leg.
As I have said a few times on my blog, it is as if these educators genuine think that the modern workplace consists of poloneck-wearing media types all sitting about, googling stuff and ‘collaborating’ over some trendy art campaign. Additionally, I also recently called for some kind of work experience whereby SLT are made to go and spend a few weeks in the private sector. It would seem that not only do SLT need to learn how manage people, but also separate fact from fiction when it comes to the modern workplace, or the ‘workplace of the future’.
No Boss wants an employee who knows naff all about the world and its history.
It’s unfortunate that so many independent sector heads seem to be pulling up the drawbridge behind themselves. I suspect they don’t even really believe and that this is just a marketing stance.
Exactly DD and QT – who has the real issues in life? Those who are educated or those who don’t?
This lack of respect for education is something I find curious and where I do feel my parent’s Indian culture affected me. Even though I’m sure both my parents would have preferred a more conventional daughter at times, they never in the end denied me the opportunity to fulfil what I could potentially achieve because I was good at school. The one time Dad had a bit of a power trip over signing my university form my brothers had him reversing his decision asap. It simply is not the done thing to stop someone educating themselves.
Even now, my uncles in India have paid for children from poorer families in their village to study – both boys and girls – because to deny them when they are capable is considered a great wrong.
There is this custom where if you step on a book you have touch it and then your forehead 7 times because the book contains knowledge and that knowledge deserves respect. (I think I mentioned it to QT before).
I was never taught to merely regurgitate facts for an exam – my education consisted of much more. I knew not all the units would appear on exams.
Knowledge is power – it always has been and always will be. The more you have, the more you understand and can navigate the world you live in. No one has ever disproved this.
I guess the concern is that if the language around curriculum aims focuses on knowledge and facts, that some practitioners may deliver a curriculum that equips children to recall and regurgitate facts, but does NOT challenge them to apply these facts in creative ways or in problem solving contexts.
I am absolutely with you David in believing that children need to have a body of knowledge in order to be able to explore/problem solve/be creative. I’m sure you wouldn’t disagree that they also need to be given opportunities to practice applying their knowledge in these sorts of exploratory/creative ways. If Christopher King had said instead “a decreased focus on problem solving skills and independent research may fail to equip pupils…” it would be hard to take issue with him.
It seems to be taken as read by many that knowledge and problem solving/creativity are two separate things that exist with mutual exclusivity within a curriculum and that more of one necessarily means less of the other. I think most of us recognise this is as a false dichotomy, but until this is universally understood by the profession there is a little danger in using language that seems to champion the primacy of knowledge in the curriculum over skills (or vice versa) – some who buy into this dichotomy may feel they have been given licence to teach one without reflecting the other.
I would argue that there is no decrease on problem-solving, so if King or anyone else were claim this I would interested in reviewing their evidence base. But you’re right to point to the dichotomous thinking – this is what I was trying to make clear in referring to Janus 🙂
What gives rise to the dichotomous thinking, I think, is the way accountability is measured, and the pressures this puts on staff. I’ve met so many teachers who are so bogged down in the day-to-day micro-management of ‘progress’ and adrift in data-rich school environments, so restricted in their classroom practice by managers who have created that culture and environment, that stopping to think slow, to critique, to be creative, feels like it can only done at the expense knowledge acquisition and rote learning of facts.
It’s a false dichotomy in the world of philosophy, and even in the sales rhetoric of independent schools, but a very real one on the ground in many schools.
The article doesn’t help. It’s void of anything meaningful for education reform, but if reformers and education leaders discount the tension altogether, it’s at the expense of many students whose disengagement is there for all to see.