The Rise of the Delicate Education Soufflé
- Colin Ward
- Jul 13, 2016
- 6 min read
You can't make a soufflé without cracking a few eggs. Or is that supposed to be omelette? Either way, you need eggs which have to be cracked, and even though many people try to make both at home, in truth we all know that when they are made by properly trained chefs we aren't paying for the eggs, we're buying their eggs-pertise.
[Groans all round.]
So what is it about our education system that makes us want to constantly cook it and reheat it like a wayward student discovering the multiple possibilities presented by a fancy new kitchen gadget that stops them needing to use those awfully complicated things called ovens?
In 2014 teachers in Primary schools were facing the logistical nightmare of implementing an entirely new curriculum and assessment system in just one year which basically proposed to simply bring forward all learning by a year. Just like that. Like a magic wand. It was imposed on them by the same people whose infinite wisdom had also dictated that “times tables” should be called “multiplication” tables so kids didn’t confuse them with trying to tell the time. Even my bottom set maths class of 10 yr olds at the time found that notion quite offensive. How can people who know so little about how children learn possibly be allowed to continue to...oh, yes, of course: because society allows them to.
"Unqualified Ministers, inexperienced inspectors, and our armchair "schools should do more" society of experts get to dictate to teachers about the learning in their own classrooms. But you'd never let a shop-keeper service your car."
Yesterday on the BBC news we heard of yet another “new strategy” that primary schools are being gently nudged to implement by way of a bribe. China's education system - especially in subjects like maths - has stood as a model of best practise because they outstrip our children by 25 places on the world league table of maths: and remember, we rest everything on league tables in the UK. Teachers are going to be taught yet another way to teach maths because, as usual, there is always that undercurrent of blame. It is a very sad, subtle indictment of our own education and training system that we hold our own teachers with such little professional respect. One could get an A* at GCSE and A level maths; follow that with 1st Class Degree at a top University; get a Masters Degree; follow with a PGCE and the completion of your NQT year, giving you a qualification we hold in such high regard that…
…as soon as you are in the job none of those qualifications mean anything. Our "masters" are deskilled to little more than paper-pushers serving Unqualified Ministers, inexperienced inspectors, and our armchair "schools should do more" society of experts get to dictate to teachers about the learning in their own classrooms. But you'd never let a shop keeper service your car. There’s nothing wrong with professional development, but when you don’t even afford your own professionals with the respect they should deserve, it should call into question what the point is in the lofty requirements we constantly use to keep moving the goalposts without letting the goalkeeper know.
Now over £40m of funding seems to have been "found" somewhere to wave under the noses of 8,000 schools to develop their maths curriculum by exploring the way China teaches maths. This idea of sharing with Chinese schools is not new thing, either. In 2014 Chinese and UK teachers shared an exchange project to look at each other systems of education. Chinese children work hard very hard, and making errors or failing is culturally unacceptable. It is in fact a matter of shame. Teachers are treated with a respect and reverence in their culture simply because they have such an important role to play within society. But the role is always a socio-economic one, and each child is seen as a future adult in preparation to make their contribution to society. And remember, between 1978 and 2015 China's one-child policy meant that each couple had only one shot at nurturing and moulding the future of their family, so the pressure was on.
Our education has gone the other way. We are afraid of using the word “fail” because we have not developed an atmosphere that failure should drive a child to want to achieve for the sake of simply achieving. We have to bribe them with toys and temptations; we have to buy their obedience; and we have removed any form of authority from teachers and schools to such an extent that if a child does misbehave and under-perform we label the school as "failing" just to appease what is often the parents' failure to teach their children to appreciate what the have been given. In the UK we seem to accept the shoulder-shrugging “I’m not good at a), b) or c)” and as a result the level of aspiration drops.
However, with all the romanticism we might afford the Chinese one has to wonder at the motives behind it. Is this merely a matter of flattery being spurned on by our county’s need to make rather good friends with our political status? If one does a little digging through just the BBC files it was only about a year ago that we were questioning whether a Chinese style education system would even work with our children. Questions were asked if our kids were “tough enough” to cope with 12 hour days, lecture style lessons, and the responsibility to tidy and clean their own classroom. The answer was simple.
No.
Chinese children expect to work hard, show respect to the teacher in an almost military obedience, and do exactly what they are told. Our children have been brought up for decades to “expect” to be shown respect (even when they haven’t earned it), to be listened to (even when they refused to listen to the adults) and to be entertained with amusement and engagement (even if, and often especially when they fail to meet expectations). Learning by rote is considered too oppressive and counter-productive by “experts” even though one might point out that since China is 1st and we are 26th on world league tables it might be us that is wrong. In October 2015 a BBC report about the Chinese education system Sir Anthony Seldon went on the attack:
“China’s strict schooling style needs to change or its youngsters will suffer, along with its economy. Chinese schools, often criticised for rote and repetitive learning, should be more holistic.”
That was a bit rich, one might think, since when it comes to the economic strength and education league tables China kicks the UK’s ass. So much so that by July 2016 we are now inviting Chinese teaching styles back into our classrooms again, but now rather than on a small project scale it appears to be at policy-influencing level. No, not policy yet (after all, it could not be imposed on academies anyway) but the future inference is clear. Considering we are relying heavily on trade agreements with their country, and considering we denied our own “holistically educated children” the opportunity to contribute to a massive referendum, that cynical part of me can't quite accept that a bit of cultural back-scratching might be going on. And that makes me wonder exactly where this "mastery" funding has come from.
So what does all this mean for the classroom? To be honest, I doubt that has really been considered in any depth because we still haven't allowed the previous changes to the curriculum to settle yet. How will the two sit together? So even if we do bring in this "new" idea how will we know what the impact of new curriculum (installed in 2014) will have had? Or is the idea to boost results with Chinese ideas and then make the claim for the success of the unnecessary changes in the curriculum so recently? Are those schools who don't participate going to be labelled as failures? Is the implication that our teachers are not capable of "mastery" in any sense?
Has anyone in the government ever considered the reasons why our teachers are prevented from getting pupils to "master" their learning?
And that is our biggest problem. The same error is made in the UK all the time when it comes to education. We allow too many unqualified kitchen porters to open and slam shut the oven door repeatedly, ruining the rise of the delicate education soufflé that was prepared by our qualified chefs that actually know how to cook the knock-out dessert.
The proof might be in the pudding, but it takes qualified chefs not to turn up the heat too high and ruin what began as the careful mix of ingredients that make our children’s minds and futures.
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