Sunday 6 March 2011

Dea Birkitt Is At It Again!

Not content with her insistence that the Tate was conspiring against disabled people by asking them to work around its building refurbishment for a few months, like everyone else, she’s now soundiong off on ‘Jamie Oliver’s Dream School’.

As you can imagine, it doesn’t go well:
It's an entertaining mix. We hear Andrew Motion on poetry and Rolf Harris on the impressionists. But there's one ingredient that's missing – the pupils' voice. Despite all its dressing as a daring democratic experiment, Oliver's school is still an adult fantasy served up to young people.
Yes, Dea, that’s because the adults are in charge.

And far from being an awful thing, that’s exactly how it should be.
The School I'd Like, running in the Guardian's education section, is asking young people themselves what would make their perfect school. Few of their innovative, imaginative, often surprising answers are in the documentary series.
And just what are these ‘’innovative, imaginative, often surprising answers’?
Some are large and philosophical – wanting schools in the open air or that wander the country, with "timetables of our choice" to "understanding things properly in our own time". Others are small and practical: "I would like speakers that play music instead of a bell," wrote 11-year-old Aaron Houston-Marham.
OK, I’ll admit there’s a surprise there, certainly a touch of imagination, and I suppose we could stretch a definition and claim innovation, but how exactly would any of this boost educational achievement?

Oh. She’s not finished:
The 19-year-old head girl of Berwick-upon-Tweed high school reported back on a conference she'd organised to elicit children's views. Among the things they thought would make school better were a teacher-pupil swap day, tables in a shady area of the playground and "a big fat door so that everyone can come into school together".
Any plans to improve discipline? Or reduce bullying? Or change the structure or goals of the educational establishment to focus more on acquiring knowledge and less of passing tests?

It would appear not:
You may say all these are just dreams. But unless the users – children – are on the side of any educational initiative, it will fail and so will they.
None of those things are ‘educational initiatives’ – they are simply a wish list.

And a rather stupid and self-centred one, at that.
Sometimes Jamie's Dream School scores a few marks. Many children writing in to School I'd Like said they'd like to be taught by celebrities. They name Christina Aguilera for music and Cristiano Ronaldo for sport. But Jamie's star-studded staff is of a different generation, from politics tutor Alastair Campbell to English teacher Simon Callow. Even Oliver admits his challenging students weren't born when Daley Thompson, his sports teacher, won his Olympic gold medals.
So what? Is their knowledge less valuable because they aren’t ‘in’ wiv da yoof?

Have you considered that they themselves may have been raised and educated under a real education system, and not the shambles we have now?
One of Jamie's educational rejects, Jenny, was particularly impressed by science teacher Robert Winston. "I hate books but love the hands-on stuff. Professor Winston really got me inspired. He had us cutting up a pig, and every day there were experiments. Professor Winston listened to what we had to say. He asked our opinions. It was as if we mattered," she said.
It’s nice that he asked your opinions, but you are there to learn. He has the knowledge, you don’t.

Your opinions are, frankly, worthless, unless it’s to scope out how much you don’t know in order to tailor the lesson better.
Children are being listened to more. Pupil voice is now an academic discipline taught in teacher training and researched in universities.
And standards are falling faster than a NASA satellite and children are being rolled out with worthless ‘qualifications’ and a massive attitude problem as a result.
When this government talks about choice, it means choice about which school your child attends, not what happens inside the classroom. Yet almost every School I'd Like respondent wanted more flexibility in the curriculum, allowing them to study a favourite subject in more depth or a language they loved.
And when (if) they get to a job they are in for a huge, whopping, almighty shock.

They will be expected to do as they are told, when they are told, or else. My god, it’s going to be a baptism of fire…

She signs off with what she clearly feels is a devastating indictment of old-fashioned schooling:
Here's the recipe nine-year-old Ashlynn Chan sent to School I'd Like:

Ingredients

50g of better whiteboards
Two litres of friendship
A tablespoon for a big building
A pinch of more stationary for children (sic... *weeps*)
A large dash of longer ICT lessons
Three bowls of nice teachers
Four small plates of more indoor games
A tonne of more girls
A teaspoon of nice children
Two cups of kind TAs

I wonder if Jamie can cook up that one.
He probably can. But it’ll be inedible. It’s certainly making me feel like retching…

17 comments:

Quiet_Man said...

We really need to get back to the point that kids go to school to learn stuff and teachers go there to teach. It's not about surroundings, it's not about tolerance or trying to understand them, they go there, they learn stuff, they behave or else they're out.

NickM said...

"schools in the open air or that wander the country"

Huh? I seem to recall biology and geography field trips being fairly open-air affairs. I bet they're really crap now because of elnsafety.

WV:"slurgout"

Macheath said...

'It was as if we mattered'

For 'mattered', read 'could make adults do as we want' - an interesting misconception.

Pupils do matter - and have always mattered - to dedicated teachers and, despite the arrogant, incompetent, jargon-filled jobsworths who all-too-frequently feature in the headlines (and occasionally this blog), dedicated teachers do exist.

They are also the ones leaving the profession in droves, burnt-out by their vain efforts to instil knowledge, culture and an interest in learning and constantly opposed by the demands of 'child-centred learning' and the twin demons of peer pressure and 'I-know-my-rights'.

Roue le Jour said...

Summerhill has a lot to answer for, in my opinion.

What's this wonderful euphemism, 'school users'? Are criminals 'justice system' users? The customer for education is the parent, something the state education system does its best to conceal.

microdave said...

"A pinch of more stationary for children" - They can get it from Wisbech Grammer School...

There was an article in our local paper last night about keyboard wizard Rick Wakeman. It described how he's preparing for an evening of music and anti-dotes in our city.

I'm not aware of any chemical warfare having taken place recently - perhaps the writer meant anecdotes?

I really must keep a copy of the howlers that appear with frightening regularity.

PT Barnum said...

Macheath, I agree entirely with your words about good teachers' skills and their burn-out in the face of the race towards mediocrity for all. Got the t-shirt on that one.

But I think that pupil's phrase 'It was as if we mattered' carries another meaning than the one you read. In the current system everything is geared towards generating a conformist, almost automated response to any subject, the precise antithesis of education. Curriculum first, lesson plan second, pupil nowhere. If a pupil asks a good question, coming up with a good answer can derail that precious lesson plan into another area (of much greater value to the children) - but that fails to meet the centrally determined outcomes. Teaching like that requires the teacher to know stuff. And working to answer a good question from a child rewards them and their classmates in a way that can be reinforced over and over, teaching them that concentration and analytical thought are good things.

Ian B said...

Roue-

What's this wonderful euphemism, 'school users'? Are criminals 'justice system' users?

That's a very disturbing analogy. Criminals are in prison because they are criminals. What crime have children committed to have them put in "day prisons"?

Macheath said...

@ P T Barnum

'Teaching like that requires the teacher to know stuff.'

Rem acu tetigisti

The standardised sausage-factory education system leaves little or no room for flexibility.

For decades, teacher training establishments have striven to create a workforce ready to administer this; many motivated, intelligent graduates who cannot fit into this mould go - sans PGCE - to work in the private sector instead.

But it's very bad luck - or a savage indictment of our education system - if that girl has really never before met a teacher to whom she 'mattered'.

xome up and txt me sometime said...

My favourite: "a big fat door so that everyone can come into school together"

So... I take it fat here is a handy word for wide? A massive building operation will therefore take place with rebuilt walls, structural alterations and wider doors so kids can walk in right next to the person they are txting!

How cool is that? Spend a million so you can walk shoulder-to-shoulder wiv ur m8, k?

correction said...

"xome up" was in fact, "come up"

me fingers is like fumbs...

staybryte said...

"The 19-year-old head girl of Berwick-upon-Tweed"

How many times has she retaken her GCSEs if she's still there at 19?

PT Barnum said...

Macheath said "But it's very bad luck - or a savage indictment of our education system - if that girl has really never before met a teacher to whom she 'mattered'."

I incline towards the savage indictment. It feels both stupid and deliberate - a stupid idea of what teaching and education are, viewing them as a means of pouring into children's heads the correct version of reality, preformed, predigested and predetermined, while deleting unwanted curiosity and questioning. It feels deliberate because well, who'd want the kind of people who can question, analyse, make new connections and get a sense of their own abilities through good teaching?

I have long thought that a fair proportion of those children who make trouble in a classroom are the ones who have seen through the nonsense of the Emperor's new clothes. And they won't play that deceptive game.

banned said...

What Staybryt said, clearly she would have been in what used to be called the Remove.

"I would like speakers that play music instead of a bell," wrote 11-year-old Aaron Houston-Marham." Aaron, sit down and shut up.

@Roue "Are criminals 'justice system' users? " no, they are Gaol Seekers.

JuliaM said...

"It's not about surroundings, it's not about tolerance or trying to understand them..."

A sign that we've lost the plot is the fact that we worry about the peripherals, and not the important things.

"I seem to recall biology and geography field trips being fairly open-air affairs. I bet they're really crap now because of elnsafety."

I do remember reading something about that.

"For 'mattered', read 'could make adults do as we want'..."

Spot on!

"What's this wonderful euphemism, 'school users'? Are criminals 'justice system' users?"

You know, I wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly how they were regarded. Would you?

JuliaM said...

"There was an article in our local paper last night about keyboard wizard Rick Wakeman. It described how he's preparing for an evening of music and anti-dotes in our city."

/facepalm

"How cool is that? Spend a million so you can walk shoulder-to-shoulder wiv ur m8, k?"

It shows how little education is valued, that this would be a suggestion, doesn't it?

"How many times has she retaken her GCSEs if she's still there at 19?"

I totally missed that!

Clarissa said...

Berwick-upon-Tweed high school is a 13-18 establishment so 19 means she is either doing or retaking her A-Levels.

Roue le Jour said...

Apologies to Ian B, as I missed his reply to my comment.

I was highlighting the fact that in a 'free' society a service would answer to the person who pays for it, thus the criminal justice system answers to the law abiding who taxes fund it and schools answer to parents who purchase education for their children.

Under a statist system this link is broken and the child is apparently the customer of the school and the criminal the customer of the justice system.

banned: Very droll.