The AndAllThat.co.uk teacher blog is moving from WordPress onto the main website. From now on you will find non-topic related content here. 

You can still access the archives from the WordPress site by visiting http://andallthatweb.wordpress.com . I will endeavour to transfer the content over the next few months.

Mr F

Feeling generally frustrated by the resurrection of the skills vs knowledge debate which, as far as I am concerned, was buried decades ago. Surely we all accept that a balance is needed here and that subject concepts and interpersonal skills can be developed alongside engaging subject knowledge …where are all these teachers who still throw chalk at children for failing to recite the bible? Of course, these people raise good issues about community engagement, independence and resilience… but their contempt for the profession is profound. Never the less, there seems to be good money in telling teachers that they are forcing a Victorian education system on a group of disengaged, working class kids who need reengaging through group work and technology. I am also deeply offended that any challenge to the “innovative” approaches is said to be an elitist response… As I see it, there are a number of major issues with the approach outlined above.

Schools are increasingly expected to reduce inequality in society in the face of increasing economic divisions. We are told that we must engage a generation of students who have become disengaged from a Victorian education system. This language is being peddled by the Innovation Unit amongst others. There is a worrying trend to see technologies as a solution to “self education” 
We need to recognise that schools alone cannot close this socio-economic divide, it is a matter for the whole of society but needs direct action from government. However recognising this does not mean accepting the status quo and being happy…far from it, it demands more radical change. 
Reducing education to a purely “skills-based” curriculum in an attempt to prepare students for a global job market is completely misguided. It is a blunt tool to enact social change and to engage students in the wrong ways. Whilst state schools reduce their subject specialisms to give their students “transferable skills for the economy”, private, public and independent schools continue to offer their students a rich curriculum diet and access to the best jobs and universities. The economic divide remains. 
The only way in which the socio-economic divide can be overcome is through a society-wide reformation of the neo-liberal precepts on which our society is based. Using schools to do this is attempting to plaster over the ever widening cracks. Our priority should be in supporting those most in need and creating a society which is more equitable. Of course, this will be unpopular amongst the most powerful, and potentially very expensive. 
We must preserve the idea that education should be available for all children and adults to develop their human potential – it is not about trying to battle market forces. This is not the same as an elitist agenda. A key part of any schooling is democratic education. If we want to add value to students lives, let us first think carefully about what values we want to add. 
We must recognise that in many cases, taking away subject expertise from education under the guise of equality is a cynical cost cutting exercise. Taking away this expertise is cheating our poorest students out of the chance of engaging in immersive subject experiences. It limits any true passion in learning. To pretend that this is in their best interests is unforgivable. 
It is not subject irrelevance which leads to children becoming demotivated in their studies, it is the slow realisation that their life is most likely mapped out for them thanks to their upbringing. In many cases the barriers to education just become more extreme as children get older. Subjects only regain their relevance when these barriers are removed. When this is the case, students will be able to study subjects for their own sake and in doing so will engage in the humanising processes of education. This is the real challenge of the C21st.

I have to say that writing about examinations does not rank amongst my favourite pass times, yet as the GCSE fiasco has emerged, I have found myself constantly asking, who is really surprised? Every teacher surely has felt the pain of results day when you have no idea if your results are your doing, their doing or the doing of an examinations committee…. Accountability? You must be joking. I sat and longingly read the details of the Queensland examinations system which puts schools at the centre…I took the quote from the opening page of the document:“It cannot be over-emphasised that the mode of assessment dictates the nature of the educational experience and the quality of the relationship between teacher and pupils. Assessment is not something separate ??? a tool ??? by which education may be evaluated; it acts upon the educational system so as to shape it in accordance with what the assessment demands. You cannot have, at one and the same time, education for personal growth and a totally impersonal system of assessment. Assessment should be a bond between teachers and taught, not something which threatens and antagonises.
To humanise assessment, then, we have to make of schooling a more co- operative enterprise between teachers and pupils, and an opportunity to develop the whole range of human competencies, leading up to informative profiles. This should be the pattern of things for the immediate future; it is the way to shed the dreary, and often unjust, grading techniques of traditional education.Hemming (1980, p. 113???14)”

…and then I wrote this:

So Niall Fergusson is releasing another “historical” book. The full 
interview is linked below but a few points which caught my attention:

“Civilization sets out to answer a question that Ferguson identifies 
as the “most interesting” facing historians of the modern era: “Why, 
beginning around 1500, did a few small polities on the western end of 
the Eurasian landmass come to dominate the rest of the world?” In 
other words, the book attempts to explain the roots of something ??? 
western power ??? that has long fascinated its author. ” Do we think 
this is a valid focus of history? What type of approach is being taken 
here? Does History tread a dangerous line when it becomes about 
explaining ascendancy?

Fergusson also discusses how he has tried to make the book accessible 
to 17 year olds like his own son

“Civilization, too, starts from the premise that western dominance has 
been a good thing. In order to explain how it came about, Ferguson 
deploys an unexpectedly cutting-edge metaphor. The west’s ascendancy, 
he argues, is based on six attributes that he labels its “killer 
apps”: competition, science, democracy, medicine, consumerism and the 
work ethic” Do we find this accessible or patronising?

The article then goes on to cover Fergusson’s views on topics such as 
the rise of the USA

“I think it’s hard to make the case, which implicitly the left makes, 
that somehow the world would have been better off if the Europeans had 
stayed home. It certainly doesn’t work for north America, that’s for 
sure. I mean, I’m sure the Apache and the Navajo had all sorts of 
admirable traits. In the absence of literacy we don’t know what they 
were because they didn’t write them down. We do know they killed a 
hell of a lot of bison. But had they been left to their own devices, I 
don’t think we’d have anything remotely resembling the civilisation 
we’ve had in north America.” So how is he interpreting the American 
West here? Would anyone agree with him? Who might take particular 
issue with this sort of statement?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/feb/20/niall-ferguson-interview-civiliza…