dougmuses

An interesting ‘heads up’ today on the BBC Breakfast news re libraries and their current state. It seems that we are not using them enough and that some are certain to be closed. What to do about this is a really good question in this digital age.

The News report did nothing to highlight the services - mostly free - that libraries offer and just focussed on books. Perhaps it is the image of libraries that has to change. Ideas of ‘libraries’ in shops, cafes and pubs … closer to the people … was talked up. But I am not sure … perhaps schools could do more to foster the connections across the community … or perhaps the community library should be in the local school (I know this happens in some places).

I spend most of my reading time online but always have books and magazines around me. Is this because of where I have come from rather than where I am going to? And I now read books on my iPad rather than on paper. Will the next set of loans be digital downloads to my iPad from a website library? Will the materials that children read in schools soon be coming to them on e-book readers? Are the publishers already onto this?

More space to watch here …

Attribution: Original image: ‘Seattle Public Library’
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by: Kees de Vos
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On the Merlin John blog (MJO) yesterday Ray Barker wrote an interesting article about phonics and ICT – Routes to literacy lead through ph-ph-ph-phonics – in which he describes the support that ICT can give to the learning of reading through phonics.

Ray talks about teaching phonic skills and so enable children to read and I am not so sure about this. The learning of phonic skills can certainly support children’s ability to ‘read’ (and I am finding that I need a different definition of reading at the moment having just noticed the Boris Johnston’s recent report on literacy in London, suggested that over a million people in the capital could not read. But does it help with understanding and does having the skill bring about the joy that should be inherent in the activity.

One of the loves of my teaching time with young children was to read to them and get them excited about wanting to enter the wonderful world created by stories. I don’t see this happening in classrooms enough today and I don’t get the impression that teachers in training feel the enthusiasm that i felt nor do they seem to explore the world of books in the same way as I did. They are good at teaching phonics though … and are good at creating games and activities for the skills.

The new government has promised us a review in the Autumn … I have high expectations (hope that there are no mentions of ITA)… hope they won’t be dashed on the rocks of ph-ph-ph-phonics …

Attribution: Original image: ‘Reading Is Fundamental’
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by: Troy Holden
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PS

I just love the definition of literacy in the New Curriculum for Excellence in Scotland … many thanks to Hilery Williams for pointing it out to me in her comment below:

‘the set of skills which allows an individual to engage fully in society and in learning, through the different forms of language, and the range of texts which society values and finds useful. A text may be seen broadly as the medium through which ideas, experiences, opinions and information can be communicated’.

So it is that ‘reading’, in its traditional sense, is only a part of the story …

Photo: ‘Old pots for new, old pots for new’ - D Dickinson Summer 2010

The BBC reports that Private firms are lining up with parent groups to run the Conservatives’ flagship “free schools” in England.

Why is this such a big surprise? The intriguing thing is - what is in it for them - as further down in the article it says: Firms such as Pearson, Serco, Tribal and Nord Anglia are all said to be seeking work in this area, although none would be allowed to make a profit.

They are all ‘working with’ schools to help and support them in their wish to be free from controls. I suppose I have just missed the plot on what ‘making a profit’ means.

Picking up on my Twitter friends today I noticed a tweet from @whatedsaid referring to a blog post from ’swiftkick’ where Erica Goldson graduated as valedictorian of Coxsackie-Athens High School. Instead of using her graduation speech to celebrate the triumph of her victory, the school, and the teachers that made it happen, she channeled her inner Ivan Illich and de-constructed the logic of a valedictorian and the whole educational system.

Erica posted the whole speech on Sign of the Times … well worth a read and a listen on Youtube as she denounces schooling … student voice being heard but will it be listened to?

Especially interesting are the comments on the ’swiftkick’ blog post.

I spent Tuesday and Wednesday this week in the company of some fabulous and supportive people who are passionate about the role that technologies can play in teaching and learning.

I was in Torquay and Bristol for the SWGFL Annual ICT Conferences, the sun shone and the teachers and exhibitors met were a lively bunch keen to plot pathways forward in these difficult times.

On Tuesday in Torquay Prof Kevin Warwick wowed the audience with tales of his adventures into cybernetics and a, far-from-well, Prof Tanya Byron talked of our responsibilities in making sure that children/students taught were involved in their safe and exciting futures. It was at the end of the day in Torquay when people began to realise that the ‘Harnessing Technology’ Grant had been cut by a further £50M and the implications of this were discussed … optimism was the key and planning for an indeterminate future.

My keynote was sandwiched in the middle of these two most excellent speakers … if you want the see/hear/try/read some of the things said then simply click here.

Wednesday in Bristol was full and thriving - the Conference that is - again the discussions were around loss of technology grants and their implications. Prof Tanya Byron led off with a spirited call to arms explaining that she had been asked by michael Gove to go and talk to here about what was needed and she wowed to pass on delegates’ views as to why keeping up the technology pace was so important. SWGFL have set up a page where comments will be fed back to Tanya to assist her in the conversation.

I was up next and exhorted delegates to be confident about their professionality in all of this and to keep focused on the ‘day job’ of giving sparkling educational opportunities to their pupils. I demonstrated some Web 2.0 apps and emphasised that great though these were they were useless if the broadband connection into the schools was not swift and reliable (in all ways). I urged them to protect, at all costs, the valuable infrastructure that provided their access thus safeguarding the progress of digital teaching and learning. I used Barak Obama’s speech quote - We are the people we have been waiting for - to conclude my presentation emphasising the responsibility of us all to make happen the things we are passionate about.

You can follow some of the ideas here.

Sir Bob Geldof was up last and he was superb in his support of teachers and schools. He emphasised that it was important for all involved to stay involved and to actually make things happen - however difficult the circumstance. He used examples from his work in Africa to demonstrate overcoming insurmountable difficulties.

My thanks to all the many friends and colleagues met in these two days for their support and appreciation.

Image Attribution: ‘The clouds are gathering’ - D Dickinson June 2010

Reported in yesterday’s Daily Mail - School sports day ban for father with no criminal records check -

Time for a rethink somewhere …

Today I read on the BBC Education page that Michael Gove is indicating that ‘rigour’ is the important thing in exams. He comments that he wants to revive ‘the art of deep thought’.

I can remember, just, the essence of the A Levels I took all those years ago where I was simply required to ‘know’ things and then tell someone about them on paper. No deep thought there at that time … and this was the ‘gold standard’ - the halcyon years… dark hall, lined up outside, yes you will wear your uniform, examining pencil cases, old wooden desks in very straight rows, hot, hay fever, no drinks ….

He then goes on to say  … We need to ensure that the knowledge expected of A-level students is such that they can hit the ground running (at university)…

So it is knowledge then - not deep thought !!

In this freeing up of the curriculum and more choice etc I had hoped for a re-think on examination and assessment looking forward … not a backward wish for a past that does not fit a digital century. Can we please have a system that celebrates success rather than one which seems to put an emphasis on failure?

Attribution: Original image: ‘final exams‘

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Just a thought … its gone really quiet on the education front at the moment re Free Schools, Academies, primary curriculum etc.

Could this be related to the World Cup, Wimbledon, the approach of the summer holidays or just worry or perhaps apathy. It could be the fact that the sun is shining … perhaps …

And then I read the speech of Nick Gibb, The Minister of State for Schools who set out his agenda for reforming school education at the Reform Conference today.

I like these bits:

• We’re going to place greater trust in professionals to give teachers more freedom to decide how to teach.
• … we’re going to reduce bureaucracy so that schools can get on with their core business
• We are also making it much easier for parents, teachers and education providers to set up new schools, so that there is real choice in every area. …but am totally unsure how this can work !!
• I believe very strongly that education is about the transfer of knowledge from one generation to the next.

Attribution:
Original image: ’sh’
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by: Tom Magliery

Image: ‘The other man’s grass …’ D Dickinson 2010

Compulsory education - does it work, is it necessary?

If the system is right and the aims are clear then surely we ought to be able to sell the idea that education is such a wonderful privilege that the wonder of it is that it is available to all for the most part freely given.

There is a clamor for it to begin at a very young age but is this best for the children? And there is not such a clamor at the other end of the age scale - why?

If this is right then the idea that students must be at school for a specific time and until a specific age just should not work. Compulsion almost always doesn’t work. People don’t do things willingly because they have been compelled to. They do them because of need, will, enjoyment, interest, passion etc .

It is worth reflecting in this moment of the setting up of Free Schools that children do not actually have to go to school at all. Education is compulsory, schooling is not. I wonder how the compulsory education age is monitored in those cases where children are educated away from the school system?

So where does this leave schooling? And where will this sit in the new schools as they start their fledgling lives?

The new government’s (I wonder when I will stop using the word ‘new’) ideas on education are getting me excited … in many ways - some good, some bad. I have always thought that institutionalisation and politicisation of education is not a good thing and i can see in the concept of ‘Free Schools’ an opportunity to open up teaching and learning in a way not available before.

I am adamant that education should not be subject to tethering by geography, religion, time, gender, finance or age and that it should be available whenever, whatever and wherever there are people wanting to learn. The NHS in England has long been struggling with the concept that treatments should not be subject to a post-code lottery … neither should access to education.

The current proposals for Free Schools seem to me to close down rather than open up options for choice as they all seem to be localised and therefore restrictive and restricted. This not withstanding the high ideas of the teams developing their philosophies.

What I propose is something different … well, a 21C version of ideas that have been tried before using modern technology and an open vision. Why shouldn’t there be Virtual Schools? In areas around the world where children have difficulties through travel these are already the norm and they seem to be successful in generating enthusiasm and quality learning.

My school will have no buildings. It will find its resources in the communities both on and off line. If it is good that pupils want to swim then groups using social media sites can arrange to meet at the pool. If it is art that is interesting the to the gallery and those that can’t get there can attend ‘virtually’ through other learners. If people are needed to teach then the best would be approached from the world in which they know best - Roger McGough perhaps for poetry, Jhonny Ball for maths, Simon King for natural history etc … this can be stretched up or sideways to include many who have lots to offer.

There would be coordinators and mentors all working online and F2F, where appropriate, to support and ensure personalised balance and context through creative engagement. Learners would not be isolated but would be part of a much wider community that would have the potential of growing and developing across wide age ranges and geographic boundaries.

People should not start to develop their Free Schools ideas from what they know of already - if the idea is to succeed then there is a powerful need for a radical rethink of what education should be for and what it should look like.

I have a dream … why not?

I confess to not having read the small print that goes with the application to open a ‘free’ school so the answers to my starter question could be there already but it is still things I am thinking about.

Some years ago when doing a CPD course at Sheffield Hallam I wrote a document about ‘The Use of Time’. In it I pondered on the personal and institutional ways that time is organised by people and on behalf of people. One of my key comments was that you can’t bank time you have to spend it second by second, minute by minute etc.

And so I was wondering, with the formation of ‘free’ schools who will control the time children/students spend on their education? Will it be up to the school or will school be told the number of days that their charges have to be ‘in school’? And what will ‘in school’ mean with the new freedoms that the more open curriculum should engender? What price the Education Welfare Officers role in all of this. On a more day-to-day basis will schools have control over the time children arrive and depart? It was never sensible that five year olds would begin at 9.00 in the morning and go home about 3.00 in the afternoon when their eleven year old siblings did exactly the same. And we all know that teenagers don’t often wake to perform well early in the day so will they begin after lunch? And can we please have a sort of two term year of three months each please, six days a week? The real question is one which asks, ‘Is it all up for grabs?’ and if not who is going to specify what is best because I think that the idea of these new schools was that the group that starts the school might want a say in this.

Other questions to follow …

I have always had in my mind the concept of ‘de-schooling’ and so in the present climate of academies and ‘free’ schools I went back and reread, just to revitalise, the works of my mentor Ivan Illich and I am pleased to say that my ideals are still alive and well.

Some of the ideas coming out of the new governments proposals really resonate with me as being excellent thinking. The idea that we might be able to redefine the word school to again mean a place where people learn together in a group that is formed for that purpose rather than it being an institution which carries all sorts of baggage and legalities attached to the learning. Also the concept that: … the Education Secretary repeated his desire for a compulsory curriculum reduced to a “simple core”. (Read Mike Baker’s account here)If this frees teachers and learners to work together then this just has to be positive. Also, as I have already commented in a previous blog - children/learners should know things … what things I can’t specify but there is a power that comes with knowing that can’t be denied.

But all of this government ‘concept’ could be usurped by the idea that a ‘one-off’ look at the primary curriculum will do the trick. We are living in a fast, flat, world society in which change is the only stable thing. We and the systems must evolve to keep up and a one-size-fits-all just will not do. We must not look back but forward. So where does the technologies that have developed come into all of this? Only yesterday I read that the money for ‘harnessing technology’ had been moved to support the ‘free’ schools initiative. “Reallocated £50 million of funding from the Harnessing Technology Grant to create a Standards and Diversity Fund – reinventing a fund set up by the Labour Government in 2006 and stopped in 2009 the purpose of which was to create diversity of provision in the schools system. This will provide capital funding for Free Schools up to 31 March 2011. Funding for Free Schools will be a top priority for the Department for Education in the forthcoming Spending Review.” (http://www.education.gov.uk/news/news/freeschools)

I wish those who have the urge to take charge of teaching and learning outside a controlled institutional context the very best. I do hope that they will continue their enthusiasm for the ethos when their own children have got past the age of need. On the way to nirvana I hope that they get round to thinking about things such as compulsory timings of days, weeks and years.

I hope all of the ‘free start-ups’ have done their research into what teaching and learning in the 21C might well mean and that they have read the philosophies widely - ‘Summerhill’ - would be a good start as would the ideas behind the ‘Montessori method’. And a good look at what is happening and has happened in Finland, S Korea, New Zealand and Singapore - to name a few. And when they have researched they are not just jumping because the hurdle is in front of them but that the jump will be sustained and developed as times and attitudes change.

A refresh of what we mean by schooling, teaching  and learning is long awaited and i should feel optimistic about the potential for freedom from the political involvement in education … but why am I so bothered?

Yesterday I read with total amazement an article in the Mail Online advocating teaching Latin in the Primary School … there were other bits but it was that that caught my eye and made me tearful.

I wonder what next … my hope is for the following (these are in any order - take your pick and then add your own - I know of lots more that do not seem to figure in a ‘locked down’ curriculum ):

• Real cooking (I mean making food not working out how many calories or how healthy something might or might not be this week … actually cooking cakes and things that people want to eat)
• Woodwork I had an amazing teacher who let me use the lathe to make wooden bowls and I got a real appreciation of wood and grain
• Gardening If you ask me about skills for life i would put being able to grow carrots, peas, beans, lettuce and tomatoes right there at top of the ‘need to be able to do’ pile
• Reading for Pleasure Not this dissection of texts into little pockets but real opportunities within school time to sit down and get immersed in a book - my teachers let me go outside and sit under a tree in summer and just read and read - the reading bug has never left me - and no teacher planned that the pleasure I have always found in words
• Exercise The sort that makes you puff and blow and tires you muscles - not the sessions where a video camera is used to analyse if my little finger was pointing slightly in the wrong direction when I hit the ball
• Knowing things This is a really difficult one and one that was mentioned by Mr Timms just the other day. It is okay being able to find out but often it is great just to know. I am so sure that children/students really do like to know things. If this were not the case why would we be part of a society that appears to thrive on ‘Weakest Link’, ‘Eggheads’, ‘University Challenge’, ‘Master Mind’, ‘100 to 1′ and pub quizzes.

Scotland and Northern Ireland schools will be closing for the summer soon and about a month later England and Wales will also be ‘on holiday’. Time then for the ’silly season’ to begin. Just as teachers and school managers jet off for a much needed break or simply lie down in a dark room for a while, the pundits, knockers, sceptics and the rest begin to dredge up the next set of crazy ideas or comments for the interested to read, ignore or worry about.

Today’s wonderful revisit is to that, now perennial - computers damage children.

Sometimes its their eyes, sometimes their bodies (rsi injuries), sometimes its mind. I suppose that the article in yesterday’s Telegraph is about their minds.

“There is evidence to show that introducing information and communication technology (ICT) in the early years actually subverts the very skills that Government ministers said they want children to develop, such as the ability to pay attention for sustained periods,” says Dr Aric Sigman, a psychologist and author.
“There is a conflict between multitasking and sustained attention. These things cannot and should not be developed at the same time. Sustained attention must be the building block. “The big problems we are seeing now with children who do not read, or who find it difficult to pay attention to the teacher, or to communicate, are down to attention damage that we are finding in all age groups.”

Need to keep watching now because, as the argument is becoming polarised, then next week there will be some learned person who will tell us the opposite. Good job that we make up our own minds about all of these things isn’t it?

Thanks to Doug Woods on my PLN for the first site of this information.

I have just read the press release from Nick Gibb Schools minister and I have to say that there is one bit in it I really approve of ( I know, I know) and that is this bit: a good grounding in general knowledge.

I think kids love facts and love to soak them up … it doesn’t matter about the context … kids just like to know things and to show that they know them. Wonderful, exciting, Wow !!!

Have to say though that the rest of it as far as primary is concerned is a ‘wait and see’.

Attribution:
Original image: ‘Reading in the round’
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by: Dick Rochester
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It is a long time since I have posted here. I have been waiting for the dust to settle on the new world of education that seems to be just around the corner. I was reminded of my lack of posting by a group of exciting and vocal students at the ICT Conference at Plymouth University last Friday. They were urgent to know what was going to happen and I was urgent not to tell. I wanted the day to be exciting and scary and optimistic as they headed into this unknown teaching future. I wanted to give a feeling of taking risks and not trying to get everything right. I wanted them to feel that they personally were in charge of what was to happen and that they were enormously privileged to be able to help young people on their way into their lives.

I don’t know if I succeeded. I was impressed with their professionalism but worried about the constraints that they saw that didn’t fit into their concepts of teaching and learning. I used the ‘ we are the ones we have been waiting for’ idea to suggest that there was more in their hands than they knew.

If these students are a reliable sample of students throughout teacher training then I am optimistic.

… and I still don’t want to speculate on the future of education in England … for the moment anyway!

After my post of yesterday re ‘Naivety’ I began thinking again and talking about how the concept of changing the nature of the ‘level playing field’ translates into other avenues of society as well as education.

We started off thinking about Sats and how in the beginning only a few people/schools went down the pathway of ’skilling -up’ their children to be more successful (sic) but as the governmental use of the data began to be exposed it became a given that children would be prepared for the tests - the playing field was now level again but in a different place.

The conversation went towards sport and way back:

• The innovation of spiked shoes gave an advantage to those who could afford them.
• The technological developments in cycling gave Chris Boardman his records.
• In F1 recently the leveling of the technology has become silly so that artificial rules are created to level things
• The recent change to the rule about swimming costumes again levels the playing field

Drugs in sport has always been a problem for me. I just can’t see why someone would want to cheat in this way. I am naive. I am told that in a world where prestige and money seem to rule rather than the love of playing/doing getting the best out of performance is everything. And drugs help.

Cycling has/had a huge problem with this and so did/does athletics. But what of the other sports? What about those performers who do not play on a world stage but who play/run/swim/ride/hit/shoot on a Saturday or Sunday fro their own ‘pleasure’. Who monitors this?

And … what is this all about?

Today my naivety went up a notch as I read an article in TES Connect about ‘Smart Drugs’.

I read: Chemicals that enhance exam performance are here to stay - it is educators’ duty to shape the debate around their use. I had no idea! It had never occurred to me that there were ways of cheating in exams that involved drug taking ! I read the article and internally blushed at my naivety.

If we, and I hope we do, condemn every instance of the use of drugs to enhance personal performance then here is one that will really test the system. Just imagine - testing for substances in a random in schools. I can’t imagine … I just can’t stop thinking about it.

Attribution: Image: ‘Pills‘

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My colleague and friend Tricia Neal often pokes me with a sharp stick when I need it most and today was no exception. In thinking about the next steps for ‘Education UK’ I have become a little tight and depressed recently as I have seen things that I have held high for a long while potentially being sidelined for a system that I can have no philosophical time for.

I haven’t the temerity to suggest that some of my wonderings stem from my personal, original thinking but the do stem from a long time of reflection and practice.

Tricia reminded me (with a pointed stick) of the works of John Dewey, who, in my past, had been a beacon for my philosophical stance on education. I revisited again today some of the values that attracted me to teaching in the first place and wondered what part they will play in the careers of the PGCE students I work with and all young teachers today - never mind our young people.

John Dewey (1859-1952) believed that learning was active and schooling unnecessarily long and restrictive.  His idea was that children came to school to do things and live in a community which gave them real, guided experiences which fostered their capacity to contribute to society.

Dewey was not a ‘de-schooler’ as was Ivan Illich but he became famous for pointing out that the authoritarian, strict, pre-ordained knowledge approach of modern traditional education was too concerned with delivering knowledge, and not enough with understanding students’ actual experiences.But he was also critical of completely “free, student-driven” education because students often don’t know how to structure their own learning experiences for maximum benefit.

I wonder what part these views will play in the re-structure of England’s ’schooling’ system post the struggle for political supremacy ? And I wonder if there is the faintest hope that education can be slightly removed from politics so that the true philosophy needed for development can have a chance?

Big, big questions have been asked and still the answers are not clear …

So what happens now?
Another suitcase in another hall
So what happens now?
Take your picture off another wall
Where am I going to?
You’ll get by, you always have before
Where am I going to?

Time and time again I’ve said that I don’t care
That I’m immune to gloom, that I’m hard through and through
But every time it matters all my words desert me
So anyone can hurt me, and they do

Call in three months time and I’ll be fine, I know
Well maybe not that fine, but I’ll survive anyhow
I won’t recall the names and places of each sad occasion
But that’s no consolation here and now.

Attribution: From the musical Evita with lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Education, education, education … perhaps (perhaps not) … read here (from the BBC).

When tomorrow arrives and is gone think on this:

No man is an island, entire of itself … Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. — John Donne

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Original image: ‘Bells at Muktinath‘
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by: ૐ Dey Alexander ૐ

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I understand from reading the BBC article that school governors are being told that it is their responsibility to make sure that children sit the KS2 Sats.

This could be the end of people volunteering to be governors … could it … or do parents, ‘governors’ really think that they are a good idea?

So will the boycott happen ? My straw poll says no …

Attribution:

Original image: ‘The World’s Largest Axe‘
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by: Chris Campbell

What Mr Cameron said about education was: I promise you if we get elected I will help your dreams come true. A new school, a good school, a school that is there for your community because you are prepared to put your efforts into it and your government should get behind you and help you rather than stand in your way.

I am still very unsure where all of these parents are going to come from … you know, the ones who want to have a direct hand in their children’s education. This as a response to the Birkenshaw, Birstall and Gomersal Parents’ Alliance … an area which I assume will be a Conservative stronghold.

He also said: …teachers and headteachers should be put back in charge to instil ”good discipline, standards and order” in their classrooms, free from Whitehall bureaucracy. … and … I can tell you if you get a Conservative government on May 6 the rules on school discipline will change from May 7.

Please can I know about learning and teaching … and not rigour ?

Attribution:
Somewhere over the rainbow - Doug Dickinson - 2010

Unfortunately I do actually think for this year it is too late … pity. The problem I think will lie in the fact that any boycott now may well be poorly supported and that will do the general case of removing Sats completely no good at all.

In today’s TES Connect: Nick Clegg has vowed to cut the external assessment in Sats tests due to the “stress and anxiety” they cause pupils, should his party help to form the next Government.

On a similar theme the Independent yesterday suggests that a boycott now would not best serve the ultimate aim.

The plot thickens ….

In March 2009 I wrote extensively about removing Sats and the fantastic amount of money , time, frustration, effort, tears, tantrums etc etc that each year go into these events. Well now it seems that the time has come to be counted.

On 16th April members of the NAHT backed a boycott and today I read that plans are in place to do just that. It will be interesting to see who does what and to hear their reasons for the decisions that they make. I was with some teachers last week who were saying that it was not fair to the children not to do the Sats as they were all keyed up for them. An interesting view.

Last year I wrote : ‘Now come on, don’t be silly, call it a day.’ … this still stands.

PS - Voice (The Union for education professionals) have given their members clear advice …

PPS - And Ed Balls via Twitter comes in with the DCSF’s statement on the boycott. The statement includes this : We have consistently said that the testing and assessment system is not set in stone yet NUT and NAHT executives are choosing to ignore the major reforms we have already made and are continuing to make.   Perhaps the heads are making a preemptive ’strike’ as a message to whoever gets into power on 6th May.

PPPS - and now from the NUT: Following a successful ballot of both unions’ leadership members, the NUT and NAHT executives have decided that the boycott of this year’s SATs will go ahead.

PPPPS - from the Guardian … Government consult lawyers over the legality of a Sats boycott.