The future of university education in the UK

Yesterday, from several quarters, I found myself listening to statistics, reports and predictions on the subject of university education in the UK (and a little about the global situation). I'm not a futurologist. In fact, my stomach twists into a knot when I am asked to make any predictions about the future of learning. However, I can't help wondering whether universities are going to start disappearing or being 're-imagined' pretty soon. I have provided links wherever I have them. Please feel free to follow those for further information.

First, some background.

Up to 1998, there were no tuition fees for first degrees in the UK. In 1998, universities were required to pay up to £1,000 per year for tuition. In 2004, that increased to £3,000 (in England - other fee structures apply elsewhere). In 2010 that trebled to £9,000 a year. From a personal perspective, this was right at the time my sons would be looking at starting a university education. Neither of them went that route, and one made the decision based on cost.

The average predicted debt on leaving university in England, for those who started in 2012 is over £59,000. Graduates 'only' have to start paying back their study debts once they start earning at least £21,000 per year. Outstanding debt will be written off after 30 years. 30 years! By this time, these people will be in their early fifties. My age. By which point in their lives most of them will also have wanted to have had a wedding (£15,000+), take out a mortgage (£30,000 deposit and  a mortgage of £120,000), buy cars, do some travelling and generally live their lives. They will have needed to look into educating their own children. Many of them may, in fact be grandparents by then. The thought of still having a study loan hanging over my head at this stage of my life is just beyond depressing.

61% of graduates find work within six months of leaving university, and will earn an average of £18,000-£24,000 in their first job. So there might not be a lot of time between graduation and the beginning of loan repayment for that group. What of the 39% who take longer? (rhetorical question)

Organisations are finding that graduates don't leave university with skills that can be applied on the job. This might be due to a disconnect between what academia considers important and current practice within the corporate world. Whatever the reason, large investments often need to be made into the development of graduates before they begin to play a useful part in the achievement of the organisation's strategic objectives.

Having paid a fortune for their university education, students are becoming more inclined to complain when their expectations aren't met. Universities are self-regulating, unlike schools. This, I learned yesterday, is a major issue for several graduates. There is no body they can go to, to escalate the situation when they are dissatisfied. And many of them are dissatisfied. More than 20,000 students complained to their universities in 2013. They have begun to see themselves as consumers and believe they have been sold a sub-standard product. According to a programme on BBC Radio 4 yesterday, students find that the reality of a module often doesn't match the description which formed the basis on which they chose it. They find that they are unable to enrol on the modules they want, and must accept less-preferred alternatives for the same price (you can't have this Porsche 911, but here is a Fiat Punto for the same price). One student's dissertation supervisor was unavailable to him for five months leading up to his submission date, and the poor grade he got for his dissertation pulled his overall degree down from a 2.1 to a 2.2. Students are finding that the degree they have paid so much for doesn't qualify them for anything in particular - one young lady I know has just left university with a degree in German and has discovered that it doesn't open any doors that weren't already open before she earned her degree.

When I was in my final year of school (a long time ago), the field of computing (IT wasn't a term yet) was exploding. It wasn't yet the time of the personal computer, but the computerisation of  organisations - both public and private - was rampant. In desperation, organisations approached schools. One day, some captains of local industry came into our  (higher grade) maths class and offered to test us all for the aptitude to work with computers. I declined, but that's another story. Those who showed aptitude were offered jobs straight out of school at decent starting salaries (more than my Mom was earning at the time) and the opportunity to gain a qualification on the job.

Might we be seeing a return to that?

We're certainly seeing an increase in apprenticeship programmes. Not just in number, but in disciplines. In my office alone, we have three apprentices: one in admin, one in HR and one in Finance.

Considering the cost of training up their graduates anyway, and they higher salary they can command. Organisations may start recruiting straight from school. Offering young people the opportunity to earn-while-you-learn and to obtain accredited qualifications on a personal portfolio basis which can eventually build up to the equivalent of a degree... and beyond.

Will universities become irrelevant and even disappear? Will they begin to partner with organisations and run programmes that meet the needs of the organisations, with a changed accreditation model?

I can see this approach being more feasible in some fields than others - the corporate world is one such example. Neuro-surgery, maybe not so much. But maybe over time, models can be developed for the most unexpected fields to be able to move to a learn-on-the-job approach.

I will be watching with interest.

To close, though - it is my observation that the recruitment industry is lagging behind. They're a little too wedded to the 'piece of paper' as an easy way to identify suitable candidates. The current situation must surely be a strong motivation for finding a different way. But perhaps that is a post for another day.

Unbe-flipping-lievable

A rare emergence from hibernation for me, which just goes to show how strongly I feel about this matter.

I have just received the weekly newsletter from my younger son's school. Said son is in the throes of exams for the lower sixth form (the first of two years of non-compulsory further education which serve as a springboard for those who wish to go on to higher education).

The very first article in the newsletter focusses on the kids the year ahead of my son. In other words, those in the upper sixth. It includes the following:

Students seeking work or higher education places after Sixth Form have never before found the competition so tough. More students across the country are competing for fewer available places and many of our students must obtain A grades in a number of subjects (even A* in some cases) for university entry.

Our recent experience is that universities will not bend the requirements if students miss a grade. The need for students to revise really thoroughly has never been so vital.

It's all about grades! Other things get taken into consideration, sure, but only if you get the grades in the first place.

My son's results earlier in the year were very worrying. His teachers were at a loss: his homework is always submitted on time and is always 100% correct. But his exam results didn't even qualify for the word 'disappointing'. 'Terrifying' would be closer to the mark.

We are currently spending a fortune on private tutors in attempt to help this boy learn some exam skills, so that he can reproduce under exam conditions the levels of competency he demonstrates in the classroom. If he doesn't succeed at that, his lifelong career dreams will become even more difficult to achieve.

How can this be education?

William Nicholson wrote a trilogy called Wind on Fire. The first book starts off in this utterly ludicrous society in which people take regular assessments all the way through their lives. Where they live, what clothes they wear and every single factor of their lives is governed by the cumulative assessment scores of the family.

It is frightening how close we are to that. And I feel quite literally sickened as the parent of two sons who don't 'play the exam game' with any great skill. Nor can I help them there, because I have never been great shakes at it myself.

What kind of a dysfunctional society are we inflicting on these kids? And at what cost?

On academy status

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on this subject. Quite the contrary, in fact! But my son's school is in the process of considering Academy status, and they're currently holding meetings with parents who want to learn more. I confess that, since my son is already in sixth form, I feel somewhat remote from the whole business and haven't given it too much thought. However, for parents with kids lower down the school, there are a lot of questions - particularly in the light of the fact that ours is a faith school.

I came across these materials on teachers.tv which I thought might shed some light for teachers and parents at schools considering going down this route.

I have heard positive reports from struggling schools that have switched to this model. But I have no idea what happens in the case of schools that are not struggling. I guess only time will tell. And my inner cynic (yes, even I have one) tells me that we will encounter problems no-one has thought of or catered for beforehand, some of which may prove to be showstoppers.

How free can a 'free school' be?

I haven't really paid too much attention to the recently introduced concept of 'free schools' in the UK, other than to be vaguely pleased that the opportunity now existed for a different educational model.

Then, last night I was talking to someone who heads up an organisation that is applying to establish one in his local town.

We were talking about what his leadership team had in mind for the school. What they envisioned. How they planned to tackle the concept. He had some great ideas, looking at working with the local business community, and calling upon the expertise of real, live working people to contribute regarding the sort of work they do, and the skills required to do it successully.

I was thinking: what an opportunity! After all, many of us in this space agree that the current education model is broken. That repeated tweaking is not going to fix it. That it ought to be scrapped and a new one developed from the ground up.

My contention is that we should start at the end. We should ask ourselves what the ideal school leaver looks like: what can s/he do, what does s/he know, how does s/he approach challenges... all that stuff. And we shouldn't just make up our minds in a vacuum on this point. We should engage with entrepreneurs, business leaders, community leaders, etc. We should ask them what school leavers need, and then work backwards from that point, figuring out how we're going to help them get there.

I thought my companion was ideally situated to exactly that. To come up with a model of education that actually prepares young people for life and for the workplace. In theory, the establishment of a Free School would enable his organisation, as a charity, to lead the school as they see fit while being completely funded by the government.

BUT... the practice isn't going to be that straightforward.

The school would have to meet the same standards set by the government for all schools in the UK and as such will receive the same OFSTED inspections.

And it's this bit that worries me.

How far are these free schools going to be able to stray from the government appointed model, if they still have to jump through the same hoops?

For example, I envisage a model of education that more closely reflect real life and the workplace. People working together on a project and the end result being, well, the end result. People working in teams with a mentor who serves as a guide on the side, rather than a sage on the stage. People being encouraged to explore and to share their learning with each other. The teacher being on the journey with the students. No-one ever being shut away in a room and subjected to sensory deprivation, being expected to rely entirely upon their own memory, seasoned with understanding, to demonstrate in the space of 90 minutes that they are conversant with material they have spent the last x number of years studying.

But, if they are going to have to meet the same KPIs as existing schools and sit the state exams at the end of it anyway, in order to be placed on a bell curve and evaluated via the same mechanism as the production line model... well, is this really going to be possible?

I sincerely hope that they give it a jolly good try, and am certainly willing to contribute if called upon to do so, but I wonder if the term 'free' is entirely accurate. It sounds a little tethered to me.

On irony

Regular readers may remember the trauma we experienced with the maths department in respect of our elder son. At the time that this was going on, I was venting to a friend (let's call her Rachel) with kids at the same school. She could relate to my situation, because her own experience of the maths department with one of her older sons (let's call him Tim) was not a happy one.

Tim, Rachel tells me, is one of those people who takes a little longer to grasp a new concept. But, once he's got it, he's got it good. Having done well at GCSE maths, he had opted to take the subject at A level. But things were not going well, and he was becoming steadily more discouraged. At the first progress meeting, Rachel was advised that Tim should give up maths because he was simply never going to get it.

This pushed Rachel's 'I'll show you' button. When it comes to her kids, the mild-mannered Rachel gives me a run for my money in the tigress stakes!

She found her son a private tutor and enlisted the support of the same Ms Verity I have mentioned before. Tim passed A level maths strongly and went on to study it at university.

He has just taken up his first post as a maths teacher... at the very same school he attended himself.

This means that Tim and the teacher who wrote him off will be colleagues... and this is not the first story of this kind I have heard.

Teachers please take care. I have personal experience that crow and humble pie don't taste very good and egg makes an uncomfortable facial accessory.

The same teacher who was so discouraging of Tim, recently advised my younger son - during 6th form induction - not to sign up for maths A levels. This after an impassioned speech to the whole group about how it was the most important subject in the curriculum and an absolute must, yadda yadda. What changed her tune was that she learned that my son and one other child present had been in set 5 of 9 for GCSE maths, and she felt that they would 'struggle'. She had apparently already advised all the kids in set 6 and below against attending the talk on maths at all.

The daft thing is that, 5th set or not, he sat exactly the same exam as the kids in the top set... and he got a solid B. What's wrong with that, I ask you?

He returned from the induction full of doubt, and started casting about for an alternative subject. I was livid, nay, apoplectic. Those of you who know me well can just imagine how this played out.

This is a kid who, since the age of 3, has wanted to be an explosives demolitionist. Never once has he wavered from this goal. If he is to realise this ambition, he will need to study structural engineering. One of the entrance requirements is a solid pass in maths at A level. He knows how hard he is going to have to work, and is prepared for the challenge.

As my husband said, "So, he may struggle. So what? Is there a rule against struggling somewhere? If he struggles, we'll find him some extra help. That's what parents do."

We get the impression that the department - or at least, this teacher - is only interested in kids who are going to sail through and score the sort of results that will keep the school in its lofty position on the local league tables. My mother in law has a sticker on her fridge that says, "The forest would be a quiet place if no birds sang but the best." Our kids may not be among the best, but, by 'eck, they're going to get to sing! To put a (slightly) more polite spin on a South Africanism, that woman does not get to urinate on our son's campfire! It may be that he changes his mind about what his career choice (our elder son did exactly that, shortly after starting 6th form) but it is to be his choice to make! It is not to be foisted upon him by someone with an agenda.

So, tomorrow, he goes into school to sign up for his A level subjects, and maths (with mechanics) will be one of them. He may well struggle, but (as the great Gretzky says) you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

Not all parents are as determined, as resource-rich, as stubborn, as supportive, as teeth-clenchingly bloody-minded as my friend Rachel and me. My heart sinks as I wonder how many young people are giving up on their life's dreams because of what a teacher has said.

Let's be enablers, folks.

National Learning at Work Day

Today has been National Learning at Work Day in the UK, when people are encouraged to learn a new skill in the workplace. It doesn't have to be work related, of course, although I'm sure most employers would prefer it if it were.

Since I am self employed and no longer really have an 'at work', I sent out an email to the team of 200 or so people who constitute a mailing group for one of my clients. I encouraged people to push the boat out and learn something new.

Fairly predictably for a UK audience, I had a very poor response.

One person was thoroughly enthused and suggested that we each offer a 60 second micro-lesson online to whomever was interested. But he was a lone voice. At the other extreme, one respondent claimed that, having read my email, he now needed to learn 'how to clean puke off my keyboard'. Charming.

But the third and final response, received just minutes ago made it all worthwhile. With the permission of the respondent, I reproduce it here verbatim:

Thanks for your message. When I worked at the University of Manchester a few years ago, they made a good effort for the National Learning at Work Day. Five years ago, they organised a day of unusual activities to stretch people’s minds, at the Manchester Museum which is on the university campus – this included things like circus skills (juggling etc). I asked my boss if I could go and was surprised that I was allowed (but for only half a day) – no one else in my department of about 100 people had even asked. The bit that I attended was an indoor planetarium, offered by the School of Astronomy; this consisted of a wonderful introduction to the stars and how things look different in the southern hemisphere and in different seasons etc, and also included lots about the mythology around the constellations (e.g. how Orion the hunter met Taurus the bull). I enjoyed it a lot and it stayed in my mind.

I have just completed a Certificate in Introductory Astronomy with the University of Manchester, via distance and e-learning, which I’ve been doing for the past two years. I know that that one day when my boss was good enough to let me ‘learn at work’, planted a seed for pursuing this hobby (a lifelong love of science fiction played a part too of course). Ironically, the course had very little to do with gazing at the stars – it covered the physics and maths behind ‘life, the universe and everything’. But now that I’m finished with the course and with possible clear nights ahead this summer, I have lots of star gazing ahead. So, the day worked for me anyway, five years ago today!

Isn't that an encouraging anecdote?

Oh... and I spent the day in teach mode rather than learn mode (but I reckon that counts, too), acquainting someone with the use of social media for business purposes. I have already posted a link to one outcome of the day.

Send us your sample

This strikes me as being a really fun option for teachers of the sciences (among other things).

A company called ASPEX, which produces scanning electron microscopes (SEMs) and microanalysis software has kicked off a campaign called Send us your Sample, which invites anyone to send in an object of their choosing and have it scanned free of charge under one of their SEMs.

You can send in anything you like - a toy bunny, a dead bug or an old toothbrush. It's pretty cool. See their image gallery here.

They also have a rather fun thing called 'name that sample' where you have to guess from the 'after' picture what the object is. Could you have guessed that this was an image of Hall's cough drops? If so, you might have won yourself an Apple iPod Touch.

Reward

The whole theme of reward or cause-and-effect is exercising my mind lately. Mostly it just goes in circles.

I'm not about to disinter Pavlov, but I can't help feeling that we should be looking to reward desired behaviours in education, in the workplace and even in society in general.

Obviously, the nature of the reward would have to be made appropriate to the context. I can't see us giving a newly appointed manager a star for sharing his crayons with the person at the next desk.

Recently, my elder son asked me to intervene in a situation for him. He had lent a sum of money to his younger brother. It seems my younger son was going to repay this debt at £5/month, interest free. But that would take several months, by which time my elder son will have finished school and started his gap year in Australia. So he asked if I would give him the money, and let my younger son repay me at this rate.

I agreed, but I shouldn't have. The thing is, my elder son lent the money to his brother without establishing the terms of repayment first. This is not a very wise thing to do, and in taking over the debt, I have rewarded his poor choice. It isn't a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, so this would have been an ideal opportunity for a bit of tough love. A lesson to be learnt at no great cost.

I'm too much of a softie!

As I see it, the exam system also rewards the wrong behaviours. I know some kids who seem pretty dense, to be honest. They seem to know nothing about anything, and are utterly unable to hold a meaningful conversation about anything of substance. And yet they are in the top set for all their subjects at school, raking in the A grades. If education is preparation for life, the behaviours that should be rewarded are surely things like the ability to find information on a given subject, establish whether information is valid/reliable, apply information to a situation that does not exactly mirror a case study, work as a team, delegate responsibility, meet a deadline, be innovative with limited resources, overcome obstacles. You know... real life stuff.

We're a long way from that, I reckon. Probably mainly because we're a long way from knowing how to assess those skills!

I used to share a house with a few long distance truck drivers when I was a student. These guys were paid a certain fee to haul a load from point A to point B. They would get a bonus for doing it extra quickly. Not only that, but if they managed to shave a day off the delivery time, that gave them an extra day to start earning on the next project. So any time saved gained double rewards, financially speaking. So these guys would drive for 24 hours at a stretch, overdosing on caffeine in attempt to stay awake. There is no doubt that they constituted a hazard to other road users and themselves. In fact, I heard a couple of years back that one of them had been killed in an accident.

But the system was such that they were rewarded for this behaviour.

I have heard many tales of teenage girls in the UK, fed up with their parents restrictive rules, deliberately becoming pregnant in order to qualify for additional benefit payments and perhaps get a council flat. I'm not pretending to know a better way to respond in this situation, but it strikes me that this is another example of rewarding the wrong behaviour.

Like I said, my mind has been going in circles on this subject. I'm not sure I have any constructive answers, but I guess a change to the education system wouldn't hurt!

Stepping out of the boat

I am somewhat behind on my reading, which may explain why I have not previously seen this article from Megan McArdle in Time (thanks to my husband for the pointer).

McArdle talks about the importance of safe failure to the economy. In fact she says, "failure is one of the most economically important tools we have". She bemoans the fact that, "instead of celebrating all our successes in building systems that fail well, we've become wedded to the fantasy of a system that doesn't fail at all."

Isn't it interesting how the very things we have been saying in respect of learning and education are being said here about the American economy? And it's hardly surprising, really. If we create an education system that stigmatises failure, we can only expect that that stigma will carry over into all other arenas of life... including the economy. It's all linked. It's all part of the one thing, the big picture.

I'm with McArdle when she says, "rather than launch a quixotic war on failure, we should be using what we've learned to build a system that fails better". We should be adopting this approach to education, too. The only people who never fail are the people who never do anything. We should be stigmatising never doing anything.

This puts me in mind of the story of Peter walking on the water (Matthew 14). Preachers often use this story to illustrate weakness, lack of faith, etc. I tend to think, hang about a bit... what about the eleven losers in the boat who didn't even try? Peter tried. Sure, he failed after a few steps, but he had an experience none of the others could claim... because he gave it a shot. We need a few more Peters, I reckon!

Let's be about encouraging people to step out of the boat, and about catching them when they start to sink.

Bud on Why our current education system is failing

Thanks to Stephen Downes, I came across this post today. It is written by someone still in high school, and is one of the most articulate, cogent arguments I have read. The debate in the comments is very telling, too!

At this point, consider there to be a section break. The next part of this post goes into a spin-off.

There is one section of his post, in particular, however, that I would like to tease out:

Our top priority must be to instill a passion for reading. The progress of humanity depends on it.

A number of my friends routinely say ” I hate reading”

And I always reply, ” You just haven’t found the right book.”

That 'you just haven't found the right book' argument has been mine, too. Verbatim. I have tended to believe that for every child, somewhere out there is the book that will flip the switch. The book that will take the 'non-reader' label past its sell-by date. I have always told my kids: there isn't a door in the world that is closed to you if you love to read. (Side note: I am trying decide what to make of Bud's view that the 100 books he has read over the past four years constitute a lot of reading, when I read 200 books during my last two years of high school, and my mother before me read 400 over the same period.)

However

I am the mother of a 15 year old son who hates reading. I am also the mother of a 17 year old who enjoys it.

Every night of their early lives, both boys had a bedtime story. At several points during the course of pretty much every day of their lives, someone would read a book to them, or go through a picture book with them. Both boys observed their parents' love of reading. Both boys loved to be read to (said she, ungrammatically).

When, as a baby/toddler, my elder son was 'too quiet' in a way that every parent understands only too well, I would go to investigate, expecting carnage, and find him seated in front of the bookshelf, surrounded by books, 'reading'. I must have repacked those bookshelves 5 times a day when he was little. Quite often, I would find him 'reading' Asterix when the books were longer than his outstretched legs. He liked to be allowed to 'read' an Asterix book in bed... and this was often the result (taken from our family photo album).

And yet. And yet.

I have bust a valve trying to find that 'right book' for my 15 year old. All. His. Life.

Our house has always been full of books. We made regular trips to the library when they were little. We have grabbed reference books to resolve disagreements about trivia at the dinner table. I have come out of bookstores weighed down and broke.

The books on the shelves in our house currently include stuff by Terry Pratchett, JK Rowling, Tolkien and Shakespeare. We have Anthony Horowitz books of all descriptions. We have Captain Underpants. We have Holes. We have The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. We have Anne MacCaffrey and John Meaney. We have John Grisham. We have exemplars of the juvenile secret agent type that is currently so popular: the Cherub series and the young James Bond stuff (and Horowitz's Alex Rider). We have William Nicholson. We have Christopher Paolini. We have Michelle Paver. Brian Jacques. Trudi Canavan. Frank Peretti. Lloyd Alexander. Sharon Creech. Chris d'Lacey. Roald Dahl. Caroline Pitcher. Colin Foreman. Kevin Crossley-Holland. Justin Richards. Steve Dixon. Jonathan Stroud. Rodman Philbrick.

Nothing. Nada. Not a sausage. Not a glimmer of love for reading.

It is utterly beyond me how anyone can not love to read, but my younger son is one such. He hates to be taken out of the hurly burly of interaction with other people. He loves msn. He loves World of Warcraft. Both these things enable him to engage with other people.

Oddly - and this really gets me - he has the most vivid imagination, and his creative writing is of a high standard. His critical writing, too. His evaluation of the play Blood Brothers read in parts like something I might have written (and before you ask, no, I didn't - I do not, will not do my kids' school work for them). Now, I don't mean to imply that I am a superior writer, but I hope you agree that I'm not bad... and he is only fifteen! His essay about Macbeth was even better. I am at a loss to explain this skill in someone who consumes so little written material from which to draw examples. I am just pleased that he has it!

I have had to learn to just let this one go. Perhaps one day, he will find the 'right book'. Perhaps he never will. I have to let him know that he is not a disappointment to me because he doesn't share my passions.

pic of the day - one down...

What a morning we've had! My elder son was having a lie-in because this is an exam week, and his paper was scheduled for this afternoon... or so he thought.

Good thing I checked the schedule!

There's nothing quite like dragging a 17-year old out of bed to go and take an exam... especially when you then discover that he doesn't have pens or pencils, or an eraser, or a ruler... or anything, really. An hour before the exam starts is no time to be discovering these things!

Trying to get him to hurry while also trying not to make him nervous was a balancing act.

It was too late to take the train so I drove him to school. Traffic was dire, and it took all my energy not to give off any signs of mounting stress. Chatting about inconsequential things, opting not to switch off a cringe-worthy interview on the radio, because it had him in stitches...

The relief was so huge when I dropped him off, that my driving skills went all to pot and I nearly had two accidents within 100m of the school.

I prayed all the way home.

Then this text message came through. Okay, so his use of apostrophes sucks, but what the heck!

This afternoon, I will nail him to a chair and make sure he has everything he needs for the rest of his exams. I will also bludgeon him (in the nicest possible way) into having everything ready the night before each paper.

I hate exams, but they're the currency we're forced to work with. We might as well optimise his chances as far as possible, because, with the amount of revising he's doing, the nett result of his AS year looks set to be a level 80 Undead Warlock (actually that's an exaggeration - he has a way to go before level 80). I'm not sure what career opportunities there are for undead warlocks... and I don't recall seeing this criterion listed among the hoops applicants have to jump through to get accepted to any of the universities he's interested in.

Ho hum.

Educational blogs to explore

I only just came across this post today, even though it was posted on 7 Feb. Nevertheless, it should prove a treasure trove to those who work in the formal education sector, particularly schools.

The blog is delightfully called Making Teachers Nerdy. The blogger identifies herself only as Mrs Smoke and says of herself "I'm a Technology Instructional Coach and Integrationist for the Andover Schools and an Intel US Senior Trainer. My favorite activities in Tech Integration are international telecollaborative and Travel Buddy projects."

In this post, she has listed a wide range of teacher blogs, touching on different roles, different age groups and different subject areas. Somehow, she seems to have missed Vicki Davis, but perhaps she was seeking to share a little link love with lesser known bloggers.

Smart boys, bad grades: tips for parents

Picking up on my anguish, with his ever-sympathetic eye, Harold Jarche sent me a link to this site, which addresses the issue of bright boys whose scholastic results don't reflect this.

I homed in on the section titled 'Tips for parents', which I'd like to reproduce here, verbatim, for the benefit of other parents in similar situations, with a thinking out loud reaction to each:

1. Ask your boy, “How was your day?” Do it every day, and of course listen to his response. If you get too short a response for two days in a row, ask a follow up question. Do not always inquire about homework or school as the only area of concern.
   Check. I do this every day in the car on the way home, and at various other moments when the context is right.
   
2. Every day, tell your boy, “You are a good kid.”
   Check. Several times a day. Together with "I'm proud of you, you know."
   
3. Allow and encourage computer work. Instead of saying “playing on the computer” ask your boy “what are you working on your computer.”
   Check. Except my son appears to have developed an addiction to a particular game and times supposedly allocated to work often wind up being spent in the game instead. We're pretty flexible on the subject of Internet access, social media and computer usage in general, but we've had to put a ban on this game - it was taking up every waking moment!
   
4. Minimize punishment for behavior that does not hurt others.
   Check. But we also point out how it might hurt him. At 17, he needs to start swallowing the 'big boy pill' and facing up to reality.
   
5. Give him $10. Immediate, unexpected reward is great reinforcement.
   No. No. And thrice no. I will not bribe my children to produce what they're perfectly capable of. If he's not prepared to do something because it's important to him, bribery isn't going to change that, and it will send him all the wrong messages.
   
6. Advocate for your boy. It is important for your boy to know you are supportive and willing to help.
   Check. But he must not abuse this knowledge. When he has misrepresented the situation to me and I am left defending a position on a false premise, I become incandescent. I will not tolerate dissembling. My view is that when you screw up, you man up.
   
7. Talk to teachers. Engage with teachers as often as you need to.
   Check. And this isn't always easy.
   
8. Talk to your doctor, and get a second opinion if you feel it is warranted, on medicine. This is not medical advice, nor advocating medicine.
   Ha! On the NHS? Don't make me laugh.
   
9. Guys are critical. Dads, older brothers, male supervisors at work, help your boy have a male role model. Guys don’t need to do a lot, they just need to do and say a little and it goes a long ways. Talk to your husband/companion about a few positive things to do or say. Explain the ‘deal’ with boys (neurology).
   Hmm. This point seems to presuppose that only mothers are reading this article. Interesting. My husband is pretty good at this - it is something for which he been commended on many occasions by other dads.
   
10. Explore alternatives to your current school. Not every situation is right for everyone. Explore other public schools, virtual schools, home schooling, tutoring.
    Worth considering. Sadly, a virtual school would require a higher level of self-discipline than he possesses, home schooling is out, since I work and tutoring is very pricy. Nevertheless, it is an option we're considering. We might also have to consider another school. The school he attends at the moment is very highly regarded, but he just doesn't seem to be a very good fit with its ethos. This is not a new scenario to me. In fact, it takes me back 30 years to my own high school years!
    
11. Talk to school counselors. If you get a good school counselor, use her or him when you need to. They can be a positive help in working with teachers.
    Good point. Need to get on this right away.
    
12. Ask about modifications. Changing a teacher, course subject, day or time. Just as your boy has a certain learning style, a teacher has a given teaching style. Not every teacher can respond to every student. So see if you have options.
    Sadly, this is not an option. I say sadly, because there is at least one teacher who has pigeonholed my son in the 'naughty boy' slot and will not acknowledge anything he does at all.
    
13. Talk to other parents. It helps.
    Check. But I find other parents in this school are totally married to traditional mores. I find parents in the blogosphere far more informed and helpful.
    
14. Let your boy know what is up with Smart Boys, Bad Grades. It’s not an excuse, but it is a reality. Go with your hunch. As a parent, you know the most about your boy.
    Check. He also knows that my own grades in high school were little better than mediocre, even though much was expected of me. He knows that school isn't his last shot at it, but he also knows that later shots at it will be undertaken under far less conducive circumstances. It's tough trying to get your degree while earning a living and raising a family - ask me, I know!
    

The site also includes a 'tips for teachers' section. Any suggestions as to how I might persuade his teachers to visit?

Human talent is often buried deep

This is a direct quote from this keynote speech by Sir Ken Robinson to the recent iNet Conference.

He draws the comparison with valued natural resources buried deep in the ground, requiring skill and effort in their extraction.

He relates the story that Paul McCartney and George Harrison were in the same music class in high school and were both regarded as being without musical talent - and they hated music lessons. As he puts it - there was this music teacher with half The Beatles in his class... and he missed it!

After what I have recently been through with my son, I felt enormously encouraged. I don't always agree with everything he has to say, but I find myself torn between relief that someone has such clarity of vision... and gets to express it in spaces with wide exposure, and frustration that nothing seems to be changing.

It's a very sad thing...

For some years, I have been targeting a specific organisation as a place I'd really like to work. I've had cause to visit their premises several times and have always felt bouyed by the evident passion and enthusiasm of the people who work there. Having had my fill of cynicism and eye-rolling, I relished the idea of being surrounded by fellow wild-eyed zealots. They have always struck me as an organisation that is prepared to break with tradition, to push the envelope, to... oh heck, there's no other way of saying it... think outside the box, colour outside the lines (pick your cliche).

On every occasion, my applications have fallen at the first hurdle, and I was at a loss as to why. As recently as a few weeks ago, I made yet another application and yet again did not make the first round of interviews. This time, I was able to contact the person recruiting for the role and find out where my shortcomings were, so that I could address them next time around.

I was deeply saddened that my application was dismissed primarily because I do not hold a first degree. I have cobbled together enough pieces of formal education over the years to be accepted onto not one but two post-graduate study programmes. I am half way through a Master's degree programme. I have more informal learning than you can shake a stick at, and twenty years of experience in the field of L&D. How gut-wrenchingly dismaying that all this counts for nought if you cannot produce a piece of paper that says that you have a Bachelor's degree.

Yes, there were two other points on which I didn't demonstrate evidence of competency, and that is my fault. But the way that the response was worded made it very clear that the primary reason for my rejection was that dratted piece of paper.

You know, when I left school, I would have loved to go to university, but the money wasn't there, and the banks wouldn't agree to a loan, since I was a girl who wanted to study mechanical engineering design. Shock horror. The attrition rate among girls in that field was so high, and the employment opportunities for women so rare in those days, that the banks didn't consider it a worthwhile risk.

In the intervening thirty years, I have bust my butt to make up for what recruiters saw as a lack. I followed (and passed) two teaching diploma courses simultaneously from in the period 1980-82. In addition to the things I have already listed, I have attended more short courses than many people have had hot dinners. I have put myself through so many CBT and VBT programmes on such a wide range of subjects, it would make your head spin.

When I decided to embark on my current MA programme, most universities could not see beyond my lack of a B degree (including the organisation at the heart of this post - in spite of the fact that it is theoretically possible to gain access by other means of proving competency). When I approached my current university, they said "Good grief! Of course we'll have you." And never once have I felt that the rest of my cohort outperforms me in any way because they have something I don't. Quite the contrary, in fact.

I had honestly hoped that my disadvantaged start was something I was going to be able to put behind me. But, sad to say, it seems that this is not to be the case. Even though it is some time since I my big four-oh.

When I suffered my first broken heart, an older, wiser woman told me that the best thing to do when you've been rejected is to look good and have fun. Let him see what he's missed out on, darling. What do you suppose the professional equivalent is?

Surely we have reached a stage in our attitudes towards learning where we see beyond formal programmes? Have we not moved on from the perception that only a university can really educate a person, where university educated=superior, non-university educated=puh-lease, don't waste my time?

Yes, I am a bit annoyed. Yes, I am feeling a bit bitter, and the chip on my shoulder is probably digging into my stiff neck.

But most of all I am sad. Disillusioned.

So what exactly constitutes failure, then?

Note: edited today 24 June 2008.

I have long been of the view that an assessment that passes everyone is less of an assessment and more of an attendance register. If you have to have an assessment, then it has to be possible for people to fail. Or don't bother. Don't waste their time and your resources.

Recently, we were greeted with the news that the Prime Minister has issued an ultimatum to the 1-in-5 bottom schools in the country: buck up or close down. These schools have been identified as falling short of the government targets that at least 30% of the pupils should achieve "five good GCSEs" which means that they should achieve a C grade or better in at least five subjects.

There is a third option. These schools may be converted into Labour's new pet project: academies. There are mixed feelings on the subject of academies and I am not really qualified to enter into the argument on one side or the other.

According to news reports, Gordon Brown stated very strongly that there was to be no tolerance of failure.

What was a little surprising was the news, a few days later, that many of the schools tarred with this 'failure' brush had received excellent Ofsted reports following their last inspection. In the light of the deprivation and circumstances of many of the children at these schools, the value that the schools added was judged to be outstanding at best and satisfactory at worst.

So how do you assess whether a school is failing or not? Is it an absolute? Schools which do not produce pupils of whom at least 30% achieve five good GCSEs are unsuccessful. Or is it relative? Schools which do not add x value to their pupils are seen to be failing.

Under the 'absolute' approach, many schools don't stand a chance. Think about areas where:

• parents have not completed high school education themselves
• education is not high on the list of priorities due to other deprivation
• English is not the first language of a large percentage of the population
• crime levels are high or where gang culture applies more pressure than the 'system'

Under the 'relative' approach, other schools are on the back foot. Think of schools where:

• the intake is already achieving high levels coming in to the school
• discipline is not a problem

I'm not sure that a one-size fits all approach is ever going to be able to identify the failing schools with any consistency.

I don't pretend to have the answers on this one, but I think it must be enormously frustrating for the heads of the schools facing the chop when they have been given sterling inspection reports, only to have the same government refer to them as failing and threaten to close them down.

NOT teaching to the test

It's exam time here in the UK, and of course, a lot of airtime is being given to this or that expert and this or that kid with an exciting viewpoint to present. The latest two I heard today were (1) that an expert has pointed at the currect system of assessment cannot be truly even handed, since each marker will interpret an answer slightly differently, and that (and this is the kicker) this meant that the assessment system was not a completely reliable picture of a child's abilities in a subject (gee wow!) and (2) that a kid is complaining that their high school education is so focussed on the final assessment that they're not actually getting a worhtwhile education.

We have been thoroughly embroiled in exams with our elder son taking his GCSEs and our younger one doing his key stage 3 SATs.

Interestingly, I have discovered (just today) that my elder son's music teacher has not been one of those that the aforementioned kid was complaining about. The music class has spent the most wonderful year doing all sorts of practical things, and learning blow-all theory.

A couple of weeks ago, as is the wont of teachers at this stage of the final year, the teacher set the kids the task of completing a previous year's GCSE paper. My son apparently scored the highest mark in the class... a magnificent 45/120. Looking at the paper afterwards, the teacher's reaction was, "Hm. I haven't taught you any of this stuff."

So it seems he ignored the curriculum and did his own thing with the kids. Hence the enjoyment of the class. However, if any of the kids want to continue with music into the 6th form, they don't stand a chance of being accepted to do so, because they won't have achieved suitable results.

So where does this leave us?

You teach to the test and the kids learn little they can apply or you don't teach to the test and the kids don't get to carry the subject over to further education.

Surely there must be another way?

Sadly, I suspect it means completely overhauling the education system, not just tweaking the existing one. It means throwing away everything we think we know about assessment and starting again from scratch. Which means, as far as I'm concerned starting with the premise: what do we want to be able to say of a properly educated 18 year old, how do we get them there, and how do we tell when whether we've succeeded or not?

I'm not going to hold my breath!

As it happens, my son has no desire to take music for his A levels. He has chosen Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Maths (talk about putting all your eggs into one basket!). The tradition is to take 4 subjects for the first year (AS levels) and then drop one, so you finish with 3 A levels. He wants to keep all four going.

I hope he's going to get better support than the "teaching to the test" approach. Much as I deplore the system, I also hope he's going to receive teaching that will enable to him to face the exams feeling that he's on familiar ground. If he's to succeed in his goal of getting into Bristol University to study forensics, he's going to need to play the system.

Sigh.

Setting

I'm not sure to what extent setting is practised outside of the UK, but many schools here practise this. Kids of similar abilities are grouped together in lessons. I won't attempt to explain the reasons for this - I'll leave that to the teachers out there. Let me say, however, that I support the concept. When I could, I tended to practise this myself during my years as a classroom based IT trainer. It reduced the risk of having one person bored out of their skull or totally out of their depth.

Be that all as it may, my younger son recently changed schools due to our house move. The school he now attends has a much stronger academic record than the previous one. At his previous school, he was in the top set for just about every subject. The new school conducted assessments and placed him in the second (of eight) sets for science, which is pretty much what we expected, since this is a very strong subject for him. However, he has been placed in the sixth (of eight) sets for maths, and the bottom sets for French and English. As far as I can tell, there is no setting for the other subjects.

My view is that he should be in the set where he will receive instruction that is appropriate for him. I guess I've grown up enough not to want to be competitive about this and have him in the top set at all costs.

However, I've been mulling over the implications of the disparity. Is it just because the kids at the new school are academically stronger than those of the school he has left? Is it possible that they could be that far advanced? After all, he has been working on the maths curriculum for the year ahead of his for several months, now, and yet he is in the bottom 40% for the subject. Was he in the wrong set in the school he has left? Is the assessment/evaluation process at the new school flawed?

It all remains to be seen. In the meantime, I hope they will allow him to make some input about how well the level of instruction meets his needs in each of his current sets.

McDonalds, FlyBe and Network Rail to offer A-levels

The news reports in the UK are all a-twitter this morning with the news that the first tranch of employers has been empowered to award A-level equivalent diplomas to their staff, along the lines of the new, more vocational diplomas on offer at many schools.

For those not based in the UK, it might help to know that compulsory education in the UK ends at 16 with the GCSE (general certificate of secondary education). This certificate on its own is insufficient to gain access to a university, so those who plan to go this route will usually stay on for an optional two (or even three) years gaining three or more A-levels. While almost all high schools offer A-levels, since they are post-compulsory, they constitute further education (or FE). These A-levels are acceptable entrance criteria to a university (which constitutes higher education or HE).

Many students may go straight to work after GCSEs, while others may opt to go to college (as distinct from university) to study towards a diploma.

Of course, the public's attention has been captured by the notion of an "A-level in burger flipping". The other two organisations have hardly rated a mention. I'm fairly sure that McDonalds will look into issues other than burger flipping, but the cynicism levels are running high, right now.

Several universities have indicated that they consider the new diplomas to be lacking in academic rigour and will not accept them as valid entry criteria to the university.

I find myself torn on this subject. I can see why the universities might think that the vocational diplomas give insufficient indication of an individual's capacity/appetite for academic study. On the other hand, I gained access to my current Master's degree programme by piecing together odds and ends of formal education and producing evidence of 18 years worth of experience and informal, self-directed learning, and I have certainly not been left behind by those in my class with a more traditionally academic background. In fact, I am generally regarded as the best-read member of the class.

Then again, university is not the only way forward. And perhaps it's time society did away with academic snobbery.

In my days as a student, I dated two civil engineering students (not simultaneously!). One was studying towards a degree at the university, on a full bursary from the most prestigious corporation in the country. The other was studying towards a diploma at the Technikon (read polytechnic), with his fees being paid by an employer. The university student spent four years in the classroom. The technikon student spent four years doing rotations of six months in the classroom and six months on site. It was obvious that society viewed the first as being the superior individual, and he was certainly cleverer than the technikon student in an academic sense. But would this make him a better civil engineer? Would the bridges built under his supervision be better able to stand up to the rigours of constant traffic use?

I don't know what courses McDonalds, FlyBe and Network Rail are planning to offer, but it isn't helped by the sort of snideness the announcement is attracting (see the comments on the linked article).

Since McDonalds seems to have become the purveyor of the staple diet in the UK, and since air and rail travel are frequent topics of heated conversation, perhaps it is just as well that some work-based training is being set in place for these organisations!

After all, one of the questions we often ask in this space is: what is education for? Perhaps this is finally the beginning of educational programmes with an answer to that question.

Having said that, I don't relish the idea of a future in which all learning has to have an employment-related point. How narrow our lives would become if we only ever learned skills and information that would help us at work.

We see here the opporunity for employers to have a real impact on the future of learning. Perhaps we will see further dismantling of my bugbear: the wall between corporate and academic learning! It will be interesting to see whether it proves successful.

You want to know how to teach our kids? Ask us!

In his latest newsletter, George Siemens kicks off with this paragraph:

The current issue of Forbes is focused on educating our children. Numerous experts have put forward their theories in short articles. Missing, however, are the views and opinions of teachers, parents, and students. While the commentaries of prominent people will obviously gain more attention, I think more wisdom is likely to be found in educators in the trenches. Better yet, host a "submit your view of education" session on YouTube. Then allow the network to filter the best ideas. Or host the discussion in a wiki. Don't tell us how to fix education. Involve us in fixing education.

I couldn't agree more!

Year after year, when the school exam results are published and the boys have fallen even further behind the girls... yet again, they trot out experts to tell us why this is the case and to talk about what is going to be done to address this imbalance.

Year after year, I yell at the TV - don't tell me what you think is wrong... ask me what I think is wrong! I'm the mother of sons, I know a bit about learning. Give me (and others like me) 5 minutes! Track down a sample of their better teachers - preferably the male ones - and ask them.

So, just in case you care what I think (acknowledgement - this is a generalisation):

I think it has a lot a lot to do with what I have come to call oestrogen poisoning.

The proportion of male:female teachers in early years and primary school being what it is, by the time a boy reaches high school, chances are he has not yet been taught by even one male teacher. That represents a stream of teachers who, the research seems to suggest, think in an innately different way from him. With the best will in the world, a female teacher leads by example in feminine thought and learning strategies. I suspect that this means that the assessment/examination process reflects a feminine thought process, too. Of course girls will do better at this than boys!

Is it any wonder that, by the time he gets to high school, many a boy has decided that he isn't going to crack this learning thing? It might take him years to overcome the early conditioning and find a way of working that fits.

Also, it seems to be fairly cut and dried that boys develop/mature more slowly than girls. So why are we forcing formal education of them so early? Why must a child be in a particular year group based purely on his chronological age? Why can he not tackle the school year for which he is developmentally ready?

As a woman, I am delighted to see girls coming into their own. As a human being, and the mother of sons, I am appalled to see boys becoming marginalised. Unless we are trying to head towards a Wicker Man society (heaven forfend!) please, please will someone listen to what the parents and the teachers have to say, instead of these pontificating people who haven't been associated with a school going boy in years (if ever)!