Daisy Christodoulou on Education

[ardcarp]

Episode 4 of The Educators on R4 this morning featured Daisy Christodoulou, who some may remember as a spectacular University Challenge panellist.

She had a good bash at Ofsted (HOORAY!) and her ideas (described a 'controversial' by some) seemed to make a lot of sense. The presenter, Sarah Montague, was extremely well-informed and chaired the prgramme in exemplary fashion.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04fzd9h

Daisy has written a book, Seven Myths about Education, which I've just put on my Christmas list.

[Barbirollians]

Struck me as right wing tripe .

[MrGongGong]

What's school for ?
What's the difference between knowledge and information ?

Curiosity ?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

She isn't entirely wrong. There just needs to be a balance.

[MrGongGong]

She seems to make some huge assumptions about what the purpose of education is ?
Without a discussion of this it seems a bit superficial to me.

[teamsaint]

Gave up after about 10 minutes, and went back to music.

Literacy hour drives grammar into kids, supposedly effectively, from a very tender age. If they have a shaky grasp of grammar by secondary school age, then it is certainly NOT the fault of a discovery led skills based approach.

Unless we encourage curiosity, education is doomed to repeat the failures of many decades. Kids do need a decent basis of grammar. Boring them rigid, and drilling grammar into them has left us STILL with 20 per cent functionally illiterate at age 16.

I sense a career in the making.

[MrGongGong]

Gave up after about 10 minutes, and went back to music.

Literacy hour drives grammar into kids, supposedly effectively, from a very tender age. If they have a shaky grasp of grammar by secondary school age, then it is certainly NOT the fault of a discovery led skills based approach.

Unless we encourage curiosity, education is doomed to repeat the failures of many decades. Kids do need a decent basis of grammar. Boring them rigid, and drilling grammar into them has left us STILAL with 20 per cent functionally illiterate at age 16.

Have a pint on me (and one from Sir Ken I suspect)

My Children did the whole "literacy as a subject" thing, my daughter has a 1st class degree but doesn't read fiction at all, her enthusiasm was destroyed by systematic grammar learning. She will get back to it i'm sure.

Without curiosity we are really doomed

[Barbirollians]

Exactly and the idea that project work should be removed is barmy . It is no surprise that Gove would not stop quoting her book .

Her suggestion for example that skills are not transferable between subjects struck me as absurd.

[MrGongGong]

Who's "Gove" ?

[teamsaint]

I think a really important question to ask about education is "How many people really have a great education experience?"


Very few would be my guess. Most people ( even those who are reasonably successful)plod through the system doing what they are supposed to, in mediocre fashion, instead of what they really want to, or might do really well.

The system is made in the image of those who did well in it, and who want to make high flying careers in it.

[ardcarp]

Firstly, teamsaint, [post#10] I must be one of the rare people who really enjoyed my time at school and university...real salad days...and I'm not wearing rose-tinted specs.


I think the responses to my innocent thread starter illustrate, if nothing else, how people immediately dive into 'camps' when anything to do with education is debated! I'd no idea that Gove quoted Ms C. I'm not sure she would have been happy about it, because she was at pains to say that changes in teaching style must come from the bottom up and should not be at the whim of governments.

She also said she had worked alongside many excellent teachers, and was sad that those who did not kow-tow to Ofsted's house style were pilloried.

I have an example near to home. An excellent small primary school had a head who was mad keen on music and sport and made sure these both thrived. He and his deputy also gave the kids a first-rate general education...but didn't tick Ofsted's boxes. The school got a mere 'Satisfactory' after a recent Ofsted paper-chase; so both the head and deputy (both very literate and experienced teachers) resigned, to everyone's dismay.

As a contrast my own g-kids went to a big primary school where everything on the surface looked calm and settled. The management team (yes, there was one) made it their business to tick Ofsted's boxes and got an 'Excellent'. My g-kids had the most boring, uninspired, mediocre time there. No music, sport or drama of any consequence...and had it not been for an 'educated' home background, they would have emerged functionally illiterate and innumerate as, sadly, many did.

I'm a bit worried about the Left/Right thing. My own politics are well to the left of centre but it does not mean that I don't subscribe to Ms Christodoulou's assertion that laying down long-term memory is essential and that kids need to 'stand on the shoulders of giants' to acquire both knowledge and meaning.

Does anyone have a list of words they'd like to ban from education-speak? Let me start with:

issues
around
delivering
going forward
skills (a skill is juggling or playing the mouth-organ...not Googling)

Just imagine how fruitful any discussion about teaching would be if all jargon words were totally banned?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

issues
around
delivering
going forward
skills (a skill is juggling or playing the mouth-organ...not Googling)

I'll get back to you on that one. Just popping out.

[teamsaint]

Ardcarp...I won't quote your post, as I'm not sure it will add to the discussion.

I'm sure that your and your grand childrens' experiences are all relevant to discuss here. I enjoyed my time in education, performed reasonably well in exams to my ability level I think, but actually I suspect that I (like so many others) was failed in so many other ways. For example , I was allowed to avoid any kind of responsible position, which was my natural inclination, when I really should have been made to take responsibility, and develop in directions other than the strictly academic. Of course, tailoring education that precisely isn't easy, but its just an example of how systems can fail people.

Like you, I would worry about left/right coming into play. The left is every bit as capable of using education as a political football as the right, as are professionals whose agenda might be personal progression rather than political belief.

The thing that worried me about the radio interview was an (in my view) unsubstantiated view that kids arrive in secondary school with a shaky grasp of grammar, which is a result of trendy educational practice in Primary school, when , 15 years past the introduction of literacy hour , this really isn't the case.

It would be far more useful for instance, to question he effectiveness of the generally rather traditional approach of literacy hour and associated grammar teaching, when it patently isn't working. Finland produces 80% female graduates. We produce 80% of students who are functionally literate at 16, more or less.

I'll be positive. I would like to see education where children are given the opportunity to marvel at and discover the world that we have built, and to seek solutions to the problems we have created. To develop their natural curiosity at the extraordinary natural world. Where love of the arts is gently fostered, with a view to this being something they will have for life.Where skills (that word !!) are developed without fear, and where conservative " exam passing" choices are not the default option....where the opportunity to experiment with talent is not penalised with potentially irreversible grade markings. I would like one where all talents are genuinely treated equally, so that an ability to work with the hands or with animals is treated as being as valuable as the ability to kick a football, or translate English into French.
And so on......

But what we have is a long, long series of hoops, designed for nothing more than to judge the ability to jump through hoops.

My own children did fine in their education, (the youngest graduated in music this year) I would say, and I am happy about what they did achieve, so I have no chip here. But if I had my time with them again, I would look at things, and hopefully act, so differently.


Edit: I always worry about posting stuff like this...does anybody else?!

[MrGongGong]

The thing that worried me about the radio interview was an (in my view) unsubstantiated view that kids arrive in secondary school with a shaky grasp of grammar, which is a result of trendy educational practice in Primary school, when , 15 years past the introduction of literacy hour , this really isn't the case.

absolutely
I frequently go to schools where they spend huge amounts of time on mental arithmetic, spelling, etc etc ALL the things that folks would swear that "trendy" teachers have abandoned in favour of free expression. My daughter was NEVER asked to write a poem in her Literacy Hour, whats the point in teaching people to write if you regard their expression as valueless ?

[ardcarp]

Mr G. I agree. Literacy Hour is an abomination. How dare a government decree that children should be bored to death at the same time every day...which Ms C disapproved of strongly. I fear it boils down to the quality of teachers. Knocking teachers is a favourite sport for some. Not me. But I have sadly come to the conclusion that the proportion of teachers in a secondary school who are truly competent and inspiring is not as high as it should be. And if kids in a primary school get landed for a WHOLE YEAR with a dull, boring teacher who has been indoctrinated by 'the system' then they are likely to be brain dead at the end of it.

I always worry about posting stuff like this...does anybody else?

I don't.

More jargon words:

strategies
outcomes
engage