Sunday, April 19, 2009

RSA Projects
Charter - http://www.thersa.org/projects/education/education-campaign/education-for-the-21st-century-a-charter
Talks - http://www.thersa.org/events/vision
Sir Ken Robinson – The Element - http://www.thersa.org/events/vision/vision-videos/sir-ken-robinson-the-element

The Charter
1. It is the primary purpose of education to awaken a love of learning in young people, and give them the ability and desire to carry on learning throughout life.

Discussion
Robert Leslie Fielding: I think we should rephrase that sentence to read, “It should be the primary purpose of education to awaken a love of learning in young people, and give them the ability and desire to carry on learning throughout life.” - it should be, but alas, it isn’t.

Beryl Fielding: Why do you say it should? I take it you don’t think education fulfills that role.

RLF: No, I don’t.
BF: Why do you think that way?

RLF: Well, you could start by looking around you. How many young people leave school with an awakened love of learning, with the ability and desire to go on learning throughout life?

BF: I don’t know – how could I – how can you know how many leave school feeling that way about education. I’m sure some do.

RLF: You’re probably right – some – even many do, but I feel pretty sure that the majority don’t feel that way.

BF: Why do you think that?

RLF: I think there are many reasons why that is true – probably as many reasons as there are people who have left school.

BF: How can we deal with a statement like that? What does it mean?

RLF: Let me explain. Education was designed – initially – to serve the newly industrialized world – back in the 19th Century. Consequently, more importance – most importance was given to subjects that were needed by industry – that children leaving school to look for work were both literate and numerate.

BF: They could read and write, and do arithmetic?

RLF: Exactly so.

BF: I see nothing wrong with that; people who can’t do those things are severely disadvantaged throughout their lives if they can’t.

RLF: You are absolutely right. My point is that other things that children need to know are either marginalized or else ignored altogether.

BF: You’ll have to give me an example.

RLF: Today, many young men choose to live on their own – and many young women do too.

BF: That’s true. What’s your point?

RLF: That things like cookery, home economics and doing simple household repairs – mending fuses, wallpapering and a hundred other useful things are rarely taught at school.

When I went to school, only girls did what was then called ‘Domestic Science’ – cooking!

BF: But back then, not many people opted to live a single life alone.

RLF: Again, that’s true, but how many married men knew how to cook a meal properly, or how to change a baby’s nappy? I know my father never mastered those two things every father should know.

BF: That’s true. Your father couldn’t do those things; I did them.

RLF: But there were times when you were ill, or away, surely. What happened then?

BF: Don’t you remember; you got the same food every night for a week.

RLF: We did, and I think that proves my point, doesn’t it?

BF: Well, yes, I suppose it does go some way to explaining what you mean, but that’s not so important, is it?

RLF: I haven’t finished what I wanted to say yet. Let’s move away from that obvious example, and take something like music, dance, drama, practically anything remotely artistic or creative – all were ignored – largely, weren’t they?

BF: Every school had art classes.

RLF: That’s true – but art meant painting – nothing else, didn’t it?

BF: Yes, I suppose it did. What else could have been taught?

RLF: Surely a good arts graduate could teach children a host of subjects – techniques – including dance, drama, or music, couldn’t they?

BF: But you are forgetting the cost of all these. All these cost money – materials, rooms and trained staff – teachers to teach children how to act, play musical instruments, how to dance as well as how to paint.

RLF: Actually, I think most of these subjects have found their way into the classroom – though probably as sort of after-school activities or club-like activities for interested children to come back for in the early evening after dinner.

BF: Well then, that’s better than nothing’ isn’t it?

RLF: It certainly is. Now let me just mention the other party in all this – the parents; how many parents encourage their young ones to adopt a course of study that they know will cost them extra money – think of buying a guitar or a trumpet, for instance. How many parents encourage their children to excel at anything?

BF: That’s not fair, and nor is it correct, either. Many parents – I would say, most parents, encourage their kids to take up an interest other than the main subjects at school. Many children have hobbies, you know!

RLF: Yes, and the most popular ones are playing video games and watching TV.

BF: And what is wrong with them?

RLF: None of them is absolutely bad, it’s just that I believe long hours sitting playing video games – sitting in front of a computer screen, is one great way of avoiding other vital activities.

BF: Which other activities??

RLF: Playing outside – getting fresh air and exercise – such as doing things with other children – interacting with their peers – friends, and it leaves the family somewhere out in the cold too, don’t you think?

BF: I have to say that I agree with you there. But my point is that children will find what interests them without parents pushing them.

RLF: Who said anything about pushing them. In any case, that’s a sort of ‘working class way of looking at things.
Read ‘Outliers’ by Malcolm Gladwell to realize the main differences between how people from different walks of life, shall we say, bring up their children.

BF: In all this talk about children and what education should or shouldn‘t do for them, we’ve neglected to mention the role parents take, or rather often don’t take in the education of their children, haven’t we?

RLF: Well, yes, I suppose we haven’t said much about what parents can do. Actually, I think education begins at birth – whether we are fully aware of it or not, and whether we know anything about it – how to improve it – how to do anything, really.

BF: Bringing up children is something that everybody thinks they can do – without ever having to learn – to read books or ask others. It’s like chess.

RLF: Chess?

BF: Yes, chess – most people know the basic moves of pieces on a chess board, but to be good at it, you have to read about it, read and then put in to practice what you’ve read, and it’s the same bringing up children too, although most people remain blissfully unaware of that fact and end up blundering on until a young person’s life, or should I say, a young person’s full potential, is rarely if ever achieved.
Robert L. Fielding


2. We need to recognise that education has many aims

RLF: What, broadly speaking, are the aims of education, do you think?

BF: Without sounding redundant, I would say that the aims of education were to produce an educated population.

RLF: OK, that’s a start. My next question would be, What does that mean – an educated population – educated in what?

BF: Educated in the sense that they are able to do several things; live in a civilized, peaceful way, contribute to the life of the nation, find happiness and fulfillment, and be able to bring up children, and cultivate the values that they inherit from education and from their parents and those living around them.

RLF: Let’s take them one by one, then. First of all, you say that educated people should be able to live in a civilized way. What do you mean by that?

BF: To live in a way that does not go against anyone else; to respect other’s rights to live their lives any way they wish, with the added proviso that their way does not encroach on anyone else’s.

RLF: Do you think that is enough?

BF: That must be the basis of any civilized society – acceptance of and respect for the values and wishes of others living in the same society.

RLF: And having that, what would you say was the next thing that education brings to a civilized people?

BF: The ability to agree to differ on certain issues without resorting to any form of malice or animosity, prejudice or bias.

RLF: But isn’t that similar to your first point?

BF: Similar, but not the same. Let me say that prejudice, which I define as the production of ready-made opinions based on incomplete evidence, often no evidence at all, is one of the biggest threats to mankind living at peace; prejudice and its close kin, bias, which is little more than a sort of directional prejudice, stem from what I may call the antithesis of education – ignorance. When I say that word, I know you are going to say that an animal is ignorant – and it is true, animals are ignorant, but they are blessed with something called instinct, aren’t they?

RLF: And it is instinct that stops them from savagery, except for killing what they will eat. Savagery in human kind does not stem from any need to feed, but rather from ignorance, and a willful desire to ignore the rights and needs of others.

BF: That is exactly right. Ignorance, man’s variety, is the very enemy of civilization.

RLF: Can you explain?

BF: Suppose a man, or a group of men – we usually speak of such a group as male, you notice – and for a very good reason; it is men rather than women that have been responsible for the greatest crimes in the world’s long history. Suppose a group of men, all like-minded, all intent on disregarding anyone else’s rights, needs, even existence, acts in ways that endanger the lives of the rest of the people, and suppose that group have the absolute means to destroy, then they are endangering all by their scant regard for people, their values, and their lives.

RLF: I see. So you are saying that the only thing that will prevent such a group from acting this way is...
BF: Education, yes.

RLF: But once such a group was formed, surely only power could prevent them?

BF: Quite so, and so we have wars, destruction and the death of millions.

RLF: Alright, having established that the first aim of education is to enable people to live a civilized, peaceful life, what of your second aim of education; to contribute to the life of a nation? What does that entail?

BF: Well, the life of a nation should be taken to mean the wellbeing of the nation and its people.

RLF: But the word ‘wellbeing’ could mean a million things, couldn’t it?

BF: Yes, it could, and it is well that it could, for that means that we have roles for millions of people. Wellbeing equates with health, for instance, and so we have education to produce the doctors and other carers to keep people in good health; wellbeing means prosperity, and so education provides us with those people that will contribute to the wealth of a nation: mechanics, electricians, musicians, builders, bankers, in fact the whole realm of people who contribute to and create the wealth of a nation.

RLF: You talked next of happiness and fulfillment, what of those qualities? How can education instill happiness and fulfillment? Surely those are products of the individual, and cannot be ‘produced’ by others.

BF: How wrong you are. Does not your happiness and sense of fulfillment depend upon significant others as well as upon yourself?

RLF: It does. But how can education benefit what is already there, in existence?

BF: Why are you happy, if you are happy?

RLF: Why? Because I am contented – in my home life and in my life outside my home – in my work.

BF: I see, and you derive fulfillment as well as happiness from your home life and your work, do you?

RLF: Yes, of course.

BF: And do those things happen by themselves – do they just come about?

RLF: Of course not.

BF: Would you say that they take a certain amount of endeavor, of commitment to others as well as to yourself?

RLF: Of course they do.

BF: And where does that endeavor and that commitment come from, would you say?

RLF: From who I am. Yes, now I see what you mean; I am who I am because of what education has given me.

BF: Indeed you are. You might ask the question: What would you be without education?

RLF: I would be little more than a savage, at the mercy of other ill-educated savages, and driven by nothing more than my animal-like desires.

BF: So it is education that has made you what you are, and your wife what she is, and together, your children what they are. It is education that has provided you with the means to feed and clothe your family, and it is education that has given you interests in common with those around you. Education has given you all that, hasn’t it?

RLF: You are right, it has. Now what of your last aim of education: to bring up children, and cultivate the values that they inherited from education and from their parents and those living around them. What of that?

BF: Hasn’t everything we have just said addressed that last point?

RLF: Yes, I believe it has, for how else could we pass on to our children all these facets of our life without education.

BF: And so you must agree that education begins in the home, doesn’t it?

RLF: It most certainly does, and this talk has made me see all the more clearly that it does.

BF: I hope it has made you realize what the aims of education are, and although we have dealt in generalities, used broad brush strokes, if you will, we have covered every facet, every aspect of life – the good life, if not in exactly those names by which we term all the necessary ingredients of life – respect, law, happiness, interest, and truth. What is there left but these?

RLF: I would only mention two more: creativity and inspiration.

BF: And those we get from education, from education, and from religion too, let us not forget that part of our education; our faith.
Robert L. Fielding


3. Education must nurture creativity and capacity for independent and critical thought.
Discussion

RLF: You would think something like that would almost go without saying; that it would be obvious, wouldn’t you?

BF: Yes, you would, but it isn’t, and there have been times when education hasn’t nurtured creativity and a capacity for independent and critical thought.

RLF: Can you give an example?

BF: Well, right way, I can think of a place and a time when education was most definitely not used to nurture anything but obedience and fear.

RLF: That must have been a terrible place.

BF: Yes, it must have been awful, but it didn’t exist, except in one man’s imagination, and on the pages of a book he wrote that became one of the world’s most famous novels – “1984’ by George Orwell.

RLF: Oh, yes, I’ve read it. He wrote about a terrible world, didn’t he?

BF: Yes, he did, but thankfully there has probably never been a place like that in reality.

RLF: Then we can say, after all, that education must nurture creativity and independent and critical thought.

BF: Hopefully, yes. Let’s take the first of those and discuss why education should nurture creativity.

RLF: Alright, but I think before we discuss why education should nurture creativity, we should define what we mean by the word, ‘creativity’.

BF: Well the dictionary defines it as the ability to use your imagination to produce new ideas, make things.

RLF: Where does that get us?

BF: To thinking.

RLF: Thinking about what?

BF: About thinking. How often do we use our imagination, would you say?

RLF: Every day, every hour…

BF: All the time, right. We think of something – anything, and we have to use our imagination.

RLF: But we use our memory, let’s not forget that.

BF: But what is our memory – only stored images in our heads – we still have to access them and use them.

RLF: Yes, we do, but what has that to do with imagination. That means imagining something that isn’t there, or has never been in existence, doesn’t it?

BF: Not at all. You use your imagination to recall, in your mind’s eye what your childhood home looked like, or what a long absent friend’s face looks like. You imagine those things, don’t you?

RLF: Well, I suppose if you put it like that, then I suppose you are right, you do imagine them, yes.

BF: But still you have reservations about calling that imagination, don’t you?

RLF: Yes, I do.

BF: Why?

RLF: Because I have always thought of my imagination as something I use to ‘see’ what I can’t see.

BF: Do you mean things like your childhood home or the face of a long absent friend?

RLF: Yes, I see what you mean. But how can we use our imagination in other ways, besides using it to imagine things that are no longer present in our lives?

BF: By bringing to mind all or any images from all or any aspects of our life – by imagining, we are, in fact, making connections where none were thought to exist.

RLF: Thought not to exist by whom?

BF: By you, yourself. Doesn’t your imagination surprise you sometimes?

RLF: Yes it does.

BF: And when does it do that?

RLF: When something strikes me – that’s what we say, isn’t it, that something strikes you?

BF: It is. We often ask people questions like this: ‘Say, doesn’t it strike you as odd that …..?

RLF: I think we are trying to involve someone else in the product of our imagination – our thoughts. Wouldn’t you say so?

BF: I think that’s exactly what we are doing, and if we don’t say anything to anybody, we say we are daydreaming.

RLF: And daydreaming is probably nothing more than undiluted imagining – using our imagination.

BF: Which is traditionally frowned upon in the classroom, is it not?

RLF: Absolutely, if we are daydreaming, the teacher tells us to pay attention – to focus on what she is saying.

BF: And what she means to say is to remain under her control – perhaps that is putting it too strongly, but you get my meaning, don’t you?

RLF: I know there’s a time and a place for everything, and you might forgive me for saying that the classroom is not the place to daydream.

BF: Maybe so, but surely a classroom should be a place – the place, where you can let your imagination roam over related facts or ideas until they connect – that is using your imagination productively.

RLF: I think you are right, and I can see now how one of the goals of education should be to encourage children to use their imagination. And that would be the same as nurturing their creativity, wouldn’t it?

BF: Indeed it would, and precisely because out of the imagination come new ideas, new connections – creativity.

RLF: So if we use Sir Ken Robinson’s definition of creativity: coming up with new ideas that are of value, I think it was, then our imagination is an integral, vital part of our ability to think creatively.

BF: It is the brain’s ability to connect, whereas what we refer to as an academic discipline refutes that ability, almost. Faculties cannot countenance notions from other disciplines, lest they blow their own discipline sky high.

RLF: Whereas what academics should be doing is furthering knowledge all the more rapidly and diversely, by accepting that the world and everything in it IS connected.

BF: What of education nurturing our capacity for independent and critical thought?

RLF: Well, let’s start with that old chestnut that went something like this; if I had somewhere to stand, and a long enough lever, I could move the world. Who said that?

BF: I’m not sure, but why do you say it here and now?

RLF: Because it seems relevant to our discussion at this point.

BF: I’m not sure I understand you, please add something.

RLF: I mean to say that the ability to think independently is tantamount to being able to stand so far apart from the world that two things happen: you notice you are out in space, and other people notice you are, too.

BF: And how does that affect you?

RLF: If you are resolute and sure of yourself, you will ignore those who think you are crazy, or not of this planet – put more plainly and less picturesquely, if people disagree with you so profoundly that they begin to doubt your sanity, and continue with your train of thoughts until they are accepted.

BF: That is not as crazy as it sounds. Let me tell you that scientific knowledge progresses in that manner – not necessarily by startling discoveries and inventions, but more usually, by disproving the old ones. And it takes creativity and an independent mind to move conventional scientific ways of seeing the world on to a new place, let me tell you. One of the common attributes of all the best scientific minds is that they are independent – do not rely on orthodoxy of any kind, save to couch their ideas in ways that are intelligible to more conventional minds. RLF: What about education developing our facility for thinking critically?

BF: Critical thinking – our ability, and indeed, our propensity to formulate questions whilst we are reading, or listening to someone, is one of the most valuable things that education can help us develop. It is critical thinking that makes the world improve. If we had not had people with the facility to question and, may I say, cast doubt, on what has been written and said down the years, the world would not look the way it does today.

RLF: I think I agree with you. This applies in all fields of human endeavor; from the academic disciplines, into social commentary, and politics and philosophy.

BF: That is right. It has been our refusal to take at face value what we are told and what we see and read about that is our greatest gift.

RLF: And I think this is also linked to creativity; to having a fertile mind.

BF: That is again correct. It is surely in the bringing together the various ways of looking at anything that informs us of alternatives, and it is the formation of an alternative that we bring to light other possibilities.

RLF: That sounds just a little tautological, but I take your point.
Thinking there is an alternative – could be on, at any rate, means people are prepared to look.

BF: Look where?

RLF: Look into their own minds first, to see if anything has escaped them – if everything is clear, and has no error.

BF: But surely not only error. Critical thinking, as we have hinted, means thinking of things laterally – looking at something from another side – another dimension. It is that ability to look at something from that other side, that other dimension – taking more in to account that had been done previously, that is both akin to creativity, and is the essence of critical thinking.

RLF: Realizing that all the questions haven’t been asked – haven’t even been formed – that is what education gives us. Most people think education should just provide us with the answers, but, in my opinion, its real value to us is that it helps us to form and ask more questions – to hone the theory until it is sharp – until what we call ‘the cutting edge’ is so sharp that it will admit not further honing – at least not until additional knowledge comes to light.
Robert L. Fielding


4. Young people should leave formal education equipped with the confidence, aptitude and skills they need for life and for work.

Discussion
RLF:

Robert L. Fielding

5. Education should help young people to understand how to be happy and to develop and maintain their own emotional, physical and mental well-being.
Discussion
RLF:
Robert L. Fielding

6. Every young person has the right to develop to their full potential
Discussion
RLF:
Robert L. Fielding

7. Ability comes in many forms and learners need to be supported to enjoy success no matter where their talents lie.
Discussion
RLF:
Robert L. Fielding

8. The educational success of learners should not depend on their background. Schools, communities and families must work together to close gaps in attainment.
Discussion
RLF:
Robert L. Fielding

9. The curriculum in schools and colleges should balance abstract and practical knowledge so that every learner can access high quality academic and vocational opportunities.
Discussion
RLF:
Robert L. Fielding

10. Education should engage the learner with exciting, relevant content and opportunities for learning through experience and by doing.
Discussion
RLF:
Robert L. Fielding

11. Education must be a partnership
Discussion
RLF:
Robert L. Fielding

12. Learners have a valuable role to play in contributing to the design of their own learning, and in shaping the way their learning environment operates.
Discussion
RLF:
Robert L. Fielding

13. The education of young people should be a partnership of schools, parents and the wider community in a local area.
Discussion
RLF:
Robert L. Fielding

14. Schools should be inclusive, creative communities which build tolerance, respect and empathy in young people.
Discussion
RLF:
Robert L. Fielding

15. We must trust our schools and education professionals
Discussion
RLF:
Robert L. Fielding

16. Every teacher should be a creative professional involved in the design of curricula and learning environments, and should be supported and developed to fulfil that role.
Discussion
RLF:
Robert L. Fielding

17. Every school should be different, every school innovative and we must find ways of holding them to account for their performance that reward rather than stifle this creativity.
Discussion
RLF:
Robert L. Fielding

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