Education Philosophy – 3 FAQ

(First published on the Keystone blog here.)

Parents today take a more active interest in their children’s education than the generation or two that preceded them, so that it’s not unusual for those of us working in education to be asked our views on a “growth mindset” one day or the “outdatedness of the 19th century factory model of education” the next.

However, a little information can be a dangerous thing and many of today’s trendiest educationalists often present arguments which sound irresistible… but require further scrutiny. This imaginary conversation looks at three of the most common.

  1. Most of the jobs of the 21st century haven’t even been invented yet, so why is education the same as it was in the 19th and 20th centuries?

Before going any further, we need to examine carefully the factual premises on which such claims are frequently based. As David Didau shows here, the claim made in one of the most influential viral videos on this question (called Shift Happens) and repeated elsewhere that “the top ten in-demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004” was bogus; in fact, the top ten in-demand jobs in 2010 included accountant, biologist and dental hygienist. In other words, it is likely that children starting school aged 5 this year will leave at 18 to find a far more recognisable job sector than is often suggested; the job market is not changing fast enough to justify a completely new way of educating (even if such a ‘new way’ were effective, which as you’ll read below I don’t believe it is.) This article digs into the argument in more depth, and these pieces in the Telegraph and Independent report on the top ten in demand jobs in 2015 and 2017 respectively.

  1. Even so, this is the 21st Century! Surely children should not be forced to study a stuffy old curriculum with Latin, French, history dates, countries and capitals etc… they can just Google these after all. Mandarin, coding etc. are much more useful, not to mention 21st century skills and habits such as creativity, research, teamwork, mindfulness etc.

Firstly, these “21st Century skills” are rarely anything of the sort. As Daisy Christodoulou points out here, they are skills of timeless importance, as essential in ages gone by as they are today.

Such skills are the by-products of a good education. Paradoxically, if these skills are made the explicit focus of a curriculum – e.g. lessons in creativity; lessons in teamwork; lessons in research etc. – the skills themselves are less well developed than a curriculum focused on a “stuffy old curriculum”. The great example is Shakespeare, one of the most creative men ever to have written, whose education was simple and traditional, based on the stuffiest of stuffy curriculums. (See more here.) And always remember that Mark Zuckerberg himself studied Latin.

Why is this paradox so? Because when skills are made the explicit focus, they are prioritised over knowledge – and it is knowledge which truly underpins vital 21st century skills like creativity. (Watch this point debated here.) We forget how important knowledge is because we have so much of it already – a principle called “expertise-induced blindness” – but, without it, lessons are reduced to vacuous shells which do little to build up the skills you so treasure. Why do these lessons do so little? Being skills-led, they are often taught in either a Group or Project-based way – and both of these ways of learning have been convincingly undermined in recent years. (See this piece on Group-work and this on project-based learning. Watch a great debate on project-based learning here.)

As for why you can’t just Google it, read this excellent piece by E D Hirsch on how knowledge doesn’t quite work like that. Daisy summarises it here and again here.

  1. Okay, but you’ll grant the point about Mandarin and coding. Not being able to master these disciplines in today’s world is a great impediment, no?

Mandarin and coding are great subjects – intellectually demanding, perhaps genuinely useful. Like other subjects, they’re not for everyone – some estimates say that it takes 6 years of school Mandarin before you can have a conversation in China – and are of course now frequently offered in schools.

But we must remember the concept of ‘opportunity cost’. An hour a week doing mindfulness, Mandarin or coding is an hour not doing another subject. There is not room in a busy year’s curriculum for everything and trade-offs have to be made. What we do know, following the very influential work of E D Hirsch, is that the more ‘core knowledge’ a curriculum contains, the more it is of benefit to children.

A final plea: we live in a utilitarian age but since when did education become solely to be justified by how well it prepares children for the job market? Is there no larger purpose? As Claire Fox said at the Festival of Education a few summers ago, it is more important that children read King Lear than learn how to code…and no research paper would ever convince her otherwise. Do others have the confidence to make such value judgements? The more specific an education, the more trapped are its graduates. The payoff of a more liberal education is intellectual liberation. To walk down Cromwell Road blind to the historical allusion, or even to listen to the tune of a blackbird and robin deaf as to the difference, should be evidence enough of an incomplete education; it is strange and rather sad that ours is the first age neither to know nor feel this.

IQ – a short and (over)simple FAQ for parents and teachers

There is something distasteful about IQ. Leaving aside the fact that it is often used by those who want to make race-based claims about merit, it reduces the educational project to the merely quantitative, crowding out other virtues. However, these objections should not mean that IQ be buried – as it has been largely since the publication of The Bell Curve in the 1980s. Educationalists seem increasingly to be taking an interest in the subject, and this piece seeks to answer a few of the most basic questions.

 

What is IQ? How is it tested? Does it really exist? Does it change over your life?

IQ stands for “intelligence quotient”, and is a total score derived from several standardized tests designed to assess human intelligence. IQ tests (example on this blog) tend to measure skills like speed of cognitive processing, pattern recognition, problem solving and memory. People who do well at one aspect on an intelligence test, tend to do well at all aspects.

Despite the many attempts by politicians, sociologists and educationalists to wish it way (e.g. Prospect, Claxton, Gladwell), that IQ describes something real is one of the most well-attested facts in the scientific community, not to mention a commonly-held belief by the general public.

As to whether it changes, the consensus seems to be that your IQ might go up or down a few points over your life, but does not change meaningfully.

 

Do children inherit IQ from their parents?

As with the question of whether intelligence exists, the answer to this question divides mainstream common sense opinion from many experts. The man on the street will tell you that intelligent parents tend to have intelligent children, although the implications for this position (see below) are so troubling for social policy interventions that it is an unpopular position within the education establishment.

From my cursory reading on the subject, IQ is, in the jargon, highly “heritable”, which is proved by the use of identical twin and adoption studies. Plomin is one of the most highly respected scientists on the issue; he lays out the heritability question well here.

Other important points:

  • Genes seem account for 50%-60% of a child’s IQ; the rest is made up by one’s home environment (NB also subject to parental influence of course) and factors called “the non-shared environment”, which relates to a child’s peer group, individual teachers, interests in, say, reading or memory games etc.

 

  • Because of these facts, intelligence is more impervious to adaptable environmental influences than many people think, or that many social policy people / teachers would like to think.

 

  • The genetic influence emerges more and more as a child grows older. This stands to reason because as we wield more agency over our lives as we grow older and environmental influence decrease, the more we choose a lifestyle (e.g. friends, extracurricular activities, schools and universities) that is in line with our IQ.

 

  • NB Dominic Cummings on individuals and heritability: “everything about heritability involves population statistics, not individuals – to put the point crudely, if you smash an individual over the head with a bat, the effect of genes on performance will fall to zero, hence the unsurprising but important finding that heritability estimates are lower for very deprived children.”

 

Why does IQ matter? What are the implications of having a particular IQ score? Does IQ = destiny?

High IQ scores correlate to all sorts of widely-agreed and somewhat unexpected benefits: examination success of course, but also a longer life, higher wages, weight, lower divorce rate etc. This blogpost goes into more detail.

Importantly, IQ is a measure that is more accurate the more people we are looking at. To predict one child’s life, it is only marginally helpful to know their IQ score. However, a school district, a school, even a class can be much better predicted by looking at average IQ scores.

How predictive is IQ for an individual child? Although children should always be encouraged to push themselves beyond any abstract numerical limitation, it is true that IQ is something of a minimum requirement in certain pursuits. As Charles Murray points out, it plays the same role that weight done is rugby pack as a forward. It’s not everything, but you need a minimum amount to do certain jobs, e.g. high level mathematics, astrophysics, etc.

As to IQ and destiny, the “Flynn effect” shows that IQ scores have been going up throughout the past century, giving hope that the non-heritable environment can be sufficiently manipulated to lead to changes in IQ. More on this here. It is nonetheless worth remembering that benefits of a high IQ are really the benefits of a higher IQ – i.e. relative to others in a given population rather than absolute.

 

For teachers – should an understanding of IQ affect my teaching?

Apart from being sensitive to the realities of intelligence and to the need for some individualised treatment, knowledge of IQ shouldn’t affect a classroom or school too much. As David Didau writes,.

“In a school with a well-designed curriculum and where children are well taught, all pupils will learn more (although some will, of course, learn more than others) whereas in a school with little in the way of curricular provision and where most of the teachers are bumbling loons, all pupils will learn less (although some will, of course, learn less than others).”

 

For parents – should an understanding of IQ affect my parenting?

I hope I have written enough about the importance of environments – both home and particularly school – to suggest that IQ does not absolve parents of their role as parents. (Though do read this provocative piece to the contrary!) It also seems likely that factors unrelated to IQ such as conscientiousness, motivation, perseverance and self-control are involved in educational success. And beyond educational success, establishing a happy home is of course a good in itself – rooting children hopefully to a place of love, security and happy memories.

 

Further reading:

Poetry and Memory

Somewhat stating the obvious but good to read nonetheless:

The emerging findings point strongly towards memorised poetry being a resource with the potential to enrich lives in different ways over many years. Knowing a poem by heart appears to support a very distinctive quality of attention and connection which in turn fosters a rich and lasting relationship with that poem. Such a relationship is not antithetical to the kinds of understanding produced by literary analysis and close reading, but has the potential to work in synergy with it. Equally, for many people, the memorised poem plays a valuable role in making meaning from life’s experiences, and to give expression to meaning in language.

(University of Cambridge Poetry and Memory – Project Report)

Don’t blame “factory education”

[P]hrases like “the industrial model of education,” “the factory model of education,” and “the Prussian model of education” are used as a “rhetorical foil” in order make a particular political point – not so much to explain the history of education, as to try to shape its future.

Much enjoyed this revisionist piece on the so-called factory model of state schooling – written about the US but with much to say to the UK too:

http://hackeducation.com/2015/04/25/factory-model

History of Prep Education Podcast # 3 – Interview with Mark Johnson

In Episode 3 of my History of Prep Education project, I interview Mark Johnson.

Mark (known to all his pupils as MRJ) attended prep boarding school himself aged 6 (!). As a teacher, he taught at Summer Fields for 17 years, becoming Deputy Headmaster, before becoming Headmaster of Cheam in 1998 – a post he held for 18 years, growing the school from 120 boys to 420 boys & girls and winning much acclaim in the process.

In this interview, we talk about:

  • Mark’s own (Dickensian!) prep school days
  • The story of Mark’s entrance into teaching
  • What makes an outstanding prep school teacher, and head
  • The magic and eccentricity of prep schools, and how these can be preserved in the 21st Century.

We also touch on a near-death experience Mark had, and the difficulty of growing up with his father serving in the Army on the other side of the world.

Listen on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/willorrewing/will-orr-ewing-interviews-mark-johnson 

Or YouTube below

My visit to Michaela Community School (MCS Brent)

Given the criticism that the school has received from many quarters (such that staff have even received death threats), I was fortunate enough to be allowed to visit Michaela at the end of the summer term. I spent a remarkable few hours there, and sent the following email to the headmistress, Katharine Birbalsingh afterwards:

Dear Katharine,

Thank you very much for having me to Michaela yesterday. I really enjoyed my visit – and the school is an inspiration. I was only sorry I couldn’t stay longer.

In ten years of visiting schools, Michaela was something of a singular experience – so I thought I’d note the features that particularly surprised me. Few will surprise you, I’m sure!

  • Culture – even without MCS’ unique features, the commitment and professionalism of the teachers mark it out. Extraordinary attention to detail and teamwork, with maximum buy-in to the school’s mission. No sense of putting on a front for the benefit of the students.
  • Oracy – such a neglected feature in schools today. Loved seeing the emphasis put on helping students to find their voice. Regular practice required from all students, if not in class then at lunch – so no sense of embarrassment or being picked on.
  • Chanting of beautiful literature – genuinely moving. Lia Martin choreographed Charge of the Light Brigade with great deftness, and I especially enjoyed one chap at the back’s fist-pumping as the poem paced along. i.e. no joy sacrificed.
  • Knowledge – as others have commented, not just pleasingly enthroned but regularly tested so easily memorised. Knowledge Organisers are an inspired idea. (*See below for a follow up thought.)
  • Candour – esp with respect to whether an answer was right/wrong, good enough / not good enough. I didn’t realise until yesterday just how absent this is in other schools – and how motivating (or certainly unstressful) it is for students. (**See below for follow up thought)

What did I think could be done better? After what I had heard in the morning, I was expecting a more lively discussion at lunch. I think I had quite a tentative group, who didn’t really engage with the ‘set questions’ and seemed overly reliant on the prompts. From what other guests said, I was alone in this though.

Sorry for sending such a long email, and hope we can stay in touch,

Kind regards,

Will

*PS I thought you’d enjoy reading this quote from Charlotte Mason who, like MCS, took the measure of an education by the number of ‘substantive nouns’ were mentioned by her students in exams.

“In the course of an examination they deal freely with a great number of substantives, including many proper names; (I once had the names used by a child of ten in an examination paper counted; there were well over a hundred, of which these are the “a’s”:—Africa, Alsace-Lorraine, Antigonous, Abdomen, Antennae, Aphis, Antwerp, Alder, America, Amsterdam, Austria-Hungary, Ann Boleyn, Antarctic, Atlantic; and these are the “m’s”:—Megalopolis, Maximilian, Milan, Martin Luther, Mary of the Netherlands, Messina, Macedonia, Magna Charta, Magnet, Malta, Metz, Mediterranean, Mary Queen of Scots, Treaty of Madrid: upon all these subjects the children wrote as freely and fully as if they were writing to an absent sister about a new family of kittens!”

(http://charlottemasonpoetry.org/a-liberal-education-for-all/)

**PPS Charlotte Mason is also instructive in giving evidence of what poor Victorian kids were capable of in the 1890s: here’s an excerpt from a 10 y/o essay (https://www.amblesideonline.org/CM/vol3complete.html#282) and here a 14 y/o (https://www.amblesideonline.org/CM/vol3complete.html#288)

History of Prep Education # 2 – Interview with Rory Darling

In my second interview of my Captain Raindrop project, I interview Rory Darling.

Rory taught Maths and History at many of the top boarding boys preparatory schools in the country, including Summer Fields, Cothill, Ludgrove, Aysgarth and Elstree.

You can listen here: https://soundcloud.com/willorrewing/will-orr-ewing-interviews-rory-darling

Or I have embedded the YouTube link below.

Please bear with me as I learn more about interviewing, editing, etc etc etc!

The Great Conversation (I’m looking for a pupil!)

I am looking for a school-age student who has the time and inclination to read a Great Book with me online via Skype. Please leave a comment or email me if of interest.

The idea is expanded in this link, which begins as follows…

“The Good Books are food for a wholesome imagination. They are well-written. They introduce young people to characters they will never forget. They soar beyond easy cynicism or nihilism. They soar beyond the sweaty halls of politics. They may well have villains in them, there may be warfare, but there will not be the creepy relish for bloodshed—no itch for the base, the sick, the bizarre, the filthy, the evil. We know where to find these Good Books. They are everywhere, or they used to be. It almost does not matter in what order the children read them, and many of them can be read again and again, and are as satisfying for grownups as they are for the wide-eyed little ones.”

Professor Anthony Esolen

 

Certain books are as pertinent to our day as they were to the day in which they were written. They are so significant that their influence continues to be felt in our writing, thought and conversation today. Reading these books brings great joy and wisdom, but being part of this “great conversation through the ages” also gives a tremendous cultural leg-up. And for one of the first times in history… most of these books are free!

Inspired by the work of  E D Hirsch, which shows not only the great cultural benefit of the knowledge contained in such works but also the cultural deficit suffered by those who remain ignorant of them, we feel there is an opportunity to bring these books to children – especially to those who might not otherwise encounter them – in a considered sequence. We have chosen 56 books – an achievable 4 per year for children from the ages of 5 – 18 – and arranged them in a rough age order below. A link to a free version of the book is also included.

Such selections are necessarily arbitrary and are further compromised by their inevitable Western and English-language bias. It is important to note that, for the reasons noted above, they have been chosen for their cultural, more than their literary, significance. They can be read independently or – especially with the younger ages in mind – with the aid of a tutor, teacher or parent.

Read the selection here.

History of Prep Education #1 – Interview with Rhidian Llewellyn

Last week I began a part-time project to interview retired prep school teachers about their teaching methods.

My first subject was Rhidian Llewellyn. Rhidian began his teaching career at Heatherdown. From 1980-1984 he was Head of History and English at Arnold House School in St John’s Wood, London. In 1986 he became Senior Housemaster at The Dragon School, Oxford before being appointed, at the age of 32, Headmaster of Papplewick School, Ascot. He now advises parents and schools via his educational consultancy, Llwellyn Education (http://www.llewellyneducation.co.uk/).

In this interview, we discuss:

  • Life in a prep boarding school
  • Teacher recruitment – 1970s style
  • The breakdown of trust and the rise of conformity
  • Justice vs. Mercy
    – and much much more!

Listen on SoundCloud here: https://soundcloud.com/willorrewing/will-orr-ewing-interviews-rhidian-llewellyn

Hope you enjoy! Part Two can be found suggested on the right hand column of YouTube.

The link is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt–sy4xRA0, and is posted below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt–sy4xRA0

Paddy Leigh Fermor’s historical imagination

I have previously quoted Arnold Toynbee, whose immersive reading of History allowed him to ‘see’ – through what Iain McGilchrist would call the world’s “semi-transparently” – historical incidents taking place as it were before his eyes.

In a similar vein, I love this excerpt from one of Paddy Leigh Fermor’s letters, which I heard quoted by John Julius Norwich at a talk not too long ago. He is imagining the route of an elephant called Abulahaz sent by Haroun-al-Rachid as a present to Charlemagne in 802 AD:

I wonder which route he took? Bagdad-Palmyra-Aleppo-Antioch, then by sea probably to Bari and along the Appian Way to Rome; then north, over the Alps at the Brenner, across Germany and up the Rhine? Or Venice, perhaps, then Vienna and along the Danube? I like to think that perhaps the Caliph sent him via the Hellespont or the Bosphorus and through the Byzantine Empire – they were on fairly good terms till the end of 802. But then they would have had to cross the new Bulgarian state, reigned over by a horrible khan called Krum, who, at banquets with his boyars, used to drink out of the skull of his defeated enemy the Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus, bisected and lined with silver. They were a rotten lot. I bet if they had spotted Abulahaz they’d have eaten him. But if they had got through Bulgaria all right (travelling after dark perhaps) things would have been better in what later became Hungary, because Charlemagne had defeated the beastly Avars there, and scattered them eight years before. There would have been a few Slav settlers gaping at the doors of their huts as the little troop went by: Abulahaz, his mahout and grooms, and probably an escort of Bedouin lancers.The Hungarian plain was ideal elephant country then – all swamp and forest, unlike now. (One is so prone to forget that a squirrel in the reign of King John could travel from the Severn to the Humber without once touching ground.) I do hope the elephant went that way, because it’s just the way I went, and am writing about. I could have come nose-to-trunk with his phantom on the banks of the Tisza (a Hungarian tributary of the Danube) as he squirted cool jets all over himself among the reeds……

Full transcript here: https://patrickleighfermor.org/2016/01/20/paddys-world-transcript-of-john-julius-norwichs-talk-for-the-plf-society/