Monday 25 November 2013

A necessary evil



I  find myself this week enduring torments worse than those accorded to traitors and oath-breakers in the ninth circle of Dante’s Inferno. I have, in short, been working in a school! This is perhaps a just punishment for me and I dare say that I may expect little sympathy from readers. 

Two things struck me today, while working with a group of ordinary nine year-olds in an unremarkable maintained school. The first was that while much of what was being done was worthwhile and sensible, it took an enormous length of time. For example, a large part of the day was taken up in teaching the children about newspapers. They were encouraged to distinguish between fact and opinion, look for direct quotations and identify various other aspects of newspaper reporting. They did this by looking at old newspapers and highlighting things like facts and opinion with felt tips. This is brilliant and is of course the sort of thing that many home educating parents might do with their children. After that, the kids had to write an imaginary news item about the discovery of a new planet.

Now all this is absolutely fine and very good for children of that age. The trouble was that this activity began at ten past nine and did not end until twenty to two in the afternoon. Each child produced perhaps half a page of written work in this time.  Working with one child, this whole thing would have taken no more than an hour; perhaps an hour and a half at most, if done at home. 

This wasted time was  the first thing that struck me very forcibly, but as for suggesting a remedy; that is quite beyond me. Twenty seven children, two of whom speak no English at all, four of whom have learning difficulties, four more who were so tired that they kept falling asleep and at least half the children simply did not have vocabularies great enough to be able to understand much in the way of ordinary language. Believe me, getting anything done with these children is slow and tedious work.  I can’t think of any way to improve this system of education, unless we were suddenly able to allocate every child an individual tutor.

The second matter which occurred to me was this. Most of those children would be hopelessly lost without this daily experience. It is wasteful, inefficient and hideously boring; but at least it imparts the rudiments of literacy and numeracy to those children.   Would it better for them if the school wasn’t there or the parents told that they were themselves responsible for their children’s education? Almost certainly not. Many of these kids come from homes where there is quite literally no printed material of any descriptions; not even a magazine or newspaper.  They have no set bedtime, routinely staying up until midnight or one in the morning. The only thing they know is a constant diet of television and games consoles. All their vocabulary is taken from television and computer games. Their language is impaired and impoverished, because their parents seldom hold conversations with them. I used to do a lot of home visiting and was able to see the results of this. Small flats where three televisions blaring out in different rooms vie for attention,  where nobody actually talks to anybody else. 

The chances of the parents of these children being willing or able to assume responsibility for their children’s education is virtually non-existent. Take school out of the equation and these children will probably not learn to read or handle fractions. Imperfect and inefficient as it is; school represents the only hope for these children of rising beyond their day to day life. 

So there it is. I cannot abide schools and would not have dreamed of letting my daughter go to the sort of establishment at which I am working this week. On the other hand, places like that fulfill a very useful and necessary function in society and it would be a tragedy for many children if they were to be deprived of the opportunities present there. Squaring this particular circle is beyond me, but perhaps readers might have some thoughts on the subject?

3 comments:

  1. "The second matter which occurred to me was this. Most of those children would be hopelessly lost without this daily experience. It is wasteful, inefficient and hideously boring; but at least it imparts the rudiments of literacy and numeracy to those children."

    You make some very good points. It can't be denied that there are many parents out there who, left to their own devices, would probably not be able to ensure that their children are educated.

    I believe that schools should exist as a safety net for those who cannot for whatever reason oversee their children's education.

    But school isn't just a place for education. Many governments also see it as an arena for social cohesion, and for eradicating class and social differences. For that reason, home education will never be regarded favourably by those who hold a certain kind of ideology. This is why the state is keen to usurp the prerogative from those parents who actually can educate their own children better and more efficiently than any school.

    The vision, certainly for many in Norway where I'm from, is that parental input should be neutralised as much as possible, so that a child's background won't affect its academic outcomes.

    That isn't a bad thing if a child comes from a chaotic home, or one such as you describe. But states often want to go even further, and downplay the input of good parents as well, so that all children have a "level playing field".

    I believe the same logic lay behind French President Francois Hollande calling for the abolition of homework last year. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2012/10/15/french-president-pushing-homework-ban-as-part-of-ed-reforms/ Not because he thinks homework is itself a bad thing, but because some children have parents who help them, while others don't. In other words, supportive parents were giving children an unfair advantage, and widening the achievement gap between students.

    Elizabeth

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  2. 'I believe that schools should exist as a safety net for those who cannot for whatever reason oversee their children's education.'

    I think Elizabeth, that this is precisely right. ideally, every parent would undertake the education of his or her own children. Sadly, many are unable or unwilling to do so.

    'The vision, certainly for many in Norway where I'm from, is that parental input should be neutralised as much as possible, so that a child's background won't affect its academic outcomes. '

    yes, we are moving towards that in this country as well. It is done with the best of intentions, but i am not a great fan of this kind of thing.


    'I believe the same logic lay behind French President Francois Hollande calling for the abolition of homework last year'

    Yes, it's way to stop those middle class parents from helping their kids to do better than others!

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    Replies
    1. Isn't that called 'a race to the bottom?'

      Besides, it won't work. The parents who value education will still take their children to places, buy them workbooks and pay for tutors when necessary. Altho, come to think about it, if you abolished homework there'd be more time to work on the bits that actually needed it with them, so you might even make the gap wider.

      But totally agree the point about individual attention being far more time efficient. It also means you're not moving on till the child has understood what they've done and you can check retention and generally give the child an even sneakier advantage.

      So clearly I am a BAD person for wanting them to have the best education I can get them rather than promoting social equality. Never mind, I'm in good company!

      Atb
      Anne

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