The little nine-year-old boy sat at the kitchen table in front of two computer screens. Open on the first one was ‘World of Warcraft’, which he was playing furiously. Open on the other was Skype where he was consulting with four of his young friends on what move to make next. These children were engaged in that most common of human activities – they were collaborating. They were consulting each other, learning new tricks from each other and getting the best out of each other by sharing information.
This is what humans are good at and arguably the ability to collaborate and communicate with each other in detail in order to share information is one of the key evolutionary characteristics, which divides humans from other animals. Our willingness to consult and learn from each other, perfectly summed up in the old expression “two heads are better than one”, has been the driving force in our success in so many fields of endeavour.
The nine-year-old boy above is the son of a friend of mine and he and his little mates are doing what comes naturally to the human race – they are collaborating. They are also collaborating in a world where technology has made the ability to collaborate almost infinite.
My own son plays a game called ‘FIFA 13’ – a football-based video game. It allows kids to pick their best teams, deploy their best moves and it also puts them into the position of manager. It also allows them to talk to each other, to consult and seek advice from each other and they love it. They are working in teams, displaying a diversity of opinion. They are still independent and decentralised but the technology allows them to aggregate their opinions and turn private judgments into the best collective decision.
This is what all humans do in real life, we share information and ability; we break into teams, consult, listen and normally elevate group decisions over individual solo runs. The key foundation of collaboration is the acceptance that there are lots of possible answers to any question. It would sound silly if you held the view that there is only one answer to any question, wouldn’t it?
Most of us accept the idea that there are lots of possible answers and lots of possible ways at arriving at these lots of possible answers.
This is what that dreadfully overused expression “thinking outside the box” is all about. “Thinking outside the box” implies we should strive to be the type of person who isn’t driven by conformity but by diversity, the type of person who sees multiple answers, not just one. As a result, we should try to create systems and companies that foster this type of thinker.
Now contrast this creative, tried and tested human urge to both experiment and collaborate with the structures we impose in the education system and the examination process. Collaborating is in essence copying, yet we tell kids in school that copying is cheating. One of my abiding memories of school is fellas with a big protective arm around their work in exams shielding their answers from prying eyes, coggers and cheats. In the real world this type of protective behaviour is frowned on. It is the very antithesis of the creative process.
Yet this is what our exam system is based on.
This morning more than 117,000 young adults will sit down to do their Leaving and Junior Cert. And yes of course the sun is shining. They will have come out of a system which labels the notion of copying or collaborating as cheating. The students will not be allowed to talk or exchange ideas; rather the sum of their intelligence will be reduced to a massive national exercise in short-term memory retention.
Give me another example in your real working life where a memory test is central to whether you succeed or fail? Yet we grade our children as we were graded ourselves on the basis of a giant memory test.
I realise that this is the nature of standardised testing and achieving a standard is important. It is also difficult to see how else it could be done, particularly as the great merit of the Leaving Cert is that it is fair, everyone faces the same test at the same time without explicit favouritism.
It has been a vector for massive social improvement in the past and smart kids can make great leaps if they have the sort of brain that can stake information in a certain organised way and get that information down on paper in a linear fashion.
However, this is only one type of intelligence. This rather narrow gauge type of intelligence is rewarded. The standardisation process punishes other types of intelligence. The standardisation process elevates an academic type of brain. Anyone who has hung out with academics for long knows that this type of training can produce a bitchy, neurotic type of character more interested in narrow gauge point scoring than open ended, generous, general education.
In addition, a system like this ensures that there are plenty of reasonably clever people who leave school thinking they are actually stupid. This can stigmatise people for a long time.
More egregiously it also means that there are plenty of quite stupid people who leave school thinking they are really clever! This can elevate these types to positions in the real world for which they are not suited at all.
All in all, the Leaving Cert is a relic, but like many relics it is given undue prominence and it becomes almost totemic in its significance long after this very significance has become anachronistic. However, a test based on pure individual memory in a world of open, crowd-based collaboration is surely past its sell-by date.
When standardised tests were first introduced they were revolutionary in a world of elites and favouritism where who you knew not what you knew counted for everything. Standardised testing eliminated this type of discrimination and that was an unambiguously democratic move.
But today when the world is faced with disruptive technology and rapid economic change, the education system’s key metric of reward and punishment should reflect real-world challenges and not old-world academic prejudices which elevate a certain type of brain and denigrate another type.
In a world of infinite possibilities there is always more than one answer.
I’m chairing a debate – ‘What is the point of the Leaving Cert’ – on Saturday, June 15 at the Dalkey Book Festival. Tickets available here.
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I agree with David’s comments to a certain extent, but suspect that traditional examinations are the least worst option. One alternative is collaborative project work. Anytime this is used it almost inevitably creates a situation in which the work is unevenly distributed and free-riders benefit from the work of more conscientious group members. An alternative group assessment model can be seen in “The Apprentice,” which appears designed to bring out all that is bad in human nature. As an A level teacher in the north, I would not see myself as preparing pupils for a memory test, but helping to… Read more »
All of the most successful people in the world are creative type people, e.g. pop stars, Steve Jobs, movie producers, directors, entrepreneurs, artists, even speculators and investors, who can see something others can’t and make it happen. The leaving certificate does virtually nothing to foster creativity or critical thought, which feeds into proper analysis. The leaving cert is the foundation block of how Irish society works. Jump thru’ this hoop and we’ll give you this, then spend the rest of your life jumping thru’ hoops until you become a moron banker, regulator, civil servant (permanent) government official or work for… Read more »
David, I believe that the Leaving Certificate system was not created not as a standardized system of measuring intelligence but established to prevent the corruption which Irish Society is famous for and has destroyed our economy. Without the Leaving Certificate we would have to use some form of Continuous Assessment which would be a much better form of measuring intelligence. However as this would have to be administered locally in each school the Mammies, Daddies, Parish Priest, Local Politicians, etc would all have a big influence on the grades. So the question really is not ‘What is the point of… Read more »
The current Irish education system is a masterful representation of the duality of neoliberalism at work. The game is not collaboration for the greater good, which is communism, it is the profit game disguised as public service. Our exam system uses the most elemental animal training method: jump through these hoops and you will get a fistful of sugar as your reward, provided you don’t ask any questions. Your article today is a perfect example. Your last sentence tells it all: listen up children, everything must end with the sales pitch: get your ticket for my next gig here; I… Read more »
Would you say the Irish education system embodies “Thinking outside the box ?? ” I doubt it . How can a system that is based on conformity in all things be good for change? Why is conformity rewarded in the system? Because its easier for those who administer the system. The system is outdated due to the lack of funding for up-skilling and the lack of interest in a lot of the teachers. why is computer programming not a core subject? because the resources are not there and its too much hassle for the old die hards.
the title is excellent. The circulum is very poor. I have a daughter doing the leaving cert and had one last year. They didn’t touch a computer since coming back from abroad to do their Junior cert. The lack of technology is a massive weakness. The IB system is vastly superior and also operates a points system that is fair and above board. However you are simplifying the achievement of those who do well. All who do well show great dedication, focus, hard work and intelligence to achieve their goals. These attributes are highly valued in the workplace. Intelligence without… Read more »
The education system has 2 functions, provide cushy work for the admin staff( especailly @ 3rd level), & keep young people out of the job market as long as possible. 90,000 are now doing FAS schemes, the real unemployment rate is 25%. 100,000 people leaving the education system per annum and trying to enter the labour market is unsustainable.
Dont just Think out side the box,
Bring the box.
I think when a country is functioning properly that’s when the thinking outside the box comes out big time.
When a country is in recession the bright sparks seam to be the damp sparks.
More egregiously it also means that there are plenty of quite stupid people who leave school thinking they are really clever! This can elevate these types to positions in the real world for which they are not suited at all. Never a truer word written when we can see what kind of clods we have running the place..Not to mind the kind of clods who produce the little clods out there..I speak from experiance as I had Micheal Noonan for my geography teacher up to my “Inter.”[Remember that?]. In fairness to “Mike”,he was a great geography teacher,an average politican and… Read more »
A hideous experience I’d rather forget. So much pressure and stress over something so daft.
Ah every year the leaving cert is this and that … if only you had opened your thoughts with quote from some academic scholar your thoughts would have had more weight… Mean while the collaborative groupthink from those in charge of the money system continues unabated the collective collaborators are all college graduates who must be listened to because they got the points the issue is not the leaving cert but what comes after it… Austerity is necessary, like a ‘swarm’ of swallows they now change their direction after the new blind fear navigator “Austerity not working”- Oh my! Oh… Read more »
ohh, very egregious!
Education Is NOT The Same As Schooling http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Omx5KrRVkMc The school I attended was merely an inner-city crèche for teenagers to reduce the street crime. Utter waste of time. No rhyme or reason, only if you intended to go on to third level, points make prizes, but third level may as well have been on Mars as far as the school was concerned, only a handful of us bothered to actually sit the Leaving exam. I roll my eyes up anytime I think of my secondary ‘education’. Any other sphere of life and they’d be liable for a lawsuit of malpractice/connivance… Read more »
Well, the Leaving Cert did not prepare voters for the political and economic rape that is now codified in Dodd-Frank and the EU Banking Union. It did not prepare one to ask tough questions like this : European Parliament MEP Cristiana Muscardini Files Query to EU Commission: Is Bankia the Future for All EU Savers? June 5, 2013 (EIRNS)–Member of European Parliament (MEP) Cristiana Muscardini (Italy) filed the following Question to the EU Commission today: Can the Commission 1. Imagine the state of mind of Spanish savers and Bankia customers when, on May 28, shares they had received in exchange… Read more »
There is an interesting book called Start-up Nation about Israel ( where David McW is actually quoted a few times ) that deals with the entrepreneurial/start up culture there. It seeks to explain why they lead the world in development. It points to the obligatory military service, the culture inherent in that how that is organized and run over 12 years, and the general frankness of Jews are named as critical factors in why they lead the work in high tech start ups. Israel has been able to create a successful country from a fairly arid part of the world… Read more »
Yes David, you can game the leaving cert with rote learning to some degree. It might get you an average mark if you are lucky. People hitting 500 plus are bright by any standard and that is the end of it. The English paper just past can only be scored well if and only if you can write well and understand the topic. I think 99% of your argument bitching about the exam is bogus. Collaboration without facilitation and management leads to domination of loud mouths and halos. It is a political herd inducing cesspit where bullying is the order… Read more »
Teaming and collaboration is a very deep topic of study. It has nothing to do with our exam system.
The leaving cert has one big problem…unequal access to excellent teachers. A lot of the well off can guarantee such access.
All I can say to guys who did the leaving as a rote exercise vomiting out in linear fashion – ye had rubbish teachers who knew nothing of their topic. In all honesty, I find the questions fascinating and bloody demanding of straight thinking. Indeed, many of the questions demand a serious level of maturity rarely found in a 18 to 20 yr old never mind a 16 yr old.
I dropped out of school at 13. Went on to get a GED 20 years later out of curiosity. And have never looked back. I don’t have the same life experience as someone who went to proms and college so I cant relate. “Self made” is the term used for someone who against all odds goes onto do well in life, i.e. financially independent etc. I think the best thing about school for me was the social aspect. Access to girls on a regular basis and this was the goal of any guitarist or drummer anyway. I left the mid… Read more »
Good and timely article David. Speaking from experience (and that’s what education is – our personal and collective societal experiences), the really significant education isn’t about the capacity to think, but about the choice of what to think about.
Funny how we have an ‘education’ system still in existence when the majority find it a waste of time or worse. My own family are full of teachers and so I had (have) a good respect for the trials that teachers enjure. my own experience leads me to conclude that the 12 years of formal schooling could have been finished in three and the rest of the time spent persuing other endevours and interests of more use to me in a future life. I personally failed the UK 11 plus exam by not passing the stage one, the IQ test.… Read more »
Some statistics suggest that as much as 80% of the people in prison are dyslexic this is an egregiously flagrant abuse of a group of people that do not conform to the norms in the education system. It appears that it is beyond the wit of those in charge to find a solution other than imprison people for not be able to learn by rote and at a cost that far outweighs the cost of a specialised education system. Ireland needs to research ways to improved the system learning and teaching. When deciding policy Ireland as a small country depends… Read more »
I’ll take a rather ruthless view of the educational requirements needed today. In the process, I see nothing better than the Irish educational system (equipped with the best teachers) to do the job correctly. Technology offers no more than a decorative backdrop and seeks more to demean the role of the teacher to that of an edutainer. If you want deep knowledge, deep development and real progress, you will not do it with a nation full of coffee shops and pubs. You need a cohort of well round individuals who are educated to high degree level in a number of… Read more »
“No matter how you do, there is life after the Leaving Cert” – or death…
A meaningless headline
Sack the sub editor
French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu had quite a bit to say on education, sums up a lot of what has been said here
http://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-5-learning-personalities/pierre-bourdieu-on-cultural-capital/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Bourdieu
Robot technology, emigration, double digit employment, pension crisis.. If its going to be a jobless world… Why bother study? http://www.weeklywaffle.ie
Humans will be pushed to rapidly adapt to the needs of technology and it’s 24 hour, 7 day schedule.
The 99% will be increasingly exploited, bombed, imprisoned and enslaved to meet the wants of the 1%
The 99% will be serving technology.
Technology will be enslaving people.
I know of a well-known Irish IT company who have ‘informally’ ceased interviewing Irish IT graduates for entry positions due to their substandard record in service, and that’s the minority of Irish graduates who passed their interviewing/’problem-solving tests’ process, the majority fail the tests. But not Eastern European applicants, they fly through the process and excel in the job, so much so that the company is happy to entertain applicants from Eastern Europe who lack formal qualifications.. The third level in the West is nothing more than a crony business propped up by the requirement for a degree which is… Read more »
It takes a brave person to write about their personal life and communicate intimately but there will always be detractors who don’t have the grace to accept when a man is trying to be sincere philosophically and just wants a chat with his pals. Come on. David is flogging tickets for a book fest. If you have the dough just buy a fucking ticket or go away and troll some other blog. He knows who his pals are We have said many things over the years. We never meet but we feel we know each other intimately. We are all… Read more »
President Michael D., on a state tour in Croatia, spoke on “The Future of Europe,” at the University of Zagreb, June 6. Referring to the “harsh consequences” on Ireland from the debt and banking crisis, he explained, “International consequences that flowed from the relaxation of the conditions of the Glass-Steagall Act, and the flood of derivatives into the global financial system, led to a banking crisis.” (www.president.ie)
——
That should be on the Leaving Cert curriculum.
Have a look at the link between education and employment, especially now in the onrushing depression : ILO report on EU jobs This is the ILO’s World of Work “Low-skilled workers too are disproportionately affected by unemployment. The unemployment rate among workers with primary or low secondary education is three times as high as in the case of workers with tertiary education. Employment among workers with tertiary education grew by 12.6 per cent between 2008 and 2012, while employment among workers with primary and low secondary education fell by close to 17 per cent during the same period.” Consider this… Read more »
Hi David, reading your article, I couldn’t help but think of Sir Ken Robonson’s speech on Education and how it kills human creativity. He’s a brilliant speaker and those who haven’t heard his ideas on education, please have a look at the video link: http://youtu.be/zDZFcDGpL4U, it’s excellent! As for inventing a new type of education, one that would be relevant to our time, using peers and technology to learn and progress, it is being done in the US, check out this guy: Salman Khan and his revolutionary way of teaching: http://youtu.be/nTFEUsudhfs Last thing, to the webmaster, I couldn’t log in… Read more »
Education involves homework!
Pope Francis to Youth: Homework Is “To Free Humanity From Economic and Social Structures Enslaving Us.
Now there is a difficult task! But explained so succinctly! Fly, thoughts, on wings of gold.
Says it all really:
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/education/exams/exams-commission-confirms-errors-on-both-leaving-and-junior-cert-papers-29334081.html