It’s a good week to discuss teaching and education, and why we need change if we are to get the best out of our people. It was terribly disappointing to hear the negative reaction of the teachers’ unions towards the proposal last week to scrap the Junior Cert. When the very agents of change are terrified by it, we have a serious problem.
The education system as currently devised – with its rote learning, old-fashioned academic, grind-based reward system – terrorises many hundreds of thousands of children, scarring them with stigmas and insecurities which they carry with them for life. Because of the nature of our education system, there are hundreds of thousands of brilliant Irish people walking around today who believe that they are not brilliant. How many exceptional people do you know who will say to you “I hated school”?
They hated it because they knew that our education system stigmatised them.
Worse still, the system ‘rewards’ a type of conventional, linear intelligence which breeds conformity and ‘single-answer’ narrowness. This leads to the type of ‘group think’ that has blighted this country in many areas.
Arbitrarily in Ireland, a person is ‘punished’ for having a certain type of mind and another person is ‘rewarded’ for having a different type of mind. Those who are punished carry with them an unwarranted, self-conscious insecurity while, possibly more egregiously, those who are rewarded carry with them an unwarranted, out-sized confidence. Both the insecurity and the confidence can be dangerously corrosive to society and the individual.
The reason I use the word ‘arbitrary’ is that defenders of the system drone on about the need for the education system to create a ‘good educated workforce’, as if such a thing exists. It does not. It does not because the basis for producing students for the demands of the economy presupposes that the economy is a single unchanging entity that devours and deploys productive people of a certain type of ability. In addition, it presupposes that the economy can be forecast and careers can be mapped out.
This is not the case.
A few days ago, I chatted to my daughter who has just started secondary school. She was perplexed. She asked me when I decided to become an economist. I told her that I never really intended to, but kind of fell into it after an old friend – a lecturer – sparked my interest.
She was confused because lots of the children she was talking to at school were choosing subjects on the basis of what they wanted to be when they grew up.
“How can you know at 12, Dad?” she asked me.
“You can’t.”
The economy changes all the time and we have no idea what is coming next.
Here’s an example from my own life. And I’m sure you can think of many examples from your own, or your friends’. My first real job in 1991 – an economist in the EU section of the international relations department of the Irish Central Bank – didn’t exist five years previously because there was no such department.
My next job – an economic strategist in emerging markets at an investment bank – didn’t exist five years previously because no one had heard of emerging markets, as most of those countries involved were then communist.
My next job – an economist at a hedge fund – didn’t exist five years before that because hedge funds didn’t exist. My next job was at a private Irish television station, TV3, which didn’t exist five years previously because there was no such thing as an Irish private TV station. Five years later, I was making a living writing books on popular economics which didn’t exist five years before, because there was no demand for that sort of thing and, five years later, the Abbey paid my wages, allowing me to bring economics to the stage. That was a job which certainly didn’t exist five years previously.*
You get the picture. The world is changing all the time and the way we make a crust is changing so dramatically that the idea that we can educate and reward a type of person now, in order to prepare them for life, is nonsense, particularly if we punish curiosity and risk-taking.
At best, we can teach children to question, to realise that there is more than one answer and to be flexible. But our education system teaches them that they will be rewarded if they don’t question, if they learn one or two answers and if they are not flexible, but conformist. In a changing world, this is entirely inappropriate.
When I was in school, whether doing the Inter or Leaving Cert, our year was divided into six streams based on academic ability. Some of the lads in my year were truly smart people; they were not traditionally academic because they were actually too intelligent, yet they were discarded and labelled (not explicitly but implicitly) as stupid. In reality, when it came to the rewards in school, my year was divided into the clever ones and the stupid ones. But ‘cleverness’ was only a certain type of intelligence. The interesting thing is that this so-called streaming, this arbitrary conveyor belt that was supposed to prepare you for life, rarely survived the impact with the real world. Many of the lads who were overlooked in the sausage machine of the Leaving Cert have since thrived.
The notion that the education system with its bias towards academic intelligence is a grand scheme, which prepares you for the future, brings to mind Mike Tyson’s wise words when he said “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face”.
It is obvious to most adults that our education system is an industrial factory model, which is outdated. I look at my children and they ask me why they have to learn this boring stuff and I have no answer. We are alienating our own children for a system which might have worked when the economy worked in a certain linear way, but now it doesn’t. So we are alienating them for nothing.
I see how creative they are with each other, playing games – yes, even computer games – and how their brains are totally switched on. Then I contrast this with their boredom with homework. Why do we punish them for being distracted by things they enjoy and reward them for the forced diversion of their attention to subjects which are so abstract as to be ludicrous to them?
Worse still, think about what the present exam system is doing to these kids: it is diminishing all the things that are important to them and elevating lots of things they don’t care about. This is disastrous.
If moving away from one-off exams towards continual assessment helps to rebalance the education system, then it is a great leap forward.
Very good article. I did poorly in my leaving certificate but thrived when I went to the RTC with it’s continuous assessment system. My daughter didn’t do great in her leaving cert but thrived in DIT and got a distinction again down to a continuous assessment system.
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/nstv/2012/10/reality-revealed-the-ultimate-fabric-of-the-universe.html?cmpid=NLC|NSNS|2012-0810-GLOBAL|realityrevealed&utm_medium=NLC&utm_source=NSNS&utm_content=realityrevealed
Bravo! This is exactly what happened to me in school albeit in the US’ Our system is much more forgiving but still the boredom factor and institutionalized approach and favortism of this group of students over that group was in situ when I was there. I was firmly in the “that” group. I left school at age 13. Since then I was able to get a California electrical contractors license. No small feat. I was a succesful leasing agent and building maintenance contractor for 8 years. a bit of glorified janitorial work went along with that too. Ive been the… Read more »
And if only the system introduced a foreign language much earlier in primary school then that, combined with a broader education would give children adaptable skills.
Brilliant David
To me this is the most insightful essay yet.
Happily, you are not confined to a mental straitjacket.
Continuous Assessment is not a panacea. David mentions critical thinking however many education systems including the US, UK and ourselves have progressively eliminated it through standardised testing. That said, there is an element of graft to education – learning tables etc are the building blocks of our ability to learn and rote has its place. Bottom line however is that it is up to each individual parent to ensure that they themselves have an education that allows them to help their kids. If you have reading, writing and arithmetic (basic maths) then you are in a position to further your… Read more »
I fail to see how continuous assessment does anything to rebalance the system. It would be the same subjects, just with a percentage of the marks going for work completed during the school year. This was the system in place in Northern Ireland for a long time at GCSE level, in the more academic focussed schools teachers had a definite influence on the quality of the output. An unfair and biased process that has since been scrapped. There’s no doubt major changes need to be made in the Education system to prepare our children for life and the ability be… Read more »
Great article…the problem is partly that many teachers are so instutionalised that they are horrified at the prospect of change…on top of the “System” being linear, many of the people delivering it are linear. I have had wonderful, inspiring teachers in my life, and absolute dross also. Well done David…
Whilst it may be impossible to predict what jobs will be there in 5 years time it’s not as if we cannot use present knowledge to at least point in the right direction.For instance I cannot understand why we continue to teach Irish ( a dying language with little wealth creation potential) or Religion in Schools as part of the curriculum ( no problem with them as extra curricular subjects). I suspect that apart from the die-hard Nationalists that the Irish and Religious Education Teachers would resist this as if they were optional subjects they would probably be out of… Read more »
@Direland.
“a dying language with little wealth creation potential”
come on! surely school is about more than teaching neo liberal dogma. mad comment.
David, I didn’t like school much myself but it certainly didn’t scar me with stigmas and insecurities. I forgot about the place the day I left and got on with learning about life in the real world. No harm done and just look at the opportunities all around us, both in this country and abroad – a multitude, even in these so-called ‘hard times’. Life is what you make of it, not what others tell you to One of the reasons I didn’t do that well in my school exams (although I forget my results now – they are irrelevant)… Read more »
Good luck to your daughter in secondary! My little four year old just started school proper in the US!
Funny enough, I don’t think I could very much fault what I seen in primary and second level education. There were kids that were interested, and there were kids that simply wanted to not be involved. I seen teachers try to spark interest in them, but it was not an efficient process, in that it consumed a lot of energy, and they simply were not in the habit of learning. Afterwards, the kids that did not go to third level did various jobs or apprenticeships, and got work. Some of them are now out of work, because they picked the… Read more »
Very good article. I love the way you illustrate that each of your jobs did not exist five years previous to when you were doing it. Powerful stuff.
There is a massive deficiency in second level with respect to career guidance. Most importantly, not enough time is spent on it. That is essentially the problem. And in any case, most students have no clue what they want to do at 17. The only ones that know are those that have already decided that they have no academic interest. And usually boys who want to be like their father or brother. But academically oriented pupils have little or no clue. There is a massive srop out rate in third level across the board, consisting of people who thought they… Read more »
Well I have discussed third level. But then there is third level for people who do not go to college. By this I mean vocational training. And in Ireland the starting point of this is FAS. FAS is another chronic underperformer. Destroyed by nepotism and the need to reward careerhunters looking for an early retirement from the social partnership process. FAS has been renamed SOLAS, because the name FAS has become a byword for chronic underperformance. It is a superficial gesture. The rest of it will remain the same. Maybe it should be sold off, and give vouchers to the… Read more »
Education is really about some level of preparation. “Luck favors the prepared” – that’s all that education does – gives you an edge. Now, reading David’s article, I see the usual popular swipe being taken at a system which to be honest has never been firmly proven to be utterly wrong or for which no real alternatives have been shown to work. It is a classic “exception proves the rule” argument and is essentially misleading – albeit not deliberately. Yeah we bleat on about the boredom of Irish and the sweat and anxiety of the “leaving” and the institutional nature… Read more »
+1
Strangely enough, I can see second level and primary lvel being reformed far faster than third level. Maybe it is because they are generally very transparent, and because there is one large stakeholder to be brought on board – teacher unions. Once a decision is made, it tends to be implemented quickly.
But getting third level to produce more employable graduates, and a more employable graduate mix is an ongoing problem since the 1970s.
And unless there is serious application of intent, this will not happen.
During the 5 yrs I spent in a Dublin secondary school in the 1980’s, not a single employer came to the school to offer career advice or work experience . Was this unusual or the norm ? The small no of us who went to college all emigrated. Those that didn’t go all stayed in Ireland ! Why do you ned hons Irish to be a primary teacher, yet you don’t require hons maths or english ?
I used to get slapped by priests for asking why too much.
On the seemingly obligatory personal note:
I was no good at school because I was lazy and preferred to sit around smoking and pretending I knew about girls.
Continual assessment or exams, it wouldn’t have made any difference, it would have all sounded too much like hard work, and therefore I would have accused it of being too conforming and oppressive.
In general, only one thing is clear from the education systems of western Europe:
No one can agree what they are for.
Tell your daughter not to worry. I´m 46 and I still dont know what I´m going to do when I grow up.
@Deco I’m not sure about this whole “making graduates more employable” idea. I work in third level education and as far as I can see we’re doing more now to engage with students than when I was in college or when I started lecturing, despite this we keep hearing that graduates are now less skilled and less able to enter the workforce than graduates of yesteryear? If this actually is the case (and I not fully convinced it is) then I think in large part it has to do with how society is changing people and in particular how students… Read more »
Just thought I’d share the following; My 15yr old daughter began her Junior Cert Year on Wednesday 29th August just gone. On the first Tuesday of September I noticed her struggling over her maths homework. This would be unusual for her because thankfully she’s never had a problem with maths and as far as I can remember has never scored below a B in any previous exams. I asked her if there was a problem and she told me that she couldn’t understand the new 3rd year maths and that she’d done much of her homework incorrectly for the last… Read more »
David, I am experiencing exactly the same with my kids. They don’t see a purpose in the ‘knowledge’ that they are being forced to digest, so perceived as under-performing. However, they have talents and interests that the school has no interest in exploring, though they are probably much more relevant to their futures.
Good article, D McW. I’d like to mention there are other areas around this that could be covered also. University world ratings, failings with science and not to mention the amount of time spent on Irish and it’s useful return to society vs learning another foreign language. Then there is the privileged poition of teachers in society a group of peole with fixed high wages and sufficent time on their hands often to earn a second wage or run a business on the side. 3 months off in the summer is an inherited joke also and not justifiable in a… Read more »
Being truly objective about education is next to impossible because of our experiences and expectations. This creates 2 problems – Objectivity fails us when we reflect on the negative aspects for ourselves and we tend to plan the future on what seems to have worked successfully for us most recently. As I view the article’s comments on linear intelligence and the scarring (leaving out the illegal stuff) of children with stigmas and conformity and streaming and so on and our so called “old fashioned” academic system which has excluded many of our brilliant people, I cannot help feeling we are… Read more »
As a primary school teacher I agree that the education system as it stands was designed in and for the Industrial Age and needs to be changed and adapted for the Information Age. There are some great lectures on this subject on youtube by Sir Ken Robinson – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY (Do Schools kill creativity?) The problem with what the minister announced last week is that all he is changing is the assessment of the child’s learning, not the education system at all which needs root and branch reform. While I completely agree with ongoing assessment as opposed to one-off exams, having… Read more »
OK everyone, pay attention: Hands up everyone who’s kids are above average. Just as I thought – everyone; and it’s the education system/the school/the teachers/someone else’s fault that they are not top of something. Next, you’ll all be asking for hot water in council properties to be just the right temperature for everyone. I don’t really know what the education system is for, but it clearly has a number of roles beyond teaching people how to count and do their alphabet. I suspect that if you want to improve education you’d better all first write down, in not less than… Read more »
The educational system is imperfect but most proposals to improve it would probably only make it worse. Look at who is proposing what, do they send their children to state schools, are they giving them out of school grinds, do they practise what they preach, etc. The best they could do would be to reduce the hours and reduce the homework. Calls for teachers to work longer hours to justify their wages are silly. It’s just something you have to go through, like national service once was. Chin up. Continuous assessment only increases the load on teachers and pupils (an… Read more »
Excellent article. It is worth pointing out however that the reason these changes are being implemented is that they are cost saving measures. No inter cert – no corrections, no supervision, no extra hours worked. I wish it were the case that our department of education made decisions based on a genuine concern for providing the best education system for our children and young adults. However I do not believe it to be the case. Every decision is a compromise tailored to suit the concerns of unions and some political angle. Since the events of 2008 the education system in… Read more »
The times are a changing.
Unfortunately the rote and exam system has been rendered obsolete by the paradigm shift in technology tools.
I suspect judging by my own experience with the new kidz on the block they will just work around the dinosaur system until it catches up.
I am a good bit out of touch with school having left in 1976, the point I want to make is school books why do school going kids have to lug them around.
This is 2012 the tablet type devices should be used much more.
I went to the school and was under the care of the brothers and may they burn in hell, thank god things have changed for the better and I hope they continue to move forward at the proper speed.
We also need a better education plan for working class males, in particular in areas where substance abuse/depression/falling down, is rife.
Maybe Limerick might be a good place to start. A program that educates people to participate in the community, in the sense that there is beneficial to the community.
It is more a problem of thinking and organization than money. And it requires a lot of honesty from all involved.
It is very tragic that most economists have thrown in the towel, and believe the economy cannot be forecast. Rather than examine some really passionate false beliefs, they give up. This is indeed a result of the content of education all across the Transatlantic region now in the worst crisis of history. The economy now imploding is a direct result of the content of scientific and mathematical text-book, blackboard stuff taken without question. This runs very deep, and most are simply not prepared to grapple head on. Monetarism, posing as economics, in various guises such as fiat or metal money,… Read more »
Today is the day to start education about Ireland’s physical economy. Nothing less than a Renaissance is around the corner, on a scale never before seen, and not in the radar of most economists, glued to the “trends”, a linear flatlandish occupation. http://laroucheirishbrigade.wordpress.com/ireland-an-economic-revival/ It will be remarked in kids text books, that the only “thing” standing in the way is a mental blockage. The now extinct imperial economy may of course try to blow everything up, rather than serve in that future. We now know what to prevent. Enda’s mug on that Time Mag, is blocking the view of the… Read more »
Some might say metaphor has no economic “value”. Or what has metaphor to do with physical economy? In reality, economic forecasting must be an exercise in the use of metaphor, especially preparing the government dept’s that need forecasts. Company forecasting could take a page out of this, if the accountants are kept firmly outside the meeting. Here is a metaphor, not passively descriptive, not statistical, immediately accessible to anyone with some exposure to classical education (admittedly rare in Ireland today), and a gate-opener out of the apathetic comatose lethargy of the daily trammeled. http://www.larouchepub.com/lar/2002/2903trip_curve.html This is quite unlike the rote-learning… Read more »
There is a major shortfall in the education of the populace in the general workings of society. no education on governance and how the politics of the country work. no education on finance and how money or the banking system works. no education of basic contract law and common law. These are all things everyone needs to know and understand at any level of society. Who knows the history of money , for example. Why there is money. what separates good money from bad etc.What is the definition of money. no wonder there is a financial crisis no one can… Read more »
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XieH08SFYB0&feature=youtu.be
Since Mar 6th 2011, every week, we’ve been marching in protest against the bank bailout in Ireland, the extortion of billions (€70bn so far) from the Irish economy to bail out failed private banks and their failed bondholders across Europe and the world.
Protest week 84 Ballyhea and Charleville
Should be EDUCATION at the top of the page webmaster, not EDUATION.
Spain’s Red Cross Raises Funds to Feed… Spain’s New Poor Oct. 9, 2012 (LPAC)–A dramatic Spanish Red Cross campaign video has begun to circulate in the country, announcing that the objective of this year’s fundraising drive has changed: It is no longer Haiti; it is Spain. The drive is to be able to feed an additional 300,000 people inside Spain who are facing hunger because of the economic crisis. The Red Cross says that 82% of the people they help are under the poverty line, and that their unemployment rate is 65%. Half of these have been out of work… Read more »
20,000 Betrayed Farmers Demonstrate in Dublin Oct. 9, 2012 (EIRNS)–20,000 farmers from throughout Ireland marched through the streets of Dublin on Tuesday in the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) Day of Action. The march, which was led by a convoy of tractors, combines, and milk trucks, closed down a number of streets. A majority of dairy co-ops, meat processors, grain merchants and livestock markets also closed in solidarity with the farmers’ demonstration. The IFA, having received all kinds of promises in the May 31 austerity treaty referendum, had endorsed the `Yes’ vote pushed by the Fine Gael/ Labour Party coalition government.… Read more »
As to education only for the rich, which is the target of all imperial strategies such as the EU, let’s look at the curriculum, (The Mock Turtle Story) : `Ah! then yours wasn’t a really good school,’ said the Mock Turtle in a tone of great relief. `Now at ours they had at the end of the bill, “French, music, and washing–extra.”‘ `You couldn’t have wanted it much,’ said Alice; `living at the bottom of the sea.’ `I couldn’t afford to learn it.’ said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. `I only took the regular course.’ `What was that?’ inquired… Read more »
http://digitaljournal.com/article/329487
Monopoly? Competition? Choice? Very nice article about the problems. What about the solution. Do we all need formal compulsory class-based education? Do we not consider education to be more than this? If we know that monopolies are bad because they do not have the best interest of the consumer in mind and have little incentive to improve their product, then why we believe that a government monopoly over schooling is good? Is this constraining competition and choice too? Should parents, area of living, whatever other circumstances not influence schools to change teaching constantly? I am sure you guess I am… Read more »
Read this article from todays Irish Times
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/1010/1224325095342.html
Gilmore is no Hugo Chavez.
I have to agree Realist. Education today rewards pupils who are good at memorizing and regurgitating facts but does not encourage any form of critical thinking. This is not just an Irish issue and is the deliberate policy of educationalists across the globe. What the elites want are students who don’t question the so called facts they are taught but are prepared to take them as given and spew them out at exam time. This is all deliberate as the last thing our elites want is a generation capable of critical thinking who start really looking into how private institutions… Read more »
Here is something to educate oneself about!!
Gold is the currency of kings, silver is the currency of princes, barter is the currency of peasants, and DEBT is the currency of SLAVES.
– From Jim Sinclair’s Mailbox
Ahhhhhhhh School days !
I had the privilege of attending the C.B.C private school in Monkstown,Co Dublin from 74–79.
This esteemed privileged education allowed me to be beaten by some of the finest minds in the Country,all Christian Brothers.
Left school at 15 [almost] after getting 4 honors & 3 passes in the Group Cert and being informed “not to bother with leaving cert”…!!
So I left on a Friday,starting working on the Saturday,never looked back.
My Children attended New-park in Blackrock and have & are doing very well.Highly recommended.
Have a great day.
RR6