We don’t need more teaching to the test
“It’s a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.” Albert Einstein was voicing concern about equipping society to meet the challenges …
"It’s a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.”
Albert Einstein was voicing concern about equipping society to meet the challenges of the future. So should we.
Like fictional headmaster Thomas Gradgrind and education secretary Michael Gove, we tend to get rather hooked on what Charles Dickens’s Hard Times refers to as facts, facts and “nothing but facts”.
This leads to arid governmental initiatives around fact-based curricula and another round of sententious tinkering with exams, allegedly “to force up standards”.
Connecting to schools has got more difficult. There are now more than 15 different styles of school governance. Working with a local education authority no longer confers access to a majority of schools.
Non-local education authority schools are no longer bound by a national curriculum. Worse, there are plans in England and Wales to regulate learning in all primary schools – a serious threat to off-site learning.
Guy Claxton, in his book What’s the Point of School?, tackles learning not from what UK plc requires of its workforce, but from what future generations will need.
He believes schools should resist just preparing students to take tests and should instead develop individual skills such as empathy, literacy, creativity, giving and receiving feedback.
He cites philosopher Eric Hoffer: “In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”
Museums frequently deal in the world that no longer exists. Audiences may too easily view the past – its achievements, narratives and atrocities – as fanciful but irrelevant.
UK museums are in danger of “relevance atrophy”; closing, curtailing opening hours and shedding staff who gave them power to engage. The Group for Education in Museums (GEM) reports that 40% of members say there are fewer learning professionals in their organisation than last year.
Have museums reached their Cutty Sark moment – the evolutionary extinction point where clipper ships mastered the elements just in time for wind-power to be superseded?
What will museums find to replace the transformative power of informal learning? After five years of targeted support, will teachers be thrown back on their own unmediated responses?
GEM’s perspective on learning is truly lifelong. Transformative opportunities are even more powerful in relation to family learning. Our greatest volume of learners is in the form of families and non-school groups.
There are many changes at play, including threats to Heritage Lottery Fund investment in learning as education staff and programmes are cut. Also, primary school headteachers are being forced to choose between teaching to the test and balanced curricula – a direct threat to off-site learning.
The flip side is that workless and retired learners are increasingly numerous; social enterprise activities of museums are introducing new audiences; the Happy Museum initiative is leading us towards a well-being agenda; and new technologies and social media offer innovative solutions.
Heritage learning must be embraced for the cohesion, values and transformation it represents. Its power lies in the affective domain, where we learn because we want to.
In the 58 years since Einstein died GEM has been developing the community-wide learning needed in the 21st century.
Our empathetic democrats of the future can be rich in social learning skills, interpretation skills, creative playfulness, problem-solving, cultural diversity and, of course, curiosity.
Nick Winterbotham is the chairman of the Group for Education in Museums
Albert Einstein was voicing concern about equipping society to meet the challenges of the future. So should we.
Like fictional headmaster Thomas Gradgrind and education secretary Michael Gove, we tend to get rather hooked on what Charles Dickens’s Hard Times refers to as facts, facts and “nothing but facts”.
This leads to arid governmental initiatives around fact-based curricula and another round of sententious tinkering with exams, allegedly “to force up standards”.
Connecting to schools has got more difficult. There are now more than 15 different styles of school governance. Working with a local education authority no longer confers access to a majority of schools.
Non-local education authority schools are no longer bound by a national curriculum. Worse, there are plans in England and Wales to regulate learning in all primary schools – a serious threat to off-site learning.
Guy Claxton, in his book What’s the Point of School?, tackles learning not from what UK plc requires of its workforce, but from what future generations will need.
He believes schools should resist just preparing students to take tests and should instead develop individual skills such as empathy, literacy, creativity, giving and receiving feedback.
He cites philosopher Eric Hoffer: “In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”
Museums frequently deal in the world that no longer exists. Audiences may too easily view the past – its achievements, narratives and atrocities – as fanciful but irrelevant.
UK museums are in danger of “relevance atrophy”; closing, curtailing opening hours and shedding staff who gave them power to engage. The Group for Education in Museums (GEM) reports that 40% of members say there are fewer learning professionals in their organisation than last year.
Have museums reached their Cutty Sark moment – the evolutionary extinction point where clipper ships mastered the elements just in time for wind-power to be superseded?
What will museums find to replace the transformative power of informal learning? After five years of targeted support, will teachers be thrown back on their own unmediated responses?
GEM’s perspective on learning is truly lifelong. Transformative opportunities are even more powerful in relation to family learning. Our greatest volume of learners is in the form of families and non-school groups.
There are many changes at play, including threats to Heritage Lottery Fund investment in learning as education staff and programmes are cut. Also, primary school headteachers are being forced to choose between teaching to the test and balanced curricula – a direct threat to off-site learning.
The flip side is that workless and retired learners are increasingly numerous; social enterprise activities of museums are introducing new audiences; the Happy Museum initiative is leading us towards a well-being agenda; and new technologies and social media offer innovative solutions.
Heritage learning must be embraced for the cohesion, values and transformation it represents. Its power lies in the affective domain, where we learn because we want to.
In the 58 years since Einstein died GEM has been developing the community-wide learning needed in the 21st century.
Our empathetic democrats of the future can be rich in social learning skills, interpretation skills, creative playfulness, problem-solving, cultural diversity and, of course, curiosity.
Nick Winterbotham is the chairman of the Group for Education in Museums