Towards Utopia - thoughts on the perfect education (part 2)

Yesterday I posted an introduction, which you hopefully find alongside, to a series of articles I am posting over the coming week. In this article, I will be looking at the purpose of education and how, in broad terms, it is presently experienced by children; I am setting the scene for pondering next the facets of education which inspire children to learn the most.

The purpose of education

Without being overly academic or epistemological, which others will do more eruditely and have done so many times, I feel that it is pointless to examine education without trying to understand its rationale. Aha, someone says, has not the rationale changed over the centuries, not least throughout the 20th Century as we moved from educating for industry and empire to a knowledge economy and, ugh, ‘soft skills’?

Well, that is perhaps looking too superficially at one core goal of education, which is to prepare children to become adults who will contribute to society both economically and as members of communities, as citizens. Of course this is a view both utilitarian and communitarian rather than individualistic, and we must also consider the imperative to provide each child with the skills, the learning tools and knowledge set in order to make increasingly sophisticated decisions about their goals, their future and their parameters for contentment. For the Maslow afficionados out there, yes, let them self-actualise!

My favourite definition of education was one presented by Peter Ireland during my Masters in Educational Leadership course at Buckingham some years ago, and I forget the author: it postulated that education is the means by which society inducts its young into its ways, its culture and traditions. It conjured up for me (and still does) mental images of folk songs and stories being passed down the generations, of teaching bushcraft or animal tracking skills and woodland knowledge, of understanding respect, kindness and care, of playground games which are both competitive and collaborative; it also brings back personal memories of taking Cub Scouts to visit the firefighters at their station, and Scouts to the town hall to learn about the work of the borough council. Powerful, emblematic, undoubtedly vital.

And all without mention of a classroom. Or a school.

The experience of education

For many children, and their parents, their understanding of education has been codified into thinking only of ‘school’. And within ‘school’, predominantly ‘lessons’ in ‘classrooms’. In these classrooms they are ‘taught things’ that they ‘need to know’ to be ‘useful’. Alright, I will dispense with the semi-sarcastic inverted commas, I think the point is made. I have no wish to belittle the huge advances made in recent years by the education profession in making lessons in those classrooms more engaging, more alive, more connected with the outside world (even if most schools’ access to ‘forest school’ is a clump of trees, they are trying!) and more synoptic. Synoptic learning, drawing together threads from different strands to make connections and enhance understanding is still much under-rated and a theme I will return to. But the fact remains that, for many, education equals classrooms plus teacher. The classroom is a construct of convenience, a place of structure, of bringing together people and resources: but it has its limitations.

For many children, artistic, creative and athletic endeavour, with the resultant fine and gross motor skill development, aesthetic understanding and physical fitness, is something squeezed into the margins of education. Of course, schools such as the one I have led for the past seven years pride and differentiate themselves on a more holistic approach, but I will not let myself be tangentially drawn down this pseudo-marketing rabbit hole.

Whilst this series is not intended to be remotely Covid-related (you can just hear the but coming…) there is perhaps now an understanding, an acknowledgement, that the lockdown and enforced creativity which ensued has opened more eyes to education beyond the classroom. In essence, I wonder: how much education should happen in the classroom, and how much outside?

You may rightly point out that whether or not children (or their parents) realise it, education does go on outside of school; for some it may be youth or faith-based groups, sports clubs or theatre groups, music lessons or simply a walk in the countryside with their family. It also happens, day in, day out, in the home itself. But, with adult lives ever more busy and urban living more prevalent, how many children’s domestic and informal educational experiences are being overwhelmed with gaming and maintaining a social media presence? Are their fine motor skills limited to the flicking of PS controllers, their character education shaped by Fortnite and their social skills defined by online ‘banter’?

With apologies for ending on a slightly dystopian note, I hope to resurrect the flicker of fun as I consider next the joy and wonder of education.