Education Reform
It is quite amazing that in the entire history of education on this enchanted isle, only one piece was ever written here that bears this title. It is the title of a speech made on 1 March 1967 by the Gnome. The significance of that, as far as I can tell, was that the Gnome was invited to give a St David's Day address to the faithful. He saw an opportunity to plant some seeds.
This is part of what the Gnome had to say:
The preoccupation... with examination results is unnatural and unhealthy, and we should bring it to an end as soon as possible. After all, good performance in examinations only proves one thing – ability to answer examination questions. This ability is, presumably, related in some way to intelligence. It is also related to the possession of good examination techniques. And it does not tell us a lot of other things about a person, for instance, his integrity, his character and so on, which are just as important as intelligence and more important than the mastering of examination technique.
That was 40 years ago, and a bit. Since then, what has happened to those seeds?
Well, the gestation period has been unnaturally long, and the results are mixed. The amount of time (always a useful indicator) spent cultivating the Gnome's alternatives to examination technique is approximately (and nominally) about three hours a week on the timetable and about maybe four hours a week outside the timetable. The rest of the timetable contains about 27 hours of instruction. The ratio therefore, depending on how one chooses to look at it, is about 4:1 or maybe 9:1 in favour of examination-based learning.
But certainly, as someone has said, that is the core competency of a school – the academic rigour and curricular structure. Fair enough. Yet, as the Gnome went on to say, the problem is to instil creative thinking, character and consistency in moral values over and above the core. You can't have an apple that is only a core; nobody except a cow would want to eat it.
Or would they? In a world in which the most important thing becomes apple-seeds producing more apple-trees ad infinitum (or at least, ad plenitatem), the idea of a well-rounded apple which is sweet and juicy and nice to look at and has adequate oral fibre becomes moot. You might as well just have a core with seeds and dump it in a bunch of cow excrement, thus closing the circle.
This is coming to pass. You can see that feeding the cow more grass so that input balances output has become the main focus of the system by default. It is not to say that education reform isn't happening, but that about 95% of the people in the system are fixated on issues of how much grass to feed the cow and how much apple you need to support a viable apple core.
In Atlantis, our present and previous High Lords of the Aedificium are graduates of the College of Wyverns. They must have been about 10 years old when the Gnome (also an alumnus) made his address. So far, their Lordships have spent years discussing the grass levels, and even the apple quality. In the last few years, there has been a focus on making more kinds of apples available; now there seems to be a focus on making more grass available.
But the focus on making a more nutritious apple, a more integrated and palatable apple, an apple with the might of epic and legend behind it, an apple with soul... ah well, let's just say that it's not often a discussion about apples per se, but on cows, cores, and commercial rates.
This is part of what the Gnome had to say:
The preoccupation... with examination results is unnatural and unhealthy, and we should bring it to an end as soon as possible. After all, good performance in examinations only proves one thing – ability to answer examination questions. This ability is, presumably, related in some way to intelligence. It is also related to the possession of good examination techniques. And it does not tell us a lot of other things about a person, for instance, his integrity, his character and so on, which are just as important as intelligence and more important than the mastering of examination technique.
That was 40 years ago, and a bit. Since then, what has happened to those seeds?
Well, the gestation period has been unnaturally long, and the results are mixed. The amount of time (always a useful indicator) spent cultivating the Gnome's alternatives to examination technique is approximately (and nominally) about three hours a week on the timetable and about maybe four hours a week outside the timetable. The rest of the timetable contains about 27 hours of instruction. The ratio therefore, depending on how one chooses to look at it, is about 4:1 or maybe 9:1 in favour of examination-based learning.
But certainly, as someone has said, that is the core competency of a school – the academic rigour and curricular structure. Fair enough. Yet, as the Gnome went on to say, the problem is to instil creative thinking, character and consistency in moral values over and above the core. You can't have an apple that is only a core; nobody except a cow would want to eat it.
Or would they? In a world in which the most important thing becomes apple-seeds producing more apple-trees ad infinitum (or at least, ad plenitatem), the idea of a well-rounded apple which is sweet and juicy and nice to look at and has adequate oral fibre becomes moot. You might as well just have a core with seeds and dump it in a bunch of cow excrement, thus closing the circle.
This is coming to pass. You can see that feeding the cow more grass so that input balances output has become the main focus of the system by default. It is not to say that education reform isn't happening, but that about 95% of the people in the system are fixated on issues of how much grass to feed the cow and how much apple you need to support a viable apple core.
In Atlantis, our present and previous High Lords of the Aedificium are graduates of the College of Wyverns. They must have been about 10 years old when the Gnome (also an alumnus) made his address. So far, their Lordships have spent years discussing the grass levels, and even the apple quality. In the last few years, there has been a focus on making more kinds of apples available; now there seems to be a focus on making more grass available.
But the focus on making a more nutritious apple, a more integrated and palatable apple, an apple with the might of epic and legend behind it, an apple with soul... ah well, let's just say that it's not often a discussion about apples per se, but on cows, cores, and commercial rates.
etched with acid at 8:48:00 am
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