Number 104 : December 2000 |
After the general introductions, we started the weekend with each of us contributing a definition of what we individually believed to be the main aims of education. The definitions were as follows:-
a) to be well-informed and aware
b) to be able to earn a living
c) to develop one's full potential as a human being (Hazel Guest)
Perhaps because many of these definitions share some striking similarities, we did not revisit them at the end of the weekend to decide whether we could come up with an all-encompassing definition. Another reason we did not do this may have been because in practice the weekend turned out to be as much about the "how" of education as the "why" which, at least to me, the title implies. This is not to denigrate any of the contributions offered - as usual we had an impressive variety of well-researched ideas to consider and debate, sometimes with considerable vigour. I am not going to attempt to summarise each paper, but what follows is my interpretation of the main elements of the discussions they prompted.
The first main talk of the weekend was given by Alan Edmonds who raised several questions about the quality of school education in the UK and drew our attention to the situation in other European countries. We were somewhat hampered in our discussions by not having anyone amongst us with first-hand knowledge of teaching small children, but at first blush there appeared to be a general impression that all was not well. On closer examination, however, the view seemed to be emerging that education had improved steadily over time and was continuing to do so. I personally came away with very mixed messages from this session, and I remain unsure about our overall conclusions.
Alan Hassell gave the next talk and took us through his ideas about what an individual should know at various stages of his life. By and large, those present seemed reluctant to accept Alan's lists of requirements on their own (although some new subjects were proposed for inclusion), but thought they should be modified to include those skills (eg sensitivity, ability to think rationally and to judge the quality of information) which are necessary to make a well-rounded individual. It was also felt that the paper concentrated too much on "the top 2%" and failed to recognise that it is quite possible to live a satisfying and worthwhile life without being exceptional. In the general discussion on what an individual should know at any one time, a point that struck me quite forcibly was the need to be able to distinguish between facts and value judgements when imparting education - not easy when we all (including teachers) have our own beliefs and convictions. Peter Elkan pointed out that you cannot derive value from facts. [Note : Peter should have pointed out (and maybe he did) that the dominant school of western analytic philosophy alleges that values cannot be derived from facts. Not all philosophers accept this, however (see the "is/ought" controversy in previous issues of Commensal !).]
Our next talk was from Leslie Haddow who followed up some of the themes arising from Alan Hassell's paper and considered the direction which education was now taking and its current aims. The need to motivate children to learn gave rise to much discussion, and the various influences which helped or hindered in this endeavour were debated. The role of the Internet was considered and seemed to get a thumbs-up in that it made children interested in learning and increased their self-motivation by allowing them to be more independent when seeking information. (The question of the quality of the information they might receive was considered in a later session.) One general conclusion from this session was that a mix of people should be responsible for educating our children, and the importance of the role of parents, particularly in early life, was emphasised. The demise of health visitors and others giving support to young mothers was lamented. We also considered why the UK was different from the rest of Europe in its attitude to education (following one of Alan Edmonds' themes), but could find no obvious explanation. Whatever the reasons, the general consensus was that UK society was no worse than any other.
The next offering was a talk by myself on personality types and learning styles, put together rather hurriedly to fill a gap in the programme. The conclusions reached were that a variety of teaching methods are necessary if all children are going to be equally well served by the education system, and if all of them are to benefit to the maximum of their abilities (in whatever fields these may lie). Most people at the weekend appeared to be intrigued by the ideas expressed even if not necessarily agreeing with the conclusions reached. But I am always mildly surprised by the strong emotions and negative reactions that can be raised by the suggestion that people's preferences can be used to create meaningful personality profiles which in turn can be genuinely useful in the classroom and elsewhere. [Note : Enough people found these ideas sufficiently interesting to agree that our next autumn meeting at Braziers should be on Personality Profiling. The dates to put in your diary are 28-30 September 2001.]
This was followed by a brief talk from Sheila Haddow on motivation. She took us through the various stages of life, outlining the factors which are likely to influence us to learn as we grow and mature. These started from the need to learn how to survive, and progressed through the wish to be independent, the influence of teachers, challenge and fulfilment, the need to earn more money to meet one's responsibilities, extending the horizons of pleasure, to the need to do something to avoid becoming a self-centred bore in old age! Given that most of us present were at or near the later parts of this chronology, it is perhaps not surprising that there was some lively discussion on post-work options. The need to question one's motives, especially when engaged in activities designed to help others (eg learning to be a counsellor) was considered important.
The last talk on the weekend's main topic came from Jenny Turner who outlined the pros and cons of books, CD-Roms and the Internet as learning tools. As was only to be expected, degrees of enthusiasm for the different media varied amongst those present, but everyone seemed to recognise the benefits of a mixture of all three. Leslie made the point that the Internet was good for information, but not so good for knowledge. Whatever its merits or demerits, it is clearly here to stay and will continue to develop; in fact the use of computers (CD-Roms or Internet) and humans in interaction could have considerable potential when dealing with the problem of over-large classes. And harking back to personality types, the use of interactive CD-Roms could go some way towards motivating those children who do not find traditional teaching methods helpful.
This discussion about the new technologies available proved a useful precursor to Pam Ford's talk on proposals to bring more intellectual content into Mensa's activities. Pam is a member of the British Mensa Committee and convener of the Intellectual Lectures Working Party. We were privileged to have a first-hand account of the proposals, which at this stage are concerned with the possibility of recording and videoing lectures and debates round the country. The results could be distributed at minimal cost to members, and might do something towards injecting some intellectualism into the Mensa web site, where it is currently sadly missing. Pam's efforts were certainly applauded, but there remained the nagging doubt in many people's minds that the audience would not be there. Most Mensa members seem resolutely determined not to go to any meeting that smacks of intellectualism, although some of those leaving Mensa gave the lack of such activities as a reason for their going. At this stage in the discussion it was suggested that if people cannot find what they want in Mensa, they should be encouraged to hold meetings of their own - if only to invite local members round for a cup of coffee. Hazel Guest made the point that she attended meetings in order to enjoy the company of like minds, and that the subject matter was of little importance. I feel that this is a fitting note on which to end this survey - we did not reach any particular conclusions (although the desirability of having a mixture of methods, teachers, influences, etc does seem to have permeated the discussions), but the process of not reaching them was highly enjoyable.
Jane Benn