Other Subjects

Previously I have suggested big issues with Physical Education. But other subjects also have issues. In the UK (other countries have the same issue) few people can speak a second language and if they can it is due to outside official education, from their parents/culture is the usual route. Many immigrants will pass on their first language to their children for instance. So the big measure is the lack of ability and yet the vast majority of children receive time on foreign languages with little return. Most adults lack any real skill, knowledge or confidence in other languages. However effective saying the same thing in English progressively louder seams effective in the real world, it does not count as education.

So many hours are put into foreign languages and yet very little substance. The first problem is the idea of a GCSE (in any subject) what it is and what it is not. A GCSE in French with no direct contact with French speakers and further practice is nothing but ticking a box and something to forget. It is not connected to the real world, it's only relevant within the education industry. Now the teachers can speak the languages they teach (as long as they are not covering a language they are not 'qualified' in!) they have skills in the language, but the students rarely get them in any practical way. The common European framework has six levels (A1, A2, B1,B2, C1 and C2). A1 aims for 'develop ability and confidence in basic French (or other language) communication in familiar environments and interaction with native speakers in French speaking countries.' So do GCSE graduates have abilities or confidence in basic French. Well you can pass a GCSE without meeting a French speaking person so they do not even have to try, they may have a little practice with the teacher at best. Is that using the skill, A2 talks of simple conversations. The skill and knowledge of a language are only present if they are usable. GCSEs do not have much practical application. There is a lack of practice by doing in increasingly real environments. GCSEs are the currency or language for the education system. The rest of the world uses them as they are all they get.

This example is a general feature as GCSEs (taken at 16 years) cover theory and little application, but how do you learn a language. Practical skills are learned and developed by doing. Teachers of course can be a great help by correcting, encouraging, guiding and creating encouraging conditions. As well as a lack of application education has little immediate relevance (and definitely perceived) to children's lives. The successful student is one who does as they are told by teachers and parents (key factor), and accepts all they are told, but may not explore and question.

When I used books and mp3s etc. to learn Spanish. I found resources that explained things not covered in my education that helped connect Spanish to English (and other romance languages) these helped broaden my knowledge but also see patterns and connections that improved my ability to learn Spanish and other languages. Taking what I already knew and built from it not random topics and school child vocabulary.

Other subjects have the same lack of connection to the student or real world. Very few adults can cook, make anything (unless perhaps they failed their exams and do it for a living), look after their (and children's) health. These all take time and money and do not offer positive returns other than shared experience of time wasted, undermined authority, miss-understanding and low skills. But this is not team building! Uniting in shared experience.

IT education has only recently started looking beyond IT usage to elements like programming and hardware which are the professional element of IT and gives a deeper understanding beyond spell checking word processors, boring power point and cut and pasted assignments.

I have just mentioned PE, languages and a non school subject. They provide few real world skills and understanding. Even though they are of potential use. They also take time and money that could be used for something more productive. How can this waste be reduced? More practical skills and understanding and linked to the real world not just academic. Of course we may find that teachers do not all have the real world skills to pass on.

I will leave others to assess English skills as I was not taught grammar. But I speak proper like.

Physical Education?

Why the question mark? Well it's a label that is different in meaning to what actually happens. As this counts as my main subject I better discuss this first.

Here education has a massive overlap with health. I work with the general ideas that prevention is better than cure (medical), and that getting things right first time (business), or the beginning is everything (philosophy). Another idea is the importance of habits and working towards the positive and away from the negative ones. Trying to correct a problem say in adults is harder, more expensive (time, money etc.) and a lot less successful than early in life.

I will take two perspectives with PE. The first is for the majority. If 9 out of 10 adults do not exercise enough and half not at all, is that a measure of success for PE and education. They do not have positive habits and any result less than half, cannot be seen as a measure of success. This measure must be given to PE (and others) to improve. Not exercising and being inactive is one of the major factors in many bad health outcomes. 3 out of 4 people die of Heart Attack, Cancer and Stroke. Exercise is positive in prevention/delaying these and actually generally many illnesses, and of course death (hopefully this registers as serious (grave)). Exercise has been found as positive even in people suffering from many illnesses and conditions. It also has been found to help other areas.

But it's not just the most common causes of death (these do not come cheap!). The most common reason for taking more than 3 days of work is back pain, a big factor is incorrect lifting technique, if only there was a sport/activity called weightlifting (boy am I holding back so much sarcasm, well most of the time!) where these skills could be taught. Many sports/physical activities have essential skills that are not even attempted to be taught let alone corrected and developed. Many sports injuries (well they get a good habit and then go and ruin it) are bad technique especially the exercise (fitness) element, running and weight training are classic destroyers of joints. Competitive sports have as the number one cause of injury as 'foul play'. Too busy competing and not actually improving or learning (the E in PE stands for education).

These are all quite visible and clear. Mental health is greatly influenced by physical health and hence physical activity. What's the best stress relief – No it's not alcohol, unhealthy food, smoking, drugs (illegal or medical). Of course if you thought of one so far unmentioned thing, I am counting that as physical activity, but will not be including that within physical education, although that course may be more popular and commercially successful.

As many people hated PE at school they were not catered for at all. Making PE educational, and enjoyable will improve participation in adults (work allowing), improve their life (less ill health and problems) and cost the nation less.

The other end (another perspective) for PE is the elite level. The recent sporting success for Britain (Olympics etc.) has mainly been by privately educated (7% of children but over half of medals) and outside clubs and facilities.

So the question is what is PE in education doing? Well I can tell you teachers are working many hours going to many meetings, covering other areas, completing paperwork. They are not educating children, giving them positive experience and preparing children for life. Actually many PE teachers come from team sports backgrounds and their preparation for coaching skills and exercise is often lacking especially outside their sport. Some can do but many follow official lesson planning and bureaucracy. Encouraging and helping children not like them, the PE haters, is a difficult jump. Preparing long term excellence is not possible in classes of 30, 40 plus. So they are good (or not) at crowd management and problem avoidance (from above).

Education?

I am not a salesman, I tried it and it did not go well. The job title was 'sales consultant' who was supposed to help select the best mobile phone for the customer's needs, in terms of network, phone and tariff in an independent way. Very shortly after training (award winning and actually OK) it was made clear that some phones created more (double) commission, these phones were from one brand, also all phones needed (pushed) the phone insurance (in house), which after the first few weeks of dealing with customer complaints, it became clear! Things that actually happened in the real world were not covered and contacting the insurance, getting them to first pick up the phone, then often finding it was not covered and then maybe a slow process to get a phone back to the customer for their business or emergency needs (mentioned during sales pitch!).

So you can see my problem, I noticed too quickly that the job was incorrectly titled, that the national advertisement campaign of independence and the need for insurance, were slightly different to reality. I did not investigate where business ends and fraud begins! That noticing and having a problem with these points was not (is not) good for my employment prospects. As well as these inaccuracies there are many biases that humans do not avoid falling for. We tend to be short term and illogical and spend a lot of time being inaccurate.

The first problem I will raise, is my subsequent career in education. I have similar issues with education in that it is not titled correctly, is not independent or impartial, and you need more than insurance to compensate for when it goes wrong.

In the UK 93 out of 100 children are educated by the state and the other 7 still follow much that the state does anyway. Economists rarely say a monopoly is good for the consumer! The state also dominates other areas, including health where I see fundamental faults, and massive barriers to change that need to be addressed. Many countries have similar issues. Education is expensive in money and time, these should not be wasted.

Very rarely (really) is the question asked 'What is education for?' (aims) and even more rare, are the aims being met? Education (and health) is expensive and has to produce results. Not all results are caused directly, not all are measurable. So misunderstanding, accidental or deliberate is rife. There are many interfering (directly and indirectly) parties with many agendas, who increase the cost and decrease any effectiveness.

So the questions I would like to raise for education's participants are: Is record Youth unemployment a sign of success for the education system? Employers have for many years complained of the skills, understanding and attitudes of youth. The UK also has bad indicators in regards to physical health (high heart attack, stroke and cancer rates), many mental health issues (diagnosed and undiagnosed), high rates of debt, full prisons and all while record exam results have been 'achieved'. Having the best education system ever, unless you include the real world is not real achievement.

I want to attempt to raise such issues and help clarify where possible, first in education but also other areas of life. A general pattern I would put forward is prevention is better (including cheaper) than cure. Proper preparation prevents poor performance (phew! the clean version). I will have to challenge perceptions, ignorance, complexity and vested interest.

This blog will at times be negative or at least be perceived to be. Stating problems, raising issues is always met with barriers from inertia. Many have their heads down over-working, others make their money in the present system. When you use abstraction and maths you loose a lot of people's concentration. Humans used to run around and climb trees and have the physical and mental capabilities to do that. So although they (we) like stories, they struggle with long term and big picture elements of life. Using science is not natural and takes work, getting past the natural human biases is a hard slog.

I Need to Stop Shouting at the TV!

Churchill's often repeated quote “Democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others that have been tried.”

Now the idea is that democracy is the best option so far. Even if we start from this, there are still inherent weaknesses to democracy. Some are clear. If you end up with an overweight, smoking 'lawyer as health minister. You know you're in trouble. Obesity does not stop heart attacks, smoking does not stop heart attacks and lawyers argue for heart attacks (probably if paid enough). You do not want a postman as head of the Exchequer. Eton does not teach how the other half live, even though it teaches a lot more than a state school. Union negotiations do not provide you experience in much more than argument. When the elected officials obviously just play political games rather than actually perform in their jobs you have more than waste.

With ignorant, prejudiced, self serving politicians in a fight with each other in other political parties (or same) with similar political people actively stopping any decisions and actions as well. The system is prevented from making good decisions and following through any plans. In the UK there are only 2 parties that can get power and each gets into power with around a third of the electorate, a third of the electorate do not vote for many reasons but one is neither of these groups represent them. Voters are not rational anyway (The Myth of the Rational Voter), they vote in almost complete ignorance themselves. Asking the right question and finding the answer and getting on with it are rare.

The biggest problem is the short termism of an electoral system. The future is neglected for the present. This weakness has to be addressed. The first stage to be addressed is to improve the leadership who have grabbed power and influence over many years. Now lets be clear if a king does not understand, or a Prime minister does not understand or the capitalist does not understand or the socialist does not understand the problem is the not understanding! Replacing an incompetent man with an incompetent women has just swapped irrelevances (incompetency remains). Improving the selection of decision makers and leaders has to be on merit not inheritance, privilege, friendship, or political expediency. The more these (and other) factors interfere, the lower the quality of decision making. Having an electoral system is not the problem it's when it attempts to go beyond it's competence. Taking over whole industries because they are important (or perceived to be), only works if you are competent. Economics (along with historical experience) finds monopolies as being bad for the consumer. Mainly for the lack of necessity to do the best job for the consumer. Some humans have been amazingly pure in their thoughts and actions but that's a rare minority. Your system has to encourage the average upwards. There are no forces motivating this in a monopoly.

In this blog I will attempt to raise issues where we struggle to see the long term let alone work towards a better future. I will start with education but I give myself a free hand to look at other areas. The whole separation of things into parts is a useful tool but putting them together again is often missed. Separating education from health or employment or anything can cause problems if the they are not joined up at some point(s). There are many human biases that need to be addressed, it's not anyone’s fault it just running apes have to transition to a different environment with new knowledge (even though some 'ancient' knowledge is still new to the human species in evolutionary terms). I will look for the best way but also the best application two parts of the same whole. I have to state problems first and appear negative but then the opportunity to create better is the positive balance. I will aim for clarity but I will only simplify things as much as possible not further (Einstein paraphrase).

Education is broad in it's aims and benefits, it is part of life that interacts with all other areas of life. That must not be used to cloud the more obvious needs from education. 'Major in the majors, do not major in the minors'. Some aims need to clear and evidence collected, other benefits are useful perhaps but may not be 'a major'.

Although already popular the following podcasts are worth a listen:

Freakonomics

Planet Money

The Economist

Many topics are covered and alternative perspectives abound that rarely get aired on mainstream media.