What can education do?

It is so easy to be negative about state education. There is too much failure dressed up as success for the benefit of others. Trying to change wasted time to productive time must be the aim. A perfect example from America is a drug awareness program that had reached over 70% of children. Once research had actually been done they found higher drug experimentation and usage in the areas of the program than those areas that had nor 'received' the 'preventative' training. I like (and can even remember) Martin Luther Kings words “there is nothing worse than conscientious stupidity”.

The first stage is to recognise what can be done and cannot be done. Very difficult with many opinions abounding, who's holders may also act to get their way. The first is to leave fire fighting to our high quality fire-fighters. They have even lost jobs because they helped reduce fires from starting. Yes they have put themselves out of work. In education educators must take control. Limiting ourselves to just education, and just education done in schools is inadequate. The system is limiting. Data suggests that on a state level, nations with primary levels of education are much better off in most ways; wealth, health, crime etc. than those without. There comes a point though when more is not better. A random target of 50% achieving degrees when a fraction of jobs need degrees is not better. Spending time on irrelevances to fit the structure of a qualification is not as productive as practising the needed knowledge and skills. Education must answer the needs of the nation (and people) not convenient fantasy of people who maybe wanting to get elected. The actual skills needed and the ability to adapt to change need to be the aims.

Education can help them develop skills of many kinds, but advanced skills will need special consideration. They can help combine those skills and practice within increasingly pressurised or complicated conditions. These are the start of experiences of progression and success. Not moving too fast or too slow according to an arm chair general in lets say Westminster. A fixed class size or inflexible regulations ('guidance') must not be a barrier to the professionals doing their job. Sometimes factors such as health and safety mean very small classes, other times large groups sharing experiences are best. National patterns of exams at certain ages and times of the year are prejudicial and not the same for everyone.

Assessment uses the terms valid and reliable. Validity is about doing the job it is aiming to do. An assessment is valid if it assesses what it aims to assess. It also has to have validity to the training need for the real world, not just arbitrary outside education. Do national tests tell you the differences in proven abilities or the background of the learners? As previously stated people in prison are more likely to have few qualifications in fact many schemes in prison education are for basic literacy and numeracy. They are much more likely to have had poor achievement levels in education. Tellingly they are also more likely to have started primary school behind educationally. Health trends are similar. These background issues are bigger than the assessments can distinguish. There are other built in prejudices and barriers within the system which hold back some children.

Using the professionals and making them responsible for results, is required. They need to get children to develop skills, knowledge and understanding, recognising the individuals rather than herding them through buildings and years hoping quality results will occur and that everything is OK. Recognising that teachers may not have all the real world abilities that children may require, as they are trained for the system more than trained as educators. They also do not have sufficient life experiences. Research into effectiveness and why the world is as it is are constantly proceeding, but there is also good empirical wisdom amassed. 'The beginning is everything' is from Plato's Republic (c.380 BCE), and there are many other simple ideas of how the world works. It is funny how a principle of warfare is to divide and conquer, where you stop your enemy from fighting as one unit. The same principle is in sports where you try to get two of your team against one of the opponents to create an advantage. So when I was in a classroom on my own with over 30 children and a learning support worker came in and recognising the children and commented that half the class were SEN and needed learning support. Yes I was on my own several times a week. Yes teachers are often divided by management, and you have to be very good at group management to not be conquered. Not quite why one would go into teaching!

Educators can educate, but qualifications and systems often fall short of relevance beyond the system itself. The system must produce results, change or be replaced.

What's the real cost?

One of the problems of separating things into categories is that they need also to be considered together. Within business management is the term 'right first time'. In manufacturing especially, companies have learned that the cost of repairing errors is much more than preventing them. If these errors are discovered later the price just keeps going up. This factor is invisible till a competitor improves on their error rate and produces a better product. Many companies simply go out of business. The same goes for services. As education is a state monopoly, it can not be directly competed against and the errors are not highlighted. Of course other countries will provide the competition. Where do you get coal and ships from, Britain? The latest IT and Science?

The first example of right first time is pre-school, in education but also other early years provision. The cost for a parent is £212 a week according to Money advice service which would max out at just over £11,000 a year for full time for 52 weeks or £7,000 for 32 weeks. Prison starts at £20,000 a year for an open prison. The average for 2013/14 was £33,785 for the prison cost per prisoner. Then there's the probation service costs, court costs (it's OK lawyers are cheap) and Police costs. Then there are other costs to victims, insurance (shared cost to everyone else) and that's just £. There are other non money costs to victims, prisoner's family, I could go on. So the question is does Pre school reduce prisoner numbers?

Well I am glad you asked. American research in Chicago found this out costing pre school at $5,000 and prison at $80,000, and yes as reported on Freakanomics (Nov 19^th 2015) yes it does. So the point is Pre school pays for itself in reduced prison costs. Then ask the questions about health costs and tax receipts and they will show profit, a true investment in the future. The cost of not doing something may be hard to understand but it still happens. Each stage of education is built on the previous stage so Universities can not make up for schooling. It is also the expensive way round a problem.

Physical and mental health follow the same pattern, getting addicts to give up or overweight people to loose weight is much less successful and more expensive than healthy habits from early years. Children smoke less than before so well done for introducing laws a short 50 years+ after the evidence appeared. Obesity has to be tackled before it starts. Nutrition and exercise need to be instilled and habituated as early as possible. The choice we make at the moment is the highest heart attack rate and worst survival rates in the western world (and there's stoke, cancer and don't get me started on Diabetes), rather than early provision. Of course now there's historical trends to reverse.

Another example is the cost of each of the around 2,000 stomach band operations is £8,000 (other costs e.g. maintenance after and failures not included). Would that £8,000 pay for a PE and nutrition teacher (part time) in a primary school. We choose to pay for the operations (and the other costs of extreme obesity) rather than a professional for children's health (and better lifelong health). [Note: There is an argument that operations are cheaper than the consequences of obesity] Many primary schools have poor PE provision with no specialists on team. A child who starts secondary school with no experience will not be attracted to sports when there are with/against other children with years more experience then them. They do not just avoid PE during school they have a pattern for life.

Mental health is much less visible mainly because we do not look, and work with ignorance. Some mental health issues are effected significantly by substances and genetics. But even those are aided by exercise. Dealing with mental health problems is generally aided by exercise and nutrition. And yet these factors and the systematic operation of schools are not conducive to mental health. Whether it is stress of exams, large groups and lack of individual attention and support. Little healthy development occurs. Rather than the law of the playground (jungle) and expensive CBT latter on why not teach children to cope and plan gradual development. Not throwing them in the deep end and labelling the children as to how they cope. For example if the older, larger more experienced child beats the younger, smaller and inexperienced child, they are not more talented!

The Buddhist belief is that life is suffering, education sometimes causes suffering even when they claim the moral high ground. Education the word comes from ‘to lead’ in Latin. Is the leadership up to the task?

Education is not always the best answer.

There is a joke with a point about science. A man is searching under a lamp post and a passer bye stops and asks if they can be of help “What are you looking for?” The first man says “I have lost my car keys and I am looking for them.” “Oh I can help. Where did you drop them?” says the helpful passer bye. “Over there on the other side of the street, but there's no light over there!” Hopefully you get the point that science looks where it can see to find what it is looking for, which might not be where it is! Bureaucracies and assessment do the same thing.

Another parable from ancient India. Three blind men try to describe what they can feel. One says “It is alive and it is wider than I can reach round, rough to touch and immovable”. The second says “No, it is alive but its just wider than my hands and moves round and keeps touching me”. The third unlucky blind man says “ No it is smaller and swishes around and something keeps dropping on me and it is very smelly!” Perhaps I am paraphrasing for my own amusement, but the point is education and especially assessment are just descriptions of parts. Not the whole. Oh it was an Elephant if you did not guess.

In many areas of society a bureaucratic approach and solutions whether there was a problem or not have been predominant. One tool of this approach is the term 'qualified'. The legal term is something like 'appropriately qualified'. Many industries have qualification standards, with minimums and recognised levels. These are measurement based. They are things that can be measured. That is the qualifications themselves and also the assessment of the qualifications. Then there is the administration and organisation of the qualifications where again it is for convenience of application from the perspective of those above not actual quality improvements.

So how does education not work. They obviously measure some measurables, not the elements that are not measurable. It cannot teach, let alone measure the 'whole' within an educational environment. So a qualification is not a whole it is an approximation from some information gathered. That is why non university graduates are wary of the another new highly qualified boss inflicted on them. The problem is from the typically vague legal term appropriately qualified. What is that and who decides. Well ultimately it's the writers of the law and the fear of legal consequences in the non 'legally qualified'. The limits of the term and the attempted safe qualifications must be put in perspective. In sports the most common mistake many people make is selecting or supporting a manager or coach who was the best player/performer. The most successful coaches and managers are rarely the best players. They are separate exclusive tasks. They require a completely different set of skills. So is the person who is most able to pass qualifications the best at doing. No! No! No!

Are the best teachers the ones who come from wealthier families, go to the best schools and achieve the best results from the top ranked Universities? Put them in an inner city school with a bottom set and you have just given a free meal to a group of wild animals (I actually like them for some reason). Hay even better insist they have a Masters. The problem is the imposed bureaucracy from above is just completely unhelpful, inappropriate and actually damaging (ineffective for children and the staff change jobs or have strokes trying to battle through).

The interference from above was recognised by the US military after Vietnam where decisions were made by a senior officer when front line soldiers were under fire. If you think that a worker needs to get permission to put out a fire with a fire extinguisher from senior management and not just put it out. Then you are as dangerous as anything else to the worker and anyone else close.

Assessing just to assess is no help. Only teaching what can be assessed is very limiting, and assessing all of that is reducing learning and practice. If a student gets an A-level in maths then the GCSE grade is of little consequence. The longer term goal is more relevant. Not all of life can be measured or needs to be, once someone has six GCSEs and 3 A levels they do not need more GCSEs and A levels. They have proved they can pass those qualifications. A broad base of subjects is helpful but it depends on future activities (employment etc.).

In context is a key factor in real performance. The best solders are not the best shot on the range, but the best shot after walking miles and being shot at. The best sculptor is not the one who can split a rock in half. The best is the one who can chip off the right bits of rock that leaves the sculpture they want. Passing an exam is not the real world and it's before a mile run and you are not being shot at.

Education to Employment

A key aspect of society is employment and wealth creation. Simply stated: Record youth unemployment does not suggest more able young people. It shows a system that does not prepare Children for employment. They lack skills even though they have the GCSEs and BTECs and A levels and more. The abilities to use computers rather than complaining that social media and videos are slow online (probably not work related!). IT departments spend a lot of their time dealing with operator created problems, like forgotten passwords and unauthorised downloads. Skills in communication and number skills are often lacking, repeating methods that they got away with in schools and at home, that do not work professionally. Schools contribute little to entrepreneurial activities as that environment is the opposite of the teachers experience. Obviously a key issue is behaviour and attitude, many young people have problems with not just time keeping but also attendance. There is little understanding of how to get things done on a job level let alone on a business level.

Most of education is not like a professional environment such as the professions, or factory settings. Non academic environments are unfamiliar to most of the staff in education. In fact they know little of how other schools operate let alone other industries. It is equal to most adults understanding of teaching (all those holidays! : A lot of teachers are in schools over the holidays, work at home and of course the colds and illness catch up with them in the school holidays).

Wasting time on work they will not succeed at. Spending time on subjects that students do not have any aptitude or interest in cannot work without fear of punishment. Getting things done you do not like is part of life, but getting disconnected children sometimes to the whole of education and more, to 'do their work' is flogging a dead horse. I have been assigned science that was academic to teach to a bottom set. The students had little academic proficiency, insufficient prior knowledge and many issues with behavior. A total waste of time and energy. Children stood on the half way line in freezing temperatures in a football session was/is common. Prescription of inappropriate tasks for the teacher is common.

Awareness of strengths and weaknesses, possible and impossible is not the norm. False facts and beliefs are common and the teachers (adults) are not respected. Throughout society these are perpetuated and children are defenseless against them. I had one child who was telling his class mates that the infra-red on Police helicopters could not see during the day. I tried to explain but to no avail. I will not mention the institution he was already in, and quite possibly going to visit many times in his life (which is not costly at all!). The de-education by peer groups, media and the internet, is much more powerful than education.

Children need proof of relevance and usefulness. Ironically my sales training of many years ago talked of features and benefits. Similar aspects need to be included in education. Stating what is needed and why. Respect and trust need be gained (earned). Education faces many distractions and must compete (and helped to compete, given a level playing field, if it has not been sold off of course). It has to be more effective for the real world.

Connections between education and the rest of the world need to be made. Apprenticeships were not replaced with anything work related, and highly academic students were not served after GCSEs began. Practicing un-productivity and anti social behaviour needs to be minimised. Hiding in large groups and preventing others from learning must be reduced.

This needs to be gradual from simpler learning for younger children and latter more work focused learning for later education. That is hide learning in play first but work towards the real life later in the school/college years.