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.