Moving Towards Excellence (Learner)

Not only is excellence not a factor within state education it is often thwarted. It has benefits on its own just being excellent at something and even working towards excellence have powerful effects. A long term goal like excellence in any one thing includes a journey of discovery, perhaps with lots of short term achievements along the way. If you have an aim to be the best at something then there is plenty of information and guidance, alas outside of formal education to meeting this aim. This information is pretty old. Organising to facilitate progress to advanced levels of performance is quite well known. Not done, but known none the less. The simple source of this information is to see what successful or 'the best' have done previously. The similarities of hard work, perseverance (grit), reflection, focus and other factors are sometimes even obvious. Doing things that successful people do not do or the opposite is unlikely to lead to success. Charles Duhigg books cover these ideas.

I would argue that room for excellence within education is needed. A common situation with timetabling in schools, happens most days. A positive experience of learning and development is stopped when the bell goes to all move to a perhaps negative experience of stagnancy and reverse learning in another subject. This is the opposite to focus, it stops hard work and it slows or stops achievement braking the momentum. This will effect some learners more than others, but if school is seen as irrelevant the de-motivation may have a pronounced effect especially when repeated.

I put forward the idea (someone else’s of course) that you should feed success and starve failure. You have to work with a students strengths and develop them and when they have some realised ability then you can look at their weaknesses. Development of weak areas often involves slower progress with more failure. This is demotivating. The balance of development is difficult to provide. Of course in the education system this is ignored entirely and a curriculum enforced.

So what does excellence entail, well as has been studied in many areas where the best at different things have been analysed. They do a lot of their area whether that is a sport or art or whatever. The 10,000 hours idea where no one has reached the top of anything without 10,000 hours of practice. They also have a goal in mind and focus on that goal. There is sacrifice and less compromise to their goal. There is trial and error as part of constant improvement (at irregular paces) and grit, the determination to get through, hard work and difficulties. The Bloom taxonomy of skill lists stages from remembering through understanding, apply, analyse, evaluate and to create. When people can apply skills they will gain confidence generally as well as specifically, and when they can analyse and evaluate they will have these skills in specific areas. They can then with help and guidance use these skills in other areas. It is important that just because team sports have the word team in them and it is put on a CV to suggest the ability to work in a team. In actuality the teaching and practice of team work needs also to done not just hoped for. The bigger lad just ploughs through smaller lads, it is only when they meet another big (or bigger) lad that they may realise that teamwork is better than one person play and the pain of being easy to beat on their own. Many 'good players' are actually non-team players and are not any good when they meet better opposition having not actually practised teamwork..

An individual example is a Black Belt in a martial art, which in genuine cases means an accumulation of practice, leading to physical, mental and spiritual progress and development. The old suggestion was 5 years practice give or take. The even older method was to start as a white belt and when you have practised a lot. Your belt will have turned black. As there is a link from martial techniques to tactics and strategies and lessons learned. Connections to further life is probably more common from martial arts than the classroom. To meet challenges, to develop, to compete all accumulate to life lessons about themselves, other people and the world.

When you have progressed beyond most people in something you will have leaned skills and gained knowledge that can be applied in other areas, so even if you change goals you can re-focus and you have an idea how to reach goals (not necessarily consciously). The disadvantage is of course as you know and can do more than most, they cannot understand you. They have not gone through what you have. Advanced skills cannot be taught by many people and actually the role is more of consultant and guide rather than sit down and explain.

So when someone has reached higher levels in their favoured area. First they have achieved something that could lead to a career depending what they have excelled at. They have also learned about how to excel at anything (e.g. hard work and what to work at) as the general ideas (principles/concepts) are the same for excelling at anything. At some point it would be good to widen their base of knowledge in case of change in it's many forms. Some people excel outside of education and work and it's mainly discounted in work and education, given a footnote or being supporting information on a CV, but often they have learned and have higher abilities than their boss, who may not even understand or even cannot (or will not) recognise. It is like the Arthur C Clarke statement that 'if an undeveloped people saw modern technology it would be indistinguishable from magic'.

Better to help children to progress in their strong areas and then re-balance (consolidate) after progress has been made. Use skills, knowledge from progressed areas to help development in weaker areas. When you have a degree level then GCSE level qualifications are mostly irrelevant. Motivation (and confidence) is key for many learners who reap little from education as they don't fit the system, and the system does not adapt.

Moving Towards Excellence (Learner)

Not only is excellence not a factor within state education it is often thwarted. It has benefits on its own just being excellent and even working towards excellence have powerful wider effects. A long term goal like excellence in any one thing includes a journey of discovery, perhaps if organised with lots of short term goals along the way. If you have an aim to be the best at something then there is plenty of information and guidance, alas outside of education to meeting this aim. This information is pretty old. Organising to facilitate progress to advanced levels of performance is quite well known. Not done, but known none the less. The simple source of this information is to see what successful or 'the best' have done. The similarities of hard work, perseverance (grit), reflection, focus and other factors are sometimes even obvious. Doing things that successful people do not do or the opposite is unlikely to lead to success. Charles Duhigg book covers these ideas.

I would argue that room for excellence within education is needed. A common situation with timetabling in schools, happens most days. A positive experience of learning and development is stopped when the bell goes to all move to a perhaps negative experience of stagnancy and reverse learning in another subject. This is the opposite to focus, it stops hard work and it slows or stops achievement braking the momentum. This will effect some learners more than others, but if school is seen as irrelevant the demotivation may have a pronounced effect especially when repeated.

I put forward the idea (someone else’s of course) that you should feed success and starve failure. You have to work with a students strengths and develop them and when they have some realised ability then you can look at their weaknesses. Development of weak areas often involves slower progress and more failure. This is demotivating. The balance of development is difficult to provide. Of course in the education system this is ignored entirely and a curriculum enforced almost attacking intrinsic motivation.

So what does excellence entail, well as has been studied in many areas where the best at different things have been analysed. They do a lot of their area whether that is a sport or art or whatever. The 10,000 hours idea where no one has reached the top of anything without 10,000 hours of practice. They also have a goal in mind and focus on that goal. There is sacrifice and less compromise to their goal. There is trial and error as part of constant improvement (at irregular paces) and grit, the determination to get through, hard work and difficulties. The Bloom taxonomy of skill lists stages from remembering through understanding, apply, analyse, evaluate and to create. When people can apply skills they will gain confidence generally as well as specifically, and when they can analyse and evaluate they will have these skills in specific areas. They can then with help and guidance use these skills in other areas. It is important that just because team sports have the word team in them and it is put on a CV to suggest the ability to work in a team. In actuality the teaching and practice of team work needs also to done not just hoped for. The bigger lad just ploughs through smaller lads, it is only when they meet another big (or bigger) lad that they may realise that teamwork is better than one person play and the pain of being easy to beat on their own. Many 'good players' are actually non-team players and are not any good when they meet better opposition having not actually practised teamwork..

An individual example is a Black Belt in a martial art, which in genuine cases means an accumulation of practice, leading to physical, mental and spiritual progress and development. The old suggestion was 5 years practice give or take. The even older method was to start as a white belt and when you have practiced a lot. Your belt will have turned black. As there is a link from martial techniques to tactics and strategies and lessons learned. Connections to further life is probably more common from martial arts than the classroom. To meet challenges, to develop, to compete all accumulate to life lessons about themselves, other people and nature.

When you have progressed beyond most people in something you will have leaned skills and gained knowledge that can be applied in other areas, so even if you change goals you can re-focus and you have an idea how to reach goals (not necessarily consciously). The disadvantage is of course as you know and can do more than most, they cannot understand you. They have not gone through what you have. Advanced skills cannot be taught by many people and actually the role is more of consultant and guide rather than sit down and explain.

So when someone has reached higher levels in their favored area. First they have achieved something that could lead to a career depending what they have excelled at. They have also learned about how to excel at anything (e.g. hard work and what to work at) as the general ideas (principles/concepts) are the same for excelling at anything. At some point it would be good to widen their base of knowledge in case of change in it's many forms. Some people excel outside of education and work and it's mainly discounted in work and education, given a footnote or being supporting information on a CV, but often they have learned and have higher abilities than their boss, who may not even understand or even cannot (or will not) recognise. It is like the Arthur C Clarke statement that 'if an undeveloped people saw modern technology it would be indistinguishable from magic'.

Better to help children to progress in their strong areas and then re-balance (consolidate) after progress has been made. Use skills, knowledge from progressed areas to help development in weaker areas. When you have a degree level then GCSE level qualifications are mostly irrelevant. Motivation (and confidence) is key for many learners who reap little from education as they don't fit the system, and the system does not adapt.

Freakonomics has done a few podcasts in May 2016 on the elements of excellence these are the ingredients that are needed to pass on to learners.

Learning from Kung Fu Films.

OK it is not really the films but what they are portraying of Chinese (other films are available) culture, philosophy and values. This alternative perspective is valuable for the westerner (and vice versa), taking into consideration another view to reduce your own cultural and personal bias. Although some people may say I watch too many Kung Fu films that is obviously ridiculous as there is no such thing as too many Kung Fu films (inside joke: Spanner Philosophy).

One constant perspective is balance, finding the right amount not too much and not too little. YinYang theory is simple and yet deep. Something that is childishly simple and yet study can take more than a life time as you delve deeper. Simple examples from the martial arts can be straightening your arm can lead you to lose as the opponent can use it against you (break it!), but if you keep things too close you have no defense. Just being aggressive works against the week but is predictable and leads to defeat against more capable opponents, and of course can create more opponents. That does not mean never be aggressive but that there are times and places for it as with everything else. Studying the amounts and timing of different elements is done on the journey of Life. It is not a case of damned if you do and damned if you don’t, its a quest to find balance in a dynamic world. There are many deeper subjects and cultural elements within the vast number of films that can give perspective once contemplated. This is an impossibly voluminous topic for a blog so I will touch only on a few with important film references (I suppose the film is not technically the important bit).

The 36^th Chamber of Shaolin covers many of the elements of Buddhism. I want to focus (another element!) on the method of progression through the chambers. There are 35 chambers (watch the film to understand that!) each has different lessons and only once the monk (learner) has mastered and understood a level do they progress to the next level. Some people, lets say the star of the film progress quick and some find their level in a progression. There are lots of monks at the lower levels and fewer at the higher levels. The higher levels are more complex and intense with deeper lessons. In education we often go at a scheme of work speed moving on whether the students have learned or not, some could move on faster and others are moved on with little to no understanding. Hoping the building of education can be built on little foundation (built on sand? More biblical than a martial reference!). This also overlaps with the Confucian philosophy where the teacher will teach a quarter of something and the most talented will pick up the rest for themselves. In the west we value giving information quickly and clearly. This may hide important complexity and subtlety. The person who asks for simple information may not be talented or gone through enough chambers to understand (and yet they still get promoted!).

Many films show the journey to mastery with the battles to understand important concepts and real nature along the way. In Tai-Chi Master Jet Li has to strike the waters surface and move with objects to understand the nature of water and how to move like water. Many films follow this progress under the tutelage of the master and the realisations and enlightenments of the student. Ultimately it is the journey itself that makes the films but it is the necessity of the journey to reach enlightenment that must be appreciated. Another common feature are the students who do not progress in the end how their behaviour of seniority (perceived) ultimately fails. The revenge theme is common but also the demonstration of the actual achieved ability of the leaner who actually learns the lessons and not the bully, relative or child of a rich father and how relying on these prevents progress. Ethics and morality are constant themes and behaviour to others is regularly demonstrated by goodies and baddies with the contrast shown. Much is taken from Buddhism, Confucianism and Daoism of behaviour and attitudes to others and nature. Many lessons cannot be learned without correct (li) attitudes and behaviours. Wong Fei-Hung is an upstanding person in many films like Robin Hood in the west does the right thing under great stress and with personal consequence, and like the recent Ip Man films the character was a real person.

The last person I will mention helped the cross over from east to west. Much has been written of Bruce Lee, He was born in the US and traveled to Hong Kong. He studied with Ip Man and made films that caught attention in the west. A sample phrase was ‘don’t look at the finger and miss all the heavenly glory’. Many Chinese philosophy and intellectual elements are in his films. He also wrote books and taught Martial Arts and both popularised and informed. He is much quoted in one he tries to explain the path of perception in learning and his teaching:

‘Before I studied the art, a punch to me was just like a punch, a kick just like a kick. After I learned the art, a punch was no longer a punch, a kick no longer a kick. Now that I've understood the art, a punch is just like a punch, a kick just like a kick. The height of cultivation is really nothing special. It is merely simplicity; the ability to express the utmost with the minimum.’

When compared to older western literature and thought there are lots of overlap with Ancient Greek and other ideas and descriptions with Kung Fu films (OK, oriental culture and thought). Modern western societies emphasis different elements but looking at other cultures and perceptions can aid understanding and assessment of one's own. The Greeks talked of Arête or virtue as the Confucians talked of Li and both cultures put down in writing similar principles of the world.

So hopefully I have convinced everyone that Kung Fu films (although many countries have produced good films) are valuable for Continuous Personal Development (CPD) for all including teachers. So boldly go (oops that’s another genre of films) forward with new perspective(s).

Education: learning from other areas.

At the turn of 1900 a class was a teacher in front of rows of children sat down 'listening'. But 116 years later now we have a teacher in front of rows of children sat down 'listening'. How many other areas have progressed so far? I want to look at some areas that have transformed over less time to have massive performance outcomes where ideas and principles can be applied to education. Necessity is the mother of invention and there needs to be drivers to change to better performance. The UK system has little competition within it, membership (as a school or employee) of the industry is governed hierarchically, but with other groups pulling in different directions.

The main areas I will mention are competitive areas where to exist you have to change to the real world, settling for the status quo or some faith based fantasy leads to extinction or at least poverty. Compromise has to be very controlled and minimum. They are focused on specific aims and goals, they can see clearly success and failure. With competition if you do not. Someone else will! Economics gives a lot of information for all on what works and what does not and answers a lot of questions (whether asked or not) about what is happening in education.

The first area is business. Here profit is a clear aim, some succeed and some fail. For now I am talking about this part. What leads to success?

Clarity of vision, knowing your goal is essential, trying to do too many things fails. The talk is of unique selling points (USP), and niches. Benchmarking performance and comparing to competitors (this does happen in education; examinations and PISA for example, but they are insufficient). Management and leadership operate towards choosing goals and working towards them. An important input into business came from economics via Japan after the Second World War. Quality management (and TQM, JIT, Kaizen etc.) led to processes and procedures that had massive impact and it has to be said success. 'The economic miracle' was often the label applied. Important concepts particularly applied to manufacturing included continuous improvement, not the box ticking checklists. Quality control using statistics and teamwork (quality circles). The aim in manufacturing was constant improvements so that the product was continuously improved, and the manufacturing process became quicker and cheaper with higher quality products. Recognising who had the knowledge; the person doing the job everyday! Not imposed by the highly paid ignorant.…! From manufacturing the classic example of success and failure is General Motors versus Toyota. How one stopped and the other became the biggest car manufacture in the world (a telling portrayal was on this American Life #561) the story includes many people committing corporate suicide, and those with knowledge helpless to stop it. Many common aspects of General Motors are present in the education system today.

The service industry has also used the same practices and also has had set standards of what the customer expects. Looking at education as more of a service industry is helpful. Still improvements in process and management can be used from manufacturing, but a clear element of service is serving the customer. Giving them what they want and will pay for. Organisations that do not serve the customer are replaced by ones that do. This is a lesson education must be wary of, as the true customers are the child and parents. Just like a left wing politician who will send their children to a private school, or a specific school rather than their claimed political favorites locally. Parents and children will walk. It is less common for those without a politician’s salary because of the lack of alternatives (the politicians legislated against such things so far). Education cannot deliver what people do not need or want using the tax payers money for their own purposes, while preventing (and attacking) any competition.

Another area that has massive consequences with being uncompetitive is the military. Over the last few years they have become much more professional, doing a lot with less. Historically a major factor in the Royal Navy's supremacy was promotion on merit. Nelson went from cabin boy to Admiral. The high quality performance of people and technology prevents problems through deterrence and deals with problems when they arise. Their training is also very high quality often taking those who failed in education and developing them into high level professionals. Another aspect is they train with an idea in mind of crawl, walk, run to build up performance getting things right and then adding pressure. And they definitely have standards, many learned (and re-learned) over many years of action. Some standards appear strange until you know why they are absolutely needed. Hygiene was a big killer of soldiers, and dress codes are a sign of attention to detail. Although these today might not be as vital in the heat of action but what they teach are most definitely important including being as prepared as possible for all eventualities.

These areas are not identical to education but show some necessary concerns and examples for education improvement. Necessity to improve needs to be built either through competition or some other way. Naming and shaming usually identifies schools that are in poorer areas rather than lack of work or progress.

So how does PE fail?

I think it is a mistake to separate education from society. High levels of lifestyle related illness does reflect on PE (though not exclusively). This blog really gets to my aversion to PE and schools in general and why I can not in good conscience make my career within them. So repeating the regular results of surveys: 1 out 10 adults exercise sufficiently (taken as 3*20 mins. a week or sufficient activity on most days of the week) and with half not at all. Now it's not just PE, children are transported to schools (80%+) which is much more than twenty years ago (15%) and fewer participating in sports or outside play beyond school time. And to put in perspective for the poor PE staff, nobody takes PE seriously, there are so many more priorities where outside pressure is felt (exam results, few take PE GCSE etc.). Exam time in winter; lets use the sports hall, football in a gale anyone? Some schools have limited facilities to actually do a lesson. There is also a massive variation of experience and ability for secondary schools of the pupils in the first year. PE in primary schools is very hit and miss. Many primary schools do not have a PE specialist or provision of any quality.

The costs of inactivity are immense. You do not work with children or in health to encourage people to die early, and yet Heart Attack, Cancer and Stroke are the highest in the western world. Diabetes is 9% of the total NHS budget (£12.411 billion c.). Sickness is 6.9 days on average per year (How high in teaching? - Shortage of supply teachers!), these of course are the start of a list of financial costs, but pain, illness and longer drawn out terminal illness are felt at least as hard emotionally and physically.

Everybody sees other priorities. Of course many of these are less likely to be successful with unhealthy children and subsequently adults If you want a brain to work it needs a healthy body around it (Mens sana in corpore sano). There is a clear deficit in kinaesthetic and physical world education and experience in all areas of society for all ages.

So I hope costing lots of money, more pain and more death put things in perspective. We choose that as a society (and individuals). So what are the secondary school level problems that need addressing. The first element is using the word education within the title PE. Who learns anything in PE, some schools of course do really well and others are helped by the demographics of the pupils. The first problem is the children who hate PE, they are the opposite to the teachers. They do learn how to avoid participation at all costs. Well that is learning but let's not count it. We have to engage these children. They need a supporting environment and situation. A big issue is the big aggressive children who dominate the smaller and less athletic. Helping children develop skills to improve needs early on, smaller groups in supportive environments. You can not learn when you are trying to avoid getting hurt physically and mentally, under stress. Competition is a major motivator (bigger lads, most able) for some children and a massive de-motivator for others (smaller, less able). The current law of the jungle approach damages and puts off many. The need is both to increase participation in movement activities (broad area, just move!) and aid progress to excellence.

Adding education to PE where skills are developed is another factor. Developing physical skills, being able to move and understand their bodies better. Not just throwing them in at the deep end. Many joint injuries in adulthood are due to bad technique. Manual handling is the classic example being the most common reason for more than 3 days off work. But many people have not just back injuries they have overuse injuries from knees, hips and shoulders, some of these are even aggravated in sports. Many people take up running till the knee pain stops them (you probably learned to run as a 3 year old, so a 3 year old was your teacher!). Even when they exercise, people often do it so badly that it causes problems rather than making them healthy. Knowing how to move but also how to exercise including types and amounts. These are the foundations of physical skills and are essential before moving onto more advanced skills within sport. Trying to compete without solid foundation skills leads to injuries and not playing to the rules in order to win. I have learned a lot about me, in what I can do and what I cannot. I loved Basketball, but vertical challenges get in the way of performance. Learning to get round things where you are at a disadvantage has also been useful.

Play emphasis with guidance is another learning tool for helping learn about themselves and their bodies (kinaesthetic awareness). Increasing enjoyment not prescription from above, encourages participation. Many of these are really needed before in primary school, rather than waiting till 11 years plus. Different activities need to be used to show possibilities and hopefully find an interest with as many children as one can. Not just ‘in at the deep end’ competition.

Keeping participation through life needs easy access, and encouragement. Stopping physical activity as less important for academic or work reasons is a costly choice in the long run. Encouraging an active life for the rest of their lives can only be increased if people enjoy the activities, through just having fun and progressing, while becoming more able.

I count myself lucky that I enjoy moving and activity, it is easy for me to exercise. I continue the habit and still train with people half my age and twice my size (BJJ). And boy do I feel it the next day, that is my age anyway.