Meggie Macdonald

The issue of education, particularly primary school education, has been figuring highly in the news in the UK.  The other focus has been on funding and accessibility of college and university programmes for students graduating with A- and O-levels.  In this first segment, I will be looking at the various direction in which the argument about the nature of primary school education and examinations has turned over the past few months.

To begin with, on 13 January 2009, in a section in The Guardian  entitled “Resource 2009″, there was an article on the upcoming exhibitions at Olympia for the BETT about how technology has become an unavoidable element of the teaching process simply because it is so pervasive.  YouTube, iTunes, Twitter:  all these present teachers with a unique if unexplored opportunity for teaching in the 21st century.  But it is a valid teaching method?  Do these social networking programmes provide students and teachers with a learning platform that they can both exploit in a positive and mutually beneficial way?  Or are teachers just tired of fighting a losing battle against cell phone use and internet chatting?

One side of the argument, featuring such figures as education advisor Professor Stephen Heppell, chief executive of Futurelab Stephen Breslin, digital commissioner for Channel 4’s 4iP Ewan McIntosh and director of learning technologies 11-44 at Djanogly City Academy in Nottingham, Darren Frearson, all believe that technology can and does present teachers and students with the possibilities of developing a new learning environment.  Ian Usher, e-learning coordinator for Buckinghamshire county council, states:  “technology is a highly effective support for personalised learning… you can access learning environments on your phone, your computer, your PlayStation Portable (PSP).  You might fancy sitting in your bedroom looking at a video on your PSP.  Another generation might download material onto their iPhone and listen to it on the bus.  No matter what learning platform designers might tell  you, it’s impractical for teachers to do individual learning plans for 30 children:  personalisation is best done by the person” (originally quoted in The Guardian, 13 January 2009, section Resource 2009, p.1).

This suggests an interesting challenge for students and teachers alike.  Two primary school teachers – one active in Canada and the other recently retired in the United States – declare that in no way is there one teaching style or approach for an entire classroom full of students, that each student has different needs and different gifts and that the teacher can only reach them by “teaching 25 different ways for 25 different students” (B. Hinckley).  Is technology then a way for teachers to step back from the exhausting process of teaching individuals or is it a way to engage students on a more inclusive and effective level?

Another aspect of the argument in the UK is based on a 2006 report by Sir Jim Rose regarding the various methods available to teach reading skills to children in early years.  The overarching conclusion reached in the Rose Report was that synthetic phonics was the best way of reaching the most students, a key concern in today’s overcrowded classrooms.  Again, however, a current primary school teacher in Canada has stated that “yes of course sound/symbol knowledge is important.  But so are other strategies:  awareness of conventions of print (left to right, wrap around sentences), expecting to find meaning in print, making connections to the text, knowing how to chunk and blend sounds, looking through to the end of the word, predicting, expecting, and using picture clues, are all parts of the whole” (A. Birt).  Clearly, defining one method as superior to others can lead to a misunderstanding of the complexities of teaching reading as outlined above.  

Sir Jim Rose’s letter to Ed Balls, MP, 13 March 2008 reports on the success of implementation of his 2006 recommendations.  Clearly there is now more focus on developing a high standard of teaching across the country than there was on teaching methodology in 2006.  It is, however, uncertain whether Sir Jim Rose’s 2006 recommendations were taken literally and in isolation, or whether the Rose Report initiated a more indepth examination of paedagogy as a whole that had been lacking in previous years.

More recently in the news, an article by BBC News education reporter Alison Smith at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers conference (ATL) has drawn attention to the massive funding debacle that has led to the concern that a great many 16-year-olds will be turned away from college in September.   Children’s Secretary Ed Balls states that “every college affected would be given an update by the end of April, and he did not want any 16-year-old being turned away from college in September”.  Smith writes that “The government was ‘working very hard’ to make sure budgets would be in place by then, he [Balls] added” (BBC News online, 7 April 2009, “History to stay in new curriculum” by Alison Smith, accessed 7 April 2009 at 10:17am GMT).

The impression that this writer gets of the whole situation of education in the UK is of a sinking ship, where education ministers, theorists and practitioners are patching up holes in the system as they appear but are unable to find a solution to the larger problem. 

The technology argument is a prime example.  Yes, technology can be a great facilitator of learning for a wider range of students.  But at what cost?  Quotes from the 13 January 2009 article such as “our learners are never alone” and ” ICT (Information and Communications Technology) can be embedded into school environments” can be unsettling.  In that article, Ian Usher commented that “ICT will ideally be seen as equally fundamental to school buildings as electricity, water, heat and light” (p.2). 

Throughout the Resource 2009 article by Hester Lacey, this writer was confronted with a great many examples of ‘Orwellian’ vocabulary insisting that technology is a means to a great end – the suggestion was made that a bio-chip could become the most efficient way to discourage truancy (p.1).  As citizens of Britain, who must claim George Orwell’s 1984 as part of their society and culture, this writer is surprised that such vocabulary would be – could be – so easily inserted into a discussion about education in the UK.  Are people (such as parents, teachers, and government theorists) only concerned with controlling students so that they emerge from the school system as functioning (but not necessarily happy) young adults?

More to the point, where are the funding sources for such a massive overhaul of the education system that is necessary if we are going to include ICT as an equalising force for students?  It certainly can’t be limited to those educational institutions that can afford it.  If so, it would only entrench the class conflict and restrictions on students across the country between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’.

In addition to any fantastical Orwellian connotations associated with government practices in the UK, the issue of theory vs practice comes into strong focus with the Rose Report.  Interviews with two primary schools teachers in Canada and the US, neither of whom have ever met the other, are unflinchinly clear:  practice is everything.  Theory is, of course, an excellent means by which a teacher can gain insight and prompt creative ideas for learning, but in the end it is the practical implementation of learning in an ever-changing environment with ever-changing student populations that yield the best results. 

Perhaps the Rose Report’s value is not so much in the identification of a superior teaching method for early readers but in a return to the consideration of paedagogical theory to bring about more creative teaching.  Issues of reading theories, ICT, accessibility and policy may be the brain-children of this renewed consideration. 

We can but wait and see what the future, in these uncertain times, will yield for students around the world.