Institute of Ideas

Past Events

Sponsored by RoutledgeFalmer and the Times Educational Supplement

Crisis? What Crisis?

Re-examining what education is for

Venue: Park Crescent Conference Centre, 229 Great Portland Street, London, W1

Date: July 3, 2004 to July 4, 2004

Tickets: Weekend tickets: £65, £50 concessions or IoI associates (£45 associate concession), £100 institutional rate. Day tickets: £35, £30 concessions or IoI associates (£25 associate concession), £60 institutional rate.

Booking: THIS EVENT HAS NOW TAKEN PLACE

Selected transcripts will appear soon.

Education Secretary Charles Clarke recently announced that he wants to stimulate an open public debate about secondary education; this weekend conference takes him at his word. Plenary and seminar panels made up of journalists, academics, writers, practitioners, policy advisers, parents and chalk-face teachers will lead no-holds-barred discussions to examine critically what current educational initiatives mean, inspect key debates, and set some positive challenges to the status quo.

Tony Blair's 1997 promise of education, education, education seemed to capture society's post-Thatcherite optimism and speak to a positive aspiration for future generations. While many of New Labour’s policies seemed managerial and limited, here was a grander vision and a promise of an end to the time when excellence was restricted to the few, with bog standard for the many. New Labour presented education as a means of creating a better, more egalitarian, society, offering hope that all kinds of social problems could be solved.

This promise has turned sour. Despite overblown rhetoric, the reality has been disappointing and the jargon grates against frustrated ambitions. The government’s means of assessing its own success, through target hitting, results quotas and bureaucratic interference, has led to cynicism and accusations of grade inflation and dumbing down. The idea that state education is in meltdown is widely espoused and has become something of a parental and political obsession.

The endless churn of initiatives has not led to an atmosphere of dynamism, but rather a sense of permanent dissatisfaction. Every month new ideas are floated: more exams, fewer exams, vocational GCSEs, AS levels - yes or no - and now baccalaureates or diplomas. Or take your pick from specialist schools, city academies, training schools, CTCs, beacon schools or extended schools.

Far from education offering the key to a better society, it seems instead that schools and teachers have been burdened with expectations, with neither the resources nor the vision to realise them. Education is presented as the solution to every social problem from obesity to teenage pregnancy, and yet it seems increasingly unclear what education means in its own terms. The constant changes and new proposals appear as a bewildering array of disjointed ideas conspicuous by their lack of educational vision. What is education for, and what should be done about it?

Saturday, 10-11.30amOpening plenary: what is education for?

The aims of compulsory education have shifted over recent years. Arguably, the ideal of the transmission of knowledge has been sidelined by such aims as empowering pupils and enhancing their self-esteem. Gaining knowledge is less of a focus than gaining access to the knowledge economy. New demands, from economic regeneration to social inclusion, are now placed on schools. DfES initiatives increasingly seem to have little educational content at all: the Green Paper ‘Every Child Matters’ presents child protection and welfare as the top priorities for schools. Are schools equipped to take on a direct socialising function, or to compensate for the perceived failures of community or changes in the economy? What would it mean to say that education should come first?

11.45am-12.45pm Seminars 1-3: what is education for?

Seminar 1: creating citizens?

Chief Inspector of Schools, David Bell, says: ‘Education is about more than academic standards. It is also about how young people develop their own attitudes and values and grow into responsible members of the community.’ Anxiety about youth apathy and low voter turnout means that while history has been dropped as a core curriculum subject at KS4, citizenship is now compulsory. Indeed, the DfES demands that citizenship should inform the whole curriculum and every aspect of school life. School councils are set up to ‘empower’ pupils and to give them a taste for active decision-making.

But as a subject, citizenship has little intellectual coherence and no obvious syllabus. Instead, new moral orthodoxies litter the citizenship canon: multiculturalism, sustainability and tolerance are all contentious issues in the adult world, but treated as holy cows in citizenship classes. It seems that schools are expected to compensate for society’s perceived moral and political shortcomings. Are teachers simply being asked to make up for the failure of politicians to inspire young people? Is there a better way in which education can help foster good citizens?

Seminar 2: servicing the economy?

Charles Clarke recently declared that ‘there is insufficient relationship between the curriculum at school [in the 14 to 19 age range] and the world of work'. Indeed government increasingly justifies new educational initiatives in terms of the needs of the market. It is argued that industrial change means 'more room at the top' for more graduates, and an increasing need for ‘brain not brawn’. The government’s 50% university access target and the increasingly vocational nature of the curriculum are justified in terms of the need to compete as a nation and individuals. TVEI, GNVQ, Vocational GCSEs, Foundation degrees, work experience from 14, employability, skills based competence assessment, the Advanced Vocational Certificate of Education ‘ this litany of qualifications and buzzwords expresses an increasingly instrumental view of education.

But should training people for work be the primary responsibility of schools? Can there ever be parity of esteem between vocational and academic qualifications? Are we depriving pupils of a general education by emphasising a narrow work-related curriculum at 14? More fundamentally, can education policy create a dynamic economy?

Seminar 3: social inclusion?

Countless educational initiatives emphasise social inclusion as an end. Courses and assessments can be judged on the basis of their accessibility and inclusivity as much as their intellectual merits. Subjects and qualifications deemed too difficult or intimidating risk being denounced as exclusive and elitist. Ministers want educational institutions to incorporate wider social purposes: the Extended Schools initiative promises onsite health provision, family and adult support and social services as a contribution to cohering fragmented communities, and the ever-expanding remit of personal, social and health education (PSHE) has schools taking on responsibilities formerly left to parents and guardians. Conversely, there is rarely a government social initiative that doesn't have an 'educational' angle. Whether the problem is unemployment, young single mothers or the poverty trap, the answer invariably involves education.

Are teachers being encouraged to subordinate their educational role to social work? Does the obsession with inclusion undermine education’s capacity to challenge, and inhibit the rigorous assessment required for pupils to make progress?

During lunchtime, film-maker and educationalist Chloe Ruthven will present her short film Stephen, Luke and Mario, featuring pupils from inner London talking about their experiences of life and education - followed by discussion chaired by Richard Woolfenden, producer/director, Xube productions. 1pm-1.30pm in the Portland Room

Afternoon theme: were there ever ‘good old days’?

Complaints about educational standards inevitably provoke the accusation of declinism, a conservative longing for imagined halcyon days. Critics of today’s standards are caricatured as dinosaurs who want to return to a past dominated by elitism and exclusion. Yet in order to assess the present state of education, we surely do need to make historical comparisons. The afternoon plenary and seminars 4-6 assess contemporary trends with an eye to what has changed. Is education dumbing down or wising up?

1.45-3pm Keynote plenary: curriculum matters - in defence of the subject

Many fear that the vocational curriculum on offer to many pupils today resembles the deathly Gradgrind curriculum of old, and that the proposed framework of 14-19 diplomas, which promises breadth, may lead to a lack of depth and hinder pupils’ efforts to master specific disciplines. Nonetheless, it is argued that a grasp of subject knowledge, in our ‘fast moving society’, no longer lasts as long as it used to. Consequently students should be taught learning skills, instead of knowledge itself. But what kind of curriculum should we aspire to? Has a liberal, humanist, general education had its day? How might we re-assess and re-interpret Matthew Arnold for 2004?

3.15-4.15pm Seminars 4-6

Seminar 4: testing times - ever shifting standards

Channel 4’s recent reality TV series, That’ll Teach ‘Em contrasted the 1950s school - with its Latin lessons, cold showers and strict regime - with the more laid back atmosphere of today. Significantly, most of the high achieving GCSE pupils did poorly in their 1950s style O-levels. Commentators bemoan the debasement of the gold standard of A-level, complain of grade inflation and attack the ‘all must have prizes’ atmosphere in schools.

But measuring educational achievement is an imprecise science. The government has used a variety of new assessment methods, but how reliable are these in a climate in which the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority proposes to abolish failure, and new league tables take into account the relative measure of ‘value added’? With constantly changing assessment regimes, from course work to modules, from portfolios of evidence to oral components, and with the new all encompassing Tomlinson diploma promising to reward pupils’ extra-curricular activity as well as grades, how do we know if pupils’ performance is improving? Are the plethora of A*s at GCSE, and the increasing numbers entering higher education evidence of greater educational success or easier assessments? Will universal standards of attainment be compromised by individualised learning goals?

Seminar 5: whatever happened to Mr Chips? The demoralisation of a profession

If teaching was ever a proud vocation, today the profession seems demoralised. Despite attempts at workforce remodelling, allegedly to free teachers up from admin and overwork, and despite financial incentives to counter claims of low pay, recruitment in many subjects is at crisis point and retention is in decline. Moreoever, it seems the model of the eccentric enthusiast waxing lyrical about John Donne’s sonnets or the theory of relativity has given way to teaching by numbers, delivered by a slick professional following best practice guidelines and evidence-based lesson plans. The NUT suggests the SATs regime ‘is forcing teachers into teaching for the tests rather than educating children’.

Some see such developments as part of a systematic attack on teachers’ professional autonomy, including external inspections, centralised curricula and the loss of authority to exclude misbehaving pupils. But others argue that teachers make things worse by adopting the victim label, complaining they are scared of pupils and calling in sick with stress-related illnesses. What is happening to the profession? How can confidence be restored?

Seminar 6: from the 3 Rs to media literacy

Tessa Jowell declares that ‘in the modern world media literacy will become as important a skill as maths or science’. Meanwhile emotional literacy, computer literacy, visual literacy and myriad other new literacies litter the curriculum. But what about actual literacy? Despite the literacy hour and relentless testing of reading and writing skills, there is a widespread perception that the nation’s children are less able to manipulate the English language than in the past. The success of Lynne Truss’ recent book Eats, Shoots and Leaves: the Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation has stirred up a debate about declining standards in grammar and punctuation. While primary pupils demonstrate adequate functional literacy, children’s authors such as Philip Pullman criticise the government's 'brutal' school testing regime, warning that it is creating a generation of children who hate reading and 'feel nothing but hostility for literature'. Both secondary and university teachers complain about inadequate essay writing skills at a higher level.

Is literacy in decline, or is the debate an expression of an old-fashioned nostalgia for spelling tests? Is the concern about grammar irrelevant in today’s technological world of texting and email? Is the success of Harry Potter proof of the success of the literacy hour? Is being able to ‘read’ the media and surf the web as important as reading books? Teachers of new and old literacies compare notes.

4.45-6pm Keynote plenary: battle of the schools - what makes a school successful?

What makes a school successful? Is it the type and structure of school that really matters? Whether fee paying, grant maintained, independent, grammar, single-sex, faith, specialist, beacon, extended, advanced, city academy, technology college, or even bog-standard comp, how can we decide which school might offer a good education?

Is school success more to do with that elusive x factor, ethos? David Blunkett, when education secretary, said he wanted to 'bottle'; the ethos of faith schools, while Charles Clarke says he believes 'that having a strong school ethos...goes hand in hand with improving the life-chances of all children'. Or is leadership the key? Tony Blair launched the National College for School Leadership ‘to ensure that school leaders have the skills, recognition, capacity and ambition to transform the school education system into the best in the world’. And as Gordon Brown puts education right at the centre of this year’s budget, with boasts of an £8.5bn ‘cradle to the grave’ sytem, what effect does the old chestnut of resources have on the success of a school? A panel of pundits asks a panel of head and senior teachers what makes their school successful.

7.30pm onwards The TES Great Dinner Party Debate: Crisis? What crisis?

As dinner parties throughout the land hum with parents stressing and fretting about getting their children into a ‘good’ school, and bemoaning the state of contemporary education, we ask ‘ is there really a crisis in education or just an outbreak of parental anxiety? And if there is a crisis, what does that mean? We ask a panel of ‘experts’ to sing for their supper and discuss the topic with teachers, parents and dinner guests.

(NB: must be booked separately)

Sunday, 10.30 - 11.45am Keynote plenary: individual learning - an abandonment of a universal curriculum?

Charles Clarke suggests that as 'every child is different', the contemporary educational challenge 'is to design every aspect of school around the different needs of each child, from assessment to teaching, curriculum to engaging parents'. But does this version of child-centred education go too far? If education has to be built 'around the talents and needs of each individual pupil, personalised around each child', have we abandoned the comprehensive ideal to create a common educational experience? Does the explicit aim of ending 'the one-size-fits-all approach', and the promotion of difference, mean an abandonment of educationalist RH Tawney's common culture and curriculum? Does 'different but equal' signal the return of horses for courses, with pupils never challenged to go beyond their own individual limitations?

12noon-1pm Seminars 1-3: curriculum matters

Individualised learning packages emphasise designing subjects around pupils’ interests and aptitudes. How has this affected the curriculum?

Seminar 1: sexing up the curriculum - the strange stories of science and history

In one pilot, history is being re-packaged by the QCA as a ‘hybrid GCSE’ to link it to related vocational areas such as heritage, museums, galleries, historical sites, archaeology, tourism, media and law. Why? Because ‘according to recent research, many young people (and their parents) cannot always see the direct relevance to their future careers of a history qualification’. Meanwhile, the number of pupils taking A-levels in chemistry has dropped by 18.7%, in physics by 29.6% and mathematics by 25.4% over past 10 years (according to the Royal Society). The solution, according to the House of Commons' science and technology select committee report, ‘Investigating science education for 14 to 19-year-olds’, suggests the curriculum needs to be ‘more relevant to pupils' everyday life’. This means ‘instead of learning endless facts’, pupils ‘should engage in popular scientific debate, such as those over GM food and genetic cloning’. And the challenging abstract nature of the subject is being downplayed to make way for a more practical, hands-on approach to mirror popular TV programmes such as Scrapheap Challenge.

History and the sciences are just two examples of subjects being transformed in the name of relevance. Will the core content of sexed-up subjects survive their make-over?

Seminar 2: the therapeutic curriculum

Policymakers dictate that a key aim of schooling is to improve pupils’ self esteem. The curriculum is increasingly being designed around children’s perceived ‘wellbeing’. Charles Clarke justifies personalised learning as offering pupils ‘a sense of empowerment at having been listened to…Feeling that they matter and are valued, with a clear sense of belonging’.

But is the content of the curriculum being subordinated to the aims of therapy rather than knowledge and learning? With the new emphasis on emotional intelligence and emotional literacy, is the realm of feelings sidelining intellectual endeavour?

Seminar 3: the creative curriculum

Over recent years there has been widespread concern that the arts and creativity have been squeezed out of the school timetable by the demands of literacy, numeracy, the national curriculum and testing. But all that seems to be changing: creativity is the new educational buzzword. From the government -funded Creative Partnerships scheme, to David Miliband’s advocacy of the 3Cs (community, creativity and culture), surely arts education is safe. Despite declining levels of arts teaching expertise, pupils are now gaining access to the arts through school partnerships with arts practitioners from museums, galleries, orchestras and the creative industries. Some schools even have poets and writers in residence.

But the DfES definition of creativity emphasises that it is not unique to the arts, but includes everything from youth culture to teamwork. Today’s creative education seems less concerned with teaching the arts as distinct disciplines, valued for their own sake, than with using culture to promote respect for people of different cultures, contribute to personal and social skills, build self-esteem and address issues of access and inclusion. Is this approach compatible with the rigorous teaching of technical ability? If ‘we’re all creative now’, and every creative expression is greeted positively, what is the fate of critical discrimination and aesthetic judgement?

During lunchtime RoutledgeFalmer will be hosting a short reception to celebrate the launch of Guide to Key Debates in Education. Conference attendees are invited to join Anna Clarkson from RoutledgeFalmer and the book’s editor Dr Dennis Hayes and for a glass of wine in the Portland Room from 1.15pm

Afternoon theme: changing theories and shifting pedagogies

2-3.15pm Keynote plenary: teaching the teachers - what should teachers know?

What pedagogy or philosophy of education informs contemporary teacher-training? It is at best confused. As more and more new recruits enter the profession at the chalkface, the emphasis is on hands-on experience, with theory reduced to ‘reflexive practice’. Teachers are warned against acting as gatekeepers to knowledge, told to swap the ‘sage on the stage’ role for the more modest ‘guide on the side’. Continuing Professional Development (CPD) courses are not focused on subject knowledge but instead on classroom management and new theories of learning. Child protection, anti-bullying strategies, behaviour modification and social exclusion are to be added to the heady mix of Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) courses. In this context it is hardly surprising that according to the General Teaching Council a mere 24% of those who enter the teaching profession do so because of a love of their subject. Only 14% of teachers are motivated to stay because of the subject. 30% of science teachers have not got a degree in the topic they are teaching.

Has the profession abandoned its belief in the transformative possibility of subject knowledge? Have candidates with a passion for the subject been replaced by a new breed of teacher more interested in social policy than education? Is the emphasis on how children learn sidetracking the debate from the more important issue of what they learn? What should trainee teachers be taught; indeed - should they be taught at all?

3.30-4.30pm Seminars 4 - 6

Seminar 4: from IQ to aptitude ‘ changing theories of intelligence

While the IQ theories of Cyril Burt have long since been exposed as a sham, new biological and psychological theories relating to intelligence are popular again. Developments in neuroscience purport to tell us in more detail how individuals learn, and ‘non-linear creative thinking’ is now recognised in educational policy. Inspired by Howard Gardner’s Frames of Mind, the contemporary orthodoxy is that while some learn best from auditory, visual or written stimuli, others learn through practical engagement and doing (kinaesthetic learning). The didactic method and whole-class teaching are now seen as outmoded in the light of individual learning styles and multiple intelligences. Brain training is being proposed as a means of enhancing pupil performance; cognitive acceleration is becoming popular and is increasingly embedded into the curriculum.

Is there a danger that these new theories naturalise ability and downplay the transformative potential of education? When London schools tsar Tim Brighouse argues pupils should be ‘specially and equally valued, whatever their different intelligences or talents and backgrounds’, does this undermine the aspiration to nurture new skills and understanding? If intelligences are determined by psychology or the brain, what is the point of educational intervention? Does the emphasis on individual learning styles distract teachers from teaching?

Seminar 5: from Flashman to anti-bullying buddies - changing theories of behaviour

It is widely perceived that pupils are behaving badly. While all the talk of tearaway teenagers, terrorising toddlers, and bullying epidemics may be an overstated panic, it is certainly true that there are problems with school discipline. The government’s solution has been to train teachers in behaviour modification. An ever greater number of behaviours, often those always associated with growing up and experimentation, are now labelled as problematic. Teasing, schoolyard skirmishes, staring, even falling out with friends - have all been rebranded as bullying behaviour. Today’s behaviour schemes do not just concentrate on conduct, but more intrusively categorise emotions as appropriate or inappropriate. Teachers preach anger management, as though anger is always an inappropriate emotion, and preach the virtues of confessing hurt, suggesting more restrained children are in denial. Children themselves are being trained in mediation techniques, as anti-bullying buddies and friendship healers, and urged to counsel their peers who fall foul of the new behaviour codes.

Do the new behaviour theories encourage teachers to step over the boundary that separates education from emotional manipulation? What is the best way for teachers to teach discipline? How do children learn to behave?

Seminar 6: get ‘em young - changing theories of child development and parental involvement

Current educational policy increasingly emphasises early years provision as the way to drive up standards. Schools minister David Miliband has suggested the problem of educational deficit starts at 22 months. To tackle this, the government has launched children’s centres and has set up schemes such as the Sure Start programme to improve education ‘from the cradle to nursery years’. This emphasis has inevitably turned the educational spotlight onto parents, who are expected to be fully involved with their children’s education, to prepare their children for nursery school with educational toys, books and resources, to help with homework from age 5, to take their children to museums, galleries and activity centres, to book their child in for after school clubs from ballet to chess, and ‘ if we’re honest - often to ‘help’ with their child’s GCSE coursework. Home/school contracts put pressure on parents to take on this educational role. Parents who do not take their educational duties seriously can face draconian measures such parenting orders, fines and parenting classes.

Is early intervention a valid educational strategy or a mechanism for the state to police family life? Have teachers abandoned the idea of educating children from homes with no educational tradition? Are parents being blamed for deficiencies in schooling?

4.45-6pmKeynote plenary: creative solutions - inspiring future generations

Open brainstorming session to allow some positive visions and policy proposals to emerge and ask how we can best use education to enrich, energise and intellectually inspire the young.

The IoI would like to thank: Toby Marshall: Head of English and Communications at Havering College of Further and Higher Education; educational researcher for co-convening Crisis, What Crisis? - Kevin Morris, Senior Lecturer, Canterbury Christ Church, University College - Dennis Hayes, editor of RoutledgeFalmer Guide to Key Debates in Education - Michele Ledde, teacher, conference researcher - Alex Standish, international observer, Dept of Geography, Rutgers University - Geoff Kidder, conference administrator - Ruth Sheldon, conference admin assistant - Aine Duffy and Jon Raeside, Routledge Falmer - Fiona Flynn, Sandie Owens and Patrick Hayes, TES - Cassandra Drakes-Thomas and Kevin Brown, Park Crescent Conference Centre - Mark Kennedy, Grange Hotels - Joe Ewart, Society

• HOME
• EVENTS
• PUBLICATIONS
• TRANSCRIPTS & REPORTS
• PEOPLE
• SUPPORT
• Help
• About