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This is so spot on that I went to listen again and transcribe it.
One of the problems is that we have poured so much time into trying to make sure that children look as though they're achieving more that we've not been prepared to say how do children actually learn? And one of the answers in that you have to enthuse them for their learning. You can't make them think, as they so often do in school, "What I'm learning here isn't interesting. I mustn't read around the subject in case I put the wrong answer in the exam. The only thing that matters is getting the right test result."
Jenny Russell on Today this morning (2hrs 43 minutes in, if you want to hear the whole thing.)
This is exactly what we've seen with the monkey boys education at secondary school. Sadly we're still seeing it with Science A Levels at sixth form. It's not such a problem for squirrel because he has the kind of brain that is good at understanding and at exam technique. Mugging up the definitions comes easily and doesn't waste much of his time. For spider, who's dyslexic, it's a huge energy drain that takes time away from real learning, and puts him off further study.
I'm not saying all bright kids are harmed by this. Squirrel can laugh at the notion that using the word, lexis, in an English answer get you bonus marks , write a thoughtful essay with the word dropped in for fun, and have time over to take a photo of his marked script with a red tick by lexis before the teacher has even seen the rest of the sentence. The extra challenge of playing the system to score marks only adds to his enjoyment, because it's easy for him.
But it seems pretty clear we are doing education doubly wrong by teaching to tests that test the wrong things.
( Science A level rant behind the cut )
One of the problems is that we have poured so much time into trying to make sure that children look as though they're achieving more that we've not been prepared to say how do children actually learn? And one of the answers in that you have to enthuse them for their learning. You can't make them think, as they so often do in school, "What I'm learning here isn't interesting. I mustn't read around the subject in case I put the wrong answer in the exam. The only thing that matters is getting the right test result."
Jenny Russell on Today this morning (2hrs 43 minutes in, if you want to hear the whole thing.)
This is exactly what we've seen with the monkey boys education at secondary school. Sadly we're still seeing it with Science A Levels at sixth form. It's not such a problem for squirrel because he has the kind of brain that is good at understanding and at exam technique. Mugging up the definitions comes easily and doesn't waste much of his time. For spider, who's dyslexic, it's a huge energy drain that takes time away from real learning, and puts him off further study.
I'm not saying all bright kids are harmed by this. Squirrel can laugh at the notion that using the word, lexis, in an English answer get you bonus marks , write a thoughtful essay with the word dropped in for fun, and have time over to take a photo of his marked script with a red tick by lexis before the teacher has even seen the rest of the sentence. The extra challenge of playing the system to score marks only adds to his enjoyment, because it's easy for him.
But it seems pretty clear we are doing education doubly wrong by teaching to tests that test the wrong things.
( Science A level rant behind the cut )
