Category: Education

On beauty and elegance in education

In his book ‘Fearful Symmetry: the search for beauty in modern physics’, Anthony Zee describes how Einstein displayed a supreme disinterest in any proposed formula or solution, no matter how accurate it might be, that he considered ugly.

“As soon as an equation seemed to him to be ugly, he really rather lost interest in it and could not understand why somebody else was willing to spend much time on it. He was quite convinced that beauty was a guiding principle in the search for important results in theoretical physics.”

Today (13 Aug 2014), amongst the usual ugly headlines of death, destruction and disease, Maryam Mirzakhani is being celebrated as the first woman to have been awarded the prestigious Fields Medal – the Nobel Prize for mathematicians. Her work – as described by those who have some grasp of her achievements – has a “breathtaking scope, is technically superb and boldly ambitious”. She herself describes mathematics as full of “beauty and elegance”.

Now, I’d hate to think that beauty and elegance is the sole preserve of mathematicians dealing, like Mirzakhani, in esoteric fields such as complex geodesics, transcendental objects, and differential geometry. I’d argue that we all need at least a bit of beauty and elegance in our lives and work, and we certainly can see people striving for it (though many just don’t care) in many areas: whether it’s the presentation of food, the design of buildings and spaces, the arrangement of an exhibition, the movement of a dancer across the stage, the order and rhythm of words on a page.

So, why not strive for some beauty and elegance in education and in the curricula and learning experiences we design for our students? Yes, it’s often messy and a bit (or very) chaotic. But just as the mathematics of chaos have a certain underpinning beauty and elegance, we – as ‘architects of education’ – should strive to construct and compose learning and teaching experiences that flow and connect in ways that have a certain beauty and elegance about them. It’s not easy, but surely worth the effort.

Eccentricity, conformity and arts education

Some years ago I happened to be standing and chatting to the then German Federal Minister for Education. We were in the (long) coffee queue during a break at an ELIA (European League of Institutes of Art) conference, the theme of which was the future of arts higher education in Europe in the light of Bologna, and he had just given a keynote address.

I had thanked him for his keynote, and he asked me my name and where I was from, and what what I did. When I said I was from the UK and worked in higher education performing arts, he smiled and said “Ah, the UK….”

There was a pause.

Then said, as we shuffled down towards the coffee and pastries: “Let’s put our differences to one side for moment. I have have a serious question for the UK. For the past 40 years or so, your economy has not always been in the best shape – to put it mildly. Yet during that period you managed to lead the world in areas such art, design, fashion, music, etc. Over the same period, until relatively recently [i.e. re-unification], we have had a relatively successful economy but, with a few exceptions, have produced nothing like that sort of creative output. So, my question is, what are you doing, or perhaps NOT doing, in your education system that enables that sort of creativity to flourish?

Standing there, eyeing from afar the rapidly diminishing plate of pastries, I did not have a clear, rigorously-argued, well-researched, evidence-based answer to give him. But a thought did occur, and I said to him: “I do think it may have something to do with our long tradition of non-conformity, of sticking two fingers up to authority, and also our high tolerance of eccentricity, neither of which – in my limited experience – you have in Germany”.

At which point we had reached the coffee and the few remaining pastries.

The minister simply said: “Ah, interesting” and we went our separate ways.

I often think about that conversation as I witness the virulent spread and baleful effects of compliance, conformity and standardisation throughout our systems of learning and teaching. Of course, given our traditions, many do stick two-fingers in the air and manage to develop and provide wonderful, creative learning experiences. But so often that is done despite not because of the systems in place. And while eccentricity and creativity still survive and occasionally thrive, we keep quiet about it, hoping that ‘they’ won’t notice while they obsess about ticking the quality assurance boxes, and obtaining the data to put in the institutional KIS (Key Information Set) data. It’s worth remembering that KIS also means Keep It Simple!

From out of the educational wilderness…towards what?

Two things became clear to me this week, both connected with education.

The first, I suspect, has been clear to many for quite some time, so I’m just ‘keeping up at the back’ on that one. The second one is far less publicly obvious, but I reckon is rather more insidious than the first.

The first is that the Tories have probably given up on the idea of winning the next election (my predictive text insisted on ‘ejection’!) and forming a government. So they have embarked on a mission to change the educational landscape so fundamentally and significantly that no government will be able to undo or reverse – within the lifetime of that government or even just a lifetime – any of the changes that have been wrought.

The second thing that occurred to me, which became obvious at a meeting I attended at the Department for Education (DfE) on the reform of ‘A’ levels, is that the ideological pressure is now so great that the language of education is being changed fundamentally,  literally as we speak it and write it.

Others have commented – in various and many articles and blogs  – how words and phrases such as ‘child-centred’ and ‘progressive’ that used to have such a positive, hopeful meaning now attract only scorn and derision from those who deign to govern us. There has also been a great deal of concern and comment regarding the constant dismissal and consequent erosion of the arts – which, by their nature, tend to be child-centred and progressive – in the national curriculum and in the media discourses on education. It’s all about STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics.

It’s also worth noting that the academies and free schools, that are so favoured by our government, are not tied to the national curriculum, so other measures (see below) are required to ensure the focus on STEM is maintained.

Recently the ideological focus has expanded to encompass not only the primary and secondary sectors, but also the tertiary sector and higher education (note: Mr. Gove has admitted in print that he would love to have the whole educational system under his guiding wing at the Dept. for Education).

To accompany and support this expanded focus, and to maintain the ideological commitment to STEM, we have had to adopt a new vocabulary of educational double-speak, in which some ‘A’ levels are designated ‘facilitating subjects’ for entry into a ‘good university’, while others – mainly but not only arts subjects – are designated ‘non-facilitating subjects’. In addition, Ofqual (the government agency responsible for all qualifications in the schools’ sector) has decreed that all ‘A’ levels must be designated as either ‘exam-assessed’ or ‘non-exam assessed’, the latter referring to any form of assessment that is not a traditional, sit-down, written examination: a not uncommon phenomenon in the arts. What is astonishing is that the nice, seemingly intelligent people at Ofqual and the DfE insist that there is absolutely no implication of value in that language. They insist that all subjects are regarded as equal, despite the unequivocal evidence that some are clearly more equal than others. The baleful consequences can be seen in the growing list of schools that have deleted arts subjects from the list of A levels they offer.

Our political leaders have taken it upon themselves to lead us out from what they perceive as the desert of educational disaster – in which we have been wandering for at least  40 years – and to enter the promised land flowing with STEM and increased PISA scores. When it comes to education, particularly in England, they are guided not by the evidence provided by years of careful, rigorous research by educational researchers, nor by the evidence provided by scientists in new and potentially paradigm-shifting fields such as educational neuroscience. Rather they stick a finger in the air to see which way the ideological wind is blowing, listen carefully to what their favourite soothsayer has to say on the evils of past educational discourses and practices, check that the pillar of right-teous ire that is the Daily Mail is well and truly behind them and that the pillar of smoke and mirrors is in front of them…and off they go, confident that the caste of pedagogic priests and disciplinarians that they have appointed will ensure obedience and silence dissent.

As we traipse reluctantly behind them, we look back to see the tattered tents and banners of genuine, life-enriching and life-enhancing education left blowin’ in the wind.

On history and all that (Part 2): a marvellous lesson

I was once privileged to witness the most marvellous history lesson…taught by a drama teacher.

It was in a comprehensive school. The students, a mixed class of girls and boys, were taking GCSE History, and the theme was England in the 17th century. The ‘teacher’ was Dorothy Heathcote, the eminent and inspirational drama education specialist. (For those who have never heard of her, do read this http://www.mantleoftheexpert.com/community/about-us/dorothy-heathcote/.)

One of the things Dorothy used to say was that the most powerful word in education is the word ‘might’. Ask a child “what IS the answer to this?” pre-supposes there is a single ‘right’ answer. It’s a closed question. But ask “what MIGHT be the answer to this?”, then you open up the possibilities, the curiosity, the imagination.

The environment was a standard classroom, with melamine tables and plastic chairs.

The session started with Dorothy hanging three large blank sheets of paper on the wall. On the top of one she wrote: ‘I know this about the 17th century’. On the second she wrote ‘I think I know this about the 17th century’. On the third she wrote ‘I’d like to know this about the 17th century’.

She then asked the students to fill out each paper. Not a great deal went on the first one. A bit more went on the second one. A quite a bit more on the third one.

Dorothy then quickly went through each one, checking to see if there was any more to be added.

She then asked the students to get into groups of two or three, and gave each group a set of photocopied sheets of paper. They were taken from one of those guides to antique furniture, and contained images and information about 17th century tables and chairs

Dorothy asked each group to look at the images and read the information, and then to select one – either a table or chair.

She then announced that from that moment on the classroom was now Heathcote’s Expert Antique Restoration Workshop. The students were now all experts at restoring antique furniture, and she was in charge. She then, pointing to the classroom tables and chairs, asked the workers to start restoring the piece of furniture they had selected.

Notwithstanding a bit of embarrassed bewilderment, the students started to ‘work’ on their chosen item: inspecting it, discussing what might be wrong with it, what needed repairing, starting to repair it, etc.

Dorothy walked round inspecting the work, and would ask questions. A typical exchange would be as follows:

Dorothy: What have you got there?

Student: It’s an oak dining chair, Miss.

D: Where’s it from?

S: Something Hall, Miss. I think it’s one of those big houses. [they’d read that on the sheet]

D: What’s wrong with it?

S: Er…it’s got a big split. [that wasn’t on the sheet]

D: Any idea how that split might have occurred?

S: Not sure, Miss. But there’s some scorch marks around the split, so we reckon it was in a fire and perhaps got chucked out of a window. [definitely not on the sheet!]

D: And how do you reckon that might have happened?

And you could see the students’ imagination switch into gear, and out came stories about corridors, and candles, and late night trysts, and a chase, and a dropped candle, and the panic, and the servants being woken up and being ordered to save the furniture, and the chair being thrown out of a high window….

Each group created and shared its own story, using what they knew, what they thought they knew, and what they imagined. And slowly but surely, a real sense of 17th century life began to be created and understood.

After a short break, the session re-started. Now two new characters were introduced along with a set of typical everyday ’17th century’ artifacts e.g: a ring, a quill and ink, a bell, a hand written letter, a pamphlet, etc. The characters – played by actors – were the lady of the house, and a male servant. Each sat at each end of the room, and the students – moving between the two – could ask them questions about their lives, and about the various artifacts which they could touch and examine, each of which had a story attached to it.

As in the first session, layer upon layer of knowledge and understanding gradually was created.

At the end of the session, Dorothy returned to the three sheets of paper, and once more asked the students to fill them in. This time round, what had been the sparsely filled ‘I know this…’ sheet was now filled – confidently and, in some cases, passionately – with information.

The obvious lesson, from this history lesson, was that it’s our natural curiosity about people, our ability to imagination the world through a different pair of eyes, and our love of stories, that powers our understanding of history. Facts and chronologies, of themselves, do not an understanding of history make. But engendering curiosity, imagination and, indeed, passion, might well encourage the pursuit of the factual.