Education

 

To state the obvious our Education System is fundamental to the long term vitality of our society - So what of our education system?

The present Scottish Government is promoting change through its "Curriculum for Excellence" initiative. Its aims are to enable each young person:

A recently retired Head Master described the initiative as great in principle but chaotic in application. We believe that Margaret Wheatley's article, mentioned elsewhere on this site, is highly relevant. Her article How Large-Scale Change Really happens - Working with Emergence - tells the story of the centrally directed change programme for the education system by the Bush Administration in the USA. It had negative and damaging consequences.

We would be critical of the initiative in that it is not holistic. It fails to address major problems; for example it fails to modernise how the Education budget is managed. The disease of managing complex systems by measurable figures alone, in this case predominately qualifications, is a major factor in distorting our education system and destroying the love of learning of pupils and students. There is only superficial recognition of the other major players in our education system such as parents, the media and organisations who employ graduates. The University system has not been touched by the initiative. Finally we, as yet, have not detected an appreciation of the underpinning knowledge that is readily available in context of:

Eminent thinkers in the above two spheres of "Learning" and "Management" were Reuven Feuerstein and W Edwards Deming. Myron Tribus wrote the article "Quality in Education according to the Teachings of Feuerstein and Deming." It shows how the thinking in teaching and management is in fact interrelated.

The Deming Learning Network facilitated a meeting of a broad range of Educators at Strathclyde University in September of 2009. The group contained a University Professor, a Head Master, A representative of Home Schooling, The Feuerstein methodology, A Government employee, Community Education etc. Following this meeting a report was prepared by the DLN under the title of "An Outside View of the Design of our Holistic Education System." It has been submitted to The Scottish Government and to The Minister of Education.

John Raven

John has been studying our education system for the past 30 years. He is highly critical. His thoughts are expanded in his book - The New Wealth of Nations" and the book he co-edited "Competence in the Learning Society."

He considers that an enormous amount of time and effort is wasted conveying and assessing knowledge that is out of date when it is taught, does not relate to people’s problems, and is forgotten by the time it is needed. On the other hand little is done to nurture qualities like the confidence and initiative to introduce change and, perhaps more importantly, to nurture the diverse talents people possess (and that are needed by society) in such a way that people can capitalise upon them in their future lives.

The result is that at present some two thirds of the resources spent on education are wasted so far as the development of human resources is concerned.

There are many reasons for this. There is little formal understanding of how to nurture qualities like self confidence and the ability to understand and influence organisations. There is even less understanding of how to recognise such talents so that people can capitalise on them in their future lives.

But even these things do not get to the heart of the problem. The educational system, perhaps more than any other, has fallen prey to the implicit command and control theory of management that lies at the heart of so many of our problems. There has been virtually no attempt to establish the educational system as a mini “learning society”. (These comments are expanded in John Raven's article "Opportunities in Education" - you may also wish to visit his web site www.eyeonsociety.co.uk )

 

Feuerstein Methodology  - How we Learn

Reuven Feuerstein is an Israel who has for the past 50 years been studying how we learn. He has been working predominately with children with a learning disability. From this work he has recognised that we have "cognitive pathways" that we can all develop and strengthen, with the appropriate methods. In other words we can develop our skills in "how we learn." You can visit the Feuerstein web site which goes under the name of The International Center for the Enhancement of Learning Potential

Billy O'Neill some 12 years ago recognised that our education system was failing the needs of our children, especially those who came from a disadvantaged background. He therefore, at his own expense, took himself off to Israel every summer to study under Reuven Feuerstein. He is now the Scottish representative of the Feuerstein methodology. His web site is http://www.feuersteintraining.co.uk  

The Scottish Borders is running a highly successful project using this methodology. The leader of the project is Anne Theresa Lawrie.

From the Reuven Feuerstein school of thought