A Place of Joy and Learning – and critical thinking
My first year at senior school coincided with a young teacher’s first teaching job at the same school.
This was a tough school and I won’t pull any punches – I hated pretty much every day of the five years I suffered there. And suffer I did. I won’t go into detail about the casual, routine violence. The verbal assaults were at least as vicious as the physical ones. And they were many, and were vicious. The worst abuse came from the ‘clever’ kids. I will never know why the ability to count different coloured beans and put them in the right boxes or the ability to state Boyle's Law could be considered to make someone a better person. Frankly, the intellectual bullies were much worse than the physical bullies. The mental scars were the ones that hurt the worst and stayed the longest. I remain deeply suspicious of all theoretico-elitist models which raise a dictatorship of the clever over the ordinary folk, in whatever form I find them. But I survived. And I survived and did so whilst learning to value intelligence, learning, knowledge and know-how all the more, seeing the value of expertise in any field and not dismissing it as ‘elitism.’ I didn’t reject education, only particular kinds of it.
I loathed the school I went to and can tend to react with some fire and fury whenever schools are mentioned. Of course, there were good times and happy memories. But they were all part of growing up. The schooling, in the main, was an abomination (there were exceptions, I loved history, English and French, and the teachers I had here were very good).
If pushed, you will find me agreeing with John Holt:
“Education, with its supporting system of compulsory and competitive schooling, all its carrots and sticks, its grades, diplomas and credentials, now seems to me perhaps the most authoritarian and dangerous of all the social inventions of mankind. It is the deepest foundation of the modern slave state, in which most people feel themselves to be nothing but producers, consumers, spectators, and ‘fans,’ driven more and more, in all parts of their lives, by greed, envy, and fear.”
Holt wasn’t just critical of this or that form of education, but of education itself. Rather than reform education we should 'end the ugly and antihuman business of people-shaping', and facilitate the means to let people shape themselves. That sounds good to me. And I’ll go for that ‘if pushed’ too far by certain kinds of schooling. But it still begs the question: ‘how?’
And I have family and friends who work hard and work well in the education system, and point to the real changes in turning lives around for the better. So, after delivering my tales of horror, I calm down and see the case they make education.
Here is where my old teacher comes in. If it was bad for me, imagine, then, being one of just four or five female teachers in an all boys’ senior school, and a rough old place at that. Because this was the position of my old teacher in her first teaching job. She disagrees with my outright rejection of the education system. She thinks you can work from the inside and make changes for the better with that approach. It is much harder work than outright rejection, is infinitely more rewarding than carping from the outside, and can deliver enduring changes.
All those years ago, she was Miss Gornell, a young teacher at her first school. She is now Mrs Carole Lawrenson, headmistress at Spinney Avenue Primary School, described as an ‘Advanced Thinking School’. She saw my criticisms, we had a lively exchange of views, and she invited me to examine the approach her school takes to learning. I calmed down, and took her up on the invitation. And I responded positively to all she and her staff do at the school. I like the approach taken, and told the school so.
Here’s a few things from the Vision and Values:
Friendship: We are a friendly school and look out for each other.
Hope: We help each other are see opportunities and ways of sorting out problems.
Humility: We do things for each other and value everyone’s strength.
Justice: We accept responsibility for our own actions and respect fairness.
Koinonia: We are all members of ‘one’, everyone has something to offer.
Peace: We work together and hope others resolve conflicts.
Wisdom: We are a thinking school and we are on a learning Journey.
It’s all here, and more: Diversity of activities, a wealth of materials, making learning a joy, even, and especially, that learning focusing on weaknesses. There is a flexibility that is built in to the approach. Practice only makes perfect if you are doing the right thing.
I quoted John Holt and his criticism of an education system that makes us passive dupes driven by greed, envy and fear. He wanted to replace people-shaping with people shaping themselves. This school tries to crack that old problem of agency and structure, each informing the other as an endlessly recursive process. That requires a balance between approaches that are too guided from one angle and too open-ended from another. This school attempts to achieve that balance. The approach finds out what the children ‘would like to learn about’, so long as they have done their research, then the learning is structured according to where interest and curiosity lies.
The approach stimulates learners by engaging their interests and ensuring their ongoing commitment as learning proceeds. Children are involved in something meaningful, and something that has meaning for them. A learning that lacks meaning has little value. If I didn't see meaning, I didn't bother learning.
The structured approach and the social context in which learning takes place elevates Spinney above Holt’s ideas on home education, offering an approach that prepares children for further educational attainment and employment but also emphasises social interaction and integration. I love the inclusive approach, the emphasis on cohesion and community. There is a ‘recognized need that there must be cohesion within our communities’. I like it. We are social beings as well as individuals. We need each other to be ourselves, meaning that we need to learn to relate to each other in mutual respect. And I love the awareness of the need to generate the social and cultural resources to address the social impoverishment suffered by many families, with all the obstacles that this places in the way to learning.
At Spinney I see children enjoying themselves, learning and thriving in a school which encourages them to ‘think for themselves’.
The first thing I look for is a vision, a statement that expresses an ideal. The best planning is idealistic. In any piece of work I encourage learners to envision futures that they would like to see, challenging them to think through their own values about the importance of whatever it is they are studying. So I immediately pick up on the description ‘Advanced thinking school’. It’s a clear and powerful statement. It’s the application of intelligence that matters, not just the acquisition of knowledge. This approach activates the learners and sees them as more than passive vessels to be filled up from the outside. I can’t add anything. It’s all here: thinking maps, thinking hats …
I emphasise critical thinking over above knowledge. (Of course, it’s not an either/or). The problems we face are not going to be resolved by the accumulation of knowledge, no matter how strong the research behind it.
I argue for good critical thinking that has practical implications, human beings becoming knowledgeable change agents in their lives. I want to see a thinking society. (A thinking school implies a thinking society).
Scientists and biologists like James Lovelock, Richard Dawkins, E.O. Wilson, Stephen Hawking have all argued the need for humanity to develop a long range, strategic thinking capacity. I also remember Bronowski talking about interlocking the activities of the different parts of the brain so as to develop a plan, a grand overall way of life, a system of values. This is the model for learning and the learning society in the 21st century. Critical thinking, collaboration and problem-solving proceed hand-in-hand.
'Questioning and posing problems’. By using the questioning approach, we use the critical thinking approach and so get closer to the right answers.
Habits of mind
Yes! Practice only makes perfect if you are doing the right thing in the first place. Aristotle was big on developing the right habits - you are what you repeatedly do. Aquinas, too, emphasizes the appropriate habitus for the acquisition of the virtues. I like habits. Good habits, that is.
I love the interplay between agency and structures, going from spontaneity with respect to interests to organisation and back again. It’s the kind of interaction that generates and fulfils learning needs.
I like the humour in the school. And the participatory approach. Learners learn best when they are involved and engaged in their own learning. I like the emphasis on participation, partnership, the sense of co-ownership: the learners are involved and there are plenty of paths provided to encourage involvement.
‘We do things a bit differently here.’ Yes! As one who always did things differently, I’m punching the air when I write this. I did always try at school. When it looked as though I wasn't trying, it was because I didn't know what I was doing. And I found it stressful.
We ‘invite you to our world.’ ‘Our’ world, indicating a sense of collective identity. Everyone has a name, and are not just a number. I wasn’t even on the school leaving photo at junior school. Learning is a team game – and there’s a role on the team for everyone.
Joy of discovery. Learning is a joy, if it is the creative unfolding of immanent potentialities; it is a creative self-realisation: ‘solving problems, being creative, developing our self-confidence as learners and maturing socially and emotionally.’
I can’t add anything. Without confidence it is well-nigh impossible to mature socially and emotionally. Educate the whole person.
Self-confidence comes from that sense of owning one’s own learning. ‘We are given responsibility for our own learning’. That’s it in a nutshell.
I see learning as a never ending journey that strengthens us, enriches our experience and heightens our aliveness. It is an active process built on confidence and hope - active hope. Whatever the learning context, we are able to choose our own response. The way we respond to challenges depends on the extent to which we believe our actions matter, and this is all shaped by the way we think and feel about what we are doing, whether or not it has purpose and meaning, has an end that is worthwhile and attainable. Learners need to see the goal/s they are set, they need to be within reach. If they are involved in setting those goal/s, the more likely it is they will strive to attain them.
I love the contrast between the products of the old, ‘miserable’ approach and the happy, active children, full of energy: ‘this is what we need to build our school for, not this.’ Agree very much. I was on the receiving end of that old, ‘miserable’ approach for years. I was lucky that it didn’t put me off learning, only schools. Hence my interest in John Holt’s home education. But I was lucky enough to make it to a sixth form at another school that could identify and work with potential. Two years here were worth more than all the years wasted elsewhere.
Traditional lessons are a child’s worst nightmare!!!! I’m still having that nightmare!! ‘He’s so stupid! Thick!!’ I heard this from both pupils and (not so bluntly, and to a lesser extent) teachers. ‘He’ll find his own level’, one teacher told my parents with a smirk at a Parent-Teacher meeting. I did. And it was way above where he thought I’d end up.
Here at Spinney, children are given something interesting to react to, designed for immediate response. I like the provision of lots of materials. I like the dialogical versus the didactic approach. And instead of pupils sleeping, they face each other and feed off each other.
I love the noise. I don’t think I could cope with it as a teacher, mind, but I would have loved it as a pupil. I always thought that fear of being caught talking in class was counter-productive. ‘No silence! Every child is engaged.’ I would chatter away at school. It just makes sense to use that activity rather than suppress it.
Teaching and teaching techniques.
How to strengthen the ability to develop the innate gifts, to strengthen capacities for thinking and acting so that each can best play their part in relation to all others.
This is what I see with respect to cognitive education – learners are sceptical of theory/knowledge that comes at them from the outside, emphasising the need for involvement in changing themselves and their world – ‘our world’ - generating new knowledge and a sense of ownership and belonging.
Thinking schools, thinking hats. The old approach created children who are spoon fed. If you spoon feed pupils, all they learn is the shape of the spoon. That’s knowledge without content, changing nothing in the learner.
Feelings, yes, colours provoking thinking. I like to see reason working with emotions, intuitions, and feelings, creating the integral personality capable of using all the faculties.
Philosophy for Children!!! Yes!!!
Encouraging children to be enquirers!!! Yes!!!
Kinaesthetic learning – learning by doing. Application, practice. Many a footballer or rugby player couldn’t state the rules of the game, but they still know how to play it.
I like the emphasis on enquiry based learning.
‘Help children to learn how to ask good questions and to independently have the understanding and expertise to find good questions.’ I couldn’t define philosophy any better – it is about framing the questions, not supplying the answers.
‘A place where children thrive and become successful learners.’
I like word ‘thrive’. I follow Aristotle and his view of eudaimonia, normally translated as ‘happiness’ but really meaning ‘flourishing’ in the sense of the realisation and exercise of innate potentialities. That’s what I count as success.
‘We promote learning as a lifelong journey, everyone, including the oldest and youngest, is on the same journey.’
Everyone. We remain learners so long as we live. I think it was Muhammad Ali who said, show me a man at 60 who thinks the same as he thought at 40, and I’ll show you a man who has wasted 20 years.
Opportunities to learn.
Provide opportunities to learn and they will be taken. Just allow the natural curiosity to unfold. And I like the emphasis on finding opportunities to learn outside of the classroom. Estrangement from the social and natural environment is becoming a big problem.
Self-directed learning fosters a sense of ownership and responsibility.
Play, creativity, music. I read yet another study emphasising how these things enhance connectivity, both within with respect to neural connections, and without, with respect to social life. It’s all networks, social epigenetics, nature’s web of life – I emphasise play, creativity, art, imagination, music.
Seven Pillars of Learning
A clear statement of principles, establishing a foundation and giving a declaration of intent that all can understand.
Evaluation, autonomy, independence, creativity, communication, clarity, imagination, flexibility and adaptability, problem solving, critical thinking, responsibility, self-organisation, cooperation, collaboration … it’s the full set! That’s the whole toolkit!
‘We have project work similar to university students’.
This is far superior to what I experienced. In my experience, the approach here creates more independent, proactive learners – some university students like to be spoonfed and approach me with requests to give them the answers to the questions they have been set. The tasks are designed for a purpose, to get students to do their own research and think. There is a reason tasks are set the way they are, they are designed to get students thinking, accessing and evaluating materials, making appropriate choices in selection and argumentation. It’s the process that matters not just the final conclusions drawn. Spinney pupils ‘get it’.
‘This is how teaching should be nowadays, the world is a different place to 10-20 years ago’.
“intelligent behaviours in response to problems and dilemmas when faced with uncertain or challenging situations”, “habits develop thoughtful, compassionate and cooperative actions.” All good.
Instead of just passively receiving information, Spinney children are ‘good thinkers’. They ‘do something’ with the knowledge. It’s the application of intelligence that matters. This is exactly what we need.
It’s that thinking capacity that the world is crying out for, reason with its moral component in place.
‘A thinking school’ in which pupils learn to ‘think for themselves’. It shows that learning and joy go together.
You know this about educare, that drawing out of something that is already present. That’s the education I affirm – the drawing out of innate abilities and intellectual curiosity. It’s about setting the challenge, stimulating an interest, providing meaning. Do this, something powerful gets switched on inside, and learners will rise to the occasion. And learning is a joint endeavour. I love the interaction between teachers and pupils, that dialogic over against the didactic approach. Any learning worthy of the name activates our sense of purpose and enables us to discover strengths that were latent inside us. And learning is a change in behaviour. Seeing that we are changing, developing, having an impact, making a difference is powerfully enlivening and enabling. In practising learning in this way, we give and receive at the same time. The process feeds itself in that we create a virtuous cycle in which we join together in a mutual growth.
‘We promote learning as a lifelong journey, everyone, including the oldest and youngest, is on the same journey.’
That is just so right. Learning is not just about getting gold stars and passing exams but about stepping into that active state of aliveness that makes living so profoundly fulfilling. And that is perfectly compatible with success at examinations, too. It’s not an either/or.
There is a commitment to ‘provide excellence for gifted and talented’. The commitment to social equality is not based on resentment for those who excel, far from it. Instead, there is a focus on excellence as the best that people can be. And we may all cultivate our virtues in aiming for excellence. And we rise with each other, not over one another. As one of the Seven Pillars puts it, we ‘collaborate and support each other.’ The collaborative model of learning carries on outside of formal schooling into society, affirming the principle that we achieve much more working together than we do as separate individuals.
The references to co-ownership, collaboration, communication, say it all. ‘We are given responsibility for our own learning’. It’s a co-responsibility. Learning as joint ownership and as mutual growth.
What I have seen here confirms my views that creativity should be stimulated, questioning encouraged; that discipline is in large part a self-discipline based upon a shared responsibility in learning, and that, given greater freedom, the right environment and plenty of activities and materials, the natural curiosity of children will be stimulated.
I haven’t read him for years now, but I always liked Bertrand Russell (I disagree with plenty he says about my favourite philosophers, mind ...). He started his own school at Beacon Hill. He thought that human growth would be better served ‘by an attempt at providing a really modern education which, instead of training young children to maintain every prejudice of traditional society, or teaching them new dogmas, should try to help them to think and work for themselves, and so fit them for meeting the problems of the changing world they will have to face when they grow up. This was what we set out to do in our school.'
Great in principle. I think Russell struggled to make it work in practice. You state the problems well, social inequality and impoverishment, different backgrounds and expectations. But I can see a similarity with Russell’s belief:
“My own belief is that education must be subversive if it is to be meaningful. By this I mean that it must challenge all the things we take for granted, examine all accepted assumptions, tamper with every sacred cow, and instill a desire to question and doubt. Without this, the mere instruction to memorize data is empty. The attempt to enforce conventional mediocrity on the young is criminal.”
I can see that there would be something called a Spinney child. I can see how, with this approach, a wide range of materials, and a supportive, stimulating environment, a Spinney child can develop to become an integral personality. It’s about educating the whole person.
I retain a soft spot for A.S. Neill’s Summerhill, where my old Director of Studies attended (Jules Townshend, good fellow he is). “All crimes, all hatreds, all wars can be reduced to unhappiness” wrote A. S. Neill.
"Summerhill is a real place, not a utopia. Living in a community of around 100 people is not always easy. Everybody is learning about themselves, and on a bleak January day, with the east wind blowing, things are sometimes not wonderful! But Summerhill in summer time is lush, green and not unlike never-never land. It is more of a family or tribe than a school - full of companionship, laughter and real feelings. For many Summerhill pupils it becomes the most meaningful experience in their lives".
Zoë Neill Readhead, Principal of Summerhill
Summerhill and its notion of democratic schooling is well worth investigating.
'The important freedom at Summerhill is the right to play. All lessons are optional. There is no pressure to conform to adult ideas of growing up, though the community itself has expectations of reasonable conduct from all individuals.... Summerhill is a happy and caring community that recognises the importance of expressing emotions and learning through feelings. There is a general openness and honesty among the community members. Staff do not use adult authority to impose values and solve problems; these are solved by the individual with the help of friends or ombudsmen or by the community in meetings.'
On its October 2011 visit, Ofsted inspectors praised "outstanding pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development", teaching that was "never less than good with some outstanding features", "learning … closely tailored to match pupils' individual needs", "outstanding behaviour" and "positive relationships".
Interesting. Some benefit from freedom. But freedom, taking responsibility for one's actions, with others, can be onerous. Some likes rules, regulation and order. I can see the advantage of a middle way between the conventional and the anarchic. As a good Aristotelian, I like the middle way.
And I like Aristotle's opening to his Metaphysics that all men 'desire to know.' But how do we know and what do we do with that knowledge?
In the words of Wally Olins: 'Wealth in the past used to be based on the ownership of land, then, more recently on the capacity to make things. Increasingly, today, it is based on knowledge and on the ability to use that knowledge.' The application of intelligence.
Charles Handy writes of the ‘Triple I Organisation.’
“The new formula for success, and for effectiveness, is I3 = AV, where I stands for Intelligence, Information and Ideas, and AV means added value in cash or in kind. In a competitive information society brains on their own are not enough, they need good information to work with and ideas to build on if they are going to make value out of knowledge.” (Handy 2002 ch 6).
Handy has missed out a fourth ‘I’ – Imagination. Spinney hasn’t: ‘demonstrate imagination in tasks and activities’. Yes! When I read the criticism that the old approaches ‘stop horizons from being broad and stop the imagination from wondering’ I couldn’t help but think of William Blake and his figure of Urizen – the way that an overly rational approach narrows horizons, and the way we can alter that approach via imagination. Urizen is not just the narrow horizon, it is ‘your reason’. We can change the way we reason, the way we think and therefore act. Spinney is doing that.
I wish the school well. I wrote and told them so, and my words were appreciated by one and all. There’s enough here to convince an indurate old sceptic of the education system such as myself, with a quite violent hatred of schools in the past, to take another look and admit I may well be wrong – that it is indeed possible to work within the system and achieve real changes for the better; it is much harder than criticizing from the outside, but much more worthwhile.