Talking of learning things because they'll be ‘important later on’, I fell for that in a big way fifty years ago. I was quite good at maths at school and believed people who told me that maths is an absolute essential. I even studied it, nearly failed my degree because it turned out that university-level maths has little to do with school maths, and became a maths teacher because ... well ... what else could I do? And, of course, I'd been told everyone ought to do maths because it is an absolute essential. So I told my pupils that everyone ought to do maths because it is an absolute essential.
I soon left teaching (still vaguely believing that everyone ought to do maths because it is an absolute essential, though initial doubts were at last beginning to sprout) and ended up in a technically-biased civil service job in water management working with computers. Just the sort of place where you'ld expect all that maths to come in useful. It didn't. At least not remotely such as to justify all that time I'd spent learning it, studying it and teaching it.
Now I believe that maths is an absolute essential for an extremely small proportion of people who are interested in it, and these days the rest of us can ask an AI bot.
Sorry if this sounds a bit exaggerated when compressed into a short comment, so take it with a pinch of salt. But the bottom line remains: Let's stop traumatizing people with fairy stories about having to do ... [replace the dots with a school subject of your choice] whether you're motivated or not because it's an absolute essential.
“What does education often do?” Henry David Thoreau asked in his journal, answering: “It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook.” Indeed. The way I think I'll put it from now on, aside from this wonderful quote, is: Telling a young person what to be interested in is a fool-proof recipe for apathy.
Thank you for writing this. I knew if I made my son read for 15 min a day he would refuse, would turn him off reading. Its still true now, my son will naturally learn what he is interested in, but sticking to A level curriculum just isnt working.
As a parent of a child who is about to sit a GCSE exam in Maths this resonates so much! We have many conversations along the lines of 'why do I have to do this?' and 'because we live in a society that expects you to have a maths GCSE'. We both know that's a pretty rubbish reason.
This made me feel extremely sad. I was thinking of reading "Motivated Teaching: Harnessing the science of motivation to boost attention and effort in the classroom (High Impact Teaching Book 3)" by Peps Maccrea, and was wondering if anyone here has read it, and if so, what their thoughts were.
I'm not sure schools could handle kids having choice. And I liked your point about the science of motivation. In general, policy isn't informed by facts.
Talking of learning things because they'll be ‘important later on’, I fell for that in a big way fifty years ago. I was quite good at maths at school and believed people who told me that maths is an absolute essential. I even studied it, nearly failed my degree because it turned out that university-level maths has little to do with school maths, and became a maths teacher because ... well ... what else could I do? And, of course, I'd been told everyone ought to do maths because it is an absolute essential. So I told my pupils that everyone ought to do maths because it is an absolute essential.
I soon left teaching (still vaguely believing that everyone ought to do maths because it is an absolute essential, though initial doubts were at last beginning to sprout) and ended up in a technically-biased civil service job in water management working with computers. Just the sort of place where you'ld expect all that maths to come in useful. It didn't. At least not remotely such as to justify all that time I'd spent learning it, studying it and teaching it.
Now I believe that maths is an absolute essential for an extremely small proportion of people who are interested in it, and these days the rest of us can ask an AI bot.
Sorry if this sounds a bit exaggerated when compressed into a short comment, so take it with a pinch of salt. But the bottom line remains: Let's stop traumatizing people with fairy stories about having to do ... [replace the dots with a school subject of your choice] whether you're motivated or not because it's an absolute essential.
“What does education often do?” Henry David Thoreau asked in his journal, answering: “It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook.” Indeed. The way I think I'll put it from now on, aside from this wonderful quote, is: Telling a young person what to be interested in is a fool-proof recipe for apathy.
Thank you for writing this. I knew if I made my son read for 15 min a day he would refuse, would turn him off reading. Its still true now, my son will naturally learn what he is interested in, but sticking to A level curriculum just isnt working.
This is so on point: “It’s hard to stop young children learning, and their learning is very individualised and frequently messy.”
As a parent of a child who is about to sit a GCSE exam in Maths this resonates so much! We have many conversations along the lines of 'why do I have to do this?' and 'because we live in a society that expects you to have a maths GCSE'. We both know that's a pretty rubbish reason.
This made me feel extremely sad. I was thinking of reading "Motivated Teaching: Harnessing the science of motivation to boost attention and effort in the classroom (High Impact Teaching Book 3)" by Peps Maccrea, and was wondering if anyone here has read it, and if so, what their thoughts were.
I'm not sure schools could handle kids having choice. And I liked your point about the science of motivation. In general, policy isn't informed by facts.
Can I suggest this awesome book, written by a past teaching colleague of mine
https://www.fishpond.co.nz/Books/Disobedient-Teaching-Welby-Ings/9781927322666?gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD_dOfpO0XcokOvq-iQGkgFBzbaXO&gclid=CjwKCAjwgfm3BhBeEiwAFfxrG2lmjLmFYaeKmJ9AGetBhTDWK-sSN35YAhN8TLWFBlPRzURVVUGN-xoCRWoQAvD_BwE