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.
I have been reflecting recently on how completely insane GCSEs (and A levels) are! No adult would take on ten different classes at once (or even five at once!), knowing they would all be assessed in the same week at a point in time decided by someone else.
You are absolutely right that exams (and parents and teachers worried about exams) push children to study what they find easy rather than what they are interested in. When I started my A Levels I wanted to study textiles. I hadn't studied it at GCSE but I had recently become very interested in Japanese street fashion and cosplay and wanted to learn a new skill. After several conversations with my teachers about how it might be difficult to "catch up" and that my grades in other subjects might be affected, I lost my confidence and switched to yet another essay subject.
Then, when I got my AS level results my lowest grade was in Photography--a subjected I loved--and my highest was in sociology, which I found easy and boring. The assumption of my teachers was that I would drop photography in order to maximise my grades. Thankfully I fought that one and kept pursuing my favourite subject.
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.”
I have been reflecting recently on how completely insane GCSEs (and A levels) are! No adult would take on ten different classes at once (or even five at once!), knowing they would all be assessed in the same week at a point in time decided by someone else.
You are absolutely right that exams (and parents and teachers worried about exams) push children to study what they find easy rather than what they are interested in. When I started my A Levels I wanted to study textiles. I hadn't studied it at GCSE but I had recently become very interested in Japanese street fashion and cosplay and wanted to learn a new skill. After several conversations with my teachers about how it might be difficult to "catch up" and that my grades in other subjects might be affected, I lost my confidence and switched to yet another essay subject.
Then, when I got my AS level results my lowest grade was in Photography--a subjected I loved--and my highest was in sociology, which I found easy and boring. The assumption of my teachers was that I would drop photography in order to maximise my grades. Thankfully I fought that one and kept pursuing my favourite subject.
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