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MAY 2024
10 May
17 May
24 May
31 May
Friday 10 May 2024.
Richard writes
Last month, and a little bit of this, Molly and I have used these blogs to give you some more details about the daily content and
programme for our School of the Air section which will begin in September 2024.
We have explained that this section has been specifically designed to help and benefit home educators. We have chosen as subjects
for our daily videos, those that have less material available for people who do home educate. History, Nature and Geography not only have less
material for the home educator but can often be pushed aside within a school timetable.
That doesn't mean that our material cannot be used within a formal educational establishment either in a normal day or as a topic
for an after-school club. However, in this case, it is for teachers to decided if and how to include our material. Using resource material is
what they are trained to do; home educators, in the most cases, are not.
Molly and I do not advocate that everyone should be home educated, far from it. We do think that the present education system in
England is out-dated and is not really fit for purpose. It does not allow for the fact that every young person is different, learns differently,
has different needs and interests. In fact conventional school tries to make everyone the same, learn at the same speed and obtain the same results
in a set of standardised tests taken at the same age. In an ideal world we would agree with the late Sir Ken Robinson that “The answer is to personalise
and customise education to the needs of each child and community. There is no alternative.” At the moment we haven't worked out a practical way to
do this but.......watch this space.
It is for individual parents to decide how their own child should be educated. Most will have little choice but to select the conventional
school approach and so be it. All we are trying to do is ensure that those who choose to home educate or end up having to home educate, have high-quality,
innovative and fun learning material. We do not adhere to any national curriculum as those only apply to state-run schools anyway. But,as I said, we know
that quality teachers, which means most of the profession, will be able to adapt our material to fit within their structured lessons.
Alongside that aim of providing this material for home educators we also want to encourage, or even excite, children to get outside, take a
look at their world. When I was at primary school we had lessons labelled as nature study and we did just that. Today, in a world built around modern
technology we, and young people in particular, are becoming far less a part of the nature that is us and is real and more a part of a machine that is
created by us and has no soul, no feelings and definitely, apart from how it was designed, no awe and wonder that we can admire and be thankful that
we are a part of.
That is our aim. People say modern technology has gone too far and we can't stop it. That is not a fact; it is a refusal to make a change.
Just because something exists for us to use doesn't mean we must use it but if we are part of something that has existed for millennia it is almost our
duty to be a part of it, use it to calm our souls and enjoy living within it. You can exist using modern technology, so I'm told; you can live in nature,
in life, in the beautiful world that is all around us.
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Friday 17 May 2024.
Richard writes
I listened intently to Sir Keir Starmer yesterday. No, I didn't. I read what to me were the relevant parts of his speech
afterwards. Maybe he will be our next Prime Minister, use of Litotes here. I had, go back to my blog of March 22nd,
here, been marginally
encouraged by the words of the shadow education minister then and I was now, marginally, encouraged by the words of Sir Keir, particular
step six.
I use the word marginally with some fear as it was in the margins of my "A" level History, Economics and Government (for some
reason it was called British Constitution which, in my surreal eyes, meant all of it should have been unwritten) essays, my teachers would
write what I could have done to improve things. I therefore hope that what I have heard from Ms Phillipson and now from Sir Keir will not,
in five years time, need any notes as to how they could have done better.
First he said there would be 6,500 extra teachers, easy if he was Paul Daniels, less so as a politician. To be honest all he
can, and I hope will, do is provide sufficient funds to train and employ these new teachers. But 6,500 extra teachers in the same,
crumbling schools as we have now is not the answer. We need more schools so we can have smaller classes, a point clearly made by Molly
in our last educational podcast, May 2024, the written version of which, if there was one, could exceed War and Peace in length (only joking, go and
have a listen).
He was going to pay for this by removing the tax breaks for private schools and, somewhat weirdly you may feel, I am happy
with that despite having had a private (damn he said private, don't tell Molly), public school education myself. If you want to, and
can afford to, spend money on your children's education, please do. If you may need to spend a bit more so we can improve all education,
I think you should.
He then said we need to prepare children for the lives they are actually going to live. Now reverting to my own education,
I must repeat something that I have said, and I believe in, many times. I feel I had a fantastic education in a great school. On my
final day there, the Head, an amazing guy called David Black-Hawkins, came over and spoke to my father. Later the gist of the conversation
was told to me. My dad said that dear old Mr Black Hawkins had told him that he didn't really care what qualifications pupils had when they
left his school as long as he and his staff had equipped them to enjoy their lives and deal with any problems they might encounter. 'I want
them to believe in themselves whatever any results may tell them', he said, 'because if they do that, then they will achieve everything they
want'. I can assure everyone that this snippet was a great influence, and confidence builder for the rest of my life. If you don't believe
that what happens and is said to you early in life can influence your whole life, you and I are at odds, mate.
And Sir Keir actually said that skills they get taught must be those they will need in life. He mentioned building confidence
and he also mentioned resilience and creativity. On my very first meeting with Molly she spoke to me about her belief in helping children
gain confidence and learn resilience. I don't remember if she mentioned creativity but two out of three ain't bad.
The fact is that what Sir Keir Starmer said he wanted to do was exactly what we, Molly and I, both believe in and are trying to
bring in to our learning material. I have long held the hope that one day our education system may be far less test and exam focussed and more
life and personal, individual, skills focused. The Sir Ken Robinson dictum that "Learning happens in the minds and souls, not in the databases
of multiple-choice tests" is exactly as I feel. Molly shares that view and, from that very first meeting, convinced me of her passion to try
and make a change while also teaching me some things about the general learning process.
Sir Keir finished by saying that he wanted every child, whatever their background, to think success belongs to them and that they
don't have to change who they are to get on. Molly and I are, from two totally different routes, where we are today, doing what we do today,
because of who we are not what some piece of paper says we repeated from what someone had told us. We want that to apply to the young people of
today. We want to make the desire to learn infectious so that it becomes a passion to take through life not a duty that you need to fulfil.
Note to Sir Keir Starmer. Molly is not available as his new Education Secretary even though she'd be brilliant. She's on this journey
with me and how the hell she caught up after the massive start she gave me I have no idea. Let alone in life terms, I'd been working in education
for thirteen years before she was born.
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Friday 24 May 2024.
Richard writes
Friday again and already I am writing the penultimate blog for May. Why can't she write her own? Seriously, where is this year going?
It seems like only a few weeks ago we were starting to get over Christmas. Now, there are only 14 weeks to go until we open the doors on our School
of the Air. I suppose a better description might be that we need to break through the clouds and find our School of the Air.
And now there will be all the disruption of a general election hovering over us for the next five weeks. Until the result is known the
future path that education might take is unknown. It's obvious that changes are needed. We know there are not enough teachers but also, as we said
last week, there are not enough schools, even if we count the ones with crumbling roofs.
Many of us feel that the education system that is in place, including the way that everything is geared to, and pupils are judged on,
the result of examinations is wrong. The way we actually move children of different abilities with differing skills into a little funnel which gets
narrower and narrower as they progress through school is blatantly stifling. Not only because some children end up feeling a failure but also because
it destroys natural curiosity and eliminates the need for creativity.
As I've said before, if the school system is a success then, at age 11, every child will have the highest grade possible in their SAT tests
in Maths, English and Science. If that isn't a recipe for stamping out individuality then I don't know what is. Just like an Ofsted rating, these tests
are subjective because the people who set them decide what should be known.
We believe that instead of telling young children what they should know, we should stand back and help them find out what they want to know.
Support inquisitive learning. Encourage child-led learning. Get children outside and aware of the world around them. Watch them and you'll see their
progress without the need to test it.
Do I believe the next elected government will make what I believe are the necessary changes? The answer is the same as will I ever break Usain
Bolt's 100 metres world record of 9.58 seconds. In case you expect more of me than is possible, the answer is no. I no longer drive my car preceded by a
man with a red flag, why do we base our education system on a Victorian system which worked extremely well in removing the young of that time from the streets.
End of moan but sadly not the end of what I believe is actually the poor treatment of children. Next week I shall have some news about how you
can help us with the School of the Air.
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Friday 31 May 2024.
Richard writes
It's general election time. As children are doing GCSEs at the moment perhaps I could quote from Shakespeare. "When my
love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she lies.". Slight poetic licence as I'm not in love with any
politician but we all know every speech they make fits that quotation.
But, worse than that, how wrong can you get things? Rhetorical, as I think this can probably only be answered by a politician.
If you find your toe nails making holes in the ends of your socks, you don't just go and buy more socks or even bigger socks. If you suffer
from some allergy that makes you sneeze all the time, you don't just keep buying tissues or handkerchiefs.
However, it would appear that if children are showing more signs of mental health issues, you do put a mental health specialist
in every school. For some parties this means primary as well as secondary. I feel this is so wrong on quite a few counts.
Firstly, if the rise in these issues is indeed the case, then you should first look at the source of the problem. What is
upsetting these children's mental well-being. I would beg to suggest that there are in fact many reasons, some of which we could change
and some of which have been around for years and just because we never measured them, doesn't mean they weren't there.
Of course if that statement is true then actually mental health issues may not be rising, they may just have been identified,
talked about, more. As a child who had such issues, which I have carried on into adulthood, I would never suggest we should brush these
under the carpet or tell children to toughen up and pull themselves together. The issues exist. But are they mental health issues or, as
I have always treated mine, coping-with-life issues.
>
Qualified mental health experts did not solve my problems. Being administered a truth drug at age thirteen, prescribed a drug
called tofranil (which I recently discovered is used to treat depression - I was not depressed), and being forcibly removed from my home
and parents for nine weeks, solved nothing. I needed to work out how to cope with my own, very individual, problems.
I accept we have moved on from there. Safeguarding is an important part for anyone looking after children. But the "moved on"
bit also means that social media is undeniably a major problem for young people today. The first action should be to make sure the money-
making companies who produce these apps and then, despite pathetic denials, prove totally unable to monitor or control them, are forced
to do so. We may think we live in a wonderful, clever world but that is only half true. We can invent, we cannot control. Furthermore we
seem to expect that an Alexa or a Siri (had to look up how to spell that) will do everything for us. Sometimes we need to sort things out
in our own minds ourselves.
A further problem is that if children learn that they can be seen by a mental health specialist there is a temptation, only
natural curiosity, for more children to claim they have a problem. We all have, have had, and will continue to have problems but they will,
in most cases, be personal.
That would mean that these mental health specialists, I heard it said one in every school, would not be able to cope. Let's say
500 pupils in a school and one mental health specialist. If each pupil were assigned half an hour with the specialist it would take the
sole specialist 250 hours to check on all pupils. Six hours in a school day means it would take a specialist more than eight weeks with no
breaks between appointments to see all pupils. Ridiculous, you may say. True but I always believe if you take the worst case scenario and
your solution works for that, then you're on to a winner. This one patently doesn't.
Also, names matter. I was talking to Molly this week and I bemoaned the fact that a subject I loved when I first went to school,
namely nature studies, disappeared when I went on to secondary school. Molly pointed out that it was included in science. On reflection, as
long as you don't tell her, she was right, again. But, I hated science; Bunsen burners, experiments, possibility of making an idiot of myself,
or worse still blowing up the school (or even worse blowing up me) turned me right off anything vaguely called science. I do now remember
learning about photosynthesis and chlorophyll but as it was in science I didn't really listen. Luckily I now have Molly.
Mental health, however hard we may try, does not have positive connotations. Even if it did, children would still feel they had
been labelled just like they feel they are failures if their exam or test results are not good.
The other thing that I believe is wrong is that school is for learning, for education, however wrong some of us may believe the
actual system and structure is in our modern world. Schools do not have a resident doctor, a resident dentist, so why a mental health
specialist. It comes under health not education and combining the two does not work. From which national budget will the money for these
health specialist come. Furthermore I believe, like health and dentistry problems, it should be for the family to deal with. If you tell
me we need more social or family-based workers, you have my full agreement.
Surely the answer is to incorporate, from a very early age, a learning structure where children can learn resilience, allowing
them to understand and cope with problems; a learning structure that will give them confidence to understand and be proud of themselves and
notice that others are different. Please note, once again, I have not used the word taught. All of us involved in education should be helping
children to learn, letting them lead the way but being there to mentor, encourage and even cajole a bit.
We should, as one of the random quotes at the top of our website says, "be celebrating our differences not our sameness" and "learn
that we were born to be real not perfect". Not Shakespeare. I would love to hear from both teachers and mental health experts about my thoughts.
I never believe that just because I have a view, an opinion, it must be correct. However, at this moment, when I heard this news, it is my opinion.
richard@owlbut.co.uk is where you can find me.
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