I don’t even want to comment on this because a part of me believes it couldn’t possibly be true:
Children should be taught “life skills” instead of facts and figures because they can look up all they need to know on the Internet, teachers’ leaders claim today.
…
[Association of Teachers and Lecturers] acting deputy general secretary said youngsters could learn to walk in a variety of ways, including techniques needed for catching trains and exploring cliffs.
Martin Johnson said:
“There’s a lot to learn about how to walk. If you were going out for a Sunday afternoon stroll you might walk in one way.
“If you’re trying to catch the train you might walk in another way and if you are doing a day’s cliff walk you might walk in another way.
“If you are carrying a pack, there’s a technique in that.
“We need a nation of people who understand their bodies and can use their bodies effectively.
“Since in a green world people will be walking more than western societies are currently doing, it would be as well that we spent an hour or so of compulsory education in teaching young people how to walk efficiently - and the joy of walking.”
He said physical and manual skills should have greater prominence in the school curriculum which should no longer prescribe facts and figures and specific subjects.
Hilarious. And he goes on:
“For the state to suggest that some knowledge should be privileged over other knowledge is a bit totalitarian in a 21st century environment.
“We are arguing that knowledge which traditionally has got high status should not be privileged over other kinds of knowledge.”
Where does one start?
If true, the worst part is that he probably means every word of it.
I agree with him in only one thing. I don’t think the State should be prescribing what we teach our children, anyway. This is because I don’t believe in a National Curriculum, certainly not in the form it takes in the UK.
As to the rest of the article, like one of the critics interviewed by the Daily Mail, I wondered whether it was April Fools Day already. I am willing to believe that Mr Johnson either was misquoted, or is the victim of a cynical trickster.
March 30th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
Rubbish in the extreme.
Not you Bel.
You know you’re still struggling with Kant, as am I.
I admit to being somewhat of an elitist. Not all knowledge is for everyone, Nietzche for example. Everyone can hear, not everyone can listen.
March 30th, 2007 at 7:41 pm
Yes, still struggling with Kant.
And I agree with you, not all knowledge is for everyone. However, looking at the state of the education system, I have to wonder if there is another theory (not so silently) at work here: no knowledge for anyone.
March 30th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
Yes I agree.
I love Science now, never understtod it at school. They never explainmed what a fundamental consyant was.
Kant. Still on the Transendental Aesthetic. Does it never end??
March 30th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
Excellent post, Bel. I am tempted to privilege some knowledge over other - my knowledge of how cool it is to be drunk is way privileged over my knowledge of hangovers.
This theory is bollocks and bunkum. When you ask those people - educational theorists/academics what they think of socialism/environmentalism/gay rights/educational theory they become absolutists very quickly.
I know. I nearly got kicked off the PGCE for exactly that.
March 30th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
“When you ask those people - educational theorists/academics what they think of socialism/environmentalism/gay rights/educational theory they become absolutists very quickly.”
This made me chuckle.
Very good point, Tin Drummer. Well said.
March 30th, 2007 at 10:20 pm
I could not believe this when I saw it either. I hope this man has no real influence over any school’s education.
March 30th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
The funny thing is that at first it sounds like a good idea. I have often thought that I should have been taught far more at school about how to judge finacial products , how to arrange affairs legally and all the other welter of drudge I have discovered by a processof elimination by disaster. I think there is a genuine gap here and there should be far more work focus from an early age , a sense that this was a pre earning boot up.
What follows is pure vaudeville and beyond satire.
Oh Bel if you and Kant are wrestling I`m on your side.
March 30th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
In comparison with the hilarity of the comments quoted in the newspaper, the ATL press release is quite scary in its understatement.
March 31st, 2007 at 4:47 pm
…Children should be taught “life skills” instead of facts and figures because they can look up all they need to know on the Internet, teachers’ leaders claim today…
There it is in a nutshell - everything that is wrong with British and other western educatation. This is what teacher trainees had rammed down their throats and then they went out and took it out on the kids. Heaven help the teaching ‘profession’ for one day they will have to stand up and account for their actions.
March 31st, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Sorry about the ‘educatation’. Shows we should proof-read first.
April 1st, 2007 at 9:23 pm
Steady on, James. I’ve tried my best. I’ve even taught the entire intellectual history of modernism to Y7s; Anglo Saxon poetry in translation to Y4/5s; the Cold War to anyone in KS2 who will listen and chess to any primary age child who has the misfortune to be a little late going home.
October 25th, 2007 at 11:40 am
Teachers may like to know that I have written well over 300 new poems for teacher and added my voice recording to each poem. They are popular all over the world and teachers are using them as part of the National Curriculum in their classes. The poems range from simple rhyming and rhythmic poems right through to Petrarchan sonnets, haiku, ballads, blank verse etc, and there are teaching notes/lesson plans, games/quizzes and craftwork projects for children. The poems can be projected onto screens in the classrooms, printed off easily for class use, and there is the possibility of classroom visits by this poet. Go to “Josie Whitehead” on Google to be taken directly to the website. There are poems especially for all occasions: Back to School/Halloween/5th November/ lots for Christmas etc. Many can be made into small dramas for classes or for individual or group recitations. Lots of fun.