My Education Problem

Is pretty simple.
I have a daughter making her way through primary school.
She hates it. It's the most boring thing that could ever happen to her.
So chats are had and what kinds of things they ask her to do ... and the things they stop her from doing start to come out. Aim being of course to guide the bored child back on the righteous path of a good education.

Turns out, it's not that easy.

Her playtime is boring. Why? Well they aren't allowed any toys or books during playtime. They basically get turfed out on to a field and .. that's it. Double checks. No books at all? Nope. Not even small toys to play with? Nope. Oh. Yeah. That could be really very boring then. Fair point.

Maths. Her key source of boredom. Has taken the time out to insist they learn times tables. I can get on board with this one. This is actually useful. I can explain why! But ... Aside from times tables and how to tell the time ..? It seems they are teaching her how to pass a mensa test. It's very abstract pattern spotting. Which has a place if you then go on and point out patterns in times tables and how it can be a shortcut if you remember a few good ones, but ... this isn't about that. It's about passing assessment tests, which seem largely to be based on subsets of mensa tests. You know what? That is really boring! Fair point.

So it's a bit tricky. I agree with her summary. It is needlessly boring with zero redeeming features. I can't even get her to enthuse about play time. In fact I'm just glad I'm not a kid these days.

What makes me shake my head though is the way education has become a way of getting kids to pass various tests for school ranking tables. That didn't have to be a terrible thing. But here's what it seems to me has happened:

In the office:
How do we test intelligence at all these key stages?
We use a generalised form of intelligence testing, a bit like modified IQ tests!
Brilliant. Then we can change curriculum but general reasoning ability should still be applicable!

But ... In the school:
They want us to test the kids. We can't mess this up.
What do the tests look like?
Abstract reasoning mainly.
Right. Let's teach the kids how to answer abstract reasoning tests.

Did anyone spot the point at which educating children with useful (and therefore engaging) information to equip them for the future fell by the way side? Various people point fingers at each other. Nothing happens. Another generation of kids appears. They are either very good at abstract reasoning tests and not much else, or got so switched off by the process that they learned the bare minimum they could get away with. Ever see that "Young dumb and living off Mum" program? That's really not a good advert for the end products of the education system.

I don't blame the teachers. It looks to me like a yet another bureaucracy problem.

The other thing this illustrates from my little world view is "Iterative problem growth". I need to think of a snappier title. What happens is that the system is loaded, if a school fails to get good grades it tends to get bad ratings, less funding and heads for a spiral of doom. So the pressure really is on to get good grades for the kids. However. Every school in an area is in competition. So the schools that focus the most on "How to pass the next test" are going to win ... unless every other school bends school day a little more towards "How to pass the next test" as well. Let that sort of weighted system run for a few years and what do you get? A system highly specialised in getting good school reports. The original aim of education, providing a broad, applicable, enjoyable curriculum for our children, becomes a side issue. We get idiots or some very sharp brains adapted to completing tests. (Hey, I'll go out on a limb, some very sharp brains probably drop out as soon as possible as well, and I can't blame them).

Well there you go. That's my theory.

Weird thing is. Why I write this blog? I only started this one since getting back in to Twitter. Twitter is fine for snippits of information. Absolutely horrible for conversation & debate. I sort of blog here when I get frustrated with Twitter. Fun huh? I still get the same number of readers (roughly zero), but at least I'm not sat wondering how to squeeze concepts in to tweets. Heigh ho.