Examples

Human Sciences (Education)

If you haven't already come across this website - truthaboutib.com - it's well worth a visit and could make an excellent topic for a presentation.

In order to get a flavour of the website, you could look either at the 'About Us' page or read this article: 'IB - Improvement or Indoctrination?' (you'll have to scroll down the page to see the article).

The writers take very seriously the context of the economic crisis when presenting their arguments, bringing together evidence to suggest that the IBO's approach to education is flawed.  Here are a just a few conclusions the website reaches:

1. The IBO is elitist.
2. The IBO doesn't improve standards in low perfprming schools any more than state schools.
3. By following the prescribed IBO curriculum, schools forego control over what they can and cannot teach.
4. The IBO is part of a movement to indoctrinate the minds of the youth of today to adapt themselves to the coming of the 'new world order' - whether this is a socialist movement or not is up for debate.

This latter conclusion seems far-fetched, but the article references a 29 page IBO document published for an IB Latin America Conference in June 2008 entitled, 'The origins, philosophy an principles of the IB diploma and MYP', which uses the phrase 'new world order' in pronouncing the thinking behind its MYP program.

Fascinating, isn't it, that students of IB around the world could be intellectual guinea pigs at the mercy of a ruling elite wishing to bring about social, economic and political change which, presumably, will favour them.

What questions does this raise?  What actions does it promote?  What wider implicatons does it raise?  Are their any valid counter arguments that support what the IBO is doing in education?

So it seems that we are all becoming Borg drones.

Frightening, isn't it.  But just remember, questioning everything often leads you to looking more closely at the things you usually take very much for granted so that you don't becme drones.

A Polemic on independent thinking

Following on from the previous post...

Some initial thoughts

While we agree with some of the critic’s insights into students’ use of sources and examples, we still can’t find any coherent reasons as to why teachers should take an ‘aggressive approach’ to steer their students away from using ibtokspot.

Here is, however, the critic’s ‘argument’:

P1: The blog site provides ‘detailed discussion’ of essay titles.
P2: The writer of the blog intends to organise study weekends in order to discuss the 2011 titles ‘in depth.’
Therefore, use of this and other such sites is ‘unacceptable’.

If we put aside the logic (or lack of it) on which this argument is based, the assumption is, of course, that it is not good to ‘collude’ when preparing to do a TOK assessment, especially the essay. At least, not the kind of collusion that happens on ibtokspot.

And what type of collusion is that? Well, presumably the critic believes that the site ‘colludes’ by giving all you TOK students out there answers to the prescribed titles which have the same finality of absolute mathematical certainty as one of those banal examples that keep cropping up in TOK essays: 2 + 2 = 4.

Or does the critic have in mind the type of collusion which implies that students are incapable of thinking for themselves (see point one on ‘Precepts for everyday life’) and making their own judgments about what is right and wrong so they have to go to ‘worrisome’ websites to think for them?

Indeed, it could be the type of collusion that is founded on a belief that teachers themselves are somehow too lazy or incompetent to guide their students in the right direction so that students have to turn elsewhere for solutions – which begs the question of why some schools list ibtokspot as a useful resource...

What is the critic afraid of exactly? Well, we do not know exactly. Although, if we notice the critic’s urgency to police or blacklist the ‘unacceptable’ websites, this would imply that there exists in these sites some sort of insidious criminal intent to undermine the education of our youth; a disease, for which the report will be the ultimate antidote.

It is very clear that the perfidious ibtokspot must be giving the profoundly apathetic student an ‘easy way out’ for his essay preparation; providing some sort of unfair leverage in the market for top grades; presenting an unmerited ‘leg up’, as the English say, to the ‘Can’t be bothered with TOK’ Brigade.

Here, an imaginary dialogue

The critic cries: ‘Let’s make things as difficult as possible for everyone concerned. We do not think that students can think independently, so we must get them to jump through different sized hoops to test them. That’ll teach them nicely.’

Ibtokspot replies (a little understatedly): ‘That’s somewhat patronising don’t you think? Reducing students to the same common denominator (of mediocrity) whereby they need constant molly-coddling, hand-holding and monitoring. Big Brother is watching you!’

The critic adjoins (with a look of admonishment): ‘We don’t mind if our TOK students have help and tuition, but there’s a limit to everything, isn’t there? We can’t have them relying on dodgy websites with questionable authority and badly written articles – my, how un-intellectual and academically shoddy their work will turn out!’

Ibtokspot replies (with forced sympathy which is laced with a hint of irony): ‘Presumably the help and tuition must come solely from within the boundary of a school or some other educational institution which has the best interests of the student at heart; a place which will, moreover, instil in the students the best approach to writing and thinking and do so without clogging their minds with bad practice.’

What do we think?

TWADDLE. RUBBISH. BS.

Now, let us make an observation: the criticism of the website is at best fuzzy and at worst, it’s symptomatic of the kind of narrow-minded and short-sighted, oh yes, and technophobic, hysteria that appears to be plaguing education these days, especially in the UK (refer to the tab labelled ‘Education’) – though it’s by no means exclusive to this island as exemplified by the critic’s report.

Yes, ibtokspot promotes the sceptical approach of questioning everything – even oneself (precept 8) – which implies that everything written on the blog is questionable, so don’t take it as gospel truth (does this really need to be said!)

Yes, ibtokspot is a kind of ‘tutor’ outside of the school environment – in the French sense of the word ‘tuteur’ meaning literally, a stick to support the growth of a sapling (do we really need to go on!)

And yes, ibtokspot stimulates discussion because that is exactly what young people want both in and out of school, especially if no-one else is willing to listen (what else is there to say!)

No, using ibtokspot isn’t cheating, unless of course you lift sentences verbatim from the site and pass them off as your own (say ‘no’ to plagiarism!)

No, the existence of ibtokspot isn’t a threat to the brilliant work of schools and teachers and examiners (bravo!)

And quite categorically no, ibtokspot does not play on, or profit from, the insecurities of students who are struggling with what TOK is all about (even teachers struggle with this!)

To Conclude

Here’s a perfect agricultural analogy: in the field of education, the work of ibtokspot is the manure which helps to fertilise the earth in which the seedling young minds of students grow to think for themselves, be themselves, speak up, feel free to agree and disagree, be honest with themselves and others, be open-minded, avoid being judgemental and to question everything – even their own thinking.

Back to BS again. Just like knowledge, guiding people to think for themselves can either help or hinder us in our day to day relationships with each other and our environment.

But you already knew that didn’t you?

Examples

Human Sciences and Education (Part 3)

In this trio of articles by Harriet Sergeant, written over a period of about a year, we are presented with some key arguments for why the education system in England is failing our students. It makes grim reading, but enlightens us as to how we can move forward and re-think our educational values:

1. 'Sorry, kids, you’re all going to Smoke-and-Mirrors High' (Timesonline, Feb 8 2009)

2. 'I've seen how our education system betrays children - it's enough to make you weep' (Mailonline, April 22 2009)

3. 'Schools are churning out the unemployable' (Timesonline, Feb 21 2010)

It's really the most recent of these articles that might hit home to you - esecially if you have aspirations of going to University and enhancing your unique qualities and skills for the world out there. Here are some real-life knowledge issues you might like to reflect on:

To what extent does your work ethic make you employable? How efficiently can you think for yourself and work to your own initiative? In what ways can you overcome your limitations as a learner and challenge yourself to excel? What do you value most in your learning experience? To what extent is your education fulfilling? How far should the goal of education be to create happiness?

That the answers to these questions are firmly in the negative, especially amongst young people from poorer backgrounds, is clear to see in the articles above. So why is this happening? What are the arguments to suggest that schools are not fulfilling their special purpose in our society?

There are three key arguments:

1. The 'political correctness' argument

According to this argument, schools must promote the values of liberalism and equality so that 'every child matters', as the Government initaitive would have it. No one child, nor any group of children, is discrimminated against in the delivery of education. A grand objective, but in practise, the urge for such equality means that there is a tendency that learning (and teaching) gravitates towards the lower end of the achievement scale. In short, there is what some people often refer to as a 'dumbing down' of standards; a suspicion and sometimes downright dismissal of anything that appears too academic, intellectual or abstract and 'difficult'. It leads to an attitude whereby students are infantilised and teaching becomes merely a duty of babysitting and patronising youngsters.

2. The 'Government ideology' argument

This is also known as the 'politicisation of education' argument, whereby Governments use their education policies to win votes and thereby stay in power. In fact, it is in their interests to promote actively, and not to interfere with the movement for, political correctness. Why? If standards are reduced, the Government, either existing or waiting in the wings, will be in a better positin to control the minds of the young - in words which a student of ours put it extremely succintly, 'if we're kept stupid, we're more likely to vote for them'. Government ploughs money into education so as to build an edifice that will make them look good. This means, more often than not, that the needs of students become secondary to political point-scoring.

3. The 'target culture' argument

Over the last two decades, we have been steeped in a state of mind that is unquestioning in its belief that the only way to guage success or failure is by measuring performance against targets. It has infiltrated nearly all forms of life from business, to hospitals and now into our schools. The argument goes something like this: we need a method of measuring students' progress, of judging whether a school and its teachers are fulfilling the educational needs of our young students, so that we can build up a series of data that tells us which are the best performing schools and which schools require help to raise standards. Like in business and the health service, it is argued that setting students targets and measuring their (and hence their teachers') performance against these is the best way forward. At present, the measuring scale is something called 'Current Value Added' (careful, it's a 74 page document!), the complexities (and vagaries) of which even the most logical of mathematicians will have troube in decoding. The problems of this approach are nicely traced in Harriet Seargeant's article. What we are interested in is that making targets the singlemost important purpose of a child's education means that teachers often lose sight of what teaching is all about.

What is teaching and learning really all about...?

Examples

Human Sciences and Education (Part 2)

'Shut up and put up!' - is this our Brave New World?

Following on from the recent post on educational values, here's an extremely interesting article in the timesonline about about another of our important public domains: health.

It's called, 'Use your initiative? Far too dangerous' and appeared on Thursday 11th February 2010.

The article focuses on the same issue as our post: what happens when Government shapes the values according to which public institutions such as State Education and the NHS should be run?

We argued that the resulting impact is mediocrity in the standards of education; the blind, unswerving adherence to rules and the letter of the law which eschews all creativity and imagination and finally, the promotion into power of people who have no sense of vocation and who simply push through the educational legislation of the Government without questioning what they're doing.

The above article presents a tragic case-study of the consequences when Government values and the target and rule-based systems which are designed to promote them are allowed to function without common sense and some element of questioning and sceptical scrutiny.

It begs a really big question: to what extent should education and health be organised in the same way Government agencies are organised?

And a related big question is this: how far should Government be allowed to dictate the way in which health and education is organised and run?

This is not to advocate the wholesale (or even minimal) privatisation of education and health services. It is to suggest that alleviating these institutions from Government interference might help to promote values that have a less tragic impact on young lives and are longer lasting. But is this a strong enough argument? What further evidence is there that Government-led institutions are really NOT organised with the interests of the public in mind? What significant reasons can we find to argue that these institutions would function better WITHOUT the stamp of Government.

Examples

Human Sciences and Education (Part 1)

Is the present secondary state education system letting down our young?

According to this article, 'The Reader Gets Angry', the answer is un unhesitating and unequivocal 'yes'.

Before moving onto the arguments and the objections to them, let's clarify some assumptions. Common sense tells us that education should be free to all and everyone should have equal access to it regardless of race, creed, colour. These oft-repeated principles of equality and freedom are very powerful almost to the point of banality. Now we know, don't we, that nothing is really free - someone, somwhere pays for what others may regard as being free. Based on this idea, let's add to this another assumption: education is a political tool that can be used (or misused) to shape the minds of a generation of youth. It is a tool, moreover, whose power is usually centralised in the hands of the existing Government. This can have its advantages, but it can also be dangerous as the article suggests.

Government shapes its education policy based on certain key values associated with those principles of equality and freedom mentioned earlier. As is often the case with the realm of Ethics, this often leads to a clash of values and raises the question: who decides on which values should determine the delivery of education? Government? So here's another key question which leads to our final assumption: if education is centralised in Government and Government makes policy based on its perception of what is and is not educationally valuable, who actually makes sure that these values get promoted in schools? Answer: Government civil-servants provide the educational framework which embodies its core values and pass it on to the school managers who enforce (if you permit this extremely emotive word) it upon the teachers. And teachers either disagree with this approach to education (which is relatively rare these days) or, as the article suggests, become 'fatalistic'. There are two main consequences: first, the advent of mediocrity in school managers and teachers alike, inherited from the bureaucracy of Government institutions. Second, the students always suffer in the end.

Let's look more closely at the article itself and the comments posted on the website on which the article was originally published, in order to unfold some of the values embedded in our thinking about the purpose of education. What we find are two sets of educational values: those promoted by so-called 'educationalists' (usually Government civil servants or other pawns of Governement agencies) and those that are closest to our own sense of being teachers with a vocation.

The core values of education (according to 'educationalists')

1. Anti-intellectualism : This is what happens when the educational system is structured in the same way as Government organises itself - every aspect of thinking and working is micromanaged until it becomes mechanical, deadened.

• inaccessible ('intellectual') literature or even teachers should be avoided in the classroom
• language structures not needed in the day to day communication of the work place should not be taught in the classroom
• 'learning by doing' is the best approach in the classroom and linguistic learning should be sacrificed - the 'manual labour' or 'apprenticeship' approach
• instructions play a more important part than explanations
• knowledge is irrelevant to teaching
• grammar is obsolete and has no place in teaching

2. Inclusion : This is the guise in which the principle of egalitarianism parades itself in education - it means, in short, that everyone has the right to be treated equally, even if (and especially if) this means dragging down educational standards to the lowest common denominator (are we getting close to communism?)

• all kinds of difference must be negated in the classroom - it must be an 'inclusive' environment
• treat students as infants or invalids and make them rely on teacher like a child relies on a nursemaid or babysitter (effectively, this is what the teaching role becomes - ask anyone who has covered a lesson for an absent teacher)
• the pursuit of topicality is paramount - cultural references should be limited to popular and celebrity culture and idolised as such an not questioned in any way
• Avoid class discussion or note-taking since it can exclude those who can't or don't want to take part in exchanging ideas and interpretations

3. Classism : This manisfests itself in the divergent expectations we must have of students as inherent in the various 'initiatives' through which teachers are to support them.

• avoid expecting too much of students - do not expose them to abstract ideas
• illiteracy is something precious that ought to be preserved - it keeps the masses unthinking and unquestioning so they cannot or never want to change things
• minimise the ability gap between the highest and lowest achievers (even though this conflicts with the setting of students in some schools)
• 'gifted and talented' students set them apart from low-achievers who can never raise themselves to this level
• students' minds cannot (and therefore should not) be changed
• students' backgrounds are their fate and these cannot be overcome

The core values of education (according to the 'vocationalists')

1. Growth : students must be encouraged to be the best that they can be and to create the best possible society in which to grow and adapt.

• education ought to expand one’s horizons
• students should be introduced consistently to new ideas
• study involves internalising knowledge, making a body of knowledge one's own
• students must be encouraged to work hard
• open-mindedness
• students must be shown how to raise themselves to equality not to sink down towards it

2. Creativity : students must be encouraged to experiment, to make mistakes and to fail in the classroom before they go into the world.

• words, grammatical structures, are a way of modelling our world - students should be allowed to play with language
• students should be trained to think for themselves, to question everything
• inspiration through sharing, decent discussion
• building a 'community of enquiry' ('Philosophy for Children')

3. Eloquence : students must be given strategies to make a unique mark on the world in a way that is at once expressive, elegant and graceful.

• encourage reading for its own sake and the use of dictionaries to empower students to speak and write well
• prioritise self-expression as a means of giving students a way of standing up for themselves, sometimes against the world
• promote honesty and integrity, care and confidence

There is a world of difference in these two sets of values. In simple terms, the former leads onto the path of misery, for students and teachers alike; the latter leads onto the path of happiness.

Moreover, while the former enables Government to control the minds of the masses; to create a ready-made indolent and bovine workforce and to perpetuate their own power (why else would anyone desire to promote unthinking, unquestioning behaviour in youngsters?), the latter goes some way towards enabling our youth to free themselves from any attempts to possess and pack their minds into little boxes; to navigate the world on their own terms and, above all, to have the strength to be themselves in spite of being judged by everyone around them.

New Year's Resolutions

It's about time, isn't it, that we came up with some resolutions about what we're trying to do with this blog and these could, couldn't they, become a kind of mission statement or manifesto of our main values in education.

So here we go - this is what we hope we have achieved for you so far and hope to achieve for you in the year(s) to come:

1. Think for yourself and not the thoughts pre-programmed into you by others - whoever they may be.

2. Be yourself and not someone formatted into those little boxes that people like to put you into - whatever they may be.

3. Speak up about the things that matter to you, but do so eloquently, confidently and courteously - however that may be.

4. Feel free to agree and disagree with others' viewpoints, but do so in the spirit of decent discussion (see point 3).

5. Be honest - first of all to yourself - to others about what's on your mind - there's nothing to be afraid of.

6. Be open-minded - put aside your bises, prejudices and preconceptions so that so can engage with others on an equal and creative basis.

7. Avoid being constantly judgmental - it takes so much energy and only projects bad energy, so save it for more creative and constructive projects.

8. Question everything - so that you never take for granted what anybody says or does - everyone has a hidden agenda.

You'll start to see these listed at the head of the blog home page from now on - lest we forget!

Examples

Ethics and Education

This is an excellent topic to reflect on: should everyone who comes into contact with children as part of their work have a Criminal Records check?

The Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) require such people to have a check on whether they've had any past convictions, especially related to any bad behaviour against children. It is called 'The Vetting and Barring Scheme' and has been set up in the aftermath of the 2002 Soham murders committed by former school caretaker Ian Huntley and its main aim is to filter out potential child abusers from the workplace. This October, all of the 11.3 million people across the education, care and health industries who work with children must register – for a £64 fee – on a national database, if they haven't already done so...

However, some very famous authors, like Philip Pullmann and Quentin Blake, who very often make visits to schools to inspire children to read and write, are outraged that they should have to do this.

Scan through the Guardian article about Pullman's response (he's definitely against) and compare it to the article about the new children's laureate Anthony Browne's thoughts (who's very much for).

Here's another article by the BBC covering the same issue.

What do you think?

Examples

Human Sciences - Education

Dear Student,

Is the present system of secondary education letting you down?

According to this article in the Mail-Online, the answer is a categorical 'YES'.

In what way exactly?

The central argument of the article is that the imposition of business 'performance management' criteria in schools is undermining our children's education. This raises three important issues:

First, that the government is attempting to legislate for the education of children by pushing through a system for measuring student learning that is fundamentally flawed because it distracts everyone from the essential goals of education. These goals are, as the writer neatly articulates, to enable students 'to take responsibility for themselves, treat others with respect and care for the environment...[to] promote justice and respect...[and to] foster intellectual virtues, encouraging children to be open to evidence, argument and criticism.'

Second, that this fallible system is being driven through by mediocre school managers, often incompetent teachers themselves, on sheep-like teachers without being questioned. These teachers are in turn creating sheep-like students - a little bit like European Union regulations about fruit and veg that have to be a certain size before they can be sold in a shop. Remember, there are stories about apples that have to be passed through a template with a specific sized hole cut into it before they are acceptable for sale! Do you believe that education should make you jump through hoops and over obstacles like performing monkeys at a circus?

And thirdly, that the language which is used to get students to talk about their learning is brainwashing them into becoming commodities for the market place - they stop questioning the process at the very heart of their mental and physical development. This commercialisation of education is an insidious process because it addresses students not as human beings, but as abstract objects which enter into the system with a particular level and leave it with another level and a 'value added' score that measures progress or regress.

The Nuffield Review, a research-based group in Oxford, states that in many schools in the UK which are driven by the target setting culture, and the corresponding linguistic jargon that goes with it, 'the consumer or client' has replaced 'the learner'. The impact of this on our education system has so reduced confidence, the article claims, that '45 [UK Universities] are setting their own admissions tests to help them distinguish between the most able candidates' as an alternative to accepting 'A' Level and IB grades at face value.

So next time you go to a 'Target Review' meeting, you might like to reflect on this execrable state of affairs more seriously...

We propose two principles that an educationalist might like to ponder before he attempts to overhaul the education system. Both knowledge claims, we think, are based on sound empirical evidence and would lead to the creation of the best possible human beings and the best possible society - feel free to add to the list:

1. If a teacher can connect with a student on different levels, then there is no need to legislate for learning: the student will do anything to learn by himself for himself and not just for his parents or to get a Diploma or for the prospect of being merely a commodity in the job market.

2. If a teacher is happy and fulfilled in his job, then the students will be correspondingly happy and fulfilled in their learning - target setting and measuring 'value added' scores and testing makes neither feel happy or fulfilled.

So lots of COURAGE to all of you students out there - be awake to your work and get on with it quietly, efficiently and creatively.

Yours caringly,

TOK TEAM