The endarkenment chapter IV: a new hope

How intriguing that I haven't blogged for four months... [1] It's almost as if there have been some unforeseen events that society has had to deal with. I trust my reader will forgive me. Although he or she may not forgive me jumping from, "Endarkenment II" to, "Endarkenment IV" just so I can make the weak Star Wars gag in the title. Shall we assume that III would have had too much Jar Jar Binks in it and leave it at that? [2]

I was talking recently to my rather wonderful and unlawyerly lawyer Nick Mackenzie for a Podcast, in which he asked me to find a positive from the Covid-19 crisis; to look for hope at the bottom of the box. I answered that maybe the pandemic would finally dispel the myth of control. I know it doesn't look possible now, as we are globally beset with moronic 'alt right' leaders who demand our fealty above everything. As their incompetence and bluster is exposed, they clutch tighter to the idea of of command and control as the only solution; banging the drum of flag, tradition and tribe. Let's pray it crumbles to dust in their ever tightening grasp.

My hope is that if we can help the scales fall from enough people's eyes, then maybe we can make education and society better.

What most people and still too many educators are yet to grasp is that whilst the requirement for social distancing remains our schools can probably only receive 44-51% of pupils back into classrooms, depending on school size and staffing. This means that education as we understand it will fail. We will simply not be able to get enough children back into schools in the traditional 30 bums on 30 seats way. This in turn will force us into some form of innovation involving digital technology. Whether it be splitting years groups into A & B cohorts for week on/week off schooling with the off weeks supported by virtual lessons at home, or the extension of the school day and school year into holidays and weekends to allow for catch up, or exam year groups being prioritised back to schools, while others learn from home. All of the options require a massive contribution from Ed Tech.

If we are moving to a space where the average pupil to teacher ratio in school is going to drop from just over 20 to just over 10 (in the primary sector with and without social distancing), then this can only be solved by a massive influx of teachers or a significant re-imagining of how pupils can learn when they are not in school.

I use the verb "learn" deliberately because when children are not in school we cannot "teach" them. However upsetting this will be for the starched collar, new-Edwardian, uniform, discipline, Empire and repetition brigade. We cannot metaphorically throw a board-rubber at a child at home who has got bored of the tedious video their teacher has sent them and is looking out of the window. We have lost control...

Likewise headteachers, who have been ground into submission by decades of accountability without authority, clinging to their false 'autonomy', need to realise that the only way we can make the system work is by children from their school having access to subject matter specialisms from teachers in other schools. And I don't mean the wet superficial collaboration that our sector bleats about where 'experts' with a badge drop in on another school for a day or two to lord it over their less fortunate peers. I mean genuine co-innovation at a system level. 

We need to start thinking seriously about the creation of inspirational learning environments outside of school that draw on the deep knowledge held by teachers about their pupils but also look for efficiencies in content creation and curation. We must avoid absolutely the 21st century equivalent of plonking the children in front of the TV to watch an 'educational programme', even if that programme is high quality and based on a curriculum sanctioned by Minister Gibb himself.

The problem with all virtual learning is it spends too much time and money at the curriculum end of the challenge and almost none at the delivery end. If the only reason that children were learning in classroom is because you've metaphorically locked them in, how are you going to cope if they can play Fortnite instead?

Unfortunately, as a nation we are in about the worst possible place for this to happen having blown up our school system into the structurally incoherent mess it is today. If ever there was a moment for school trusts, groups and cooperatives to step up and show how the creation of a learning environment goes way beyond sitting up straight in class and listening to teacher but into the minds of each child, it is now.

'Education is the lighting of a fire not the filling of a pail'

Let's start building learners.

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Notes

[1] I started writing this blog before the rant I published on Friday

[2] Yes, I know that Jar Jar Binks only had one line in 'Revenge of the Sith' but that was one line too many.