I went on to say that I completely see that Maths is very important in day to day life and an education system without Maths, would be unthinkable. I explained my suggestion that education should differenciate between 'numeracy' and 'hardcore maths' more. Those that want to go in to a career where factorising quadratic equations are necessary should opt for 'Maths' and the rest of society can opt for 'numeracy' ( multiplication, graphs, adding and subtraction etc). I believe the same could apply for English. Those who see themselves heading towards a career in poetry, author, journalist, teacher etc, may need to understand personifciation, metaphors and hyperbole. Others, I believe would benefit more from 'literacy' lessons where they learn spellings, grammar, punctuation and how to read. Believe me when I tell you, these basic skills are not being mastered at the moment in schools!
My colleague didn't agree with my suggestion and said that without the current timetable space for Maths and English, we would be left with an unintelligent society. This I thought was very interesting as she completely confirmed what Ken Robinson had said in his TED talk :
Robinson talks about how our education system is based on a hierarchy wherein most uesful subjects for a job are considered to be the most important and academic ability has really come to dominate our view of intelligence because the universities designed the system in their image!
YES! You are absolutely right!! Teachers in schools are still operating under the illusion that somebody gifted in academic subjects is intelligent, while those that are not are unintelligent!! It's such a close minded way of thinking! Academic ability is just one form of intelligence!! The very idea that a Royal Ballet Principle is unintelligent is absurd!! She is super sensitive to physical detail, 100% body aware, able to concentrate on a hundred different factors at any given time, and generally extremely kinaesthetically intelligent!! She can also understand and interpret extremely complex time signatures, and transform artistic concepts into physical art. But she might not be able to do quadratic equations, so it might be that she's unintelligent!
ReplyDeleteKen Robinson should be Education Secretary. His beliefs and attitudes are exactly what our school system needs. Instead we have Gove, going in completely the other direction!
Sarah - I am not completely following your argument.
ReplyDeleteIf this was an interview not just a conversation (note - some interviews are done with a conversational tone) - when you analyse the data ...
"My colleague didn't agree with my suggestion and said that without the current timetable space for Maths and English, we would be left with an unintelligent society"
This I thought was very interesting as she completely confirmed what Ken Robinson had said in his TED talk :
Robinson talks about how our education system is based on a hierarchy wherein most uesful subjects for a job are considered to be the most important and academic ability has really come to dominate our view of intelligence because the universities designed the system in their image!
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
http://blog.ted.com/2011/06/27/the-20-most-watched-tedtalks-so-far/
http://www.openculture.com/2012/05/ted-ed_brings_the_edginess_of_ted_to_learning.html
Okay - but go beyond this and see this point of view and look for literature that also supports the view of your participant. She was not saying arts education was unintelligent was she? If you think this one person was representing a widely held view then examine this view (one that might be expected of a maths teacher?).
http://www.mathguide.com/issues/whymath.htmlhttp://www.livestrong.com/article/179809-the-importance-of-children-learning-mathematics/
http://www.teachfind.com/national-strategies/why-mathematics-important
http://www.engineersireland.ie/Communications/Press-Archive/Parents-starting-to-grasp-importance-of-maths-to-c.aspx
Paula,
ReplyDeleteThat's a very good point! Looking at this blog now, and my response to it, I can see that I reacted quite instinctively and defensively. You're right, she didn't say that arts education was unintelligent. However, she clearly thought that people who didn't receive enough mathematics and english lessons at school would become unintelligent members of society. That's a pretty huge, sweeping statement to make! And even if she wasn't condemning Arts subjects, she helping to back up Ken Robinsons ideas on how intelligence is viewed within the current educational system.
What worries me is that the new changes being made to the educational system (ie Ebacc) are surely only going to enhance the view that intelligence IS academic ability!?
An interesting point Liam and one that I have thought myself. It is very telling that by not including the arts in the ebacc, the government do not recognise such subjects as relevent in education. Although it is not officially been said, people will subconsciously disassociate the arts as an important part of education, in my opinion.
ReplyDelete