Comprehensive school teaching - is it really this bad?

[jackstarbright]

I have just found this very disturbing article published in the Reader a few months ago. It's Gabriella Gruder-Poni's essay, 'Scenes from a PGCE'. here.

It provides one woman's view of teaching methods in a comprehensive school. Any comments?

I'm sure there are kids who would flourish had they been given opportunities which sadly were not available.

Conversely, there are kids who are given the opportunities, but lack the natural gifts to be able to do much with them.

Had I been placed in the Manchester United training academy and given intensive football training from the age of six, I would still not be a world-class footballer. I don't know why people have such an issue with the same being true of intellectual institutions. Some people just do not have the natural skills to ecel academically.

But there are some things for which you do need innate ability to be good at them...though not to say, you shouldn't give them a go.

I really believe this isn't the case and I used to agree with you 100%. Which things are you talking about?

Anyone can be 'good' at anything within reason. What is 'good'?

I guess 'good' can be defined as relative to your peers.

Sorry, but I completely disagree that anyone can be good at anything within reason. I, for instance, could never be anything approaching a good brain surgeon, or a good nuclear physicist. I haven't got the inherent intellectual ability.

Bonsoir. What was his potential then?

Unless he had form of learning impairment or a negative attitude he should have done well.

I find it so depressing that people don't believe, what I believe is the truth, that people have a changeable ability that can be developed through learning.

I believe intelligence (largely) is something you have to work for, it isn't just given to you.

Malcolm Gladwell has said they we value natural, effortless accomplishment over achievement through effort.

Most of us fall in the middle of the ability spectrum. Sure there are a few at the top and some at the other end. So most have the ability to do much better than they think they do, we are underestimating students' potential to develop.

Sorry, but I completely disagree that anyone can be good at anything within reason. I, for instance, could never be anything approaching a good brain surgeon, or a good nuclear physicist. I haven't got the inherent intellectual ability.

Don't apologise, it's very interesting to debate this I think.

Benjamin Bloom, an eminent educational researcher studied 120 outstanding achievers. They were concert pianists, sculptors, olympic swimmers, fantastic tennis players, mathematicians and research neurologists (is that the same as brain surgeons)?

What's really interesting is that most didn't show clear talent before they began their training. They were unremarkable children. This really surprises me!

Even by early adolescence you couldn't predict their future acomplishment from their current ability. Only their continued motivation and commitment meant they went to the top.

Bloom concluded 'After 40 years of intensive research on school learning in the United States as well as abroad, my major conclusion is: What any person in the world can learn, almost all persons can learn, if provided with the appropriate prior and current conditions of learning'.

He's not including the 2-3% of children with severe learning impairments and the top 1-2% at the other end (your brain surgeons)? He IS counting everyone else!!

No, Cortina, no learning impediment or behavioural issues at all. He just isn't very clever and so couldn't fully benefit from the opportunities available to him.

Had I been placed in the Manchester United training academy and given intensive football training from the age of six, I would still not be a world-class footballer. I don't know why people have such an issue with the same being true of intellectual institutions. Some people just do not have the natural skills to ecel academically.

Ok, to look at the above.

Sure there are some 'naturals' but did you know that there are successful sports people who were not? (I didn't) Can you improve at sport, can you actually get very good at sport and not have much natural ability?:

Take Michael Jordan. He was a very hard working athlete and not a 'natural'. He was dropped from his school team and didn't get into his first choice college team. This is possibly the greatest basketball player ever! (Or so I am told).

When he got dropped from the team he was beyond devastated. He got up at 6am every day to practise before school. He constantly worked on his weaknesses (apparently his shooting, defensive game and ball handling).

His coach could not believe how hard he worked, he didn't rate him, he didn't have natural ability or what it took. In the meantime Jordan decided to become an athlete and that took some self discipline and great personal sacrifice.

Even when he became famous and 'made it' he was known for how hard he practised. His MIND is what made him successful he says: 'The mental toughness and the heart are a lot stronger than some of the physical advantages you might have. I've always said that and always believed that'.

Other people don't see it like that, they take one look at him, they see he's an athlete with 'natural ability' and his physical perfection but there's so much more to it than that.

The sports world doesn't see the relationship between practise and improvement apparently. There's so much talk about innate physical talent.

Malcolm Gladwell again says we prize natural endowment over earned ability. Deep down we prize the 'naturals' although our culture talks about effort and self improvement. I think this is true and we see, even subconciously, on Mumsnet and elsewhere.

We like to think that super sport stars were born different to us. We couldn't begin to think of them as ordinary people who made themselves extraordinary could we? We like to think they are superheroes who were born different.

I am not disputing there are some natural athletes but it is possible to develop some skill, perhaps enough to become a champion. Whether you'd want to put hours and hours of practise in is another matter. Someone involved in professional sport told me it wasn't the 'naturals' who were the most successful it was those who believed they were the best. (Although that can bring another heap of problems).

What I am really trying to say is which do you agree with?

You have a certain of ability in sports and you can't do much about it?

To be good at sports you must be naturally gifted

OR

To be successful in sports, you need to learn techniques and skills and practise them regularly.

How good you are at sports will ALWAYS improve if you work harder at it.

Cortina I'm sure there are loads of stories such as this one. I would love to think it was universal. It's certainly a nice idea.

No, Cortina, no learning impediment or behavioural issues at all. He just isn't very clever and so couldn't fully benefit from the opportunities available to him.

Can't share this view, maybe I should become a teacher?

Feel very passionately about this as you might be able to tell! He must have an average IQ for starters (if no learning problems etc)? So why couldn't he benefit? Are you really saying it was ONLY his innate ability that let him down, his average IQ, the fact (as you see it he wasnt clever)?

I'd be deeply concerned if I believed teachers thought like this. I'd hate for any of my DCs to be seen in this way.

As I said a bit earlier Malcolm Gladwell says we prize natural endowment over earned ability. Deep down we prize the 'naturals' (children that are 'CLEVER') although our culture talks about effort and self improvement. I think this is true and we see it, even subconciously, on Mumsnet and elsewhere.

This guy you mention, let's call him Edward meets a teacher, Mrs Lock. Every day she tells him she's no smarter than he is, just more experienced. Let's make the guy even have a few behavioural issues to make things even harder for the poor lad.

The others in the staff room are saying 'Oh Edward wasn't born with it, don't waste your time!'

Cleverness and IQ are after all inborn. Secretly the other staff don't know quite what to do with Edward and are embarrassed to admit it to Mrs Lock. Edward isn't like his 'bright' brother, the others call him the 'cheese' as it's soft a bit like his brain! The staff can't influence Edward's intellectual ability now can they?

Mrs Lock is a brilliant teacher, this is partly because she's actually not that interested in teaching, she's interested in learning. She didn't make assumptions and schools were for teachers learning not pupils so much.

Let's say Edward or 'cheese' is pretty pissed off by now. Oliver the 'brighter brother' is seen by all as golden balls. But they've both had the same opportunities the adults whisper when he thinks they can't hear them!

Edward knows he's pretty average but what can he do? He isn't CLEVER!

Mrs Lock is no ordinary teacher (who said the job was easy)! but as I've said she loves to learn about people and what makes them tick and she cares deeply about Edward. She spends hours lesson planning and tries to deliver the curriculum individually as much as she can looking at each child's learning strengths. The others think she's barking! She knows Oliver in year 11 and about the inevitable comparisons (!) Poor 'Cheese' what can she do?

One day Edward rips up his essay into tiny pieces right in front of Mrs Lock.

She talks to him:

Mrs Lock: Edward, do you want to throw your life away?

Edward: You can't make me do anything Miss (turns to his mates in the back row who are all sniggering)!

Mrs Lock: I am not going to let you do this, give up! What about all that potential inside of you, I won't let it go to waste.

Edward thinks for a minute..Potential (?) She's got to be kidding right, he's in set 6 for Maths! And his family and friends call him 'cheese'! Olly's the one whose bright!

Edward has been feeling judged by everyone, but he's thinking he can do better, it seems Mrs Lock believes in him on some level, fancy that.

Mrs Lock has managed to create a tough but nuturing atmosphere in her classroom. A few months ago Edward was picking his teeth with a penknife, she's got him to appreciate Shakespeare by term 3.

Edward's an avid writer now, he's cruising for a B in English GCSE. He knows Mrs Lock's committed to him, he's remembered PEE (!) and when the class discussed Macbeth and how his misguided thinking led him to commit murder he said 'Macbeth should have known that straight thinking leads to straight living'.

Mrs Lock's husband wondered what on earth she was crying about later when the GCSE results were published. The tears wouldn't stop coming, Edward had a B in GCSE English, what's more all of them, all of his results, they were Bs!

(Much of this comes from Carol Dweck and her ideas on Mindset).

Shimmy what do you agree with though?:

You have a certain of ability in sports and you can't do much about it?

To be good at sports you must be naturally gifted

OR

To be successful in sports, you need to learn techniques and skills and practise them regularly.

How good you are at sports will ALWAYS improve if you work harder at it.

That's my real point.

My gosh Malcolm Gladwell really is onto something it seems!!! I thought his observations were pretty rubbish until recently!!

Rather you than me, Cortina, wasting my energy on trying to make silk purses out of sow's ears .

wasting your energy
sows' ears

Cortina. My ds is a good example. He's mildly dyspraxic and age 6 was very poor at sport. He did however love football. It might seem an odd thing to do - but, we choose to send him to a school with an excellent reputation for sport. All the children at his school do a lot of sport and are properly coached and all the school teams play competitive matches. He started off in the bottom (of 8) teams, but after three years of hard work he got to play in the B team and is aiming for the A team. In effect he was given opportunity and he grabbed it with both hands.

As you state in your examples passion and hard work are required. But, some encouragement is needed and I think children can be easily put off any subject if they are told often enough that they can't do it.

The challenge for any school is to balance stretching those that seem most able, whilst developing the potential of the rest. We should not underestimate how hard this is.

I can see it must be incredibly hard, that's why teaching is a vocation and not a job! Teachers deserve to be very well rewarded on all levels.

Children shouldn't feel judged, they should enjoy the learning process and that includes making mistakes! It's ok. I always believed a loser is forever, I tried to do an S level paper in English and I believed I didn't have the ability of my friend Polly. I was a fraud, an imposter.

I now see I could have done it if my attitude was different. 'Polly comes from a home full of books, she'd read all the classics by the time she was 11. I am going to have to work my arse off if I am going to do myself justice here'!

It should have been enough that my teacher believed I had the ability. Somewhere inside of me I felt my intellect was fixed. I am was 'fooling' people I had the ability, and doing quite a good job of it too. Why was effort so terrifying? I wish I realised you have to work hardest for the things you love, and I loved English Lit. I needed to learn to study to learn not to ace the test!

That's so great to hear about your son. It's interesting isn't it, if I saw him on the football field I wouldn't know about the dyspraxia. My son, not a footballer, might see him there in the B team and think 'alright for him. I am no good and have two left feet! I can only make the 8th team'. He wouldn't know about the effort that went into this success!!

Cortina - I think you are confusing the realisation that you need to work to achieve anything in life with the idea that if you work hard enough, anything is achievable.

But Cortina isn't saying these kids an achieve anything, she's talking about the 2nd team or a B grade, which you seem to miss in your assumption that only the very top is good enough, Anna.

I am trying to explore and understand exactly what might be possible if you work hard enough. Anything? Maybe not but a lot more than I realised. It's an interesting one to debate I think.

An 'average' student or even a below average one can get excellent grades. You can learn to draw and get reasonably good. You can do sport and maybe make the B team, perhaps the A team perhaps do better. I believe it's important to have a growth mindset about it all. It's very easy to think you don't have the ability so not but in the effort.

I wanted to be a journalist at one stage. What stopped me? My belief that people were natural writers, others would all be better and I couldn't improve much. Now I see it's ok to learn, everyone has to start somewhere. I might be average but I can only get better through effort and who knows I might be good? I had previously feared I might be permanently inferior.

Cortina - I answered your other thread as well.

When my child says they are not good at something, I respond that everyone starts off being bad at something, they work hard, and they become better at it. I do not say they will become one of the best at it.

In terms of skills like writing and other creative fields, they are rather different. The comparison is less external. I do not think that my creative writing is better or worse than George Orwell's. Dissatisfaction with writing/music/art comes from the desire to express something specific and then finding that your attempt is imperfect. In that situation it needs to be explained to children that some meanings can never be perfectly conveyed, and all artists and writers just do the best they can to achieve the best possible imperfection (through hard work).

I should really clarify that last post by saying that of course I am worse at writing than Orwell! But it is not being better or worse than anyone that is the main cause of creative dissatisfaction

Cortina. Malcolm Gladwell also discusses the 'Peter Princible' in sport and education as the major cause of 'relative age disadvantage'. I bang on about this quite a bit on Mumsnet, but it's where the youngest in any school year are assumed to be less able than the eldest from reception onwards. The effect is that the younger children will on average do worse at every educational stage up to Uni. They will also be more likely to be statemented. If you treat a child as clever: put them in the top set, make them class monitor, perhaps put them on a G&T program - they will live up to your expectations!! The converse being true for many summer borns. I don't mean to start any debate on this issue - but just to give it as an example.

Isn't it Milly? I have a terrible case of 'critic on my shoulder' in my head I can never be as good as Orwell so why start?
I am also a bit lazy which I need to work on too.

I have to fight this!

What you are saying to your child sounds great. I do this. too. Sometimes though I wonder if I am being patronising with my keep trying (keep plodding)? messages. How can I do this slightly differently, any ideas?

Not putting it well. Dweck explains this issue better:

The story of the tortoise and the hare, in trying to put forward the power of effort, gave effort a bad name. It reinforced the image that effort is for the plodders and suggested that in rare instances, when talented people dropped the ball, the plodder could sneak through.

The little engine the could, the saggy, baggy elephant, and the scruffy tugboat - they were cute they were often overmatched, and we were happy for them when they succeeded.

The message was: If you're unfortunate enough to be the runt of the litter - if you lack endowment - you don't have to be an utter failure. You can be a sweet, adorable little slogger, and maybe (if you really work at it and withstand all the scornful onlookers) even a success.

Thanks very much, I'll take the endowment.

The problem was these stories made it an either - or. Either you have the ability or you expend effort. People with the fixed mindset tell us 'if you have to work at something you must not be good at it'. They add 'Things come easily to people who are true geniuses'.

jackstarbright you said:

If you treat a child as clever: put them in the top set, make them class monitor, perhaps put them on a G&T program - they will live up to your expectations!! The converse being true for many summer borns. I don't mean to start any debate on this issue - but just to give it as an example.

I am all for this, if possible to implement. I don't agree with any form of setting or ability table situation in year 1 for example. There's a lot of subconcious labelling of 'low ability' children going on I believe. My DCs in low ability sets/tables feel stupid on some level and when a 5 year old feels like that it is heartbreaking. I have a lot of work to do to make them 'believe'.

Ideally the curriculum is delivered individually to each child which plays to they way they learn best, but appreciate this isn't practical.

Cortina. To go back to my OP, I think many of the problems experienced with the comprehensive school system begin in primary schools. If all children reached year 7 functionally literate and numerate, with a positive attitude to their education, then the comprehensive school model would be an effective one (as it is in Finland, apparently). In reality we expect our comprehensive schools to fix problems and inequalities began years before. If you believe Gobsmacked2 (and I do) then one approach appears to be lowing expectations to a level so low that the least able pupil can reach it. Or, the alternate is aggressive streaming - which may be great for the bright and able but IMO, begins to dilute the princible of comprehensive education. And, many comprehensive schools avoid this dilema by being situated in middle class areas!

success in sport = 20% ability; 80% perspiration it's said. So a degree of natural talent does help, but it's mostly about the effort you put in as cortina says. Actually, I think the above holds for success in most things, not just sport.

Wow, this continued...

I agree ENTIRELY with Cortina (obv)

And Swedington/Bonsoir, I'm not sure what relevance your particular situation has to the general point I was making: two swallows (of entirely opposite origins it seems? ) does not make a summer. Or to be more scientific, a theory doesn't have to, indeed shouldn't have to, include every anecdotal case.

But more, the point about successful status groups is precisely that they obscure their membership 'processes'. Cortina described what I had said rather well in her discussion of 'natural' talent. 'Natural' stands in for 'invisible years of effort, training, practise, encouragement, knowledge...' And perhaps a bit of genetic ability. I think the point someone made about ranges of ability is important. I happen to believe everyone, anyone can get a degree, with the right amount of input and effort. I don't believe everyone can get a first class degree. Likewise, everyone can play football, but most will just play in the park on Sunday.

Some of you on this thread are enormously underestimating the importance of class aspiration, parenting, the hidden curriculum, the synthetic education that comes from having people around who read etc.. This is why middle class kids often succeed wherever they go to school, and it is what people who can afford it pay for in private schools.

I think it has bugger all to do with what 'proper knowledge' is, and all about teaching kids the skills to cover up their learning processes so they look natural.

And it's not just my theory, by the way: I'll happily draw up a reading list of educational research over the last 50 years or so if you like?