Voices of Education: Merlin John
A fascinating conversation where the tables were turned on the great Merlin John. A wonderful journalist and passionate educationalist who writes regularly for many audiences and publications – most recently Merlin’s blog as well as the NCSL’s new Future site.
If you could talk with the Oracle at Delphi (or ask questions of the data we’re collecting and generating), what would you want to find out to inform educational policy and practice?
I would like the data to be used to clearly identify most significant obstacles to learning and student engagement so that steps could be taken to remove them and deal with their after-effects. I would want priorities set to ensure desired outcomes were established for learners (ie the kind of citizens we want): that teachers’ professionalism was fully developed, supported and extended; that the curriculum broadly matched the needs of society and enterprise; that the forms of assessments used were apposite to the vision of learning developed and did nothing to alienate or disengage learners, in fact it ensured the opposite; that learning for this education system could take place when and where it was most appropriate, so that learners were present at specific physical places only when it was appropriate; and that learners were fully involved and engaged in all the relevant stages of this process.
In scanning the horizon, we often look for ‘weak signals’ – new developments and ideas that may play out in the future in many different ways. What current developments (policy, practice, tech etc) have you noted that you think have possibilities for making a big difference to education in the future?
The recent dropping of one of the English Sats tests is a sign that the English education establishment is recognising that the assessment system is seriously out of kilter and causing problems that can only be solved by change. However, it is only a tentative beginning and this is an interpretation – nothing explicit has been expressed (ie, assessment/testing isn’t working). In Scotland the education policy is coherent, from the desired outcomes through the process, so that it is capable of being expressed effectively through a body of expertise, for example at the annual Scottish Learning Festival. However, in England, the radical Every Child Matters and the policy of personalisation of learning are undermined and dissipated by an incoherence in the system caused by elements like the over-use of testing and the perceived contradictions and inequities of the academies programme (even though it originated as a means to address the plight of communities chronically underserved by the education system.
There are signals in those elements of BSF where communities manage to keep pace with the “runaway horse” of BSF (true of so many capital projects where substantial sums of money have to be spend inordinately quickly) and rally their resourcefulness to develop creative visions of learning that can then be wed to a design process capable of producing a school for the future. The successes in this scheme will be important nationally and internationally despite the worries about the failures.
There are also signs of a bottom-up capability in the teaching profession. Blogging among Scottish teachers has been remarkably potent and successful – and the success of TeachMeet, arranged through wikis across the UK, might not be THE model that will emerge for staff development but it is proving a very important point about the kinds of creative grass roots organisation and sharing when teachers are trusted and have the space and resources to organise their own learning rather than have it done to them by people and organisations who are not even convinced by what they are doing.
Finally, we are seeing the emergence of a whole generation of innovative practitioners. There was a time when there was only one Stephen Heppell, and a handful of other innovators; but now a new generation of inspiring practitioners is emerging to support and spread change. While Scotland’s Ewan Macintosh, for example, is now recognised internationally as an innovator, there are plenty of others to support what he and his collaborators have started in Scotland.
Forecasters talk of ‘inflection points’ as a way of identifying big changes to come – they are often highlighted by ‘things that don’t fit’ (for example the mis-match between car crashes and developments in sensing technology). Can you highlight any real world problems within education, with possible developments/solutions outside of it?
I think the really big mismatch is between what “society” and enterprise say they want from learners – caring responsible citizens who are capable of working creatively, collaboratively and flexibly – and the institutions which are supposed to provide them. The other mismatch, which bolsters and perpetuates the first, is how assessment/examinations fail to provide meaningful evaluations which are helpful elsewhere other than open the door to opportunities along lines that fail to extend opportunities fairly across communities.
The institutions and the curriculum are showing signs of change, but the change is so slow in relation to the changes that have swept through businesses and communities. The importance of vocational education has at last been recognised but the remedies are, as yet, an experiment.
What do you not want to see in any education in 2025?
I want to see a lot less of the top-down policies and projects that inevitably fail to engage the communities they are aimed at. Student voice and teacher voice have to become embedded and integral to the system. I also want to see far less ideology, politics and, it has to be said, religion, in education. For example the annual ritual as the media and politicians score points on exam results, and which then results in the denigration of students’ hard work and achievements has become extremely tedious at the very least.
What are your hopes for education in 2025?
If I was a 12-year-old walking though my school with my friend in 2025 I’d like to be free of dread of what’s coming for me. I’d like to feel that my achievements would be recognised and not thrown to the wind. I’d like to think that whatever decisions I made about the subjects I would be taking would have the same credibility and respect as those being studied by the friends I was walking with. And I’d like to think that wherever and however we studied those subjects, we would not be artificially separated and segregated from one another and that we would have every chance to associate, communicate and collaborate, whether in real space or virtual space.
Read more of Merlin’s writing and observations here
