There is nothing new in the efforts to engage pupils at school by combining what is taught in lessons with what interests them in the outside world. In many respects it’s a good way forward – some years ago there were efforts to encourage reading in boys by basically getting them to read anything – comics, football reports, whatever – on the off-chance that they would then start reading books and improving their reading skills and general literacy. This project was geared around encouraging children to read material that interested them, in the hope of that material being a gateway to reading other things. It wasn’t focused on particular comics or films or ‘tie ins’ for example.
So far so good, but when does engagement become pandering? When does it become patronising – and, in some cases, is there an argument to be made for some aspects of this sort of outside world / education crossover actually being exploitative of children and teenagers? For example, developing lesson material like the one mentioned here might work very well with pupils for whom the ‘Twilight’ series is a major interest but would do absolutely nothing for others for whom it means nothing. I have to say that I’d also be concerned about the longevity of such material in terms of it maintaining it’s interest and relevance for future years of students. The last thing that a teacher will want is to either develop material that goes out of ‘favour’ with pupils so quickly that it needs to be revised each year. Maintaining ‘relevance’ is about keeping educational material valid and relevant in the wider world, not in the world of this month’s media hype.
There’s also an element of being patronising here – attempting to second guess what teenagers might be interested in is a dangerous occupation; it can easily fail and be regarded as patronising. Education is surely not about appearing ‘cool’ to the students; surely it’s more important to put ideas and concepts over in an understandable way, that is as far as possible relevant and contemporary so as to engage pupils, but not by jumping on to whatever bandwagon is passing?
As far as I can see, there are some topics taught that are, let’s say, eternal. They’re the basics; the stuff that’s been taught for as long as the subject has existed. In my experience this tends to be confined to the basics of reading, writing and numeracy. Things like the rules of grammar, basic arithmetic and counting, even, dare I say it, things like times-tables. The factual aspects of history and geography (without the interpretation) falls in to this category. Whether we like it or not, any attempt to ‘engage’ pupils with these topics is almost certainly going to be met with resignation or smirks from the class. Perhaps we need to actually get down to business here; the fact is that there are some things we need to learn to get on in life that are just hard work and need to be done. No point in trying to make it cool, or trendy; it just needs doing. best thing we can do is just get on with it.
Of course, it does benefit ‘content providers’ like film companies, computer games manufacturers, etc. to get in to the field of education in this way; it’s cheap marketing to a captive audience, after all. And it’s probably tax-deductible….
In a recent article,
I really dislike IE6. I hate having to support it for some of my clients, and really wish they could work out how to convince their customers to upgrade. But, my clients are real world guys; they deal with nuts and bolts, ironmongery, bank accounts, etc. Their customers tend to be real world people as well – and by real world I mean not software, not media, not technology companies.
I recently found this on my Twitterfeed: @jakebrewer: Yes! Note from newly devised Hippocratic oath for Gov 2.0 apps: “Don’t confuse novelty with usefulness.” It is so true – and that comes from someone who spent part of his MBA working on the management of creativity and innovation. There is a science fiction story by Arthur C Clarke in which two planetary empires are fighting a war. The story’s called ‘Superiority’ for anyone who wants to read it. In this tale, one side decides to win the war by making of use of it’s technological know-how, which is in advance of the opposing side. Unfortunately, each innovation has some unforeseen side effect which eventually, cumulatively, ends up with the technologically advanced empire innovating itself in to defeat.
A few days ago I came across
Well, I guess that as someone with technical credentials I should comment on the unveiling of Apple’s new tablet machine, the iPad. The first thing I will say is that I’m not an Apple fanboi, and so am probably a hard audience to impress. Anyway,
Have you heard of ACTA? How about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement? No? Well, you’re probably not alone. After all, here in the UK the Government