21ST CENTURY LEARNING ALLIANCE


There are three weeks left to apply for a Fellowship


offering a bursary of £3,000 for teacher-led action research into new approaches to learning.Ben Arora explains


seems wrong on an emotional level. It would be neater if the longest and hottest days of the year coincided, but then geography was never one of my stronger subjects. There is another disjuncture between logic and


I


emotion which occurs at this time of the year. It also seems wrong that as teachers across the country are drawing on hidden reserves to make it to the end of the academic year and a well deserved break, the calls to finalise plans for the next year grow ever more insistent. So it is with a guilty conscience that I draw your


attention to the Fellowships offered by the 21st Century Learning Alliance for small-scale action research into developing an education system which is fit for the future. The deadline for submissions is June 30. Sorry. The Fellowships are now in their third year and offer


small bursaries (£3,000 for 2011/12) to teachers and school managers to try out new approaches to learning to see what works and could be adopted more widely. For 2011/12, we are inviting proposals which explore new approaches to the curriculum. We have chosen the curriculum as an area for focus


given the intense scrutiny it is under at the moment. Education minister Michael Gove announced a review of England’s curriculum in January with a cut-off date


T IS only a matter of weeks until the days begin to grow shorter again, which means that high summer is fast approaching. I have always struggled to reconcile myself to the fact that in England (though less so Scotland or Scandinavia) holidays fall so far past the summer equinox.


There is logic behind the arrangement but it just


Setting the agenda


of April for the first call for evidence. However, there will be further calls for evidence and consultations on the findings in 2012 and beyond. At the Alliance, we are committed to doing what


we can, within our modest means, to help the teaching community shape the debate. This is why we are seed funding practical examples of approaches that have been developed and tested by teachers who know what they are talking about. We urgently need an injection of authenticity based


on experience into the debate about the curriculum that England needs. There are too many organisations with vested interests pushing particular agendas and as a result the battle lines drawn to date have a weary familiarity.


Knowledge vs skills


There is the somewhat stale, and wholly artificial, caricature of the options being about either traditional subject knowledge or wider skills. This is particularly popular with mainstream media as it makes for easy copy that can be used to stoke the prejudices of their readerships. However, the real question for any developed society is not that of either knowledge or skills, but how to develop both effectively.


Maths, English and science vs all comers


The question about the amount of time and resources to be devoted to a small core curriculum is at its heart a debate about the relative importance of education as


an instrument of economic policy versus the intrinsic value of education. Implicitly the debate is framed around two equations:


1, Maths + science + English = productive workers. 2, Art + history + religious education = fulfilled citizens. You do not need to be a polymath to see through the flaws in the way this debate is set up. The dispiriting rider to this is that it also sets


the teaching community against itself. When subject associations start lobbying for space on the national agenda it allows ministers to cherry-pick which arguments to listen to. The teaching community is going to need to show a little unity if it wants to take control of the debate.


Academic vs vocational


The last of the great false dichotemies and another “I’m sorry is this really the second decade of the 21st century?” moment. Once again the choice is not either/or but how


to deliver both effectively and in a way that enables young people to pursue subjects that they are interested in, which motivate them regardless of the label, and which will have some value to them later in life. Rigor, complexity and status are not inherently the preserve of academia alone, as any professional (teacher, doctor or architect) who has had vocational training will attest to. What is very striking is how different the terms


of debate are in the most forward-looking education systems around the world. You do not need to travel to the other side of the world, or the Arctic Circle, to see an example of this. There is one going on much closer to home, just over the border from Berwick-on-Tweed. What we now need is for that debate to move south


of the border. I can think of no better way to get the ball rolling than for teachers to stand up and say: “I’m sorry, I think you are missing the point. This is what really makes a difference in schools. We have tried it, we know.” As to what this may be, you have until the June 30 to tell us.


SecEd


• Benedict Arora is a director of the 21st Century Learning Alliance. Follow him on Twitter @benedictk.


Further information


The 21st Century Learning Alliance aims to provide a forum with wide representation from practitioners, government agencies and industry. The group debates difficult and sensitive issues to stimulate improvement and change. The deadline for Fellowship applications is June 30. Visit www.21stcenturylearningalliance.org/ fellowship/how-to-apply


SecEd • June 9 2011


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