Schools used to provide twice-yearly reports - Christmas and Summer.
The Report would be handed in a sealed envelope (despite clear teaching that letters to be carried by hand of friend should never be sealed) in the last days of term. A worried journey on the 341 would end with a ceremonial opening, family in full, gloating fig at the table, after eating.
I have some of these yellowed pages, with their beautiful script expressing such cruelties. They are essays, works of compressed art; if ever there were arguments for mastery of juxtaposition and punctuation, these marks and comments are it.
The first is from the last term at primary school:Number in class 41, position in class 1st. 'HG is capable of much. If she continues as she has done here she will achieve it....every good wish.' Here is a confidence booster that needs dealing with. And it was.
Latin 72, Term work better than this result (?); General Science, 93, Good. Conduct, very good (i.e. not excellent, the de rigeur mark). The next round they really get down to it: Latin, 76, impetuous. Needlework, fair ( fair? my work was literally soaked in blood and tears). Conduct, good (i.e. really bad), and by Form IV they're well away: English 84, HG begins to have an exaggerated opinion of her ability. A pity! History 82, a satisfactory examination result. So just as a very young woman begins to find her voice, her enthusiasms, her interests and passions, there it is: Geometry, 76, careless work. Drawing (I'd been drummed out of Needlework), 78, good, (oh, the disappointment, not even an amplification). Number in form 36, place in form 3rd, HG does not do her best, Conduct, Good.
Mmmm, said Mr HG glancing over my shoulder, sette in condotta, in a convent! What were you doing, exactly?
Actually, I was giving up.
Showing posts with label Holborn community school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Holborn community school. Show all posts
Tuesday, 5 June 2007
Thursday, 26 April 2007
Schools and our world
Transmitting knowledge and culture from one generation to the next is a constant and universal activity. Schools do not stand as islands in the sea of everyday life. The undertaking is simplified when there is homgeneity in the matter to be transmitted and agreement on the means which, at the moment, there is not. It is known now that learning is more effectively undertaken between the ages of 4 and 11 (more or less). After that we still learn but the way in which we learn is set not so much in stone as in the organisation of our brains. There are no arbitrary cut-off points for learning but earlier is different and often easier than later, at least for groundwork skills in central subjects.
Schools are essentially for formal learning; they are not substitutes for the social absorption of life skills and pragmatic understanding which are acquired, necessarily, in everyday life. Certainly schools build upon these things by instruction, that is why homgeneity in earlier acqisitions is so helpful - but not essential.
Formal learning and the instruction that enables it is not an egalitarian undertaking or experience (as a music teacher of impeccable socially egalitarian principles advised an overly creative pupil). ‘Do as you are told’ from master to pupil is not a request but a requirement for learning at all. The evidence for this is reinforced when considering the subjects that are taught in schools. Mathematics, music, foreign languages, grammar, art, all of the sciences are best taught early and by imposition of fundamental principles to be absorbed before any experimentation in application takes place. This is true as well of any decent teaching in literature , history, or any other interpretive study. There, too, the rules of rhetoric need tobe known before they are flouted. An education requires submission and acceptance of discipline, in itself a very good reason why such a practice should be confined within schools.
A school exists within a building, but it is not necessary for all activity within that building to be a school . Many of the undertakings currently regarded as ‘school’ should be offered, but not compulsory, and outside of the work that a school undertakes. There is ample evidence of the way this works. In Italy, for instance, the school building opens at 8 am and lessons start at 8.10. They continue until 12.30 for under elevens and until 1.40 for older pupils. There is one 20 minute break mid-morning. After school, where lunch can be taken, there is supervised homework by tutors, and activities from sport to the furthering of interests and hobbies, that can be enjoyed there; or pupils can leave for home and use their afternoons as they choose (school homework remains an obligation not lightly ignored.) Working parents know where they stand, and children from all backgrounds can access all kinds of activities. Schools are essentially of their community, for the journey to school should be autonomous from a reasonable age, building, inter alia, all kinds of other links.
A school physically set within a surround of social and community services can impose its need for discipline and respect for teachers, while the hardness of learning is ameliorated by meeting locally determined needs - be they instruction in the language of instruction itself, childcare for older children, group activities, advanced teaching in some disciplines, and even a place of tranquility and safety for those from troubled homes.
The very nature of acquiring an education requires a central core of disciplined acceptance of teaching, and it is this that is sinking beneath the confusion of objectives that our schools are bearing.
Schools are essentially for formal learning; they are not substitutes for the social absorption of life skills and pragmatic understanding which are acquired, necessarily, in everyday life. Certainly schools build upon these things by instruction, that is why homgeneity in earlier acqisitions is so helpful - but not essential.
Formal learning and the instruction that enables it is not an egalitarian undertaking or experience (as a music teacher of impeccable socially egalitarian principles advised an overly creative pupil). ‘Do as you are told’ from master to pupil is not a request but a requirement for learning at all. The evidence for this is reinforced when considering the subjects that are taught in schools. Mathematics, music, foreign languages, grammar, art, all of the sciences are best taught early and by imposition of fundamental principles to be absorbed before any experimentation in application takes place. This is true as well of any decent teaching in literature , history, or any other interpretive study. There, too, the rules of rhetoric need tobe known before they are flouted. An education requires submission and acceptance of discipline, in itself a very good reason why such a practice should be confined within schools.
A school exists within a building, but it is not necessary for all activity within that building to be a school . Many of the undertakings currently regarded as ‘school’ should be offered, but not compulsory, and outside of the work that a school undertakes. There is ample evidence of the way this works. In Italy, for instance, the school building opens at 8 am and lessons start at 8.10. They continue until 12.30 for under elevens and until 1.40 for older pupils. There is one 20 minute break mid-morning. After school, where lunch can be taken, there is supervised homework by tutors, and activities from sport to the furthering of interests and hobbies, that can be enjoyed there; or pupils can leave for home and use their afternoons as they choose (school homework remains an obligation not lightly ignored.) Working parents know where they stand, and children from all backgrounds can access all kinds of activities. Schools are essentially of their community, for the journey to school should be autonomous from a reasonable age, building, inter alia, all kinds of other links.
A school physically set within a surround of social and community services can impose its need for discipline and respect for teachers, while the hardness of learning is ameliorated by meeting locally determined needs - be they instruction in the language of instruction itself, childcare for older children, group activities, advanced teaching in some disciplines, and even a place of tranquility and safety for those from troubled homes.
The very nature of acquiring an education requires a central core of disciplined acceptance of teaching, and it is this that is sinking beneath the confusion of objectives that our schools are bearing.
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