Schooldays...

I saw a headline about children being taught Chinese in schools the other day and it made me think about my own school days. Originally I was going to write a post about my favourite subject but instead I'm going to have a trawl through my school life more generally and think about what advice I would have given myself if given access to a time machine.

As a bit of a background I went to a bloody good comprehensive school (this isn't going to be a rant of state v private schooling. In the main I am in favour of the concept of private education but it so happened that my school was on a par on all indicators with the surrounding mid-level private schools) and I think I had an experience that could be firmly classified as normal. I wasn't exceptionally gifted but nor was I struggling through. I wasn't the most popular person there but equally I was lucky enough to be surrounded by nice people: as it turns out more than I thought - during the prefect elections in my final year, people whom I thought barely registered me were telling me they voted for me. I was lucky enough to have some extremely good teachers along with some not so good ones. You get the drift. My school-days were unremarkable; like an episode of "The Inbetweeners" with fewer outrageous hi jinx and even less success with girls (believe it or not it is possible to be less successful with girls than they were).

Unsurprisingly, the character I identified most with in the Inbetweeners was Will (only less snobbish and without the briefcase or feacal incontinence). For some reason I have never liked either football or rugby (probably as a result of having a condition that affects my coordination meaning kicking, throwing or catching the ball was something of an event for me). This combined with the fact that I really couldn't make myself get excited about either just to fit in marked me out as "different" and meant that for a large part of my school days I was never quite one of the lads. It also brought out my innate eccentricity (when one feels one doesn't conform one feels no need to try which is extremely liberating) and allowed me to be myself and fairly independent from early on. During my later years at school especially, I think my general attitude of taking life on my own terms won me quite a bit of respect too. Before this gets too psycho-analytical, I wasn't that bad and certainly not a complete loner; I was just able to enjoy my own company as well as that of others. I think, like many others, I grew far more socially confident and diverse as soon as I hit university. Advice to self on the social front then? Probably to be less afraid of getting involved with people and a bit less stand-offish. Piss-taking isn't particularly meant personally and shouldn't be taken as such... and just chill out a bit. Oh and talk to XX (being generic issues for fanciable girls); pining and making doe-eyes at them in maths is all very well but they aren't going to know unless you tell them and you never know what might happen.

Now what of subjects. Generally I think I chose those fairly well. Certainly, I got good grades throughout and for the most part I enjoyed them. I knew from fairly early on that my biggest strength was learning then applying facts rather than playing with slightly nebulous concepts so that, combined with my aptitude and general interest made, science an obvious choice. Luckily I was at one of the schools in my local authority group that allowed students to study all three sciences. Maths and English were compulsory at standard grade level (roughly equivalent to GCSE) and that was probably a good thing. History was a good choice. I was, and still am, fascinated by events in the past (even if I don't entirely agree with the curriculum as it was laid out) and part of the course was a nuts and bolts guide to critical thinking which I have used and adapted ever since in a variety of contexts and has served me well.

Now on to the more controversial bits. In these days of post-Olympics hysteria it's probably an imprisonable offence to say that I hated P.E. at school but there you have it I loathed every second. It wasn't that I hated sport, I swam and rowed a lot in my spare time - not just the odd dip or splash I mean training for 6 hours plus in the water and four hours on the water, so I was certainly sporty I just didn't see the point in being forced into sports I had no interest in doing in the first place and no intention of continuing afterwards. If I had been allowed to pursue a training programme laid down by my rowing or swimming coach during P.E. time that might have been different, not to mention worthwhile, but as it was, I just felt my time was being wasted. And before you say all exercise is good exercise: there wasn't even that much exercise, it was more standing around getting cold followed by occasional bursts of gentle exertion. Even the swimming was excruciating as the curriculum only covered the very basics which any swimmer has a conditioned reflex and the pool was so overcrowded that one was barely able to take more than a stroke without bumping into someone else. I doubt my experience was unique, I'm not sure I've ever encountered someone who enjoyed P.E. as a subject although if you did, let me know.

Now on to my next gripes. I'm not sure if it was school, local authority or government policy that insisted all students must study a language and at least one "arty" subject at standard grade but whoever came up with it should feel ashamed. It was certainly arbitrary and pointless in my book. I opted to study German as my language on the rather flimsy logic that I hated french and my granny was German so I could justify the change. In truth, I don't think I ever spoke a word of German to my granny (she had been living in Scotland for at least forty years by the time I knew her) nor did I particularly enjoy learning it. In my opinion there are those that are linguistically orientated and those that aren't. If you are then you can pick up languages with relative ease and enjoy doing it. If you aren't then the whole process is an absolute chore. I am one of the latter. The only language that would have been subsequently useful to learn was one that wasn't taught (probably some inverted snobbery on the part of a labour education authority) and that was Latin. As a subsequent student of both biology and law, Latin would have been tremendously useful in remembering and gaining a greater understanding of both subjects. In biology, it would have given clues as to the structure and function of a vast array of things I encountered. In law, it would have made the pithy Latin epithets I had to learn parrot fashion more understandable and as a result more memorable.

Now on to the "arty" stuff. As you can probably guess, I'm not "arty" or "creative" or whatever other euphemism you want to use so being forced to do it grated a bit. I chose music on the basis that I already played (well tortured) two musical instruments to a reasonable degree so it would be the least painful of the lot. Was it a good choice? Given what was available to me, probably. But it was still a monumental drag and again, felt like an enormous waste of my time. Would I tell my schoolboy self to do it again? Maybe. As a now passionate cook, part of me wonders if it would have been fun to do home economics however what I experienced before I chose my subjects was not inspiring. Far from being a basic cookery course to equip people to be just about self-sufficient; it was instead a comprehensive guide to washing up with some sewing, a lot of irrelevant crap about design of packaging and nutritional values for foodstuffs and the occasional bit of cooking for good measure. Although I have used some of the recipes I learned then since (and with some success) I only learned two vital lessons. Firstly, that ingredients do genuinely matter. They don't have to be the most expensive going but they do have to be of reasonable quality. Secondly, that vegetarian food is vile. The "arty" subject I would have really liked to study (and would have gained some genuine benefit from) was drama - probably slightly influenced by the fact that my father was a drama teacher and was full of stories of the amazing things he got up to in class. Not only did the subject sound interesting, it was essentially a fairly comprehensive guide on presentation skills and how one's own actions influence and are interpreted by others. Think about it, presentations, public speaking, even presenting in a meeting or job interviews are all performances to a greater or lesser degree and gaining an understanding of performance allows one to understand audience reactions and how to manipulate your own behaviour to suit and get a favourable reaction. Sadly, despite repeated lobbying, my school didn't have a drama department so I missed out on that. My dad did manage to teach me the essence of the above skills but like many practical skills, learning the theory one on one is not quite a substitute for experience and practice. So on balance, me at fourteen, stick with music if you have to do something "arty" but try your luck and see if you could be allowed to do geography instead; it's much more interesting.

The last bit of advice for my standard grade self would be to consider doing something businessy (ideally in place of German if I wasn't allowed to do Latin) principally because otherwise you will leave University a die-hard scientist with no understanding of the corporate world. Perhaps having a basic understanding of how a business functions and the language, etc used would give you the confidence to launch yourself into a career rather that do a secondary professional qualification. It wouldn't be a magic bullet but it might be something.

Now on to my highers. Generally I think I made a pretty good call with those. Again, I did the three sciences and by and large enjoyed them (even if my Chemistry teacher was a bit of a dragon and physics was a bit mathsy). I have found all of them extremely useful since and not just in my degree or in pub quizzes. Studying science has given me the confidence to apply known quantities logically to problems allowing me to arrive at a conclusion. English as well I loved. It was a fantastic opportunity to interact with some wonderful literature and gain a greater understanding of the richness of the language. It also gave me a lot of confidence to interact with and use English as a language. Conversely - and probably counter-intuitively - it has given me a life-long aversion to Shakespear and a deep suspicion of poetry. I think my advice to my younger self would be to take it further as a subject: on to advanced higher at least. Equally, I would tell my younger self to drop maths like a red-hot ticking bomb. I hated every minute of it, I struggled and I was certainly not good at it. The maths I needed for other courses was more than adequately covered in the courses themselves so subjecting myself to a year of mind-numbing tedium seems a bit massochistic. I know maths is a "good" subject to do and is terribly worthy and all that but words really struggle to express how much I hated it.

My final bit of advice to my younger self would be to do all the extra curricular stuff I did. It was useful in more ways than I can list. I was lucky, not only was my headmaster a wonderful leader, he was also a pupil advocate (ok I invented that concept) by which I mean, he saw school as a service for pupils rather than a statistic on a league table or a vehicle to generate data for the local education authority. As such, as well as fostering academic excellence, he encouraged, supported, aided and abetted lots of extra-curricular activities which were a) fun and b) great for developing pupils as people. Not only that but he genuinely cared about the opinions of his pupils and did his best to incorporate what they wanted from the school into school life. I had the fortune of getting to know him quite well through the pupil council as well as volunteering at various school events and I always felt that he was interested in what we had to say and that no issue was too trivial to be considered at least.

While I'm doing gushing name checks it's also worth mentioning the learning support department. The vast majority of teachers at the school were excellent, most of the remainder were good to mediocre and there were only a few that were bad. Departments were the same (and this is feedback from other pupils I got while I was on the pupil council as well as my own opinion). However, I have special praise for the learning support department. As a student with a learning disability (albeit a minor one) they literally could not have done more to help both in terms of encouragement and in terms of practical help. They listened to my needs both as I saw them and as was described to an educational psychologist and accommodated them without fuss or ceremony.

So that's it, my school days in a nutshell. Were they the fabled best days of my life? No, not even close. I was glad to get out and move on to pastures new but they did set me up well for the pastures I was expecting and the ones that came as a surprise and for that I'm grateful.

JR

Soldiers in Schools

Over the course of my revision, I saw a story in the paper that was detailing plans to get demobilised soldiers to retrain as teachers. I must say, I think it's an excellent idea.

I can't think of many better models for our young people today. Our armed services are institutions where exceptional levels of discipline, professionalism, dedication, motivation and integrity are the norm. Individuals in the forces understand that the world does not revolve around them; something the rioters of a few weeks ago with their latent sense of entitlement would do well to understand.

Of course there have been the predictable objections to this idea. Some say it is a bad idea to put trained killers in the classrooms. I think this is a very narrow-minded view. A far better representation of the job of someone in the service is of an individual skilled in getting a given task done often under extreme time pressure, with minimal equipment and, of course, adverse circumstances. Experienced problem solvers in other words. Admittedly the problems solved are military in nature and may well involve the use of force; however the use of force is incidental and not the objective in its-self. In short, portraying our forces as knuckle dragging thugs is ignorant.

[Further evidence, if such evidence is needed, can be found here here in the speech given by Colonel Tim Collins on the eve of the second Gulf War]

The demands placed on our forces today means that the testosterone-fuelled, macho stereotype no longer holds true. Young men and women are being sent into war zones before they have even reached their 20s. Many have lived with their parents all their lives, yet more have never been to a foreign country. When they get into theatre, it is very likely that they will be attacked. They will lose friends and must quickly come to terms with their own mortality. The Officers and NCOs who's job it is to lead these people have to be sensitive to their needs. Typically, rather than doing the bare minimum necessary to get by, they excel inspiring their troops to ever greater feats of heroism, bravery and sheer physical endurance. It is not only the leaders that are possessed of these traits. Every soldier I have spoken to (I always seem to end up sitting next to squaddies on long train journeys) had profound emotional intelligence and as far from mindless thuggery as you could wish to imagine. Why then, would we not want these qualities brought into our classrooms?

Members of our forces also have to be able to partially integrate and work within completely alien environments and cultures. They need to do this quickly and they need to do this while fostering as much good will from the local community as possible. Again, why not have our children taught by people who are used to building strong rapports with a diverse range of people quickly. Surely this skill could be used to engage the children and enthuse them about the subjects.

Military personnel also need to be able to react quickly to dynamic and changing situations. While the classroom is not a war zone, there is the potential for things to develop rapidly whether that be from an unexpected question prompting a class discussion to a disruptive pupil causing the whole class to lose interest.

To my mind, one of the biggest advantages of employing demobilised soldiers, sailors and airmen(people?) as teachers would be their uniformly strong sense of discipline. It is not fashionable in certain circles (and among the readership of certain newspapers) to suggest that children need discipline and boundaries to flourish. None the less it is true. Many people have been coming round to the idea after the recent riots and looting. Although giving kids a beasting may not be practical (or desirable) a strong sense of discipline and a no-nonsense attitude would go a long, long way. Couple that to an understanding of the concept of responsibility and a dash of self-respect and we would have the majority of young people ready to face the world when they leave school.

As for specialist knowledge, well that is attainable. Again, to assume the role of the military is simply fighting causes one to miss the bigger picture. The military regularly has to adapt to new situations and to do that, the people in it must learn new skills (and usually pretty quickly). Therefore it should be entirely possible to educate service people in specialist subjects. Law now operates a year conversion course covering the salient points of law an individual needs to know to practice effectively and some universities are now offering condensed medical degrees. This shows it's entirely possible to give an individual good subject knowledge without lengthy study. Furthermore, it is an error to think that currently all teachers of specialist subjects have tertiary education qualifications in their subject matter. This is particularly prevalent in the sciences where chemists regularly teach physics and biologists regularly teach chemistry due to a lack of teachers with specialist knowledge in those subjects.

I think there is a place for military personnel in our schools and I think all would benefit from it (and if nothing else, if the tabloids are to be believed, it would be very advantageous having people who are used to coming under fire in our inner city schools).

JR