What Should Schools be Teaching? – 3 Simple Questions to Ask Yourself
Before you start shouting about what, exactly, we should be getting our students to learn, ask yourself these three simple things, suggests Tom Starkey…
- by Tom Starkey
What should be taught in schools?
Personally, I’d spend half a term trying to get Kayleigh-Ann actually to pick up her Caramac wrappers as she leaves the room if I thought it’d make an ounce of difference, but that’s just me.
Other folk have other ideas.
So many ideas.
According to various advocacy groups, stars who came to prominence eating live earwigs on telly, salespeople, educationalists, singers who came third in a singing competition, experts in stuff who, strangely, don’t seem to have a qualification in the thing they’re expert in and a plethora of other undoubtedly hugely informed folk, the answer is… everything.
Every single thing. All of it.
From the dangers of cheap processed food to budgeting for the weekly shop. From ensuring you conduct yourself in a respectful and civil manner to standing up against authority.
From guarding yourself against internet predators to effectively using a range of technology in this 21st-century world and beyond, schools can seemingly wave their secret magic wand and make it so.
I mean, it’s not as if they’re doing anything else at the moment is it?
So here’s a plea to anyone out there thinking of campaigning to get their hobby horse on the timetable.
Before you start chucking maths away to be certain that Roblox has its rightful place on the curriculum, and dumping history in favour of mindfulness, take a deep breath and consider these questions. I beg of you.
Question 1
Are you completely and utterly positive schools don’t already do this? Really? You’ve checked? Have you heck as like.
Whenever there’s an outcry as to what schools should be adding to the couple of tonnes they’ve already shouldered, there’s usually a pretty good chance that a school is already carrying it.
It’s just that folk haven’t looked. Or they haven’t looked closely enough. Or they have looked closely enough but it turns out the thing they were looking for (‘How to Google effectively’ for instance) is worded slightly differently, so there were no hits.
Do yourselves a favour – take the bold step of actually asking people who work in a school.
It might mean that you don’t look a total wazzock a little further down the line when your absolutely delicious outrage turns out to be over something that’s already being done.
No one likes looking like a wazzock. Take it from me, I have huge experience.
Question 2
You’ve made sure the answer to the first question is ‘yes’. You’ve made sure schools are not currently teaching (either explicitly or implicitly) the thing you want them to teach. Excellent stuff. Good show. Now, what do you want schools to drop?
Wait. You didn’t think this was a zero-sum game did you? You want juggling on the curriculum, that’s fine, but to get it there we’re going to have to dump something. I mean, schools don’t have an infinite amount of time I’m afraid.
Let’s get rid of (*spins wheel*) an hour of art! How’s that suit? What? You think art’s important? As important as juggling?
If something comes in, something else is going out. There’s not a couple of hours left here or there to accommodate the next big thing. If you don’t want to get ruthless, you might need to think on. So…
Question 3
Does this have to be taught in school?
Seriously though, does it really? Is it more of an adult skill? Have people learned it previously without it being slap-bang front and centre in the classroom? Have you looked into how that happened?
A lot of these proposals start with the assumption that school is the only place anyone learns anything. As much as i think school is important, I don’t think that paints an entirely accurate picture.
Community action is a powerful tool and shouldn’t be easily dismissed. Parental guidance is crucial. Can you help those to teach the things that may, perhaps, not be completely fitting in a formal educational environment?
So there are my three questions to ask before questing to get something into schools. The anti-wazzock triplet I’ll call them.
In fact, I’m appalled this isn’t already taught in school. It’s time for a campaign.
Tom Starkey is a teacher and writer who blogs at stackofmarking.wordpress.com. Follow him on Twitter at @tstarkey1212.
