Purpose of primary education

What do you think should be the purposes of primary education?

Hi everyone, hope you’ve all been well.

My first blog post will be talking about the purpose of education and what should be the main priorities within education. I will be talking about the pedagogical views, using various sources of information and will also be talking about my views on the purpose of education.

First things first…. WHAT IS PEDAGOGY?

The English oxford dictionary suggests that pedagogy ‘’is the method and practise of teaching especially as an academic subject or theoretical concept’’ (Stevenson,2010). There are many different views that people have on pedagogy, but Donaldson gives off a slightly different view of what pedagogy is compared to what has been put into the Oxford dictionary.

Donaldson suggests ‘’pedagogy is more than teaching narrow sense of methods within the primary classroom. Donaldson states ‘’It can be considered as a selection of methods in the light of the purposes of the curriculum and the needs and the developmental stage of children’’(Donalsdson,2015,p.63).

Both views are different in the sense that Stevenson suggests that it’s just about the method and practise of teaching, where Donaldson states that it is more than just the method and practice even though they both mention an important role within pedagogy.

In order of importance, the next 3 phrases are what I think should be the main purposes of a child’s education.

1.    Education is the development of autonomous and creative thinkers.

2.    Education is the development of skills, knowledge, and self-discipline.

3.    Education is the process of cultural transmission.

I managed to find a reliable source from the government where Nick Gibb addresses the education purposes. It is suggested that ‘’Education is the engine of our economy, and it’s an essential preparation for adult life’’(GOV,2015) Nick also believes that ‘’education is also about the practical business of ensuring that young people receive the preparation they need to secure a good job and a fulfilling career’’(GOV,2015). Personally, I agree with the statement that has been made. If a child is in education for 18 years and leaves not knowing anything to do with the way the world works outside of education, it would be a big struggle for them to learn it all by themselves. I also believe that education helps a child to be a creative

"Education is really aimed at helping students get to the point where they can learn on their own’’(Chomsky,2013).

What do you guys think of this quote? Do you think it’s right?

People believe that the general purpose of education is to transfer knowledge and prepare young people for when they leave and enter the real world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=DdNAUJWJN08

 The link above shows a 20-minute video of Noam Chomsky talking about what he thinks is ‘The Purpose of Education. He talks about a numerous amount of different reason of what education is and how they produce new things to bring into the world of education.

He mentions ‘’from childhood young people have to be placed into a frame work in which they will follow orders except existing frameworks and will follow orders and this is quite explicit’’ and this is all because of indoctrination.

It is believed that the ‘Conflict theory) sees the purpose of education as maintaining inequality and preserving the power of those who dominate society (Cliff Notes, 2016).

In the Donaldson report he states 4 key purposes that all children must be. These four purposes are:

1.Ambitious, capable learners who are ready to learn throughout their lives.7

2.Enterprising, creative contributors who are ready to play a full part in life and work.

3.Ethical, informed citizens who are ready to be citizens of Wales and the world.

4.Healthy, confident individuals who are ready to lead fulfilling lives as valued members of society.

As you can see, all the above link to the outside world, so life after education. It is implying that the purpose of education is to get children ready for the real world and for them to be independent and for them to earn a living (Donaldson, 2015).

I came across a quote written by (Aronson,2008) which defines his idea of the purpose of education.

“We put our children through their paces in school not so that they will learn something, or master something, or meet any standards. No. We give them tools so that they can experience the joy, the passion, of creating’’

I find this quote very interesting to read as (Aronson) mentioning that a child doesn’t go to school just for them to learn, they go to school so they can experience new things and learn about the passion of education and also learn how to be creative when in the education environment.

I believe that education should be for the enjoyment and excitement of a child even though there is an element of it that does help them to learn about the real world and how it has an big impact on their loves once they are out of education.

I managed to talk to a current primary school teacher on what they think the purpose of education is and his reply to my question was ‘’The purpose of education is to provide individuals with opportunities that enable them to reach their own full potential, becoming capable adults that can learn adapt and thrive in a range of contexts and situations’’ (Morgan, 2017)

Each teacher I had asked all had different opinions on what they thought the purpose of education is for a child.

I hope you have all enjoyed reading my blog on this specific topic and I hope it has got you all thinking what the purpose of education is. Feel free to leave any comments down below, and I should talk to you all soon bloggers.

Chomsky, N (2013) available at: http://www.openculture.com/2012/11/noam_chomsky_spells_out_the_purpose_of_education.html accessed on: 8^th November 2017

Daily Riff (2015) Available at: (201http://www.thedailyriff.com/articles/noam-chomsky-the-purpose-of-education-869.php accessed:14^th November 2017

Donaldson, G (2015) ‘Successful Futures – Report on the Curriculum and Assessment Arrangements in Wales’ Available at: http://www.uwtsd.ac.uk/media/uwtsd-website/content-assets/documents/wcee/successful-futures.pdf [Accessed: 8th^th November 2017].

Good Reads (No Date) Available at: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/51409.Marc_Aronson accessed:12^th November 2017

Josh Morgan (Morgan, 2017) Current Primary School Teacher

Creatvity in Education

Hey Education Bloggers!

Today’s blog will be all about creativity! What creativity is, how we have explored creativity in our AOLE sessions, and academic literature to support creativity in the classroom will be discussed.

Firstly, what is creativity and why do we use it within the classroom? In 1988, when the national curriculum was introduced, it proposed that; we should enable pupils to be given the opportunity to “become more creative, innovative, enterprising, and capable of leadership to equip them for their future lives as workers and citizens” DfEE/QCA (1999). Even though Wales are currently in the process of adapting to a new curriculum ‘Successful Futures’, Donaldson (2015) still stands by this definition and states that pupils will be “enterprising, creative contributors who: connect and apply their knowledge and skills to create ideas and products. Play different roles in teams effectively and responsibly, and are ready to play a full part in life and work”. As you can see, both statements have highlighted the importance of preparing children for their future.

Furthermore, Wright (2010) supposed that everyone has potential regarding creativity, however it may be within specific aspects. For example; a pupil may be creative in art and not music, or intelligent at maths but not science (Wright, S, 2010, p.3). Donaldson (2015) identified this and proposed that all subjects be as equally important as each other; giving all pupils the opportunity to excel at what they do best; thus being supported by the quote; “The education and young people should include rich experiences that are valuable in their own right” (Donaldson, G, 2015). Rather than them being known as subjects, they are now known as areas of learning and experience, and have been split into 6 areas.

These areas are:

·         “Expressive arts

·         Health and well-being

·         Humanities

·         Languages, literacy and communication

·         Mathematics and numeracy

·         Science and technology” (Donaldson, G, 2015).

Donaldson (2015) proposed that the purpose of education experiences is to “broaden children and young people’s horizons, stimulate their imaginations and promote enjoyment in learning”.

During our AOLE lecture, we were discussing the qualities of a creative teacher, and Dylan asked us “Should sessions follow and stick to a plan?” Personally, I don’t believe you should because a lot of the time something will spark the pupils interest and it’s a clever idea to expand on that instead because that’s what they’re really interested in; this is where experiential learning takes place. You will still be able to achieve the outcome of the lesson, but through a different route. This is referred to as ‘children’s choice’ as you are allowing the pupils to take ownership of their own learning.

For example; the pupils may be learning about counting in a mathematics lesson, it begins to snow outside and all the pupils are excited and looking out the window. The teacher then decides to abandon the lesson plan and take the children outside in the snow. The outcome of lesson (counting) can still be achieved as the teacher may say to the pupils “Let’s see how many snowflakes we can catch!” or “Let’s see how many snowballs we can make”.
To summarise this example; even though the teacher did not follow through will the lesson planned, the pupils still achieved the outcome of the lesson whilst using exploration to use all their senses, such as; touch, smell, hear, see, and taste.

There are strengths but also weaknesses to using creativity within the classroom. Firstly, a strength of using creativity in the classroom is that children will learn more efficiently as they are more likely to remember things that have been creative or interactive. Creativity caters to all needs of the pupils. Whether they learn visually, auditory, or kinaesthetic, children can access learning through creativity in a variety of ways (Desailly, 2012, p. 22). Children also have autonomy over their learning and get more personal fulfilment.

However, even though there are strengths to using creativity in the classroom, there are also many weaknesses. Firstly; creativity within the classroom can be known to have issues with time management, this may be because some children may finish the activity quicker than others when completing meaningful exploration. You then must find other activities for the children to complete whilst waiting for others (Desailly, 2012, P. 23). Another weakness may be that the parents may not understand the creativity purpose within education as there may be lack of written work in pupil’s books; this can be overcome by discussing with and showing parents the importance of creativity within the classroom and how much it should be valued. Lastly, asking children to come up with their own ideas can be very threatening and intimidating. This is also known as the ‘blank sheet’ moment; this can be overcome by having a structured plan for their creativity, and gradually building the children’s confidence and skills rather than putting them on the spot (Desailly, 2012, p. 23).

Reference List

Desailly, J (2012) Creativity in the Primary Classroom. London: Sage Publications.

Donaldson, G (2015) ‘Successful Futures’ Available at: file:///C:/Users/Sophielauren/Downloads/Donaldson%20Report%20-%20Successful%20Futures%20-%20Independent%20Review%20of%20Curriculum%20and%20Assessment%20Arrangements%20in%20Wales%20(1).pdf [Accessed: 28^th November 2017].

Wright, S (2010) Understanding Creativity in Early Childhood. London: Sage Publications.

 

How could collaborative learning potentially impact on primary education?

Hello Education bloggers! Today’s discussion is all about collaboration. Collaborative learning is an important skill that children need to learn in order to be successful in the future as the majority of jobs demand people to work together on various projects effectively.  Dillenbourg (2000, cited in Gama, 2000) states that ‘Collaborative learning’ is a situation in which two or more people learn or attempt to learn something together. Within primary education, collaborative learning is essential to improve teacher practice, developing children’s learning through sharing ideas and concluding the same outcome and Lawson (2009) suggests that failure to collaborate may be indicative of negligence and malpractice. This indicates that if we as teachers fail to collaborate then we will be very unprofessional and inhibiting children of the best possible practice we can provide. For example, why should children learn more effectively in next door class from the teacher using an amazing pedagogical approach just because they have not collaborated sufficiently in sharing ideas? This could be why the emphasis has shifted from individual efforts to group work (Leonard and Leonard, 2001). A vital skill that can enhance collaboration is communication and Lloyd and Bear (1995) recognised this and stated that talking is a technique that we “use to interpret, communicate, work through and make sense of our experiences” and therefore, is a significant importance to learning within our classrooms. Although talking can also be a draw back to collaboration since children easily get distracted and do not discuss the topic. This can be difficult to manage as a teacher and children relationships within the classroom can also cause collaboration to become less effective however, as a teacher you can manage this by giving pupils opportunities to try and collaborate with other pupils in different ways, for example, through communication or using technology with an anonymous feature within the activity (Newell and Jeffery, 2002). For effective collaboration to take place children have to socialise with each other and Vygotsky (1978) noted that social interaction was at the core of the development process which highlights the importance of encouraging a collaborative approach to learning by adopting a ‘sustained shared thinking pedagogical method of teaching (Blatchford, 2007). Children sharing ideas about their understanding of different concepts and ideas will open up children’s minds and allow them to make sense of the world around them. However, a powerful influence within their peer group could have an overpowering idea about something which could end up being negative. However if the teacher develops children’s critical thinking skills this will allow children to think about why that person thinks the way they do and whether they have to agree with their idea or not. This will also encourage more children to be open and confident about their ideas which will bring diversity and new view points to the classroom which has been proven to be effective even within a maths lesson (Parks, 2009).

During one of our ‘areas of learning and experience’ lecture we experienced an amazing first-hand example of how collaboration with the wider world can benefit children in primary education. We Skype called a head teacher from Cheery School located in the Kibera slum in Kenya. This provided us with some hard hitting facts about the challenges children and schools face in such an under developed country. For example, they had 6 rooms and 9 teachers for 450 pupils and many of the pupils were neglected and abandoned. However, by just having one computer within the school it allows them to collaborate with people across the globe which enables them to learn about other cultures, share their own experiences and gain money other countries have fundraised for the school. Without technology and collaboration none of this would be possible. According to Coleman and Levine (2008) technological collaboration provides schools with access to experts all over the world, saving time or money on travelling, increasing quality and provides decision support and it is innovating. However, you have to do some background work to ensure who you are talking to is safe and relevant to learning and gaining first hand experiences which can be time consuming. This relates to linking learning to real life contexts which will make the learning more meaningful and motivating which Donaldson (2015) outlines within his ‘successful futures’ review, that it is important to provide children with opportunities to gain a selection of content through experience and effective pedagogy. We were lucky enough to explore the benefits of collaboration with the wider world when St Nicolas Primary School came in to create a green screen introduction for the children in Nairobi which links to Kolb’s experiential learning theory since he argues individuals create knowledge through experiences (Bergsteiner, Avery and Neumann, 2010).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWu6te0UFO4 …

This was a very beneficial experience for the children because not only did it allow them to collaborate with another country and learn about their culture but they were also collaborating with the university and learnt how to use green screens which links to the new Digital Competency Framework since they gained confidence using new technology (Welsh Government, 2016). This was also a cross-curricular activity since it developed the children’s communication skills, research skills, technological skills and in my particular group it developed their history knowledge.

Education bloggers, I would like you to reflect on the following point: if collaboration impacts primary education and benefits children’s learning to a significant extent, what about children who are home schooled?

References

Bergsteiner, H. & Avery, G. & Neumann, R. (2010) Kolb's experiential learning model: critique from a modelling perspective, Studies in Continuing Education, 32(1), pp.29-46.

Blatchford, I. (2007)  Creativity, communication and collaboration: the identification of pedagogic progression in Sustained Shared Thinking, Research in early childhood education, 4(1), pp.3-23. 

Coleman, D. & Levine, S. (2008) Collaboration 2.0: Technology and Best Practices for

Successful Collaboration in Web 2.0 World. Happy about. 

Donalson (2015) Successful Futures: Independent Review of Curriculum and Assessment Arrangements in Wales, Available at: https://www.nasuwt.org.uk/asset/A788604C-3046-4005-A1EA0EAFF023E0DD/ (Accessed: 28th November 2017). 

Dillenbourg, P. (2000) 'Book reviews'. review of Collaborative Learning—Cognitive and Computational Approaches (Advances in Learning and Instruction Series), by Cauldia Gama. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 22(1), pp.131-134. 

Lawson, H. (2009) The logic of collaboration in education and the human services, Journal of professional care, 18(3), pp. 225-237. 

Leonard,L. & Leonard, P. (2001) Achieving professional community in school: the administrator challenge, planning and changing, 36(1), pp.23-39. 

Lloyd, C. & Beard, J. (1995). Managing classroom collaboration. London: Cassell.

Newell, S. & Jeffery, D. (2002) Behaviour management in the classroom: A transactional analysis approach. London: Taylor and Francis.

Parks, A. (2009) Diversity of practice within one mathematics classroom, Pedagogies: An international Journal, 6(3), pp.216-233. 

Welsh Government (2016) ‘Digital Competence Framework: Your questions answered’. Available at: http://learning.gov.wales/docs/learningwales/publications/160831-dcf-your-questions-answered-en.pdf (Accessed: 28th November 2017).