by Guy Claxton
The other strand that should begin in KS2 is an introduction to the vast number of ways which grown-ups find of making a satisfying living. Some children develop unconsciously very limited – and limiting – ideas about what they could be: what they could dare or hope or aspire to be. Even casual remarks can close off an avenue: “Oh, that’s not for me – or for people like me,” “I could never do that,” “That’s not a feminine or manly thing to do so I’ll cross it off the list of possibilities.” From age 7 onwards, we think schools should be beginning to seed young minds with all sorts of possibilities, so children can see that ‘people like me’ do ten thousand different kinds of things to make a living, and have happy, fulfilled, responsible lives. Many parents and members of a school community talk well about their job, and a quick presentation followed by lots of questions is a good way of sparking children’s interest. After-school clubs run by specialists tend to be even more effective as they develop longer term relationships and tend to involve children in real-world activities together relating to the target vocation.
Age 11 to 14 – Key Stage 3: Real-world enquiries and possible selves
As pupils begin their secondary career, we envisage project work of diverse kinds, some designed by teachers to stretch certain learning habits of mind (there is an example of this in Chapter 5) and some designed largely by the students in response, this time, not just to personal interest but to some ‘commissions’ from the local community. Students, working in teams, provide genuine consultancy and research in response to issues that might be vexing local people. For example, they could include concerns arising from proposed housing developments, where the students research the likely implication of the development for local wildlife, road usage (e.g. parking, traffic jams, rat-runs) or increased pressure on local amenities such as sports facilities, doctors’ surgeries and schools. Again, skills of enquiry, interviewing, data analysis and presentation will all be stretched and developed.
At primary school we would hope that all children will have understood deeply that being a ‘good person’ and a ‘good learner’ are themselves learnable. By the time they get to secondary school they will already be well on the way towards developing these habits. It should have become second nature to own up to a breakage or to finding lost property, to behave kindly towards new arrivals in the school, to be able to stay focused on a task despite some distractions, to listen carefully to others in a group, to persist in the face of difficulty and so on. In thousands of schools around the world, pupils may have encountered this ‘habit-building’ way of teaching in the guise of Building Learning Power (many of our examples are taken from this approach) or from other approaches with similar philosophies.9 At some stage, no later than Key Stage 3, it is especially helpful if the techniques and attitudes of the ‘powerful learner’ are made explicit so that they are widely coached and discussed across the curriculum. Children are being helped to learn how to learn. There are many different ways of doing this, and all we would want to suggest here is that schools bear in mind two things.
First, they need to be sure that the approaches adopted should be well-researched. (In the 1990s, an approach called Brain Gym was much touted as the key to successful learning. It isn’t. Teachers were told that children had fixed learning styles which they had to attend to if they were to learn well. They don’t. It also briefly became fashionable to think that children exposed to the music of Mozart, ideally as early as possible in their lives, would become better mathematicians. They won’t, although some may end up liking or hating the music!) Some people believed that you had to make children sip water all the time or their brains would dry up and learning would stop. It doesn’t.
Second, the focus of these learning habits needs to be embedded in the whole curriculum, and not administered as a stand alone module. It doesn’t work to see learning to learn as a kind of occasional booster injection of learning to learn capabilities. We know from various research that, when this happens, learning to learn does not transfer into the various subjects where it needs to be applied, nor to out-of-school life, and it often becomes marginalised as an activity.
Learning to learn has helped me to learn better with other people. When working in a group I think about what we have done in the lesson and get my ideas straight, and I find that helps me tolerate anything! I can work in a group with anyone now without blowing my top! It definitely helps me, even at home.
Jake, Year 7
KS3 should also build on the exposure to a wide range of occupations and ‘possible selves’ begun at KS2. Once upon a time there used to be lots of people in schools called ‘careers officers’ who were skilled in knowing which educational pathways might work for which child. These days such people are very thin on the ground. There are also so many courses on offer at college and university that it is nigh on impossible for any teacher to keep abreast of them.
Luckily there is a great website called www.icould.com which shows short film-clips of all kinds of people talking about the journeys that led them to the work (whether employed or self-employed) they now love doing. Just play the students one of these every morning, and who knows, maybe a seed of a possibility, a glimmer of an idea, might be sown. And maybe even start offering small ‘work experience’ opportunities to the children that they can report back on, or make their own ‘icould’ videos for the rest of the school to see.
I had a really good history teacher, fun and full of energy. He taught us in a different way. Once before school he asked me, “Hannah, in the middle of the lesson can you keep on asking questions and I’ll ignore you, then you storm out?” So I was like, yeah. The lesson was about reliable sources, so after I stormed out he made everyone write a letter to the head teacher explaining what had happened. Then he called me back in and told everyone it was a set-up. We read all the letters out and some, of course, were really biased – my best friends vs. people who hated me, kind of thing. It was a really clever way to show us what we were learning about.
Hannah, Year 9, London secondary school
Age 14 to 16 – Key Stage 4: Sustained engagement with bodies of knowledge and research
We suggest that at this stage students bring their already well-developed reading, writing, collaborating and researching habits to bear on matters of national and global significance. In so doing they would be required to engage with the disciplined bodies of knowledge and research that inform these issues. The goal is for all young people to develop, as much as they can, a rigorous understanding of these issues, with all their complexities and controversies, which will enable them to play an informed part in public debates.
Key Stage 4 would thus provide a means to develop a kind of ‘intermediate literacy’ – an ability to read good quality literature, and to convey it fluently – that sits between the superficial opinions of, for example, tabloid newspapers and the technical world of research journals. In every school subject there is a progression across the key stages, not just of vocabulary but also of the intricacy and abstraction of arguments and ideas, and it is this ‘literacy of thought’ that students of this age are ready to focus on. (In KS2 you can set up a simple experiment and ask the children, “What do you think is going to happen?” You can’t ask that about the periodic table.) Many pupils never become fluent in this more abstract-but-precise way of thinking and writing, and nor do they master the art of sliding between the language of concrete, personally felt experience and the abstract languages of academic research – but they could, and it would be socially highly useful for them to do so.10
For example, people tend to fall into two groups when you ask them about the causes of the global financial crisis of 2008. About 80% of people blame venal or stupid individuals (‘villains’ or ‘idiots’, basically). They take a rather moralistic and simplistic stance. The other 20% take a more systemic view; they talk about the nature of institutions, their cultures and fallibilities, and the way they interact.11 This one-fifth of the adult population turns out t
o be significantly better educated than the rest. They are able to take a less emotive or self-righteous view of the situation, and thus arrive at more penetrating analyses, and potentially more effective solutions. They are better at what has come to be called ‘systems thinking’. Wouldn’t it be good (for all of us except climate deniers and the oil industry) if thousands of 16-year-olds were flooding out of schools well-informed and eloquent about such matters? About climate change (or what James Lovelock now insists on calling ‘global heating’)? About the relationship between the arbitrary carving up of areas of Central Europe, Africa and Asia by old colonial powers, and the resurgence of tribalism, whether ethnic, religious or geographical, in those areas once oppressive rule begins to crack? About the exposure of previously hidden experiences of war or abuse through literature, art and film? This is not a left-wing, anti-establishment agenda; it is a depth-of-understanding-of-complex-issues agenda. And if that is not a legitimate purpose of education, we don’t know what is.
There are many high quality, well-written, contemporary non-fiction books that could serve as the basis for the discussion and development of this ability to bring good information, theory and argument into the arena of public debate. Kindle and paperback editions are not expensive. On the financial crisis, 15-year-olds could read John Lanchester’s Whoops! Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay or John Coates’ brilliant exposition of the neuroscience of risk-taking, Between the Hour of Dog and Wolf.12 On climate change, George Monbiot’s Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning or James Lovelock’s The Revenge of Gaia would be good.13 On the evolution and future of humankind, anything by Richard Dawkins is an exemplary piece of science writing, while Jared Diamond’s The Third Chimpanzee is a great read14 – there is even a version adapted to the reading level of 10-year-olds now on the market, so such reading could start even earlier.
In understanding recent developments in psychology, David Brooks’ The Social Animal, Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow and Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind are highly accessible, well-researched and very thought-provoking.15 Alexander Diener and Joshua Hagen’s Borders: A Very Short Introduction brings history and politics together in a way that illuminates many current post-colonial conflicts.16 Many works of fiction also address contemporary or historical issues of real importance in lively ways – for example, John le Carré’s The Constant Gardener or Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies.17 Any would-be writer of fiction would learn hugely from John Yorke’s Into the Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them.18 Olivia Fane’s The Conversations: 66 Reasons to Start Talking would be a terrific primer for debates about painful contemporary issues.19 Students could read these books as a kind of ‘book club’, meeting weekly to discuss a chapter, and having regular ‘flipped’ sessions with their teacher to ask questions and iron out misunderstandings and disagreements. As a group, having to read a whole book and master complex arguments would clearly stretch a host of valuable capabilities: reading, concentration, discussion, resilience and imagination, just for starters. And, of course, there are various online interpretations and e-versions of the books which could be explored.
Age 16 to 19 – Key Stage 5: Deep scholarship and extended making
Here we envisage two strands: one vocational and the other philosophical. Having explored a whole variety of vocational options and ‘possible selves’ earlier in their school careers, the vocational strand could require a commitment to following one or two vocational pathways in more detail, in a mixture of disciplinary learning and internships or apprenticeships. By vocational here we mean to do with any likely future career, be it in medicine, web design, social work, catering, teaching or sport. We think that vocational should apply to the developing work identities of all young people, not just those who are not cut out for more disembodied kinds of study. And, by the same token, all young people should be developing a base of knowledge and understanding that enables them to be thoughtful rather than mechanical practitioners. (As we all know, it is possible to be a well-informed, thoughtful and creative plumber, and a mediocre, mechanical lecturer, GP or solicitor. Creative intelligence is not the province of a small sector of the job market – and nor is absent-minded or sloppy thinking!)
We think that the more general and philosophical component of KS5 could well be derived from something like the International Baccalaureate (IB). It should really stretch students to think about complex issues of current relevance and concern. This is the core of the IB diploma:
● An extended essay asks students to engage in independent research through an in-depth study of a question relating to one of the subjects they are studying. The ‘world studies’ extended essay option allows students to focus on a topic of global significance which they examine through the lens of at least two of their subjects.
● The theory of knowledge (TOK) course develops a coherent approach to learning that unifies the academic disciplines. In this course on critical thinking, students enquire into the nature of knowing and deepen their understanding of knowledge as a human construction.
● Creativity, action, service (CAS) involves students in a range of activities alongside their academic studies throughout the diploma programme. Creativity encourages students to engage in the arts and creative thinking. Action seeks to develop a healthy lifestyle through physical activity. Service with the community offers a vehicle for new learning with academic value. The three strands of CAS enhance students’ personal and interpersonal development through experiential learning and enable journeys of self-discovery.
We would like to add an extended physical project to balance the extended essay. Students would be required to make something beautiful and present it to an audience. It could be a piece of furniture or a bowl, a gymnastics display or a dance, a sculpture, painting or digital installation, a book of poetry or a storybook for younger children, a four-course meal or dozens of other technically accomplished outputs. Either separately or in conjunction with this, we would like to see a collaborative project too, in which the honours and responsibilities are shared – as indeed they are in much of ‘real life’.
The theory of knowledge course should provide an essential – and challenging – corrective to the preceding years of acquiring specific bundles of knowledge, skill, attitude and understanding.20 Its input should be composed solely of provocations to simplistic ideas about knowledge, learning and the composition of the mind. Any lingering attachment to ideas and beliefs, such as those below, could be challenged with visual illusions, moral dilemmas and paradoxes, and the classroom could resound with agonised discussion as students’ minds get stretched and hitherto unquestioned certainties are put to the test.
● Knowledge is, in principle, secure and reliable.
● The Ten Commandments tell us what to do in any situation.
● Intelligence is a fixed, general-purpose resource largely determined by our genes.
● Perception shows us the world as it really is.
● The mind is separate from the body.
● There is always a best solution to a tricky moral situation.
● Google has made teaching redundant.
● There is no such thing as society (only individual people).
● Creativity is the province of the arts.
The IB’s own description of theory of knowledge speaks for itself:
The TOK course encourages critical thinking about knowledge itself. Its core content is questions like these: What counts as knowledge? How does it grow? What are its limits? Who owns knowledge? What is the value of knowledge? What are the implications of having, or not having, knowledge?
Students entering the Diploma Programme typically have 16 years of life experience and more than 10 years of formal education behind them. They have accumulated a vast amount of knowledge, beliefs and opinions from academic disciplines and their lives outside the classroom. In TOK they have the opportunity to step back from the relentless acquisition of new know
ledge in order to consider knowledge issues. TOK activities and discussions aim to help students discover and express their views on knowledge issues. The course encourages students to share ideas with others and to listen to and learn from what others think. In this process students’ thinking and their understanding of knowledge as a human construction are shaped, enriched and deepened.21
The ideas in this chapter are not intended to be remotely definitive. Rather, they are presented to start some different conversations about what we might want young people to learn at 5, 7, 9, 11, 14 and 19. Our intention is to populate the curriculum with challenges to think about, and to stretch young people’s abilities to think, to critique, to communicate and to act effectively – not just to mug up bodies of received opinion simply in order to open a gate into the next field of learning. We want to bring knowing, thinking, feeling and acting back together, as a powerful launch pad for a thoughtful, responsible and adventurous life.
1 Paul Kirschner, John Sweller and Richard Clark, Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: an analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching, Educational Psychologist 41(2) (2006): 75–86. Available at: http://www.cogtech.usc.edu/publications/
kirschner_Sweller_Clark.pdf.
2 Department for Education, Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage: Setting the Standards for Learning, Development and Care for Children from Birth to Five (Runcorn: DfE, 2012). Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/