An idiot’s guide to the philosophy of education: Part 3

This is the third in a series of blogs on the key philosophers of education. Part 1 can be found here. Click here for Part 2.

A.S. Neill

Neill was a Scottish educator who is most known as the founder of Summerisle, a school that gained notoriety in the 20th century for its progressive philosophy. He was famously portrayed by the actor Christopher Lee in a 1973 film about life at Summerisle.

The actor Christopher Lee received plaudits for his portrayal of Neill

Neill was a very poor student at school, so he decided to become a teacher. It turned out that he was also a very poor teacher, so he went into school leadership instead.

Neill co-founded a progressive school in Dresden in 1921. This school taught Eurhythmics, a new wave synth pop band, which is basically like people teaching Stormzy today.

Neill left Germany in 1924 and founded Summerisle in Dorset. He then moved the school from Dorset to its present site in Suffolk in 1927, a move that clearly influenced footballer Matt Holland some 70 years later, when he left AFC Bournemouth to sign for Ipswich Town in 1997 for £800,000. Unlike Holland, Neill remained in Dorset for the rest of life. Holland, of course, signed for Charlton Athletic six years later and became a club legend. Holland also represented the Republic of Ireland thanks to an Irish grandmother. As far as I am aware, A.S. Neill has no international caps for a country that he has only a tenuous connection to.

In his biography of Neill, Richard Bailey describes an algebra lesson taught at Summerisle by Neill himself, saying that his “explanation of algebra was incoherent” and concluding that the lesson was “simply awful”. Neill was clearly ahead of his time though as the same lesson would almost certainly have been graded ‘outstanding’ in the 2000s.

Bailey also says of that same lesson that Neill “dealt with individual difficulties by resorting to insults”, thus revealing the provenance of the approach taken by other high profile progressive educationalists on social media today.

Socialist author Ethel Mannin wrote of Summerisle in 1930 that it “is, I think, the happiest place in the world”. But then, at the point, she’d never been to a TGI Fridays.

R.S. Peters

Richard Stanley Peters was the protagonist in the BBC sitcom Porridge, who later went on to do philosophy and that.

R. S. Peters looking philosophical with a pipe.

R.S. Peters famously created the concept of ‘the educated person’. Before Peters, all people were idiots.

Peters’ defined ‘the educated person’ as someone who is in pursuit of truth, a bit like Anneka Rice in Treasure Hunt. Peters doesn’t specify whether the educated person needs to wear a tight-fitting jumpsuit, so that’s probably optional. I just wear one to be on the safe side.

Other characteristics of the educated person are:

• can eat three Shredded Wheat
• knows all the dance moves to ‘Saturday Night’ by Whigfield
• can get at least to level 6 on Snake on a Nokia phone
• has watched all of The Matrix movies without getting bored
• doesn’t tweet about it when they get a question right whilst watching University Challenge
• can name all of the S Club Juniors
• can see magic eye pictures without showing off about it
• constantly questions why only the orange Smartie is flavoured and yet all of the other seven colours aren’t
• has no time for music these days – it all sounds the same
• hasn’t fallen for the big olive con of having multiple different types of olives to choose from when they all just taste like salt anyway
• can recite pie to 12 ingredients

In 1981, the Ford Capri RS Turbo was introduced to Europe. Contrary to the popular belief that the RS stands for ‘Rallye Sport’, it is actually named after R.S. Peters. Ford went on to produce RS versions of many of their cars, including the Escort, the Fiesta and the Sierra. A fitting tribute to a great philosopher, I’m sure you’ll agree.

1980 Mercury Capri R.S. Peters Turbo

Jean Piaget

Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist whose work has heavily influenced Western philosophies of education. In a 2002 survey, he was ranked as the second most eminent psychologist of the 20th century, after Frasier Crane, but ahead of all of the Ghostbusters.

Jean Piaget as Monsieur LeClerc in the popular BBC sitcom ‘Allo ‘Allo!

Piaget came up with a theory of cognitive development, which he cleverly called ‘Piaget’s theory of cognitive development’. Within this theory, Piaget identified four stages of cognitive development, which corresponded with different ages of our lives.

The first stage is between the ages of 0 and 2 years old, and is called the sensorimotor stage. Within this stage, children develop an understanding of object permanence: the idea that an object continues to exist even though you can’t see it, like when I left my lunch at home this morning and I know that it’s still on the side where I left it. This is not to be confused with when a pupil leaves their homework at home, which is called object fabrication.

During the second stage, called the pre-operational stage, children cannot understand concrete logic or mentally manipulate information. This occurs between the ages of 2 and 7 years old, but can be triggered again in adulthood by simply placing a MAGA cap on your head.

The third stage is the concrete operational stage and occurs between the ages of 7 and 11 years old. According to Piaget, this is the stage when the child can use logic appropriately. But if this is true, why do some children sometimes ask their teachers if they remember World War I or if Shakespeare is still alive? Also, I still don’t understand Inception and I’m 44 years old.

The final stage is the Aztec Zone, and after that you get to go to the Crystal Dome and collect gold and silver tokens. For every crystal you picked up over the four stages of cognitive development, you get five seconds in the Crystal Dome.

Piaget’s theories have been criticised for being “conceptually limited, empirically false, or philosophically and epistemologically untenable”. Piaget’s influence on education academia and research today is massive.

(Editor: Are these last two sentences meant to be separate points? Shall I put them into separate paragraphs before publishing? It just looks like you are making a link between those two points and I’m not sure that you meant to do that?)

(Editor: Hi, did you get my message about the last two points?)

(Editor: I’m not getting any replies, so I’ll just leave them as they are and hope you haven’t made a terrible mistake.)

The Best Films About Teaching

Best Way Story (1961)

An adaptation of the 1957 Broadway musical of the same name, this 1961 movie centres around the tension between two rival groups of teachers, the Trads and the Progs. The arguments and the blockings are all played out through brilliantly choreographed dance scenes and a truly memorable musical numbers.

With music composed by Leonard Bernstein, who can forget the wonderful lyrics from the pen of the great Stephen Sondheim? Every time I watch, I can’t help but sing along to such classics as:

Trad Song

When you’re a Trad,
You’re a Trad all the way
From being postgrad
To retirement day.

Gee, Inspector Spielman

Gee, Inspector Spielman, we’re very upset;
We never had the funding that ev’ry school oughta get.
We ain’t no special measures,
We’re misunderstood.
Deep down inside we’re at least a good!

I Feel Shitty

I feel shitty,
Oh, so shitty,
I feel shitty and gritty and tired,
Ofsted told me
That improvement is required.

Dead Poets Society 2: Special Measures (1991)

In this sequel to 1989’s Dead Poets Society, John Keating, having been fired from the prestigious prep school Welton Academy, has decided to try his hand as a supply teacher. We find him on his first day having been sent to a school that is struggling with poor behaviour.

As he attempts to inspire the pupils to take an interest in poetry, he finds himself facing a variety of obstacles, from getting the pupils to stop ripping up the textbooks to trying to stop them from standing on the tables during lessons.

At first, Keating attempts to use the methods that we saw him use to inspire the pupils at the elite Welton Academy. He tells the pupils at this new school to question authority. They tell him to **** off. He tells them to ‘seize the day’. They take the day off school to play Xbox. He tells them: ‘make your lives extraordinary’. They tell him to **** off again.

Eventually, Keating realises that questioning authority and listening to the trophy cabinet whisper Latin phrases are all well and good if you have already established structure and discipline, and that he needs to work towards building those things before he can inspire the pupils. He realises that this isn’t something that he can do on his own and needs a whole school approach, so he resigns and leaves the school.

As he leaves the school he walks past a classroom, and through the window we see pupils standing on the tables, some making hand gestures and some shouting names at him.

The Breakfast Club (2019 reboot)

An arthouse reboot the original, updated for the modern era. The premise is the same – on a Saturday, five pupils are meant to report for an all-day detention. However, as the pupils’ parents feel that a Saturday detention is inhumane, none of the pupils turn up for the detention. Instead, we follow Assistant Principal Richard Vernon alone in the school all day, going through an existential crisis and questioning his future in teaching.

A largely improvised film, the highlight is obviously Vernon’s melancholic and balletic dance montage to The Smiths’ ‘I Know It’s Over’.

An idiot’s guide to the philosophy of education: Part 1

Socrates

Socrates was a brilliant man. Not only is he considered the father of Western philosophy, he was also a great teacher and, what’s more, a great teacher trainer. One of Socrates’ most successful students was Plato, who, in turn, went on to teach Aristotle, who himself would then tutor Alexander the Great. There are no records of Alexander the Great’s teaching career, so I imagine he was one of those that didn’t quite make it through their NQT year. Who knows what he did after that. Anyway, it’s clear that teacher retention was an issue even in ancient Greece.

But back to Socrates. He was a true polymath – aside from all the philosophising and teaching, probably his greatest moment was captaining Brazil at the 1982 FIFA World Cup in Spain. Not bad for a Greek. To put that into context, fellow philosopher of education Paulo Freire was actually a Brazilian national and he didn’t even get a single cap for Brazil, let alone captain them at a World Cup.

But what about Socrates’ educational philosophy?

Socrates saw education as a way to train the individual to become a “noble puppy” who will be friendly with familiars and fierce with foreigners. A bit like Katie Hopkins. But, unlike Hopkins, Socrates didn’t rely on some sort of deep-seated psychological need for attention to achieve this attitude. No, he used education. Specifically, Socrates believed that all people needed was an education in music (for the soul) and gymnastics (for the body). Just those two subjects. It’s basically what the EBacc would be if Sir Ken Robinson was Secretary of State for Education.

Socrates also invented the Socratic method, which is a method of birth control in which a partner is continually questioned and challenged during the act of coitus until they are so disconcerted that they are unable to achieve climax/no longer fancy it.

Ultimately, Socrates was sentenced to death for corrupting his students, which is the worst Ofsted grade you can get.

Socrates’ last words were “Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius; please pay it and don’t forget”, which pretty much sums up why you don’t see him quoted very often on motivational posters.*

(*Although, I’m going to declare right now that I’d work for any headteacher who has this on their office wall.)

John Locke

John Locke was born in 1632 in Wrington, Somerset, which is in Middle Earth. Amongst his many philosophical ideas, Locke believed that a legitimate government is one that represents the will of the people. His views on a second referendum are unclear.

Locke lived through one of the most turbulent times in English history – witnessing Charles I quarrelling with Parliament and his subsequent execution, the Great Plague, the Great Fire of London, the Glorious Revolution, Dirty Den’s murder, Arthur Fowler stealing the Christmas Club money, and Janine pushing Barry off that cliff.

What about his thoughts on education?

In 1693, Locke published his treatise ‘Some Thoughts Concerning Education’. A treatise is a 17th century blog. If Locke were writing it today, it would be called ‘Musings on Education’ and it would have been reblogged by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Locke suggested that, when we are born, our mind is a blank slate or ‘raisin de table’. Locke said that we are basically like an Etch-a-Sketch: our minds begin with a blank screen and, whilst some of us are lucky enough to be adorned with beautiful detailed pictures like the one below, most of us end up with a crude, unintelligible picture of something obscene.

As such, Locke believed that education makes the man, arguing that “nine parts of ten” of what constitutes a person comes from their education. The tenth part is made up of all lies they tell about themself on their CV and dating profiles (“love my work”, “really into existential theatre”, “do a lot of work for charity”, “quinoa is delicious”, etc.)

Locke was pretty much a utilitarian when it came to curriculum. He hated the idea of spending hours learning Latin when children could be improving their native language instead. Essentially, whenever a pupil repeats the classic refrain, “Why are we learning this? When am I ever going to use this?”, they are pretty much quoting Locke.

We can see further evidence of Locke’s utilitarianism through his attitude to various subjects. For example, he thought that pupils should be taught to draw because it would be useful for them to sketch things that they see when they are travelling foreign places and then bore family and friends when they return by showing them this visual record of their trip: “Here’s the waiter in the hotel that Margaret flirted with every night… ooh that’s me coming out of the flume… yes, those Speedo’s were a bit tight…”

Most of Locke’s ideas on education were aimed at the middle and upper classes, but he did turn his eye to the working classes in his ‘Essay on the Poor Law’. In this piece, he argued that working class kids were a burden on society and so ‘working schools’ should be established, in which poor children will be “inured to work” from three years old. To be honest, I find it hard to reconcile my shock at this attitude towards young children being sent out to work with the fact that I’ve watched and enjoyed ‘Bugsy Malone’ at least a dozen times. Locke’s influence on Western thought has been considerable, but I think we can all agree that it reached its finest moment with that film.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Rousseau was born and raised in Geneva, Switzerland in the 18th century and, among his many achievements, he is known as the inventor of off-rolling. He is thought to have had five children but this figure is uncertain as he did not keep adequate records of them. Rather than bringing up these children and educating them himself, he famously off-rolled them and they ended up being educated at the local foundling hospital instead.

But this is good news for us because, with his children out of the way, Rousseau was able to formulate his theories on education and child-rearing for which he is celebrated today.

After hearing about Rousseau’s children, Voltaire called him a “monster”. But presumably he meant like one of those nice friendly cuddly ones from Disney Pixar’s ‘Monsters, Inc.’ that are all child-centred and that by the end of the film.

What exactly were Rousseau’s views on education?

Rousseau wanted to share his views and ideas on education, so he wrote a treatise on education in which he put forward his philosophies on education. He called this book ‘Émile’. But then anybody picking the book off the shelf in Waterstones wouldn’t have known what it was about so his publisher made him give it the alternative title, ‘On Education’, which made more sense. It’s like when they renamed the 1987 comedy ‘Harry and the Hendersons’ as ‘Bigfoot and the Hendersons’, so everyone knew it was about a Bigfoot.

After its publication, ‘On Education’ was banned in Paris and Geneva and authorities ordered that copies of the book should be burned, whilst Rousseau himself was threatened with arrest if he ever set foot in his hometown again. This is basically like having your Twitter account suspended except not quite as traumatic.

‘On Education’ later became the most viewed TED talk during the French Revolution and eventually formed the basis of a national system of education.

Er, yeh, but what was his actual philosophy of education?

In Rousseau’s book, we follow the title character Émile throughout his early life, and the author uses the character to illustrate how a child should be educated. To begin with, Rousseau divides childhood into three stages:

1. The first stage up until the age of 12, when children are guided by their emotions and impulses.
2. The second stage between 12 and 16, when reason starts to develop.
3. The third stage, from 16 onwards, when the child develops to adulthood.

It is notable that the three stages of childhood are precisely inverse to the three stages of Twitter:

1. The first stage, lasting about three months, when the adult sets up their Twitter account and begins to develop their usage.
2. The second stage, from 3 months to a year, when reason starts to dissipate.
3. The third stage, from a year onwards, when users are guided entirely by their emotions and impulses.

In his book, Rousseau describes the way a child should be educated at each stage of their life. First he suggests that a child should learn to paint the fence and wax the car, before he then moves on to more formal training in order to achieve the ultimate aim of entering and winning the All Valley Karate Championship.

A key tenet of Rousseau’s philosophy is that, upon entering formal education during the teenage years, the child should only study what they are curious about. This, he believes, will then lead to them nurturing a love for all things. There’s no mention in the book as to whether, when told he should study only what he is curious about, Émile locked himself in his room for the next three years and demanded that nobody enter under any circumstances.

Rousseau went on to write a sequel to ‘On Education’, called ‘Émile et Sophie’, which was directed by François Truffaut, stars Jean-Paul Belmondo and is adored by pretentious sixth formers.

An idiot’s guide to the philosophy of education: Part 2 can be found here.

An idiot’s guide to the philosophy of education: Part 3 can be found here.

An art history of autumn term

The way that artists have portrayed education throughout history has been something of a fascination for me in recent years. Over a series of blog posts, I have explored how artists from various eras and artistic movements have cast their eyes, their brushes, their lenses and their, er, casts over the educational landscape before them. You can catch up with these blog posts by clicking on the links below.

An art history of school inspections

An art history of back to school

An art history of exam season

An art history of inset

In today’s post, I will be looking at the various artistic representations of the longest and darkest period of the academic year: the autumn term.

I’ll be begin by discussing one of the most famous paintings depicting the beginning of the autumn term: Leonardo da Vinci’s celebrated ‘The First Seating Plan’ (1495-8).

‘The First Seating Plan’ (1495-8) by Leonardo da Vinci

In this painting, we can see the teacher surrounded by his pupils as they react to the seating plan that the teacher has placed them in. As da Vinci leads our eyes across the painting, we can see many students arguing that they don’t want to sit next to their designated partner, while others are still trying to work out where they actually sit from the simple diagram projected onto the whiteboard. But most striking is the teacher’s expression, which we can see in the detail below. His face simply says, “If getting them to sit in a seat is this hard, how on Earth am I going to teach them quadratic equations?”

Detail, ‘The First Seating Plan’ (1495-8) by Leonardo da Vinci

French painter Jean-Antoine Watteau also worked on this theme of the first seating plan in his 1718 work, ‘Get in! We’re sat together!’ (below), which focuses on the moment that a group of pupils show enthusiasm for the teacher’s random seating plan by hugging and dancing with each other. Of course, the moment that pupils show excitement at such serendipity is also the moment that the teacher’s heart sinks and they realise that they’ve really cocked up the seating plan by placing these pupils where they are obviously going to easily distract one another. She’ll give them a chance, but she’s pretty sure that the seating plan will have to be redone tomorrow.

‘Get in! We’re sat together!’ (1718) by Jean-Antoine Watteau

One of my favourite physical pieces of autumn term art is Tony Cragg’s sculpture, ‘All of the water bottles you’ve lost this term’ (1998).

‘All of the water bottles you’ve lost this term’ (1998) by Tony Cragg

In this piece, you can see the sheer volume of water bottles that a single teacher has brought into school during the autumn term, only to leave them somewhere and never get them back. You’ll notice plenty of common plastic mineral water bottles, as well as a number of flasks and fancy designer receptacles, including the expensive one that the teacher bought at the end of the summer holidays as a gift to themselves for the new term. They lost that one during inset on the first day back. The artist said of this piece, “If you think that the oceans are full of unwanted and left-behind plastic bottles, you should see school staffrooms.”

Whilst Cragg deals with the subject of drink, many artists turn their attention to teachers’ food during the autumn term. It is often striking in schools how little time it takes for cake to become a common sight in the staffroom, as teachers begin to ramp up their sugar intake in order to survive the autumn term. Below we can see Chris Killip’s 1977 photograph, ‘Teachers queuing outside the cake shop, two weeks into term’.

‘Teachers queuing outside the cake shop, two weeks into term’ (1977) by Chris Killip 

Killip’s piece is an important piece of photojournalism, capturing the sugary reality of this first term.

But whilst cake becomes a common in the mise en scène of the staffroom, there’s alway someone who, with good intentions, brings fruit in for colleagues. This has, of course, famously been portrayed by Sir John Everett Millais in his 1849 painting, ‘Fruit? Are you ****ing joking mate?’, as seen below.

‘Fruit? Are you ****ing joking mate?’ (1849) by Sir John Everett Millais

Critics have heaped praised on this painting, as it captures the well-meaning teacher bring a bowl of oranges into the staffroom, only to enrage her colleague, who was expecting, at the very least, a family pack of Kit Kats to see him and his colleagues through the morning.

As the term progresses, teachers often face their heaviest marking load of the year, as baseline assessments and data drops build up and mock exam period is swiftly upon them. This creates a seemingly endless pile of marking.

‘When will this mock exam marking end?’ (c1760-70) by Thomas Gainsborough

Thomas Gainsborough’s late 18th century work, ‘When will this mock exam marking end?’ expertly captures the mood of teachers at this time. Note the heavy reams of paper, as well as the wistful look on the teacher’s face has he remembers the days when he could spend time with his family. Viewers are drawn to the small square of light in the top right hand corner, symbolising the fragments of hope that keep teachers going throughout this time.

On the subject of light, J.M.W. Turner’s masterpiece of chiaroscuro (below) addresses the dominating feature of the autumn term: its perpetual darkness.

‘Hello Darkness, My Old Friend’ (1809) by Joseph Mallord William Turner

‘Hello Darkness, My Old Friend’ (1890) depicts a teacher planning their lessons and marking books as the ubiquitous darkness of autumn term creeps in all around them. The lack of light plays heavy on the teacher’s mental state as their hand quivers near their face.  Turner deliberately leaves any indicators of time out of the painting, suggesting that this could be 8 o’clock in the morning, 4pm, or midnight. Let’s face it, they were probably sat there at all three times.

As the term goes on, the darkness and workload take their toll on a teacher’s energy. You will all recognise Millais’ famous painting depicting this subject below.

‘Bath, not shower’ (1851-2) by Sir John Everett Millais

During the latter part of the term, teachers find they no longer have the energy to stand in the shower at the end of the day. In ‘Bath, not shower’ (1851-2), Millais shows us the teacher reverting to lying in a bath out of necessity, complete with Lush bath bomb, a weary look, and – in this extreme case – all her clothes on. It’s fine though – all her colleagues will be so tired that they won’t notice that she’s wearing the same dress for two days running, this time with added creases and still dripping dry. “You smell nice,” they might say.

Late in the term, the weather begins to turn and we get our first cold snap. Tired and in need of any extra time they can get to catch up with marking or sleep, teachers often see the possibility of a glimpse of respite in this cold weather.

‘Praying for Snow’ (1888) by Alphonse Legros

Alphonse Legros’ ‘Praying for Snow’ (1888) shows the moment when teachers desperately wish for a day to catch up contemplate the educational opportunities a day of snow will bring to the children they teach.

As Christmas approaches, there is an air of excitement in the school. Departments will often celebrate the season by organising a Secret Santa gift-giving amongst themselves. David Hockney’s painting below depicts the moment of the exchanging of gifts.

‘Oh good – a book about teaching’ (1977) by David Hockney

In ‘Oh good – a book about teaching’, the artist shows us the faux gratitude shown by the teacher (on the right) receiving the gift, as he receives a book that is guaranteed to mean that he has to think about work throughout the Christmas holidays too. The teacher on the left seems satisfied that she bought him this instead of the Borat-style mankini she originally thought about getting him. Clearly, he would have preferred the mankini.

The final week of lessons approach and teachers and pupils alike can see the end in sight.

‘Can we have a fun lesson?’ (1851) by Richard Redgrave

In the above painting, Richard Redgrave’s ‘Can we have a fun lesson?’ (1851), we can see the teacher responding angrily to the question that he has been asked 14 times already this week. There are still two days to go.

‘Can we watch a DVD?’ (c.1850) by Frederic George Stephens 

On the final day of term, the question becomes even more deploring. Frederic George Stephens’ ‘Can we watch a DVD?’ shows a pupil begging to be allowed to watch the first half of a film before going to their next lesson to ask their next teacher if they can watch the first half of a completely different film, and so on for the rest of the day. It is arguable that such a day would actually have an educational benefit: it will serve as a good introduction to postmodernism and will ably prepare pupils to read James Joyce or Italo Calvino in the future. In Stephens’ painting, we can see the teacher wrestling over the decision to teach her planned lesson, watch an educational documentary or just give in completely and stick Elf on.

Once term is finished, teachers can really get into the seasonal festivities with their friends and family. Tom Hunter’s ‘Get the Party Started’ (2009) shows a teacher, back home after the long autumn term, really throwing themselves into all of the festive fun and cheer.

‘Get the Party Started’ (2009) by Tom Hunter

That’s it for this look at the art of the autumn term throughout history. I hope you’ve enjoyed it. See you next time!

Oblique National Strategies cards

Back in 1974, the musical innovator Brian Eno and the artist Peter Schmidt produced a deck of 113 cards called ‘Oblique Strategies’. On each card was an instruction or guidance to encourage a musician or artist to be able to laterally think their way through a creative block. When faced with the pressure of producing, they would often find that this very pressure would steer them away from productive ways of thinking, so they created the cards to jog their mind back towards these more, well, oblique ways of thinking. Here’s Eno discussing them in 1980:

“The Oblique Strategies evolved from me being in a number of working situations when the panic of the situation – particularly in studios – tended to make me quickly forget that there were others ways of working and that there were tangential ways of attacking problems that were in many senses more interesting than the direct head-on approach. If you’re in a panic, you tend to take the head-on approach because it seems to be the one that’s going to yield the best results. Of course, that often isn’t the case – it’s just the most obvious and – apparently – reliable method. The function of the Oblique Strategies was, initially, to serve as a series of prompts which said, ‘Don’t forget that you could adopt *this* attitude,’ or ‘Don’t forget you could adopt *that* attitude.'”

The cards were famously used by Eno and David Bowie on the latter’s Berlin trilogy of albums – Low, “Heroes” and Lodger, and have been used by a number of artists since –bands such as R.E.M. and Coldplay, for instance. You can see examples of some of the cards below:

It’s recently come to my attention that similar cards were produced by the National Strategies team back in the early noughties: whilst plenty of their resources were of good quality, they sometimes suffered creative blocks when coming up with initiatives and materials for schools, so they produced their own set of Oblique National Strategies cards to help them get through these blocks. And what’s more, I’ve managed to get hold of some of these cards. Rumour has it that these are still used by some agencies, organisations and MATs. I’ve attached some of the cards below so that you can use them if you have any creative block in policy making. Just click on a card at random and follow the strategy written on it.

An art history of inset

Over the past few years, I have been exploring the art history of teaching on this blog, sharing some of my favourite pieces of artwork across various topics within education. You can view my past blogs on these topics here:

An art history of school inspections

An art history of back to school

An art history of exam season

In this blog, I will be exploring another area that has proved a rich vein for artists throughout time: the inset day. Let’s take a look at how this topic has been approached by artists through the years.

‘I don’t have to teach tomorrow… I might as well finish the bottle tonight’ (1969) by Patrick Caulfield

One of my favourite modern pieces is Patrick Caulfield’s 1969 classic ‘I don’t have to teach tomorrow… I might as well finish the bottle tonight’, which depicts the preparation teachers might go through the evening before an inset day. Other works around this theme include Pauline Boty’s ‘So What if This Film Starts at 10pm? I’ve Got Inset Tomorrow’ (1963) and Andy Warhol’s ‘Lie-in!’ (1967).

This kind of preparation continues into the next morning, as teachers take the opportunity of staff inset to dress casually for the day. The work below is a diptych by August Sander in 1929, titled ‘Inset day outfits’.

‘Inset day outfits No. 1’ (1929) by August Sander

‘Inset day outfits No. 2’ (1929) by August Sander

These contrasting photographs are beautifully observed, the artist depicting both P.E. staff and classroom teachers from the school’s faculty. Sander plays with the assumptions of the layperson here – they might assume that the P.E. staff are on the left and the classroom teacher is on the right. Of course, as those in schools all know, inset day is the one day of the year where all the male classroom teachers wear shorts and the P.E. staff wear long trousers – both experiencing a sense of liberation that they crave every other day of the year.

Once the inset day begins, teachers might have the option to sit in groups of their choice, or they might face the prospect of being made to work in groups that have been selected for them.

‘This is the Group We Have Been Put In and We Are Really Happy About That’ (1989) by Thomas Struth

Thomas Struth’s 1989 photograph ‘This is the Group We Have Been Put In and We Are Really Happy About That’, shows an enthusiastic group of teachers really getting stuck in to working with the group into which they have been selected. This piece invites the viewer to really look at the faces of each of the group members to see their deep joy.

Once work begins within the group, staff will need to feed back their discussions and ideas on the subject matter of the training.

‘Write Your Ideas on a Post-it® and Stick Them it the Wall’ (1976-7) by Ellsworth Kelly

Ellsworth Kelly’s 1976-7 print ‘Write Your Ideas on a Post-it® and Stick Them it the Wall’ depicts the staple method of feedback used at all inset. The artist deliberately leaves the sticky notes blank, allowing the viewer to imagine their own feedback as they experience the painting. Critics note is that the central Post-it® note is black, and thus any writing on this note will be illegible to the reader: is the artist suggesting that your feedback won’t actually be read? Or is he suggesting that your true thoughts are hidden? What other interpretations might we make of this?

It may be that the inset training requires teachers to be creative in their feedback. Below are two examples portraying a common method of creative feedback from the past, in which teachers have been given some random objects to arrange in a way that represents their response to the subject matter. In Jean Tinguely’s 1970 sculpture ‘My Pedagogy’, the artist depicts a teacher who has been asked to present what pedagogy means to them. In this piece, there is a description alongside it that reads:  “Pedagogy is a series of tools that are in balance but are also simultaneously in a state of chaos”. Below that, Bruce Lacey’s ‘This is What Teaching Means to Me’ (1966) also shows how easy it is for a teacher to put some random junk together and then come up with a post-hoc rationalisation that it represents something profound when asked. The description alongside this piece reads: “I dunno, summink about support and helping hands and that?”

“My Pedagogy’ (1970) by Jean Tinguely

‘This is What Teaching Means to Me’ (1966) by Bruce Lacey

An inset day may also require staff to get up out of their seat and do something interactive as it is often assumed by the trainer that teachers are all extroverts who wish to make public displays of themselves at all times. Liu Bolin’s work ‘Please, Please Don’t Make Me Do This’ (2018) portrays the a teacher in the moment they literally attempt to blend into the background so that they don’t have to get involved in something that makes them uncomfortable. If you look very carefully at the piece, you can actually see the teacher in the centre, hiding in plain sight from the trainer, who has just asked him to sing and clap along to a song, or make some form of physical contact with the person next to him, or perhaps even something as upsetting as standing up for a moment.

‘Please, Please Don’t Make Me Do This’ (2018) by Liu Bolin

Below we can see Eric Gill’s representation of the holy grail of inset: having an external speaker come in to present to the staff. You can see the reverence from the staff as they hang on every word of this guru, who they’ve followed on social media for ages and have finally got the chance to hear speak in person. Critics have noted how the teacher depicted at the far end of the second row has a slightly dipped head, reflecting their disappointment at the revelation that the guru’s social media profile picture is infinitely more flattering than they appear in person and was probably taken five years ago, before the mounting sleepless nights and all-you-can-eat buffet breakfasts in Travelodges started to show.

‘External Speaker’ (1918) by Eric Gill

One of my favourite pieces is Linder’s photomontage piece from 1976, ‘Oh good – that Ken Robinson video again’, a punk-era work that asks the viewer to think deeply about the media content we consume in schools.

‘Oh good – that Ken Robinson video again’ (1976) by Linder

During inset day there is often a free lunch put on for staff in the canteen at a set time of the day. Below, we can see Lady Butler’s 1881 painting, ‘The Charge of the Lunch Brigade’, which depicts the moment that one department decides to make their way to the canteen a bit earlier than the designated lunchtime in order to get served first, only to realise all of the other departments have done exactly the same thing. We can see the Head of Humanities, out in front in the centre of the painting, shouting “It’s fish and chips!” as he nears the canteen and gets his first glimpse of the food. Meanwhile, those behind try to hustle towards the front whilst simultaneously trying to maintain polite relations with their colleagues in other departments.

‘The Charge of the Lunch Brigade’ (1881) by Lady Butler

A legend often repeated with regards to staff training is that of inset bingo, a game in which staff members have individual bingo cards full of common buzzwords in education that they are supposed to mark off from their card if they are mentioned by the speaker. Perhaps the most famous painting of all time, below, is Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Lotto di cazzate’ (Italian: “buzzword bingo”), which deals with the moment someone at the table has a winning card. Critics have often debated the sitter’s enigmatic smile and the reasons behind it, but art historians have recently uncovered diaries from da Vinci that tell us that “the teacher in question has just won the game of inset bingo and is trying to hide her delight and, at the same time, maintain a professional demeanour in front of the speaker and her line manager – this conflict results in her enigmatic smile, a seemingly insignificant feature of the painting which I’m pretty sure critics won’t pay much attention to in the years to come”.

‘Lotto di cazzate’ (1503-06) by Leonardo da Vinci

I hope you have enjoyed this little voyage through some of the artists who have depicted inset day throughout history. Until next time!

A Glossary of U.K. Education (Vol. 6)

We are pleased to present Vol. 6 of our ongoing glossary of U.K. education. For previous volumes, please follow these links:

Vol. 1

Vol. 2

Vol. 3

Vol. 4

Vol. 5

Apprenticeshit

/əˈprɛntɪˈʃɪt/

noun

collective term for any of a range of words or phrases used in schools that sound like team names on The Apprentice, and thus should be treated with caution, e.g., resilience, relevance, rigour, facilitation, growth mindset, flight path, etc.

bucket

/ˈbʌkɪt/

noun

a receptacle used by pupils to fill with GCSEs at the end of their secondary education; they then take these buckets along to prospective colleges or employers and empty the contents out onto the desk of the admissions officer/manager in the hope that it will impress them enough to take them on.

CPD

/siː piː diː/

abbrev.

continuing policy dissemination.

creativity

/ˌkriːeɪˈtɪvɪti/

noun

an abstract phenomenon that was brutally murdered in 2006 by schools, who were themselves subsequently brought to justice by Chief Inspector Ken Robinson of the TED Police.

curriculum dumping

/kəˈrɪkjʊləm dʌmpɪŋ/

verb

phenomenon whereby politicians, journalists, public figures and commentators identify a need or failure in society and automatically decide that schools should be the ones to pick up the slack of that need; this is usually announced through the press using the headline format “Schools should teach X“.

Dale’s Cone of Experience

/deɪlz kəʊn ɒv ɪkˈspɪərɪəns/

noun

Ben & Jerry’s ice cream variety which combines invention and lies to create an overall flavour of scienceyness.

Fadlehrerfreudenverlustaugenblick

/just write it down and point to it/

noun

(origin. German) word for the moment when a teacher seizes a youth trend in order to make their lessons seem cool and “relevant” and thus immediately kills the youth trend, automatically making it seem lame and joyless in the eyes of the children.

faith school

/ˈfeɪθskuːl/

noun

a school that teaches a general curriculum but which also aligns itself with a particular belief system based on the supernatural guidance of an exterior force and which is based on faith rather than empirical evidence; see also: edtech

fidget spinners

/ˈfɪdʒɪt ˈspɪnəz/

noun

fiddle toys that were absolutely necessary for many pupils to be able to concentrate in their lessons for a few months in 2017 until they went out of fashion and pupils were suddenly able to concentrate without them again.

GDPR

/dʒiː diː piː ɑːr/

abbrev.

an elaborate and wide-ranging policy enacted solely for the purpose of forcing me to tidy my desk.

Hendrick, Carl

/hɛndrɪk, kɑːl/

noun

annoying man who walks around picking up things and asking, “What does this look like in the classroom?”

Lionel Richie challenge

/ˈlaɪənəl rɪtʃi/

noun

a challenge undertaken upon being asked to cover an Art lesson in which the cover teacher, whilst pupils are working, attempts to find the clay head in the room that looks most like that of Lionel Richie in the ‘Hello’ video.

PLTS

/pɛltz/

abbrev.

a framework of six skills identified by the QCA in 2006 to be  “essential to success in learning, life and work” and identified by classroom teachers immediately afterwards to be a nebulous and vague distraction from the job of teaching; the six skills were Team Worker, Reflective Learner, Creative Thinker, Assistant Manager, Golden Retriever, Tiny Dancer.

Progress 8

/ˈprəʊɡrɛs eɪt/

noun

Directed by Nicky Morgan and starring Vin Diesel, the eighth and latest instalment in the popular Progress franchise, a series concerned with school performance measures; other instalments in the series include The Rapid and the Sustained, Progress 2: EBacc in the Habit, Five A*-C (starring English and Maths), and International Progress: Singapore Drift.

Singapore maths

/ˌsɪŋəˈpɔː maθs/

noun

Like maths, but better.

TES Resources

/ˈtɛz rɪˈsɔːsɪz/

noun

popular online website that cleverly taps into the gap in the education market for teachers who wish to buy back their own resources from people they once gave them to for free.

Recipes for Teachers: A Cookbook for the Exhausted Educator

Whilst rooting around in a local charity bookshop today, I came across a real treasure: Recipes for Teachers. It appears to be a collection of recipes put together to help busy teachers get through the working week. I haven’t tried any of the recipes, but I’m certainly going to have a go at some of them next week! I’ll let you know how I get on, but in the meantime, I thought I’d share with you some examples from the book. Maybe you could try making them yourself, or maybe you’ve used some of these recipes before? Let me know in the comments. Bon appétit!

5 common questions from the audience at the education conference

One of the great things about talks and debates at education conferences is when the speakers open up to questions from the floor. But sometimes it is hard to work out exactly what certain questions are really getting at. Below is a handy guide to what the questioner is really asking when it comes to some of the more common questions.

1. The steer

 

2. The techsploitation

 

3. The equaliser

 

4. The ‘me time’

 

5. The usurper

An art history of exam season

I’m happy to present to you the third post in a series of art histories of education. Previously, we have looked at how artists have depicted both school inspections and the back to school season, and this time I thought I’d explore the history of exam season as depicted through art.

A common subject for artists depicting this period of frenetic preparation is that of the variety of revision techniques that pupils use. We’ll begin by discussing three paintings that take on this subject.

‘Highlighting the Key Ideas in the Text’ (c.1950-2) by Mark Rothko

In ‘Highlighting the Key Ideas in the Text’  (c.1950-2) by Mark Rothko, the artist shows us how the pupil has smothered the entire text with his yellow highlighter, showing a lack of discernment between ‘the key ideas’ and ‘everything the writer has written’. You can see at the bottom of the page that the pen has actually run out of ink, much to the frustration of the teacher, who has only just bought this new set of highlighters out of their own pocket.

‘The Flash Card of the Teacher’ (1992-3) by Gillian Wearing OBE

Another subset of revision art focuses on the use of flash cards. In the 1990s, British artist Gillian Wearing turned our perception of these as merely a revision tool on its head and created a piece entitled ‘The Flash Card of the Teacher’ (1992-3). In the piece, instead of photographing pupils with flash cards, she asked teachers, in the week before the final exam, to use the flash cards to express exactly how they are feeling as they try to ensure their pupils achieve their target grades. In an interview, the artist has stated that the teacher’s line manager is just out of shot in this image, frantically gesticulating and waving around a piece of paper containing the teacher’s performance management targets.

‘A Mindmap of Everything I Know About the Hydrological Cycle’ (1952) by Jackson Pollock

‘A Mindmap of Everything I Know About the Hydrological Cycle’ (1952) by Jackson Pollock is a portrayal of a common revision tool:  the mind map, or thought shower. In this piece, the pupil has attempted to write down everything they know about the hydrological cycle, only to throw a tantrum when they realise that they didn’t really know as much as they thought they knew. Legend has it that Pollock actually invented his famous style of ‘drip’ action painting in this exact way: he was mindmapping everything he was taught about classical art techniques at art school when he realised he hadn’t paid much attention, so ended up spoiling his canvas in a fit of rage. That particular ‘painting’ was later bought by Kanye West for $117m.

‘Predicting 9-1 Grades Just Before the Final Exams’ (1938) by Wyndham Lewis

As pupils find themselves on the precipice of exam leave, teachers are asked to give their 28th and final data drop of the year for their Year 11s. A major part of this data drop will include the need to predict their pupils’ GCSE grades. Whilst under previous specifications these predictions were fairly difficult, they have become an arcane act under the new 9-1 GCSEs. With 100% exam in many subjects, teachers no longer have any coursework grades as a basis, and combined with a lack of any direction as to how the raw marks will convert to actual grades, this has left teachers turning to the occult to make their predictions. In Wyndham Lewis’ ‘Predicting 9-1 Grades Just Before the Final Exams’ (1938), we see the teacher depicted calling on the help of the spirit world before drawing numbers randomly from a pack of cards prior to entering it into her prediction spreadsheet.

‘Extra Revision Lessons’ (1884) by John William Waterhouse

As the exams loom heavily over the class, the teacher finds themself offering extra lessons after school, at weekends and often during the Easter break. The painter John William Waterhouse captures such a moment in ‘Extra Revision Lessons’ (1884). There are a number of interesting details in this painting. Critics point out the look of frustration on the teacher’s face as she goes through something she has taught a few times already during regular lessons, remembering that some of the pupils in the room weren’t paying any attention then because they knew that their teacher would go back through it again in these extra lessons anyway. Another thought-provoking detail is the pupil with her head in her hands. Critics suggest that she is having a nap as she thinks that merely turning up to these extra lessons is sufficient for her pass her GCSE in the subject. It is likely that this pupil has also bought a revision guide which sits untouched but also carries a similar magical power.

‘After Four and a Half Years of Avoiding Work, It’s Finally Clicked for Bobby’ (1852) by Robert Braithwaite Martineau

As the exam rapidly approaches, a greater number of pupils begin to realise that they will have to start working harder. In ‘After Four and a Half Years of Avoiding Work, It’s Finally Clicked for Bobby’ (1852), the artist Robert Braithwaite Martineau shows the moment when a particular pupil who has lacked motivation for so long finally pays attention to the work he is being asked to complete. We can see the enigmatic look on his fellow pupil’s face as she peers over his shoulder, having endured many years of ‘Bobby’ distracting her and the rest of  class. It is a look that has been interpreted in many ways by critics: from supportiveness and respect for his newfound work ethic to a smug ‘I told you so’ at his obvious struggle.

‘OMG Steph Told Me She Wrote Something Different For That Question and Now I’m Questioning My Entire Exam Paper’ (1937) by Pablo Picasso

Many artists have tried to depict the experience of the exams themselves. Arguably the most famous painting of the exam season is Pablo Picasso’s ‘OMG Steph Told Me She Wrote Something Different For That Question and Now I’m Questioning My Entire Exam Paper’ (1937). There is a strong moral message in this painting as Picasso warns the viewer of the dangers of discussing the paper with other pupils after they leave the exam hall and the consequent feeling of doubt that will naturally ensue from this. The lurid red juxtaposed against the bilious green and yellow represents the conflict in the pupil’s mind as they go over everything they wrote and decide all of it is invalid because her friend wrote something slightly different to her on one of the questions.

‘I decided to doodle this pattern instead of answering the question and then I wonder why I ran out of time in the exam’ (1975-6) by Jasper Johns

The abstract impressionist Jasper Johns offers this painting to the genre. Entitled ‘I decided to doodle this pattern instead of answering the question and then I wonder why I ran out of time in the exam’ (1975-6), it is a work that pulls the viewer’s eyes in many directions and forces the reader to ask a variety of questions of the artist, questions such as: ‘How long did this doodle take… I mean, it seems really intricate?’ and ‘You’ve even used three different colours – why the hell would you do this?’ and ‘WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST TRY AND ANSWER THE EXAM QUESTION INSTEAD?’

‘Practising Leaping for the Local Paper’ (1972) by Sir Eduardo Paolozzi

Once exams are complete, pupils begin to think about results. This involves thinking about future plans – colleges, apprenticeships, careers. But more immediately, pupils must prepare for results day and how they will pose when a photographer from the local paper comes in to school. Pop artist Sir Eduardo Paolozzi’s ‘Practising Leaping for the Local Paper’ (1972) depicts a pupil preparing for just this moment. The work concentrates on the difficulty in getting airborne whilst maintaining a sense of joy and grace, and he sets the image of the pupil against a propulsion airplane to effectively illustrate this eternal struggle of flight.

‘Arriving for Prom’ (1900) by Sir Frank Dicksee

Of course, whilst the exams are a worthy preamble, every pupil knows that the most important date during the exam season is the school prom. Whilst some pupils may spend lots of money and time and really throw themselves into the pomp and circumstance of the spectacle, Sir Frank Dicksee chooses one of the more understated and austere entrances for the subject of his painting ‘Arriving for Prom’ (1900).

This painting is a natural conclusion to some of my favourites on the subject of exam season. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.