Teaching Matters:The mid-19th century decision by Victorian policy makers to establish universal schooling was a truly profound new departure. For the first time in human history children would be removed for long periods of their lives from the surroundings of home and the workplace and placed in specialist institutions for the purposes of being taught. Such a development required a major leap in the public imagination and in the State's capacity to carry through such a monumental social project.
The success of the venture over the last 200 years or so has been such that it is almost impossible to imagine a world without schools. Indeed, we increasingly look to them to do more and more. In this country, as well as traditional teaching, we currently look to second-level schools to "teach" active citizenship, enterprise development, good health, environmentalism, the rules of the road and, probably at some time in the future, good driving.
Desirable as all these things are, it is asking a lot of schools to teach them. To do so would require us not only to reimagine the place of school in society, but also the nature of the schooling experience itself. What might such a reimagined phenomenon look like?
A number of possibilities emerge. As social constructs that emerged hand in glove with the Industrial Revolution, schools have always shared many of the attributes one would typically associate with a factory. While it may be overly crass to suggest that both are committed to processing, refining and adding value to raw material, many of the processes and procedures to be found in one are also found in the other, though one would not wish to stretch the analogy too far.
At any rate the school of the future will need to shed much of its traditional factory character. It is confronted by new challenges which it can no longer address within its traditional structure or world view.
The main challenge which second-level schools in Ireland currently face is the challenge for meaning. Where staff and students in a school are united around the innate value of what is happening in the school and share a consensus around the importance of its core academic agenda, there is the basis for harmony and an effective organisational culture within that school. Where staff and students come to the school with differing world views, and sometimes competing ones, there is no shared meaning and discontent and conflict will inevitably ensue.
If the school of the future is to align these world views, it will need to reposition itself around a commitment to learner-centred processes, pedagogical and otherwise. Such processes might begin with the introduction of Individual Learning Plans (ILPs), where each child would develop an ILP for each year of post-primary school in consultation with the school guidance counsellor or year-head and the child's parents.
The ILP would address learning in school and out-of-school and would not be confined to the school-year calendar. While addressing cognitive or intellectual aims, it would be much broader than this. So while the school would continue to be the main education provider to the student, it would be only one of a number of providers and locales in which important learning happened.
The adolescent must confront a multiplicity of developmental hurdles during the teen years. These include cognitive, physical, emotional, psychological, social and aesthetic challenges.
The ILP should aim to develop a learning programme in each of these spheres by addressing academic, sporting, artistic and interpersonal domains. In this way the child's involvement in extracurricular activities would be advanced for the learning opportunities that such an engagement produced.
If such a process were to become normal, the school would have to adjust many of its fundamentals were it to become meaningful. Assessment for learning rather than assessment of learning would become the norm. Also, assessment would be based on a much wider range of attributes and be more holistic than is currently the case.
Students would be rewarded for group and co-operative activities as well as for individualised and competitive ones. The learning would become active and exploratory rather than passive and rote-based. The objective of delivering knowledge to the student would be replaced by one in which the student discovers knowledge. The focus within the school would move from teaching to learning and from learning to doing, on the basis that the best learning in life happens unconsciously rather than consciously.
The architecture, rituals and routines of this school would be significantly different to what is currently the case. Textures, materials, colours, shapes and spaces would combine to create an uplifting and energising ambient environment in the school and for all in it. Students and teachers would work actively together on agreed projects within the school and outside of it.
The school programme would place equal weight on all elements of a syllabus which was drawn up with the purpose of addressing the holistic developmental needs of the child. The multiple education providers outside of the school such as youth organisations, sporting bodies, community groups and employers, would be equally important partners in the realisation of the personal learning plans.
Transition year and the multiple examples of wonderful extracurricular work undertaken by post-primary schools throughout Ireland show that this future may be already beginning to unfold. If this is indeed the case, one can be optimistic that the imaginative power that gave us schooling in the past is now capable of transforming it for the future.
Prof Tom Collins is head of education at NUI Maynooth
