I am often asked why we cannot simply do what tutors do – tell students, step-by-step, how to answer exam questions. Of course sometimes that’s exactly what we do (especially, but not only, as we approach exams), but it’s also interesting to think about the question more holistically, to see why that is not our overall model for teaching and learning.
We have a firm belief that the purpose of school is not to get good at school; it is to prepare our students for a meaningful life of value aligned with our mission. That purpose is very difficult to quantify, and without care might easily be pushed aside when immediate numerical measures are available. It’s no less important for that, but it is much more difficult, because there’s no recipe for our mission; uniting peoples and cultures for peace and a sustainable future cannot be told, step-by-step to students, nor tested in an exam. So what to do?
When we cannot predict the future, know the circumstances, or be sure of the context in which our students will make their decisions, the best we can do is maximise their capacities for understanding, so that their decisions will be well-informed, thoughtful, morally sound, and open to change (funnily enough, that’s been a theme among educators for many centuries). But the question still remains, what to do?
The answer, I think, lies in information technology – but not as we usually conceive of it today. Barry Schwarz, in his wonderful Why We Work writes if we understand the concept of technology broadly as the use of human intelligence to create objects or processes that change the conditions of daily life, then it seems clear that ideas are products of technology no less than computers. And when put like that, it’s clear that ideas are the most powerful technology of all. Where would we be without the ideas of justice, reason, chance, energy, supply-and-demand, risk, truth, due process, dignity, morality, government, rights (I could go on)? These are the ideas that shape our lives and our societies, and they are not easy to address. But their importance is clear. Schwarz again:
If you think your poverty is God’s will, you pray. If you think your poverty is the result of your own inadequacy, you shrink into despair. And if you think your poverty is the result of oppression and domination, then you rise up in revolt. Whether your response to poverty is resignation or revolution, depends on how you understand the sources of your poverty. This is the role that ideas play in shaping us as human beings.
It isn’t hard to see how some of the big issues in the world today are similarly shaped by ideas – whether we view the world as a resource to be exploited or nurtured; whether we (subconsciously) see people who are different to us as potential friends or potential enemies; whether we see see societies as fundamentally individualistic or collectivist. And similarly for us – whether we see school as all about grades or about deepening understanding; whether we see Service as a way to get into University or about learning more about oneself and others; whether we need to be told exactly what to do or are prepared to put in the hard graft to figure it out for ourselves. The big ideas we hold will shape who we are, and who we have the capacity to be.
Economist John Maynard Keynes famously said it thus:
The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually slaves of some defunct economist.
I believe this more strongly than I can easily convey here. This technology of ideas is of fundamental importance. It’s the reason we are developing a unique concept-based curriculum; it’s the reason we are always reviewing our holistic provision; and it’s the reason that we will not be a school that is content to simply tell students, step-by-step, how to answer exam questions.
