Paces

Is potential "spotted" as Les Ebdon says or created?

The Director of the Office for Fair Access, Les Ebdon, seems to think potential university students can be "spotted" at the age of seven. I find such a view in such a senior public servant unutterable sad, if not worse.

In an interview published in yesterday's Sunday Times (£wall), it seems Les Ebdon has been saying that "universities must begin working with children as young as seven, especially those from poorer families, to 'spot their potential', track them as they grow up and prepare them for the challenges of being a university student". Apparently this includes children dressing up and playing 'mini-graduation ceremonies': "quite a few universities have a cupboard full mini gowns and mortar boards tucked away somewhere, because they have graduation ceremonies for young children after working with them in schools".  Liverpool University's scheme is called the "Professor Fluffy Project".

Asked "can you really spot at the age of seven whether a child is gifted enough to apply for Oxford or Cambridge?", Les Ebdon responds "Oooh, yes, especially in maths and things like that". 

"... and things like that". Professor Fluffy, indeed. Does this fellow have any hard evidence whatsoever that this stuff has any basis in any reality?

What this forcefully reminds me of is my first days at Grammar School in 1957. Boys whose "potential" at football, or cricket and athletics in summer, was "spotted" were given extra coaching. Those who weren't "spotted" did not get the extra coaching. Guess which boys from Year 2 to Year 6 went on to represent the school?

Football clubs still do it, of course. Scouring junior soccer leagues for "potential" and then signing children up for intensive coaching schemes. Few make it to playing for a Premier League team.

Personally, I find the idea that "potential" is somehow innate, waiting to be "spotted" in children just 7 years old (or younger, or older, take your pick), presumes an utterly negative view not just of education (of learning and teaching and upbringing) but of Humanity in general.  

 

Man, Beast and Zombie - the human mind & conductive education research

Tempus fugit. Days since I last posted have turned into weeks. Been busy at Paces. Pre-occupied at home.

In passing, thought I might share this with you, from Kenan Malik's "Man, Beast and Zombie", referenced on his Wikipedia entry:

In discussing cognitive science and philosophy of mind, Malik concludes that each human being possesses "an extended mind"; a brain becomes a human mind only by its immersion in social relationships together with "other brains linked by language and culture." (p. 331) Human meaning derives not from nature but from the language-linked social network of which we are part." (p. 334)

If, if, If ... OK a big "IF": but if the purpose of education is (not to help kids get jobs) but to help us all to an understanding of "human meaning", then what might this tells about the usefulness (uselessness?) of so-called "research" that passes for much or most research into conductive education?

 

The woman who changed her brain - in 1978

Coincidentally, another 'brain' piece. (Yesterday, I posted about an Observer article Who's in charge - you or your brain?) This time a piece from the author of the recently published "The woman who changed her brain" (which I haven't read, btw, just this article "Why I wrote 'The Woman who changed her brain'"), Barbara Arrowsmith-Young.

The writer, recounting her own experiences, seems to understand implicitly that her success was 'self-taught', with an emphasis on 'taught', implying teaching and learning, albeit she was both teacher and learner, and yet, in the article, seems more comfortable with the vocabulary of 'exercises' and 'repetition' - just one technique for teaching and learning. One suspects, on the flimsy evidence of this article, there was more to her successful transformation, than 'exercises' and ' repetition'.

This is what she herself writes though:

"I the­o­rized that a per­son could trans­form weak areas of the brain through repet­i­tive and tar­geted cog­ni­tive exer­cises. With much read­ing and an intu­itive under­stand­ing of the brain’s func­tion­ing, I invented a series of cog­ni­tive exer­cises to “fix” my own brain."

This, though, and perhaps quite remarkably, was 1978, when she was a graduate student in psychology. She does well to remind us of "the 1950’s and 60’s when the brain was viewed as unchange­able" and as a consequence she, and others like her, were advised - and expected - to "live with her limitations". 

It is an era that I also grew up in and, like the author, went to school and started teaching, quite assured that our limitations - and our potential - were set by our brains. Not until I met conductive education (to my regret, having, unlike the writer, ignored an introduction to Luria and Vigotsky at postgraduate teacher training college in 1968-9), did I understand something I had begun to suspect - we can learn and we can be taught all our lives.

Anyhow, she writes of 1978, a time, as she writes, "long before the con­cept of “neu­ro­plas­tic­ity” was widely under­stood. At the time, the sci­en­tific com­mu­nity believed this kind of trans­for­ma­tion was impos­si­ble, but the exer­cises did indeed, in my first-hand expe­ri­ence, rad­i­cally improve the func­tion of the weak­ened areas of my brain."

I wonder how differently she might have accounted for, and recounted, her own first-hand experience, had she been, not a pschologist, but a pedagogue?

Who's in charge – you or your brain? | Science | The Observer

The brain… it makes you think. Doesn't it?

Are we governed by unconscious processes? Neuroscience believes so – but isn't the human condition more complicated than that? Two experts offer different views. (From today's Observer)

Make up your own mind. Unless, of course, with you, that's an unconscious process.