Education- what is it doing to us?
- Education is flawed, producing masses of people with
"qualifications" who cannot apply what they have learned or even
express themselves in writing. It is seen as a prerequisite for jobs rather
than a learning experience, which is OK if you get a well-paid job that you
enjoy at the end of it, but surely the time would be better spent actually
learning something. Of course there are well educated people out there but I
would argue that such people are either largely self-taught or the result of a
fluke. The only way to learn is by experience. You cannot learn anything by
reading a book, although they can be used as a way of presenting ideas which
can then be demonstrated.
- It seems to me that every year results of GCSEs and A-Levels get better,
and you have two groups of people, one lot saying that this is proof that GCSEs
are no match for the old GCSEs, and the other lot saying that it is because
students are working harder. This second reason is complete rubbish. The idea
that each and every year students taking exams become more hard-working,
diligent and intelligent is ludicrous. Another explanation for improved exam
results is that teachers and examiners are only just getting to grips with the
new marking systems and so have now started to award the higher grades more
freely. This seems a bit feeble and also unfair on previous year's students.
No, the reason is that GCSEs are different than O-Levels and are changing every
year. To say that they are easier is a bit of a simplification, although it is
arguably true. The point is that they are testing different things, and GCSEs
and O-Levels are just not compatible, by which I mean that a GCSE student
cannot do old O-Level papers and vice versa. O-Levels concentrated on teaching
facts, whereas GCSEs are based more on analysis and interpretation of
information. Now if you ask me, both schemes on their own are nearly useless,
what is needed is some sort of amalgam of the two. Here's why: if you set an
exam just asking for facts, what you are testing is the students' ability to
remember data, not their understanding. Let's face it, all through your school
years you have people harping on at you to "work hard" but all that's
needed to pass the exam is to doss about for the entire year then to sit up the
night before and read the set textbook so it's all in your short-term memory,
then regurgitate it ad hoc the next day. A few days after that it's all
forgotten again. And what's the point of that? One of the teachers at my old
school used to believe in springing exams and tests without warning, because
this didn't give students the chance to "revise", and so tested what
they really knew about the subject. This is a very good idea, I think. You'll
think it odd, maybe, but I've always thought of revision as cheating, because
after all if you read everything you're bound to be able to do the paper. This
"doing nothing through the course then learning the entire syllabus the
night before the exam" goes on all the time in schools. You could say who
cares, as everyone is happy: the students because they pass the exams and
teachers because passed exams mean good places in league tables. But the point
that I have made earlier is that students should be there to be educated, not
to pass exams. Anyway, back to O-Levels and GCSEs. As I say, GCSEs require some
recall of facts, but are largely based on analysis and interpretation, with
questions like "look at this passage and say why such and such
happened" or "explain in your own words etc. etc.". The problem
with these sorts of questions is that they can often be answered by a person
with no knowledge of the subject but with a deal of common sense. So again,
this does not test understanding of the subject.
