We don’t need no education
Thursday, February 25th, 2010 | education
If you were old enough to listen to pop music in the late seventies, you will recall Pink Floyd’s song “Another Brick In The Wall”. Do you remember the line: “We don’t need no education”?
I was painfully reminded of this line earlier this week.
During a dinner hosted by the convenors of an international conference for senior educators in Cape Town on Tuesday night, a choir of one of the local disadvantaged schools provided pre-dinner entertainment. And were those kids good! The performance was world class – even more remarkable if you consider that none of the learners received formal music training.
I truly enjoyed the performance.
For some of the items keyboard accompaniment was provided by a pianist who can not read music – he plays by ear – but he was so good that one could hardly tell. The a cappella numbers sent chills down my spine – the voices, the harmonies, the musical quality, everything was just so good.
Sadly, there was one false note.
No, not in the music – but in the speech of the choir master, echoed by one of the choir members who also read a brief speech. While giving some background information about the school and the choir, the point was made that when learners can make such good music education authorities should not fault the school for a lack of academic performance (my interpretation of what was said). Both speakers said that not all learners are good in maths, science and technology – but when they excell in the arts, learning other things is of less importance.
If I can do a retake of Tuesday night, what would I do differently? At the end of each item, I joined the audience in applause. After one particularly moving number I joined in a standing ovation. Would I do it again? Yes, I think I would – one must give credit where credit is due.
But I believe that I’ve neglected my duty by not objecting to the suggestion that education in a school is not all that important. As an audience, we were guilty in condoning a wrong message being given in the presence of a group of learners who are coming from a school that does not have a proud record of academic achievement.
We could have booed the speakers! Music lovers do that when a performer does not meet their expectations. Why didn’t we boo the choir master? Perhaps we were enchanted by the singing of the learners – more likely, we were just too polite. But we should be able to draw a clear line between civility and tacit acceptance of a damaging message.
We can’t turn back the clock. We can’t undo Tuesday nigh. And it’s no use crying over spilt milk. But we can learn from the experience.
In public or in private – will we have the courage to protect our learners against negative influences?
Ironically, those who say “we don’t need no education” mean the opposite of what they’re actually saying. Who says we need no education!
2 Comments to We don’t need no education
I actually liked this song of Pink Floyd but not all the lyrics. Thought control….
I was not at this event but where I will make a comment is that there is more to life than science and maths. This comes from me…a person who has a love for these two subjects including technology. Yet, not all can be good at these subjects. There are going to be those who are vrot at it. They tend to be better at other things such as music, art, managing people, etc. etc. There is another life outside of maths and science. I do believe that these subjects are important, but they have been over-emphasized to death neglecting other important things too.
What many don’t understand is that even if somebody cannot formally write an exam in music for example they may still have the talent of playing it. This is a form of education.
One may not formally study from a textbook, but reading a newspaper, magazine is also education. I think our evaluation methods fall short of testing people who do not fall in the same category of education as the “formally educated” do.
The lack of performance of schools are more complicated than you think and the playing fields for disadvantaged has still not being leveled. The ex-model C schools will still do better than township schools. Do a proper study and you will see why. The one problem is that some of the question/answers we know but nobody wants to say it (being politically correct I suppose).
ICT will not solve the lack of performance problem. There is lots of research to prove this, but ICT can change the way we do things in education.
The one thing I want to say about the good performance of learners at ex-model C schools is borne out of a discussion with persons that is much more knowledgeable than myself. Although these schools have good and committed educators, these learners have tutors paid for by well-resourced and committed parents. I know this because I am one of the tutors. I also canvas opinion on this and the tutor issue seems to be case. I know the question of the computer as a tutor will come up, but it does not work unless attitudinal factors are constantly challenged.
I still want to challenge those who have never taught in a township school (coloured or black) to do so and report the realistic situation.
Last week I was asked by a group of high school teachers at a struggling school to help them with strategies for teaching children to read. On the day I visited the school, 8 teachers were absent – that’s around 320 learners unsupervised and untaught.
I asked about the scale of the reading problem and was told that between 10 and 20% of Grade 8s cannot read at all. One teacher said, “They cannot build a three letter word like m-a-d.” A further 60% were said to be extremely weak readers – Foundation Phase level. I asked what happened to these learners and was told that they get pushed through to Grade 10, then they fail and drop out of school. Of the remainder that continue around 30% passed matric last year.
I agree with Mark that education involves much more than the 3Rs, and we need our gifted artists, musicians and performers in society. But in a country like ours, with such high unemployment levels and huge skills shortages, we desperately need an educated workforce to drive our economy forward. We cannot afford to pussyfoot around the problem of underperformance in schools.
But lets be careful not to blame the teachers for everything. Multiple curriculum changes have left teachers confused and flailing. The large number of national languages is unworkable in schools and teachers are given poorly translated resources. The curriculum document itself is full of errors in languages other than English and Afrikaans. Many teachers received a second-rate education themselves, because of the political history of this country. The curriculum is not presented in a way that is easily accessible to them. Attempts to make implementation easier often confuse the situation more, with vast amounts of new material that is difficult to match with the curriculum document. A vicious cycle of failure and low morale spirals ever downwards. Our system isn’t working and we have to think of something radically different.
It’s not difficult to teach a child to read. Yet vast numbers of children are emerging illiterate after ten years in school. I believe that a lot of the theories and methods and models forced on teachers are in fact obscuring the simplest and most obvious ways of learning.
People think I’m joking when I suggest that we should throw away the curriculum and just teach kids to read and add up! Britain only got a National Curriculum in 1988. Is this massive, confusing, ever-changing document the best thing for us in South Africa right now?
Friday, 26 February, 2010