What should be taught at school?

I'm a teacher, so can't avoid discussions of how to make education better and what we should do to make students more successful.

Despite ongoing attempts to make education relevant, there is strange mismatch between what is emphasised in education and what people want to learn in the real world.  My experience relates to education in Britain, but I'd imagine that experience in other places is not completely different.

'School reform' by Funky64

This excellent list from marcandangel.com discusses the '50 things everyone should know how to do'.  The list, which overlaps strongly with this book by Samantha Ettus, is an example of the kind of thing I mean: how many of these key life skills are taught in school? And how many does the average person leave school without knowing how to do?

Here are my picks on the ones which are definitely taught to most school pupils, at least to some extent:

- Operate a computer
- Handle a job interview
- Recite basic geography
- Sew a button onto clothing

Four out of fifty - not great going for 13 years of compulsory education!

'Buttons' by andrea joseph's illustrations

To be fair there are many other useful things which are taught at school - reading, maths, appreciation of poetry...  But I think that the mismatch is largely due to the emphasis for teaching knowledge at school - when most of the items listed are skills.

Technology and Psychology

Another interesting aspect is that many skills on the list relate to technology or psychology - two growth subjects, but ones which are still marginal in pre-university education.

Examples include:

- Use Google effectively
- Change a tyre
- Deliver bad news
- Manage time
- Remember names

The shape of the school curriculum owes a lot to tradition, and with people's needs in the modern world adapting fast, it will be interesting to see how educators respond.

Creative Writing - value to society (part 1)

On a day that the Arts Council England slashed funding for many small literature organisations, I thought I should post about how valuable creative writing can be.

The creative arts, when done well, are of course pleasurable and beneficial to both the artist and audience.  Many writers and artists, even amateur ones, benefit psychologically in terms of mood, feelings of accomplishment and self-esteem.

For this reason, the creative arts can be of great benefit to people with mental health problems. Art therapy is where people use a visual art form primarily for psychological treatment, and Chapman et al (2001) reported it to be helpful for child patients who had suffered traumatic injuries.

Writing therapy can be effective in reducing stress, improving health, increasing mood, and helping people to cope (Harber & Pennebaker, 1992).  What makes writing arguably unique among arts-based therapies is the potential of the written word to help people both communicate and re-examine aspects of their life.  Pizarro (2004) found that while art therapy led to more enjoyment, it didn't match writing therapy in terms of improvements to social functioning.

Creative writing has been used to help rehabilitation of prisoners by organisations such as the Writers in Prison Network, helping hundreds of people to transform their lives (and benefitting society as a whole).  Sadly, Writers in Prisons is one of 16 literature-related organisations to lose their core funding.

What can help to treat the mentally ill or rehabilitate offenders can no doubt have smaller-scale benefits for writers in more ordinary circumstances.  All in all, creative writing...  Fun?  Yes.  Valuable?  Very.

References
Chapman, L., Morabito, D., Ladakakos, C., Schreier, H., & Knudson, M. M. (2001). The effectiveness of art therapy interventions in reducing post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
symptoms in pediatric trauma patients. Art Therapy: Journal of
the American Art Therapy Association, 18, 100-104.
Harber, K. D., & Pennebaker, J. W. (1992). Overcoming traumatic memories. In S. A. Christianson (Ed.), The Handbook of Emotion and Memory: Research and Theory (pp. 359-387). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Pizarro, J. (2004) The Efficacy of Art and Writing Therapy: Increasing Positive Mental Health Outcomes and Participant Retention After Exposure to Traumatic Experience. Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 21(1), 5-12.

Believe me by Ali Smith

I love Ali Smith's short stories and this is an excellent example - short, poignant, experimental.  It forms part of the wonderful collection, ‘The Whole Story and Other Stories' - the names of her collections really sparkle! 

It's told in an unconventional style, alternating ‘I said’ and ‘you said’ in direct speech, like a kind of twisted anecdote.

The story is primarily a playful conversation between a couple, both of whom are humourously inventing an affair.  As the tit-for-tat jokes develop, they begin to compete over the same imaginary lover.

It could all be written in the 3rd person - it would make no basic difference to the story and it wouldn’t be necessary to change anything except to substitute ‘(name) said’, but the use of the 1st person makes it intimate and vivid.  You really feel like you are seeing a slice of real life, and while there is very little 'plot' - the action comes from the human interaction.

Emotionally it gives the sense of a warm, strong bond between the pair who can comfortably explore this kind of fantasy together, but there is also a slight edge to it - the gay female lovers are both inventing a affair with a man, a conventional rather than romantic alternative reality, which perhaps is intended as a comment on the way a gay person may feel socially pressured to hide or fabricate parts of their life for greater respectability.