NorthStarUK Blog » Curriculum

Home Page News 1 March 2010

Steve Richards — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:07:38 +0000

Fundamental to any education system is a system of beliefs – each country’s education system says much about what, as a collective, that country believes to be important in life. Increasingly over the last twenty years, the English ( and Welsh) education system has been characterised by a commitment to national economic development and state control. In this regard, Tony’s Blair’s New Labour and Margaret Thatcher’s New Conservatism had much in common – it was the Conservatives, after all who introduced the national ( or perhaps it is more accurate to called it a ‘nationalised’) curriculum back in 1988. Before the 1997 General Election Tony Blair described education as his government’s best economic policy; which was his justification for spending billions on educational improvements, which appear to have achieved little by way of improving educational standards or indeed society as a whole. Government control over education is tighter now that it has ever been and our children are increasingly being seen as belonging to the state. This is essentially why the Badman fiasco of the last year has occurred, elective home education is the last area of education in this country that the government does not control – no nationalised curriculum, no control over how much learning should occur, no control over the standards of parents, and no control over whether the state allows particular parents to educate their children (although in reality the legislation is already in place to ensure that parents do educate their children in an appropriate manner). In this context, it is little wonder that Graham Badman and the DCSF do not want to look at research that demonstrates the home education works, and by and large, works better than their schools! They are simply determined to bring home educators under the control of the state machinery that manages the rest of the children in this country!

For those of us who are Christians, we need to recognise that we are engaged in a conflict that, in an increasingly secularised society, can only get more challenging. Education is about raising the next generation – the difference between what Christians and the secularised state regard as success in this respect is a gaping chasm, which can only become wider in the coming years. At some point, Christians in Britain need to ask the question – ‘Can a secularised education system raise the next generation of our children – equipped and prepared to live for the Kingdom?’

Home Page News 18th January 2010

Steve Richards — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 16:47:52 +0000

At church yesterday the speaker asked us all – ‘what puts fire in your belly?’ ‘What, in your life, excites you when you think about it?’ He was particularly asking us to reflect on the work that we do for the Lord, and especially inviting us to focus on those areas that we are especially called to minister in, over and above everything else. As I sat there I thought about NorthStarUK and also about gifts – not the sort that we receive at Christmas, but rather those that our Creator gave us at birth. For many years I worked as a special needs teacher. Many of the students I worked with were amongst the weakest in the school, in terms of their academic prowess. But each and everyone one of them had gifts; they all had abilities given to them by their Creator. Often these were talents that school did not notice or value; nevertheless, they were still gifted individuals – indeed, much of my most important work, I felt, was to try to convince them that they had abilities, because many years of schooling had often caused them to lose confidence and led them to devalue themselves. It also struck me that schools do not have a very good track record of working with exceptionally talented individuals, either, unless these talents coincided with what schools were looking for. I thought of Mozart – a child prodigy; how would he have got on in one of our local schools – now it has to be admitted, he would almost certainly have known more about science or geography, but would he have had time to compose – he was writing music from the age of five! Schools inevitably aim at producing generalists; our Creator, however is more concerned to produce unique, talented individuals who have a role within their community. As parents, teachers and educators let’s spend some time this week reflecting on the gifts that each of our children has been given and help them to have a fire in their belly as they develop those gifts and talents in the coming years.

Some thoughts on pedagogy from Switzerland

ross — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:48:48 +0000

I recently returned from the EurECA Conference in Vevey, Switzerland. Apart from the memorable setting, overlooking Lake Geneva and looking at the peaks of the Dents du Midi in the distance, and the practical theme – How should Christians teach? – I will remember it for the insights of David Smith, now teaching at Calvin College, Grand Rapids USA, as he spoke primarily on pedagogy. He suggested we stop using the word methodology and re establish the word pedagogy. Briefly, his argument was that methodology is rooted in a scientific method, that if we teach in a specific way then there would be certain predictable results, whereas pedagogy stems from a community of learners living close to and learning from the ‘master’.

As I sat listening and making notes I found myself really thinking about how to start my teaching at the beginning of the year and how to start units of work in a more interesting way. David’s assertion was that how we start has a big impact on pupils and it really impacts on how they will react to our course over the year. As I reflected on how to apply this at Trinity School I also began to think – but how can this be applied to on-line teaching?

I know that my present lessons are better than when I started with NorthStarUK but the speed of change in schools classrooms brought about by constantly improving IT facilities, interactive white boards, You Tube clips etc mean that we can’t sit back either.

We clearly do a good job in teaching our NorthStarUK students from the results over the years, but as a Christian teacher I still want to do better. My personal challenge from the conference is focussed on improving the start of courses, but that is only the beginning, I can’t let the rest of the course become predictable and in the eyes of the students ‘boring’. So it looks as if there is yet more work to do in the next few months.

Narcissistic children and self-esteem

Steve Richards — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 07:14:16 +0000

There can be no doubt that self-esteem is an important part of people’s lives. It is also true that we all like to be encouraged and affirmed in what we do and who we are – it makes us feel good about ourselves.

Historically, British schools have been pretty poor at developing pupil’s self-esteem; in fact I would argue that they have often done serious damage to pupils in this regard. Some years ago I came across a youngman in his 20s who when he was 16 and about to go into his GCSE maths exam had been told by his maths teacher, that it would be a waste of his time and that of the exam marker if he actually bothered to sit the exam. Five or six years later when I met this young man he still regarded himself as ’stupid’ – not merely in maths but generally. I was reminded of this young man, this week when I read of a paper presented at the Association of School and College Leaders conference in Birmingham by Dr Carol Craig suggesting that our schools are in danger of producing narcissistic children who are likely to develop an “all about me mentality”. The ‘praise culture’ was something that also arose in a conversation I had with a former colleague a few weeks ago. We had worked together for a number of years in special educational needs within a mainstream school. She told me of a new member of staff who was inclined, in her opinion, to praise children for ‘almost anything’ – if a child sat quietly for five minute, he was praised before the rest of the class; if he wrote two or three lines in English, he was similarly praised. In the opinion of my former colleague this devalued praise – the child was simply being praised for what he should have been doing in the first place!

Teachers are, however, in a very powerful position within their classrooms. Ultimately, it is teachers who decide what is truth and what is not,what is correct and what is wrong. I have often chided teaching friends of mine by saying that as teachers we are the only individuals who ask people questions to which we already know the answer! That position of power is so easily abused when a child is scorned or even mocked for not knowing the answer that the teacher is looking for. In my experience, far from creating a generation of narcissistic egoists, my feeling is that teachers do not give children sufficient real praise. Those of us who are home educating need to guard against the same failing – our children need to be encouraged not only when they do well, but also when they have tried their best – and as parents we are best placed totell the difference.

By the way, if you are interested in what happened to the young man with the appalling maths teacher, heeventually went to university and secured a very respectable 2:1degree, but only after good people convinced him that his schoolexperience was inaccurate and that he was actually quite able!

Home Page News – 23 February 2009

Steve Richards — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 08:09:29 +0000

All educational systems are underpinned by a belief system or worldview. This is inevitable and unavoidable. In schools and colleges around the world – whether it is governments or individual teachers – decision-makers choose to teach children what is most important to them. And what is most important is actually shaped by our worldview. That is why a growing number of Christians are increasingly uncomfortable with the English National Curriculum; although it claims to be religiously neutral it leaves God out of every subject (except for Religious Studies, of course) – no mention of God in history, biology, geography, English – the list could go on! This is not neutrality but a form of practical atheism. In NorthStarUK we do not make our worldview conspicuous – in the end much of our subject matter is the same as that taught in secular schools. However, a Christian view of the world underpins all that we do and it is this that sets us apart.

Some months ago I was commissioned to produce a series of short videos introducing home education to a wider Christian audience. We have almost completed the first episode and have put it on YouTube to find out what people think. It deals with the issue of neutrality in education and challenges Christians to think deeply about these matters. If you would like to watch the video, simply here.