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Disclaimer: I work as a teacher in a Further Education college in the UK (like a general education college) and I teach adult education classes. Politicians he

Disclaimer: I work as a teacher in a Further Education college in the UK (like a general education college) and I teach adult education classes. Politicians here are fond of talking about 'raising standards', and ordinary people you talk to have started to echo this language. I've developed a strategy for dealing with this. I just ask 'what is a standard? what do you mean, what is it we are raising?'. The result is a stuttering fall-back on things that can be measured (pass rates on our national tests and external exams and so on). I suspect the bathwater is thick with babies - we are focussing on the scaffold/feedback at the cost of the underlying process we wanted feedback on. Exam results seem to replace the things the results were symptoms of. Before I started teaching, I studied physics at a reasonably good UK university then tried a PhD at another good one. I didn't write up the PhD but had a good four years and learned lots. What got me into physics? Its 1963. It is raining. I'm dawdling which Mum doesn't like but I'm coming home by my self now. I have my yellow raincoat, wellies and souwester on. I like those because they look like the seamen on the tugs. I'm watching the rain running down the gutter on the side of the road - the road cambers gently to the curb so the cross section of flow is wedge shaped with a slight curve - water running fast but there is a stable pattern of waves at an angle to the kerb that stays the same. The water is running through the structure of waves. How does the structure of waves stay there if the water is moving? I drop leaves in the water and watch them race down the hill under the waves that stay still. I stay for what seems a long time (probably about 2 minutes!) and listen to the rain on my hat - little rattling sound. Then carry on home. Most of my work in physics was (in one way or another) to do with that question. I don't think you can schedule that kind of experience. In praise of dawdling.

fierarul 11y ago
>Its 1963. It is raining. I'm dawdling which Mum doesn't like but I'm coming home by my self now. I have my yellow raincoat, wellies and souwester on. I like those because they look like the seamen on the tugs. >I'm watching the rain running down the gutter on the side of the road - the road cambers gently to the curb so the cross section of flow is wedge shaped with a slight curve - water running fast but there is a stable pattern of waves at an angle to the kerb that stays the same. The water is running through the structure of waves. How does the structure of waves stay there if the water is moving? I drop leaves in the water and watch them race down the hill under the waves that stay still. I stay for what seems a long time (probably about 2 minutes!) and listen to the rain on my hat - little rattling sound. Then carry on home. >Most of my work in physics was (in one way or another) to do with that question. I don't think you can schedule that kind of experience. In praise of dawdling. This was beautiful.
- keithpeter 11y ago
  Well, thanks, but this memory has been re-remembered a lot (recent work on memory suggests that we tell ourselves stories and sort of retain the structure of the story), and is an important part of my identity as you can probably tell. My point was: are we scheduling/measuring children a little too much? I have no answers. Just a gut feeling that the algorithm of 'measure - intervene - remeasure' is getting a bit out of hand in education. See the BBC News article below... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-32682280 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-32682280
zhte415 11y ago
Wonderful image. It reminded me of me, as a young child, of how one tree appears to move at a different speed relative to me as another one (a bit further away). Angles and distance, and of a gravitation towards maths as a subject. Your experience in Education is not dissimilar, too, to my experience in Big Corps. 'Innovation' is a word banded around as if it were an elixir from heaven as a way to solve all problems and create the perfect workplace. Late evening at work, around 11pm long after the workforce had long since left, the managers tended to be able to tie-up their day. A vision of a 500 seat open plan office kept illuminated by 4-5 heads at various locations around the floor. Passing a much liked colleague, she asked me "What does innovation mean?" while pointing at a generic poster on the wall of a lit light bulb on a blue background with 'Innovation' in large text and some scrawl about a corporate competition. "Well, doing things better, modifying processes, creating new ways to do things" I replied. English language was not her first language, but I knew she knew what this word meant and I felt a bit taken aback. "No" she replied. "It is brainwashing us and my team to think change is good. Innovation is just change. And you know what, some things are OK. We don't need to change them. We need to leave them as they are. I don't want everyone thinking about how to change this or how to change that when they're perfectly fine. I want people to do their jobs and document it well, not think about how it isn't right, and change it to something else that is broken. People could be doing their job, be happy, and when a real problem happens deal with it. Brainwashing us to accept the next change in direction from our dear leaders." This made sense, and has stuck with me, even several years later. For those in Big Corp or other institutions where the word 'Innovation' is thrown around with glee, it does indeed not mean better. Infact, its meaning is probably closer to "Throw (new) mud at the wall and see if it sticks, and in the process of creating 'innovation' gain the opportunity cost of creating better documentation, going home earlier, or multitudes of other things, but say 'yes' to change because it is masked as being 'good'." Think about what words really mean, and if they don't make sense, there are much deeper problems with the people saying them.

fierarul 11y ago

>Its 1963. It is raining. I'm dawdling which Mum doesn't like but I'm coming home by my self now. I have my yellow raincoat, wellies and souwester on. I like those because they look like the seamen on the tugs. >I'm watching the rain running down the gutter on the side of the road - the road cambers gently to the curb so the cross section of flow is wedge shaped with a slight curve - water running fast but there is a stable pattern of waves at an angle to the kerb that stays the same. The water is running through the structure of waves. How does the structure of waves stay there if the water is moving? I drop leaves in the water and watch them race down the hill under the waves that stay still. I stay for what seems a long time (probably about 2 minutes!) and listen to the rain on my hat - little rattling sound. Then carry on home. >Most of my work in physics was (in one way or another) to do with that question. I don't think you can schedule that kind of experience. In praise of dawdling. This was beautiful.

keithpeter 11y ago
Well, thanks, but this memory has been re-remembered a lot (recent work on memory suggests that we tell ourselves stories and sort of retain the structure of the story), and is an important part of my identity as you can probably tell. My point was: are we scheduling/measuring children a little too much? I have no answers. Just a gut feeling that the algorithm of 'measure - intervene - remeasure' is getting a bit out of hand in education. See the BBC News article below... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-32682280 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-32682280

zhte415 11y ago

Wonderful image. It reminded me of me, as a young child, of how one tree appears to move at a different speed relative to me as another one (a bit further away). Angles and distance, and of a gravitation towards maths as a subject. Your experience in Education is not dissimilar, too, to my experience in Big Corps. 'Innovation' is a word banded around as if it were an elixir from heaven as a way to solve all problems and create the perfect workplace. Late evening at work, around 11pm long after the workforce had long since left, the managers tended to be able to tie-up their day. A vision of a 500 seat open plan office kept illuminated by 4-5 heads at various locations around the floor. Passing a much liked colleague, she asked me "What does innovation mean?" while pointing at a generic poster on the wall of a lit light bulb on a blue background with 'Innovation' in large text and some scrawl about a corporate competition. "Well, doing things better, modifying processes, creating new ways to do things" I replied. English language was not her first language, but I knew she knew what this word meant and I felt a bit taken aback. "No" she replied. "It is brainwashing us and my team to think change is good. Innovation is just change. And you know what, some things are OK. We don't need to change them. We need to leave them as they are. I don't want everyone thinking about how to change this or how to change that when they're perfectly fine. I want people to do their jobs and document it well, not think about how it isn't right, and change it to something else that is broken. People could be doing their job, be happy, and when a real problem happens deal with it. Brainwashing us to accept the next change in direction from our dear leaders." This made sense, and has stuck with me, even several years later. For those in Big Corp or other institutions where the word 'Innovation' is thrown around with glee, it does indeed not mean better. Infact, its meaning is probably closer to "Throw (new) mud at the wall and see if it sticks, and in the process of creating 'innovation' gain the opportunity cost of creating better documentation, going home earlier, or multitudes of other things, but say 'yes' to change because it is masked as being 'good'." Think about what words really mean, and if they don't make sense, there are much deeper problems with the people saying them.