From time to time I put up a posting here about the long-term educational significance of robots. This significance is huge. Sometimes, commenters – here or in conversation – tell me I'm wrong. It'll never catch on, they say. But it will. I'm right. They're wrong.
The deservedly world famous AIBO for example, if the Sony Corporation sticks with it (which the Sony Corporation shows every sign of doing), is absolutely bound to bond with small children sooner or later, and then think what that might lead to. That it might not all be good, I concede at once. That important things along these lines are somewhere in the human future seems to me only a matter of time and effort, both of which are inevitable short of a seriously big nuclear war or other catastrophe.
Here's a slice of a Telegraph report from before Christmas. I apologise for the better-late-than-never nature of this link, but … better late than never.
The introduction of the Sony AIBO robotic pet that acts as your best friend and which can be set to sleep at certain times and knows when it needs to be charged marks a significant step forward in robotic technology. The first Sony AIBO was introduced in the UK in 1999 and represented a vision to combine technology with Artificial Intelligence to create an entertaining companion.The third generation ERS-7 AIBO boasts enhanced communication skills and new levels of functionality and is evolving from a source of fascination and entertainment into a more functional, endearing companion aiming to facilitate interaction between humans and robots. It opens up a world of possibilities for enthusiasts and it is a notable step forward in the development of artificial intelligence as well as domestic robots.
A world of possibilities indeed, and not just for "enthusiasts".
I have recently had another of those episodes known in the USA as a learning experience.
For some mysterious reason, after Michael Jennings had logged into Samizdata and done a posting under the heading of "Samizdata Illuminatus", when I later logged in as myself, what I then posted also appeared under the moniker of Illuminatus. I didn't realise this, but Michael spotted it, changed the heading to me, and informed me of the oddity.
I then broke one of the cardinal rules of computer use, which goes: if you have a problem which you do not understand, do not try to unleash a solution which you do not understand. (I'm sure that many far wiser heads than I have formulated this as a Law and given it a name.)
Despite being baffled by what was going on, I tried to correct matters.
It doesn't matter how. Suffice it to say that I made the situation a lot worse, and not just for myself. Whether I have now truly learned this lesson remains to be seen. We will only know for sure next time I have a puzzling problem with my computer, and either create more havoc, or make the wise decision to do nothing and seek help. Would that I had done the latter this time around. I "knew" this Law already. But I didn't know it well enough, I now realise. When I most needed to pay attention to it, it wasn't there at the front of my mind, shouting at me to stop. (See also comment number one here.)
The second thing I learned is something of the meaning of the word "cookie" in a computing context. I didn't learn very much, just something. This learning experience took place by talking to Michael about what was wrong, at any rate as far as me posting stuff on Samizdata was concerned, and then watching him correct that when he kindly visited me this morning.
I find it hard to learn anything about computers unless I have to, either to get something very good done, or, as in this case, to correct something very bad. There's just too much of a general, you-never-know-when-it-might-come-in-handy nature to ever be able to learn, without a carrot in front of you or a stick up your backside. That's what I find anyway. But I get enough good stuff from my computer, and into enough difficulties from time to time, to learn lots anyway. Too bad that the latter process sometimes also involves learning what I should not have done.
Yes. What are you doing trying to read about education on Christmas Day?
Service could be intermittent until just after the new year gets properly going, which I calculate as being on Monday January 5th. On that date and after, normal service will be back to normal, i.e. every week day, and maybe at the weekend.
Now get out of here and enjoy yourself.
Not heard of "Eragon"? You are about to, it would seem. And because of Eragon, it looks like homeschooling is about to get another big boost.
Meet the Paolinis of Montana:
For years, Kenneth and Talita – former members of a survivalist cult led by a woman called Ma Prophet – seem to have lived on a shoestring, with only occasional employment. Kenneth, the son of an Italian immigrant, used to be a photographer, but doesn't appear to have had much work lately.He and his wife have devoted their lives to their children, schooling them at home and, until recently, rarely venturing outside their small community of Paradise Valley, Montana.
And one of those children, Christopher, has written a book. And it's not just any book:
The British edition appears early next month, but already it is a huge bestseller in America, where it has surged past the Harry Potter books. Almost half a million copies were sold in only two months, a screenplay is in the works and at least a dozen foreign-language editions are on the way.
The book, Eragon of course, began life self-published. But then:
Their big break came when the popular crime novelist Carl Hiaasen visited the area on a fishing trip with his young son, and the boy became immersed in a copy of Eragon. On the way home, Hiaasen asked his son why he couldn't put the book down. "It's great, Dad," came the reply, "better than Harry Potter."To a novelist who has had his fair share of bestsellers, those words were magic. Hiaasen alerted his editors in New York, and the next thing the Paolinis knew, the prestigious publisher Knopf (a part of Random House) was offering them a contract.
This is one of the more educationally startling bits of the Telegraph story:
"I was only 15 when I started Eragon. I didn't know how to write. I just told everything in one gigantic burst, then spent another year revising it. …"
Talk about learning by doing.
If Christopher Paolini turns out to be the perfectly nice, well adjusted, civilised person which I fully expect him to turn out to be, then that will ram the homeschooling point with particular force, because the popular fear is that whereas when maths professors do it, that's okay, maybe, when people called things like "Ma Prophet" get mixed up in it, only bad things can result. But now, it seems, the result is … Eragon.
Category: Books • Home education • Learning by doing • Literacy
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I've started to read this piece by Denis Dutton, a recently acquired interest of mine, and so far I like it a lot:
With Toni Morrison, I acknowledge that what I think and do is already inscribed on my teaching, and all my work. Indeed, we do "teach values by having them," or at least cannot but reveal our values in the classroom in one manner or another. This is not a voluntary option for those of us who teach in higher education or anywhere else: it is a permanent feature of the human condition. I sit at my computer overlooking a grass commons between suburban houses. As it's a warm New Zealand summer, neighborhood children below are playing an improvised game of cricket. Mr. Gagliardi from the house opposite mine appears with his lawnmower and asks the kids to give way so he can mow the lawn. Today he's doing my side as well, because my old mower is still in the repair shop. They patiently wait by the side of the commons for him to finish, though it takes some more time when he shuts down the mower to chat a bit with Mr. McConchie next door. When the children later resume their play, Mr. Gagliardi helps out with some batting instruction, guiding them with his usual care and patience.When I think of "teaching values," I find it hard to keep my mind focused on university classrooms. The promulgation of moral principles in the classroom or lecture theater plays a real but overestimated role in the moral enculturation of young people; more important in my opinion is the human example set by teachers and other adults in the ordinary conduct of life. If morality could be instilled by teaching principles in the same way that mathematics can be taught through principles, then Moral Principles 101 would long since be required in every university. As things are, the moral education most people receive at the university is continuous with the moral example being set by Mr. Gagliardi for the children down on the commons: his demonstrated sense of communal responsibility, his kindness and friendliness, his willingness to take time to help them with their play. He's not sermonizing from a pulpit, sacred or secular, he's just mowing the lawn, and setting a decent adult example.
I will be reading all of it, and my guess is, so may quite a few of you, if you haven't already
There is now a whole book devoted to the way that managerial gobbledegook now permeates the world in general, and academia in particular. Read, for example, this report:
People were rocking with laughter; some were in tears. Deadpan, Don Watson waited. One audience member said later it was the funniest dinner of academic deans he had ever attended. But Watson was not joking. He was reading from a university mission statement and other material on its website."To provide outcome-related research and consultancy services that address real-world issues" - shrieks of laughter. The university's "approach to quality management is underpinned by a strong commitment to continuous improvement and a whole-of-organisation framework" - uproar in the room.
The university in question was RMIT but it could have been any of them. Go to your website and read the language, Watson urged guests at a recent Deans of Education dinner. That made people laugh even more. They worked at universities; they knew what he was talking about. Some of them probably even wrote this stuff. It was a surreal moment.
Thanks, as so often, to Arts & Letters Daily.
A big rugby international today to watch on the telly, the first since you know what (although maybe you don't – I suppose the world does contain such people) and other stuff I'm pressing on with, plus a blogging social this evening. So today just this little mention of the latest manifestation of the Home Educating House Dad. As usual, it looks good. I will be going there very regularly.
Thanks to Alice for the tip, and to Michael himself for commenting on the previous posting here.
More words of wisdom from home educator Julius Blumfeld:
When we started home education we were slaves to the school timetable. If school children were learning, for example, to tell the time aged five, then so must our children learn to tell the time at age five.
So when (I shall call her) Agnes had her fifth birthday, Mrs. B began the immense task of teaching her how to tell the time. Believe me it isn't easy. Much effort was spent and not a few tears were shed. Eventually, after many months, the effort began to pay off. Finally, some time during her sixth year, Agnes began to manage it. Hallelujah.
But the memory of all the effort involved was such that when (I shall call her) Janet reached her fifth birthday, Mrs. B decided to put off the wretched task for a bit longer. Weeks passed. Then months. Eventually I could stand it no longer. "She's six and a half and she can't even tell the time" I said. "What will the neighbours think?" So Mrs. B gave in and promised to begin teaching Janet how to tell the time.
So off I went to work. And when I came back that evening, Janet could tell the time. Well perhaps I exaggerate. But it certainly didn't take very long. Nor is it anything to do with Janet being cleverer than Agnes. It is simply that teaching the average a six and a half year old to tell the time is far easier and quicker than teaching the same thing to the average five year old.
As time has passed, we have seen the same thing over and over again. Something that takes weeks or months to learn at age X, takes a fraction of the time at age
X + N.
On the other hand, of course, if a child needs to know how to do something now, it is no use leaving it until they are older, even if the learning process will be quicker when they are older. No doubt a child could be taught to read more quickly age 17 than age seven, but that is no argument for leaving reading until a child is 17.
So there is a balance to be struck between needing to know and needing to know now. If a child learns too soon, huge amounts of time are wasted. If a child learns too late, opportunities to use valuable skills and knowledge may be lost.
The implications are obvious. A system of education that treats children as an undifferentiated mass will either end up wasting huge amounts of time in teaching subjects at too early an age, or will deprive children of knowledge they should already have acquired. Either way, the process will be hugely inefficient.
I have no idea how schools can address this problem, except perhaps this thought. One of the lessons of home education is that full time formal education for children is largely a waste of time. If things are taught at the right age for the child, the entire primary school curriculum can probably be mastered in about six months (albeit spread over a number of years). So why not cut the school day from seven hours to two and let children decide which classes they want to attend and at what age?
There are of course many reasons why this is unlikely to happen any time soon. But perhaps the main reason is this. Although dressed up as places of learning, the primary function of schools, especially government schools, is child minding – keeping children off the streets while their parents do other things. Far from efficient teaching and shorter school hours being a desirable goal, it is probably the last thing most parents want.
I leave others to work out the implications of that.
Julus
Talking of James Tooley (see below), I've only just encountered news of this:
Government Failure: E. G. West on Education
Edited by James Tooley and James Stanfield
Institute of Economic Affairs, December 2003-12-18This selection of E.G. West's papers contains a wealth of economic and philosophical analysis which can guide policymakers in the field of Education. They also show how state monopoly provision of education has led to a particular model of schooling which does not work for many of those who use the education system – parents and children.
Perhaps the most valuable contribution of these papers, though, is their historical analysis. The extent to which education systems developed in the UK and the USA before either compulsory schooling or dominant state finance emerged is remarkable. E.G. West also analyses the debate between those who believe that the state should control education in order to shape the thinking of the younger generation, and those who believe in a pluralist system. He demonstrates how universal state provision of education is the model that is least likely to benefit the poor, although they could benefit substantially from programmes to help them fund their education.
In an era when there is increasing dissatisfaction with state education provision, but in which the state has ever greater control of the curriculum – including the teaching of 'citizenship' – and management of schools, the papers in Occasional Paper 130 have never been more relevant.
Perhaps Mr Clarke would like to put that bit about state provision being the worst for the poor in a frame and hang it on his wall. And then again, perhaps he wouldn't.
Here in Britain, it is genuinely hard to know whether education is getting better or getting worse. A lot of both is my impression.
But here's a part of the world where they don't seem to have much doubt. Things in Ghana seem definitely to be getting worse:
The Vice Chancellor of the University College of Education, Winneba, Prof. J. Anamuah -Mensah, has expressed concern about the rapid fall in education in the country and called on all stakeholders to put their hands on the wheel to find a lasting solution to the problem.The Chancellor observed that, nowadays, when one read or listened to the sort of a English being spoken by university students on campus, the person would begin to wonder whether these students went through the education system before gaining admission to the universities.
Studies have in fact shown that our high school graduates lack basic skills – the ability to read, write a paragraph, do simple computations and engage in critical thinking and problem solving. "Our nation is at risk and will continue to be so if nothing is done to improve the quality of education in this county," he said.
Prof. Anamuah-Mensah who was speaking at the launch of the 10th anniversary celebration of the Nest School Complex in Takoradi last weekend said our education system actually needed a major surgery because most of our schools, especially those in the northern regions, did not have full complement of trained teachers.
He mentioned the high pupil/teacher ratio especially in the urban areas, poor supervision and monitoring, weak management capacity, lack of instructional materials, lack of library services, de-motivated and non committed teachers and poor conditions of service as some of the problems that have bedeviled our educational system, that needed to be addressed.
Prof. Ananuah-Mensah who is also the chairman of the educational review committee, which was appointed by the government to review our education system, said the aforementioned problem, coupled with the fact that about 791,000 Ghanaian children who should have been in school were not showed the kind of depth in deterioration, our education system has sunk.
Looks like a job for Professor Tooley.
When you read the words "article about education" do you expect soon to be reading something like this? I'm guessing not.
Despite claims of wrongdoing at one top for-profit college, analysts remain bullish on it -- and the sector -- as enrollment surges.For several years now, stocks of companies that offer college and alternative degrees have gotten high marks from investors for their juicy returns. These outfits' revenues and profits have soared as adults flocked to their schools seeking skills that would make them stand out in a tight labor market. As a result, a $100 investment in Career Education Corp. (CECO) when it went public at $4 a share in 1998 would have been worth $1,000 -- 10 times as much -- by the end of 2002, according to the company's Web site.
But recent allegations against CEC, one of the biggest companies in the business, that student records were tinkered with at two campuses have sent the sector into detention. Shares of the post-secondary educators fell more than 10% on average in the week after the latest charges against CEC surfaced in a Dec. 3 newspaper report. They've since recovered some after Hoffman Estates (Ill.)-based CEC vigorously denied the claims.
You can imagine what an opponent of private sector education would make of this. Profits ("juicy retruns"!) despite wrongdoing, student records tinkered with. But of course to me all this is evidence that even allegations of wrongdoing, let alone the reality of it, are costing people money.
The difference between capitalism and state control is not that capitalism never makes mistakes. It constantly makes mistakes, in fact it makes a hell of a lot more mistakes, because it attempts so much more. (See this blog posting for a taste of the capitalist attitude at a personal level.)
The difference is what happens to capitalism, and to capitalists, when those mistakes are made and then noticed. The news of them causes shares to drop in value and for greedy, selfish go-getters to demand that the mistakes be corrected forthwith. If the mistakes are persisted with, shirts are duly lost and enterprises duly collapse.
When the state makes a mistake it is just as likely to get twisted into an argument that the people who made the mistake should have more money given to them, rather than less. Shutting down anything in the public sector is a huge effort of selfless will on someone's part.
But shutting a messed up business happens automatically, as a natural consequence the way that the system works. Greedy, selfish people demand it, and it happens. Thus it is that, in the private sector, the mediocrity that was acceptable this year becomes, by a process of evolutionary improvement, unacceptable incompetence next year, and the average keeps on getting better and better. Capitalism gets better and better, disaster by disaster.
The USA is now leaping ahead in education. This article, about some of the stupid things it is doing, proves it.
Today I bought, for 50p in the local gay charity shop, a copy of the 1998 edition of the Good Schools Guide. There is a website associated with this book, but I have yet to make much sense of it. So here's a taste of what it's like. Here's what they say about the then (and for all I know still) headmaster of the school I went to, Marlborough College, Marlborough, Wilts:
Head (Master): Since 1993, Mr E J H Gould, MA (fifties). Previous post head of Felsted, where he earned the nickname of 'Basher' – one which stands him in good stead here. Looks like a professional bouncer. Read Geography at Teddy Hall, Oxford, collected four and a half blues (rugby and swimming), rowed for Great Britain, etc, etc. Before Felsted was housemaster at Harrow. Comments he is homing in on three main things: 'confidence, morale and attitude – none of which you can pass rules on'.One or two changes among the governors in recent years and not before time – and fewer clergymen.
Basher. Ah, the delights of a refined education. "Teddy Hall" by the way, is posh speak for St Edmunds Hall, one of the Oxford University (I think – if not then Cambridge) colleges.
Got a nasty headache and need to go to bed, so not a lot of homework today, I'm afraid.
Rebecca Fraser does a plug in the Telegraph for her own book about Britain's history. Fair enough. She's in favour of a more systematic and chronological approach than is now the tendency in schools, regretting the way that the National Curriculum jumps about illogically, emphasising this period but ignoring that one, and doing it in a random order.
I was made to learn history dates at school, and whereas I didn't and don't like being made to do anything, this particular piece of compulsoriness still makes sense to me. This is how I would sell history to any pupil customers I was trying to interest. How can you get to grips with history without knowing very approximately (and then in ever greater detail) when everything in the past happened? How can you get into the minds of people in the past, which is what the newer syllabuses are supposed to do best, if you don't know what major historical dramas and upheavals these people have just been through?
Take a really huge history date, like the Black Death. 1349 was the date I was taught for that horror. Setting aside the fact that "1349" is probably a bit too exact for this horror, how can you expect to make sense of how it was to be alive in Europe in the year 1400, say, if you ever for a moment forget that half a century earlier a third of the population of Europe was wiped out in a horrible plague?
Perhaps one of the less obvious effects of 9/11, an event we refer to now and may always refer to by its date, will be to slam back into the head's of history teachers and history students that when things happen is often one of the most memorable things about things. Where were you when …? A major date is not just a matter for historians. It's part of the experience of life itself. And of course yesterday, December 14th 2003, was another pretty big date, I'd say.
If you still doubt any of this, try saying "1966" to an English soccer fan.
Looking for more reactions to the capture of Saddam Hussein, I came across this, from way back in October:
Calculating terrorists long ago determined education is a major battleground in their global struggle. The war for brainpower matters, since creative minds seed the future.Al Qaeda has its own school system. Al Qaeda-backed madrassahs serve as Islamo-fascist recruitment and training centers, with the Koran as interpreted by Osama bin Laden their core text. Graduates hijack jets and commit mass murder.
"Alternative" education, of course, challenges the terror cadres' noxious curriculum. Thus, the terrorists wage war on "Western" education. The war on liberal education rarely makes the news because sources are so effectively silenced. Islamist terrorists use a mafioso method, personally threatening Muslim intellectuals and scholars. Here's the offer the scholar can't refuse: Shut up, or we kill you. In lands without the rule of law, radical guns hush rational voices.
This war, however, was a footnote to a recent headline. The U.S. convoy ambushed by Hamas killers in Gaza Oct. 15 carried diplomats preparing to interview Palestinians for Fulbright scholarships. Getting an American education is an attractive proposition, particularly for students in the world's more bitter and chaotic corners.
And we are also, after decades of ignoring it and hoping it will go away (not an unreasonable attitude I'd say), educating ourselves about Islamo-fascism. Fulbright scholarships to get Palestinians to come to the West is all part of that.
Less than a third of government ministers are happy with the teaching profession's handling of education, a survey suggests.
Just 28% of a sample group of government ministers questioned in England and Wales were satisfied with teachers' performance, Mori found, while 1% were very satisfied.
Meanwhile, 51% said they were fairly or very dissatisfied.
According to the poll, of senior and junior government ministers, dissatisfaction increased with experience.
Ministers with three or more years in the job had a 53% chance of being dissatisfied.
Only 32% of newly appointed ministers felt the same.
Nearly half of this group said they were satisfied with the teaching profession's performance on education.
This dropped sharply to 27% for those with one to five years' experience.
A Mori spokesman said: "Coming at a time when the teaching unions are facing stiff opposition from the government concerning national tests, the school workforce agreement and teachers' pay proposals, the survey suggests that the problems already facing the teaching profession may increase over the next parliamentary session."
Just kidding. Here's what this BBC report really said. I've been suffering from a bit of a belly ache for the last day or so. So that will probably be your lot today.
I struggle to get a sense of whether primary education is getting any better, and if so whether any improvement that has happened is anything to do with government policies.
John Clare, in the Telegraph (linked to admiringly by Melanie Phillips), doesn't really explain why things have turned out as they have, but at least he says what the story is:
… For the past three years, the proportion of 11-year-olds reaching the expected levels in English and maths has stalled. Not only does that leave one in four ill-equipped to cope with secondary school, but it offends our national expectation that standards will continue to rise as relentlessly in the future as in the past.Almost worse than that in the Government's eyes, there's now not the slightest prospect of primary schools reaching the literacy and numeracy targets it originally set for them next year and subsequently shifted to 2006.
So, an improvement, but then a disappointing levelling off in that improvement. Things have got as good as they are soon going to. That's what's happening. That's the picture, as painted by Clare.
But why? Clare attacks progressive-creative education, and lauds chalk-and-talk. But that doesn't explain anything about the pattern of (a) improvement and then (b) slackening off in the improvement. Melanie Phillips echoes Clare in trashing progressive-creative, but the same complaint applies to her. (They both join in denouncing Ofsted's interpretation of its own findings.)
I mean, if the government's policies (which are not necessarily the same as Ofsted's) are so bad, how come there was any improvement at all?
Suppose that primary school doctrine can indeed be classified into either progressive-creative or chalk-and-talk, either/or. Crude, but maybe that'll do. And suppose that our present government has switched from neutrality and trusting the teachers and the educrats and the teacher trainers and basically worrying about other things (my take on the attitude of the previous government towards ) to being semi-strongly inclined towards chalk-and-talk, and semi-hostile to progressive-creative. Maths hours, literacy hours, a semi-serious move towards phonetics, etc. An effort, but still quite a bit of confusion. Again, that's a simplification, but there has been something of a shift, some way towards chalk-and-talk, but not the whole way.
Suppose further, as I do, that Clare and Phillips are right that chalk-and-talk works better than progressive-creative. What I see is an educational world in which whatever good the shift (such as it has been) in government policy has now done pretty much all it can. Those teachers and educrats and teacher trainers who are willing to change their ways have now changed them. Those who aren't willing to change their ways aren't going to, unless they are subjected to a whole lot more pressure than this current regime is willing to put on them. Hence the levelling out in the improvement.
Well, that's my story and … I'd be very happy to change it in the light of further evidence.
There's an interesting article in the Telegraph about the differences between a state comprehensive school and an independent school, by Matthew Godfrey, who went from teaching at one to teaching at the other. It's not a surprise that he found the latter school to be more civilised. But he believes that the difference was not so much that the independent school pupils were more civilised in their social backgrounds but that the management of the independent school was better. Simply, the government meddled relentlessly in the running of the state school, and didn't allow it to be run so well. Resources were not the problem. The eagerness of children to learn was not the problem. The problem was that the place was badly run.
… the vast majority of 11-year-olds who started at the comprehensive each September were conscientious and bright, too. Apart from a few notable exceptions, their parents were committed and concerned. It was a sad truth, though, that a significant minority of the children soon became troublemakers, and the number increased steadily over time. A year group that the teachers used to call the "gorgeous" year seven had become the "nightmare" year 10 by the time I left.A lot of this gradual deterioration was a result of increasing peer pressure and other problems related to the pupils' social background. But there were so many other issues at the comprehensive – many of which had nothing to do with the pupils – that I ceased to believe the problems within the school gates were simply a result of what happened outside them.
In contrast, the independence of judgement of the people running Latymer Upper, which was the consequence of Latymer Upper itself being independent of the government, fed through to its pupils being more independent minded and confident themselves. Meanwhile, at the state comprehensive, the nationalised industry syndrome of indolent, ineffective and demoralised management likewise fed through to the attitude and conduct of the pupils. Several times, the management of the comprehensive …
… refused to allow the expulsion of highly disruptive pupils, preferring to send in expensive but largely ineffectual "consultants" to give advice and monitor teaching and learning. Instead of engendering a sense of ownership or pride in the school, they contributed to a growing culture of tiresome bureaucracy.
Consultants. This final paragraph will strike another chord with all those who are the victims of bad management, not just in schools but anywhere:
The comprehensive had a long and interesting past, too, but it was not shared with the pupils or parents. Its future goals were expressed in a hugely long-winded "mission statement", which was so filled with management gobbledegook that it meant nothing to anyone. If it can learn anything from Latymer, it is that a spirit of independence goes a long way to motivate pupils and teachers.
This blog does not have a mission statement. It just gets on with it, free from government interference.
As Jackie D says, Clive Soley MP has stirred up some interesting comments about tuition fees.
Such as this from David T:
I used to be a university lecturer. I taught at a number of institutions: Southampton, a couple of London University colleges, a couple of Oxford colleges, and City University. At City, my students were almost entirely self-funding.It was notable that at City, the students had a very different attitude to their course. They wanted, desperately, to learn and be taught. They insisted on being taught well, and complained if they were not. They asked for me to set them essays and examinations.
By contrast, at certain of the other universities, the attitude of many students was more akin to school children. Some students complained about being set "homework", for example.
There is a real value in students – who lets face it, are adults – having a stake in their own education. The financial stake this government is proposing is modest and should be supported.
As a footnote, when I was an undergraduate, I was involved in the campaign against student loans. As a good labour party member, I also knocked on doors during elections all the way through the late 1980s. After seeing the reaction of ordinary people to the suggestion that the student grant should be restored, I soon stopped talking about it on the doorstep!
And it's pretty depressing also when children are treated in such a way that they too spend all their time behaving "like school children".
Joanne Jacobs has more comment on that NYT piece by Emily White about e-schooling which I also linked to on Sunday.
Commenting on this kind of thing:
Yet it is also true that there is a beauty in high school: those long, exhausting hours full of other kids, everyone trying to interpret one another. It's a beauty that Gus Van Sant evokes in his new Columbine-inspired film, ''Elephant'' -- kids break dancing and taking pictures and making out, even as the school day is headed for darkness.
... JJ says:
Some students like the social interaction of school; others can't handle it or prefer not to or go to schools where the danger is too dangerous to be beautiful.I see why I've been unable to break into the New York Times Magazine. I lack the right mentality.
Quite so. When I read those bits about Gus Van Sant I thought, yes, Emily White has indeed got the right mentality that you need to smuggle anti-school-compulsion anti-government-meddling stuff into the New York Times, and good on her. You nod towards matters artistic, of the sort that Middle America wouldn't have heard of or wouldn't approve of if it did hear of them, but concede nothing of substance.
It's true. Many kids do enjoy their schools. So admit it, and let that be the bit where you sprinkle on a dash of Gus Van Sant, and making sure also to splash in the word "Columbine" itself, which as we all know is an issue which proves beyond doubt that everyone in the world should vote Democrat and read the New York Times every day for ever. It could well be that those very paragraphs clinched it for this article getting published by the NYT.
(Actually, Columbine is the case against compulsory schooling and government meddling in hundred foot high flaming letters, in about five distinct ways, but simply to mention Columbine is to score NYT brownie points. We're talking about a conditioned editorial reflex here, not a conscious thought process.)
But, as Joanne Jacobs agrees, what White's article actually says is that many kids don't like regular schooling, and that if that's so they shouldn't have to submit to it, and they don't have to submit to it.
I wonder what Gus Van Sant thinks about that.
Last Friday, Patrick Crozier sent in to and had published on Samizdata a piece about what caused the outbreak of the First World War. (He blamed the Kaiser.) WHen I last looked there had been 55 comments.
This posting, together with the comments it provoked, gives me a chance to return to a favourite theme on this blog, which is the educational power and impact of the internet, and of blogging in particular.
In my opinion this posting, and the debate and discussion it sparked off, illustrates the educational power of the blogosphere at something like maximum strength.
Education is a complicated thing, but one of the many things it surely means is the opportunity to participate in a community united by shared intellectual interests, and to talk around subjects before plunging head first into all the details, and all the reading one might do. (A number of further reading suggestions were offered by various commenters, including one from me, in the one comment I contributed to the discussion.)
There is probably no completely satisfactory substitute for face to face contact to get this kind of intellectual stimulus and guidance, but this kind of virtual discussion is probably the next best thing. Several of the commenters on this thread made this point themselves, but added that actually getting a face-to-face discussion of this quality would be very hard indeed. So for many, it would be this kind of virtual discussion, or nothing.
Equally, if you don't want to get stuck into too much detail, but merely want an overview of a topic like this one, then such a discussion would probably give a more complete picture of the topic, and of how various different intellectual camps argue about it, than any one screed of comparable length by just one scholar, however distinguished.
None of which means that it's an either/or thing. There's nothing to stop a university student reading through this post and all the comments, and feeding what he or she learns into the other face-to-face discussions and learning that they are also doing.
Speaking for myself, I believe that I'm learning an enormous amount from having joined the community of bloggers.
And especially from Samizdata. I really don't know quite how Samizdata does it, but Samizdata comments at their best can be remarkably informative and interesting. At their worst, comments on Samizdata are the usual crass rubbish you get everywhere, but at their best, they can be exceptionally good. The occasional interventions of the presiding editorial geniuses, Perry de Havilland and Adriana Cronin, help. These can often be quite assertive, but that, I think, serves to keep everyone on their toes, and to frighten sillier commenters into silence, while putting the best ones on notice that only their best will truly impress. It also helps that the most relentlessly silly commenters have the plug pulled on them. Maybe that's some of why Samizdata sometimes works so very well. But in truth, I no more know how you create a great group blog, with a great commentariat, than how you set about creating a great university.
If you are interested, as I am, in the whole subject of what I'm starting to call e-ducation, then do go and read this New York Times article, quickly, before it disappears.
The deal for a typical e-school of this sort is that you pay something like $250 a month, and they educate you at your home computer rather than in a regular school. But, you are a member of a virtual school, with many of the trappings of a real school. What you escape is the social grief. The traditional class-room educational system is what remains. In a sense, it's the opposite of de-schooling. The most schooly bit of a regular school is set up in your home, but without all the debased-Clueless stuff that generally goes with a regular school.
These two, buried on page 4, seem to me to be the key paragraphs:
When talking to virtual-school kids, this is a common thread: the sense that they have escaped something dangerous by getting out of high school. ''I saw the way the social system was set up, and I wanted to get away from that,'' says Kristen Dearing, a student at Basehor-Linwood charter school in Kansas.MacKenzie Winslow, 14, who attends the Laurel Springs school in Ojai, Calif., from her home in Colorado, says: ''I didn't want a bad experience. I had a lot of friends who'd gone to high school, and they said the kids were pretty nasty. I didn't want to deal with that.''
One of the strongest memes in our culture is that children, unlike adults, shouldn't try to escape from situations they don't like. Instead they should stick around and "deal with" them. (Adults, on the other hand, are allowed to escape whatever they can afford to escape. The argument for such talk is that it prepares children for dealing with later horrors. And the argument against this is that again and again, one of the absolute best ways of dealing with horrors is simply to get away from them, the way adults do if they can. Escape is dealing with. And the sooner children learn this basic lesson, then they can get used to re-arranging their own lives for the better, if they choose, whenever they need to. True, some things can't be escaped. But thinking that nothing can be escaped when a lot can is no preparation whatsoever for dealing with the truly inescapable.
That was the really interesting thing about this NYT piece. It suggested to me strongly that now a different and opposite meme is beginning to spread in a quite big way. It strongly confirmed what I've been sensing for a long time, which is that parents are more and more moving towards a freedom-for-children model of child growth, and that giving more freedom and more choices to parents, will lead directly to more freedom for children. Parents and children already talk a lot about the educational options a child has. Children are already feeding a lot into these discussions. So, another choice, like this virtual schooling arrangement that is springing up in America, leads directly to more freedom for children.
Pause. As in: slight change of subject. What follows might have made more sense as a separate posting, merely linked to this one.
It occurs to me that opening up school choices like this makes more sense if you believe that children are genetically different from each other, rather than blank slates (in Steven Pinker's phrase). And increasingly, distinct people with an inner nature is what our culture is coming to believe children to be. If your genes make you a geek, then any amount of socialising with Cher, the Alicia Silverstone character in Clueless, or her down-market black finger-nailed equivalent, isn't going to stop you being a geek. It's just going to make you into a geek who fails to be a social star, but who also fails to be a successful and happy geek. By going against your inner nature you are unhappy, and you fail to make the best of that inner nature. So if you are a geek, be a successful and happy geek, not a failed Cher.
Sign up for a virtual school. Race ahead with your schoolwork. Graduate at fifteen. Get to a college full of other geeks and be happy, as soon as you can, and then get a great geek job. And when you have ten million bucks from your swank job in computers, well, that should take care of a lot of your socialisation problems and peer group pressures. At that point, Cher will realise that maybe you have social potential after all.
Actually, I've made Cher sound like a social monster. She isn't. She also believes in geeks being good geeks rather than bad Chers, but that's a different argument. The Cher I'm maybe really talking about here is a street-copy of the original Cher, as in mad bitch in fishnet stockings dancing up a storm on a battleship, but without the money the real Cher got paid to do that. Fine if you can pull it off, as she presumably does later on in the evening, but geeks don't want to be joining a social system run by people with those kinds of aspirations, not least because people with those aspirations often hate geeks and want to make them miserable and ashamed of their geekness.
Big complicated post. Sorry, if your inner nature is such that you prefer the short ones.
Category: Parents and children • Peer pressure • The Internet
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Last Wednesday I began a Samizdata posting thus:
Denis Dutton is a new name to me, but I have the strong feeling that this says a whole lot more about me than it does about Denis Dutton.
I never blogged a truer sentence.
As Michael Jennings pointed out in a comment, Dutton is the editor of Arts & Letters Daily, to which I have been linking a lot lately, and in a simultaneous personal email to me he expressed surprise that I hadn't taken in who Dutton is, what with me reading and linking to 2 Blowhards such a lot. They've linked to Dutton, and quoted from Dutton, while naming him, as Denis Dutton, and generally made a fuss of the man, Denis Dutton, a lot. So why hadn't I noticed?
Further evidence that I should have known about Dutton is that he figures prominently in the chapter about "The Arts" at the end of Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate, which I've also written about and quoted from.
Yet it was only when I read this article by Dutton that I began to focus seriously on this man and his writings and place in the world.
So, shouldn't I be drawing a veil over this embarrassing episode?
I choose not to. I think that it has an educational lesson, maybe not for us all (I'll get to that because that's basically the lesson), but at least for some.
Unlike people, say, four hundred years ago, we early twenty first centurions live in an information rich, as it is often called, environment. I would prefer, though, to call it "message" rich, because "information" implies truth and accuracy, and a lot of the messages we are now surrounded by are anything but true or accurate. (There's probably a mismatch here between how "information theory" uses the word "information" and how the rest of us use it. For the information theories, information is one thing and truth something else again; for the rest of us there's an implied overlap.
Anyway, surrounded as we all are by all this information, all these messages, most of us inhabit a mental world in which there is a huge gap between what we actually do know, and what you might think we would know, given what we've experienced and given all that has been said to us and aimed at us. I assume that there are parts of the brain whose entire purpose is (a) to ignore things and (b) to forget things, a function which I for one often find myself dominated by three seconds after I'm told someone's name for the first time. Almost invariably, I have to ask it again, and have got into the habit of saying, as so many do, that "I'm sorry but I didn't catch your name". Catch. In truth, I probably did "catch" it, but then in a reflex action I threw it away. It's almost as if my subconscious is asking: have I heard this name before at least twice in any other connections of interest? And if it's no, smack, out it goes.
My point is that "learning" consists not just of charging out there and hoovering up information, but also of rejecting lots of information as not germane to whatever seems to be the immediate and central issue at hand. Learning is like the growth of a plant, and plants don't make use of all the material in their vicinity, only of some. A lot, they reject.
I only paid serious attention to Denis Dutton, as I say, when I read that article by him (which he had helpfully linked to from Arts & Letters Daily) about piano playing. I thought it a wonderfully good piece, and for the first time, I found myself asking: who is this guy? At which point all the reasons why I might have asked that question a year or two sooner came tumbling down on top of me. I was re-reading Pinker's Arts chapter, and there he was, with a huge and important quote, and then several more. I scrolled down to the bottom of Arts & Letters, and there he was also. Editor: Denis Dutton.
Yet it was only when read something by Dutton which said extremely helpful and useful things on one of the subjects which is now of central interest to me, namely the immediate future of "classical" music – whatever classical now means exactly, hence the quotes, that being all part of the question – that Dutton went from being a name I spat out (smack) after three seconds of knowing it, to a name I really took in and held on to. At which point all kinds of things which had before been only semi-interesting about the man suddenly became interesting enough also to take in.
So, although I at first felt a distinct twinge of embarrassment about this episode, on reflection, I now believe that I need not feel all that embarrassed, and instead of apologising, I regard this Dutton episode as a fine example of how learning actually happens.
Are you a teacher of children, in some capacity or other? Be patient. From where you sit, the kid has just learned about 7, and he ought to be ready for 8. Yes? This seems like the logical next step. But instead of being interested in 8, and despite having been told about it 88 times, with big cards, pointings, repetitions, assemblages of 8 objects, 88888 … he's not interested. In comes the information, but smack, out it immediately goes again. Why? Because just for now, the issue that matters is why 7 sometimes has a horizontal cross in the middle of it, but mostly not. What's that about? Or something. But not: what comes after 7? That just isn't of interest right now.
However, my conclusion is not that you should forget about 8. By all means continue to mention 8, if you think 8 is important, as most of us do. Don't stop with the 8 message. Many conclude from the temporary rejection of the 8 message that the whole subject of 8 should be abandoned. Wrong. The point is, don't be hurt if this message gets rejected a lot, smack smack smack. Don't take it personally, or start a fight about it. Just accept that there is this huge gap between what teachers think it's worth the kid learning, and what the kid actually learns next. It's natural. It's not a problem. You don't try to solve this non-problem either by forcing the kid to learn everything you think he should learn, or by sterilising the learning environment of stuff which he is now mostly rejecting, but which he may later suddenly get excited about. He can handle excessive and temporarily irrelevant information. Surround him with the stuff. It's nice. Just be ready for him to ignore it for a month or two. And then suddenly to start asking: 8 – what's 8? And what connection does 8 have to eight? 8eight8eight8eight8 gimme gimme gimme. Hey, two 0s on top of each other, how about that? Etc. And he can't register 8 if you have purged it from the world, like Stalin scrubbing a murdered minion from the history books, merely because two months ago he wasn't interested.
Take my case. Would it have helped me if the Denis Dutton meme had been purged from my learning environment – perhaps by some impatient software programme desperate to get my attention with everything it says to me – merely because I had not been giving it the attention which, I now realise, it all along deserved? Certainly not. That would have been no help at all. In fact it would have been downright pernicious.
Teaching means dangling a mass of possible paths in front of the pupil, and most of them being rejected, and the teacher relaxing, and just carrying on with the dangling.
This sounds like something's being done right.
A small London primary school with a "village-style" atmosphere was celebrating last week after achieving its best ever results. Tetherdown Primary School, in the leafy hill-top suburb of Muswell Hill, was one of only 142 schools - out of more than 20,000 in the country - to be awarded a perfect score in the national tests for 11-year-olds this summer.Every 11-year-old reached the required standard for their age for the first time, and a proportion of students achieved at a standard expected of older children. Put together, these results meant that the school was ranked as the joint-highest-achieving "community" – or non-faith – school in the country.
Personally I think this is a model for primary education in a lot of other places. And if a lot of schools were this small, then in places like London they could be quite close together, and that means people could, if the system allowed, choose between them in a way that would really count. Choosing between a very local school and a faraway school, is not nearly so real a choice.
As a generalisation, there should be more schools in Britain, and smaller schools in Britain. And small has another advantage besides opening up choices for people. I recall reading a management book many decades ago, which said that six hundred was about the upper limit of how many people you could know. That's how big a Roman legion was, and a modern regiment. In a school of six hundred or less, strangers will immediately be spotted. The place will be an order of magnitude safer than a school with, say twelve hundred pupils.
Oddly, this Independent story doesn't seem to say how many children attend Tetherdown. And I can't find this out anywhere here either. But it's a whole lot less than six hundred, that's for sure.
A Russian high school textbook has had its official government seal of approval removed. State high schools can no longer use it. The latest edition offered the following contrasting interpretations, and invited students to form their own opinions about them:
Prague, 5 December 2003 (RFE/RL) -- President Vladimir Putin is an authoritarian ruler bent on establishing a new dictatorship in Russia. President Vladimir Putin is a democrat at heart whose structural reforms are paving the way for Russia to emerge as a liberal democracy. Present your evidence and discuss.That, in essence, is the assignment which Igor Dolutskii's textbook poses to Russian students about to graduate from high school. It is an assignment considered so objectionable that the Russian Ministry of Education's council of experts last week recommended the book's removal from the classroom. This week, the ministry confirmed the decision and formally withdrew its stamp of approval from the text. Unless the decision is reversed, Igor Dolutskii's "National History, 20th Century," which has served as a textbook for half-a-million students across Russia over the past 10 years, will be permanently shelved.
This Radio Free Europe story concludes thus:
The Russian Education Ministry says there are plenty of other historians up to the task of presenting Russia's history in a manner that is at once inspiring and patriotic without being unbalanced. It is a task that has faced Russian historians in the past. As an old joke has it: "The future is assured, it's the past that keeps changing."
Yes, the inspiring, patriotic and balanced tendency must now be falling over themselves.
Rather mischievously, I've classified this posting under "Sovietisation". I hope I'm wrong.
More from My Early Life:
I had scarcely passed my twelfth birthday when I entered the inhospitable regions of examinations, through which for the next seven years I was destined to journey. These examinations were a great trial to me. The subjects which were dearest to the examiners were almost invariably those I fancied least. I would have liked to have been examined in history, poetry and writing essays. The examiners, on the other hand, were partial to Latin and mathematics. And their will prevailed. Moreover, the questions which they asked on both these subjects were almost invariably those to which I was unable to suggest a satisfactory answer. I should have liked to be asked to say what I knew. They always tried to ask what I did not know. When I would have willingly displayed my knowledge, they sought to expose my ignorance. This sort of treatment had only one result: I did not do well in examinations.This was especially true of my Entrance Examination to Harrow. The Headmaster, Mr. Welldon, however, took a broad-minded view of my Latin prose: he showed discernment in judging my general ability. This was the more remarkable, because I was found unable to answer a single question in the Latin paper. I wrote my name at the top of the page. I wrote down the number of the question " I." After much reflection I put a bracket round it thus "(I)." But thereafter I could not think of anything connected with it that was either relevant or true. Incidentally there arrived from nowhere in particular a blot and several smudges. I gazed for two whole hours at this sad spectacle : and then merciful ushers collected my piece of foolscap with all the others and carried it up to the Headmaster's table. It was from these slender indications of scholarship that Mr. Welldon drew the conclusion that I was worthy to pass into Harrow. It is very much to his credit. It showed that he was a man capable of looking beneath the surface of things: a man not dependent upon paper manifestations. I have always had the greatest regard for him.
In consequence of his decision, I was in due course placed in the third, or lowest, division of the Fourth, or bottom, Form. The names of the new boys were printed in die School List in alphabetical order; and as my correct name, Spencer-Churchill, began with an "S," I gained no more advantage from the alphabet than from the wider sphere of letters. I was in fact only two from the bottom of the whole school; and these two, I regret to say, disappeared almost immediately through illness or some other cause.
The Harrow custom of calling the roll is different from that of Eton. At Eton the boys stand in a cluster and lift their hats when their names are called. At Harrow they file past a Master in the schoolyard and answer one by one. My position was therefore revealed in its somewhat invidious humility. It was the year 1887. Lord Randolph Churchill had only just resigned his position as Leader of the House of Commons and Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he still towered in the forefront of politics. In consequence large numbers of visitors of both sexes used to wait on the school steps, in order to see me march by; and I frequently heard the irreverent comment, "Why, he's last of all!"
So, Young Winston did well only when he was answering the question: Who's your dad?
To be more serious about it, he was a highly visible bottom of the school pecking order, not a pleasing combination of experiences. He was the worst, and he had nowhere to hide. In his aristocratic way, Churchill had quite a tough time of it, and he certainly acquired a grasp of what it felt like to be at the bottom, as well as the top, of the social heap.
In a deep sense, deeper than mere Latin and Greek and Maths, his was one hell of an education.
Janet Daley helps me make sense of one of my biggest Education Policy Blind Spots, namely top-up student fees. I favour a total free market in everything and hence in particular in Higher Education, but will topping-up make that much difference? ZZZZZZ. Brian's head hits table. A total free market gets my interest, but re-mixing the mixed economy ... Like I say: ZZZ
This in particular is helpful:
What is at stake is not so much the principle of university education being free to all. In practice, that disappeared long ago. The question is: can higher education continue to be a government monopoly? Is it economically, or politically, viable for the universities to have their financing, employment and admissions arrangements determined by politicians?The trouble with top-up fees does not lie in the second part of their name – tuition fees already exist and are paid by any student (or parent) who earns more than a statutory amount – but in the first part. What the new charges would do is "top up" the existing government subsidy which, like almost all blanket subsidy to a monopoly service, is given indiscriminately and spent unaccountably.
Daley provides an example of the latter:
I lost count, during my teaching years, of the ludicrous overspending on materials purchased from suppliers who saw the state-subsidised sector as a cash-cow. (One private art school I knew arranged to hire a photocopier. Having done the deal, the principal was rung by the sales rep the following day to be told that he had mistakenly been quoted the "commercial price" which was lower than the education price. You have to understand, the rep said, that education is where we make our profit.)
And the trouble with top-up fees is that they won't change this:
What is wrong with top-up fees is that they are just that: they will come on top of a subsidy that does not permit universities any serious freedom to rethink their economic or administrative practices. It allows government to interfere in decisions about what proportion of students should be admitted from which backgrounds, the balance between teaching and research, and which courses are fit subjects for study.
I still don't get how top-up fees will make so very little difference, but no doubt I'll grasp it in due course. But surely, if universities get paid, somewhat, according to how many students they attract, that will be something, won't it? What follows, on the other hand, is completely clear:
None of this is the proper business of politicians.
Indeed.
Yes, there's an obituary of Clark Kerr here:
"Clark Kerr did for higher education what Henry Ford did for the automobile,'' said Arthur Levine, president of Teachers College, Columbia University. "He mass produced low-cost quality education and research potential for a nation that hungered deeply for both.''The chancellor of Berkeley, Robert M. Berdahl, said yesterday, "Clark Kerr is, without question, a legend in higher education.''
As president of the University of California, Mr. Kerr created a multicampus public institution that became the model for the state universities across the nation.
Under Mr. Kerr's plan, California created a three-tier system that became the largest and most admired in the nation; other states sought to emulate its structure and objectives. At the highest academic layer were campuses like Berkeley whose students came from the top 12.5 percent of the state's high school students. A second tier was state colleges function as teaching institutions focusing primarily on undergraduate education with some graduate courses; they enrolled a third of California students. Community colleges completed the system, offering two-year transfer and vocational programs open to every California high school graduate.
Whatever you think of this man – and I smell a lot of taxpayers parting with a lot of money to make this man a "legend" – he certainly made a difference.
I remember him as a major protagonist in the campus ruckuses (rucki?) of the sixties, an episode which this piece also touches on. He got caught in the middle, which is a bad place to stand when you are dealing with uncompromising adolescent fanatics who were spoiling for a fight, and would have carried on attacking and caterwauling until they got it. (If it hadn't been Vietnam, they'd have invented another grievance. I was at a British University at around that time. British students weren't being conscripted to fight in Vietnam, but that made no difference to the protesters. They simply wanted a fight. Vietnam, perfect for their ideological cousins in Ameria, sufficed for them, and something else would have suffice for both if Vietnam hadn't been happening.)
But that shouldn't totally distract us from considering the more enduring legacy of men like Clark Kerr, which was the semi-publicly financed modern mass university. We are now trying to introduce a bit more of that semi- stuff here. And guess what, the people who protested against the likes of Clark Kerr are protesting again.
It may sound ideological and churlish, but I sincerely believe that I have good and honourable reasons to be quite pleased about this:
A flagship learning scheme has been branded a failure after attracting just 900 students. The online teaching programme, UK e-Universities Worldwide, has spent £30m so far, equivalent to more than £33,000 of hard-pressed education funds on enrolling each pupil.Launched three years ago in a blaze of publicity by then Education Secretary David Blunkett, only 15 universities have so far joined the attempt to introduce internet courses for students the world over.
The programme banked on attracting 100,000 students by 2010 on to a set of undergraduate, post-graduate and life-long learning courses. Experts were confident it would be immensely popular by allowing international students to take advantage of a UK university education.
It's not that I'm against e-ducation, to coin a hyphenation. Far from it. E-ducation is a regular theme here. But the way to get anything started is to start it small, then do lots of ducking and weaving while you find out what works and what doesn't, and only when you have perfected things on a very small scale, to start expanding. The besetting sin of politicians is that they jump to conclusions ("experts were confident" - aren't they always?) about what will work, and neglect that early experimental phase. Governments do this (a) because they can – because they have the money, and (b) because for them, the appearance of activity is at least as important as the reality of it. A big launch, followed by nothing much, serves purpose (b) quite well. If they do too many schemes in the (a) category, public spending gets so out of control that even their interests are severely threatened. But much more damaging, in my opinion, is that if the government did throw big money at e-ducation, lots of other small schemes along these lines which are being funded by, you know, people, would face being trampled under foot by a herd of government funded e-ducational elephants.
The reality of e-ducation is that huge numbers of people are doing it in huge numbers of different ways. The less the government piles in with big money, the better. If the failure of this scheme causes the government to back off, good.
Besides which, one of the things that e-ducation should surely be is cheap. And you can't discover what is cheap by writing out cheques for thirty million quid, and when that disappoints, throw in another sixty million.
As so often these days, the Conservative complaint/response is not based on the principle of whether some scheme is or is not a good idea, but merely on the alleged unsatisfactoriness of its execution. Time and again, the Conservatives say, as here: words are all very fine, but where's the action? - but without troubling to consider whether it might not have been even better for there to have been even less action, or no action at all.
Tim Yeo, Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Education, said: 'As with so many of its initiatives, the Government failed to move from eye-catching announcement to effective action.'
But as I say, that's probably no bad thing. Do the Conservatives favour lashings more money being thrown at e-ducation? In their own way they are being just as sneaky as the government and in much the same way, implying that they would spend more on whatever scheme they are complaining about, but not actually saying that they will.
