DISCLAIMER:
For those of you outside the UK, an A-level is a course you take before you go
to university, it’s the equivalent learning to your first year and a half of
your undergraduate course and to be accepted to most universities you need
three of them with some fairly good results (usually A – C). They’re fairly
intense, can be very demanding, and provide usually a very broad and detailed
understanding of whatever field they happen to be in.
Imagine for a moment I employ my
god-like omnipotent powers and teleport you to the middle of Baghdad or Tokyo
(whichever would be more alien to you). You’re alone, you have whatever you
happen to be wearing right now on you and you’re surrounded by people talking
in a language you have no comprehension of, doing things you have only limited
understanding of. You have no clue as to the social taboo’s or the
communicative norms of this society. How long before you get terrified? How
long (assuming you find somebody willing to talk to you, and not take advantage
of you) until you get frustrated at your plight and inability to be understood?
How long before that frustration boils over and you start making poor
decisions?
Now imagine you have met somebody
who has never seen an elephant, I want you to try and describe an elephant to
them, but only use shapes and no similes.
I’m
not suggesting that everyone be taught mandatory world-politic/sociology/language
or abstract geometry classes as a response to all the A-levels being cut, which
would be silly. I’m outlining the feeling you get when you are unable to make
yourself understood, when you can’t access that part of yourself that can
process what you’re feeling, your intentions and your desires and make them
known to people around you. I’m talking about having a cognitive toolkit that is
broad and detailed enough to allow you to not only “think outside the box” but
think about the box itself, and why is the box there, what purpose does it
serve?
While
people may scoff at “soft” A-levels such as art, music, and creative writing
when compared to STEM, but they do serve a valuable psychological purpose, one
that could actually be lost now that many of them are being discontinued. We
don’t come out the womb knowing “how to think”, we have to train ourselves, we
have to practice and develop our mental flexibility and cognitive processing.
It’s all well and good memorising the layout and dimensions as well at the
theory behind a thermonuclear reactor, but without the flexibility of thought
to apply those designs elsewhere it’s only so much information, waiting to be
spat out onto an exam form. Matt Taylor didn’t land a satellite on a comet by copying
somebodies design, he had the insight and imagination to apply his understanding
in new and creative ways. He also wears excellent shirts.
The
crux of the matter is; every day I work with children who become violent,
distressed and frustrated at their inability to make themselves understood. By
removing this vast source of mental wealth and emotional contexts we limit all children’s abilities to express
themselves, to interpret the world around them as they grow older, and to
employ that mental flexibility and contextual processing by removing this
source of information they could have drawn upon. We prepare them to become
drones, to sit in a cubical, or lift heavy things in the right order, or
operate machinery for eight hours a day. We prepare them to ignore their own
thought and feelings, and focus on repeating the works of others who have come
before them. We aren’t creating and nurturing potential, we’re stifling it. This
is not creating a generation of great men and women, it’s creating cogs that
can slot into the machine of society.
And
not to be a “doomsayer” about things, but if this trend continues, I expect in
the next few years we’ll see more and more kids in SEN schools, as they simply
can’t handle having their lives crushed and the thoughts they treasure maligned
into obscurity. Kids grow up and the world is a magical place full of small miracles
and amazing adventures, a good school will explain those miracles and inspire
them to make some of their own. A bad school will teach them that they need to
sit down, shut up, and focus hard on STEM subjects otherwise they will be
punished.
This obviously won’t work with all kids… but we have
tranquilizers to medicate them with…. Right?
