A type of teaching that takes the cake

Two separate news stories emerged on separate days during the past week but they are as inseparably intertwined as a DNA helix. The first concerned Britain's Minister for School Standards, Stephen Twigg, who was writhing with embarrassment over some glaring spelling mistakes in an article under his name on his website.

Note his title: Minister for Educational Standards. Or "minster" as he wrongly put it. Admittedly, this is the kind of foul-up that can be attributed to a common sickness in the age of the word processor. Over-reliance on the spellchecker. Unfortunately for Twigg, "minster" is a word in its own right, therefore the spell check did not highlight it. However, there is no excuse for his spelling of Commission as Commision. And even less for his rendition of "received" as "recieved".

In their apparent keenness to expunge the learning process and replace it with a sort of daylong play school, many Western education authorities have completely swept aside anything that smacks of learning by rote. Certainly this old fashioned method of teaching left a lot to be desired, and government schools here in the UAE are wisely disengaging themselves from it in favour of more initiative-based methods.

Nevertheless, a little bit of rote never did anybody any harm. Such as this little spelling rhyme that was drummed into every school-child a generation or so ago: "i" before "e" except after "c". A received wisdom that would never have resulted in Twigg's "recieved".

Alas, Twigg and his colleagues abandoned such antiquated notions a long time ago. Our second story reveals that, again in Britain, a distinction in cake decoration will rank ahead of an A-grade GCSE in mathematics in new school league tables, the standards by which the performance of the school is judged.

Pupils who get top marks in "vocational" subjects will give more of a boost to their school's position in the rankings than those doing well in traditional subjects. Thus, those gaining a distinction in vocational subjects like cake making will earn their school 55 points. The dummies getting an A in physics or maths will gain just 52 points for the school.

Already there are the usual howls of protest about "dumbing down", which as usual fall on deaf ears. In defence, the authorities say the new measures are designed to improve the rankings of struggling schools. That is, they are reducing to the lowest common denominator which is an old fashioned, educated way of saying "dumbing down".

Rescued by a devoted teacher

Ministers say the reforms will give schools the incentive to offer more job-related programmes to teenagers who are "turned off" by academic studies. Excuse me. I always thought teachers and educational institutions were there to "turn on" youngsters to studies. Not just throw in the towel. I speak as one who was never the most attentive or devoted school pupil, but who was rescued by the sheer devotion, enthusiasm and vision of an inspirational English teacher.

Is it perhaps time to pause and take a breath and wonder where we are going as we cast aside the old, without weighing its true worth? Teachers, once regarded as well-adjusted pillars of society, are now heading up the league tables for stress-related illness thanks to the revolution in the classroom ethos. Many of them bemoan an overload of bureaucracy and paperwork. Teachers should be allowed to teach without unnecessary hindrance.

Educational institutions at all levels are constantly under siege by bureaucrats who think they know better than the specialists. Bringing up the rear is a tide of political correctness that seems bent on sanitising all the enjoyment out of schooldays. Fear of litigation has forced school authorities to ban even the most innocent playground pastimes.

Take for instance the time-honoured schoolboy game of conkers, which has been banned by some school authorities. For generations lads have each autumn thrown sticks up into chestnut trees to bring down the nuts, which they polish to a hard finish and then thread a string through a hole painstakingly drilled in the nut.

Each lad takes it in turn to try to smash the nut held out on the string with his own "conker". Authorities fear kids could be maimed by flying chestnut shrapnel. Not only that, but one local authority started lopping chestnut trees because of the danger of injury from the falling sticks thrown into the trees by the boys.

As if that wasn't enough, they reason, a car could skid on the fallen chestnuts and injure the boys throwing the sticks in the first place. A circular argument if ever there was one.

Girls skipping with ropes in the playground is also on the black list, in case they fall and skin their knees. I always thought skinned knees and skinned hearts were part of the growing up process.

Let us by all means embrace the worthwhile innovations in modern teaching and thinking; but let us not lose sight of the common sense values and techniques that got us where we are. Babies and bathwater spring to mind. It will be a sad day when the only testament to a departing education minister of the future will be: "He couldn't count or spell … but he baked a mean apple pie."

Alexander Lindsay is a Dubai-based writer.