SJ Cuthbertson

A few days ago, I got thinking about how the Internet has changed the English education system (being the only one I know about). My conclusion was that it hasn’t, not enough. I’m about to attempt to construct a logical argument out of the disjointed bunch of facts and ideas that passed through my head during an extended time period, and sieve out the random noise. As those of you that know me can guess, this may not be wholly successful, but meh.

I should start by explaining where I’m coming from: I’ve felt, for a long time, that the way things were grouped together into lessons, each with a separate curriculum and different teachers, is not that optimal. This is for a number of reasons, not least because sometimes the groupings actually have to involve very different sub-sets of education, which, for me at least, makes it harder to grapple with. This is because I find I have to have some kind of outline-structure in my head, a set of pre-fab compartments, into which I can then slot facts and skills in some logical fashion. If I try to build one such structure when two are actually necessary, it doesn’t work.

(Other reasons, not so related to this essay but still pertinent: things get taught twice, which can sometimes be useful, but often not; you get told two conflicting versions of one “fact”; most teachers find themselves teaching something they’re not actually that good at; it discourages synthesis of different courses, e.g. chemistry and biology.)

Right, so here’s the bulk of the argument. All curricula are essentially composed of two things: facts and skills. There’s certainly a grey area there, but in essence, for any subject right up to A-Level, you’re gonna have to have a body of factual knowledge memorized, and a set of skills which you apply to that body of knowledge. In Physics, the facts might be equations, physical constants, and models, e.g. Newtonian dynamics; the skills would be mathematical manipulation of the numbers/equations, and interpreting exam problems in the context of the model. In History, the facts would be more traditional dates, names, and places, and the skills would be things like being able to induct that event X in 1492 might have partially caused event Y in 1501, given historical sources A, B and C.

In traditional education systems, like the standard state-school National Curriculum, you have to master both the facts and the skills; the lumping of sets of these into “Subjects” is mainly based on what is shared between the facts. The skills often overlap from subject to subject, naturally (both Physics and History require some grasp of deductive and inductive logic), hence the phrase “transferable skills”.

HOWEVER, we now have the Internet. The Internet is, if nothing else, a huge fact-repository. Yes, there are issues over reliability and so on: but there is so much of the Internet that you can in most cases cross-check your sources online. So although it’s still worth children getting to grips with the facts, it really isn’t necessary, most of the time, to make them learn them all – and indeed, gradually, the education system is taking note of this fact and shifting away from that requirement. Exams are one thing, but in real life, pretty much everyone just uses the net, or a library if they have big hang-ups about Wikipedia.

That leaves skills as the most important part of the education system. It’s actually been this way for some time, but only really clearly so since the Web came of age sometime in the mid-to-late 90s. Some subjects have a huge bias towards facts, with all the skills involved being equally learnable in some other classroom environment. Those subjects have a problem: they’re redundant! The skills will be picked up elsewhere, and the facts can be gained relatively easily if the child becomes interested in that area.

The best example, as far as I see it, is Geography. The items on a Geography curriculum have one thing in common: the facts are all Earth-related. The skills involved are very varied, and in my mental cubbyhole system, I need a whole Ikea outlet to get enough shelving units to put all the skills in. I’m not for a minute suggesting that the skills, or the facts, are unimportant: just that, once the importance of the facts is negated (let’s face it, Wikipedia does tend to do very well on Geo-facts up to the kind of level I had to learn pre-GCSE), there’s no real reason to teach it in one lesson. Most of the skills would slot much better into a PSHE or General Studies-type lesson. It’s things you really do need to know to get by in life (how to read a map, why volcanoes are dangerous, what the weatherman is on about, why to be tolerant of other cultures…) but that don’t have much connection to each other. If you’re actually interested in such things, then sure, you should be able to opt for relevant classes at some point (GCSE level, probably), but that should really just be tying together skills that you already know, and adding factual detail.

The Government really hasn’t considered this yet as far as I can see. It would mean a pretty big shift in education, I think, and some swapping around between KS1-2 and 3-4 curricula. I’m all in favour of this, as I’ve been saying for a long time that primary-school education should include a lot more skills that kids learn best at a young age (language, drawing, musical proficiency, cultural differences and equality, in addition to basic mathematics and reading/writing skills) and should avoid things that could be covered much quicker if started later – such as science, analytic skills, etc.

In summary, the internet has rendered mass-learning of facts obsolete and made skill-development the focus of education. To respond, education should be ordered around the skills, rather than the facts, with optional courses at a later stage to tie skills together with facts required for certain career-areas. In addition, earlier teaching of the skills would often require less time, freeing up time later in the curriculum for a broader education.