Every menorah tells a story

Last night was the third night of Chanukah, the Jewish 'Festival of Light', when Jews around the world place candles in a menorah (more properly, a chanukiah). The festival lasts for eight days, and you start lighting one candle on the first night, and end with lighting eight candles on the last night. The candles are lit by a candle known as the shamas.

Menorahs come in all shapes, sizes and materials: from the traditional eight branch candelabra plus the shamas candle made in brass or silver, to ultra-modern designs of great ingenuity and beauty. Essentially anything goes as long as the basics are met i.e. eight candles in some form of row plus the shamas candle, and many designers have taken up the challenge.

We have acquired several menorahs over the years. Some were gifts. Some we've inherited from parents and grandparents. A few we've bought. 

Tonight we lit my favourite menorah.

Several years ago we were on holiday in the far south west of Ireland. West Cork to be precise. We were staying on a very small island in Roaringwater Bay and, as there were no shops, we had to cross over by boat to a small village on the mainland to get supplies. I say 'we', but I have to admit that is was my partner who usually went off to do the shopping while I stayed and supervised - from a very relaxed distance - the children, as they played amongst the rock pools. 

Among the few shops in the village there an 'antique shop', which was actually more of a junk shop. My partner stopped one day, and looked into the shop. And there, amongst the usual bric-a-brac, was a brass menorah. She looked at the label which said: '8 branch candelabra with extra candle holder'. Amazed, and knowing there were very few if any Jews in that part of Ireland, she asked the shop owner where it had come from. The woman didn't know, and really didn't know what it was, despite the Star of David in the centre of the menorah.

So we bought it.

When we got it back to our little holiday cottage and looked at it closely we realised that it was designed to come apart. By turning the Star of David, which was attached to a long, thin screw, we could unscrew it from the heavy base, and then everything came apart. It was, of course, designed to be taken apart, and the various parts placed in a case - which had obviously disappeared somewhere along the menorah's journey to a junk shop window in West Cork.

We reckoned, after a bit of googling, that it was c. 120 years old,  had probably originated in Central Europe, and the chances were that it had belonged to one of the many thousands of families - like our own families - who came to the then British Isles and beyond to escape persecution and to seek a new life.

Of course we'll never really know the real story. But as I watch that  old brass menorah glow as the candles burn and flicker, I feel a extraordinary link to the past: a link in a chain that remains - despite the tribulations and tragedies of history - unbroken.

"O, had I but followed the arts!" - on Government plans to eliminate the arts in schools

Whoever neglects the arts when he is young 

has lost the past and is dead to the future.
                                                     Sophocles

In Shakespeare's 'Twelth Night', Sir Andrew Aguecheek, despairing of his ignorance about most things, cries out 'O, had I but followed the arts!'.

Back in the 16th and 17th centuries he would have had the opportunity, at school, to study them. Fast forward to the early years of the 21st century and, if the UK government, or that bit of it that has control of what happens in schools in England, has its way - which it probably will - that opportunity would no longer be available to him...or any other young person.

Everyone recognises that the education system is complex and messy, due in no small part to constant government meddling over many years.  However, the present Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, though only one of a long line of meddlers, is a definitely a 'Man on a Mission'. 

Actually there are several missions. One of those missions is to streamline the various ways children and young people progress through the school system and into either further or higher education or into work. All perfectly laudable.

But it is not the objective but the means and, particularly, their consequences that threaten the future of any and all arts subjects in schools and, subsequently, in colleges and universities.

Essentially the Government intends to divide the subjects one can study at school into three levels: Academic, Applied General, and Technical.

If a young person wishes to go to university, and particularly a 'good' university - and many do - they need to study Academic Level subjects. The government has decreed that any and all arts subjects in schools do not qualify as Academic Level subjects. The subjects that do qualify are maths and the sciences, english literature, history, geography and languages. 

The consequence, of course, will be that schools that focus on getting their students into universities (and, of course, so few do!) will focus entirely on those Academic Level subjects to the exclusion of almost everything else. Any arts-based activities will be reduced to lunchtime music clubs and after-school drama workshops.

The Government argues that, of course the arts are important, and schools will be free to choose an arts curriculum if they so choose. But don't expect those students - no matter how clever, skilled, committed they might be - who study those subjects to get into university...certainly not a 'good' one.

But if you are a school Head Teacher with an eye on league tables, and committed to the 'higher' education of your students, would you be prepared to threaten the progression opportunities of your students, and their hopes and aspirations (and those of their parents) by offering them arts subjects that are regarded, at best, as second-class subjects and probably worthless?

The awful irony in all this is that many of those 'good' universities offer arts subjects: drama, fine arts, music, etc. and expect applicants to have some knowledge and understanding of their chosen subject. The likely and truly awful-to-contemplate consequence of an arts-free school curriculum will be, eventually, an arts-free higher education system.

That is, clearly, the intended outcome of Michael Gove's mission.

Musings on a 'monsterous' conference call

Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness. . .

(Ted Hughes, "The Thought-Fox")

In the wake of the recent announcement and call for contributions for the HEA's Arts & Humanities 'Heroes and Monsters" conference, there have been a number of posts and blogs on various sites wrestling with what the call is actually about!

One that caught my eye was by Susan Deacy.

Dr. Deacy writes "The particulars make clear that the event is looking for ways to challenge current ways of learning and teaching to 'make strange' academic practice and challenge what is taken for granted by its practitioners. On the conference's definition, monsters dwell in realms just beyond our own; they can come into our world to 'unnerve' us and 'innervate' us, and thus a 'monstrous pedagogy' can 'disrupt habits' and 'articulate...different ways of being'. But who are 'we'?"

There is a strong implication in the conference description, that 'we' are the ones who are disrupted and unnerved. But 'we' are, or can be, or may wish to be also the monsters and/or heroes (heroic monsters? monstrous heroes?). The teacher as Theseus and/or the Minotaur?

What has struck me in recent weeks (and, before I proceed further, I need to declare my interest as a member of the HEA's Arts and Humanities team) is that I have newly encountered and had conversations about not just our own 'Heroes & Monsters' conference, but also the influence of Punk and the punk aesthetic in learning and teaching (did you know there's an active group of scholars called Punkademics?); the establishment of a university Centre for Gothic Studies; and a course entitled Vampire Studies.

I do wonder, as the significant pressures of standardisation, marketisation, consumerisation, etc. in higher education bear increasingly down on us (then again, who are 'we'?), whether this is a form of resistance.

But we don't resist change, per se. We resist loss, and we replace that loss not with the known, the common, the understood, the accepted. We replace it with 'the other' or, better, 'an other': one that has genuine meaning in an environment in which so many things have become de-referentialised, that strikes a chord, that 'chimes with the times'.

It is also no accident that the 'Heroes and Monsters' conference call connects directly with the allure and fascination of the myth and the quest. As I've got a book chapter to write on key aspects of teaching and learning in dance, drama and music, I'll end (I may return, hauntingly) as I began, with Ted Hughes, and this in his essay 'Myth and Education':

"The myths for [Plato] were not very different from what they are for us, imaginative exercises about life in a world full of supernatural figures and miracles that never happened, never could happen. Yet these, he suggested, were the ideal grounding for the future wise and realistic citizen. We can imagine what would happen if we proposed now that all education in England up to the school age of 11 be abolished and there be put in its place a huge system of storytelling.

If we think of that we can see how far the wisdom in our educational system differs from what Plato would have called wisdom. Our school syllabus of course is one outcome of 300 years of rational enlightenment, which had begun by questioning superstitions and ended by prohibiting imagination itself as a reliable mental faculty, branding it more or less as a criminal in the scientific society. And what this has ended in is a completely passive attitude of apathy in face of material facts. The scientific attitude, which is the crystallisation of the rational attitude, has to be passive in the face of the facts if it is to record the facts accurately.

Such is the prestige of the scientific style of mind that this passivity in the face of the facts, this detached, inwardly inured objectivity, has become the prevailing mental attitude of our time. It is taught in schools as an ideal.

The result is something resembling mental paralysis".

Forget excellence. We need wonder!

It seems we cannot escape excellence. Everyone is writing, talking, researching, obsessing about it.

But what is it?

Some years ago PALATINE, the Subject Centre for Dance, Drama and Music, undertook an enquiry into the use of the full range of marks in assessing the performing arts in higher education. As well as provoking the centre's biggest and most heated electronic postbag, a number of respondents described the distinct discomfort they experienced when considering the assessment of work at the very top of the range. One memorably wrote: “I feel the increasingly heavy pull of gravity on my pen as I get to 75%.”

The response supported research that found that the extremities of the percentage scale are perceived as insecure territory for the assessors of qualitative subject matter. There is a strong sense, in the arts and humanities, that nothing can be that good or, for that matter, that bad, and the research revealed that most marking in the arts and humanities ranged between c. 35% to 75% which, in the eccentric and esoteric honours grading system we use in the UK, still manages to cover everything from a Fail to a First!

Undoubtedly one of the assessment challenges we have set for ourselves in performing arts disciplines is requiring students to demonstrate achievement in a wide range of practical, scholarly and creative modes. High achievement in one is rarely sustained across the breadth of an assessment régime in our disciplines, and we have to work to ensure that ‘excellent’ achievement is reflected in the aggregated marks at module and degree level. This is a pedagogic challenge which is not shared by other, more traditional arts and humanities subjects.

So what does excellence mean in this context?

Going by the result of the debate on excellence at an academic conference, there is a clear majority who feel that the term has lost credibility and value. When all institutions are either ‘excellent’ or, at the very least, ‘striving for excellence’ then we are witnessing a lot of sound (but hopefully not fury) signifying nothing. Excellence has become ‘de-referentialised’. Turning to the dictionary provides little assistance. In the Concise Oxford 'to excel’ is defined as to surpass or to be pre-eminent (i.e. to be better than the majority), whereas ‘excellence’ is defined as ‘very good’.

Whatever meaning ‘excellence’ once had has become lost in a blizzard of hyperbole. The fate of excellence follows in the tradition of other terms such as ‘community’ and, more recently, ‘creativity’, whose meaning has become devalued and decontextualised through over- and inappropriate use.

In the arts, the term excellence is rarely if ever used as a descriptor except – and this may be relevant in considering educational achievement – in relation to the application or demonstration of skill or craft. Academics, students and arts practitioners tend to avoid the ‘E’ word. The theatrical cliché has never been: “You were excellent, darling”. ‘Wonderful’ is truly a much better word than ‘excellent’ to describe high artistic achievement. Rather than excellent’s rather hard-edged, triumphalist implication of being better than others, ‘wonderful’, i.e. full of wonder, has a sense of the remarkable, the extraordinary, the truly successful that is the mark of the highest quality work.

Excellence, it must be said, is much favoured by arts politicians and bureaucrats who use it both aspirationally and as a justification for funding. Excellence attracts rewards and prizes. But the use of the term has more to do with product branding (as it has in higher education) than with a real concern with the subtle complexities of quality and value.

Here is a typical example: one of our leading UK arts funding bodies, in its mission statement, states: “We believe the arts to be the foundation of a confident and cultured society. They challenge and inspire us. They bring beauty, excitement and happiness into our lives. They help us to express our identity as individuals, as communities and as a nation”.

Wonderful!

But then they go and ruin it by reverting to corporate-speak and saying they are going to “serve the people ... by fostering arts of excellence through funding, development, research and advocacy”.

An external examiner I knew, having seen what was – by general consensus – a remarkable, successful, extraordinary, inspiring ... yes, wonderful piece of final-year practical work was dismayed to find that the two internal examiners, who also thought the work was remarkable, successful etc had agreed a mark of 75%. He asked them to start at 100%, and argue persuasively for marks to be deducted. With the assessment criteria in their hands they struggled to get below 95%.

To describe that work as merely ‘excellent’ would have been insufficient. It was beyond excellence. That is perhaps what we should be striving for and, in doing so, we need to look beyond our obsession with trying to define, achieve, assess and reward excellence.

As the old saying goes: education is, or ought to be, a wonderful thing.

Where have all the conkerors gone?

There are several large horse chestnut 'conker' trees near our house. When we first moved in to the street, and at this time of year, one would spot small groups of (usually) young boys collecting conkers for their conker fights - usually by throwing sticks up into the trees to dislodge the conkers, as those on the ground would have already been grabbed.

For those for whom this is an alien pastime, October was the month for conker fights - in the school playground or in the streets around one's home. Along with all my friends, I'd gather around the nearest trees, particularly those known to have the biggest conkers. Having collected a suffient number, I'd then select one that seemed to be the hardest - particularly if it had a sharp edge. Real conker afficionados would experiment with hardening techniques such as soaking them in vinegar.

Having selected what I reckoned was the most likely candidate, or even candidates, I'd make a hole through the conker, and thread through some string. Tying a knot that the conker would rest on. At which point I was ready to participate in the conker fights.

The aim of the fight was to destroy your opponent's conker by hitting it with your conker, using the string to swing it like a hammer on an alternate 'I hit yours, you hit mine' basis.

If you were the victor, then someone else would challenge you. Those who claimed several victories with the same conker were able to say that their conker was a 'fiver' (five victories) or a 'tenner' etc, and slowly a sort of league table would organically form.

Naturally there were the occasional bruised knuckles when your opponent missed, but to use anything but bare hands was - by common assent - wholly unethical. (There was an interesting media furore a few years ago, when a school insisted that children playing conkers must wear protective gloves and goggles).

This is all a preamble to the fact that I've noticed, on my daily dog walk, that those once much sought after conkers now lie in their dozens on the ground around the trees. The only creatures interested in them are the local squirrels who either gnaw at them or squirrel them away somewhere to be stored for some unspecified time later.

So, where have all the conkerors gone?
Gone to computer games, every one.
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Straight to the Core - Gove, the Arts and the Core Curriculum

Nelson Mandela said that "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world", which is why politicians can't help but meddle.

Here in the UK, with a long and - with a few notable exceptions - inglorious history of political meddling in the education of our children and young people, we currently have an über-meddler in the shape of Michael Gove (pictured), the Secretary of State for Education.

Mr. Gove is convinced, with the passion of the true zealot, that our education system is broken and that it needs a complete overhaul. He is particularly obsessed with the need for a 'core curriculum' which essentially takes us back to the 3R's with some science and technology attached. I have nothing personal against young people being able to read, write and count. Actually I think it's quite important. I think science and technology are important. But I do object strongly when - in order to achieve his ambition - Mr Gove decides that the arts are an irrelevancy when it comes to the content of his 'core curriculum'.

Mr. Gove is an intelligent man. After all he was a leading journalist on The Times, and therefore ought to be used to ensuring that he quotes his sources accurately. Well, he keeps going on about how his ideas for this arts-free 'core curriculum' are informed by his admiration for the Massachusetts Common Core of Learning. As well he might be. The education system in Massachusetts is at the top of the US educational league tables.

Now, I don't know if Mr. Gove has actually read the Massachusetts Common Core of Learning, or whether - returning to his journalistic habits - he is studiously ignoring the inconvenient truth. But there, in the Massachusetts Common Core of Learning, in stark black and white, is the following:

"All students should:
Acquire, Integrate and Apply Essential Knowledge (in)
- Literature and Language
- Mathematics, Science and Technology
- Social studies, History and Geography
- Visual and Performing Arts
- Health

Under 'Visual and Performing Arts' there is:
- Know and understand the nature of the creative process, the characteristics of visual art, music, dance and theatre, and their importance in shaping and reflecting historical and cultural heritage.
- Analyze and make informed judgments regarding the arts.
- Develop skills and participate in the arts for personal growth and enjoyment.

Under Literature and Language:
- Read a rich variety of literary works including fiction, poetry, drama and nonfiction from different time periods and cultures, relating them to human aspirations and life experiences.
- Analyze implications of literary works, and communicate them through speaking, writing, artistic and other means of expression.

All students should:
Use Mathematics, the Arts, Computers and Other Technologies Effectively
- Apply mathematical skills to interpret information and solve problems.
- Use the arts to explore and express ideas, feelings and beliefs.
- Use computers and other technologies to obtain, organize and communicate information and to solve problems.
- Develop and present conclusions through speaking, writing, artistic and other means of expression.

In 2006, UNESCO declared: "International declarations and conventions aim at securing for every child and adult the right to education and to opportunities that will ensure full and harmonious development and participation in cultural and artistic life. The basic rationale for making Arts Education an important and, indeed, compulsory part of the educational programme in any country emerges from these rights. Culture and the arts are essential components of a comprehensive education leading to the full development of the individual. Therefore, Arts Education is a universal human right, for all learners" (The Road Map for Arts Education,p3)

Please note the "essential components of a comprehensive education". Perhaps Mr. Gove's dislike of arts education derives from his antipathy to the word 'comprehensive'?

Design for Learning (could do better!)

Academics, eh? We may be great teachers. We may be great researchers. We may even be great managers and administrators. But that does not make us great educational designers....and I write this as someone who trained and worked as a designer before I stumbled into teaching design and some other subjects in higher education. Once inside academia I was immediately struck by the fact that a great number of things just didn't seem to work very well. I was surrounded by talented, skilful, intelligent, committed and passionate colleagues who appeared to spend an inordinate amount of time and energy just getting things to work for them and their students.

It didn't take me long to work out that the cause of all this inefficiency and waste and the bang-head-on-desk frustration that resulted, was frequently and simply, bad design. The plethora of complex systems, labyrinthine processes and perplexing protocols that extend to every corner of our educational endeavours all too often have been created by individuals and groups who - with the best will in the world - are not well acquainted, if at all, with the basic principles of good design.

An awareness and appreciation of concepts such as 'good design enhances the users' experience', or 'good design is logical e.g. form follows function', or 'good design is minimal design e.g. as little as possible but as much as necessary', or 'good design is consistent right down to the fine details' was and is often entirely lacking.

There is also an aesthetic quality to good design, but I've yet to hear or read that word, or anything similar, when it comes to discussing the crucially important task of designing the educational experiences of students.

If we are to be architects of educational experiences, then we must accept that not only do we need to embrace the principles and practices of good design, but - crucially - we either need to become skilled educational architects and designers ourselves or ensure that at least some of us have or develop those skills so that we can help our colleagues and institutions to create and support the wonderful educational experiences that our students truly deserve.

(Paul Kleiman Design for Learning)