{"id":7102,"date":"2017-12-01T06:12:23","date_gmt":"2017-12-01T06:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=7102"},"modified":"2017-12-01T06:12:23","modified_gmt":"2017-12-01T06:12:23","slug":"the-two-st-georges-house-propositions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2017\/12\/01\/the-two-st-georges-house-propositions\/","title":{"rendered":"The two St George's House propositions"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am still at St George's House<\/a>, Windsor, at a consultation about young people and the sustainable development goals. \u00a0This is, amongst other things, considering two propositions:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Goal-related learning by students can help increase the likelihood that the goals will be valued, supported and hence realised<\/em><\/li>\n
  2. A critical study of the goals can enhance the focus, and help raise the quality, of student learning<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I drafted these two statements but neither is strikingly original \u2013 and each fails the dog training<\/a> test. \u00a0Here are my thoughts on them.<\/p>\n

    Proposition 2<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>The\u00a0Pearson website quotes from the\u00a0January 2015\u00a0Buntingsdale Primary School Ofsted report\u00a0saying this:<\/p>\n

    \"Global education makes the learning more relevant and interesting for pupils, and so it contributes to their enthusiasm for learning.\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Well, who can doubt that is the case when it is done well? \u00a0And who can also doubt that this\u00a0enthusiasm \u2013 this motivation \u2013 for learning gets translated into actual learning of all kinds. \u00a0But is the key point here global learning, or is it the school\u2019s own interest in and enthusiasm\u00a0for\u00a0global learning? \u00a0This is a question that Ofsted raised several years ago when it say that successful schools were those schools that had a clear purpose, focus, interest and enthusiasm. \u00a0It was this that made school interesting and worthwhile, and was readily communicated to students. \u00a0It was almost that it didn\u2019t really matter what that interest and focus was \u2013 although Ofsted didn\u2019t quite say that (I wish I could find the link ...).<\/p>\n

    Proposition 1<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/em>I\u2019d say that this might well depend on a lot of things. \u00a0But it raises the question about whether it\u2019s the business of schools to do this. \u00a0Two Danish educators, Jensen and Schnack, said not when they wrote:<\/p>\n

    \u201c\u2026 it is not and cannot be the task of the school to solve the political problems of society. \u00a0Its task is not to improve the world with the help of pupils\u2019 activities. \u2026\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    So, our young people can be helped to understand the issues, to see that they should care about them, and might do something about them. \u00a0But what they do (and whether they do it) should (and will anyway) be up to them. \u00a0It's not anyone's role or duty just to do as our teachers or parents say.<\/p>\n

    But just to be pellucidly clear, I do think we should all take the Goals seriously. \u00a0They do, after all, represent the work of the world to make itself less troubled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I am still at St George's House, Windsor, at a consultation about young people and the sustainable development goals. \u00a0This is, amongst other things, considering two propositions: Goal-related learning by students can help increase the likelihood that the goals will...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-talks-and-presentations"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}