Help, I'm drowning in scaffolding!!!

In this blog I will get the disclaimers in early and state that all of the following is purely opinion and conjecture.  It does seem to me that education in the UK is facing a crisis but that people are tending to look in the wrong direction as to where these problems are coming from.

The first problem is to do with measuring success.  Any system will need to know how it is doing but there are a number of fundamental problems with how this is measured.  The first is that the examination system needs to be independent of those setting the curriculum.  We need to take away the temptation of an exam board to make an exam easier to make them (or the schools that pay them)look more successful.

The second though is all to do with the four letter 'f' word.  That's right, fail.  We have developed a whole set of problems with the 'f' word and it runs through government, through teachers, through parents and into young people.  We are all scared witless of failing and we all have it wrong.  We have it wrong because of a host of reasons.  We have lost site of what a test or examination is there to do.  Despite the fact that the clue is in the name.  It is there to examine or test your abilities.  It isn't there to pander to ego's or make anyone look good.  In fact, if anyone gets 100% in a test then realistically it wasn't a test.  At this point some of you may be thinking 'but we are putting young people under so much pressure.'  Sorry but that is not down to tests.  That is down to how people react to the results.  We have become all about that one shining mark, the end point at which we are either a success or a failure.  The trouble is that life isn't like that.  Life is about your approach and your attitude.  That if you get something wrong you try again until you sort it.  Instead what we have is a system that makes people petrified of those marks because if they get something wrong then they are in trouble.  This then finds it's way down to those young people who are faced with a choice.  Endless pressure of the fear of failure or just switch off and don't care.

All we need to do is change the emphasis.  Just try your best and try to improve.  If you do that and it is not working then we will find something else for you so it does.  If you are not trying your best though, and we have done our bit then guess what?  That is down to you.  What we have now is a system where all of the responsibility for those who fail is down to the teachers or school.  It is human nature to take advantage.  If we give none of the responsibility to the student then they are well within their rights to sit there and take no interest unless it is entertaining enough to bother.  We end up stifling students by endlessly spoon feeding.  If we don't they might fail.  If we don't end up with students who can think for themselves they will fail at a lot more than exams in life and that will be our failure.