August has proven to be a bad month for goals - despite finding myself a whole book ahead of my reading goal on not one but two occasions, I'm going to end the month two books off target, while this blog has slipped from being one post behind to five.
All in all, that's a poor showing, especially at this stage in the year - my ability to catch up is extremely doubtful. I guess I know what the theme for next month is going to be...
Although the schools have started back in Scotland, and although I have little doubt that they will start back in England soon, I have considerable doubt that they will actually complete the school year. I think there's a good chance that we'll need another significant lockdown as things get worse over the winter. Even if a second lockdown doesn't occur, it's obviously not inconceivable that at some point something may come along and disrupt the academic year again.
The upshot of that is that obviously the education system is at some point going to have to be adjusted for this new reality - both in terms of needing the ability to transfer to mostly-online learning if that proves necessary, and also in terms of needing to deal with a curtailment of the academic year. In particular, this fiasco over exam results must surely indicate that a new approach to assessment is required.
Consequently, I've gone ahead and fixed it. You're welcome.
My proposal, simply put, is to essentially abandon year-long qualifications in favour of a much more modular approach: pupils attend a six-week module of material in a given subject, complete an assessed piece of work immediately after the end of the module, and are awarded credit in that module immediately. End-of-year exams essentially become a thing of the past. (Though exams as a concept may remain - they may be the best form for that "assessed piece of work" in at least some cases.)
The consequence of that is that if there is a sudden curtailment of the academic year, pupils are already credited for the work they have already completed, and so in the worst case only lose five weeks' worth of work-in-progress. Likewise, the academic year can essentially resume at any time, without an arbitrary start date in August (or September). (And so if, for example, we needed a lockdown from Nov - Feb, things could just pick up again in March without too much hassle.)
That solves the "sudden curtailment" part of the problem. The second issue is, of course, the need to switch to largely-online learning in some cases.
In this case, my proposal is that there should be a family of modules put in place pretty much specifically for online delivery. That of course doesn't work for all subjects, or all parts of a subject, but in many cases it is possible. And by making it a different set of modules for online and 'normal' learning there doesn't need to be any attempt to shift gears for the transition from one to the other.
(Another benefit is flexibility in the sequencing of work. When in a school environment, it makes a lot of sense to shift from one subject to another every 40 minutes or so, especially as that means shifting physically from one location to another. When working remotely it may well be preferable to approach modules as "crash courses" in a subject - tackling English one week, Maths another, and so on. Or not - the benefit of flexibility is that it's flexible.)
A final benefit of the use of 6-week modules is that it also allows a modification to a major bugbear of mine - the summer holidays. It is, frankly, madness that schools have three really long terms during the academic year and then a massive long holiday during which the kids proceed to forget everything they learned in June. It would be much better, for all involved, to have more shorter blocks of learning with a decent-sized break between each. Say six weeks on, one week off repeated seven times through the year, with one extra week of holiday at the end of December, and two extra weeks in July. (I haven't counted either the number of days of school or days of holiday here - it's just an illustration.)
Of course, I haven't addressed how modules relate to qualifications. But that's easy enough: six modules of this difficulty gives you that qualification (possibly with a caveat that "you need two from column A, two from column B, and two from column C", or whatever). Or abandon 'named' qualifications entirely, and just award credits in a subject - the universities are already well equipped to handle that, since they do it already, and employers inevitably adapt to whatever system is in place.
There are, however, two major downsides of such an approach.
The first is that it would be another significant shake-up of an education system that has had far too many shake-ups in recent years. Basically, every new education secretary seems to feel the need to leave their mark by changing things, and usually for the worst. So that advocates very strongly for not making any change.
The second is, of course, that putting together these modules, and especially the new assessments, represents a considerable amount of work that would need to be done. Inevitably, I have thoughts on that topic too, but given that I've already wittered on far too long I think I'll stop there...
It is my belief that two things are absolutely vital for the successful running of our justice system:
In the case of Alex Salmond, the first of these points actually did apply. And that's a very welcome thing - far too often, powerful men are able to act with seeming impunity, and it is important that that is challenged. So it is a very good thing that there was indeed an investigation, charges were brought, and the case heard.
But Alex Salmond was found Not Guilty on all but one charge, and Not Proven on the other. He was not found Guilty of any crime. As such, under point #2, he must be considered innocent.
Now, I should note that there is no obligation on private individuals to do anything. After all, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and may choose to accept or reject the verdict of the courts.
What I find completely and utterly unacceptable, however, is the ongoing media witch-hunt against Alex Salmond, most recently by the BBC last night. To me, that smacks of just just an unacceptable attack on a man who has not been convicted of anything, but more importantly it is an attack on the entire system of justice. The investigating authorities and the courts did their jobs; let that be the end of it.
And the reason this is so important is nothing to do with Alex Salmond. The sad truth is that any one of us could, at any time, find ourselves falsely accused of some crime. And, of course, simply being innocent is no guarantee that a false accusation won't come. Of course, a thorough and diligent investigation, or failing that a working court system, will ensure that a false accusation is recognised as such, and exoneration will follow. And that should be the end of the matter.
We insist on a fair hearing for Alex Salmond (and everyone else) because guaranteeing it in the high-profile cases also serves to guarantee it for all of the rest of us.
The BBC should be ashamed.
This past weekend I found myself revisiting an old theme: I had a test I needed to revise for. This was a follow-up to a training course we had had a few weeks ago, and was required to complete the certification. And, having 'failed' the mock test by one point, I wanted to make sure I was right on top of the material for the actual test.
In the event, the real test went fine. Having put in the time, I was able to get through it pretty quickly, and then double- and triple-check my answers, and thus scored a mere 96%. Which isn't too bad, really.
But my major takeaway from all of this is that I really don't miss exams, or revision, or all of that stuff. It was, I guess, fine back in the day. But these days I just have too many other things that I'd much rather do, not to mention the many other things that I need to do.
#38: "A Suitable Boy", by Vikram Seth (a book from The List)
