Old_Cliftonian_Mag_2011

Commem 2011
HEAD MASTER’S SPEECH
Teachers are, as you know, fond of
compiling lists of the howlers that
their pupils make in exam papers
or in interviews. Many are widely known
and oft quoted and some fall into the
You’ve Been Framed category of having
been so obviously contrived that they
are clearly works of fiction. But there
is an exact opposite to the slip of the
pen howler which is when a pupil says
or writes something which is not quite
what they mean, but which is truer and
cleverer than they can possibly realise.
For example consider these: “ Sir Walter
Raleigh is famous because he started
smoking”. “The Greeks were a highly
sculptured people” and with perhaps even
greater complexity of double meaning
“Democracy in Athens enabled the people
to take the law into their own hands”.
“Romeo’s last wish was to be laid by
Juliet”, (which is true in every sense). Or
this from an Oxford philosophy entrance
paper: “John Stuart Mill wrote that the
higher pleasures are mental but the lower
pleasures are sensational”. Also from an
Oxford entrance paper: “Even atheists
recognise the right to practise religion”. I
trust that candidate was offered a place to
read English in order to learn the meaning
of paradox. On the subject of English, Dr.
Emma Smith, Tutor in English and Tutor
for Admissions at Hertford College, Oxford
advises prospective candidates that
Oxford interviews are not like Who wants
to be a Millionaire: we are not interested in
what you know, but in how you think. But
knowledge and thought are not mutually
exclusive: they are necessary bedfellows
because you need to know about
something in order to know how to think
clearly about it. In other words, despite the
evidence to the contrary from the House
of Commons, you cannot express thought
clearly if you don’t know what you are
talking about.
It strikes me that as a nation we have got
ourselves into something of a pickle in our
approach to education. Our exam system
is now wholly based on the notion that the
candidates who write answers that most
closely correspond to the examiners’ mark
scheme gain the highest marks. Exam
success is therefore achieved by learning
the template that the marker is using to
mark the paper, and from which the marker
is not allowed to deviate. In order to win a
place at University our pupils have to have
very high scores in these exams, so to do
that they have to spend hours and hours
learning and reproducing the templates
and model answers in order that they
can gain the highest marks. Teachers are
responsible for delivering the curriculum
specification, which makes them sound
like postmen, and helping pupils learn
how they can score marks by meeting
assessment objectives. We all know it is
nonsense yet we have no choice but to go
along with it and do it as well as we can.
The exam process may require tactical
awareness and good technique but it rarely
requires much thought and in some cases
precious little knowledge either. But then,
when the pupils have done exactly what
the system requires of them to gain the
highest grades, even more nonsensically
the system pulls the rug from under the
feet of our pupils because whilst we have
been processing them through the factory
of the school exam system, module by
module, through GCSE, AS and A2, we
have not, in that examination system,
prepared any of them for an encounter with
the likes of Dr. Emma Smith at Hertford
College who wants to know how pupils
think. It is not that our pupils can’t think;
it is a question of their rarely being asked
to do so and so not really knowing how to.
So typically a pupil who may have flawless
exam scores and can answer questions on
prepared topics very competently comes
unstuck when asked, for example, ‘Would
history be worth studying if it didn’t repeat
itself?’ or ‘How would you calculate the
inter-atomic spacing of the particles in
this room?’ Or ‘Is any one language better
than another?’ and my favourite, ‘What
happens if you drop an ant?’ Those are all
genuine questions asked by Oxford and
Cambridge interviewers. Such questions
readily sort out those who can think and
who know something. Thinking is not just
a luxury, a kind of add on extra for the
best University candidates but a necessity
for life and a necessity in the workplaces
of tomorrow. If you want confirmation of
that ask employers what they are looking
for when they recruit graduates. So Mr
Michael Gove, I set you this challenge. If
thinking is so important, then why have
we constructed a school exam system
that almost wholly militates against it? In
all the chatter about categories of school,
of Free schools and Academies, perhaps
Mr Gove should stop listening to trendy
headmasters who grab his attention and
headlines by throwing away all their library
books in the pursuit of happiness, or
those who are politically motivated to see
education as the last battleground of the
class war, and focus instead on what we
think as a nation we are doing in educating
our young people. The famous Liverpool
manager Bill Shankley once said, “Some
people think football is a matter of life and
death. They are wrong: it’s more important
than that”. So is education. At Clifton we
make no secret of that, and make it clear
that education is no less than a matter of
the characters and personalities of our
pupils. We want to ensure that they grow
into the best possible version of the people
that they already are; we want them to
be able to think for themselves, almost
in spite of the exam system, and thereby
leave Clifton liberated to do brilliant things
with their lives.
36 the CLIFTON MAGAZINE 2011