There will be tears of relief, joy and frustration today as thousands of students receive their A-Level results and once again, the good, the great and the plain stupid will make pompous announcements praising and justifying government education policy or decrying the achievements of our youngsters. What is the truth. Ah the truth, that elusive creature. What is the first casualty in war?
Good news! I'm here to give you the last word on the matter and the truth of this can be corroborated by any decent and honest teacher willing to tell the truth, so here it is... the truth about 'dumbing down':
First,over the last 20 years the quality of teaching has improved dramatically. Two things have occurred to make it so. The introduction of the National Curriculum imposed national teaching standards in England and Wales. As a result of this, bad teachers were weeded out of the profession and new teachers had to be more reflective and evaluative about what they were doing. The National Curriculum may have been derided by some as being too prescriptive, BUT it did impose a form of quality control that was badly needed.
Here's my first anecdote about bad teaching in the 1980s and no doubt everbody has a memory of a truly awful teacher who should have been locked up for ruining the life chances of their precious charges. I had an economics teacher whose claim to fame was being a squash champion in the 1930s and being taught at Oxford University. His idea of an A-Level economics lesson was to arrive to class with a copy of the Times newspaper, which he then proceeded to read extracts from, presumably as a way of generating some sort of class debate/intellectual discussion. Unfortunately, to this day, I cannot work out where the link to A-Level Economics was!?! This occurred without rhyme or reason every lesson for two years. Guess what? We all failed the exam miserably. One of my friends who was arguably the brightest boy in the school took the resit under his own steam (completely self taught) and passed it at Xmas with a 'B' grade!!!
Second, teaching and passing exams is and should not be mutually exclusive. The point of exams is to provide students with some semblance of life skills - the ability to read, write and add up - and hopefully, the skill of being able to think critically and God forbid, generating an enthusiasm for lifelong learning. Here's my point - teachers today have become incredibly skilful at teaching their students to pass exams, hence the impressive pass rates. Are they bad teachers? No! Why? Because teachers can only work within the current examination system. Don't blame them for mastering the system. Rather, look at the system itself. However, bear this in mind. All formal written examinations have a structural weakness - they can be deconstructed and the skills required for high marks taught/coached/passed onto students in rote fashion.
Let me give you an example. Any examination requiring an essay can be mastered by the student by simply memorising a series of model essays based upon the syllabus content. The student doesn't even have to have written the essays themselves! Of course, the student will need to have a good memory and be astute enough to change the content and the structure of the essay to match the examination question, but even then the question is always a variant on the same theme. Even so called 'thick kids' can 'master' the teachnique of passing exams well if they are prepared to put in long hours of rote learning to make up for their intellectual deficiencies. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either plain stupid or self deluded and I am still astonished at the denials and the lengths examination boards will go to deny this simple fact.
Third, bright students today are no different from bright students 10, 50, 100 or even 2000 years ago. You cannot change something as fundamental as intelligence through diet or environmental factors in such a short space of time. So why are students today apparently doing better than their peers of yesteryear? The answer is simple. Exams today are being marked in an easier way!!! Let me give you some anecdotal evidence with A-Level History. A few years ago, four questions were set in the document paper. Each question was created to assess a particular skill; for example, two questions were set to test the students' understanding of reliability and utility. Unfortunately, students performed poorly at these questions and results were falling. What did the Board do? They dropped the questions and amalgamated the skills in the remaining sub questions.
You tell me, is this an example of dumbing down or not?!? BUT, here's the rub. Bright students today will have done just as well in any other generation irrespective of the examination in front of them. That is why they are bright and largely independent workers. The truth of the matter is that very intelligent students teach themselves. The difference between today's results and yesteryear's results lie in the performance of the middle and the tail, especially the tail. Those students at the lower end of the intellectual spectrum who are passing Maths, English, Science and a whole plethora of subjects with grade C or higher today would have simply failed the equivalent O-Levels of yesteryear and that is a fact!!!
Put simply, failure has become a hot political football and is simply not an option for governments of any hue. Prince Charles may have put in bluntly but he was essentially right when he said that 'there cannot be prizes for all' and at the moment this is precisely the culture that we are in; a 'prizes for all' culture that rewards failure because we are too politically correct to say to people that they have failed. Many students are simply not academic and will fail academic exams. What we have to do as a nation is to redirect their talents and skills in other worthwhile areas where they can genuinely succeed.
To summarise the truth about examination results and dumbing down:-
1. Teachers are more skilful today at teaching students to pass exams. However, passing exams should not be mutually exclusive to learning.
2. The top tier of students will always achieve in any era and it is unfair to label them as failures in an examination system that is disingenuous at best and defunct at worst.
3. Marking at the examination boards have become easier/weaker (just ask any teacher that mark exams in the summer). The result of this is to raise the attainment of the middle and especially the lower end. This explains why students are seemingly doing better. The truth is they're not at the lower end. The way in which marks are rewarded for student's knowledge has become easier.
So if you get confused at what people are telling you about A-Levels, GCSEs or/and the current debate about the education system, for the LAST WORD, read this blog. It's the truth!!!