Let's make bicycle maintenance compulsory in schools

The Boy McIntosh takes issue with Eric Schmidt on his blog today. Not because he disagrees with the Google Chairman’s recent assault on the ‘UK’ education system (he doesn’t, and nor do I up to a point) but rather because Schmidt didn’t appreciate the fact that there is no such thing as a ‘UK’ education system. It is a fair enough point to make, but I have to admit that Ewan’s Scottish Nationalist tone of admonishment is what made me desperate to leave Scotland some twenty two years ago and that makes me continually put off plans to return, even for a few days (for which I apologise wholeheartedly to my parents and friends). 

I’m afraid too that Ewan himself falls into the same trap as Schmidt and shows a similar degree of naiveté. Now I have no recent personal experience of schools in Scotland, but I am sure that just because “programming is a core part of [the Scottish] curriculum for excellence Technologies strand, from age 3 through to 18” it doesn’t mean that all Scottish youngsters are growing up with a secure grounding in computer sciences. Similarly, just because there is no requirement for programming or computer science to be taught in English schools, it doesn’t mean that all English youngsters are growing up without any concept of how computers work.

It always infuriates me when people with a passion in a particular area of expertise think that subject should be a compulsory part of a young person’s education (and usually suggest it should be so to the age of 16 or 18). Throw in all the suggestions from the media and politicians about ‘social’ responsibilities that schools ought to be teaching, and you get the impression that schools would need to be open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with teachers and students alike boxed in like battery hens. Actually, when you put it like that, it sounds like something the Daily Mail would love for all public sector workers, doesn’t it?

The truth is that individual schools and teachers have always had a fairly healthy degree of freedom to deliver the kind of curriculum that individual youngsters need. Good schools and teachers respond to individual needs and give those youngsters supported guidance about what subjects they may want to begin to specialise in at whatever age is appropriate. But good schools know too that not every young person needs to know how to write computer code in order to use ICT creatively and productively; just as they know that not every young person needs to know how to strip down a gearbox in order to drive a motor car.

Now, who’s up for some compulsory bicycle maintenance lessons in schools? End of Key Stage tests would involve setting the indexing on rear derailleurs and winding handlebar tape. After all, we’ve all ridden a bike before haven’t we?...

Comments

[joe]

Many of us have ridden a bike, but we do not all do so at present. I just saw a film called ONE DAY which featured a horrendous bicycle accident which made the idea of cycling in London very scary, in an immediate and visceral sort of way.

I agree with you, Duke, that people (politicians, pundits et al) ask far, far too much from schools. Not when they say that schools should teach French or Mathematics (I think they should), but when they insist that they should also teach citizenship, good conduct, sexual behaviour and so on. As far as I can see, school is not the place to teach these things. It is asking far too much of busy teachers: it is unreasonable. A teacher's job is to improve skills and knowledge in a particular field (like French) to the best of their ability, with the resources available. It is not to make up for the failings of the rest of society and produce guaranteed all-round good individuals.

If these pundits et al are so keen for children to learn these things, then they should set up their own after-school institutions and try to inculcate them there.

[alistair]

Actually I don't disagree that we shouldn't 'teach' good conduct, sexual behaviour etc in school - in best practice it actually happens as a by-product of teaching other things such as English, History or Art. My main irritation is that people appear to be abdicating responsibility for the teaching of those things solely to schools and accepting no responsibility (as parents or otherwise) themselves. We're all in this together, after all ;)

And no, I don't think I'd like cycling in London much, despite being (I think!) a confident rider. I had a moment yesterday in sleepy Devon when a car pulled out of a junction and almost took me out. Driver just didn't seem to look. My language and attendant gesticulations were probably not in keeping with my age and position in society... I hope it wasn't a parent of one of the kids in school.

[joe]

Do you mean

"I don't disagree that we shouldn't 'teach' good conduct, sexual behaviour etc in school"

or

"I disagree that we shouldn't 'teach' good conduct, sexual behaviour etc in school"

?

If pupils become better people as a byproduct of classes, good. But I don't believe that these pastoral / moral roles should be added to teachers' workloads. It is a flagrant passing of the buck by other people. You might as well say that newsagents, bus drivers or checkout attendants should be teaching those things. No: they already have jobs to do. So do teachers.

The driver probably thought you were a 'punk rocker'.