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Tuesday 30 June 2015

Bill Maloney speaks about institutional child abuse


The conversation with Bill Maloney, film maker and campaigner against institutional child abuse, begins at 4.00 minutes on the Lou Collins Radio Show. (See link below.)

Amongst other matters, he questions the proposal to spend billions of pounds on the refurbishment of Westminster which, according to Simon Danczuk, is where child sex abuse has taken place.

"That makes it a crime scene," says Bill Maloney. He suggests there should be an attempt to gather DNA forensic evidence before the whole place gets cleaned up.

"Let`s get the witnesses to describe the rooms before they get changed, and same with Dolphin Square."


http://loucollins.uk/lou-collins-radio-show/

Note: the decision by Alison Saunders not to bring a case (fact finding) against Lord Janner has been overturned. 

Digital research to improve learning ?


From the Youtube blurb:
  • "Karen Cator is President and CEO of Digital Promise. From 2009-2013, Karen was Director of the Office of Educational Technology at the U.S. Department of Education, where she led the development of the 2010 National Education Technology Plan and focused the Office's efforts on teacher and leader support."
  • "She also was a leading voice for transforming American education through technology innovation and research. Prior to joining the department, Cator directed Apple's leadership and advocacy efforts in education. In this role, she focused on the intersection of education policy and research, emerging technologies, and the reality faced by teachers students and administrators. She began her education career in Alaska as a teacher, ultimately leading technology planning and implementation."
Not only is the education attainment gap used to explain away poverty but it can be used to promote technology and student data capture in the classroom.

Digital Promise raises the serious problem of equity in American education and reports on their summit to Put Research to Work.

There were three groups:

  • "Researchers who can help provide data on the kinds of educational environments, practices, and tools that best improve learning."

  • "Educational technology developers who can harness the power of technology to create products that support innovative teaching methods and improved student learning outcomes, and capture real-time data to enable ongoing improvement."

  • "Educators and education leaders, who can share their insight and expertise with researchers and developers, and implement research-based tools and practices to support students."

Two of the attendees at the research summit were Apple and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the organisations who will make fortunes designing products out of children`s data.

Children`s right to privacy does not feature in the Karen Cator video nor does it appear on the Digital Promise website.

http://www.digitalpromise.org/pages/a-summit-to-put-research-to-work

Scotland`s first adviser on poverty and inequality

In 2006, the Social Exclusion Unit merged with the Prime Minister`s Strategy Unit. The task force aimed to ensure that Government departments work together to deliver services. The director at the time was Naomi Eisenstadt.

The Strategy Unit "concentrates on preventative policies for hard to reach children and families deemed to have been immune from the government` drive against social exclusion to date."

The Social Exclusion Programme is the equivalent in Scotland.

Website: www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk

 
According to the Scottish Government website: "Naomi Eisenstadt, an expert in the impact poverty has on children, will become the First Minister’s independent adviser on poverty and inequality, recommending actions needed to tackle poverty and holding the government’s performance to account."

http://news.scotland.gov.uk/News/First-Minister-appoints-poverty-adviser-1a68.aspx

Given Naomi Eisenstadt`s Cabinet Office connection, that is a very strange use of the term `independent`.

Here she is speaking to the Herald:

"Scotland's first poverty adviser has attacked plans by the UK Government to redefine the definitions used to measure child poverty as "wicked".

"Naomi Eisenstadt (CORR), a leading Oxford academic who was appointed by the Scottish Government last week, said any moves to try to use measures such as debt and drink and drug addiction to assess poverty would be shifting responsibility from government to families."

"The current definition of poverty is whether a child lives in a household which has an income less than 60% of the minimum wage..."

"The Conservative manifesto alluded to introducing better measures based on "root causes" of poverty - such as "entrenched worklessness, family breakdown, problem debt and drug and alcohol dependency..."

"These are indicators which have a judgemental nature to people`s behaviour - that are saying if you are poor it is your own fault and if only you stay married and not take drugs everything would be okay."

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/scotlands-first-poverty-adviser-tory-plans-to-redefine-child-poverty-are-wicked.130287961

Here she is in 2013 talking about the Early Years Collaborative in Scotland:

"We talked about the issue of grandparent care which is occasionally raised in England as a partial solution to the childcare provision gap. I have three concerns on grandparent care: 1) it can replicate class disadvantage, in that the home learning environment of the grandparents is likely to be similar to that of the parents; 2) the grandparents themselves are often of working age and should be in paid employment; and 3) the sensitive issue of child safeguarding within family care."

http://engageforeducation.org/2013/05/naomi-eisendtadt-blog-impressions-of-early-years-strategy-in-scotland/

That seems a bit judgemental to me.

Don`t expect changes in the early intervention approach to poverty any time soon.

Monday 29 June 2015

Jordanhill school discriminated against pupil

"Jordanhill School, in the west end of Glasgow, said they could not accept the boy, who was disabled and had dyslexia, because it could not afford to fund the levels of support required."

"However, the family took the case to the Additional Support Needs Tribunal (ASNT), which ruled Jordanhill had "unlawfully discriminated" against the pupil by refusing to offer him a place at the school."

"The Equality and Human Rights Commission, which has published the ruling on its website, said the decision was a reminder for all schools that they should plan for and take account of the needs of disabled pupils when setting their budgets."

"The commission added: "Their duties under the public sector equality duty and the specific duties, mean that they need to assess and review the impact of policies and practices, such as admissions policies and budgetary decisions."

"Details of the ruling emerged the day after Jordanhill was accused of "selecting" its intake because of its policy towards pupils with special needs."

"Maureen McKenna, the director of education for Glasgow City Council, made the claim after the school warned prospective pupils with Additional Support Needs (ASN) they could lose support services."

"The school, which regularly tops exam league tables, argues it is not covered by special needs legislation in the same way as other state schools because it is the only publicly-funded mainstream secondary in Scotland not under council control and the 2004 Education (Additional Support for Learning) Act relates to local authorities."

"As a result, the school argues it is not funded to provide the specialist services required for some pupils with more severe additional support needs...."

"Formerly run by Jordanhill College of Education as a demonstration school, Jordanhill it is now funded directly by a grant from the Scottish Government rather than through the local authority."

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/education/jordanhill-school-unlawfully-discriminated-against-special-needs-pupil.129747341

Sunday 28 June 2015

Character assessment


Claire Harvey talks about assessment in Curriculum for Excellence; both formative assessment in the broad general education, that is, assessment for learning and deciding those important `next steps` on the journey to excellence; and summative assessment in the senior phase which moves 14 and 15 year olds towards qualifications.

The problem being discussed is how to ensure that standards of formative assessment are the same across Scotland so that pupils are treated fairly. In a curriculum devoid of much content there are many grey areas.

Character assessment

As if asking children to demonstrate SHANARRI wellbeing was not a questionable enough activity as it is, the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) opened a discussion about how they might also assess and acknowledge character, and why this might be important.

The topic was raised at the recent conference `Character, Culture and Values` at Glasgow University where 200 delegates explored the "continuing global shift towards character and values in education, the first event of its kind in Scotland".

Whose idea of character and whose values we might ask? A glance at the glossy website and the John Templeton Foundation which helped fund the conference provides part of the answer, as do other topics on the agenda:  ‘Learning to be Human’ which explored "John MacMurray’s philosophical and educational ideas" and ‘Skills, Work & Enterprise’ which discussed the "role of attributes and attitudes in aiding young peoples’ transitions into employment and enterprise."

GIRFEC: the journey from birth to the world of work is at the heart of Curriculum for Excellence; it is not a journey that is going to be left to chance.
Below is a brief summary of the historical and academic underpinnings of character and values education in Scotland.

Marvin Berkowitz, Professor of Character Education and Co-Director of the Centre for Character and Citizenship at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, defines character as "the set of psychological characteristics that motivate and enable the individual to function as a competent moral agent, that is, to do 'good' in the world." (Berkowitz, 2011) Character Education can be thought of as "the deliberate effort to help people understand, care about, and act upon core ethical values" (Lickona, 1991). There are many other definitions, but what does it mean for Scotland?
 
Scotland has a long and intertwined history with character and values. In the midst of his radical approaches to social reform, Robert Owen founded the Institute for the Formation of Character at New Lanark in 1816. The country's history in education is much tied to its culture and underpinning values. Scotland's traditional aspirations relate to social reform, justice and a shared determination to address broad and general questions relating to philosophy, ethics, economics, technology, humanistic approaches to pedagogy and democracy. Notable Scottish thinkers in these areas include Adam Smith, David Hume, Robert Owen, John MacMurray, Alasdair MacIntyre and many others.
 
Character and values education are not new ideas, and their renewed focus is a natural extension of Scotland's educational history. The influential 1947 report of the Advisory Council on Education in Scotland states the following:
 
"Our real wealth is in the character and skill of our people."
 
"The secondary school... should provide a rich social environment where the adolescent grows in character and understanding through the interplay of personalities rather than by the imparting of knowledge."
 
"The breaking of new ground rather than the treading of safe ground has become the task of all in education."
 
In the book entitled Pioneering Moral Education, Dr William Gatherer provides what Professor David Carr described as "a very objective no-nonsense critical assessment" of 20th Century approaches to moral education led by the Scottish philanthropist Victor Cook, leading to the establishment of the Gordon Cook Foundation. This book, possibly the only publication in existence that details a specifically Scottish approach to moral education, delivers an honest portrayal of the difficulties and failures experienced by Victor Cook in his mission to establish a place for moral education, while at the same time describing how his work represented "...the establishment of moral education in schools throughout the world."
 
Today, with the continuing development of initiatives such as Curriculum for Excellence (CfE), Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC) and the enthusiasm for which professionals in Scotland have embraced programmes such as Rights Respecting Schools and Eco Schools, Scotland is being recognised internationally as a global leader in citizenship education. Character and values-based approaches are integral to these policies. The purpose of CfE is to develop young people's attributes and capacities. Scotland's professional teaching standards are underpinned by the values of social justice, integrity, trust, respect and professional commitment. Similarly, other policy agendas such as the Wood Commission report, Global CitizenshipEnterprise in Education and the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014) provide an ideal context for approaches aimed at developing and empowering young people's values, skills and attributes.
 
Recent developments in science, technology, psychology and philosophy have resulted in a global resurgence and the emergence of new and robust frameworks for character and values development. A plethora of new programmes have been made available around the world, the research and evidence base is continually growing and initial findings suggest that there are strong correlations between skills, character qualities and positive outcomes for children and young people (OECD, 2015). In the UK, the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues in University of Birmingham is contributing to the research base for character, as are Scottish institutions including University of Glasgow and University of Aberdeen.
 
This is a rapidly expanding area of practice and research. This conference aims to provide an introduction to the key issues to help practitioners, policy makers and researchers to understand and inform the relevance of this work for children and young people in Scotland. For more information please consult the Key Reading tab above.


Dr Avis Glaze
Character Education: Lessons from around the World

Avis Glaze
Prof Marvin Berkowitz
The 'Science' of Character Education

Marvin
Bishopbriggs Community Ambassadors
Character, Values and Youth 

bbriggs
Gary Walsh - Character Scotland
Character Education in Scotland:  "Why, How and So What"?

gary
James O'Shaughnessy - International Positive Education Network
Education (re) design

James OShaughnessy
Rob Loe - Relational Schools
Education (re) design 

Rob Loe
Scottish Youth Parliament
Young People and Character 

SYP
Service Cadets
Young People and Character

Service Cadets

 (TO BE ADDED

Below is a selection of photographs from both days of the conference. A huge thank you to Steven Brown Photography for providing these and for your efforts during the event. 


Day 1 - Monday 15th June, 2015

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Day 2 - Tuesday 16th June, 2015

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Thank you to all contributors for both participating in and contributing to the delivery of the conference. We would like to use this space to recognise speakers, workshop facilitators and panel contributors.




View the Conference Programme

View the Conference Companion



Dr Alan BrittonBriefing Note on Education for Citizenship in Scotland
Dr James MacAllisterMacmurray on learning to be human
Dr Avis Glaze Character Development: Education at its Best 
Prof Marvin BerkowitzUnderstanding Effective Character Education
OECDSkills for Social Progress: the power of social and emotional skills
Education ScotlandBuilding the Curriculum 4: Skills for learning, skills for life and skills for work 
Education Scotland et alNational Youth Work Strategy 2014-2019
Tila MorrisThe Radical Road to Character Building

Further Reading
The documents below are policy documents, research papers and introductory readings that you may find useful for reference.







https://www.character-scotland.org.uk/conference#.VZArH5XbLIU

Moral Panics

The sensible thing for a government to do when it wishes to transform society by way of education is to create a moral panic to justify its interference.
The arguments used for involving schools in explicit moral instruction have enormous social and political significance. The Introduction to Character Education in America’s Schools asks the rhetorical question "Why Educate for Character?" The answer reveals a dim view of contemporary American social life: "Because many homes do not". The authors briefly identify the home as "a big part of the problem"  and they list some statistics - half of all children live in nontraditional families, including single parent homes and blended families. The claim is made that "statistics link the decline of the traditional nuclear family with rising teen pregnancy, school drop-outs, divorce rates, unemployment, poverty, and just about every other ill in our society"  
http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwsfd/2001/Geren.PDF

In Scotland the panic is being built around the education attainment gap between those social groups who perform best and least, but the culprits are the same, the poor and disadvantaged. Education will teach everyone their place; it always has.

Globalisation

The problem is that there are not enough high quality jobs for young people and the situation is going to get worse but in order to survive governments must somehow change the narrative. The story becomes: education must be transformed so that learners develop 21st century skills; team work, creativity, empathy, problem solving abilities, higher order thinking skills. This is to prepare young people for the knowledge based economy.

But the reality is that "if the twentieth century brought mechanical Taylorism, characterised by the Fordist production line, where the knowledge of craft workers was captured, codified and re-engineered in the shape of the moving assembly line by management, the twenty-first century is the age of digital Taylorism." There is evidence that knowledge work is being translated into working knowledge, codified, digitised into software prescripts and packages that can be " transmitted and manipulated by others regardless of location."
 
Highly skilled workers in Europe will have to compete with highly skilled workers in places like India and China and there are many more of them there who will work for less wages." If ‘permission to think’ is limited to a relatively small proportion of the European workforce, this raises fundamental issues about the role and content of mass higher education."

http://www.tlrp.org/pub/documents/globalisationcomm.pdf

Wellbeing, global citizenship, mindfulness, resilience, character, surveillance, the outcomes of Curriculum for Excellence.


It looks like the population is going to be put to sleep !