Way back – or so it feels – in September I wrote a blog entitled “Short cuts to wisdom”, the punchline being that there none.
I said, among other things, that developing opinions “isn’t a process which should or can be speeded up, for which there should be a short cut. For a judgement to stand up it needs to be anchored in things we have read, debated, mulled over, talked through and, in some cases, agonised over.”
If ever there was a time when those words may feel a little idealistic, or even impractical, this is it. Our Year 11s and 13s are in the midst of public exams and other Senior School pupils are undergoing or have just finished internal ones (“end ofs” – short for end of year tests, rather than anything more terminal). Exams, by their nature, require quick thought, speedy decisions and, sometimes, rapid adoption of positions – even if they are not genuinely held.
So how can we square these end ofs, which we do not have to run, with our oft-stated opposition to the reductive practice of “teaching to the test”? How does requiring our pupils to rush to judgement, several times a day for several days, sit with our promotion of careful, considered thought?
The answer, of course, is that there is real tension. Exams are not the best way to arrive at well-considered judgements in those subjects that require them, but they do train memory, the ability to think (as opposed to judge) quickly, and how to manage both stress and time. In addition, they are the main way our pupils will be tested and assessed. So, we need to ready them accordingly, even while recognising that preparing for and taking an exam is only part of what we do in school.
What we can also do is help our pupils understand that exams are part of a wider picture. They are centrally designed ways to measure a huge number and range of people against agreed criteria. They can’t be expected to assess everything that counts or matters. This does not mean exams are not valid or relevant, but it does mean that they give a very particular view of what being “good” at a subject involves.
Our job, then, is to help pupils realise that being able to work to a markscheme is only one aspect of mastering their various disciplines. To see that, the deeper we go in a subject, the less certainty there will be, that the whole idea of there being a right answer will give way to ambiguity, to the grey areas, to those penumbras where opposing positions can be equally valid.
One of my history teacher colleagues is fond of telling his pupils, when they are struggling to determine whether a cause of an event was social, political or economic – “But it could be all three, Sir!” – that it’s because “history is like life: messy. Not always possible to put into neat categories.”
This isn’t unique to history lessons, of course, or even the Senior School. Right from the start, in our Pre-Prep, we emphasise curiosity, active learning, critical thinking, independence and autonomy. The exploratory curriculum provides opportunities for our youngest children to problem solve, ask questions, and build resilience.
And this, I think, is what we need our pupils to work towards and to learn to love. If they are to provide counterweights to the seductive certainty of social media, the pressure to identify with off-the-shelf opinions or the improbability of miracle cures for big issues, they need to get comfortable with ambiguity.
That, in turn, means reading, thinking, debating, engaging. Trying every which way we can to encourage our pupils to look for nuance, seek out and evaluate views opposed to their own, test their thinking with people at home and at school.
Much of good teaching sets this up. Our “Socratic” approach to Maths encourages pupils to find things out for themselves, working out what works and, crucially, why. In Chemistry, pupils are encouraged to design, not just run, experiments. In English, colleagues train pupils to make their own annotations during discussion. DTE challenges at all levels explicitly require problem solving. Seminar-style lessons allow critical thinking and discussion, based on prior reading and thought: an academic discussion, with the teacher’s hand lightly on the tiller, rather than a lecture.
Our new Political Literacy course in Year 10 follows suit. Twice a week throughout the Summer Term, our (mainly) 15-year-olds are learning some of the nuts and bolts of our political system (the difference between parliament and government, the pros and cons of our electoral system) while also exploring some big issues: the nature of sovereignty, for example.
Partly this is a sensible response to the government’s plan to reduce the voting age to 16. But it’s also a chance to engage with more uncertainty. Can it ever be right for one country to impinge upon another’s national sovereignty? Would we be better off with proportional representation? Difficult questions that reward study and being informed, debating positions, reflecting on one’s own and others’ journey to opinion, arriving at a position which admits imperfection, uncertainty and potential change.
At Highgate, we are on a mission to become a “reading school”, by promoting reading at every opportunity. For example, many teachers include a reading recommendation in their email sign-off (at time of writing, mine is Muckle Flugga by Michael Pedersen). Library lessons are a weekly or fortnightly part of the timetable in Years 3-8. Younger Junior School pupils take on the Tower of Books challenge, and older ones engage in Reading Responses to encourage reading at home and engaging with text in various ways, such as a diary entry from the point of view of a character, or drawings of scenes from the story. Scholarly articles are a regular feature of many Senior School lessons and the walls of Top Site are currently festooned with book recommendations. Even our annual Giving Day includes a Reading Breakfast for Pre-Prep pupils and parents: a wonderful opportunity for families to see others immersing themselves in books and stories and revel in the enjoyment of reading for pleasure. Reading, because – unlike scrolling – it doesn’t invite us to do things fast or to take short-cuts. To read is to take time.
I think reading makes possible a childhood which allows every pupil to experiment with ambiguity and to practise reaching and changing and redefining decisions safely, invaluable steps on the path to an adulthood from which our children will always look for ways to reach judgement skilfully, eagerly, collaboratively and responsively.
While your child wrestles with yet another set of flashcards or memorises the latest vocab sheet, remember that it’s only a small part of the education that schools and parents are providing. Just like your children, you and we will doubtless look closely at how they’ve navigated ‘end ofs’ and external exams. But let us not overlook the underlying attitudes they’ll have developed to learning, to getting well informed, to the unbelievably transformative power of reading well and widely, as child and adult, to live confidently, purposefully, imaginatively in a world of ambiguity.
About the author Adam Pettitt, Head Adam has been Head of Highgate since 2006. He was previously Head of Modern Languages at Abingdon School and then Deputy Head at Norwich School. He read French and German at university and continues to teach both subjects to Y9 pupils at Highgate. Beyond work, Adam enjoys running marathons and is a recent convert to inter-railing.
