Winning through

I hated sport at school.   Dismal afternoons of being bussed off to some bleak, windswept field that even the sheep shunned, just to kick a ball about for an hour.   Utterly pointless.   And nothing to do with education.

Oh, but how wrong I was.   Not about the lack of learning;  the only thing I learnt from such afternoons was just how much I hated sport.   No, what I failed to grasp was this was the model for the education of the future.

Learning was to become no longer the primary purpose of education.   Schools were moving to a new sporting model.

Under it, the curriculum was divided into various disciplines, each of which had its own rules (or syllabus), laid down by governments, and often lacking any real logic (see previous post, “Play up, and Play the Game”).   And within those rules, you trained, under the watchful eye of a coach (or trainer).

Gyms for the mind

I’m not alone in drawing such parallels.   Baroness Deech, the former head of the Office of the Independent Adjudicator, last year likened “studying for a university degree to going to the gym: you pay your money, but you have to put in the work to get fit”.

And that same THE piece reported that the University of Sunderland had gone one one stage further, and launched a lifelong-learning scheme that followed the model of gym membership.   Under the strapline “a gym for the mind”, the university is trying to sell its traditional lifelong provision not as individual courses, but as a mental workout centre where, for a monthly fee, you can attend as many sessions as time permits.

Now it is true, I have to accept, that some people, young people in particular, seem actually enjoy going to the gym (can’t think why).   So perhaps such a sales pitch might work.

No Pain, no Gain?

But I worry about this analogy between learning and physical exercise.   After all, not many athletes train just for the sake of training.

No, no, training is too much like hard work.   Long hours of tedium, needing not only dedication but a certain tolerance to pain.   The process of learning is portrayed at best as a necessary evil, at worst as a waste of time.   A way to beat your competitors.

For what matters is not the process, but the outcome.   That final, glorious day of the game when, all opposition trounced, you became the proud possessor of the prize:  the gold medal, the championship, or the coveted qualification.

Learning is being sidelined;  an activity that human beings instinctively enjoy is being perverted into a painful necessity.

Ends by any means

And, just as in sport, the aim for many becomes not just to achieve that end, but do so with the minimum amount of effort.   Corners are, after all, there to be cut.

If an athlete wants to cut corners, they take drugs.   Whereas the scholar . . . . ?

Takes drugs too.   Apparently.   Both universities and schools are seeing increases in the use of smart drugs, or “nootropics” to enhance academic performance:  drugs to keep you focussed like modafinil (Provigil), methylphenidate (Ritalin), and amphetamine (Dexedrine);  drugs to help you memorise like brahmi, piracetam (Nootropil), donepezil (Aricept) and galantamine (Reminyl).

Drugs?   Goodness me;  that’s hardly cricket.   Getting unfair advantage by taking drugs.   Could be the end of education as we know it.   Woe and thrice woe.   What’s to be done.

Well, in sport they know what to do.   Ban the drugs.   And introduce random drug tests for the competitors.

So, no surprise then that some academics are calling for similar measures to be introduced in education.   The latest is Professor Sahakian of Cambridge, who (according to the Metro newspaper earlier this week) used a Royal Institution Lecture to argue that universities should take these issues seriously.

Banning is, unfortunately, a bit of a problem, not least because many of these drugs are freely available.    Some, like caffeine, are even used by educators themselves.   Shameful.

So random drugs testing before and after exams seems the logical solution.

Oh, sure, the odd fuddy-duddy might object to taking urine samples straight after an exam.   But, says Professor Sahakian, we should at least consider it.   After all, we have to face facts.   Cheating has to be rooted out.

Distant Difficulties

Mind you, the random drug testing of distance learners is particularly difficult.   Even if you can find a way to be sure the urine comes from the right person, you still have to get it to the tester and that, in these days of Royal Mail strikes, is far from assured.

Indeed, it could be suggested that this is simply one more trick from the face-to-facers to try to stamp out distance learning.

I wouldn’t know about that.   I’m not that cynical.   (No, I’m not.   Really.)   But I would advise distance learning providers to be prepared.   Buy your drug-testing kits today.   Forewarned is forearmed.

And Future Fusions

Of course, in the long term, even this problem will disappear.   For two reasons.

One is that the current quest for isms (sexism, racism, ageism and, most recently, sizism, according to the BBC) will eventually culminate in the recognition of abilityism as the last bastion of unfair discrimination.

Under laws then to be introduced, it will become illegal to discriminate against someone on the grounds of ability alone:  everyone must be given equal opportunities, regardless of ability.

Politicians, as ever, are leading the way.   There’s clearly no discrimination on the grounds of ability in politics;  how else would we be lumbered with the lot we’ve got at present?.

This will, inevitably, be extended to all professions.   Oh, sure, some die-hards will argue that some exceptions should be allowed (eg brain-surgeon).  But I’m confident that common sense will eventually prevail and that even these last pockets of prejudice will be eradicated.

But even such advances will eventually become redundant.   Already, I hear, government scientists are developing a chip that can be programmed with a wide variety of skills (everything from DIY plumbing to how to vote Labour) and implanted into children’s brains so that they can acquire these skills without all that tedious training, thus leaving them free to breed, build effigies of Tony Blair, consume the planet and fulfil all those other responsibilities that will be required of the 22^nd Century citizen.

Ah, it makes you feel good just to think about it.

Sources: Metro Newspaper, 22 February, p21 Professor Sahakian

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=408593 gyms

http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/increase-academic-doping-could-spark-routine-urine-tests-exam-students-25723.html drugs

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8314125.stm overweight should be protected