All the world’s a stage
Anastasia De Waal, 5 June 2009
This year Cambridge University is to email exam results to students before displaying them in public outside the university’s senate house. On receipt of the email, students will have the opportunity to remove themselves from the public list, if they can prove ‘exceptional circumstances’ such as mental health problems.
The move comes after lengthy debate with the student union, centring on the premise that public failure is humiliating and ‘stressful’.
Supporters argue that the new system is much fairer, as it will remove the risk of other people finding out candidates’ results before the candidates themselves; in addition it allows those who have underachieved some time to acclimatise to their results before they are revealed to other people. The idea is benign, but real life may not be so kind: wrapping students in cotton wool merely inculcates emotional fragility. The reverse of the ‘self-esteem’ so widely feted.
Attempts to tidy up the messy, disappointing parts of life also find their way into schools, as teachers shy away from criticism for fear of upsetting children. Instead, they are encouraged to endlessly praise pupils, and ignore poor behaviour where possible. While there is a clear case for reinforcing positive behaviour, such a policy is not without pitfalls. This week’s Times Educational Supplement carries a feature about praise, quoting from Alan McLean’s new book, Motivating Every Learner. He cites a 10-year-old pupil recalling praise for sitting in her seat in Year 1: “What’s the point of doing anything if you’re praised for just sitting?” McLean concludes: ‘Pupils see through that plastic praise…it can leave them feeling patronised and pitied. That’s not good for their self-belief, either. False praise breeds false confidence and, ultimately, resentment and mistrust.”
So how can schools promote healthy self-esteem – in its sincerest form: a sense of self-worth anchored in reality, secure enough in one’s strengths to confront one’s weaknesses? The Independent Schools Council (ISC) published results this week showing a ‘statistically significant relationship in all school types’ between the number of extracurricular activities offered, and the proportion of pupils attaining top grades at GCSE. Those offering 30 or more activities were found to be more likely to have nearly 100% of pupils getting grade B or above at GCSE, compared with aproximately 30% of pupils at schools that offer 20 activities. The ISC’s head of research, Larner Bernard, highlighted the importance of life beyond the curriculum:
‘The more schools offer, the greater the likelihood pupils will find something they are good at… If a child knows they are good at something it helps them feel better.’
It seems clear that the boost in motivation and gentle lessons of winning and losing implicit in activities such as sports do far more to build resilience in young people than making them feel they’ve done enough just by sitting down.
By Helen Cowen
With reference to the idea of the “gentle lessons” of sport, in my (single-sex) school, every boy had to be a member of one of six house, which competed against each other, the only means of competition being by sporting achievement.
This meant that, if you were a poor mathematician, but a good athlete, you were a credit to your house; whereas, if you were an outstanding mathematician, but a poor athlete, you were a liability to your house.
The former Head of Westminster School, Dr John Rae, wrote of how sports were introduced into schools some centuries ago, coming to take on all the “attributes of a religion” with the teacher becoming even greater “devotees” than the pupils.
“Sports were seen as important for the development of a “manly character” and character seen as superior to intellect.”
The historian, James Morris, in his three-part history of the British Empire, has written of how, as the Empire expanded, and the tasks facing its administrators grew increasingly complex, so the standard “sports-biased” education became less and less relevant.
Corelli Barnett has written of the harm done to this country since WWII by an educational system whose first priority is not the teaching of skills.
I would agree that there is a considerable lesson to be learnt here, but possibly not the one Ms Cowen was thinking of.