Knowledge-based curriculum is not the answer in English
Last week, I was teaching the scene in Macbeth when our hero sees an illusionary dagger. It was a lower ability group in Y9. The scene was homing in on the quotation 'Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell/ That summons thee to heaven or to hell' and the question my Academy booklet, which all teachers are required to work from, wanted me to ask was 'Why might Shakespeare have used rhyming couplets?’
The booklet said the reason was to bring the scene 'closure' and so the students copied this down from my visualiser, then repeated it verbatim and in unison, shared the exact wording in their pairs and even wrote it again on a whiteboard. The belt and braces of obedience had been completed. I was compliant with the Trust-wide policy. Time for me to move to the next page of the booklet.
Although this was a satisfactory interpretation, it didn't seem sufficient. The class hadn't given it any thought of their own and, as an experienced teacher, I could tell the students didn't fully understand what they were being asked to write down. So I decided to deviate from the booklet.
I turned the visualiser off, moved to stand with the students in the middle of the room, where I would have naturally stood before being required to teach in a formulaic way, asked them ‘why else do you think Shakespeare used a rhyme here?' and prompted them to write down their own ideas. They looked terrified.
Half of the class pointed to the blank screen to tell me I had accidentally turned the visualiser off, most of the other half looked around the room for ‘posh words the teacher uses’ that might be the correct answer, a couple wrote completely misplaced words so they didn't get in trouble for not having the answer (this would never happen) and only one boy wrote 'so it gets in his head' and this was what I celebrated.
Having initially been instructed to adhere to the Orwellian repetition of one word/phrase, and then copy this right answer down, they were left baffled by the concept of alternative interpretations.
We discussed the Witches' similar use of rhyme and how they might have put Macbeth under a spell, or how they might have ‘got in his head’. And then a girl at the back said that the poison his wife might have poured has now ‘got in his ear’ to which I smiled at her use of ‘ear', having remembered the quotation she found funny last week. Then loads of new ideas surfaced. We digressed to speak about a funeral knell and I noticed the look of a child who had recently been to their Nana's funeral so I kept an eye on them. The room erupted into lively discussion.
The formulaic booklet spent the first 30 minutes of the lesson demanding repetition of a handful of prescribed ideas, none of which I had planned myself. It didn't give me the opportunity to use my teaching skills to generate multiple interpretations as they arose through critical discussion. It just had a narrow set of the same prepackaged ideas for all.
In these lessons, students aren't expected or encouraged to say a single word that they've generated themselves, in fact they are discouraged in some cases. Ideas come from me, the autocrat at the front, behind the lectern.
Prior to our discussion, I had to work really hard to convince them that they didn't need to get it right. They needed to practise thinking for themselves because there is no one right answer. When they have an idea of their own they are put off saying it because it sounds so far from the prescribed ‘posh’ words we require them to repeat and memorize. Their confidence and self-belief is already low enough, and now they don't even trust their own opinions anymore.
The MAT wanted me to fill in the booklet, keep the students silent, get them to agree with me, copy down, and then move on to the next right answer. SLT say that students will organically develop a view of their own later. I don't see how.
To an observer, unaware of the tentative nature of teaching and learning English, the one answer sounds clever, is certainly obedient and gets the work done. Students behave in lessons as though we're lining them up for lunch.
Not only does this subdue already pacified children: it maintains their reliance on screens, infantilises and deskills teachers, flattens the scope of the best exam answers, ruins the joy and depth of the text, hampers the development of critical skills needed for Further Education and a life competing with AI, devalues the importance of a group discussion, shows them the person with authority doesn't have the humility to appreciate other ideas, and limits young minds to art as fact.
From EMC
If you have a similar experience to this teacher then we would really like you to get in touch. Ideally, you would write a paragraph or two outlining what you and your students are being required to do, how this has affected your students’ experience of English and how it has had an impact on the professionalism of you and your department. You can email [email protected].
We would not make anything sent to us public without permission and we would make sure to protect the anonymity of you and your institution. If you did not want your experiences shared, we would simply use them to build a picture for ourselves of what’s happening.
These are some of the things we’re keen to find out:
- are these practices limited to, or most dominant in, schools situated in areas of socioeconomic disadvantage?
- what is the response of students in lessons?
- what is the effect of how students perceive English more generally?
- what is the effect on your students’ confidence, especially in thinking about and articulating their own ideas?
- what consultation was involved in introducing such a curriculum into English departments?
- what has been the effect on teacher morale, job satisfaction and retention?
