Back to the Future of Education:
The Relevance of Classical Models
to Teaching Today.
To know is to be able to do - ancient African proverb
Dear Parents, Teachers, Students and Guardians,
I am writing to offer a perspective on how teachers could improve on a central part of the ‘teaching/learning’ process, in this case, examinations; but contrary to expectations, it is to the past that I direct our attention, and not to ‘recent advances’ in ‘mind-brain science’, or perhaps the latest from the techy world of AI. The internet contains more than enough on these subjects - and much of it, I dare say, of doubtful quality and relevance.
If I might beseech your forbearance for the length of this ‘letter’, then it is rather to the past that I wish to convey your attention, so that I might unfold the pedagogical paradox of going ‘back to the future’. To my mind, going back to the future is to go back to the often-ignored classical models of education that I would argue, can best furnish us with the ability to turn into reality, concepts such as ‘life-long learning’ which, unfortunately, in many settings, remain mere slogans. By the end of this letter, I hope you will see that the purpose of this going back is, in the spirit of Carlyle’s sartor resartus, a kind of modern professional development appeal to re-tutoring the tutor.
The classical model of education I would like to present here is the ‘magister et discipulus’ model, aka the master and the apprentice (m&a), and I would like to illustratively employ this concept in the context of how we might guide our students through baseline tests/examinations. The m&a dyad, you might recall, is the relationship between the experienced and the inexperienced, the virtuoso and the virgin, if you like, in a familial context. It is worth bearing in mind that traditionally, the m&a context was not a ‘class-room’. It was instead, a real-life environment, in which, throughout a definite period, the neophyte was able to engage all their senses whilst observing the master repeatedly and empathetically model all of the procedures requisite for an excellent educational outcome; that, at least is my take on m&a. Now let’s apply that scenario to exams, that we might see how we can improve as teachers.
We all know that last minute cramming, frayed nerves and vacant stares are not the best way to do well in an exam. Teachers themselves would presumably not take a teacher’s exam in this sorry state, and so the lesson from the classical model is simple. Sit the exam yourself. Sit the exam, (especially baseline tests) that you require your students to sit, and, in full view of them, model - and so encourage - the requisite confident, calm, and focused approach - whilst simultaneously reminding them about the importance of planning. This is easier when there is more than one teacher in your department, so that as in English, for example, I for my part, recently joined the students as an exam candidate for an unseen paper - set by another English teacher. But there is a greater value to this practice.
At the beginning of a new year, during formative assessment, this approach will give the teacher valuable data on what questions and what techniques students might have difficulties with - all from the true perspective of the ‘empathy’ we often preach but seldom practice - and all the better to inform planning. Empathy will naturally draw us to the fact that there is many an exam taking student under a duress which is not necessarily a reflection of their ability. However, this discomposure is something that perhaps only a psychologist might detect, as the students themselves would seldom confess. Reminds one of the classic: “do you understand?” question, that always receives a frequently false affirmative.
The long and short of this aspect of the m&a model is that D.I.Y is an excellent method of formative assessment for your students, and at the same time it offers a still greater instruction of value, which is that this practice can also be an equally apposite summative assessment of the teachers themselves. We never stop learning, right? Latter day pedagogues love to lecture on the value and love of ‘life-long learning’, but do we actually embody it? OK, you’ve got 2 PGCE’s from a famous ‘international’ university, and you’ve been teaching for 30 years. So what? Do you truly - empathetically - understand the lives of the generation that you are teaching, and are you able to effectively transmit digestible portions of your certified corpus of knowledge in a way that students are able to retain - not just for exam-time regurgitation, but as part of their suite of embodied skills?
An affirmative to that question is given by those to whom teaching is truly a calling. This is what makes a true teacher, aka a master of their subject (all aspects) or at the very least on their way to being a master; the true teacher is not only a maestro of his subject, but an empathetic magister, who knows exactly what it is like to study, and to be tested. The teacher ‘in it for the money’, or the one who simply ‘loves kids’ would be better off establishing an orphanage; but the master must know what it is like to be a kid or an apprentice; a journeyman successfully going through both the study and especially the examination process that will lead to their own eventual occupation of the position of master. In conclusion, in modern educational parlance, we speak of the entire pedagogical process as ‘teaching and learning’, which in my opinion is inaccurate; it is rather, modelling and studying but on this, more, perhaps, in my next, definitely more terse contribution.
Yours Faithfully,
Kofi Ababio (Mr. K)
List of some famous master-apprentice relationships
- Socrates & Platon
- Mr. Miagi & The Karate Kid
- Yoda & Luke Skywalker
- Waldemar de Brito & Pelé
- Professor Albus Dumbledore & Harry Potter