'Polycrisis': a group of interconnected global risks with compounding effects.
What is the purpose of education? Does it prepare us to become autonomous and functional members of society or merely a tool for Foucault's panopticism? Are assessments successful at measuring what they’re even trying to, or are they measuring something disguised as valuable?
On January 17th, Edge Foundation, in partnership with HMC, ASCL, Rethinking Assessment and St Paul’s Girls’ School, hosted ‘Next Generation Assessment – Planning for the Future,’ in Draper’s Hall to discuss questions on the future of education and assessment. The day was formed of varying panels on different topics, with each panellist offering a unique perspective. On one panel, Andrew Haldane, Royal Society of Arts, described the three horsemen of the apocalypse as: technology; demography and inequality. He elaborated to say we're coming up to the fourth industrial revolution. As lifespans extend we're more likely to have multiple careers, meaning a need to place more emphasis on lifelong learning. However, many who could benefit most from this, fall through the gaps, failed by the 'talk and chalk' model into loathing, instead of loving, education. On another panel, one professional advocated the need for kindness and the role of adults, teachers and the entire education system to model this kindness. In ‘Rethinking Assessment In Schools’, one person spoke about how we need to be courageous enough to present an alternative when we see inequality. We need to show the how, not just the what and the why; “someone has to go first, so why not us?”
I was on a panel with Ife Obasa, Jonas Andrew-Phillip, Lottie Cooke, Billiejean Goodyer and Maanya Patel. We’re all still counted as ‘young people’ with recent, or current, experiences of the education system. I’m studying at Cambridge Univeristy as part of the pioneering cohort for their new Foundation Year for disadvantaged students. In our panel, we spoke about the three words that encapsulate our experiences of school and assessment (mine were turbulence, abelist and perseverance). We spoke about other contributing factors that made this experience harder for us (I spoke about being an autistic queer Care Leaver who has been homeless and has had to go to school off the street, hungry and trying to study whilst in abusive homes) And we were asked if we could reset the system how we could go about it (I spoke about how attendance rewards are ableist and rewarding the luck of being healthy, though for an assesment at Cambridge, I’d just had an essay on the same subject where I wrote about returning to the 1998 model of tuition fees for higher education.)
In reality, there is an infinite number of answers for each of these questions, before even considering the infinite amount of answers for the other infinite amount of questions that could be asked on the subject. The model of the education system is a massive topic that affects all our lives, especially at a formative age. And fixing the system can feel like an even bigger topic than speaking about it. But education fundamentally needs to be a right and not a privilege, something that everyone can engage with throughout our lives and in ways that work for us. The system needs fixing, so let’s start fixing it. Let's continue having these discussions and hearing different ideas and perspectives and voices. “Someone has to go first, so why not us?”