Alexander Brodie in his book “The Scottish Enlightenment” describes the contribution of a group of key literati-the enlightened Scots who forged one of the great intellectual and philosophical movements of Scottish-and European-history. It was a period, he tells us, when Scots produced works of genius in chemistry, geology, engineering, economics, philosophy, poetry and sociology among others. These men were part of an international community of thinkers, people like Kant, who thought for themselves, and who saw themselves as members of an international republic of letters. What strikes me on reading this book are the parallels with some of our contemporary ways of thinking about education. We are told that the Republic of Letters had no boundaries; the literati wrote for anyone anywhere willing to read them; ideas were laid out for public discussion, dispute and improvement. This public dissection of ideas finds a contemporary parallel in blogs, where writers set out their stall, and invite comment, and debate. Today’s online discourses represent efforts by educationalists to grapple with the big issues in teaching and learning, and to share such ideas with an international readership. There is a real crossover of thinking between the UK and the USA, for example. The literati set up societieswhereby they could enjoy each thers company and discuss and debate the issues of the day.
One account describes such a society (the Oyster Club), where,
the conversation was always free, often scientific, but never didactic or disputatious..as the resort of (visiting scientists to Edinburgh) it derived an extraordinary degree of variety and interest.
Brodie remarks that this was a time, too, of emphasis on critical reflection and analysis; “Enlightenment” was understood as mental activity engaged by a person committed to the values of truth and validity. Much of this seems familar to us today-enlightenment as a concept is every bit as important in today’s schools as it was in the coffee houses of the New Town two centuries ago.
Henry Home, Lord Kames was one of the leading lights in the Scottish Enlightment of the late 18th century. A judge and author of several influential books, notably “Sketches of the History of Man”, Kames contributed much to the debate on religion, education, law and the nature of civil society. He was in good company. Among other leading thinkers of the day were philospher David Hulme and economist Adam Smith and I am interested in tracing the parallels between this golden epoch in Scottish history and where education-and society- seems to be heading today. Does the Curriculum for Excellence and its attendant infrastructure of virtual learning, formative assessment and modularised courses signify a new enlightment. Is Web 2.0 the new community of ideas? The Enlightment ideal was that
people should think for themselves, but not by themselves.
Would Kames, Smith, Hutcheson and Hulme recognise- and applaud- the aspirations of a Journey to Excellence? Certainly they believed in the importance of a good, liberal and general education. George Davie has discussed this tradition in his books “The Democratic Intellect” and the “Crisis of the Democratic Intellect”. Yet how significant was the Scottish Enlightment for the greater number of Scots, outwith the literati of the Edinburgh coffee houses? I hope to reflect on some of these issues over the next few posts.
Have found an excellent site called wikiHow. Embracing the wiki concept of creative commons, this site is an online DIY manual that anyone can contribute to and edit.. It has approximately 39 000 articles. These range from practical tips like maintaining your bicycle gears to more abstract issues like learning styles. Indeed there is a whole section on memorisation skil.ls, which I am going to pilot with my S1 c.lasses over the next two weeks.
Today in First Year we talked a little about field sketching. You have been asked to try a sketch of the farm landscape on page 96. There is a “worked example” on pages 95-96 of your textbook, but you might also be interested in what this guy has to say about sketching. When you prepare your field sketch of the farm think about the layout of your sketch-here, the example given suggests that you divide in into thirds, effectively giving you nine squares to work within.
For more on Visual Communication, visit the excellent website, Communication Nation.
We received a letter to say that our younger son, Fraser, will be part of the random sample to take part in the SSA for Maths and Core Skills. The survey studies what pupils across Scotland know and can do in certain subjects at important stages of their education. As the accompanying information sheet sets out, the SSA aims to collect accurate, up to date information that will allow the Government to plan and deliver policies to benefit all pupils, understand some of the factors which influence attainment and achievement and to target resources.
SSA was introduced in 2005 as part of Assessment for Learning, since when it has surveyed:
Will be doing an In Service on blogs and wikis on Monday 21st, along with Jane Bulloch our librarian. I have made up a PowerPoint, which I;ll put out on the school intranet. Here’s a preview below. It’s really just a few images designed as hooks for the discussion. I don’t want to spend more than 20 iminutes on this, as we want colleagues to try making their own blog, and to ask questions.
When I watch or make up a PowerPoint slide show, I recall the story of the IBM president, who, attending a presentation by one of his senior mangement, stood up and switched off the projector. “How about we just talk about your business?” he said. There was a very long pause, before the meeting recommenced, but he had made a vefry important point.
I think we need to watch that we don’t use PPs as a crutch and switch off our critical thinking faculties. I think that’s whay embedding slide shows on blogs is a useful option-you can direct people to the blog to look at the presentation in detail, and spend more time actually engaging with them at the meeting, rather than just talking at them.
