On Being Seduced by George Osborne

George Osborne is trying to seduce me, or rather, people like me. According to the Guardian, the Chancellor has hit upon the idea of paying new maths and physics PhD graduates £40000 a year to go straight onto a 'Teach First' type scheme whereby they will complete a PGCE on the job, maintain a research profile and get their students work placements at the sponsoring employers, which include GlaxoSmithKline and Nationwide. These new super-teachers, or 'chairs' as they will apparently be known, will also be expected to run master classes and build links with universities. Many have already commented on this idea, but as both a recent maths PhD recipient and the spouse of a teacher, I think I can helpfully add to the debate.

 

Back in the mists of time, I went to an undergraduate open day at Cambridge University, and listened to three lectures by, we were told, some of the leading researchers in the maths department. One was a dull pure maths talk by a man who shouted a lot, and another a statistics lecture from a man who mubbled all the way through. The applied maths talk, on why ducks leave ripples spanning a certain angle in their wake as they swim along, was the only engaging and well-presented talk. That day sticks in my mind, as I'd expected to enjoy myself and ended up being largely disappointed. It's evidence that backs up my biggest worry about the government's plans: great researchers do not necessarily make good teachers.

 

The fact is that being an able researcher takes a set of skills that don't necessarily overlap with being a good teacher, as anyone who's sat through excruciatingly dull university lectures can testify. The Big Bang Theory is obviously a spoof version of life in a physics department, but for a long time I couldn't see what was funny as it was too true to real life! While not all mathematicians are like Sheldon and many are perfectly capable of handling social interactions and relating to young people, I worry about letting some of the people I studied with loose on prospective postgraduates, never mind school children! Moreover, teaching a room full of undergraduate students who are paying exorbitant fees to be there, meaning one would hope they have at least a passing interest in their subjects and a certain level of background knowledge, is a very different kettle of fish from dealing with thirty reluctant learners who don't want to know and are brimming with teenage hormones!

 

I worry about the expectation that these chairs will be able to juggle maintaining a research profile (a full-time job in its own right) with study for a PGCE or similar qualification, coping with the demands of teaching and not going insane. University lecturers often struggle to get the balance right between research, undergraduate teaching and supervision of PhD students, administration and being an ambassador for their institution, without the pastoral demands of teaching in a school or college, the hell of OFSTED inspections and dealing with difficulties with irate and/or aggressive parents. My wife works incredibly hard as an FE lecturer and I'd like to think I occasionally worked hard when doing my postgraduate study. I'm quite convinced trying to do both simultaneously would be a recipe for burnout. £40K a year cannot, alas, buy more time.

You see, having watched my wife over the past couple of years, it seems to me that teachers have to be not just knowledgeable and passionate about their subjects but also diplomats, social workers, marking machines, skilled presenters, able administrators, willing to keep abreast of modern technology and committed to working insanely long hours to get things done for their students and cope with all the demands of the job. While sustaining a prolonged research project does equip one to some extent to cope with these demands, it certainly doesn't cover everything, and my experience is that it doesn't even necessarily mean one can explain complex ideas in a clear and engaging way. It also doesn't mean one will have the necessary pastoral skills to nurture young people at a highly formative stage of their lives.

I think the government, and Michael Gove in particular, are tied up with two profoundly unhelpful ideologies: that the purpose of an education system is to churn out workers capable of adding to the bottom line of UK plc. through either innovation or wage slavery depending on IQ and background,  and that in a modern, fast-moving knowledge-based economy, the achievement of the former (innovation) can somehow be managed by moving away from project work and critical thinking and back towards rote learning and memory tests as a measure of academic achievement. I don't see how this can be the case, and to my mind, any government serious about encouraging the next generations of researchers, inventors, visionaries and entrepreneurs needs to ensure that the curriculum allows room for creativity, critical reasoning and the joy of learning for its own sake.

An emphasis on yet more testing and rote learning both ignores the reality that Google places the raw facts at our fingertips and encourages students to become so focused on what's likely to be on the exam that no amount of enthusiasm from the person at the front, whether a Doctor of Philosophy or not, can encourage them to look beyond the textbook. It was bad enough when I was at school, and my wife's experience is that this is only getting worse. Moreover, even undergraduate maths courses are assessed largely by regurgitation of lecture notes - or at least mine certainly was - which is hardly the basis for original thinking and groundbreaking research.

In other words, to get the benefits Liz Truss, the Schools Minister, hopes to see requires both an ideological shift and serious investment over time, neither of which seems about to happen. Moreover, removing second chances (fees for 19+year olds in FE and loans for access courses to give but two examples) really doesn't help! I'm all for having well-qualified teachers with enthusiasm and a deep and broad knowledge of their subjects. I'm all for making the latest research findings accessible to students in schools and colleges. I'm keen to see a recognition of the skills acquired from studying for a PhD. I'm not convinced that Osborne's proposal achieves any of these things...