Ecology Banks And Education

This editorial follows on from the one in an earlier edition of the JBE, written by my good friend and colleague, Jean Wilson: it picks up and extends some of the themes expressed in Jean's article to provide a personal analysis of the trends which I perceive have affected biology teaching over recent years.

My analysis borrows from ecology to make sense of my observations over the last 30 years. In ecology, diversity is important to ensure robustness of ecosystems, to enable them to absorb and adapt to environmental change. Diversity in education is being reduced on two fronts; curricula are being over standardised (in form if not content) and teachers are selected to conform to the requirements of audit systems, this tends to deter or exclude those who would question , who may not readily comply, who don't think a 'plenary' after every lesson is either necessary or useful.

And I'm not alone in thinking ecology can help unravel the seemingly chaotic behaviour of complex systems. Coincidentally as I was completing this article, there was a programme on the radio explaining how the Bank of England were now employing ecologists and systems analysts to help make sense of the sub prime catastrophe. Banking and economics has until now relied on 'hard science', physics and mathematics, to provide models to predict the behaviour of financial markets, 'people' in these models were economic units who behaved rationally and without emotion. In addition, as banks got bigger and more complex they also, perhaps paradoxically, became much less diverse as they all adopted the same models and strategies and dealt in the same commodities (the old enforced separation of 'retail' and 'investment' banking having been relaxed). And when the global crash arrived, against the expectations of all their hard science, the financial 'ecosystem' couldn't cope. In a similar way education is 'selecting out' diversity and therefore robustness, and who at the chalk face doesn't see the 'cracks' appearing and being ignored, just as early sub prime defaults were ignored or hidden?

Teaching is an art, and biology teaching is no exception and perhaps arguably is archetypal in this respect, hence Jean's comment about 'a degree of right brain influence' is bang on the button! But before I continue in this vain I must digress slightly (as many good lectures do) to clarify my use of the term 'art' (and given what follows, the context of biology teaching could not be more apt). The word 'art' is laden with potential preconceptions, expectations and prejudices. If teaching is an art, what is it not? An all too common answer would be 'a science'. Like, I hope, most of you, I beg to differ. We have grown up with a perceived and false dichotomy between art and science, now thankfully in decline but not yet eradicated. This has polluted our thought in so many spheres: in politics, economics and education and not least in 'art' and 'science'. Notwithstanding the C. P. Snow initiated debate on the 'Two Cultures' and the efforts of many to bridge the divide, there still exists a chasm in the minds of many.

So, one word intimately associated with art is 'creativity'. But both art and science can be creative, this is not a distinguishing feature. The distinction is one of outcome not process. When Einstein envisioned himself traveling on a light beam and came up with the theory of relativity the creativity in this process was no less than when Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel; in the former the outcome was a general 'truth' or 'fact' elucidated by a genius (this is science!) which if Einstein had never existed would nonetheless have eventually been determined by another creative mind; the Cristine Chapel is a one off creation, unique and only in existence because Michael Angelo existed (this is art!). So what for me characterises an 'art' is the creation of something unique that communicates a 'truth' reflected from the life experience of the creator. A biology lecture for example!

And so, teaching is an art. Good biology teachers are creative, their individual lessons are (should be) unique, even idiosyncratic learning experiences for students. But more, much more they should be inspirational and leave the student with enhanced enthusiasm and interest in biology, as Jean said, they should 'inspire and empower'. If you can inspire a student the rest is guidance and is worth a thousand statements of aims or plenary sessions.

I contend that trends over several decades past have often militated against creative teaching in several respects. They have devalued any skill or outcome which can not me measured 'objectively' (through an obsession with 'performance measures', 'benchmarks', 'targets', 'audit', 'results' and various other unimaginative management control measures - we do not make widgets!); they discourage divergent, discursive 'exploration' of the subject (through the fallacy of 'improving' standards' by standardisation of curricula - see Jean's comment on 'not on the syllabus'); and perhaps worst of all they discourage many who would teach from entering the profession because they see the restrictions and strictures which would prevent them from being the creative, intuitive and original practitioners they aspire to be. Personally I doubt very much if I would enter teaching if I were now in my twenties and considering my career. Some may say this is no loss, what they could not deny is that it lowers the diversity within the profession.

On the first two of the above effects, devaluing unmeasurables and discouraging divergence, there has been much debate for many years, but Ofsted and QAA and their ilk have endured it all and prospered. The 'powers that be' in governments and education have no truck with attacks on their necessity and ability to 'raise standards', yet there are many, so many, at the 'chalk face' who intuitively (therefore to be ignored) know their methods are at best sub-optimising the system of education and at worst stultifying the learning experience of vast numbers of students. Yet there are also many at the 'chalk face', and their numbers are growing, who are convinced that the audit and inspection regimes are of value, even if they make life more difficult than they would wish; they are 'bought in' to the presiding paradigm, they 'believe' in the system. And this brings me to the third effect I suggested above, the discouragement of some from the profession. Look a little higher up the hierarchy than the 'chalk face', at middle managers, Head Teachers, Chancellors and Principals and you will see a land populated almost exclusively by people 'bought in' to the current paradigm. Now of course I open myself to the accusation of being an old timer, out of touch with the needs of modern education, maybe but I have been teaching for more than 30 years, I have been successful. I have often been told by my students that I have inspired them. Like most teachers today I have been subject to annual performance review when 'targets' are set for the following year (for example student recruitment, retention and results; measurable, objective and auditable criteria). At my institution we could also insert personal targets. The forms were only signed off when my manager and I both agreed with all the targets. For several years prior to my retirement my PR documents were not signed off. I did not object to my manager's targets, despite their often arbitrary nature and my inability to directly affect them, he objected to mine. You can't have that, he would say, it's not measurable. Stalemate, the forms were left unsigned. My unacceptable personal target? To inspire my students.

My whole premise in this article is that such managers should not be in sole charge of our education system, yet they seem to be. Why? The answer I propose brings us firmly onto ground we biologists should implicitly understand. I believe the proceduralisation and commodification of education at all levels, together with the accountancy methodologies used to control it (incorrectly by the way, no 'audit' should ever, could ever, generate any meaningful 'grade'!) have transformed the landscape, they have modified the ecosystem of education and the 'selection pressures' which determine survival in it. These new pressures are applied directly from the top, they deliberately favour those who are 'bought in' to the prevailing paradigm, and because they actively deter and penalise dissent (believe me I know), certain 'types' of individual do not survive or at least don't prosper or move up the hierarchy (this is often due to self exclusion rather than discrimination by managers, because some people choose not to apply for posts which would lead to moral conflict and dissonance). Every King needs his 'jester'. The present system ensures they are all silenced.

In a meeting with a QAA assessor I once used the term 'organic' in a discussion on the development of our courses. The assessor interjected and said he distrusted anyone who relied on such terms, they were woolly and not subject to measurement, he only trusted rational, verifiable processes based on hard data. Our profession should be protected from the influence of such people, yet they are in charge.

Ecology is an art and a science; good ecologists have a degree of 'right brain' thinking which helps them make sense of what can be very unpredictable subjects (ecosystems). They may have something to say to those who govern education as well as the Bank of England. But a word of warning; the finance and banking industry is presently shedding it's adherence to past wrong assumptions, it is undergoing a 'paradigm shift'. In the past it recruited heavily from the likes of engineering graduates for the insight they bring, and has thus absorbed substantial numbers of our best engineers, which are then, of course, lost to engineering or teaching (notwithstanding recent attempts to attract redundant bank employees into our profession). The insights they seek now may be from our best ecology graduates?