Edubook Review: What's the Point of School

What's the Point of School? By Guy Claxton

“In times of change, learners will inherit the earth, while the learned will find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”

Claxton seems to be aiming to do two things with this book: demonstrate the need for a fundamental change in our thinking about education, and provide a starting point for how we could begin to effect this change in classrooms, school communities and homes.

The first half of this book sets out to show that the mainstream Western educational system is flawed and failing. It is, he says, “in dereliction of its duty to the next generation.” It is not in line with current, research-based understandings. The dated conception of aptitude and intelligence as stable and unchanging attributes of students, for example, is still evident in many practices we see in schools, and in the language used by many teachers. “Words like ‘low-ability’ and ‘lazy,’” says Claxton, “are actually sloppy and unhelpful. They do not describe the problem; they are part of the problem.” He goes on to say that, “The fatalistic idea that education is a game at which a large proportion of young people are bound to fail is antiquated, untrue and unacceptable.” Claxton gets to the root of these problems. I repeatedly found myself cringing as I recognised some of my own practices in Claxton’s long list of ways in which teachers routinely undermine the healthy learning habits of students.

The latter half of the book suggests that the change needed can be achieved without a major overhaul of infrastructure or implementation of expensive new technologies. What is required is a shift in the thinking of educators and parents. This shift will involve a movement away from tinkering aimed at improving achievement to basic changes in how we conceptualise learning, which might allow us to develop a culture that nurtures and stretches students’ learning “muscles.” Claxton provides evidence that “Learning itself is learnable,” and that such learning is a step in the right direction if we are to equip young people to thrive in the world that awaits them.

Why a teacher should read the book...

As a teacher, it is very easy to do the done thing. The stakes are high: all that we do in the classroom is having an impact on our students' learning. The risk is that students will miss out on vital learning if our experiments fail. What’s the Point of School? not only supports an approach of informed experimentation, it demands it. It suggests that a paradigm shift is needed, and that what we do in the classroom can contribute to this shift in thinking. This is an exciting prospect!

What’s the Point of School? gives some basis and suggestions for the form our experimentation might take, or at least what the aim of our experiments in the classroom should be. On pages 123-126, Claxton sets out, what he calls the “Magnificent Eight Qualities,” that he has developed alongside researchers, teachers and students as qualities that we should be aiming to nurture and encourage in students, to help them develop their “learning power.” He explains what he means by curiosity and courage, exploration, investigation, experimentation, imagination, reason and discipline, sociability and reflection, and he proposes that education should be aimed at developing these qualities in students. In the classroom, he suggests, we should be engaging in activities that actively and explicitly foster these.

A point that really stuck with me was the notion that we, as teachers, should be more transparent about our status as individuals engaged in a learning process. We can explain to students that we are “trying this out” with the class, we can recruit students to support us in our role as learners by asking for regular feedback, or even having them monitor our language: “Students can be invited to help coach their teachers in shifting their language habits…” says Claxton; teachers can “Get them to point out when their teacher inadvertently uses the ‘old’ words.” If students can see us ‘stretching our learning muscles’ then we are modelling the types of behaviour we want to foster in the classroom. Even in our “failed” classroom experiments, we are showing that it is ok to be fallible, that failure and mistakes are something to be valued in the learning process. We are also encouraging the type of thinking about learning, and learning about learning that research (and Claxton has laid out plenty in this book!) has shown will help to foster successful, motivated learners.

“In a complicated, fast-changing world,” says Claxton, “the intelligent path is to let go of being a Knower, and embrace being a Learner. And we should create organisations, whether they be families, offices or schools, where Learning is routinely valued over Knowing.” This quote applies as much to us as it does to our students. I think one of the main points that I got out of this book was that we should take an honest look at what we do in the classroom and why we do it. And we should ask ourselves: is this the way it has to be done? Claxton’s book suggests that, in many cases, not only does it not have to be done this way, it shouldn’t be done this way. There is a better way. What’s the Point of School? gives us a well-researched, clearly articulated starting point directing us towards this better way.