Visit to Brighton Waste House

Last week students from SML College visited the Waste House in Brighton.

The Brighton Waste House investigates strategies for constructing a contemporary, low energy, permanent building using over 85% ‘waste’ material drawn from household and construction sites. Now fully completed, the building is Europe's first permanent public building made almost entirely from material thrown away or not wanted. It is also an EPC ‘A’ rated low energy building.

They were amazed to see how much you can do with waste such as toothbrushes, skateboards, cassettes tapes, video tapes and boxes, vinyl records, bicycle inner tubes and tyres, denim jeans legs and DVD's cases. Here's what Annie, one of our students, had to say about the visit: "The waste house trip was an inspirational experience. It opened our eyes to alternative uses for waste products and highlights what a massive problem waste is. Cat was very passionate and proved how much one person can do especially when going against social norms. She motivated us to consider our actions and raised some fascinating points of discussion. The house was very homely and there was a general consensus that we would all live in one. This proves what a brilliant idea they are as the houses are super eco friendly and would help solve the housing crisis.

You'll find more photos of the trip on our facebook page.

How young people manage their own learning at SML College

Take yourself back to your schooldays. Did you learn everything that you were taught? Or did you sometimes daydream in class? Perhaps there were subjects that you didn’t like so you paid less attention to them - or you were even disruptive in such lessons. For whatever reason, it’s likely that the teacher ‘covering the syllabus’ did not always result in you learning everything that they wanted you to.

We know that people – of all ages – like to learn in different ways. My favourite teacher in my traditional boys grammar school was the geography teacher. Because he never tried to teach us anything. On a Monday he would tell us on what we would be tested on Friday and then left us with the books to study as we wished. I was always top of the class in geography because I loved the freedom to learn how I wanted; to go at my pace and to deviate from the syllabus as I chose.

Of course others learn in different ways. In our research with young people we have identified 55 different ways of learning – and there may be more.

The reality is that, whether schools like it or not, young people self manage. They choose what they learn and often how they learn. Some decide that they like a particular subject and do more work in that area; others just don’t see the point of a particular subject and decide not to take it seriously. No matter how skilled the teacher in a typical classroom is, they can’t get inside people’s brains and control the learning.

Clearly home educated young people have a great advantage in that they are not bound by classrooms and formal lessons. However parents often struggle to get the right balance of autonomous learning and a structured approach to learning.

The downside of unstructured and often random self managed learning is that it may not be functional. Students in school generally have little help to think through what kind of life they want after formal education or what kind of person they want to be. So not having worked through such matters they make poor choices about what is important to learn and what isn’t.

For instance employers complain that young people coming out of formal education – whether school, college or university – are often poorly equipped for the modern work environment. Research on employers is clear that they see many young people as not able to work in teams, not creative and not self disciplined. The formal qualifications that the young person has may be a total irrelevance if these qualities are missing.

If we accept that people will self manage then the issue is – how to make this process work to the advantage of each young person. In our College (for 9-16 year-olds) we spend the first week with new students finding out about them. We help them to answer five questions about themselves. These are:

Where have you been? What have your experiences of education and of life been like? What have been the ups and downs of this experience? Given that any person is today 100% formed by the past –either it’s in the genes or they learned it – the answer to this question is crucial. Some students have flowed through their life so far with a degree of ease whereas many have dips in their life that have affected them. It’s important to know these.
Where are you now? What kind of person are you? What are your interests? What do you like doing – and what don’t you like doing? What’s important to you? What are you good at – and what not so good at? For students who come from school they often dwell on the things for which they have been criticised in school and, in the process, undervalue their positive features. Our role as adults is to help them to develop a rounded and realistic sense of who they are now before moving on.
Where do you want to get to? What kind of life do you want to lead? What kind of person do you want to be in the future? Do you have ideas already about a career (more relevant for older students)? Most students have never been asked this kind of question before. Older students may have had family discussions about careers but even these may not be contextualised in terms of lifestyle. Hence answers to this question may be quite tentative initially – and that’s fine as we want to stimulate thinking not tie down precise details at this stage.
How will I get there? What do I need to learn to become the person I want to be in the future? How will I learn what I need to learn? Initially students find this difficult to answer – or they slip into known ideas. At this stage we may be challenging them to think more widely and also convince them that they really can aspire to learn anything they want to and in any way that is convenient. Of our 55 known ways of learning the one that is generally ignored is the classroom – students never ever ask us to provide a classroom within which to learn. So we don’t have any classrooms in the College.
How will I know that I have arrived at where I want to be? How will I measure the outcomes of my learning? This is a tough question to answer and often students have to return to this later. However it is important that they learn to self assess. Much of my work is with adults (where we use the same five questions) and it’s often apparent that they have always relied on the judgements of others. Hence many make the wrong choices about careers. Some apply for jobs for which they have no chance of getting (because they have never had to assess their own abilities) or they apply for jobs that won’t stretch them or give them what they want out of life.

One of the things we are doing with this process is to encourage students to take a strategic view of their learning and to manage their learning in such a way that they will be able to lead a good life in the future. As each person is different what a good life means to one person is not the same as for another person.

During the first week students share their conclusions with five others in a learning group with one staff member there to assist the students. At the end of the week students are assisted to write their own timetables for the next week. And at the end of the second week they review how their learning has progressed and write new timetables for the succeeding week. This process then rolls along each week with collective decisions made each morning in a community meeting of staff and students.

What we have done is to create a new kind of structure to replace school structures that were designed for the world of the 19^th century. A 21^st century educational model has to respond to a complex and challenging world where a static job-for-life mode is long gone and where continuous Self Managed Learning is a sine qua non. The five questions approach goes alongside other structures that we use to help students have the freedom to learn whatever they need. While we work as a college I have found that home educating parents have also realised the value of working through these questions with their offspring.

(HOW YOUNG PEOPLE MANAGE THEIR LEARNING,

First published in Juno magazine, 1 March 2015)

Dr Ian Cunningham

Chair of Governors, Self Managed Learning College, Brighton

A better way to educate

Self Managed Learning College is part of a global movement bringing traditional 19^th century education into the 21^st century by paying attention to solid evidence of better ways of educating young people.

The case I will make here is that the role of adults and of schools should be to support young people in taking charge of their own lives and, centrally, of their own learning. I will mention a few examples of solid evidence about learning before indicating how to respond to this evidence.

Evidence

All young people are different. Specifically all the research shows that people (young and old) learn in different ways. Learning styles vary enormously and any sensible educational approach has to respond to this fact.

What is taught is not what is learned. Indeed in our research on people in organisations we find that most cannot think of many things that they learned in school after the age of 11 that are of value to them. From other research – by a number of universities – the evidence is that all the investment in education and training combined contributes at most 10-20% of what makes a professional person successful. Most useful learning has occurred outside formal settings.

Research on the determinants of life satisfaction in those over 25 shows that emotional health when young is the most important factor predicting life satisfaction. Academic success has very little relevance, despite Government rhetoric. Indeed there is interesting evidence about the relationship of academic performance to mental health. Our college has been helping to set up an alternative school in Shanghai. The reason is that Shanghai is the top performer in international league tables of school performance. But it is also top of international league tables for suicides in young people. There is a relationship between these two facts. Hence the interest there to do something different.

Bullying is rife in large secondary schools. A local school was boasting that it had reduced bullying to 15% of students being bullied in any one term. The school has over 1000 students so that means 150 young people per term being bullied – that does not seem something to be proud of. The research evidence is that young people who suffer traumas such as bad bullying are three times more likely to suffer psychosis is later adult life than those that don’t.

The evidence is that small schools (less than 150 students) have much better relationships between staff and students and also between student and student. Bullying is less likely in such settings and both staff and students are, on average, much happier.

Summer born children typically underperform in school settings. For instance the Government’s own figures indicate that at least 10,000 young people every year get worse results at GCSE just because of their birth date. By putting school students who are almost a year different in age in the same classroom school automatically discriminates in favour of the older students. Indeed the summer born are more likely to be categorised as ‘special needs’ and to have problems in school. These effects are cumulative. For instance summer born young people are less likely to go to university.

All the credible research from employers indicates that they are critical of the learning in schools. Specifically they say that they want young people who are better in teams, more self managing, more creative and more reliable. The school curriculum and its ways of working often actively discourage the qualities needed in the world of work.

The major growth of jobs in the UK is either in the creative sector or in creative jobs in more traditional organisations. There are also more opportunities in small organisations than in the old-fashioned large organisations. Yet schools seem to be intent on preparing people for a world that does not exist. Many schools have, for instance, reduced opportunities for real creativity with the emphasis on exam passing.

A major need is for the ability to learn rapidly and to exploit work opportunities that come up unplanned. For instance no apps existed just over six years ago. It is now estimated that well over 1 million people worldwide are working in this industry. You can’t forecast these changes. People who can benefit from new opportunities are those who can learn rapidly and effectively - and previous qualifications are generally irrelevant.

Some responses to this evidence

The 19^th century model of the classroom where it is assumed all learn in the same way has to give way to personalised approaches that allow students to learn in different ways. New technology is one way that this can be achieved but it is not the only one. In our research we have identified at least 55 different ways that young people can learn – and the classroom is generally the least cost effective. Our students (aged 10-16) learn by using community resources, by working together on projects, by bringing in experts to assist in advanced learning as well as by using books, worksheets and other standard approaches. The mode of learning is driven by what it is that needs to be learned. Sometimes a book is better than the internet – and sometimes it isn’t. The important thing is to allow the learner to choose as they need.

Developing the team skills and creativity that are needed in the world of work happens best through the learning process. It’s important to emphasise community working and the freedom to be creative. A democratic way of working gives young people a genuine chance to learn to work with others for real. In our community meetings, where collective decisions are made, all have an equal say and the chairing is by rotation – a meeting could be chaired by a staff member or by a 10 year old. Students learn the ability to run real meetings by doing it.

Having small schools is necessary – though not sufficient – to ensure the emotional health of all within them. I say it’s not sufficient as such schools have also to create a caring, open and supportive culture that genuinely values every single student equally – not just those who are good at passing exams.

None of the changes to existing schooling will come easy. But it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

Dr Ian Cunningham, SML College, Brighton

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