Viewpoint / Moving beyond inclusion: we need diversification in our school system
In this opinion piece, Green campaigner Alex Armitage makes the case for a more diversified education system that would provide equally and positively for all young people, from academic learning to practical skills education.
EDUCATION is one of the foundations of our society, but our education system is not currently fit for purpose. To unlock Shetland’s true potential, we must diversify our education system to reflect the neurodiversity of our society.
For 120 years, Britain’s education system has created winners and losers. Our schools cater very well for the most academic students, the “winners”, who make up perhaps a third of the population.
For another 50 per cent of young people (these percentages are an estimate based on my experience of working with young people) academic education is tolerated, and though little or no harm is caused, students do not find their school experience compelling. For this category of students, school provides important opportunities for social, physical and emotional development, with educational outcomes that can help to prepare young people for adult life and to enter the workforce.
For a minority of students, perhaps 10 to 20 per cent, our education system causes significant harm. This can be for many reasons, often because students struggle with the rigid school environment, sometimes it is because students are people who are at their best in the outdoors, creating, fixing things, doing practical activities – not sitting in a room all day. These young folk, who have lost out from our education system, are often highly talented, intelligent, and creative young people, let down by a system that institutionally discriminates against them, failing to recognise their talents and abilities, which are often profound.
I’m reminded of a quote attributed to Albert Einstein: “Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
This issue is not new, and nor is it caused by a lack of effort from education and teaching staff, who go to great lengths to work within the system to do the best for our young people – sometimes to the point of burnout.
Our education system currently spends significant resource squeezing our wonderfully diverse population of young people into a constrained, academic setting. I believe we should focus our resources instead on diversifying our education system to truly reflect the diversity and neurodiversity of our young people.
Indoor, desk-based, academic learning is absolutely appropriate for a large minority of students, but the remaining majority could be getting so much more out of their young lives than with the current system.
In future years, we will need our young workforce to be building homes, providing care, implementing the energy transition, producing food, protecting nature; participating in a vibrant, sustainable local economy. All of these tasks require training that could be far better provided for, if we transform our education system.
I was recently shown around the Bridges project in Lerwick. Bridges is an organisation for teenagers which provides a timetable of classes, which often have a practical focus, from photography, to joinery, to hair and beauty. Young people are supported to gain skills, volunteer and do work experience and are supported to find paid work. Walking through the door at Bridges you can sense the positivity; young people and staff are friendly and enthusiastic. Bridges is a great model of how things could be done differently.
I am one of many Bridges evangelists in Shetland, but I often meet young people who respond with an awkward silence in the face of my enthusiasm. Despite its success, Bridges is still seen by some as a fallback option for students who struggle academically, reinforcing a stigma that practical skills are somehow lesser. But what if models like Bridges were integrated from the start of secondary education, offering all students, regardless of academic ability, the chance to thrive?
There have been some movement in the right direction in recent years, with students as young as 14 getting access to some practical “skills for work” training at UHI Shetland on alternate Fridays. This has been popular and is a great start, but in my view, deeper change is required.
So many young folk that I meet feel despondent about their education, and feel that school is not relevant, doesn’t meet their needs or is just a waste of time. Often this comes with negative consequences for their physical and psycho-emotional health.
It’s unsurprising that some students end up being disruptive; for a few, the intention is to be rebellious but for most, the school environment is just not designed for students’ brains. The fear of corporal punishment used to be the method for keeping these students in line. Since the end of the era of the cane, physical chastisement has been replaced by humiliation and verbal intimidation. Thankfully this too is in decline, but in its place has come the medicalisation of neurological difference, and medical prescription of stimulant drugs.
The move from corporal violence to the use of stimulant medication has been beneficial in that it has reduced psychological (and physical) trauma. I believe that medication can serve a useful purpose for some, but it should not be there to make up for the deficiencies in the education system. Transformational change is needed.
Creating a more diverse system of schooling that can more easily adapt and respond to the learning needs of individuals sounds more expensive, but it would be a far sight cheaper than undoing the harm created by the present system – harm that can often persist into adult life.
Diversifying our schooling system and unlocking the creative genius of the next generation of young folk is an investment worth making.
At the most recent Shetland Islands Council meeting, I set out some of these problems and suggested changes, including for greater opportunities for practical skills education from earlier in the secondary years, as is the case in other European countries.
My suggestions were rebutted by the SIC’s political leadership with the usual operational pettiness: “but we don’t have the levers of power to change things”
The levers that we do have are dedicated teachers who have intimate knowledge of the school environment, who care about our bairns’ future and are motivated to do things differently. We have parents who are on board and want better outcomes for children – and no one left behind. We have a ‘Curriculum for Excellence’ that has flexibility for innovation and change.
In Scandinavia it is normal to see young children in the P1 – P2 age group wearing all weather suits, spending the majority of their day outside, in temperatures down to -10°C. This is just one of many examples of how education can be done differently.
With new leadership in Hayfield House, perhaps 2025 can be the dawn of educational transformation in Shetland.
Alex Armitage is a Green councillor on Shetland Islands Council. He can be contacted by e-mail alex.armitage@shetland.gov.uk
