On the eve of the 21st century, a seasoned British educator John Abbott challenged us with a perplexing Core Question and a Big Idea. In an incredibly rambling and thought-provoking speech in Sunderland, U.K., entitled, “”Battery Hens or Free Range Chickens,” he asked an unsettling question: “What Kind of Education – for What Kind of World?” Even though politicians in many nations were claiming that public education was a top priority, the system was in crisis, Abbott declared, because schools had ceased to be about learning and were not really preparing students for an uncertain future.
Why was public education mired in a protracted crisis? The essential answer, according to John Abbott , could be found in a rare nugget in David Perkins’ Smart Schools (1992): “Learning is a consequence of thinking.” In direct, unvarnished English fashion, he was saying that there could be no real learning without thinking and that the schools were failing today’s students, and particularly adolescents, on that score.
John Abbott’s amazing speech hit me like a flash of revelation. It wasn’t exactly a “Eureka” moment, but as close as I will ever come to such an experience. After three decades as an educator, spent in some outstanding schools, I couldn’t get that question out of my mind: What were we really teaching students — and why were most teachers seemingly content to “instruct” in ‘egg-crate’ classrooms and resigned to “going with the flow”?
Public education is driven, as you well know, by the Bureaucratic Education State, and not only encrusted with competing ideologies, but overflowing with meaningless edu-babble. In such a strange world, a metaphor is worth far more than a thousand words. This potent metaphor will always be John Abbott’s greatest legacy. Public education, he proclaimed, in Britain and elsewhere, was “floundering for lack of really clear thinking.” Then came the pearl of distilled wisdom: “By default we will end up in a world of battery hens. Such hens hardly know how to stand on their own feet when their wire cages are removed…Those reassuring cages that now support us won’t be around in twenty years time… the survivors will surely be free range chickens.”
Since the advent of modern educational psychology, Jean Piaget and John Dewey, have successfully focused most educators on “the child” and the early years in child development. We needed to be reminded that the schools also seek to educate adolescents. It was John Abbott who issued the wake-up call. ” Adolescence is currently seen as a ‘problem’ in Western society,” he said, and the schools were falling short in what he termed ” intellectual weaning” or providing the independence needed to become critically aware and independent in outlook. Touche!
The historic tensions in public education — is education about content or about process? — continue to bedevil us. It absorbs far too much of our air time and psychic energy. Neither of these polarities is good enough and it’s time to lay it to rest. That explains the rock star popularity of Sir Ken Robinson and the lesser known, but more profound writings of Kieran Egan, best expressed in The Future of Education (2008). Sir Ken is big on “creativity” but I’m puzzled by the contradictions in his message. Pursuing “inventive education” which respects the intrinsic value of “core knowledge” would be far more constructive than trying to re-invent John Dewey for the 21st century.
Today John Abbott’s educational philosophy is being promoted by The 21st Century Learning Institute. What started out as an exciting breakthrough has produced mixed results, including the 2008 book, Overschooled but Undereducated. Abbott has attracted a loyal following, but his prescriptions now sound much more consistent with those of the educational psychologists than the thoughtful educationists. Today’s schools have taken the “factory model” too far, but the ingenious ideas of Abbott seem to have been appropriated by futurists without his grounding in our own educational tradition. “Tomorrow has been abolished and Today will be re-enacted as if Yesterday had never been…” That chilling message is not new; it was sprayed on the walls of a Cambridge college more than half a century ago.
Rome, it is said, was not built in a day. Over the next two years, let’s try to move the yardsticks in education closer to a system capable of educating more “free-range chickens” and fewer automatons, in the teaching profession as well as the millennial generation.
Paul, I am surprised to be the first one commenting on your post since it definitely struck a chord with me. I think the whole point of this site is that education needs more voices and the more extreme the better, the ones that push the limits and make people take a double look. And the simple fact that this is where the early adopters are voicing opinions, but I think the goal is that the more that is shared, the more voices we can get to participate.
I, for one am going to research more about John Abbott and David Perkins.
I first met Stephen last year when we chatted over the phone about me getting involved in EdCamp Toronto. I was nervous because I am not a certified teacher, but I am very passionate about the education system. Mostly because I think the system failed me. I know this is a strong statement to make, but I think that I floated through a school system fairly unnoticed or supported as the learner that I am and did not fit into the factory model.
I look forward to reading more of your posts and I hope you will be able to comment on a few of mine. I expect many inspiring conversations to come!
Jenn
Paul, so much to talk about here, but I wanted to focus on the “battery hen vs. free-range chicken” metaphor. I had never heard the term “battery hen” before, but further investigation led me to understand that they would be akin to what is produced in today’s “factory farm”. One of the little snippets that I came across was the fact that the “battery cage” arrangement allowed for clearer assessment of the “quality” of individual hens. Because the hens are confined to a single cage, and eggs drop down into individual chutes, it is easy for the farmer to judge individual performance more readily than with free rangers.
In a sense, battery cages can lead to more accurate assessments of performance. It is this extension of the metaphor that is haunting me today!
Looking forward to other comments on this provocative post. I would especially appreciate having further conversations about both Abbott’s work and Kieran Egan’s thinking!
What would the Canadian K-12 system actually look like if we had followed John Abbott’s proposal for re-ordering public education?
The Full Speech is rather daunting, especially for those seeking quick-fixes for everyday rashes. http://www.21learn.org/site/archive/battery-hens-or-free-range-chickens-what-kind-of-education-for-what-kind-of-world-full-speech/
The key passage, found at p. 11, reads as follows:
“I believe we now have it within our power to create a very different education system – one in which free-range chickens would flourish….
A Proposed Reordering
Assume a constant level of expenditure between the ages of five and 18. Build up a pedagogy geared toward the creation of life long learners, starting at the youngest age. Develop forms of teaching that constantly encourage children to become “reflective learners” – in reality the full application of all that we now know about meta-cognition.
Plan for the Weaning principle from the start. That is, give children so many usable skills when they are very young that, progressively, they only need “teaching” for those skills they have not yet acquired. Move away from the assumption that every lesson has to be taught. Stop assuming that it’s only teachers who can teach; get older learners to be teachers themselves.
Provide 10% of the school budget for the continuous professional development of all teachers.
Create class sizes of 10 or 12 for children of five, and classes two or three times that size but taught for only half the time for 17 and 18 year olds. Recruit the community to provide a range of mentoring and support facilities. Expect at least a doubling in value-added from this strategy, if not a three or four-fold increase. Stop people from any longer thinking that the school can do everything.
Take information technology seriously. Don’t try to be too sophisticated. Concentrate on word-processing for everyone in every subject. Ensure that every piece of writing, be it in chemistry, history or geography, becomes a lesson in applied communication skills; literacy should be cross-curricular without weakening the precious significance of individual disciplines.
All the time remember that the world of the 21st Century will be about continuously managing your own lifelong learning. By 18 every young person needs to be already doing this.” (John Abbott, 1999)
Comment:
All of this might sound “Blue Sky” to those in the trenches of elementary and secondary education. It certainly poses a challenge for incrementalists simply looking for something (anything) that works. .
What Kind of Education do we still need — for What Kind of World? Take another look at John Abbott’s re-ordered system where “free-range chickens” would come out at the end:
More emphasis would be placed on educating adolescents to be independent thinkers, or “weaning students” out of dependence on the system. Class sizes would scale upwards from age 5 to age 18. Far more than 2% and as much as 10% of budget would be invested in professional development. Information technology would have been seamlessly integrated into classroom teaching. Most tellingly, as one Toronto teacher told Abbott, ”it would be the children who would tired at the end of term, not the teacher!”
His Canadian disciples, promoting The 21st Century Learning Initiative ( @changelearning.ca) seem to have strayed from these original ideas. Perhaps Abbott was prophetic when he predicted that only the “free range chickens” would survive in 20 year’s time. That’s only seven years from now!
This is definitely “Blue Sky” thinking, but it is the type of “stand-back-and-take-a-look-at-the-big-picture” thinking that we need…and fast. The concept of 21st century learning, I think, is being hijacked and appropriated by many who are just trying to sell an idea or a product. We need to think more clearly about what we want people to be able to do “on their own” when they have finished their formal schooling. Being able to continue in and take responsibility for their learning is a good place to start.
And then, what is it going to take to get there?
I would agree that we are nowhere close to weaning even our high school graduates off of school, let alone our adolescents!
So, what would this type of approach look like at the various stages of formal education?
Interestingly enough (perhaps) my opening voicEd.ca post is on the importance of taking early learning more seriously, and being sure that the approaches that we are beginning in our new full day kindergarten programs here in Ontario don’t suddenly end.
Again, I look forward to making my way through the full Abbott piece that you reference.
Thanks for opening this up to our vision! It may take a while for us to digest, but I think its worth the time!
Ok, so by adolescents I’m thinking 13 and 14 year olds. John Gatto had a wild plan to get grade eight students out into the community doing apprentice-type stuff on Fridays. We’re not even close to that type of thinking here, but…
I think that children often do far little actual thinking in schools. There is a simple change that teachers can make which I have noticed improves my student’s understanding of mathematics: stop answering so many of their questions.
I’ve started being really careful about both which kinds of questions I ask, and which types of questions I answer. Peter Liljedahl presented the keynote speech for the BCAMT conference last October and he had some really interesting ideas for how to get kids thinking more during school.
He said that kids ask three kinds of questions; proximity questions, stop-thinking questions, and start-thinking questions. Proximity questions are asked because you are near, and stop-thinking questions are asked by students as a way to escape from having to think. His suggestion was not to answer the first two questions at all, and to be very careful about answering the third question. It’s probably best not to answer it with an answer, but maybe with more questions.
If students are completely stuck, pull them aside and give them some questions or support to get them moving again, but we should spend more of our time to ensure that they are doing more thinking.
We are definitely on common ground when it comes to encouraging secondary school students to think for themselves. When I entered teaching, I was exposed to a fascinating little book, Neil Postman’s Teaching as a Subversive Activity. At first, I dismissed his ideas, thinking he was just a born s-disturber in education. Some of his ideas were incendiary at the time. His little exercises were designed to shake you up and force you ( as a teacher) to consider conflicting viewpoints and to pose the right questions.
Over the years, I kept going back to the book and gradually came to appreciate what he was trying to incite — real critical awareness in teachers as well as students.
John Abbott’s “Battery Hens” were Neil Postman’s worst nightmare and I was struck by how easily it was in teaching to get comfortable in a routine and to rely on algorithmic thinking — on automatic pilot in the classroom. I came to understand why experienced teachers sought to teach the same courses, year after year, and to use the same yellowing notes. I had the advantage of moving from province to province and switching schools. Upon returning for visits, I was reminded again how little things changed, unless and until a teacher retired. The only truly “creative disruption” was the introduction of laptops in some schools.
For most of my teaching career, I taught High School History courses and was amazed to discover, year after year, that students came to me well prepared to answer questions but totally ill-equipped to “pose questions.” My Student Seminars were “question-centred” and, even by Grade 12, very few students were able to identify let alone ask “the right questions.” Some looked terrified when asked to come up with the questions or to develop a discussion strategy. By their choice of questions, you could tell that they were unaccustomed to even fielding higher order questions.
I must say that I found Critical Thinking workshops for teachers to be of little help. One time Barrie Bennett tried to introduce Critical Thinking to a hardened Senior School faculty. He was eaten alive by faculty members who were classicists. Teaching social-scientific methodologies to that group could be a risky venture. On another PD Day, Linda Grant of the OTF suffered a similar fate.
Many outstanding teachers were, and are, master storytellers, and that does not, as a rule, encourage active or critical thinking. It may encourage the students to master the taught narrative and simply repeat it in essays, tests, and exams. On the other hand, methodologists teach formula and rubrics which encourages students to think that they can be applied to every problem or issue. It may produce lifelong “battery hens.”
Sir Ken Robinson is a great entertainer, especially on You Tube with those animations. He spouts “creativity” and “divergent thinking” but relies almost exclusively on spinning a master narrative. Watching those TED Talks audiences hanging on every word makes me uncomfortable. Listening to experienced teachers talking about him confirms those instincts. I often wonder, am I alone in my unease? I keep wondering what the late Neil Postman would have said about his Public Talks.
The “autopilot” scenario is one that I see a lot, and even found myself slipping into after a few years of teaching. What is it about teaching that makes it so easy to slip into doing the same-old, same-old? You mention that you moved around a bit, and this helped you see how unchanging the “system” can be. Should schools “shake things up” every once in a while to keep teachers experiencing new ideas? That has proven very difficult at my school. Changing teaching subjects, grade levels, or even the type of class (French immersion) has lead to a steady stream of teacher tears and visits to the Principal’s Office to complain.
I’ve always been a big fan of “mixing things up’, but ideally this should come from teachers themselves. Unfortunately, the lack of movement within districts these days prevents this from being as much of a possibility as it once was.
When I began in this career, we had at least three large packages of job postings every year. There was so much “buzz” around this time of the year as the first of these came out. There was always an opportunity to move to a new school, a new position within the school, or even a whole new panel. Lately, things around our district have slowed right down…very few changes. I think that this can really zap the energy of a system.