A common catchphrase in education is ‘we teach children how to think, not what to think’ – and a resounding ‘Amen’ to that. However, that catchphrase is often paired with ‘we teach skills, not content’, often followed with something along the lines that having a mobile phone and Google or Wikipedia in your pocket means there’s no point presenting information to students. Instead, the argument goes, focus on skills – an argument which often segues into a discussion of so-called 21st century skills.
It’s not always clear what they are but they commonly include attributes such as creativity, communication, collaboration, critical thinking, information literacy, initiative, flexibility and so on. As valuable as these skills are, I don’t accept that they have suddenly acquired new or greater importance. Consider the classic statement of the purpose of education from William Cory Johnson:
At school you are engaged not so much in acquiring knowledge as in making mental efforts under criticism. A certain amount of knowledge you can indeed with average faculties acquire so as to retain; nor need you regret the hours you spent on much that is forgotten, for the shadow of lost knowledge at least protects you from many illusions. But you go to a great school not so much for knowledge as for arts and habits; for the habit of attention, for the art of expression, for the art of assuming at a moment’s notice a new intellectual position, for the art of entering quickly into another person’s thoughts, for the habit of submitting to censure and refutation, for the art of indicating assent or dissent in graduated terms, for the habit of regarding minute points of accuracy, for the art of working out what is possible in a given time, for taste, for discrimination, for mental courage, and for mental soberness.
An elegant statement, but even in the Victorian era this was hardly revolutionary. It was a statement of the classical values of liberal education, including all those attributes (critical thinking, rigorous analysis, information literacy, communication, flexibility, initiative) which we now like to think are ‘21st century skills’.
At Queenwood, our focus certainly is on teaching girls how to think – but they have to have something to think about. It is important that they understand the arc of history, the great intellectual and artistic movements, the major political ideologies and so on, and here their families have an important role to play.
Prospective parents often ask me how we ensure that girls at Queenwood develop a sense of perspective on the world, an understanding that in a global context the blessings of rich education and prosperous stability are the exception rather than the rule, and a desire to make their own contribution to the world. This is important to us as a school, and important to our families. We do this by ensuring that the girls build an understanding of history and the world around them through the curriculum. We do this as the girls engage in social justice campaigns, travel for exchanges, make contact with a diverse range of people and communities. We create space for the discussion of big ideas, and we also create an expectation that the girls will be interested in them. And they are. Humans are curious, and young people especially so.
Our efforts are only part of the story, though. Girls from families that discuss what’s going on in the world, that take time to explore their own community, that are curious about other people’s lives and issues, have a noticeably deeper and more nuanced understanding of the world. With an Australian election, an American election, a Brexit campaign, unprecedented refugee issues, the reshaping of both Europe and the Middle East, the rise of Asia – there is so much to take interest in, and so much to learn. This is a wonderful time to encourage vigorous discussion and wide reading about world affairs, and I hope the girls will have many opportunities to do this not only at school but also at home.
Ms Elizabeth Stone
Principal