The War in Education

A story in the Guardian this morning has caused a bit of a stir. Boldly headed "Pupils to study Twitter and blogs in primary schools shake up."

"Has the world gone mad? Guardian says primary school kids to be forced to learn Twitter..!?" @ruskin147 (aka Rory Cellen-Jones of the BBC) declared on Twitter itself in response.

My problem is less with the fact that the proposal to change primary education includes new technology as it is with the way this story is written to make the changes sound more dramatic than they are and create a negative out of what is actually a pretty positive change.

Example one:
The journalist states - "However, the draft plans will require children to master Twitter and Wikipedia and give teachers far more freedom to decide what youngsters should be concentrating on in classes."

But then goes on to say - "The proposals would require: Children to leave primary school familiar with blogging, podcasts, Wikipedia and Twitter as sources of information and forms of communication. They must gain "fluency" in handwriting and keyboard skills, and learn how to use a spellchecker alongside how to spell."

So which is it? Do the kids have to 'master it' as the journalist tells us or is the suggestion that children should be taught the basics of new forms of communication in the same way we were taught about newspapers and pupils now learn about the internet?

Example two:
The journalist says - "Children will no longer have to study the Victorians or the second world war under proposals to overhaul the primary school curriculum, the Guardian has learned."

But again goes on to say - "The proposals would require:Children to be able to place historical events within a chronology. "By the end of the primary phase, children should have gained an overview which enables them to place the periods, events and changes they have studied within a chronological framework, and to understand some of the links between them." Every child would learn two key periods of British history but it would be up to the school to decide which ones. Schools would still be able to opt to teach Victorian history or the second world war, but they would not be required to. The move is designed to prevent duplication with the secondary curriculum, which covers the second world war extensively."

Fair enough, no? It's not saying don't teach these, it's just opening the options to avoid duplication with what pupils will learn in secondary education.

Hmm, seems to me that the Guardian went for drama over substance to get people to read this story. At first glance I was with Rory Cellen-Jones - why on earth would kids need to learn about Twitter at school? But in context it seems to me that the plans merely bring education into the 21st Century, teaching kids about important technologies that are shaping our culture, not least in the way that we receive and interact with news.