Culture Before Curriculum | Andrew Hammond | TEDxRoyalTunbridgeWells

[Music] thank you I have uh four children that's why I look so tired most of the time I think and this is uh my eldest son Henry he's 18 now which by Hammond standards you know he's quite a big big chap by Hammond standards when he was about 4 we used to play in the garden regularly he used to find a couple of sticks and throw them at me and uh well he didn't just do that I mean and I'd catch one and he'd run at me and he'd say aha Captain Hook we meet again

let's have a battle I'll never forget a couple of years later we were on a camping trip in Devon and it was one of those Farm sites you know where you can have real bonfires and burn sausages on sticks and go home smelling a wood smoke you know and there was uh a patch of Woodland just next to the field and my eldest son and I just stole away into the woods and we went foraging for for sticks for the fire and I saw a couple of particularly straight sticks I thought I know I gave

one to him and I went after him and I said Peter Pan at last we meet again let's have a battle he stood at me somewhat sardonically and he said don't be silly daddy that's not a sword it's a stick did you know it spelled St and it rhymes with brick did you know that Daddy and I said no I didn't know that that's amazing you're very clever for learning that aren't you well done Henry and he said should we get back to the campfire because we got work to do and I said we have

got work to do haven't we and something inside me died that day because I knew that something inside Henry had sort of withered away way what was it in those two years since we played in the garden that robbed him of his metaphoric competence robbed him of his ability to see the stickness of the stick and its potential to be a metaphor a portal if you like into which both Henry and I would step into imagin Realms into Neverland what had happened in those two years well Henry had started school and I'm not having to

go at the teachers I'm a teacher I've been teaching for 20 years the teachers had done the right thing they had taught him that stick begins with st and it rhymes with brick it does fair play the teachers had done exactly what they were supposed to do in the current system before any teachers walk out but listen school is a place where playing becomes learning and learning very quickly becomes working and it happens behind a desk no to Yourself by the way if you're going to do a TED Talk don't uh don't leave it to

the last last minute to read the rules and find that you can't actually use any pictures and images without permissions and copyright I did that I found that out last week so I thought I better make my own I'll uh I'll I'll take that as a huge compliment and uh thank you thank you and uh there he is there he is in school with his classmates I believe they're called his cohort when they're sitting comfortably then we can begin and teach them a compartmentalized curriculum of English math French geography History Science and so forth you

know how it works once we' taught them that which we deem to be important in adulthood we can test them on it and we can test them on the three hours of what they have read what they have remembered and what they can can regurgitate and when you've done that you can do all sorts of wizzy things you can sort and rank them you can find average scores you can find average children if you want to know what the average Shard looks like that's what they look like I've taught many of them they never know

which way they're going and um I believe that's called National expectations what an average child could and should know by the end of their education and then you put them on the road to learning you set them to work takes about 13 years and there are checkpoints along the way aren't there where you check their attainment and progress and it's all about making progress and there are formal examinations too on the road to University they didn't make it but some do and it was after one such round of examinations that I went to see my

son's te teacher it was a parents evening have you ever had those 5 minute speed date jobs you know with a bell I actually ring the bell now in my current role as head teacher's grade somebody's sitting there too long I go and ring the bell quite close I went to meet his teacher I knew I'd only got five minutes so I very quickly asked my burning question which is how has Henry performed this year how has he been performing this year his teacher proudly grabed the score sheet and said he got an A in

English he performed well in maths he got an A star he performed quite well in science he got a B he performed okay in geography you got a C we can work with that he performed very well in history got an A I listened patiently and obediently and proudly and then I raised my hand and I said forgive me I think you've misheard my question I asked how has Henry been performing and all you've given me is the result of his performance I knew that he came home with the results in his little diary we

talked about them for a minute or two and never we never talked talked about them again cuz there's nothing you can do about them they're fixed definition of a fixed mindset is to look at the results and expect them to shift up by looking at them he looked at me quizzically and realized he got about another 50 seconds of this awkward awkward so and so so I said look okay in the last few seconds if my thank you if my son was an F1 motorc car a Ferrari as clearly that is the race Engineers know

that the performance of that car cannot be en captured at by the result it achieves in the race alone second or first or 17th you know they know that the performance of the car comprises Myriad different factors and variables aerodynamic design the breaker horsepower the acceleration the tread the tires and so forth they know you cannot comment meaningfully on all of those things in the result of the race alone second give me a meaningful commentary about my son tell me what really matters that leads behind the gra the bell went I had to move on

we can flate the word results and learning performance too often in schools and they're not the same thing they're not the same thing at all the results of the output we know that they're fixed I don't mean fixed fixed but they're set they're done the input is the learning performance we have to look more closely at learning we have to look at what it means and I think it means growing but here's the thing growing isn't mentioned much in school it's called making progress isn't it but growing is what childhood is about but here's the

interesting thing nothing stunts growth more than sorting and ranking it's entirely incompatible with growth when you think about it we have to look at what lies behind the grade and I think behind the grade are attitudes behaviors and capacities there's your ABC that's the one that matters we can't see it behind the grade we're scratching the surface only there are deep down things to my son to all the children I've taught in my 20 years which cannot be encapsulated numerically alone and that iceberg is reminiscent of the curriculum itself there are deep down things that

are being learned at school every day every day in the environment and culture of the school if the visible curriculum above is entirely based on propositional theoretical abstract knowledge that we teach in learning objectives then the curriculum below is based on empirical knowledge experiential knowledge tacit knowledge that comes to us through our sensory Explorations and social encounters if the visible curriculum above largely requires you to apply logic deductive reason verbal reasoning non-verbal reasoning computational capacity knowledge retention then the curriculum below asks for Instinct intuition inquiry empathy creativity it is the curriculum below that is real

the curriculum above that we plan teach assess is entirely abstract to the average primary CH child it is the curriculum below that is real because it is founded on their emotional state how we feel is what's real it's the link to what we think said Eric Jensen and I agree and yet we say it's a hidden curriculum we have to look really closely at what reality looks like for children we have to look at how they learn and what reality looks like for most children in my experience is that they learn subconsciously from most of

their Primary School experience Al photically from the environment in which they're in driven by their emotions it's set it programs our subconscious for the rest of our lives that's me aged seven 40 just realized it's 40 years ago 40 years ago my subconscious has not changed the hopes daed dreams likes dislikes fears little insecurities wild Ambitions things I thought I was good at things I thought I was no good at and never would be have not changed and none of those things were formed meaningfully by the visible curriculum I was taught they were forged in

The Crucible of the classroom where I formed my own model view of the world and my own view of myself and they've not changed all these years what can we do about it in a few seconds it's the culture of school that matters it's the deep down things the way we do things around here that ultimately affect children's view of the world and it's set it's programmed for a long time afterwards it's a culture that delivers self-respect and then that all important self-d discipline those I know who lack self-d discipline invariably lack self-worth and self-respect

so why be disciplined it's the self-discipline that gives us the vision a meaning a purpose having a plan seeing the point and reaching our potential it's the culture of the school how we do things around here you know those platitudes you see on websites and on school prospectuses kindness aspiration all those really important things collaboration Pride ambition it's those things that need to be lifted off the page and what do they actually look like because those things are forging children's view of the world all the time every day gives them self-confidence helps them participate step

up take a role derive some value from it and ultim I hope have some positive wellbeing it's the shared beliefs the core values of the school that ultimately affect children's success and happiness maybe it's true of work too maybe it's the culture of work that ultimately affects our output not the targets and not the deadlines it's how we do things around here maybe it's true of home too how we do things around here are helping to form and Forge children's character to close I'm fed up of hearing life is short and you got to get

on with it an 8-year-old said that to me the other day when they were busy writing a whole page of writing my heart nearly died not least cuz I was nearly 40 years older than he was life is long but childhood is short and it's getting shorter and we've got to stop calibrating it if we don't we'll lose it and we'll be calibrating and testing and self-examining and self assessing and self-doubting for the rest of our adult lives let's go with the flow let's remember that the most fulfilling and happiest adulthood is not built on

a childhood that's dominated by the need to grow up the best adulthood is based on a childhood that is free untrammeled and has plenty of opportunities to see the stickness of the stick to reach for fresh metaphors and to do something new thank you very much indeed listing thank [Music] [Applause] you