“Education has to be about more than hitting targets”

Friday’s Guardian contained an interesting reflection by the actress Rebecca Front on what she valued in her own education.

Of her school, she writes:

Academically it was nothing special. But there were enough flashes of brilliance and wisdom and real affection from the staff to offer an education in the truest sense – a drawing out of what was there in us all anyway…

What stays with me as I get older are the off-piste moments from teachers with a little freedom to be iconoclasts or enthusiasts.

She has a very different perception of present day education:

… the strictures of the national curriculum throttle the individualism of great teachers, and… constant testing leaves little room for independent thought. Education has to be about more than hitting targets.

I think we need to be cautious of the ‘golden age’ tendency – the mistake of imagining that things were much better a generation or so ago. There was certainly some dire teaching in schools, colleges and universities in the second half of the twentieth century – I remember being on the receiving end of it at times. But, like Rebecca Front, I also remember being greatly influenced by those teachers whose very identity was partly forged by their enthusiasm for the subject(s) they taught, and who could project this enthusiasm to their students.

For me Rebecca Front’s article suggests one way in which we might seek to understand and define how people really learn. Is real teaching and learning simply about effective sharing and developing of enthusiasm?