Whilst running my schools in Cambridge and supervising my A-level students over a 25 year period I met a wide range of personalities and nationalities. Although most of my British students worked hard and achieved admission to some of the most prestigious universities, often going on to Cambridge, others had to be cajoled into attending their tutorials and completing their homework.
I was able to identify with these “lazy” students. The most intelligent teenagers are sometimes the most rebellious and have discovered far more interesting things to do in life at their age other than listening to a boring teacher droning on about algebra or English grammar. As educators we should remember that we were once young before judging them. School can be a word synonymous with prison for some students. They often feel they have to complete their time before being given the freedom they crave.
Any teacher who didn’t understand the need to make his tutorials interesting at my Cambridge schools soon lost his job because my students had the right to change a tutor if he was boring or inept. I started the first of my schools, St. Andrew’s College in Cambridge, with a school friend, William Duncombe. William now owns and runs Bartholomew's College in Brighton. He has continued running his school using our educational philosophy. His students achieve first class exam results. We were both rebellious school students and we were both expelled from school. I was expelled a second time for refusing to wear a full school uniform. I am still shocked that any educationalist would even consider ruining a young person’s academic career for not wearing a school tie or for having hair longer than that arbitrarily decided by the school governors.
Both William and I found the conformist ethos and philosophy of a traditional UK school not to our tastes. Neither of us have ever regretted being expelled and we went on to become the youngest UK School Principals at the ages of 25.
After university we were both determined to open a school which didn’t put so much emphasis on the way a student dressed or the length of his hair. We wanted a school which placed most emphasis on students achieving academic success whilst simultaneously being allowed to be themselves, to be individuals. It is one of the reasons why our first school achieved distinction and achieved some of, and at times the best, exam results in the whole of the UK. In Finland they realised that by not over loading students with homework and by giving them sufficient free time after school to socialise and be individuals, pupils and students enjoyed their studies more and were academically more successful. By giving students more freedom to express themselves as individuals, school became for Finnish students less alien and a place of learning rather than somewhere which forced them to conform to trivial rules. In most international academic league tables Finland quickly became top. It was a brave Finish government which opted to change their traditional, conformist education system and I salute them.
The Finns realised that education isn’t just about what happens in the classroom. In fact the most enduring, rewarding and important education in a young person’s life takes place outside of school.
In Finnish Primary Schools children are given no homework and given more time to play. Play is a more effective learning experience than anything that takes place in the classroom at this age.
What all educationalists need to understand is that education is about many different infections, both good and bad.
My British students were invariably the most rebellious and consequently the most interesting. Although at times I must admit they taxed my and my teachers’ patience. Far Eastern students were by far the most motivated. The pressures exerted on them by their families to obtain grade As in all their subjects outweighed anything else. Consideration was rarely given to the importance of developing their individuality and any time not given over to their studies was often thought by their parents to be laziness. These latter students invariably did achieve grade As and did go on to universities but rarely were they successful in entering Oxford and Cambridge.
Oxbridge Admissions Tutors were not just interested in grade As. They wanted a student with a wide range of extracurricular interests. A well rounded student. I remember one of my top British A-level students telling me after being successfully interviewed by a Cambridge Admissions Tutor that most of his interview was taken up by discussing his ability to play the Scottish bagpipes. I also remember two excessively hard working Malaysian Chinese students visiting my office to ask advice on how they should spend their summer break back home before returning in September. Of course they wanted to know what books they should read and how to structure their studies. I told them to forget their academic studies for most of the summer, to go swimming and attend parties with their friends and above all to relax. They thought I was joking. I wasn’t joking and I still think my advice was given in both their personal and academic interests.
Karim Easterbrook
The author is Former School Principal from Cambridge k.easterbrook@yahoo.com
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