Shard

Even so (Y6 as opposed to aged 6) why ask students to simplify a complex subject such as WWII to make it understandable for a Y6 student. It's a nonsense task. It's difficult enough for a qualified teacher to pitch learning at the right level, so asking an adolescent to gauge the learning capacity of a much younger student is hardly reasonable. It's the kind of modern learning exercise which means well, seems fun, but leaves the student devoid of serious learning.

Why do you say Gove is prat? It's not an uncommonly held view, of course, but he does seem to be dedicated to improving the standard of state education in Britain.

Oakvillian

It's not new or controversial to point out that one of the best ways to cement an understanding of a subject is to have to explain it to somebody else*. The specific task in this teaching aid was a revision tool (AFTER the Y11s had written a 1,000-word essay on the subject) to get them to work in small groups to consider how they might present what they had learned to Y6 kids using Mr Men characters. I don't think this is a nonsense task at all. It would be likely to both engage the Y11s about the subject, and possibly also to enthuse Y6s about learning history.

I don't think Gove's even slightly interested in improving the standard of state education in Britain. I think he's interested in pushing his own flavour of the Blunkett/Morris/Clarke vision for Academies, as a proxy for some rather floaty notion that things were better back in the 1950s when the posh people went to private schools, the bright but poor went to Grammars and the hoi polloi were left to suffer at the hands of the secondary modern. Not that he himself had the privileged, silver-spoon upbringing of several of his Cabinet colleagues - in fact this seems to make him all the more chippy about his own comparatively modest childhood.

Mostly, though, I think he's a prat because he consistently, deliberately and brazenly misrepresents the views of his political opponents to make a point, in the hope that the Tory media (and occasionally, it seems, also the Guardian) will report his comments without bothering to check whatever it was he was actually commenting on.

*Lots of pithy quotes on this; e.g. Einstein: "everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler;" Frank Oppenheimer (Robert's younger brother and also a particle physicist of renown): "the best way to learn is to teach."

DaveLovesDee

Even Year 6 students aren't all able to grasp the same concepts as other pupils the same age.

jimf

One set of history teaching resources for secondary pupils suggests “spending classroom time depicting the rise of Hitler as a Mr Men story”, said Mr Gove.

It apparently asks pupils to “brainstorm the key people involved” such as Hitler, Hindenburg, Goering, Van der Lubbe and Rohm, adding: “Bring up a picture of the Mr Men characters on the board. Discuss which characters are the best match.”

It is not known how many schools in this country use the resources.

Mr Gove said: “I am familiar with the superb historical account Richard J Evans gives of the rise, rule and ruin of the Third Reich and I cannot believe he could possibly be happy with reducing the history of Germany's darkest years to a falling out between Mr Tickle and Mr Topsy-Turvy.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education...haracters.html

Apparently the next teaching resource covers the Crusades through the Teletubby characters.........

Oakvillian

Yay. Telegraph living precisely up to expectation. That weasel word "apparently" apparently gives them carte blanche to fail to do the most basic journalistic research and actually read the teaching notes that go with this assignment. The Mr Men task is a revision tool, after the pupils have completed the course of study and written an essay on the subject. It is a discussion topic to propose ways in which the materials could be presented to a class of younger children. It is designed to make the Y11s think about what they have learned, and express it in ways that would make sense to their juniors. It is actually a very instructive exercise. Why don't you try it? Imagine you have to present the history of the rise of the Nazi party and the lead-up to WWII to a class of 35 antsy 10-year-olds. You have the option of using Mr Men characters as your visual aids. Could you do it? How would you go about it? It's not as trivial as you think - nor as the Telegraph or Mr Gove portrays.

I don't normally get this agitated over politics or education, but this story has really riled me because almost no mainstream reporter has picked up on the fact that Gove's claim was a monstrous misrepresentation of what is actually a really quite interesting classroom assignment.

edited to add: I've read all three volumes of Evans' The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. It's not exactly an easy read. I certainly wouldn't recommend it to a 16-year-old, and absolutely definitely not to use as a teaching aid for them to explain what they've learned to 10/11 year olds.

bats

It isn't nonsense at all. It's an exercise in understanding what they have learned. Quite often one thinks one understands something until you come to explain it.

jimf

An exercise in thinking how to present the material to others is fine. The suggestion of using Mr Men characters is bizzare. Maybe ok for 5 year olds but for 11 year olds? In any event presumably people of both genders benefited and suffered during the rise of the Nazi party so the use of gender specific characters is somewhat odd.

Like any politician Gove is happy to exploit issues for his own benefit. He could hardly be expected to ignore something like this. Apparently in his speech he covered much more than the Mr Men but his mention of them is the type of thing his detractors would predictably seize on.

Oakvillian

What are you on about? Read the rubric. The Mr Men characters were to be used as placeholders to represent the main players in the Nazi party (Hitler, Goering, von Ribbentrop, Hindenburg, etc), most of whom were men, if memory serves.

Of course Gove's detractors seized upon this - because he deliberately took the whole Mr Men reference out of context. His supporters can hardly complain if his ruse is detected and he's called out on it, can they!

jimf

Why not use Little Miss characters?

So Hindenburg was a major player in the Nazi party was he?

Oakvillian

so I missed out a couple of words. What I should have written, of course, is that HIndenburg was a major player in the rise of the Nazi party. As President of the Weimar Republic, it was Hindenburg who appointed Hitler as Chancellor in early 1933; and it was Hindenburg's death in 1934, after passing the "Reichstag Fire Decree" the previous year, which gave Hitler the opportunity to declare the office of President vacant and appoint himself Reichsfuehrer. So yes, even in his eighties, as a staunch opponent of Hitler, and in failing health, Hindenburg was absolutely a very important player in the rise of the Nazi party.

jimf

So Mr Careless rather than Little Miss Scatterbrain........

jossie

I agree it isn't just about buildings and people wearing fancy old frocks etc. Drumheller is another great historical example that Canada has to offer. Again it's not only a few hundred years old so maybe it doesn't count as history for some people on here

Oakvillian

Quite.
So should we take the fact that you're now picking up on the minutiae as a tacit acknowledgement that you don't have a substantive counterargument?

Gove is a prat. He misrepresents others' positions by taking them out of context. He's a Tory politician. These three statements are not unrelated. QED.

Oink

The 1944 Education Act, which enshrined the tripartite system, was a shameful event generally but a damning one for Labour as it was complicit in its formation and continuation. Many a a gifted mind was consigned to the educational dustbins that were SMs.

jimf

Gove can be a bit of a prat but he's not exactly the only politician who can be and his party doesn't have a monopoly on that characteristic by a long way. Using Mr Men to illustrate Nazis probably appeals to the usual suspects in the teaching industry but to most ordinary rational people the connection would seem rather bizzare. No doubt the teaching theory behind it is ever so clever. It's an open goal for Gove and he's not going to pass up on the opportunity.