How to produce zombies -

An article I produced earlier this year linked below. Today I had a young lad come in who said he wasn't sleeping well - he'd watched three movies one night (after midnight)...hmm.
http://archive.lewrockwell.com/moseley/moseley13.1.html

How to help your child's concentration!

Firstly, how is your concentration? 

A vital part of how we live is through interacting with others and with applying our own skills and mental ability to problems. Behind every action to which we commit ourselves are virtues that are often mentioned by teachers and parents but often without any consideration as to how to learn and develop them. These are patience and perseverance, and behind them a core virtue called discipline. They come together in what we call concentration.

When we exercise, we push ourselves to the limits of our ability. One of the best ways of doing this (under proper guidance) is through strength training. When pushing or pulling weights, we are often taken to our body's limits, because then the muscles and the nerves know to repair the stretched tissues and make them stronger for next time. Gradually, we can improve our strength by pushing our body beyond its normal abilities and with appropriate rest and diet, it will get stronger.

It's the same with our virtues. The virtues, as the as ancient philosopher Aristotle taught, are the product of habit and training. The best place to begin such training is at an early age, but what is fascinating here is that children have an immense ability to concentrate - given their ages and, more importantly, given the freedom to do so. Observe them when no adults are around to disrupt them! Then watch what happens when an adult interferes. What normally happens is that the child is distracted from his or her natural inclination to concentrate by adult interference and a host of electronic stimuli that do not help the mind settle to learn.

Imagine that you're at work and that you're working on a project that involves a great deal of focus. It may be preparing a report or writing a key email or resolving an engineering issue. You settle down to get the work done and you begin to zone into the work. You know you're zoned in when time passes without you realising it and the minor distractions of life around you fade away. You're now concentrating.

Then a colleague bursts in and demands  that you come and speak to someone on the phone. Your attention is shattered but you get up and deal with the problem. You return and settle down again and after a few minutes you're back in the creative zone, then another colleague bursts in and demands that you sign for an important document. This time it takes longer to get back into focus as your mind is expecting an interruption. And her it comes--the gaggle of staff burst in and demand that you come to lunch with them all as it's so-and-so's birthday. Three interruptions is enough to kill the focus. It's gone, probably for the day.

Now think what a child goes through. They mostly are pushed from pillar to post on someone else's agenda. They just get down to playing when mum demands that they sit in the back of a car for an hour while she picks up things. Or they've just got back from school and begin to focus on their own project of building a model or playing with friends and them dad calls them in to go to their music lessons. Or it's school and the kid is just beginning to get a maths problem when the bell goes and they're dragged off to art, and when they're just getting into art they're called away to learn French.

The impositions begin to affect their ability to concentrate in more than short bursts, but more importantly there is always the expectation of a disruption.

Then the youngsters go home and the tv is blaring, the young sibling is running around, and the mindlessness of playing a computer game beckons. Now the distractions are unimportant, because the brain's activity had collapsed to just above sleep, and in this hypnotic state our young person can zone out rather than zone in. Drink a can of sugar with added water and the game's over when it comes to extorting any mental effort!

And don't think that multi-tasking is the way forward. Studies tend to show that multitasking people do a lot of tasks poorly. Much more effective is to remove the distractions when you want to learn. Turn the tv off - either watch it or shut it off; I've never seen any good work done with the idiot box on; turn down any music to background, "white noise" levels - that is, if your drumming along to a track, it's too loud; ask other people in the house to respect your work time. And then set yourself short bursts of concentrated mental effort to get things done. Start with ten minutes, then fifteen, then twenty...

The key is to build up mental habits just as a strength trainer helps build up your muscles gradually but surely. And like a sportsperson, stretch your concentration level beyond the allotted time. 

Focus for short bursts at a time. Then extend the time you concentrate. It'll work. But don't forget - no sugar!

It's the same with our children. They need to be able to concentrate on what they're doing. 

Now, we can't change the school environment - and you get the message that sometimes it's not the most conducive place to concentrate - but we can change the environment in which we do our homework or settle down as adults to do that important project.

We can also change their diet to help them concentrate better - 

CUT THE SUGAR!

Shut the TV off. Better still, throw it away. Or put it in a place that makes it uncomfortable to watch. For many families TV is the line of least resistance - you just go home and press a button and hey! thirty thousands channel of rubbish to fill your brain with!!  TV is sugar for the brain: no nutrition and plenty of mindless junk to change the brain into mush. 

CUT THE DISTRACTIONS!

If you're butting in on your kids' lives all the time with requests and demands and then you hear that they're not concentrating at school...cut distracting them!

Respect your child's play. Help them negotiate their timetable so they get the homework done first and then play - teach them how you're improving your productivity.

Allow the children to free wheel - they need to play and have fun and just chill: as long as what they're doing is not toxic (mindless tv, drinking fizzy drinks...) 

I watch my two boys who are being home educated. They're always busy in their own worlds. It's amazing watching them build up a huge bank of patience and focus - they concentrate on their chosen tasks for hours. Now imagine that translating into a profession or skill...

Get out of the way and let the children show you their true colours. Do they need entertaining? Usually a symptom of way too much tv. Or do they just go and get into the things that they like doing? Great value there (as long as it's not a toxic occupation like online gaming or mindless tv....)

Give the kids some space to grow healthily and naturally. Simply really. But so hard for many because they fill their house with distracting junk like a tv in every room, computer games in front of comfortable chairs...If you've not got into that mess yet, don't go there. If you have ... have a garage sale.

Time to abolish OFSTED

Does it maintain standards?
Only according to its ever expanding requirements - it has, after all, the taxpayers' credit card, so it's incentive is to add more requirements.

Does it teach anyone?
No.
So get rid of it.

Article in a trade magazine:
Time to go...time to go...

A drop in exam results...shocking schmocking

August brought the first drop in exam passes since GSCEs were introduced fourteen years ago. It has caused a small storm on the heels Great Britain's historical achievements in the Olympics, which may explain some of the disappointment felt: how could the kids let us down after so many gold medals? Or, how dare the exam boards make the exams more difficult! They've changed the goal posts. Well, for those of us of a sceptical bent,it has been rather strange watching our nation's pupils grades increase annually, when the cultural distractions have multiplied and nutritional chemical consumption has increased and the human brain has not evolved to a higher plane. Instead of worrying about the 0.4% drop in A-C passes, we should be reconsidering the pedagogical worth of exams.

My pupils hear this regularly, but it's worth sharing. What do exams do? The general answer is they test a pupil's competency in a given area. This is partially true: exams also test a pupil's ability to pass exams. That's different. It has long been noted that some students are good at passing exams but cannot express what they have supposedly learned coherently, or they forget it straight after the exam! Then there are other pupils who are highly competent in their subject but go to pieces in exams - their result doesn't reflect their innate intelligence or love of the subject.

From a tutorial point of view, both kinds of students need to alter their methods: the competent exam taker needs to step outside the tunnel of school and exams and get a feel for learning things for their own sake. He or she needs to own the information personally rather than learn it impartially to be regurgitated in an exam and then forgotten. Such learning remains superficial - but it's amazing how far superficial people can get by just passing exams!When they finally graduate, they wonder, though, why they are not picked for jobs.

In our experience, we have met many exam machines who are thoroughly unemployable--their studious focus is too narrow to be of use in many areas of employment, which may explain why many exam machines cling on to university studies and aim for a PhD and then, if they're lucky, post-graduate research. Again, I've known many PhD folk who are unemployable. It's not that they are "over qualified" as some would immediately say, but that they are horrendously "under qualified" in understanding the broader picture, how to deal with people, or being "street smart." It's also why many apparent under achievers (in school) do well in business - they see the big picture, they're street smart, and they know how to deal with people and get the best out of them.

Personal tuition can help both.

The nervous exam taker needs to be pulled back to the foundations of their passion and then to be checked if what appears to be a confidence in a subject is indeed a competence.

Often, fears of exams come from having to sit exams at an immature age, when exams don't really mean anything but when there is a lot of pressure to do well for some reason or other from schools or parents to show some skill level. Later in life, the pupil exhibits a lot of nervousness, typically under timed conditions. Here the goal is take ensure that the pupil knows and understands the exam requirements and can proceed without any stress.

However, sometimes exam nerves simply reflect a lack of knowledge or preparation: the pupil "kind of knows" or "sort of understands" but really has no coherent depth in the subject. Again, a tutor can spot this lacuna and help to improve knowledge and study skills.

The exam machine needs to get more life experience and often to be allowed to make choices. Sometimes their sense of self worth is dependent on grades (and we have to ask - where did that come from: primary school, parents?) and the pupil may be in desperate need to have a paradigm shift. It will come - the question is when, and how disruptive it will be. The great philosopher John Stuart Mill had a nervous breakdown at the age of 19 following an extraordinary education which had him reading Greek and Latin in his infant years rather than climbing trees and throwing apples at girls.

Life should not be about hitting targets created by other people - we should create our own targets and aim for them instead!Exams are designed by external authorities and living by their standards creates a second-hand existence rather than an authentic individual experience.

Unless universities want their raw talent immediately (for instance, mathematics or physics departments), it is highly advisable for these students to take a year off or to pick up part time work or volunteering. To get out and to find what they find valuable. Rich grades can sometimes mean dire mental poverty!

Sports offers a great chance to get involved, but so too does rambling if the corps d'esprit doesn't tempt. Fresh air, gardening, working with children of different abilities...thoroughly human pursuits are a useful balance to the educational exam system.

Then there are those for whom exams are pointless. They find no joy in expressing their academic abilities. Nonetheless, we usually find that they can express their talents in extracurricular activities more easily--sometimes in not great endeavours of course, for if they are turned off learning from cultural or educational pressures from an early age, they may turn to destructive and self-destructive paths. Such individuals, who want to do well at some level, may require a pragmatic understanding of why exams are important if they want to get into college. But as mentors we also need to develop their sense of self worth outside of the educational system and exams and grades - remember, many of our entrepreneurs and even inventors were just passionate about what they did, rather than scored great SATs results.

Examinations were invented, as far as I can tell, by the Chinese, to employ the "right kind of people" for the government bureaucracy. In many respects, that's what exams are still for - to see if we fit into a prescribed box. Tick if we pass, cross if we fail. But the box is a "mind forg'd manacle" (William Blake)--as much for examiners as pupils. Rid the mind of the boxed, second-hand life, and either the pointlessness of exams becomes clear or they become a little more palatable.

©Dr Alex Moseley, August 2012

Are too many people going to university?

As an educator and philosopher I cannot emphasise the importance of using the mind and expanding it to its greatest potential. I am a fervent believer of physical and mental exercise, stretching the body and the mind to gain physical strength and mental ability. But schooling and prolonged schooling are not synonymous with education and for many students the option of delaying earning a living should not be taken at all. The mind can be expanded through skills learned while working – and often this is the most rewarding and most authentic way to improve knowledge and hence earning capacity.

Over the past two decades increasing numbers of pupils have been encouraged to enter further education, ‘to go to uni’ as it’s irreverently called, as if it were a holiday camp. Indeed, some of the pupils I have known have been more interested in the nightlife than in the quality of the degree that they are purchasing. Naturally, such candidates are encouraged to invest their time in learning through work or they are encouraged to take a year or two off to mature before they set upon a massive investment of tens of thousands of pounds that may or may not bring them much relevant education.

Arguably, the younger generations have been subject to a subtle social engineering policy: because of the all the regulations, minimum wage laws, and other restrictions on job creation, the employment market for young people is tight. Far better for the government if these young people were herded into universities to keep them from increasing the unemployment statistics, and what better than that this is justified in the name of education? Education, many economists will espouse, is positively correlated with economic growth … true, but the causation is not necessarily the way implied. As we become more productive and wealthy, we are more likely to invest in education; education itself does not necessarily produce more wealth. (We are not speaking about basic literacy and numeracy skills here, which certainly are causal factors in wealth production). Wealth is produced by action and by shuffling thousands of otherwise employable and creative minds into prolonged formal education, and much is thereby lost for the economy. And what a tragedy it is that these students have to now pay for the privilege of being unproductive and three years down the road have to begin the hard slog of paying off their debts, which, according to some estimates could rise to over £50,000. Compound the interest on that and the pain is palpable.

Social engineering is the attempt to mould society according to political criteria. In its most brutal forms, we tend to look at the Soviet Union or Cambodia of the Khmer Rouge, but we should not think that our societies are far removed from such utopian ideologies. Since the 1900s, the UK has rolled out a welfare state that sought, under the guise of protecting the weak, to control people’s income and productivity; as various policies failed, more controls were demanded by all parties and when they failed, even more controls, regulations, and licences to live followed. If you’re sceptical of this history, then pick up a history of the twentieth century and join the dots: we now pay on average 40.9% taxation (according to the Adam Smith Institute) compared to our ancestors who in 1900 paid 2% income tax and a concomitantly lower burden overall.

But decades of state controlled schooling have left millions believing that being micromanaged by the state is somehow normal and even progressive compared to the darker ages of minimal state intervention. Part of that trend is to encourage young people away from authentically productive work and into higher degrees, where many of them learn very little compared to what could be learned working. It’s not that a university education is wrong – it can be immensely rewarding and enjoyable in many aspects (intellectual and social), but when it is used as a policy to enrich the nation or to keep people from increasing the unemployment statistics then the glory of higher academic study is tarnished. Universities are for those who enjoy and excel at higher learning, and when we look at the population as a whole and their abilities and dispositions, that will always be a minority of people, perhaps 10% or less. But we shouldn’t put quotas on these numbers – that’s something governments like to do!

Education and continued learning are indeed vital to individual empowerment and a more contented life. But we’re in a world in which adaptability and mental agility are increasingly critical virtues: no matter what level of education we reach, the ability to turn our mind to problems enables us to increase our productivity and thereby serve our fellow citizens so much more than the possession of a piece of paper costing several thousands of pounds. Unfortunately, formal education tends to converge onto similar patterns that are inconsistent with the aims of mental empowerment: because they work on economies of scale and in turn must attract students and grants, modern universities must be managed in a way to keep costs low and revenues high – it’s a simple business model and there’s nothing wrong in that, except that the courses become subtly solidified by textbooks and powerpoint presentations, but commonly recycled reading lists (these abound at the lower levels and it’s only a matter of time before they creep into university courses); in turn the modern student plays the game, finds out what the course requirements are and learns to pass the required exams as they passed the A-levels and GCSEs before. Some resort pilfering of online essays or approach friends and outside tutors to write their essays. The integrity of the university system will slowly be lost but no one will notice except future historians looking back at the decline of the western mind. This also implies that the great minds are turned from lecturing and influencing to management and acquisition of funds. No doubt many will cry, ‘no, that doesn’t happen at our university!’ Oh, but it will. The old creative guard will be replaced by systemisers and managerially minded academics. I once predicted to an amiable Oxford professor that Oxford would be trumped by the polytechnics one day for a failure to embrace some fashionable new lecturing mode. And so it happened: Oxford Brookes scored higher than Oxford. Probably because the former used powerpoint presentations. (Actually it was that Brookes’s academics had published more – but of what quality?) The modern Scholasticism will not debate how many angels fit on a pin head but how many cafes can be rented out on campus, how many students can be fit into a lecture room, the university’s standing in the league tables, the successful number of research grants awarded … True academic and free thinking will be lost in the process.

So we return to the seventeen year old student currently applying to university. If he or she terms it ‘uni’, then it’s probably not for them. If they are concerned about the huge debt that they will garner, it is probably not for them. If they just want to waste three years of their lives, then they would be better touring the world and working its bars and doing charitable work. On the other hand, if they burn to learn more, if the have that unquenchable appetite for knowledge and for seeking answers to complex questions, if they want to delve into the books and journals and empower their minds and understanding of life’s secrets … then it’ll be more than worth it. But how many are truly like that? Not many.

Coming down from the rarefied strata of university education, many young people can learn more through apprentices and work experience. What I often counsel those who are not academically inclined, is that they should learn through work, learn from what others are doing, and particularly learn how business works. Although the public sector takes up a massive one in five jobs in the UK (and another 25% working indirectly for government budgets), more than half the population will work for the private sector. It is here that wealth production and genuine job creation take place; it is here that fortunes can be made by the adaptive and enthusiastic. Formal schooling teaches us to get a job – but what about creating jobs? What about setting up and running your own business? What about following your dreams? That can rarely be taught by the universities, for they are educational institutions not entrepreneurial schools. A business degree teaches the vocabulary and skills to look after someone else’s business, whereas real experience, real work, and the courage to set off alone can only be had from outside the formal educational establishments.

Before we lose our universities to a supermarket mentality (or even to a culture akin to premier league management) let’s give our young people a different vision: yes, continue in education through the degree if it appeals and the debt is worth carrying, but otherwise, pick up some books on entrepreneurs and starting up businesses, get experience and go forth and create jobs!

Why have a personal tutor?

What is the difference between going to school and having a private tutor?

It's a bit like going to a gym: if you wander in by yourself you may feel intimidated and either lose heart or fall into classes and do what everyone else is doing... but having someone their to guide you and encourage you, to push you and to lay off when appropriate - that's how we get the best out of learning!

I invest in the services of Guy Baker, PT, (Twitter: Builtbybaker82) working from Nottingham (he's also on facebook). During the sessions, I'm the learner rather than the guide and it's good for a tutor to put him or herself in the learning seat (or on the bench in my case) and feel how tough learning can be! The focus is 100% on what I can do and what I have to potential to do and that's how learning should be!

At the top universities in the world, tutorial time is based on a one-to-one or very small seminars: in our one to one sessions, the pupil is gaining that wonderful focus that is offered in the highest academic places in the world!

The greatest businessmen and women often refer to their mentors - one-to-one tuition in how to proceed and run a business.

No distractions from other people, no mass produced material imposed on the mind - one-to-one offers pure learning at its best.

In a class, the pupil is a fraction (one in twenty, say, but it can be one in thirty) which means the pupil only gets a fraction of the teacher's attention at the best of times.

In a lecture hall, the pupil is merely a sound board - the lecture broadcasts the information with the hope that some of the attendees are paying attention some of the time. It may be a great ego boost for the deliver and there's certainly economies of scale in sharing knowledge with so many people all at one, but it's not an effective way of learning - and I know, I've been a lecturer.

With one to one, our attention undivided and we can concentrate on what the pupil knows and what he or she needs to learn. From a teaching perspective, one-to-one cannot be beat - whether you're pushing weights, learning dance steps, improving calculus, advancing piano skills, practising comprehension - the intensity is 100%.

At school - even the best of them - cannot always deal with the individual in the way that personal mentorship can. I've learned so much under Guy's supervision but I've also learned so much with my pupils. I say to ours tutors - don't forget to learn with your pupil. It's a mutual and mutually beneficial process! It's great fun too!

Summer learning - let other intelligences flourish

The summer brings the eternal idyll of family life, holidays, the warmth of the land and the gorgeous verdure of the woods. It is a time to explore our natural side - to seek the sea and cool rivers, to walk moors and hills, to discover hidden treasures around or just to lie in a field of long grass and watch clouds drift over.

Why do we have such a long summer holiday? It's a hangover from our agricultural past when all hands were expected to help with the harvests - ask any young lad or lass whose family has a farm and you'll find them heavily employed during the summer months!

But should our children continue to learn something through the summer months?

I think so - but not in school. Remove all formality and all sitting at desks and let the other intelligences have a chance to flourish!

Children need a break from institutionalised learning (just as teachers do!); they need to be allowed to run free and enjoy the outdoors to reset their emotions and grow in other respects.

On the other hand, over the long summer months, many slip in what skills they have learned during the school year - especially if the skills are only temporarily held in their minds as the knowledge or techniques were only thinly held by their minds.

Much learning that we do is shallow - it is taken in during the lesson but barely repeatable the following week. There are many reasons for that: distractions in a classroom environment, lack of thorough understanding - which rarely comes for many things for most children, lack of a connection to the knowledge -i.e., 'what's this got to do with my life?'

Such learning is quietly lost during the long summer months. In some respects it can be regained once class restarts in September, but if the mind is subtly ticked over - greasing the grooves as my personal trainer says - then much learning can be sustained and advanced: confidence can be gained and skill sets deepened. But to best foster such mental development, it's better for a child to enjoy finding his or own freedom in the summer months and learning through play, socialising, and relaxation (so underestimated in our culture!).

So let the children play - find bugs, draw monsters, laze around in the grass...more is gained from being human than being a cog in the educational machine.