Whatever Happened to General Knowledge?

I have read several interesting articles recently on the skills vs knowledge debate with seemingly good arguments put forward for each side.

For some time now, there has been a bias in education towards skills. Teach kids how to analyse, evaluate and synthesise (for example) and they will then be able to apply and use those skills whenever they are needed in a range of contexts. Focus on the skills, we are told, and you create empowered, confident and independent learners.

The knowledge based approach is often presented as being old fashioned - like something out a Dickens novel. Focus on facts in your classroom, and you might as well change your name to Thomas Gradgrind and don an academic gown and mortar board.

But here's the rub for me in my classroom: the skills based approach assumes that learners have a knowledge base to use and my learners generally don't. Here are some things I have needed to teach individual learners this week in order for them to make progress with the task at hand:

• what the phrase "Land's End to John O'Groats" means - both literally and figuratively. The learner did not know that these were place names, let alone what they signified
• the meaning of a range of words such as symmetrical, domestic, commercial and conjugal
• that Queen Elizabeth the second is our queen, and not Queen Elizabeth the first - she was the ginger one with the ruff
• that Queen Victoria was not around when Shakespeare was writing so no, she couldn't have met him (Dr Who has a lot to answer for...)
• that Americans spell things differently from us
• that Catholics are christians
• Why saying to give 110% is good rhetoric but bad maths
• That the sun is a star

In each case, the learner was not able to apply their skills effectively because they lacked simple general knowledge. The student who was stuck with "Lands End to John O'Groats" was trying to comment on the effect of a writer's language. He can write a fantastic SQI paragraph but as he thought "John O'Groats" was a character from 'Game of Thrones' he came a bit unstuck. 

Without the knowledge, his skills were useless.

Yesterday, I was working with my KS3 class on strategies for learning tricky spellings. We were discussing the days of the week - Wednesday in particular. "Why did they make it so hard to spell?"asked a very reasonable 12 year old. 

"Good question," says I.

Where do you start with that? This student thought that there was a group of people making up the spellings and he had a pretty shrewd notion that they were being deliberately difficult. So, how did I disabuse him of this idea in regard to Wednesday? 

I started with what he knew: Thor. (Thank you Marvel and Kenneth Branagh.) I wrote Thor's day on the board and he made the connection to Thursday. I started to explain Tuesday, but he was way ahead of me - he knew the norse gods (nobody else in the class did) and he started making connections left right and centre. It was awesome. I explained that Odin is also called Woden and kerching! the whole class suddenly got that:

1. nobody's just making this spelling stuff up
2. our language has a really interesting history
3. that their knowledge is useful

They also looked at me in awe as I answered all sorts of questions. Not only did I know all about the Norse gods and the Romans, but I also know some Latin and Greek words and have a pretty good grounding in both the DC and Marvel worlds. One student said, "Miss, do you just know everything because when we ask you something you give us a whole back story?" She valued my knowledge base. She could see it was powerful. She wanted it for herself.     

Skill was involved here of course - the skill of making connections. But you need to have the dots before you can join them.

It got me thinking. I don't know everything, not by a long chalk, but I can talk History, Philosophy, Science, Geography... The TAs are gung-ho for me to go on 'The Chase' because they reckon I would be brilliant. I probably would be until they asked me about pop music after 1980, reality TV or sport! So how did I get to be so "knowledgable"?  

David Attenborough, Carl Sagan, Kenneth Clark et. al. were on our telly at home. I don't know how much knowledge stuck in my head from then (clearly some did), but I came from a home where certain kinds of knowledge were valued and had currency: my father is fond of saying that there is no such thing as useless information. My husband and I watch fact based programmes such as Springwatch and Star Gazing Live. We visit museums and art galleries everywhere we go and we both read - a lot!

The upshot is that I have a wide base of general knowledge that I draw on everyday. My students do not, and it hampers them. 

One of my students regularly says, "How did I not know that?" and then she gives me a look that breaks my heart because it says she feels stupid for not knowing. 

So here's my thought on this debate. Skills are essential tools, but without knowledge they are useless. It's like having a precision jigsaw but nothing to use it on. Somehow we have to get knowledge back on the agenda in our classrooms and fast. I am not Mr Gradgrind, but what I absolutely know is that we have to get knowledge back on the agenda - and fast.