Three Reasons why Schools and Parents are not nurturing a generation of Entrepreneurs:

A journalist contacted me last week to ask if I thought that schools should teach enterprise and entrepreneurship: How important is it? Is it a good idea? Is it realistic for teachers to try to teach it? and, if so, how far should we go?  Is there a danger that it could overshadow traditional subjects? The questions were framed in a way that suggested that, whilst attending various carol services and nativity plays, I had missed a pronouncement from the Secretary of State that 'Enterprise and Entrepreneurship' was to be the next candidate for inclusion in the Gove/National Curriculum. The questions posed struck a chord. They open up the important debate about how both school and home are bringing up this generation, and how this will impact on their ability to cope in the world of work . . . .

Qualities of the Entrepreneur

Three of the most important qualities of enterprise and entrepreneurship are arguably:

1. the ability to take risks; 
2. the ability to pick yourself up when things go wrong; and
3. the ability to make connections and approach a problem in a novel way.

Unfortunately, today these are alien concepts. Here are three reasons why I believe that the implicit messages that parents and schools are sending to young people foster quite the opposite values.

"Have you got a risk assessment for that?"

Think of your fondest childhood memory - I wager it was outside, and that was away from the supervision of adults. Chances are that your mother sent you out to play saying "Don't come back till tea time." Mine did - most did. Looking back on my childhood, it's amazing that I'm alive. We went off to play in the way that boys did - we climbed trees, we broke into condemned buildings that had collapsing floors, I explored all the loft spaces of the house, went on all-day bike rides, and so on. Undoubtedly it was dangerous - but we learned to take and manage risks. Children don't do that anymore. Their idea of danger is served up by Alton Towers:  it's scary, but fundamentally it's safe - you think that your going to Oblivion, but really you know that you'll get to queue up for the next ride.

The same goes for travel - so few pupils walk or even ride a bike to school. Most are chauffeured by parents everywhere - even to be dropped off to catch the School bus.  Few ever use public transport and most can't even read a railway or bus timetable, let alone plan a long distance journey. In contrast, I walked three-quarters of a mile to catch a train to school each morning (sometimes carrying a 'cello!) When I was 13 I was put on a train at Chelmsford and expected to get myself  to Valenciennes in north west France by train and ferry (operating for a part in my schoolboy French) to stay with my pen-friend. Unthinkable today - and all the more so when one thinks that we grew up in a world without mobile phones. It was a different world - but I'm not convinced that it was any more dangerous.

There is little doubt that we have become overprotective of our children, that they gain independence later (helicopter parents at University!) and that they are far less skilled at managing risk. If this is the case, how can we really expect this generation of young people to show enterprise and take the risks needed by entrepreneurs if on a daily basis they remain wrapped up in cotton wool?

"Practically Perfect in Every Way"

There is a growing culture in independent schools and amongst fee-paying parents that a B or a C grade is a failure. There are two factors driving this. First, A-level grade inflation means that top universities find it increasingly difficult to discriminate between candidates. In a world where significant numbers of pupils have A* and A grades - anything less and your chances of getting into a top 10 university goes out of the window. Secondly, School league tables (and therefore a schools' academic standings) are determined by the percentage of A*+A. 

The consequence of this is that young people are expected to be "practically perfect in every way" - or at least to have a perfect academic record. There is no doubt that young people are under much greater pressure to perform at a high level than we were at school:  last summer the vast majority of Berkhamsted Sixth held and made university offers in excess of ABB  - pressure reserved only for the most prestigious courses in the 1980s.

Perhaps the most bizarre unintended consequences of the "A-grade = Pass culture" is that children are no longer allowed to fail. Parents are increasingly vocal as soon as a grade drops below an A. Let me illustrate:

When an essay set early in the AS course is marked at a B or C grade, it is not uncommon for a parent to contact the school to ask why their child has dropped a grade. ["It has been very upsetting for her."]  It does not take long before the accusation that "The teacher clearly hasn't taught them properly!" is levelled. When it is explained to the parent that few experienced teachers would expect a pupil in their first weeks of the Lower Sixth to be writing at A grade standard [because it takes time to develop a mature essay writing style and that the transition from GCSE to A-level is not an easy one] a typical parental repost is along the lines of  "Well, your expectations should be higher, Mr Steed" or "Why set a task when they can't get an A grade?"

Something has been lost here. Getting a B or a C grade has always been a normal part of the learning process. B or a C grades should indicate that a pupil has reached a certain standard, but that there is more work to do. Yet in our "practically perfect" culture, any deviation from an A grade is seen as an aberration that in some way damages the young person's self esteem. 

Learning to cope with failure and disappointment is an important part of life and schools have a fundamental part to play in this. How a young person reacts to getting a B or a C grade is important: "What do I need to do to get an A grade?" "Where did I go wrong?" "What does an A grade essay look like?"  There the  is a real danger that we are creating a generation of young people who lack the basic resilience that is fundamental to success in the world of work - let alone embarking on a career as an entrepreneur.

"We are breading a generation of accountants, not entrepreneurs." 

There was a time when I started teaching when we all knew what an A grade essay looked like - it was sometimes difficult to put your finger on why, but we all knew one when we saw one. We knew for the same reasons that Oxbridge dons 'know' what a First looks like (or indeed an Beta+? for that matter) - because it had been passed down through the generations with professional rigour and pride. The old system could accommodate those with flair, it could accommodate the maverick. That was all part of the fun. Teachers would encourage the bright pupil to take a different angle or to make the quirky connection, knowing that she would be rewarded for doing so. Today flair is an alien concept to examiners: the mark schemes are so rigid that we only reward the careful. The consequence is that the bright pupil has the maverick beaten out of him. Flair has become a vice. Making quirky connections a menace. We have an A-level system that is breading a generation of accountants: they are reliable, they are careful, they don't make mistakes and they get the job done - they are trained to think in the same way. Consequently most bright pupils don't have an entrepreneurial bone in their body.

Final Thoughts

I'm sure that it would be very good for the country if more young people were to go out into the world to become Entrepreneurs. However, I don't think that 'enterprise and entrepreneurship' can be taught in a classroom - indeed the key skills are best taught outside of the classroom.

1. Risk:  "We expose young people to risk in controlled situations" (Duncan Hardy, Director of Outdoor Education at Berkhamsted). Young people need to learn to take and manage risk. Some of the most important things that we do at school are the most dangerous: the rock climbing club, the CCF survival weekends, Duke of Edinburgh Expeditions and so on - these activities teach young people a whole range of important skills and give them "character-forming" experiences that will shape them for life. They should be a fundamental part of every child's education.
2. Failure is a great teacher:  "Life isn't fair - get used to it."  Young people need to learn how to cope with disappointment and failure. Resilience is a vital life skill that can only be learned in the school of hard knocks. We need to let young people fail, if they are to succeed.
3. In Praise of the B grade:  We all need to see ourselves as "work-in-progress" - we are never "the finished article": to think of ourselves as A* is hubris.
4. Encourage the maverick:  We need people who can see problems from different angles. We need to value people who can make connections. We need to encourage intellectual risk-taking.  In terms of the examination system, this will never be possible if we continue on the path to tick-box examining.

The Importance of Independent Learning

"One of the key responsibilities of any good school is to provide the context in which young people learn how to study on their own. “Learning to learn” is a complex process that entails pupils taking responsibility and playing their part within the educational process. You can see the shift in mindset when a boy or girl moves from saying “Here’s your homework, Sir” to “Here is my work.” After all, schooling is not about teachers teaching great lessons – it is about young people learning and understanding things. 

Independent Learning is important because it develops creativity and intellectual curiosity. Independent learning is about pupils being active rather than passive. It is about them working out the answers rather than being told them. It is about them wanting to study because they want to understand more, rather than taking a Utilitarian stance that I am doing this because I want to pass the examination. Independent Learning is not the easy option – it is tough. 

Here at Berkhamsted we are committed to fostering Independent learning and, parents, you can help us here – we need your support. But before I say how, let me first explain why. 

As a teacher I have a choice. If all I want to do is to get results, I can spoon-feed you. I can give you dozens of model answers and I can get out my big stick and I can make you learn them.

But if I want to educate you, I will encourage and inspire you to explore the subject, to make discoveries and set you tasks that will challenge you. There will be times when you will feel out of your depth, but as you develop new skills and greater resilience, you will begin to understand the subject and to make connections. Alongside this I will teach you the techniques so that you can answer any question that the examiner chooses to throw at you. 

The “give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish you feed him for life” principle is at work here. 

This year we have had a focus on independent learning and the teaching staff have been encouraged not to spoon-feed, but to set challenging tasks. It may sound counter-intuitive, but I have encouraged teachers to be less helpful and not to just jump straight in with the answers. For it is only by being less helpful that pupils will have the opportunity to develop the resilience and problem-solving skills that will help them rise to future challenges in life. 

And this is where you come in as parents; or more to the point, this is where you shouldn’t come in as parents. The response this year of some parents to our shift towards more independent learning has been to complain. “My daughter has been set a prep on a subject she hasn’t yet been taught.” “My son has dropped from an A grade to B – what is going wrong?” etc. 

Here at Berkhamsted we are committed to educating young people – not just cramming them for examinations. A true education is challenging. A true education will involve failure. Getting an A grade all the time is probably a bad sign.   

So, parents, bear with us.
Support us.
Encourage your children to stretch themselves.
Encourage your children to take responsibility for their own work.
Encourage your children to take risks.
And, above all, encourage to your children to learn from their mistakes."

Extract from Berkhamsted School Speech Day Address 4th. July 2013

The keys to success: hard work and how you respond to failure

In this outstanding video Michael Jordan explains that you don't succeed unless you work hard and learn from failure.

 

"Maybe it's my fault.
Maybe I led you to believe it was easy, when it wasn't.
Maybe I made you think my highlights started at the free throw line, and not at the gym.
Maybe I made you think that every shot I took was a game winner.
That my game was built on flash, and not fire.
Maybe it's my fault that you didn't see that failure gave me strength, that my pain was my motivation.
Maybe I led you to believe that basketball was a God given gift,
and not something I worked for every single day of my life.
Maybe I destroyed the game.
Or maybe you're just making excuses."

[I am grateful to Julie Potter, who used this video as part of her assembly.]

What does it mean to be an educated person?

A thought-provoking video:
(Thanks to New Stede for sharing this in their house assembly)

 

So you want to get a degree? Why?
Let me tell you what society would tell you. It increases your chances of getting a job, provides you with an opportunity to be successful, your life will be a lot less stressful, education is the key.
Now, let me tell you what your parents would tell you. "Make me proud", it increases your chances of getting a job, provides you with an opportunity to be successful, your life will be a lot less stressful, education is the key.

Now let’s look at the statistics, Steve Jobs - net worth $7 billion (R.I.P.); Richard Branson  - net worth $4.2 billion; Oprah Winfrey - net worth $2.7 billion; Mark Zuckerberg, Henry Ford, Steven Spielberg, Bill Gates now here comes the coup de grace.

Looking at these individuals, what’s your conclusion? Neither of them in being successful ever graduated from a higher learning institution, now some of you would protest like, "You know money isn't only the medium by which one measures worldly success," some of you even have the nerve to say, "I don’t do it for the money", so what are studying for? To work for a charity? Need more clarity?

Let’s look at the statistics, Jesus, Muhammed (pbuh), Socrates, Malcolm X, Mother Teresa, Spielberg, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Jesse Owens, Muhammad Ali, Sean Carter, Michael Jeffrey Jordan, Michael Joseph Jackson were either of these people unsuccessful or uneducated?

All I’m saying is that if there was a family tree, hard work and education would be related, but school would probably be a distant cousin . . .

If education is the key, then school is the lock. Because it rarely ever develops your mind to the point where it can perceive red as green and continue to go when someone else said "STOP", because as long as you follow the rules and pass the exams, you’re cool. But are you aware that examiners have a checklist? And if your answer is something outside of the box, the automatic response is a cross, and then they claim that school expands your horizons and your visions. Well, tell that to Malcolm X, who dropped out of school and is world renowned for what he learned in a prison.

Proverbs 17:16, "It does a fool no good to spend money on education," why? Because he has no common sense.
George Bush. Need I say more?

“Education is about inspiring one's mind not just filling their head.” And take this from me, because I’m a educated man myself, who only came to this realization after countless nights in the library with a can of Red Bull keeping me awake till dawn and another can in the morn, falling asleep in between piles of books which probably equates the same amount I’ve spent on my rent, memorize equations, facts and dates, right down to the letter, half of which I’d never remember, and half of which I'd forget straight after the exam, or before the start of the next semester, asking anyone if they had notes for the last lecture? I often found myself running to class, just so I could find the spot on which I could rest my head and fall asleep without making a scene, ironic because that’s the only time I ever spent in university of chasing my dreams.

And then after nights with a dead-mind; identifying myself in the queue of half awake student zombies waiting to hand in an assignment, maybe that’s why they call it a "dead-line". And then after three years of mental suppression and frustration, my proud mother didn't even turn up to my graduation.

Now I'm not saying that school is evil, and there’s nothing to gain, but all I’m saying is, understand your motives and reassess your aims, because if you want a job working for someone else, then help yourself. But then that would be a contradiction, because you wouldn’t have really be helping yourself, you’ll be helping somebody else; there’s a saying, which says, “If you don’t build your dream, someone else will hire you to help build theirs.”

Redefine, how you view education. Understand its true meaning. Education is not just about regurgitating facts from a book or someone else’s opinion on a subject to pass an exam. Look at it, Picasso was educated in creating art; Shakespeare was educated in the art of all that was written. Colonel Harland Sanders was educated in the art of creating Kentucky Fried Chicken.

I once saw David Beckham take a free kick. I watched as the side of his Adidas-sponsored boot hit the patent leather of the ball at angle which caused it to travel towards the skies as though it was destined for the heavens. And then as it reached the peak of its momentum, as though it changed its mind, it switched directions . . . I watched as the goalkeeper froze, as though reciting to himself the laws of physics, and as though his brain was negotiating with his eyes that was indeed witnessing the spectacle of the leather swan that was sweeping towards it, and then reacted. But only a fraction of a millisecond too late, and before the net of the goal embraced the FIFA-sponsored ball, as though it was the prodigal son returning home; and the country that I live in erupted into cheers. I look at the play, and thought, "Damn; looking at David Beckham, there is more than one way in this world to be an educated man."

"I will not let an exam result decide my fate . . . "  Suli Breaks, Vanity Fair 2009

And that David Beckham free kick:

How to be a good parent

Anthony Seldon, the Master of Wellington, given the title "How do you raise a winner", instead writes an outstanding piece on "How to be a good parent" in the latest edition of the Independent School Parent Magazine.

In this much-needed counterblast to the "Tiger Mother" approach to parenting, Seldon argues:

"The key to being a good parent is learning how to let go. It is important to realise that you don’t “own” your child, but rather that they are their own person, with their own thoughts, feelings and passions. 

The good parent will spend attentive time with the child, the father as well as the mother, and help the child to think through and develop their own thoughts, feelings and opinions. They will help the child through the key decisions in their life; including choice of school, choice of subjects and choice of university, rather than subtly making the child do what the parent wants. 

Good parents help their children to become autonomous and independent. Bad parenting prevents a child from becoming autonomous and fully independent, with life-long damage, not least in the way that those children will in turn bring up their own children."

 For the full article: 'How do you raise a winner?'  Independent School Parent Spring 2013, p17

See also previous blogposts:

• Failure - A key educational Experience  12/03/2013
• Book Review: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother - Amy Chua 18/07/2011

Failure . . . a key educational experience

As a teenager one of my favourite reads was Stephen Pile's The Book of Heroic Failures, which distilled failure into humour and thus made it fit for human consumption. Failure may be funny when served with a side order of schadenfreude, but in the real world, it really isn't all that popular at all.

Perhaps it has always been this way, perhaps I'm just noticing it more, or perhaps it's a product of the easy A-grade culture, but I am increasingly conscious that parents don't like their children failing. And I'm not talking here about the fundamentals - no one wants their child to fail their A-levels or to fail to get the grades for a chosen university course - but parents increasingly intervene when there is a slightest blip from the flawless path of success. Here in the independent sector, there is a growing constituency who believe, just because they are paying fees, that they are buying success. We are in danger of falling into the trap of creating a false universe where the only thing that matters is success. (And we in schools are just as guilty -  we celebrate success in every assembly, on every website post and in every Speech Day address.  When did we last celebrate a failure?)

As parents and educators we want our children to grow and thrive. We want them to have a range of experiences that develop them as into mature, thoughtful, productive, independent adults. We naturally want to protect our children. But protecting children from harm is one thing, protecting them from failure is quite a different matter.

Real life - especially very successful life - is made up of both success and failure. In "bigging up" our children, we are neglecting to see the value of failure as an educational experience. If we are to equip young people for the real world beyond the security of our homes and schools, we need to give them the strength and resilience to cope with failure. Failure is only a bad thing if we let it defeat us. It is how we respond to failure that matters most - indeed, it is what my parents' generation would call "character-building" (a phrase we rarely hear anymore - why?). 

One of the consequences of the "succeed, but don't fail" culture is that young people become risk averse. The much-quoted research of Carol Dweck at Stamford University has demonstrated that the young people who have a "fixed mindset" are less likely to cope with failure and more likely to take risks academically, than those who have a "growth mindset" (See Carol Dweck's Mindset). What is clear from Dweck's research is that we need to encourage young people to take risks, to allow them to fail, and to teach them to learn from their failures - thus developing resilience. (There are excellent summaries of Dweck's research in both Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers and Matthew Syed's Bounce).

The last word here must go to Michael Jordan in his iconic Nike Advert (which makes a great school assembly!).  

"I've missed more than nine thousand shots in my career. I've lost almost three hundred games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot, and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life . . . . . . . and that is why I succeed."

Further Reading:

• Malcolm Gladwell 'The Talent Myth' New Yorker 22/07/2002
• Malcolm Gladwell Outliers: The Story of Success
• Carol Dweck Mindset
• Matthew Syed Bounce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice