The Measurement of Progress and the Role of Education

Some talk of well-being, others of sustainable development, and some of progress. They may differ in their terminology, but those who preach these ideas are part of a growing global consensus — a consensus that believes societies need to look beyond Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to develop a more holistic view of the directions in which they are heading. The strength of the consensus is evidenced by the thousands of initiatives worldwide that seek to measure societal progress. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is advocating and supporting this work through its Global Project on Measuring the Progress of Societies. The article focuses on two areas.

• • Global views on measuring progress and well-being. Why do increasingly many people consider that measuring progress and well-being is important? What are they trying to achieve and is any agreement emerging around what ‘well-being’ is and how it can be measured?
• • Education and well-being. Do, and should, measures of ‘education’ play a role in any set of key indicators that seek to assess societal well-being? And what are the links between how educated a society is and how, indeed whether, it is progressing against other key economic, social and environmental concerns?

     

Polanyian Educational Dimensions of Mill's Mental Crisis

In Chapter V of his autobiography, John Stuart Mill describes the ‘crisis in my mental history’ that cast this brilliant mind into profound gloom at age 20. Mill makes clear that his plight had everything to do with the extraordinary analytical and critical education imparted to him by his father. That which prompts Mill's deep distress, as well as that which is necessary in order to escape it, are the central concern of Michael Polanyi's monumental Personal Knowledge. The thesis of this essay is that Polanyi in his book offers a penetrating analysis of the disorder from which Mill suffered and, even more significantly, Polanyi explains more perceptively than does Mill himself what is required in order to resolve the mental crisis and establish what both authors refer to as ‘balance’ of mind.     

The Development of a Quality System for Higher Education

This article documents the approach used and the design decisions taken during the establishment of a quality system for teaching activities in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Leeds, It describes the motivations for performing the work, how it was organized and resourced, the approach adopted, and the impact of the Higher Education Funding Council for England teaching quality assessment exercise. The article then details each of the stages of the project in turn, from specifying the scope of the work; analyzing the activities involved; defining the quality policy of the department; analyzing various quality system models and selecting the most appropriate one; defining the structure of the documentation to be produced; writing the quality manual and procedures; and the implementation of the system itself The article concludes by giving the current status of the system. Experiences gained from introducing and using the quality system are documented elsewhere: this article concentrates on its conception and design.     

Consulting: Training Counselors to Work with Teachers,Parents, and Administrators

Practicing counselors and researchers are realizing the value of consulting with teachers, parents, and administrators. Counselor educators need to begin to train counselors formally and systematically in these skills. This article presents one training model in detail.     

Counselor Educator and Administrator: What Do They Want From Each Other?

Unfortunately, a relatively large majority of teachers, school administrators, and other school personnel view the counselor and his function in a vastly different perspective than do his mentors, the counselor educators. In an attempt to bring the academic world together with the world of reality (the school community), a workshop format was developed to provide counselor educators and top-level school administrators an opportunity to meet and to discuss issues of mutual concern. Although some of the issues generated would seem fairly commonplace in another context, here they served to bring about considerable rapport and good feeling between the counselor educator and the administrator. Indications are that further workshops be held to bring school people and counselor trainers together, to serve both the purpose of acquainting the school person with the counselor's perceived function, and to introduce the counselor trainer to the real problems of the school environment. Not of small significance are some of the misconceptions that administrators have concerning the activity of the school counselor, due in part to the lack of communication between administrator and training institution and vice versa.     

Negotiating Historical Narratives: An Epistemology of History for History Education

Historians typically tell stories about the past, but how are we to understand the epistemic status of those narratives? This problem is particularly pressing for history education, which seeks guidance not only on the question of which narrative to teach but also more fundamentally on the question of the goals of instruction in history. This article explores the nature of historical narrative, first, by engaging with the seminal work of Hayden White, and second, by developing the critique of White by David Carr. The picture of historical inquiry that emerges is one in which the fundamental cognitive activity is one of negotiating among narratives. Students, like historians, like any of us, come to the work of historical inquiry in possession of prior narratives, which are then thrown into an encounter with other narratives of varying size and scope. Good historians enact the negotiation among narratives responsibly and well, demonstrating the virtues of historical interpretation. History education, therefore, ought to help students improve their historical interpretations at the same time as it fosters those qualities that make them good interpreters.     

WRITING NEATNESS, COMPOSITION ERRORS, AND ESSAY GRADES

Twelve forms of an essay exam, identical in content but differing in writing neatness and types of composition errors, were graded by 420 prospective teachers. The results indicate that: ( a ) an essay response containing either 18 spelling errors or 18 grammar errors will be assigned significantly lower grades than the same response containing no gross composition errors; and ( b ) a good handwritten essay response will be assigned significantly higher grades than a fair handwritten response. Of particular interest was this latter result and the lack of significance between the mean grades assigned to the poor handwritten and typewritten forms and the mean grades assigned to the other writing forms. Furthermore, there was not a significant interaction effect between composition errors and writing neatness.     

The Sa´mi School System in Norway and International Cooperation

This article discusses recent developments in Norway, where a separate curriculum for the primary and lower secondary schools in the indigenous Sa´mi areas has been introduced, and a part of the jurisdiction over the school system there has been transferred from the government to the Sa´mi Parliament. In particular, the increasing articulation of minority rights, and a related desire for autonomy, from national minority groups and indigenous peoples the world over, provide an important backdrop and crucial frame of reference for the recent Sa´mi initiatives in Norway.