Having just read Audrey Watters’ book, Teaching Machines, I’ve been reminded once again of this myth that people — some of whom ought to know better — keep peddling. The myth is that education hasn’t changed, fundamentally, in hundreds of years. Basically, you have someone at the front of the room spouting off, while the pupils take notes. In other words, the modern classroom is proof of the old definition of teaching:

A process by which the notes of the teacher are passed to the notebooks of the pupils without passing through the heads of either party.

When voiced by some technology “guru”, it’s done so with Messianic zeal. Thanks to them (one is encouraged to believe), a new era has dawned: education has finally come of age. When voiced by educationalists, it’s merely disappointing.

My review of Teaching Machines will appear soon in SchoolsWeek, followed a week later by a rather longer, and different review, on this website. (That’s right: I wrote two reviews, because of word count and style guide differences.)

The remainder of this article is an updated version of a previously-published one.

Waiting at a freezing bus stop at 11pm last January, I was astonished at the sight of a number 49 bus. Sleek, modern and silent, it glided into view, a mobile beacon of light and civilisation in an otherwise desolate urban landscape.

My astonishment arose from the fact that the number 49 is nothing like the way I remember it. I used to travel on it a lot, from my home to a local park. In those days, the bus was old and the seats narrow, and that is how it has stayed in my memory. It had never occurred to me that it would have undergone, in the last 50 years, a transformation. I suppose that's a bit like meeting nieces and nephews you haven't seen for a long time. You remember them as they were when they were 15, and are genuinely surprised when, at 25, they turn out to have changed.

Yet when it comes to education, people seem to make this mistake all the time. In Sir Anthony Seldon’s book The Fourth Education Revolution Reconsidered, which was published on 5 October 2020, he says:

To be fair, his comment is a little more nuanced than that, but that’s the headline, so to speak. It’s a similar comment to one Michael Gove made when he was Education Secretary for England, saying something along the lines of “If a time traveller from the 17th century arrived today she wouldn't recognise a hospital or a doctor's surgery, but would immediately feel at home in a school or classroom.”

This is, in my opinion, both unoriginal and ill-observed.

I's true that on a superficial level the classroom of 2021 looks much like the classroom of 1921 or even earlier, apart from social distancing.

But that's no different from saying that a traveller from 1920 would instantly recognise a London bus, and from that observation drawing the conclusion that buses haven't changed, apart from apparently superficial amendments. A bus is, basically, a box on wheels which carries a large-ish number of fare-paying passengers.

But nobody can seriously claim that the bus hasn't changed over the years. It might look more or less the same, but the London bus of today has more doors, and is therefore safer, is environmentally friendlier, takes electronic payment at the door rather than via paper tickets issued by a conductor, makes announcements about where you are on the route, because it s GPS-enabled, has space for wheelchairs and pushchairs — and ramps to help them get on and off…. Need I continue?

I believe it's the same with classrooms. In the best classrooms, the following will be true:

• The chalkboard has been replaced by an interactive whiteboard, or tablets or similar. That will enable the teacher to bring the internet, and even other classes, into the classroom. A good teacher will have the students coming up to present their work to the class, or presenting from the comfort of their seats courtesy of wireless technology. Modern whiteboards will even allow two or more people to work on the screen at the same time.

• In an increasing number of classrooms, the overhead projector has long gone (in the last 30 years I have only seen OHPs in university settings). Today's equivalent is the visualiser, which allows you to do so much more, or an electronic whiteboard, or tablets connected to a projector system. Even more flexible are devices like the Hue portable camera (Amazon associate link)

• Teachers are much more likely to pay attention to the idea of personalised learning, perhaps even using a student response system as a way to facilitate that. Some teachers may even use technology to support the introduction of assessment for learning techniques into their lessons.

• There is an increasing use of mobile devices in the classroom, enabling students to work individually, collaborate with each other, or with others on the web.

• Many classrooms now have flexible furniture, such as desks which can be turned into computer desks by flipping them over, or by a press of a button. The use of mobile devices also enables ordinary classrooms (by rearranging the furniture), informal areas and even outdoor spaces to be turned into collaborative working spaces.

• Pupils don’t have to learn everything by rote.

• Pupils can work in pairs or small groups, including on projects.

• Most teachers don’t lecture most of the time, and even then in short bursts while they explain something.

I think these examples indicate that the classroom really has changed, even if some people can’t see it, and even if the change has not been as widespread as one might like. However, another consideration is that the classroom is actually the people within it, and their relationship with each other, and what they bring with them to the room. There have been enormous changes in those respects. If you don’t believe me about any of these points, read Dickens’ Hard Times.

There are two other points I’d like to raise. The fact that the basic appearance of the average classroom hasn’t changed over the years (ie it’s a room with chairs, desks and a central display) isn’t by definition a bad thing.

First, going back to my analogy about buses, I think it’s pretty good that buses have looked the same over the years, and in all parts of the world. It means, if nothing else, that when I go abroad and someone tells me to catch the bus I know what they're talking about and what sort of vehicle to look out for. When I’ve visited schools abroad, I was able to understand what I was looking at and what to look out for. There is nothing wrong per se in some things remaining the same.

Second, the people who go on about student collaboration, the teacher as guide on the side, and so on ignore the fact that sometimes the most efficient way of getting something across is to tell people rather than waste everyone’s time getting them to collaborate and hope they discover it. So-called “discovery learning” can be a massive waste of time.

Bottom line: let’s have an informed debate about these issues rather than mantras, soundbites and pub talk!

For my review of Sir Anthony Seldon’s book please see Review Of The Fourth Education Revolution Reconsidered.