Teaching the "5Cs" is now

more important than teaching the "3Rs". These are more important than giving students the skills they need to pass the examinations which will give them university entry. This is what we are being led to believe if reports about teaching "critical and creative thinking, character, citizenship, communication and collaboration" are correct. No, you don't teach these things from the time your child is born or from when they enter the education system. This is a special course which is taught over two fifty minute periods each week. Along with something called THRIVE it is intended to turn students into better citizens. It is also intended to make them better students.

I doubt it works. The students at the school where the value of this has been questioned think the course is a joke, rubbish, a waste of time and more. The teachers resent time spent on it. They do not like having to grade students on these skills, sometimes grade students they have never actually taught. All class interaction is supposed to be considered in assessing these things.

It is a long time since I went into a classroom with students in their final year of school. I see enough of the students outside the classroom. I see them in the library. I see them supporting each other there. Sometimes I will exchange a few words or read an essay or give them a little help in the form of asking them a question so they can try and see another way of seeing a problem. It is always a bit of a balancing act.

If you don't have the "5Cs" under control by the time you reach the last year of your schooling then you never will have them. Two fifty minute lessons a week is not going to help. It is more likely to hinder your progress still further. The idea that you can in any way quantify these skills is also ridiculous. Not all students are creative geniuses who participate in class at every opportunity. Some students will work well in groups. Others will be better working alone. Still others will be happier following directions. It does not mean they lack character. What of the very quiet student who simply gets on with the work involved and then, even more quietly, helps another student? Such students do exist. Are they to be penalised for not speaking up? 

It seems to me that this is not about "balance" or "character building" or "turning out good citizens". No, I suspect it is about something else altogether. The program came out of a university which has a compulsory "indigenous studies" course for all students. You are required to do this course no matter what you are studying.  It is a course considered by many to be not about education but about indoctrination. The information and the ideas there cannot be questioned.  The same apparently applies to the 5Cs. 

Learning to be a good citizen should start at home. It can be reinforced at school as and when necessary. It is not something we should be "teaching" students in their final year...because we can't. We should also be allowing them to question...because they will.