Several months ago a fellow on Radio 4 told a story about birds having a race and everybody receiving prizes. This refers to the Dodo Bird Verdict, the origin of which comes from Alice in Wonderland:
A bunch of characters get wet and one of them, a dodo bird, suggests having a race around a lake to get dry. All the characters run off in different directions round the lake and dry off. They then ask the Dodo who was the winner. As there was no structure and nobody really paying attention to what was going on, the Dodo furrows its brow for a moment and then declares "everyone has won and all must have prizes".
The analogy is, according to Wikipedia, most used to refer to a problem within psychiatry as it appears that different forms of approach yield similar results, however the fellow on the radio was using it to talk about education and that is what I want to ask you.
The argument is that if all education yields equal merit, if nobody can be deemed to have failed their education, then education as a standard of measure becomes worthless. On the flip side, however, if you deem it possible for people to fail their education then you are kind of throwing those people away. I was pretty rubbish at school, I have a terrible memory and wrecked attention from massive depression, so never went on to higher education but often wonder what might have been if we didn't have a grading system and I'd just gone on to university for the sake of learning and going to university.
Now a lot of you folks are youngsters in university and most of the rest of you are university educated types working in professional fields, so I am curious as to your take on failure in education. Any thoughts?
A bunch of characters get wet and one of them, a dodo bird, suggests having a race around a lake to get dry. All the characters run off in different directions round the lake and dry off. They then ask the Dodo who was the winner. As there was no structure and nobody really paying attention to what was going on, the Dodo furrows its brow for a moment and then declares "everyone has won and all must have prizes".
The analogy is, according to Wikipedia, most used to refer to a problem within psychiatry as it appears that different forms of approach yield similar results, however the fellow on the radio was using it to talk about education and that is what I want to ask you.
The argument is that if all education yields equal merit, if nobody can be deemed to have failed their education, then education as a standard of measure becomes worthless. On the flip side, however, if you deem it possible for people to fail their education then you are kind of throwing those people away. I was pretty rubbish at school, I have a terrible memory and wrecked attention from massive depression, so never went on to higher education but often wonder what might have been if we didn't have a grading system and I'd just gone on to university for the sake of learning and going to university.
Now a lot of you folks are youngsters in university and most of the rest of you are university educated types working in professional fields, so I am curious as to your take on failure in education. Any thoughts?
