Rethinking Education with the Little Black School Book – Mark Lopez

Issue 1 | 24 March 2009

What is happening to the teaching of history? Academics like Anna Clark believe that for many Australian school students, learning about their nation’s history is about as bad as history gets. For Mark Lopez, bias and political correctness has censored out many of the facts of the past for a record of alienation or denial. Anna Clark, with Stuart Macintyre, is co-author of The History Wars which sparked months of intense debate about the way historians, politicians and others choose to interpret the Australian story. Mark Lopez is the author of The Little Black Schoolbook – The Secret to Getting Straight “As” at School and University. Anna Clark and Mark Lopez addressed The Sydney Institute on Tuesday 24 March 2009.

RETHINKING EDUCATION WITH THE LITTLE BLACK SCHOOL BOOK

MARK LOPEZ

Imagine if you could look at how the education system works as if you had come from another planet, so your observations were free from the idealistic expectations of what ought to be the case (which can cloud our judgement) and you could look realistically at what is the case. This is especially important when considering the thinking of teachers when assessing, the role that gives them the power to determine your future while you are in the education system.

Like you, when I was a school student in pursuit of high grades in English and humanities subjects, I was told that merit brings rewards, and that more merit brings greater rewards. I was also told that, in essays, it does not matter what you say as long as you argue well. I was taught that if you follow these principles, success would follow.

Like you, I believed this. Just like you, I noticed that this approach worked quite often, sometimes very well, but there were too many times when it did not. At seventeen, I was acutely aware that some of my best essays had not received the high grades they deserved. These puzzling anomalies started me thinking, not just about responding to my challenging predicament of achieving the high grades to qualify for university, but rethinking the very nature of the education system.

This rethinking accelerated when I began working as a private tutor. Through my students’ experiences, I became aware that the problems I faced as a student, we all face, and that the solutions I devised to help me succeed, help everyone succeed.

There are realities regarding assessment that affect the progress of you and every other student regardless of whether you acknowledge them or not.  However, the good news is that when you understand these realities, and my study techniques based on them, you can achieve “A”s with delightful regularity.

you have to recognise that assessment in essays in English and other humanities subjects is subjective

First, to consistently achieve the highest grades, you have to recognise that assessment in essays in English and other humanities subjects is subjective. It is only the opinion of a particular teacher on a particular day. Moreover, a grade can often tell you more about what a teacher is like than what an essay is like.

Second, you have to recognise that the process of grading essays, especially essays that the teachers like, is not simply a dry mechanical process.  It is closely associated with particular feelings or emotions. It is also true that while humans have the capacity to reason, this ability is controlled by the emotional state they may be in at the time. This means that the emotional state your teacher is in will affect how he or she assesses the value of your work. It follows that if you can tailor your submitted work to produce the feelings in your teachers that they associate with the awarding of ‘As’ then you can virtually generate “A”s at will.

This means that your essay, in particular the opening paragraph, requires the appropriate content to generate this prerequisite condition for effective persuasion.  Fortunately, the content that has this magical transformational effect in teachers is not difficult to find. Above all, it is in their bias. For almost all teachers, this involves political correctness. Teachers love to see their politically correct views reflected in their students’ work.

In addition, students’ essays need to reflect their teacher’s understanding of the topic – at whatever level that may be. There is no strict syllabus to guide them, so each teacher is left to figure out the content of the courses themselves. Misinterpretations of core material are common.  Despite what most students would ideally like to be the case, you are likely to be rewarded for reflecting your teacher’s mistakes and penalised for correcting them. This means that with some teachers, the achievement of an “A” does not necessarily involve submitting what you know to be the right answer, but rather what you believe the teacher thinks is the right answer, even if it is the wrong answer.

relying on merit alone entails risks, especially with teachers who are narrow-minded or in error.

Of course, merit is also important, for its own sake and as a means to achieve “A”s. Consequently, three quarters of my advice to students in The Little Black School Book is devoted to achieving merit. Merit can contribute greatly to achieving high grades, but relying on merit alone entails risks, especially with teachers who are narrow-minded or in error. However, merit plus some astute applied psychology, which is what I recommend, is virtually unbeatable.

Never forget that the audience you are actually writing for is your teacher or examiner. Your essay has to appeal to the person who will grade your work. In many English essays, students are asked to specify in a preamble their target audience. In doing this, many students fall into a trap; for example by stating that their target audience was teenage males, believing that this gave them the liberty to write the slang and sexist comments that appeal to this particular audience, not appreciating that their actual audience was a middle-aged feminist teacher with an acute antagonism towards this form of material.

This was the experience of one of my students. He was a typical red-blooded teenage male who decorated his dormitory room with posters of fast cars and bikini-clad women. His English teacher had given his class an assignment to write a creative essay. She had provided the class with copies of what she thought was a good essay. The class was expected to use it as a model. This essay expressed the desire for an ideal politically correct world.  Each paragraph began with the phrase “I like…” and expressed the desire for the abolition of racism or war, etc.

To receive an “A” from her the student would have to write a different essay, one that reflected the teacher’s politically correct Left values.

The student did not appreciate the theme but he was inspired by the format. He decided to write an essay about what teenage boys really like.  In his preamble he clearly stated that the target audience was teenage males. His “I like” essay celebrated the joys of action movies and beautiful women, and it included the following witty reference to young females: “The less dressed is the best dressed.” My student passed a draft of his essay around his dormitory. His peers rocked with appreciative laughter. It was obviously a hit with his target audience, which was a key official assessment criterion. My student handed in his draft to his teacher for comment. Because it was stylishly written, entertaining and perfectly crafted to appeal to its target audience, he expected praise. Her response was far less. She said that it could offend some examiners. What?  She was the only examiner. It was internally assessed class work. What the teacher’s response really indicated was that she could not give an ‘A’ to an essay that contravened her fundamental beliefs. Her conscience would not permit it. It would be like expressing approval of ideas to which she was opposed. She hid her true sentiments behind the notion that the student’s essay would offend some other examiners.  An essay of this kind could never receive an “A” from this examiner, no matter how well written. To receive an “A” from her the student would have to write a different essay, one that reflected the teacher’s politically correct Left values.

I advised the student to write another essay for his teacher. Interestingly, he chose to submit the original essay. He was proud of it. He claimed that it was the best thing he had ever written. He knew it was first-rate but he accepted that he would have to bear the cost of a grade that was unfairly lower than he deserved. He was confident that he could make up the grades he needed elsewhere. Besides, he was in Year 11, not Year 12 where every mark counts towards university entrance. Does this kind of experience sound familiar to you? Here is another.

A student of mine, who was doing Year 12, was determined to achieve the highest grades. I was tutoring him in a modern history subject that featured the Russian Revolution. He was keen to score high results in a research essay on Lenin’s New Economic Policy, the topic the class had been assigned.

To get him started, I put him in touch with an expert specialist librarian at a leading university who showed him through the library’s substantial holdings on the subject. Brimming with enthusiasm, the student read widely and deeply, taking far more effort than would be expected from a high school student. His formidable effort paid off. His first draft was an intelligent, well-structured, well-documented and well-argued essay that was more like university than high school standard. I was very impressed. He submitted the draft to his teacher for comment.  He was astonished by the result – only “C+”.  All his previous essays had received “A”s.  What was happening? My student was concerned and bewildered.  He had put more effort into this essay than the others combined.  I looked at his work again. It was superb, I thought to myself, then I realised that was the problem. Unfortunately, it was beyond the intellectual capacity of his teacher to appreciate. What he had to do was “dumb it down”.

I advised my student to omit everything from his draft that significantly differed from the teacher’s opinions, while the teacher’s own thoughts were imputed into the essay, in some cases in the teacher’s exact words, no matter how inane some of these thoughts were.

We went back to the notes that my student had taken in class. They revealed that his teacher had a very confused and erroneous understanding of the topic. The teacher, of course, did not realise this. Unfortunately, the teacher was unwilling to entertain any interpretation of the subject matter that differed from his own. I advised my student to omit everything from his draft that significantly differed from the teacher’s opinions, while the teacher’s own thoughts were imputed into the essay, in some cases in the teacher’s exact words, no matter how inane some of these thoughts were. My student retained his clear structure and expression, but not much remained of the impressive content of the first draft.  My student was willing to do what was necessary to succeed and he did.  He received an “A+” for the essay. That year he achieved a perfect score for History, 100 per cent, and took out the school’s History prize. If he wanted to know what the nature of Lenin’s New Economic Policy was really like, he could always consult his first draft.

While helping students as a private tutor, I have observed that these kinds of situations are more common than most people realise. They are invisible to the many students who slavishly follow their teacher’s instructions and do not take responsibility for their own education. Consequently, they do not have the additional knowledge to serve as reference points for comparison and consequently they do not realise that their teacher is in error and they have learnt incorrect facts or analysis. These students labour under the false assumption that their educator is more competent than he or she actually is, even though on occasions they may experience the discomforting feeling that what the teacher is saying does not quite add up.

A good scholar is not necessarily a successful student, and knowing the difference is the key.

There is more to learn from this student’s experience and other similar examples. We could also recognise the following principle: A good scholar is not necessarily a successful student, and knowing the difference is the key. You need to become both. A command of fundamental study skills, the capacity to reason, plus the unleashing of your intellectual creativity and talent will make you a good scholar. But your ability to engage effectively with those who are in authority over you will make you a good student. With each essay you write, you have to choose whether your objective is to develop your intellectual creativity or to achieve high grades. On numerous occasions these are not complementary objectives.  If you chose to develop your creativity in ways that are contrary to the ideology and expectations of your examiner, you have to recognise that you may pay a price in grades. The methods you will learn in The Little Black School Book will help to give you that choice because, firstly, you will appreciate that there is a choice and potential cost involved.

To succeed consistently, you have to recognise that your teachers are human, possessing a combination of psychological strengths and failings.  Whether you can capitalise on their strengths and avoid becoming a victim of their failings will largely depend on your recognition and exploitation of the psychological dimension of the teacher-student relationship as well as the cognitive process by which your work is graded.  By using my methods, you will not only succeed consistently, but your teachers will love you for what you do.