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Cross-Curricular Education: fostering links between English and PE through cricket

“What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?” – CLR James

“I understand cricket – what’s going on, the scoring – but I can’t understand why.” – Bill Bryson

Mr James Courtenay-Clack, English Teacher and Head of Year 9 at WHS, looks at the possible links between English and PE.

You may have noticed that the idea of ‘cross-curricular’ education is having a bit of a moment. Making links between disciplines and across subjects is undoubtedly rewarding and helps pupils to move beyond a straightjacketed approach that keeps everyone and everything in their own place. There are some subjects that fit together so naturally it hardly seems worthy of mention.

As an English teacher, it is rare to plan a unit of work that doesn’t in some way cross over with both the arts and humanities subjects. To pick one example, the current Year 13 students have been writing a coursework essay that compares Cormac McCarthy’s The Road with the poetry of TS Eliot. In this unit they studied the philosophy of Albert Camus and Soren Kierkegaard, post-WW1 European history and the climate emergencies of the 21st Century. They also explored the fragmented voices of Eliot’s poetry alongside Picasso and jazz. All of this I (and hopefully they) would argue, helped to enrich their experience of the literary texts they were studying.

There have also been links made with other subjects that are not usually seen as having much to do with literature. We have had a STEAM lesson that explored the science of nerve gas alongside Wilfred Owen’s poetry and I know that the Maths department produced some wonderful number-based poetry. What I would like to draw attention to in this article, however, is the links between English and another part of the curriculum that have for too long gone unnoticed.

Now, it might be thought that English and PE are not natural bedfellows. In the staff rooms of our cultural imagination, you could not ask for two more diametrically opposed tribes. The stereotype of the PE teacher, head to toe in school stash, whistle at the ready and exuding the aura of good health that comes only from breathing in the sweet, sweet fresh air of Nursery Road, does not fit well with that of the bookish, tweedy English teacher. Of course, all of this, as stereotypes so often are, is complete rubbish. Mr Daws seems to have run more marathons than had hot dinners and if I wanted a book recommendation I could do far worse than turn to Ms Cutteridge.  

Now this article is far too short to be able to tackle the many links between English and all of the sports played at WHS, so I am going to focus on just one, cricket.

WHS Cricket

You may roll your eyes at this, but I believe that cricket can tell us as much about the messy business of being a human being as any other cultural practice. This is something that has been explored by a surprising number of writers and so I would like to take a look at just four examples where cricket and literature combine in illuminating ways.

The Pickwick Papers – Charles Dickens

Whilst Dickens doesn’t actually appear to understand the laws of the game, the cricket match between All-Muggleton and Dingley Dell in his wonderful novel does reveal an important truth about cricket and life: friendship and conviviality are far more important than material success. Also, that exercise is more fun when followed by a substantial multi-course feast.

‘Vitai Lampada’ – Henry Newbolt

This almost impossibly Victorian poem begins in the final moments of a school cricket match – ‘ten to make and the match to win’ – before moving to a soldier dying on a battlefield in an unnamed part of the British Empire. Newbolt’s refrain ‘Play up! Play up! And play the game!’ gives us insight to a worldview that is almost entirely alien in 2021, but that goes someway in helping us to understand our own history.

The Legend of Pradeep Mathew – Shehan Karunatilaka

I love this novel. Karunatilaka uses cricket – or a dying sports journalist’s futile attempts to track down the greatest bowler of all time – to explore the political and social history of postcolonial Sri Lanka. If that all sounds a bit dry, please don’t be put off. It is rambunctious, hilarious and well aware of both its own and cricket’s ridiculousness.

Beyond a Boundary – CLR James

This is widely argued to be the best book about sport ever written. James, a Marxist intellectual, traces his own interest in the game alongside Trinidad’s journey towards independence. He reflects on how both cricket and English literature were introduced to the Caribbean as ways of enforcing British supremacy and sees in both the potential for anti-colonial rebellion.

I hope this whistle stop tour goes some way to showing that the cultural practices of cricket and literature both help to illuminate what it means to be a human being and that the symbiotic benefits that arise from studying English and playing cricket together are just as valid as those that arise from any other subject.

The two epigraphs I have chosen sum this up beautifully. I deliberately misread Bill Bryon’s puzzlement as to the point of cricket and imagine that he too wants to know all about its cultural value. More seriously, CLR James paraphrases Kipling by asking ‘what do they know of cricket who only cricket know?’ and urges us to look beyond the boundary at the world around us. This is the best metaphor for cross-curricular education that I can think of and for that reason I am proposing a mighty union between the English and PE departments. Perhaps we could even build our own version of the STEAM Tower…

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STEAM+

Suzy Pett, Director of Studies, and Richard Bristow, SMT Secondee, discuss Wimbledon High’s unique STEAM+ strategy.

 

We’ve had a whole two weeks of inhabiting the new STEAM Tower. It’s beautiful, airy and light. However, it represents so much more than simply a new, physical space. I’m reminded of the poet Emily Dickinson who writes about a “certain slant of light” where “internal differences are”. And that’s the point. The tower is physically very different, but it represents the deeper, inner differences to the way we think about learning here at WHS.

First, we had STEM, that initiated the idea of interdisciplinary learning.

Then, we the realised that with the creativity of Arts, the problem-solving potential to real world problems was magnified. So, we developed STEAM. We need the imaginative, ethical, social and historical capabilities of the Arts to allow us to rigorously contemplate the complex issues of the 21st century. And my goodness have we shown our STEAM real-world problem-solving capabilities. Just last week we heard that our students were winners of the air pollution study by Bristol ChemLabS. Some of our students have worked with UCL’s Mullard’s Space centre to analyse data about the erosion of the Earth’s plasmapause, while others are almost ready to publish Sport Science research on the Wimbledon Championships in partnership with the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club. Recently, our Year 11-13s have been working with the Wellcome Sanger Institute (near Cambridge) as well as ELLS lab in Heidelberg Germany on bioinformatics projects. Not many school students ever have the opportunity to participate in ‘real’ research that could be published in scientific journals, but we do.

Now we are in the next phase of our evolution. That is STEAM+. Whilst maintaining the integrity of STEAM and its problem-solving potential, we are capitalising on the myriad of different connections between all subjects with STEAM+.

Why this is ethos is vital, is best explained by our Year 13 STEAM+ subject leaders.

Above: WHS Chemistry class, by Zest photos

Maddy:

“The principles of STEAM+ have been useful in allowing me to combine my interest in both the humanities and sciences. I found it very difficult to decide between the two when choosing my GCSEs and A levels. However, I have discovered opportunities in North America that allow me to continue to pursue interdisciplinary study at university level. Their system of combined majors and minors enables students to explore various subjects and the connections between them, thus specialising their course to their interests, lending itself perfectly to the idea of STEAM+.”

Karimah:

“My interest in STEAM probably stemmed from a visit to the Science Museum about 7 years ago – that, and my mega fascination with Doctor Who. The million-dollar “Bionic Man” had just been unveiled, complete with its own set of artificial organs, synthetic blood and robot limbs, all of which could potentially be fitted into a human body. Although I didn’t understand anything at all about how it worked (bearing in mind I was about 9 at the time), I was intrigued by the notion that science, technology, engineering, art and maths combined had accomplished something so remarkable and could benefit so many people.”

 

Above: WHS Biology, by Zest Photos

Sophie:

“I am studying Chemistry, double Maths, and English, aiming to study Green Chemistry at university. With regards to being a STEAM+ subject leader, the links between humanities and science is what first got me interested in pursuing a science degree, having for example read a book called Napoleon’s Buttons which talks about the significance of specific chemical molecules in historical events. This showed me how important interdisciplinary learning is, and has encouraged me now to find ways to combine different subjects, leading to my interest in the green aspects of chemistry which not only has a scientific backbone but also requires thought about social and political matters.”

Lena:

Above: VR Headsets in class, 2019

“I became a Steam + leader due to my appreciation in combining both my creative and scientific demand. My infatuation in applying both design and technology was prompted further by a trip I took to the German Cinematic Museum in Berlin. There I was presented a variety of virtual headsets – when worn, these headsets borne different combinations of the virtual and real world. Here I was introduced to the future of VR, AR and MR. These devices could either create completely virtual and explorable environments, or act as extensions of real-world structures. From then on, I have strived to explore ways in which I could utilise this technology.”

Fedra:

Entrepreneur and computer programmer Aaron Swartz says, ‘Be curious, Read widely, Try new things. What people call intelligence just boils down to curiosity”. Climate change is not solely a scientific issue but also a social issue. This is why I decided to become a STEAM+ leader, as the interrelation of my A Level subjects -Geography, Biology and Economics – has enabled me to look through a different lens and a different perspective of climate change, before going off to university to study Environmental Studies

Our five STEAM+ subject leaders have recorded a WimChat podcast, so look out for this on Twitter and our website to hear more about their views on STEAM+ and how it is opening doors for them.

Last week we heard that Martine in Year 11 and Phoebe in Year 10 were both awarded prizes for their writing submitted for the Charles Causley Trust poetry competition.  Reading Martine’s poem, we were struck by how it encapsulates the connections that can be made when subject disciplines dissolve and we can connect our thinking in different ways.

台灣 (Taiwan)

There’s a sense of magic in a place I can only half remember.
Where the faces and names are delicate leaves of my youth, falling in late September
And the neon signs with the squiggly lines glow dimly somewhere in my memory
But the falling leaves are hard to see and evade my grasp in an act of treachery.

The magic of the minute yet colossal differences, the bathrooms, the ads, and the subway.
My young eyes like a camera, spinning and capturing the scene of my beloved Taipei.
From my grandmother and my family came the knowledge of a culture I had amassed
When I could enchant in a language that rolled off my tongue like a spell I cast.

The brutal heat of London these days tugs at a memory in the back of my mind,
Of waiting by the food stall for seconds stretched to hours, pleasant and unkind.
I dream of a return where every piece falls into place
When I’ll feel the heat and humidity wrap me in a soft embrace.

There’s a tugging, restless longing in my heart
For a place I now understand as much as abstract art,
But I know its smells like the lines of my hand
And the sounds of the motorcycles revving were my favorite band.

There’s a chasm in my core when I return to the place I only half remember
Because the night markets are weary and bored and feel like a misnomer.
The dumplings taste all the same and the plane ride was too expensive,
And the disillusioned neon signs reveal the grime that feels incomprehensive.

There’s a suppressed sense that I wish I had never returned,
So it would remain the same golden red forever,
Only half remembered.

Martine’s poem ‘Taiwan’ might not initially appear to be particularly STEAM focused, picturing, through a foggy memory, the images, smells, sounds and beating heart of a city far away. At its core is a nostalgia for a memory – a memory which has greater beauty than the reality later experienced by the author. So what has this got to do with STEAM+?

Well – knowing that STEAM+ allows us to make connections between subject disciplines and to explore the ‘gaps’ between them, we can see many links: between the sprawling city and the people who live there; the sounds of language and the noise pollution of traffic; the role of memory and how we often experience emotions from the past more strongly than emotions from the present.

Above: STEAM Tower

We have a beautiful new STEAM Tower, but STEAM+ is not a place, or a room, but rather a mindset. It is a way of thinking that allows us to not be limited by the subjects we study, but rather encourages us to see links between subjects to look at making connections, exploring new avenues, and solving real-world problems. STEAM+ is for all subjects, and for all students and staff at WHS.

Whether you believe the myth that ‘85% of jobs in 2030 have not been created yet’ or see this as being deeply problematic (it’s only 10 years away..), what we do know is that resilience, creativity, adaptability and critical thinking are going to be highly valued skills for the workforce of the future. Engaging with STEAM+ – our inter-disciplinary exploration programme – will help you to develop these in-demand global skills.

As a school, we want WHS pupils to step out to shape the society in which they live and work. What connection will you find that helps you to do this?

 

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Toward the Unknown Region: how do we impart the skills and knowledge required for students to be successful in careers that currently do not exist?

Future of Jobs 2

Toward the Unknown Region[1] – Mr. Nicholas Sharman, Head of Design & Technology looks at whether integrating STEAM into the heart of a curriculum develops skills required for careers that do not currently exist.

The world of work has always been an evolving environment. However, it has never been more pertinent than now; according to the world economic forum, 65% of students entering primary school today will be working in jobs that do not currently exist[2].

As educators, this makes our job either extremely difficult, pointless or (in my view) one of the most exciting opportunities that we have been faced with for nearly 200 years since the introduction of the Victorian education system. The idea of relying solely on a knowledge-based education system is becoming outdated and will not allow students to integrate into an entirely different world of work. Automation and Artificial Intelligence will make manual and repetitive jobs obsolete, changing the way we work entirely. Ask yourself this: could a robot do your job? The integration of these developments is a conversation all in its own and one for a future post.

So, what is STEAM and why has it become so prominent in the UK education system?

The acronym STEM was (apparently) derived from the American initiative ‘STEM’ developed in 2001 by scientific administrators at the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF)[3]. The addition of the ‘A’ representing the Arts, ultimately creating Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths. Since the introduction of STEM-based curriculums in the US, the initiative has grown exponentially throughout the globe, with the UK education system adopting the concept.

So why STEAM and what are the benefits? STEAM education is far more than just sticking subject titles together. It is a philosophy of education that embraces teaching skills and subjects in a way that resembles the real world. More importantly, it develops the skills predicted to be required for careers that currently do not exist. What are these skills and why are they so important?

Knowledge vs Skills

When we look at the education systems from around the world there are three that stand out. Japan, Singapore and Finland have all been quoted as countries that have reduced the size of their knowledge curriculum. This has allowed them to make space to develop skills and personal attributes. Comparing this to the PISA rankings, these schools are within the top 5 in the world and in Singapore’s case, ranked No1[4].

I am sure we cannot wholly attribute this to a skills-focused curriculum; however, it does ask the question – what skills are these schools developing and how much knowledge do we need?[5],[6]

  1. Mental Elasticity – having the mental flexibility to think outside of the box, see the big picture and rearrange things to find a solution.
  2. Critical Thinking – the ability to analyse various situations, considering multiple solutions and making decisions quickly through logic and reasoning.
  3. Creativity – robots may be better than you may at calculating and diagnosing problems, however, they are not very good at creating original content, thinking outside the box or being abstract.
  4. People Skills – the ability to learn how to manage and work with people (and robots), having empathy and listening
  5. SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) – learning how to use new technology and how to manage them
  6. Interdisciplinary Knowledge – understanding how to pull information from many different fields to come up with creative solutions to future problems.

Future of Jobs graph
The Future of Jobs Report by the World Economic Forum showing the pace of change in just 5 years

All of the above skills are just predictions. However, the list clearly highlights that employers will be seeking skill-based qualities, with this changing as future jobs develop and materialise. So do we need knowledge?

Well, of course we do – knowledge is the fundamental element required to be successful in using the above skills. However, as educators, we need to consider a balance of how we can make sure our students understand how important these skills will be to them in the future when an exam grade based on knowledge could be irrelevant to employers.

What subjects promote these skills?

As a Technologist, I believe there has never been a more important time in promoting and delivering the Design & Technology curriculum. The subject has for too long been misrepresented and had a stigma hanging around it due to previous specifications and people’s experiences, comments such as ‘so you teach woodwork then?’ really do not give justice to the subject.

With the introduction of the new curriculum, allowing students more opportunity to investigate and build these future skills, the subject has never been more relevant. Looking at the list of promoted skills, I cannot think of another subject that not only promotes these skills but also actively encourages the integration into every lesson. Do not get me wrong, all subjects are as equally important. Design & Technology is a subject that is able to bring them all into real-world scenarios. If we think about the knowledge that is developed in Science for example – where students can look at material properties and their effect on the user’s experience, or Religious Studies and how different signs, symbols or even colours can have different meanings in cultures affecting the design of a fully inclusive product – they can all be related to Design and Technology in one way or another.

Comparing the Design & Technology curriculum to the future skills list, we can break down the different skills it develops. It encourages mental elasticity through challenging student’s ideas and concepts, thinking differently to solve current and real-life problems. It allows students to develop critical thinking, through challenging their knowledge and understanding; ensuring students develop the ability to solve problems through investigation, iteration and failure, ultimately building resilience. It goes without saying that the subject not only encourages creativity but allows students to challenge concepts and ideas through investigating and questioning. Furthermore, it teaches the concept of ‘design thinking’ and collaborative working, allowing students to develop people skills, understanding how people work, interact and think; enhancing empathy and understanding. As technology progresses the subject follows suit, permitting students to implement and understand how new and emerging technologies are embedded, not only into the world of design but the Social, Moral and environmental effects they create. Lastly and probably most importantly, is how the subject teaches interdisciplinary knowledge. I like to describe Design & Technology as a subject that brings knowledge from all areas of the curriculum together, the creativity and aesthetics from Art, the application of Maths when looking at anthropometrics, tolerances or even ratios, how Religious Studies can inform and determine designs, how science informs and allows students to apply theory, or even the environmental impact Geography can show. I could go on and explain how every subject influences Design & Technology in one way or another, although, more importantly, it shows how we need to look at a more cohesive and cross-curricular curriculum; when this happens the future skills are inherently delivered in a real-world application.

Looking back at the question at the start of this article, we can start to conclude why having the concept of STEAM at the heart of a school environment is so important. However, it is not good enough to just ‘stick’ subjects together, there has to be a bigger picture where knowledge and skills are stitched together like a finely woven tapestry. Ideally, we would look at the primary education system, where we remove subject-specific lessons, develop co-teaching, learning that takes place through projects bringing elements from all subjects in to cohesive projects; teachers would become facilitators of learning, delivering knowledge not in a classroom but in an environment that allows more autonomous research and investigation. However, until the exam system changes, this is not going to fully happen.

So what could we be doing more? I believe we should be focusing on more cross-curricular planning, developing skills application and using knowledge to enhance learning. By developing a curriculum centred around a STEAM approach, we can start to develop the skills required for our students and the careers of the future.

References: 

[1] See https://whitmanarchive.org/published/LG/1891/poems/245 for the text to Ralph Vaughan Williams’ piece for choir and orchestra entitled ‘Toward the Unknown Region’
[2] https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-future-of-jobs-report-2018
[3] https://www.britannica.com/topic/STEM-education
[4] http://www.oecd.org/pisa/
[5] https://www.weforum.org/focus/skills-for-your-future
[6] https://www.crimsoneducation.org/uk/blog/jobs-of-the-future