Learning and earning

In the campaign for leadership of the British Conservative party, prime ministerial wannabe, Rishi Sunak, announced that he wanted to phase out all university degrees with low ‘earning potential’. This would mean the end of undergraduate courses in fashion, film, philosophy, English language and media studies. And linguistics. More of an attention-grabbing soundbite than anything else, it reflects a view of education that is shared by his competitor, Liz Truss, who ‘is passionate about giving every child basic maths and science skills’ as a way of driving the contribution of education to the economy.

It’s a view that is shared these days by practically everyone with any power and influence, from national governments to organisations like the EU and the OECD (Schuller, 2000). It is rooted in the belief that what matters most in education are the teachable knowledges, skills and competences that are relevant to economic activity (as the OECD puts it). These competences are seen to be essential to economic growth and competitivity, and essential to individuals to enhance their employment potential. Learning equals earning. The way for societies to push this orientation to education is to allow market forces to respond to the presumed demands of the consumers of education (students and their sponsors), as they seek to obtain the best possible return on their investment in education. Market forces are given more power when education is privatized and uncoupled from the state. For this to happen, the market may need a little help in the form of policies from the likes of Sunak and Truss.

This set of beliefs has a name: human capital theory (Becker, 1993). Human capital refers both to the skills that individuals ‘bring to bear in the economy and the need for capital investment in these’ (Holborow, 2012). It is impossible to overstate just how pervasive this theory in contemporary approaches to education is. See, for example, this selection of articles from Science Direct. It is also very easy to forget how recently the lens of human capital has become practically the only lens through which education is viewed.

Contemporary language teaching is perhaps best understood as a series of initiatives that have been driven by human capital theory. First and foremost, there is the global ‘frenzied rush towards acquiring English’ (Holborow, 2018), driven both by governments and by individuals who see that foreign language competence (especially English) ‘might […]open up new opportunities for students [and] assist them in breaking social barriers’ (Kormos & Kiddle, 2013). Children, at ever younger ages (even pre-school), are pushed towards getting a headstart in the race to acquire human capital, whilst there has been an explosive growth in EMI courses (Lasagabaster, 2022). At the same time, there has been mushrooming interest in so-called 21^st century skills (or ‘life skills’ / ‘global skills’) in the English language curriculum. These skills have been identified by asking employers what skills matter most to them when recruiting staff. Critical and creative thinking skills may be seen as having pre-Human Capital, intrinsic educational worth, but it is their potential contribution to economic productivity that explains their general current acceptance.

Investments in human capital need to be measured and measurable. Language teaching needs to be made accountable. Our preoccupation with learning outcomes is seen in the endless number of competency frameworks, and with new tools for quantifying language proficiency. Technology facilitates this evaluation, promises to deliver language teaching more efficiently, and technological skills are, after English language skills themselves, seen to be the most bankable of 21^st century skills. Current interest in social-emotional learning – growth mindsets, grit, resilience and so on – is also driven by a concern to make learning more efficient.

In all of these aspects of language teaching / learning, the private sector (often in private-public partnerships) is very visible. This is by design. Supported by the state, the market economy of education grows in tandem with the rising influence of the private sector on national educational policy. When education ministers lose their job, they can easily find well-paid consultancies in the private sector (as in the case of Sunak and Truss’s colleague, Gavin Williamson).

One of the powers of market-economy ideologies is that it often seems that ‘there is no alternative’ (TINA). There are, however, good reasons to try to think in alternative terms. To begin with, and limiting ourselves for the moment to language teaching, there is a desperate lack of evidence that starting English language learning at very young ages (in the way that is most typically done) will lead to any appreciable gains in the human capital race. It is generally recognised that EMI is highly problematic in a variety of ways (Lasagabaster, 2022). The focus on 21^st century skills has not led to any significant growth in learning outcomes when these skills are measured. There is a worrying lack of evidence that interventions in schools to promote improvements in critical or creative thinking have had much, if any, impact at all. Similarly, there is a worrying lack of evidence that attention to growth mindsets or grit has led to very much at all. Personalized learning, facilitated by technology, likewise has a dismal track record. At the same time, there is no evidence that the interest in measuring learning outcomes has led to any improvement in those outcomes. For all the millions and millions that have been invested in all these trends, the returns have been very slim. Perhaps we would have done better to look for solutions to those aspects of language teaching which we know to be problematic. The obsession with synthetic syllabuses delivered by coursebooks (or their online equivalents) comes to mind.

But beyond the failure of all these things to deliver on their promises, there are broader issues. Although language skills (usually English) have the potential to enhance employment prospects, Holborow (2018) has noted that they do not necessarily do so (see, for example, Yeung & Gray, 2022). Precisely how important language skills are is very hard to determine. A 2016 survey by Cambridge English found that ‘approximately half of all employers offer a better starting package to applicants with good English language skills’ and a similar number indicate that these skills result in faster career progression. But these numbers need to be treated with caution, not least because Cambridge English is in the business of selling English. More importantly, it seems highly unlikely that the figures that are reported reflect the reality of job markets around the world. The survey observes that banking, finance and law are the sectors with the greatest need for such skills, but these are all usually graduate posts. An average of 39% of the population in OECD countries has tertiary education; the percentage is much lower elsewhere. How many students of a given age cohort will actually work in these sectors? Even in rich countries, like Germany and the Netherlands, between 40 and 60% of workers are employed in what is termed ‘nonstandard forms of work’ (OECD, 2015) where language skills will count for little or nothing. These numbers are growing. Language skills are of most value to those students who are already relatively advantaged. That is not to say that there are no potential benefits to everyone in learning English, but these benefits will not be found in better jobs and wages for the majority. One interesting case study describes how a Swiss airport company exploits the language skills of migrant workers, without any benefits (salary or mobility) accruing to the workers themselves (Duchêne, 2011).

The relationship between learning English and earning more is a lot more complex than is usually presented. The same holds true for learning more generally. In the US, ‘nearly two-thirds of job openings in 2020 required no more than a high school diploma’ (Brown et al., 2022: 222). Earnings for graduates in real terms are in decline, except for those at the very top. For the rest, over $1.3 trillion in student loan debt remains unpaid. Elsewhere in the world, the picture is more mixed, but it is clear that learning does not equal earning in the global gig economy.

This evident uncoupling of learning from earning has led some to conclude that education is ‘a waste of time and money’ (Caplan, 2018), a view that has been gaining traction in the US. It’s not an entirely unreasonable view, if the only reason for education is seen to be its contribution to the economy. More commonly, the reaction has been to double-down on human capital theory. In Spain, for example, with its high levels of youth unemployment, there are calls for closer links between educational institutions, and graduates themselves are blamed for failing to take ‘advantage of the upgrading in the demand for skills’ (Bentolilla et al., 2022). This seems almost wilfully cruel, especially since the authors note that there is global trend in falling economic returns in tertiary education (ILO, 2020).

But, rather than doubling-down on human capital theory (e.g. more vocational training, more efficient delivery of the training), it might be a good idea to question human capital theory itself. Both early and more recent critics have tended to accept without hesitation that education can enhance worker productivity, but argue that, as a theory, it is too simplistic to have much explanatory power, and that the supporting evidence is weak, vague or untestable (Bowles & Gintis, 1975; Fix, 2018). Language skills, like education more generally, do not always lead to better employment prospects and salaries, because ‘wider, systemic social inequalities come into play’ (Holborow, 2018). It is not because black women need to brush up on their 21^st century skills that they earn less than white men.

Until recently, critics of human capital theory have been a minority, and largely unheard, voice. But this appear to be changing. The World Bank, more guilty than anyone for pushing human capital theory on the global stage (see here), has recognised that hoped-for job outcomes do not always materialize after massive investments in training systems (World Bank, 2013). Mainstream critics include the Nobel prize winners Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, and the recent OUP title, ‘The Death of Human Capital?’ (Brown et al., 2020) is likely to spur debate further. The assumption that human capital theory holds water no longer holds water.

When we turn back to English language teaching, we might benefit from some new thinking. For sure, there will be large numbers of English language learners whose only purpose in studying is utilitarian, whose primary desire is to enhance their human capital. But there are also millions, especially children studying in public schools, for whom things are rather different. A major change in thinking involves a reconceptualization of the point of all this English study. If learning English is not, for the majority, seen primarily as a preparation for the workplace, but as compensation for the realities of (un)employment (Brown et al., 2020: 13), most of the recent innovations in ELT would become highly suspect. We would have a much less impoverished view of ‘the complex and multifaceted nature of language’ (Holborow, 2018) and we would find more space for plurilingual practices. A brake on relentless Englishization might be no bad thing (Wilkinson & Gabriëls, 2021). We might be able to explore more fully artistic and creative uses of language. Who knows? We might finally get round to wider implementation of language teaching approaches that we know have a decent chance of success.

References

Becker, G. S. (1993). Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis, with Special Reference to Education (3^rd ed.). University of Chicago Press.

Bentolila, S., Felgueroso, F., Jansen, M. et al. (2022). Lost in recessions: youth employment and earnings in Spain. SERIEs 13: 11–49. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13209-021-00244-6

Bowles, S. & Gintis, H. (1975). The Problem with Human Capital Theory – a Marxian critique. The American Economic Review, 65 (2): 74 – 83

Brown, S., Lauder, H. & Cheung, S. Y. (2020). The Death of Human Capital? New York: Oxford University Press

Caplan, B. (2018). The Case against Education: Why the Education System is a Waste of Time and Money. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press

Duchêne, A. (2011). Neoliberalism, Social Inequalities, and Multilingualism: The Exploitation of Linguistic Resources and Speakers. Langage et Société, 136 (2): 81 – 108

Fix, B. (2018). The Trouble with Human Capital Theory. Working Papers on Capital as Power, No. 2018/7

Holborow, M. (2012). Neoliberal keywords and the contradictions of an ideology. In Block, D., Gray, J. & Holborow, M. Neoliberalism and Applied Linguistics. Abingdon: Routledge: 33 – 55

Holborow, M. (2018). Language skills as human capital? Challenging the neoliberal frame. Language and Intercultural Communication, 18: (5): 520-532

ILO (2020). Global employment trends for youth, 2020. Geneva: International Labour Organization

Kormos, J., & Kiddle, T. (2013). The role of socio-economic factors in motivation to learn English as a foreign language: the case of Chile. System, 41(2): 399-412

Lasagabaster, D. (2022). English-Medium Instruction in Higher Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

OECD (2015). In It Together, Why Less Inequality Benefits All. Paris: OECD

Schuller, T. (2000). Social and Human Capital: The Search for Appropriate Technomethodology. Policy Studies, 21 (1): 25 – 35

Wilkinson, R., & Gabriëls, R. (Eds.) (2021). The Englishization of Higher Education in Europe. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

World Bank (2012). World Development Report 2013: Jobs. Washington, DC: World Bank

Yeung, S. & Gray, J. (2022). Neoliberalism, English, and spoiled identity: The case of a high-achieving university graduate in Hong Kong. Language in Society, First View, pp. 1 – 22

Lifelong learnings

Always learning

In an earlier post , I explored the use of the phrase ‘Always learning’ as a promotional tagline by Pearson. Pearson’s use of the phrase peaked in the early years of the 2010s at a time when the company, facing growing criticism for the length and aggressivity of its tentacles in US education (Ravitch, 2012; Sellar et al, 2016), was particularly keen to fashion ‘its image as a socially responsible edu-business’. Not coincidentally, ‘lifelong learning’, the big idea evoked by ‘Always learning’, saw a resurgence of interest around the same time, as the United Nations published their Sustainable Development Goals in 2015. The fourth of these was:

‘Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.’

This was an extension of the earlier (2000) UN Millennium Development Goal, which aimed for universal primary education. It had been recognised that this was not sufficient to break global cycles of poverty. For that, not only universal secondary education, but also post-secondary (lifelong) learning, were needed, too. The goal was criticised for being vague, over-ambitious and unrealisable, but it was so obviously a ‘good thing’ that it could do nobody any harm to be associated with it.

Lifelong learning, democracy and human capital

The idea of lifelong education may be vague, but its history can be traced back to at least Confucius who said that ‘life is limited, while learning is limitless’ (Guo-Dong, 1994). Plato advocated lifelong learning for the highest ranking members of society. Comenius promoted a more democratic version of lifelong learning, as did Condorcet during the French Revolution (Matheson & Matheson, 1996). More recent incarnations of the idea are often traced back to John Dewey (Fleming, 2011), who saw a close connection between education and democracy, and believed that learning should continue past school ‘irrespective of age’ (Dewey, 1916: 55). The UNESCO report (Faure, 1972), which did so much to establish the idea of lifelong learning in contemporary educational discourse, was very much in the democratic Dewey tradition.

In more recent discourse, the democratic veneer remains visible, but a human capital approach to lifelong learning is now clearly privileged (Fleming, 2011). Supported by international bodies like the OECD and the EU, current discourses prioritize the needs of the marketplace, and place the emphasis on learning as an individualized responsibility (Olssen, 2006). References abound to the rapidly changing nature of our contemporary world, especially the world of work, where only lifelong learning can offer the adaptability and flexibility needed for our occupational, political and ecological survival. Notions of a fuller life and self-actualization have not gone away, but interest is much more squarely centred on the part that lifelong learning can play in the development of human capital. A recent (2021) article from Pearson entitled ‘New research shows employers see lifelong learning as the ‘new normal’ as UK Government releases skills data’ https://plc.pearson.com/en-US/news/new-research-shows-employers-see-lifelong-learning-new-normal-uk-government-releases-skills is typical in this respect. In a similar vein, MOOC provider, FutureLearn (2022), has recently brought out a report into the ‘future of learning’ in which ‘lifelong learning’ is seen as ‘critical to upskilling the workforce of the future’.

Like so many other words I have looked at on this blog, ‘lifelong learning’ ‘has all the trappings of what might be termed a ‘good idea’ — it is bedecked with hurrah words and emotive terms, liberally dispersed by its proponents, and this gives it an air of conceptual solidity, together with making it more readily popular’ (Matheson & Matheson). Meaning little more than learning that is not confined to school, the best way of understanding the term is perhaps to look at what people actually do with it.

Lifelong learning and English language teaching

In the world of English language teaching, one of the early uses of the term ‘lifelong learning’ was in the title of a plenary IATEFL presentation, ‘Developing learner autonomy – preparing learners for lifelong learning’ (Dam, 2002). It was an interesting, but hardly contentious, lecture, arguing that (1) lifelong learning is necessary because schools can’t teach everything, (2) that learner autonomy is necessary for lifelong learning, so (3) our educational focus should be more on learning and less on teaching. Precisely what should be learnt in the long life of learning is left unspecified, and whether that learning should literally continue till death do us part remained equally unclear. Leni Dam was invoking the fashionable term of ‘lifelong learning’ to sell the idea of ‘learner autonomy’. But it really wasn’t needed: even month-long learning would be enough to justify the encouragement of learner autonomy.

There is, however, no disputing the potential of the term ‘lifelong learning’ in selling ideas. I recently came across the lovely phrase ‘premature ultimate’ (try googling it!) – ‘a concept or term that provokes such reverence and contains such connotative potency that its invocation tends to silence any further discussion on a matter’ (Brookfield, 1986). Great for selling, in other words, as on the website of the wonderfully named ‘Enjoy TEFL’ , ‘the Global Number 1 Accredited TEFL and Mindfulness Provider’, which manages to pack ‘lifelong learning’, ‘21^st century’, ‘creativity’ and ‘innovation’ into just two lines. Their current promotion offers two free mindfulness courses when you buy a 120 / 180 hour TEFL course.

Linking ‘lifelong learning’ and ‘21^st century skills’ is standard practice. The Lifelong Learning Programme 2007 – 2013 of the EU had rather vague objectives, but the desirable skills that were listed were largely indistinguishable from other lists of C21 skills / global skill / soft skills: communication competencies, digital competencies, social and emotional skills, and so on (Kaplan, 2016). Coupling the two concepts means that anything loosely connected with the latter can be promoted by association with the former. Two examples. Creativity and lifelong learning are associated in an article by Daniel Xerri (2017) that seeks to ‘mobilise students’ creative thinking’ and to show ‘how the English language classroom can serve as an incubator for an awareness of the need to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education, and to promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’. Xerri is certainly interested in using ‘creativity’ tasks to promote awareness of the first part of the UN’s SDG, but the ‘lifelong learning’ bit is not explored at all. In contrast, Reinders et al (2022) explore in some depth what they mean by ‘lifelong learning’, but the bottom line is the promotion of the use of digital tools in language learning. ‘Lifelong learning’ (or ‘lifewide learning[1]’, as they call it) is just one reason for advocating the use of digital technologies.

Competing with ‘Enjoy TEFL’ for the prize of the crudest invocation of ‘lifelong learning’ is Darren Nicholls, a product manager for Pearson. A promo for some new Pearson proficiency tests describes them as ‘web-based tests [that] first stream students into the appropriate class and then monitor their progress over an extended period of time. Both tests are hosted on a new platform, Test Hub, which supports lifelong learning by bringing together all proficiency assessments under one roof’. Lifelong learning would seem to mean digital homework.

Lifelong learning and CPD

I have often heard myself (and many others) saying that a good teacher is one who never stops learning. It’s the kind of wisdom of online memes. Once you stop learning you start dying, Albert Einstein didn’t actually say, but let’s not worry about attributional details. ‘Enjoy TEFL’ tries to sell its courses by appealing to the same sentiment, and they are not alone. The blurb for an IATEFL Poland webinar says ‘Being networked is of key importance to all professionally active people in the process of lifelong learning …’ A joint LTSIG and TDSIG conference in Istanbul in 2012 waxed lyrical: ‘This is an age of lifelong learning, or ‘perpetual beta’, of learning anywhere, any place, any time’. Professional development is a lifelong obligation and, for those who are super-keen, JALT (the Japanese Association of Language Teachers) has a ‘Lifelong Language Learning Special Interest Group’ which organises events and a regular newsletter.

All well and good, you may be thinking, but pause a moment to think about the way in which the discourse of lifelong learning ‘orientates education to the enterprise society where the learner (or the teacher as learner) becomes an entrepreneur of him / herself’ (Olssen, 2006). Never mind that increasing numbers of teachers are on zero-hours contracts or fail to take home the minimum wage, a commitment to lifelong professional development is expected. Where better place to start than next week’s IATEFL conference, with its free, daily mindfulness workshops? If you’re based in the UK and working at one of the many language schools that pays the minimum wage, you’ll only need to clock up about 100 hours of teaching to afford it.

References

Brookfield, S. (1986) Understanding and Facilitating Adult Learning. Hoboken, NJ: Jossey – Bass

Dam, L. (2002) Developing learner autonomy – preparing learners for lifelong learning. In Pulverness, A. (Ed.) IATEFL 2002 York Conference Selections. Whitstable, Kent: IATEFL

Dewey, J. (1916) Democracy and education. New York: Macmillan.

Faure, E. (1972) Learning to be: The world of education today and tomorrow. Paris: UNESCO.

Fleming, T. (2011) Models of Lifelong Learning: An Overview. In M. London (Ed.). Oxford Handbook of Lifelong Learning (pp. 29-39). New York: Oxford University Press.

FutureLearn (2022) The Future of Learning Report 2022. London: FutureLearn https://www.futurelearn.com/info/thefutureoflearning

Guo-Dong, X. (1994) Lifelong education in China: new policies and activities. International Review of Education, 40, (3-5)

Jackson, N. J. (Ed.) (2011) Learning for a complex world: A lifewide concept of learning, development and achievement. AuthorHouse Publishing. Available at: https://www.lifewideeducation.uk/learning-for-a-complex-world.html

Kaplan, A. (2016) Lifelong Learning: Conclusions From A Literature Review. International Online Journal of Primary Education, 5 (2): pp. 43 – 50

Matheson, D. & Matheson, C. (1996) Lifelong Learning and Lifelong Education: a critique. Research in Post‐Compulsory Education, 1 (2): pp. 219-236, DOI: 10.1080/1359674960010207

Olssen, M. (2006) Understanding the mechanisms of neoliberal control: lifelong learning, flexibility and knowledge capitalism. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 25 (3): pp. 213-230.

Ravitch, D. (2012) The United States of Pearson? http://dianeravitch.net/2012/05/07/the-united-states-of-pearson-2/

Reinders, H., Dudeney, G., & Lamb, M. (2022) Using Technology to Motivate Learners. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Sellar, S., Hogan, A. & Lingard, B. (2016) Always Learning. Education International https://www.ei-ie.org/en/item/21091:always-learning

Xerri, D. (2017) Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. In Maley, A. & Peachey, N. (Eds.) Integrating global issues in the creative English language classroom: With reference to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. London: British Council, pp. 49 – 56

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[1] ‘Lifewide learning’ is not a term made up by Reinders et al. The idea has been around for over 20 years, piggy-backing on lifelong learning, and referring to the fact that learning takes place in a variety of different environments and situations. For more information, see Jackson (2011). And, if you really have nothing better to do, check out ‘lifedeep learning’. I thought, at first, it was a joke, but it’s been written about in all seriousness.

Hijacking Creativity

‘Whenever a word is frequently used in arguments trying to persuade people to believe some opinion or other, our mental twists and turns to make the opinion plausible involve shifting from meaning to meaning without realizing it. This has happened to creativity on a grand scale.’ (Perry, L. (1987). The Educational Value of Creativity. Journal of Art and Design Education 6 (3) ) quoted in Pugliese, 2010: 8)

If you take a look at the word ‘creativity’ in Google’s Ngram viewer, you’ll notice that use of the word really took off around 1950, the year when J. P. Guilford published an article entitled ‘Creativity’ in American Psychologist. Guilford’s background was in the US military. His research was part funded by the US Navy and his subjects were US Air Force personnel. His interest was in the classification and training of military recruits.

With the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union hotting up, Guilford’s interests increasingly became a matter of national security. In 1954, Carl Rogers, argued that education tended to turn out ‘conformists […] rather than freely creative and original thinkers’ (Rogers, 1954: 249) and that there was a ‘desperate need’ for the latter. He warned that ‘international annihilation will be the price we pay for a lack of creativity’. When Sputnik scared the shit out of the American military, creativity became more important still. It ‘could no longer be left to the chance occurrence of genius; neither could it be left in the realm of the wholly mysterious and the untouchable. Men had to be able to do something about it; creativity had to be a property in many men; it had to be something identifiable; it had to be subject to efforts to gain more of it’ (Razik, 1967).

It wasn’t long before creativity moved beyond purely military concerns to more generally corporate ones. Creativity became one of the motors driving the economy. This process is tracked in a fascinating article by Steven Shapin (2020), who quotes the director of research at General Electric as saying in 1959: ‘I think we can agree at once that we are all in favour of creativity’. Since then, the idea of creativity has rarely looked back.

By the end of the century, the UK government had set up a National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education, chaired by Ken Robinson. Creativity was seen as a ‘vital investment in human capital for the twenty-first century’ (National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education, 1999). Quoting the prime minister, Blair, the report stated that ‘our aim must be to create a nation where the creative talents of all the people are used to build a true enterprise economy for the twenty-first century — where we compete on brains, not brawn’.

A few years later, in the US, the Partnership for 21^st Century Skills was founded, supported primarily by the corporate community with companies like AOL Time Warner, Apple and Microsoft providing financial backing. The ‘21^st century skills’ required by global employers (or more specifically that global employers wanted national governments to pay for) could be catchily boiled down to the 4Cs – communication, collaboration, critical reflection and creativity. What was meant by creativity is made clearer in Trilling and Fadel’s bible of 21^st century skills (2009: 56):

‘Given the 21st century demands to continuously innovate new services, better processes, and improved products for the world’s global economy, and for the creative knowledge required in more and more of the world’s better-paying jobs, it should come as no surprise that creativity and innovation are very high on the list of 21st century skills. In fact, many believe that our current Knowledge Age is quickly giving way to an Innovation Age, where the ability to solve problems in new ways (like the greening of energy use), to invent new technologies (like bio- and nanotechnology) or create the new killer application of existing technologies (like efficient and affordable electric cars and solar panels, or even to discover new branches of knowledge and invent entirely new industries, will all be highly prized.’

In this line of thought, creativity is blurred with ‘innovation skills’ and inextricably linked to business (and employee) performance. It involves creative thinking techniques (such as brainstorming), the ability to work collaboratively and creatively with others, openness to new ideas and perspectives, originality and inventiveness in work, and understanding real-world limits to adopting new ideas (Trilling & Fadel, 2009: 59). Although never defined very precisely, the purpose of creativity in education (as well as 21^st skills more generally) is crystal-clear:

‘A fundamental role of education is to equip students with the competences they need – and will need – in order to succeed in society. Creative thinking is a necessary competence for today’s young people to develop. It can help them adapt to a constantly and rapidly changing world, and one that demands flexible workers equipped with ‘21st century’ skills that go beyond core literacy and numeracy. After all, children today will likely be employed in sectors or roles that do not yet exist’. (OECD, 2019: 6)

Creativity, then, has become first and foremost about the development of human capital and, by extension, the health of financial capital. In the World Economic Forum’s list of ‘5 Things You Need To Know About Creativity’, #1 on the list is ‘Creativity is good for the Economy’, #4 is ‘It’s important for leadership’, and #5 is ‘It’s crucial for the future of work’. For the World Bank, creativity is more or less synonymous with entrepreneurship (World Bank, 2010).

Given the importance that the OECD attaches to creativity, it was inevitable that they should seek to measure it. The next round of PISA tests, postponed to 2022 because of Covid-19, will incorporate evaluation of creative thinking. As the OECD itself recognises (OECD, 2019), this will be no easy task. There are problems in establishing a valid and agreed construct of creative thinking / creativity. There is debate about the extent to which creative thinking is domain-specific (does creative thinking in science different to creative thinking in the arts?). Previous attempts to measure creativity have been less than satisfactory. But none of this will stop the OECD juggernaut, and shortcomings in the first round of evaluations can be taken, creatively, as ‘an opportunity to learn’ (Trilling & Fadel, 2009: 59). There will be a washback effect, but this is all to the good in the eyes of the OECD. One of their most significant objectives in measuring creativity is to encourage ‘changes in education policies and pedagogies’ (OECD, 2019: 5): ‘the results will also encourage a wider societal debate on both the importance and methods of supporting this crucial competence through education’. To a large extent, it is an agenda-setting exercise.

Creativity’s most well-known cheerleader is the late Ken Robinson. His advocacy of creativity in education for the purposes of developing human capital is clear from his contribution to the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education (1999) report. Subsequently, he changed his tune a little, and was careful to expand on his reasons for promoting creativity. Creativity, for Robinson, became something of broader importance than it was for those with a 21^st century skills agenda. ‘There’s a lot of talk these days about 21st century skills,’ he said, ‘and I go along with a great deal of it, my only reservation about the idea of 21st century skills is that when they’re listed, they often include skills that were relevant at any time, in any century, it’s not that they’re a completely brand new set of things that people need to learn now that they didn’t have to learn before, but the context is very different’. In another interview, when pushed about creativity as an ‘essential 21^st century skill’ – ‘why is creativity especially important right now?’ – Robinson again avoided going too far down the 21^st century skills path. In reply, he offered a number of reasons, but the economy was the last that he mentioned. Human capital mattered to Robinson (‘any conversation about education that doesn’t take account of the economy is really, in some respects, detached and naïve from the world that we live in’ he said in another interview), but he made a point of downplaying it. As a highly accomplished rhetorician, Robinson knew how to tailor his messages for his audiences. His success and fame were due in large part to his ability to craft messages for everybody, and his readiness to allow the significance of creativity to shift from one meaning to another played, in my view, a large role in his appeal.

In ELT, there is no doubt that creativity is, as Maley and Kiss (2018: v) put it, ‘a fashionable concept’. In addition to Maley & Kiss’s ‘Creativity and English Language Teaching’ (2018), recent publications have included ‘The Creative Teacher’s Compendium’ (Clare & Marsh, 2020), ‘Hacking Creativity’ (Peachey, 2019), ‘50 Creative Activities’ (Maley, 2018), ‘Creativity in English Language Teaching’ (Xerri & Vassallo, 2016), ‘Creativity in the English language classroom’ (Maley & Peachey, 2015) and ‘Being Creative’ (Pugliese, 2010). In addition, there have been chapters on creativity in recent books about 21^st century skills in ELT, such as ‘21st Century Skills in the ELT Classroom – A Guide for Teachers’ (Graham, 2020) and ‘English for 21^st Century Skills’ (Mavridi & Xerri, 2020). Robinson is regularly cited.

What is striking about all these publications is that the kind of creativity that is promoted has virtually nothing to do with the kind of creativity that has been discussed in the first part of this article. The notion of language learners as human capital is absent, the purpose of creativity teaching is entirely different, and the creativity of the 4 Cs of 21^st century skills has transformed into something else altogether. Even in the edited collections with ‘21^st century skills’ in their titles, creativity has little or nothing to do with the creativity of the OECD. In most of these titles, ‘21^st century skills’ are not mentioned at all, or only briefly in passing. In the 330 pages of Maley and Kiss (2018), for example, there are only three mentions of the term.

Instead, we have something that is not very ‘21^st century’ at all. Definitions of creativity in these ELT books are very broad, and acknowledge the problems in even providing a definition. Recognising these difficulties, Nik Peachey (2019: iv) doesn’t even attempt to provide a definition. Instead, he offers a selection of ideas and activities which have something to do with the concept. Maley (in Xerri & Vassallo, 2016: 10) takes a similar approach, offering a list of attributes, including things like newness / originality, immediacy, wonder, curiosity / play, inspiration, finding / making connections, unpredictability, relevance and flow. Pugliese (2010: 114) asks teachers how they interpret creativity and this list includes problem-solving, the teacher’s aesthetic drive, a combination of the previous two, and a search for Rogerian self-actualization. Both writers focus heavily on the teacher’s own commitment to creativity. For Pugliese (2010: 12), ‘creativity is about wanting to be creative’.

In practice, the classroom ideas that are on offer can usually be put into one or more of the following categories:

• Activities that involve the arts: drama, stories, music, song, chants, poetry and dance, etc. Maley (2018) is especially interested in poetry, and Pugliese (2010) explores music and the visual arts in more detail.
• Activities that involves the learners in personalized self-expression, with emotional responses prioritized.
• Activities which are in some way exploratory, unpredictable or ‘different’. The work of John Fanselow (e.g. 1987) is an important inspiration here.

The overall result is a relabelled mash-up of ideas that have been around for some time: exploitation of literature, music and art; humanistic approaches inspired by Stevick, Rinvolucri and others; a sprinkling of positive psychology; and, sometimes, suggestions for using digital technology to facilitate creative expression of some kind. I hope I am not being unfair if I suggest that the problem of definition arises because the 21^st century label of creativity has been stuck on bottles of vintage wine.

Most of these writers seem content to ignore 21^st century OECD-style creativity, to pretend that it is not the driver of the ‘fashionable concept’ they are writing about. However, the reason for this silence surfaces from time to time: most of these ELT writers disapprove of, even dislike, the OECD version of creativity. Here, for example, is Chris Kennedy in the foreword to Maley & Peachey (2015: 2):

‘It is worrying in our market-driven world that […] certain concepts, and the words used to express them, lose their value through over-use or ill-definition. […] The danger is that such terms may be hijacked by public bodies and private institutions which employ them as convenient but opaque policy pegs on which practitioners, including educators, are expected to hang their approaches and behaviours. ‘Creativity’ is one such term, and UK government reports on the subject in the last few years show the concept of creativity being used to support a particular instrumental political view as a means of promoting the economy, rather than as a focus for developing individual skills and talents.’

And here’s David Nunan (in Mavridi & Xerri, 2020: 6) dishing out some vitriol:

‘I have been unable to find any evidence that the ability to solve such [problem-solving 21^st century-style creativity tasks] transfers to the ability to solve such problems in real life. This has not stopped some people building their careers out of the concept and amassing considerable compensation in the process. Robinson even garnered a knighthood’.

This is all rather strange. It is creativity as a 21^st century skill that has made the topic a ‘fashionable concept’. The ideas of Alan Maley et al about creativity become more plausible because the meaning of the key term can shift around. His book (with Nik Peachey) was commissioned by the British Council, an organisation that is profoundly committed to the idea that 21^st century skills, including creativity, are essential for young people ‘to be fully prepared for life and work in a global economy’. In this light, Maley & Peachey (2015), which kicks off with a Maley poem before the Chris Kennedy foreword, may almost be seen as a subversive hijacking, a détournement of British Council discourse. But détourneurs can be détourné in their turn …

Maley’s co-author, Tamas Kiss, on ‘Creativity and English Language Teaching’, a book which so strenuously avoided the discourse of 21^st century creativity, chose to discuss this work in the following way for a webpage for his university:

‘Dr Kiss explained that creativity has been the subject of investigation in several fields including psychology and business, as well as language teaching, and is one of the ‘core skills’ of most 21st century educational frameworks:

“People have realised that traditional knowledge transfer systems are not necessarily preparing students for 21st century jobs,” said Tamas, “New educational frameworks, for example those developed by the Council of Europe, emphasize cross-cultural communication, problem-solving, and creativity.”’

The university in question is Xi’an Jiaotong University, to the west of Shanghai. In the same year as the publication of the book that Kiss co-authored with Maley, Barbara Schulte gave a conference presentation entitled ‘Appropriating or hijacking creativity? Educational reform and creative learning in China’ (Schulte, 2018). She noted the increasing importance accorded to creativity in China’s educational reforms, the country’s increasing engagement with OECD benchmarks, and the way in which creative approaches ‘originally intended to empower learners are turned into their exact opposites, constraining learners’ spaces even more than with conventional approaches’.

Creativity is a classic weasel word. Its use should come accompanied with a hazard warning.

References

Clare, A. & Marsh, A. (2020). The Creative Teacher’s Compendium. Teddington, Middx.: Pavilion

Fanselow, J. (1987). Breaking Rules. Harlow: Longman

Graham, C. (Ed.) (2020). 21st Century Skills in the ELT Classroom – A Guide for Teachers. Reading: Granet

Guilford, J. P. (1950). Creativity. American Psychologist, 5 (9): pp.444–454

Maley, A. (2018). Alan Maley’s 50 Creative Activities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Maley, A. & Kiss, T. (2018). Creativity and English Language Teaching. London: Palgrave Macmillan

Maley, A. & Peachey, N. (Eds.) (2015). Creativity in the English language classroom. London: British Council

Mavridi, S. & Xerri, D. (Eds.) English for 21^st Century Skills. Newbury, Berks.: Express Publishing

National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education. (1999). All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education http://sirkenrobinson.com/pdf/allourfutures.pdf

OECD (2019). PISA 2021 Creative Thinking Framework (Third Draft). Paris: OECD.

Peachey, N. (2019). Hacking Creativity. PeacheyPublications.

Pugliese, C. (2010). Being Creative. Peaslake: DELTA

Razik, T. A. (1967). Psychometric measurement of creativity. In Mooney, R. L. & Razik, T. A. (Eds.) Explorations in Creativity. New York: Harper & Row

Rogers, C. (1954). Toward a Theory of Creativity. ETC: A Review of General Semantics, 11: pp. 249-260

Schulte, B. (2018). Appropriating or hijacking creativity? Educational reform and creative learning in China. Abstract from Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) Conference 2018, Sydney, Australia.

Shapin, S. (2020). The rise and rise of creativity. Aeon 12 October 2020 https://aeon.co/essays/how-did-creativity-become-an-engine-of-economic-growth

Trilling, B. & Fadel, C. (2009). 21st Century Skills. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

World Bank (2010). Stepping Up Skills. Washington: The World Bank

Xerri, D. & Vassallo, O. (Eds.) (2016). Creativity in English Language Teaching. Floriana: ELT Council