Two For The Price Of One: Part 1 - A Rant About Character Building!

Two for the price of one! I have so  many things that I could blog about. I could rant, muse or extol at the moment so I thought it only right to give any readers out there a special treat - two blogs on the same day! Here goes the first (you will be pleased to know this is the painful one!).

In the weeks after the riots in England politicians, bloggers, the courts, journalists, members of the public have all come up with solutions – stiff prison sentences, boot camps and the eviction of problem families from their homes if they don’t control their children. The country is allegedly in terminal moral decline. At the same time, as the new school year approaches and the much vaunted “free schools” and new academies ready themselves for opening, many links have been made between education and its role in influencing the young both academically and in other ways.

There may be much in the various suggestions and ideas put forward. For me, as I get older, I am daily more convinced that complex situations (and the current state of Britain is undoubtedly that) are unlikely to be solved by such simplistic solutions. And, I am hugely sceptical, indeed disbelieving of anyone who thinks that they have the solution in the palm of their hands. 

In Saturday’s Guardian, (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/02/public-schools-toby-young) Anthony Seldon, the master of Wellington College -  a prestigious and very expensive school – wrote a piece about education. Briefly he was extolling many of the virtues that are inherent in many of the new “free” schools being set up in England. These are the brain child of the present government and, in particular the Education Minister, Michael Gove. Specifically, Seldon was arguing the case that many of these schools are, like his own, strong on “character building”. He made a number of points which may or may not have some validity – you will have to read the article to form your own opinion. For example, he suggested the practice at the greatest of our public schools, Eton, of “oiling” is a good character builder. To quote Seldon, “oiling” is “learning how to win friends and influence others, and how to clamber over them to get what you want. It's a mixture of ambition, self-confidence and bloody-mindedness”. He also suggested that organisations like the boy scouts, cadet training, tough challenges or  living in “conditions of relative deprivation” by boarding at a school would also “build character”. But most of all, he extolled the virtues of competitive sport as a great character builder.

Anthony Seldon -master of
Wellington College

I read the article with rising levels of nausea – not that I necessarily disagreed with everything that he said – but rather at the pompous, uniformed and cliché filled manner in which he said it. From his lofty perch he seemed to have the answer to everything. Only a few days previously Michael Gove had been making pretty much the same points when he suggested that a bit of “character building” in schools might be brought about by appointing ex-soldiers as teachers – educational boot camps that will “build character” and prevent young people becoming the rioters that we had on our streets a few weeks ago.

But, getting back to Seldon, it did not surprise me that in this morning’s Guardian there were many critics of his article putting their points of view forward. I had already done so by posting a blog on the Guardian web site on Saturday night – it received a fair amount of acclaim. My blog, however, was not about his general argument – I have no doubt that there is indeed much that we  can do in schools to make youngsters more responsible, mature and of "better character" - whatever that is.   My comment was rather about the tenuous and, in my opinion, false connections he was making between sport and character building. You may not agree with me – but that’s your right. I copy the blog below:

I have loved sport all my life. I have been a long term enthusiast for competitive school sport of all kinds. As a teacher of 40 years I have taught football, cricket, athletics, competitive swimming and run galas for hundreds perhaps thousands of youngsters. I cheered my son on when he played for Notts County Youth team and lead his team out at Old Trafford to play the great youth side of Beckham, Scholes, Butt and Neville etc on January 12th 1993. This afternoon I have spent a couple of hours watching my local non-league football team and enjoying seeing them progress to the next round of the FA Cup. And as President of the North Midlands Under 19 Football League I will be attending a monthly Board Meeting later next week. I do know a little about sport and its impact on the young.

Anthony Seldon is right - sport and especially competitive sport has an important place in the life of the young (and the old too!).

Where he - and people like Toby Young - is so very wrong is to make the facile and quite incorrect assertion that it has anything to do with this nebulous quality called "character" or even worse "character building" - and that by taking part in it a young person will somehow become a better person and have qualities above and beyond lesser mortals.

At its best sport is (or should be) an enjoyable, healthy activity which hopefully will develop into a life time interest. True, it might also, at its best, reinforce certain positive values such as the accepting of a referee's decision (although I don't see much evidence of this in the Premiership) or it might encourage youngsters to try hard or it might provide great opportunities to be part of a team.

But my daughter who hates all sport like there is no tomorrow gets all these benefits and opportunities by being part of an orchestra. Is she somehow a lesser person and of worse character because she has not experienced this "competitive sport" thing?

Unfortunately, the picture I have so far painted is of the best side of sport - there is sadly another side. We see it week in week out with the on and off field behaviour of people like Wayne Rooney.

Cheering the team?
Character building?
Or  a clip from
 "Lord of the Flies"? And all the  boys
chanted "Let's kill Piggy"

And as I flicked through this morning's Guardian Weekend magazine I came across the photograph of the New Zealand schoolboys at the Gully Ground as they cheered on their team and, we are told, "the whole school does the haka" when they score a try. And I looked at the aggressive faces and gestures of these young people and saw a negative side to sport - aggression, stuff the opposition, win at any cost. Are these, too, valuable aspects of a well built character? As I looked at the photograph it crossed my mind that it would have made an admirable front cover or poster for a new edition or film of "Lord of the Flies".

Yep, more character building -
not a lot of smiling here but there
are lots of  aggressive and hate
filled expressions
(double click to see 'em).
Could it be the amphitheatre
 in Rome? I'm sure that the
ancient Romans felt that the
character of Christians was
built as they were eaten
by the lions

No, sport is sport, with many qualities but also just as many down sides and to infer or assert that it has a special place in building a desirable character is facile and plain offensive. Sadly, the vast majority of what I read in Seldon's article and the utterances that I hear from the delusional Toby Young, Michael Gove and many others is low level cliché and ill thought out assertion. For these words to trip of the tongues of these people who hold positions of power and influence in society is quite frankly worrying and says much about their understanding of the world,of people, of the young. It also, for me, says a great deal about the much vaunted benefits of a public/private school education. 

One of the most salutary moments of my life was a few years ago when my wife and I went to Eton for a visit whilst we were in the area. It was summer, the school, I assume, was closed  but we walked up main street past the school and gazed into the shops – the suppliers to the school for sports gear, tailors, banks etc. I was genuinely shocked by what I saw. Faded black and white photographs of long dead princes and maharajahs who had turned out in their white flannels and turbans to bat for the "1st  eleven".   The sportswear was old fashioned stuff that we wore in the 40s and 50s – thick woollen socks with hoops, thick, old fashioned football shirts and cricket flannels etc. Not a pair of sports trainers to be seen, old fashioned white plimsolls or football boots that I wore as a ten year old with leather studs!  The tailors were displaying items that were simply out of date. The banks were merchant banks named Coutts and Company etc. - no simple " HSBC hole in the wall" for the boys of Eton! I’m all for tradition but the realisation hit me that for the people who attended and worked there this was their reality – and they were completely and utterly out of touch with the rest of the world. And yet they would become the captains of government, business and industry. That cannot be right - the world of Eton (and other similar places) is a small exclusive world and the people in it tend to be ‘in charge’ of the rest of us with no inkling of the life, values, aspirations, hopes or fears of the rest. So, we have a small group of people who have grown up in a particular environment quite removed from the wider society and its mores, traditions, values, problems, hopes and fears and they are ‘in charge.’ But we need not worry - because people like Anthony Seldon tell us that these people have this "good character" which only schools like his and Eton can develop. By playing competitive sports, by learning how to clamber over someone to get what you  want, by being bloody minded, by boarding rather than living within a warm caring family, by spending 24 hours of every day with people like yourself in a place quite removed from the real world you will acquire this "good character" which is essential and will make you a suitable candidate to be in charge of the nation or the board room - and of course, ensure that you don't riot in the streets like the oiks!  Sadly, all too often in our country, the people "in charge" have simply moved from the quads of Eton (or similar) to the quads of Oxford and then to the quads of the Palace of Westminster without experiencing life in between. Not a recipe for good government it seems to me. I find it amazing and obscene that perhaps the three most powerful people in the country at the present - David Cameron, George Osborne and Boris Johnson - were all members of the Bullingdon Club and have absolutely no experience of the life and work of the nation. What on earth did they put on their CV in the “Experience to Date” section when they applied for the job of being in charge of a country? It seems to me that it makes a bit of a mockery of the notion that democracy is "of the people, by the people and for the people" when those at the top of the democratic system are so inexperienced and unrepresentative of   the people. But, worry not, these quite removed people have "good characters" developed by playing competitive sport and "oiling". Mmmmmm! 

Anthony Seldon’s arguments that the experiences gained at places like Eton, the wearing of old fashioned sports gear, the practice of “oiling”, the competitive sports on the playing fields of Eton (which we have often been reminded "built the British Empire") or the “relative deprivation” of boarding at a place like Eton builds character. Well, perhaps it does, but for the life of me I can’t see how anyone boarding at Eton (or somewhere similar) can really feel deprived when they bank at Coutts and Company. Nor can I see the relationship between the skills developed by “oiling” and the development of a “good character” – indeed, it might be the subject of another blog to analyse the mutually exclusive nature of the terms “oiling” and “good character”  for looking at Seldon’s description of “oiling” it would seem to me that any moral philosopher would have a pretty hard job of reconciling the two. And, as far the relationship between competitive sport and “good character", pick up the papers any day and read about any sport – there’s lots to praise and get excited about but there are equal (perhaps more) amounts to sadden and worry – aggression, drugs, cheating, the breaking of contracts, foul language................ . And, as an after thought, looking at the list suggested by Seldon - playing competitive sports, learning how to clamber over someone to get what you  want, by being bloody minded, by boarding rather than living within a warm caring family, spending 24 hours of every day with people like yourself in a place quite removed from the real world etc. I'm minded that this sounds pretty much like the life of a top Premiership footballer. Wayne Rooney is totally immersed in competitive sport - it is his life, footballers like Rooney know better than anyone how to climb over someone to get what they want (see how they walk out on contracts, foul the opposition, abuse the referee), they are indeed bloody minded - watch him and others scowl, taunt, swear and, of course, Premiership footballers do live in a totally removed world - behind the gates in their mansions, cocooned in their gated communities far from the supporters and their lives in the little streets surrounding the football stadium.

No, the similarities between Eton (etc) and the Premiership are rather worrying. Seldon's argument is facile, simplistic, blinkered and simply not true. But why worry, we can all sleep easy in our beds, our leaders have "good characters" ..................just, I assume, like Premiership footballers with whom they share so many life experiences!

Two for the price of one -  part 2 - the happy blog - coming up!