"1066 and all that"!

The reflections of the stained glass at
Durham Cathedral - taken as I sat on the
wall seat. I wonder how this view might
 be costed when our educational
nirvana is reached?

A week or two ago Pat and I spent the weekend in the lovely old city of Durham. We were lucky – the weather was cold but glorious, indeed on Saturday afternoon we sat on the front at Seaham looking out to sea, the sun shining down on us. We had spent the morning wandering Durham’s old streets and especially enjoying the beautiful and ancient cathedral. As we wondered the cathedral I sat down to rest on the low stone “seat” that is built in the full length of each wall in the nave – a feature of many cathedrals. As I sat there I mused on the old saying “the weakest go to the wall” which is said to originate because of these cathedral wall seats. It dates from  mediaeval days when there was little or no seating in great churches and when the church might be used as a place of safety when danger threatened or as a meeting place for markets and fairs. In those days it is believed the old and infirm would seek rest and safety from the throng and sit on the seats by the wall – hence “the weakest go to the wall.” I thought about this when I read in the paper a few days ago a variety of articles and comments about the teaching of history on our schools.

Apologies - It's that man again!

Our Education Secretary, Michael Gove, has published his proposals to introduce a new history curriculum. His action has generated comment, debate and criticism from teachers, eminent historians, politicians, newspaper editors and others with an interest in this issue. My own view is that the curriculum he proposes, once again, reflects Gove’s total misunderstanding of the world of education, children and schools and is simply a set of deluded ramblings of what Mr Gove would like the world to be like rather than  what it actually is. 

Eighty years ago in their iconic parody “1066 and all that” Sellar and Yeatman poked a telling finger at the teaching of history and Gove, I firmly believe, would like the teaching of history to reflect the glorious subtitle to their great work:  "103 Good Things, 5 Bad Kings and 2 Genuine Dates". Sadly and worryingly I don’t think that our esteemed Secretary of State for Education actually realises that Sellar and Yeatman were satirising the school history curriculum because he has clearly modelled his curriculum upon theirs! That, however, is not the point of this blog.

I loved the tales of Roundheads and Cavaliers

  

Whatever the short comings of Gove’s proposals I am, however, with him on the general premise that history is important and something that all children should be exposed to. This, of course, is where the problem lies – what history should children be exposed to! Who in history is important? How should it be studied? Is important history about knowing a few dates of great battles or is it about the life of a people? The world has seen on many occasions that those who would exert power over people often start be re-writing history – look no further than communist Russia or China to witness the truth of that. But we need not look only at regimes of which we might disapprove – it happens to a degree everywhere; the great leader of one generation might be judged differently by another, countries across the world conveniently air brush out darker aspects of their past and, as Churchill famously said, “History will be kind to me – for I intend to write it!”  Gove is right, history of some kind is important.

I'm not an American but can still quote huge
chunks of this great story as told in the
wonderful poem by Longfellow. Won't be
worth much  in our  "know 
the cost of everything world" though!

Whatever the educational and academic shortcomings of Gove’s proposals I can’t deny that as a child (and still today) I was enthused by the famous stories, events and personalities of history.  Knights in shining armour, battles, Roundheads and Cavaliers, the Battle of Hastings, the Great Fire of London,  cave men making the first fire, Alfred the Great, the French Revolution, the midnight ride of Paul Revere and the rest. Yes, their provenance might be questionable and it probably wasn’t like that at all. The heroes might well have been villains, stories about the great and good might not be "real history" when set aside the daily life of ordinary people but the whole thing lit a flame in my young mind and as I grew up I have retained that enthusiasm. I may now disparage many of the heroes I worshipped as a child; I now know that Clive of India was probably a very unpleasant and cruel man or that Richard III may not have been quite the black hearted knave that Shakespeare painted him. I know that the expansion of the British Empire was based on dubious motives and actions which with the passing of time and on reflection bring shame onto us as a nation. I am very aware that what were once seen as glorious and justified wars might not look so glorious or justified when the guns are silent, the flag waving over and history looks  back on them. But all that is not the point. In educational terms – my interest in history was awakened and still remains.  And, having spent my life in the classroom, that is ultimately what all education must be about – the awakening of interest, enthusiasm and ultimately understanding. As Socrates and others since have said: “Education is about kindling a flame and not filling a bucket” - and that is the point of this blog!

Yep! the tale  of old Archimedes inspires kids
 to investigate scientific  phenomena - 
and they laugh at  the rude bits 
when he runs down the street naked! 
(And, as a result they remember the science).   

Whenever I see my granddaughter, Sophie, she invariably has home work to do. Sophie is almost 10 and is given homework each week by her school – English, maths and science are the usual requirements. My classroom experience makes me question the reason for and the validity of homework but leaving that aside I seriously ask what should constitute “homework” if it has to be imposed at all. There has been a huge emphasis in the UK in the past twenty years or so, by politicians of all persuasions to emphasise the importance of the 3Rs – reading, ‘riting a ‘rithmatic. Children are tested and judged on their success in these, schools and teachers are similarly judged, head teachers and school governors can be fired if a school fails to come up to scratch, billions of pounds are spent annually on testing, monitoring and inspecting - indeed, the whole UK education system is geared to promoting and “raising attainment” in these areas. To that degree it is not surprising, therefore, that these items form part of the required homework that Sophie does each week. But here lies the basis of my concerns. The information given in, for example, the science homework text book, and especially, the tasks required, are futile, uninspiring, frequently confusing and guaranteed to remove any kind of scientific enthusiasm or inquiry.  They are simply not very good “crammers” intended to stuff bits of scientific information into the heads of children so that the school can “tick the box” and prove to inspectors and the like the high value the school places on science and homework. The activities set do not, nor do they intend to “kindle a fire” – they are the scientific equivalent of writing lists of meaningless historical dates rather than generating a life time interest and desire to know more - as, many years ago, school history and its tales of glory and excitement once did for me. Sadly, Sophie’s school is not alone – many schools use the publications and indeed my own school did so when I was still working there. I can still remember the unease I felt each week when I set the science homework from these awful texts. But to my everlasting shame  I can also recall the "warm glow" when the completed books rolled in on Monday morning. Oh! what a good teacher I was!  I could tick the children's responses in the spaces provided in the books, bountifully give out gold stars to the virtuous and admonish others for their lack of diligence. And, best of all, feel that quiet satisfaction of a job well done as I sipped my morning coffee. Homework done, all correct and those who couldn't be bothered  suitably shown the error of their ways.  Surely, I was producing a class of future laboratory "boffins" and maybe even a future Nobel science prize winner!  The whole thing is and was a nonsense and an act of educational vandalism on a preposterous scale. It was one of the many things that convinced me in the end that I should retire from the profession. What I increasingly saw being thrust down throats of children as i walked around my school in the mistaken name of modern education was not what I came into the job for. Nor was it remotely to do with "education" as I understood it - in the final analysis it boiled to down to passing tests and jumping through hoops whilst completely devoid of understanding or enthusiasm.   I and my school were simply "filling a bucket" and "dousing any fire" that the child might have once had - the very antithesis of Socrates'  definition.. Sadly, since politicians discovered this sure fire way of boosting their ratings and dreamed up the National Curriculum, OFSTED and all the other panoply of testing and assessment criteria in the latter years of the twentieth century  things have only got worse with each year that has passed - and now my granddaughter is "enjoying" more of the same!

Looks just like me and Sophie doing
our science

Leaving aside my beliefs and all this other "baggage",  however, I am prepared to accept that the 3Rs are vital and must be promoted at every opportunity and that includes homework.  Indeed, it would be difficult to over-emphasis the importance of basic literacy and numeracy skills in any generation but especially ours. But, I would add it is right they are emphasised not to the exclusion and detriment of other areas of learning. This over- emphasis on the 3Rs and on testing is at an increasing educational and, I would argue, social cost. School timetables, the education system as a whole and, sadly,  the mind numbing science homework that Sophie wades through each week means that increasingly other aspects of the curriculum are sacrificed and marginalised. Such has been Michael Gove’s and his predecessors’  zeal in promoting a curriculum that reflects preparation for employability, the needs of technology and the rest that school subjects such as history, geography, art, music and the rest of the humanities  have become ever more the poor relations in the school curriculum. And at university level “wishy washy leftie” subjects such as medieval history or philosophy are increasingly declining.

The battle for the history curriculum and the
hearts and minds of future generations.

This skewing of the curriculum means that for children up and down the land, including Sophie, horizons have been increasingly limited in terms of curriculum breadth and depth and what has been studied has been reduced to its lowest terms - that which can be  easily assessed and tested. Investigative maths, scientific inquiry, a rich diet of literature and the creative use of language, an opportunity to develop skills in and an understanding and enthusiasm for the humanities and the arts have all been largely sidelined and replaced by a meagre diet of facts, the filling in of blank spaces in photocopied worksheets and preparation  for "employability" and life in a modern economy. At  Sophie's age science, maths and the rest should be about inspiring her to want to learn more – finding out, for example, about the thrilling story of Jenner’s discoveries about small pox two centuries ago, Isaac Newton and the fabled apple story, Fleming’s discovery of penicillin, Archimedes and the famous Eureka story of the golden crown, Davy and the invention of the miners’ safety lamp.........! The list is endless and tales such as these are the essence of what underpins science – ideas, imagination, discovery, creative thinking, observation. And each can generate simple tasks or observations or experiments that could easily form the nucleus of a homework activity to develop scientific skills of observation, recording, hypothesis and the rest - so that the child gets a “buzz” – a bit of “awe and wonder” - and learns something of the excitement of scientific discovery...... and, as a result says “I want to know more!”  But no, awe and wonder, discovery and enthusiasm are long dead in many of our schools. It’s hard to measure awe and impossible to  give a mark to wonder and testing a child’s enthusiasm or interest level is an unexact science. Much better to go for the easy option – learning facts and lists and fill in the blank spaces and then test, test, test - then pick  up your gold star if you got them all right! The educational tread mill keeps turning.

A few years ago a school governor wrote to the Guardian complaining that the amount of testing that the children were subjected to was damaging their education. I will never forget his main point: "I am" he said "a pig farmer and I know that I don't get healthy fat pigs ready for market by weighing them every day - I do that by providing them with a healthy pig diet. And that is what school should be doing - providing a rich educational diet not continually "weighing" children" . But sadly current government (and for several years now) is not about providing "education"  it is about weighing children - indeed look at any accepted definition of education and what goes on in schools is not education - at best it is training. The word "education" rarely comes out of Michael Gove's (and his predecessors') mouth - instead they talk of school "raising attainment" or of the government/teachers/OFSTED "raising standards" - not educating.

In the end we come back to a report in yesterday's papers by a group of eminent academics commenting upon Michael Gove’s ideas: “A group of academics have warned that Michael Gove's national curriculum proposal will severely erode educational standards by "dumbing down" teaching and learning......100 experts say the education secretary's new curriculum consists of "endless lists of spellings, facts and rules" that will not help to develop children's ability to think or solve problems.......Children, they say, will be forced to learn "mountains of detail" for English, maths and science without understanding it.” Couldn’t have put it better myself! It speaks volumes that in today's paper our Education Secretary has responded by telling these eminent experts that they are "bad academia". Hmmmm! 

Not many teachers go a bundle on Michael Gove
their "boss"

But, when we have killed off "education" in favour of continual "academic weighing" and we put out the fire of enthusiasm, when we have filled young minds with soon to be forgotten facts and we have ground the arts and the humanities into the dust what will be left? When Sophie has had any enthusiasm she might have had for science snuffed out by her homework what will she do? When we have produced a nation of engineers and technocrats who can use binary code to produce ever more powerful computers and clever technology that increasingly makes people redundant, worthless  and dehumanised what will fill their empty hours? When we have a world full of hard nosed but accomplished number crunching accountants and scientists who perform their experiments and calculations with no ethical code or humanitarian perspective on life what will our society be like? When we have a population that is able to spot a split infinitive or a subordinate clause at a hundred metres but has not the imagination or literary creativity to become the next Shakespeare, Dickens or Lawrence or Orwell what will we find to enjoy? When we have a population that enjoys the songs and praises the film or the stage show of “Les Mis” but knows nothing of Victor Hugo or the tale’s historical perspective will all be reduced to simple "entertainment" like some vast virtual reality computer game? Or, when we have produced a population who think that a great cathedral like that at Durham is a sort of historic Disney theme park and has no understanding of its history and place in our cultural, historical and linguistic heritage – will, then,society have any sort of awareness or vision or understanding of how we got to where we are or indeed where we should go from here? When we have a produced a population that will read, uncaring about the invasion and bombing of Iraq (ten years ago this week) but not know of the rich historical and cultural  heritage of that part of the world – the cradle of civilization - and not understand that much of our own scientific and mathematical knowledge is based upon great truths discovered in those middle eastern regions many hundreds or thousands of years ago - then will we next turn on other great cultures to brutalise nearer to home? When we have a world filled with tourists who will pay their fare and fly off to Australia or Italy or Spain but know nothing of their history or geography and so may not understand much of what their eyes light upon, will all that is left to them and us be sun, sand and sangria? When we have a national psyche underpinned by “never mind the quality feel the width” doctrine and that values only things that can be costed and proved to be a good buy or of economic worth then how will we judge quality or put value on things that cannot be costed -  a piece of music, a state of mind, a noble or ignoble action? When we have ensured that the world’s musical and artistic heritage is enjoyed only be a privileged few what will “the rest” do? When we have finally succeeded in making our schools and universities places where only the utilitarian is valued and can be studied and where there is no place for learning for its own sake where and to whom will we turn for our great leaders, our inspirations and aspirations?

Isaac newton "doing science"  and discovering
gravity!- bet he's glad he
didn't have to do Sophie's homework!

The  outlook is bleak indeed. When we have run down and mutilated the arts and humanities and when we have denigrated ideals, imagination, dreams, aesthetics and mankind him/herself  and reduced all to its lowest common denominators and sublimated all to  the needs of the economic monster that we all feed - then, will we look at the wasteland we have created. When every child has passed every test and achieved 3Rs perfection, when he or she has GCSE and A levels in abundance and the great educational  nirvana envisaged by  successive governments has been attained then what will he or she have to sustain and nurture them as human beings. Then, we might look in vain for something else that we once had - imagination, creativity, inquiry  empathy, ethics, humanity, an appreciation of others and their views. Maybe then we will once again seek and value an understanding of the world and a desire to comprehend who we are, why we are and where we are. And, maybe, if we are very lucky, through that educational, social and cultural wasteland there might shuffle forward through the ruins a vision of what we once had before the brutalisation of English  education in the latter years of the twentieth and early twenty first century. Perhaps then - using the pig farmer's analogy - we will see a generation of scrawny, often weighed and tested, educationally starved scrawny piglets creep forward and ask why we did not provide the rich educational diet that they needed to make them grow into healthy and fat grown up pigs!   And then, and only then, might we realise and understand what we have lost.  We will be able to write wonderful shopping lists all correctly spelled and punctuated, we will be able to record our lists on wonderful spreadsheets spot a mathematical error in the twinkling of an eye. We will be able recognise value for money and the main chance to get the best deal as we do our on-line shopping. We will be able to spot the value of this loyalty card over that and probably sustain and give meaning our shallow lives by worshipping daily at the altar of retail therapy - the new religion and focus of the "good life". We will be full of hard facts and awash with qualifications. But we will, too, have lost our creativity, our imagination, our ability to question or to be inspired. And worse, we will have little or no understanding of the world, of others or the context in which to live our shallow lives. We will have lost our basic humanity - that which separates us from the animals - the ability comprehend the past and the future and to know our place and role in it.

Durham Cathedral on a beautiful Spring morning

Michael Gove is wrong on just about everything educational that he touches and his History curriculum is  badly flawed. He is a fool and because he holds power a dangerous fool  – but I’m with him on the importance and value of history. History and all the other elements of the humanities and the arts curriculum are too important to marginalise – in the final analysis they are infinitely more important to us as human beings than his beloved 3Rs. In the end maths and science might be good for the economy but it is the  arts and the humanities that are good for the soul and which  preserve our humanity and, dare I say it, make us better people.