Homework, Philosophy and Prefabs for Schools - Michael Gove's Valuation of Education and the Young

Last Friday Simon Jenkins wrote an article in the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/11/michael-gove-more-soviet-than-socialist) bemoaning, amongst other things, the increasing centralisation of our education system. Jenkins forcefully argued that the result of this is to “hold back” educational progress, discourage a responsive and meaningful curriculum and encourage a system of education based upon the “it never did me any harm” philosophy. Jenkins suggested that in the late nineteenth century whilst English children were still following a classics based curriculum “the French and Germans were teaching science and technology, history and geography and beating us commercially”. In his article Jenkins referred to what he termed the “collapse of educational progressivism in the 1980s and its replacement by teaching to the test.....”.

As I read I found myself, much to my wife’s annoyance,  mumbling “absolutely right” or “spot on” over my cornflakes. I enjoy reading Jenkins, although have to confess on balance perhaps more often than not have reservations about his observations. On this occasion, however, he was completely right. In particular, it was his brief reference to educational thinkers and philosophers like John Dewey, Johann Pestalozzi and Rudolf Steiner that,  for me, pulled all Jenkins’ arguments together. Only  a week or two ago in my blog (http://www.arbeale.blogspot.co.uk/) “Musical Musings, Educational Jargon and Economies with the Truth” I had made a not dissimilar connection  – although not so eloquently as Jenkins! I said: “[the] EBacc appears not to include music at all! How can that - the omission of music - I wonder, be equated with a “rounded education" - the thought of it would have been bizarre to the ancient Greeks like Plato and Aristotle  or to the great educational philosophers of the past few hundred years - Rousseau, Dewy and the rest.  For a discussion of terms like "rounded education" is also a debate about the nature, philosophy and ethics of education, a debate clearly not, I conclude, on the educational agenda of any political party in contemporary Britain, and far beyond the interest or understanding of our current underwhelming and philosophically challenged Secretary of State for Education, Doc Gove, paddler of educational myths, quick fixes and fake remedies...."

Plato - will Gove's thoughts
 on education still be read
 in two thousand years -
I think not!

Having read Jenkins’ article, I forced my wife to read it and then passed it on to my daughter and on Saturday afternoon I sat pondering Jenkins’ comments as I sat helping my nine year old granddaughter, Sophie, with her maths and science homework. It filled most of Saturday afternoon and a good deal of Sunday morning and, knowing that she had significant amounts throughout the week as well, Jenkins’ comment that a  "good education is still identified with a juggernaut curriculum....”  had a certain resonance. I’m sure that to Sophie the prospect of the next few years, endless homework, gradgrind tests and the like must be daunting -  but as Jenkins’ reminded us the philosophy that says “it didn’t do us any harm” seems to justify it. But, like Jenkins, I wonder.

I cannot say whether it did good or harm but what I do know is that times have changed. When I was at primary (and secondary modern) school fifty or sixty years ago there were not the pressures and expectations of today. To a large degree the drab Victorian school – St Matthews C of E in Preston, Lancashire and Fishwick Secondary Modern - that I attended was the centre of my world. Sophie like many other children, however, has other calls commitments and distractions – she has violin lessons, swimming lessons, brownies and the like.  Her family, like many others, go out together at the weekend. Television, computer, an endless round of parties and other social engagements fill her life..........in short school is only one facet of modern life calling on her time, interests and learning opportunities.  It was not so for me  and I suspect many others in past generations.  If I wanted to play football or cricket I did it via the school team; any acting I did was via the school nativity; any songs I learned were in school, the school Christmas Party was a highlight of my year; it was through school that I accessed the world and knowledge. It was through school that I accessed people who had something to offer and who might be conduits for my improvement. Despite the school being drab with brown tiled walls and high windows preventing me looking out and day dreaming it was my world and was important -  for me, and others of my generation, there was little else.

Today, however, is different; school is only one amongst many distractions and opportunities; the internet and the media brings the world and all knowledge into Sophie’s lap top and front room at the press of a button, through her clubs and other opportunities she meets and talks to adults from a wide variety of backgrounds and professions;  she walks through “glitzy” shopping malls with all their distractions, she has tennis lessons and music lessons, she goes on trips with other groups and is already a well travelled young lady. School has to (whether it likes it or not) compete against this backdrop. It is not the only provider of learning access and success or failure. The world has changed.  Today, the world is filled, as Jenkins reminded us, with people who have “made it” despite school.  Indeed, I am a case in point - rejected as a failure at 11+ I managed to scrape a few of Mr Gove's beloved GCEs at 16 and by my mid thirties had a Masters Degree. By the time I retired I had been at the top of my profession and involved in training the next generation of teachers. So, when I went to school as a child schools were crucially important to the life and opportunities of the ordinary child - but even in those far off days not the only game in town! And today, more than  ever, schools have to know this and be adaptable and forward looking and not harking back to the past so favoured by Mr Gove and his political undead.   Schools have to be part of this world – not to do so increasingly marginalises them. I was unimaginably depressed a week or two ago when I read that Michael Gove was planning  that school building should henceforward be utilitarian and “cheap” rather than architecturally exciting and innovative.........Mmmmmmm! - I wonder if quills, slates and ink wells are factored into the costings? The announcement was accompanied by this comment to justify the programme: "A school building should be a safe and welcoming environment in which great teaching can take place, but it is teachers who will inspire children, not buildings." I would certainly not disagree with that general premise - but there is more to it than that over simplification.

My school before I retired - lovely
architecture - curves, slopes,
a beautiful and stimulating environment
in which to come learn

In a world inhabited by the young, many of whom come from homes filled with hi-tech gadgets,  designer furniture and fittings and see glamour and glitz in their shopping malls and on TV, Mr Gove’s plan to inspire them and to encourage them to see value in education is to house them in cheap utilitarian buildings made from bolted together pieces, with reduced communal areas and costing many millions per school less than the current building budget.  “Look my children” says Mr Gove, “ forget the wonderful shopping mall and the bright shiny houses you see on TV. Forget that your Premiership football team has a swanky new stadium. Don’t be silly teenagers influenced by the latest bit of technological kit.  We know what's best for you! You'll love being taught in educational prefabs. In  our country we value education so much that we are going to put you in utilitarian cheap buildings – you’ll really appreciate them – it's a sort of architectural statement of  exactly what we think of you. Posh trendy building like the Shard aren't for the likes of you - no, they are for those we really value – bankers and the like. It’s the sort of educational and architectural  equivalent of the old hymn “All things bright and beautiful” - you know the bit were it says  ‘the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate’ .  Make sure that you learn that bit for this week’s homework – you’ll be tested on it Friday morning. I've instructed all teachers that Friday morning's lesson is  about touching forelocks and curtsies”.  

Which parallel universe does Michael Gove inhabit I wonder?

For me these latest announcements say much about what we, as a society, value. When a society has taken the view that the education of its young is not something to value above all else and it allows politicians of any hue to dictate their whims, fancies and prejudices then there is something seriously wrong with that society.

Inside my school - Lantern Lane
East Leake. When I showed prospective
parents and children round they often
gasped with excitement at the
environment. It spoke of
the value placed on what we were
doing

Don’t think that I begrudged the time spent helping Sophie with her homework – it was great and took me back to my time teaching.  To find myself repeating all the old phrases and tricks that I had used in the classroom over forty years to explain something or to pick up on something she had said or done; to see her making the same mistakes I had seen thousands make on their way to understanding; to see what a proficient young lady she is......yes it all gave me a thrill. But at the same time, I pondered, has anyone at her school, has Mr Gove and his myriad of inspectors and advisers ever given any serious thought to what they are proposing for children in Britain of the early twenty first century. As we ploughed through the maths and science  - the maths on a photocopied sheet with spaces for the answers........but the spaces were not allowed to be filled in. Instead Sophie had to transcribe all that was on the sheet and write in her answers at the side in her exercise book. The science homework that she had to complete six or seven pages writing in the blank spaces "water vapour" or "droplets" or "condensation" or "evaporation". We were positively on the edge of our seats with excitement so gripping was this! As Sophie practised her scribing skills rather than develop any love or feel for science, I was reminded of the quote by Rousseau:  "We should not teach children the sciences but give them a taste for them."  and wondered what he would have thought. A little later as I emptied the dish washer Sophie watched my glasses steam up with condensation - and there was real science about evaporation and condensation - not scribing - she squealed with excitement and wanted to try herself! And I thought of Plato - a couple of thousand years ago saying: "You must train the children to their studies in a playful manner and without any air of constraint with the further object of discerning more readily the natural bent of their respective characters.". But Plato is dead - long live Wackford Squeers and Gove's Gradgrind Academies!

Good old Wackford Squeers -
boy, would he have felt at home
 in 21st century Goveland

Jenkins’ comments had an awful ring to them. Here in the homework was a philosophy based upon “it was good enough for us so it’s good enough for them” And, I wondered on what premise was the homework set; was it to provide a link with home to involve the parents in the education of their child; was it to provide an opportunity for the child to work entirely independently with no teacher there; was it given because there simply wasn’t enough hours in the school day and it was a way of overcoming the educational juggernaut. The really sad thing was that I simply  wasn’t convinced that anyone in Sophie's school had given this any  serious thought – it was so arbitrary and mindless. It seemed to be given because that was what schools do – more of the same from schools of  generations ago.

But another thought crossed my mind as I sat at her side and thought of Jenkins’ article – educational philosophy. It may sound very dry and terribly old hat but is at the very essence, I believe, of Jenkins’ article and my angst.

Rousseau

When I trained as a teacher in the mid sixties educational history and philosophy were significant elements of the education course that we all studied. The great names of education – Dewey, Rousseau, Montessori, Plato and the like were studied as was a historical perspective as to how the education system of our country had been developed. It gave, I believe, a canvas against which to see and justify or criticise  what we were doing in the classroom. Referring back to Jenkins’ article we could understand how the schools of the middle ages or of the 1870 Education Act or of the 1944 Act reflected the needs and thoughts of the time. We could read Rousseau or Dewey or Plato and perhaps begin to understand how children were viewed and compare and contrast that with our current beliefs and practises. We could in a small way understand the great educational shifts and developments and maybe put them into some sort of perspective.

In the latter stages of my career I worked extensively in teacher education – either with newly qualified teachers or especially with graduates who decided to enter the profession. Newly qualified teachers had rarely, if ever, studied educational history or philosophy – it was no longer part of the teacher education curriculum – and the trainee teachers, the graduates too never experienced it, it simply wasn't part of the course.

All that these aspiring professionals were given were practical tools to teach – some curriculum knowledge, a few tricks and strategies to keep order in the classroom, a dose of information about the teacher and the law, a bit of learning theory but mostly a whole raft – many A4 files in length - of prescriptive curriculum content – what must be taught and how it must be taught. The writing was on the wall for established teachers too. From the mid eighties onwards as the National Curriculum began to entwine its strangling tentacles around schools, educational innovation and children the professional development courses for teachers changed. Before that one went on a course and came back with a few ideas, a load of inspiration and the knowledge that you were a better mathematician or musician or scientist. In short,  you were a better professional. But all that changed.  From the introduction of Kenneth  Baker’s National Curriculum one came back only knowing how to teach page 85 of the maths curriculum or page 101 of the Literacy strategy  – what examples to give to the children, what resources to have available, how much time to spend on each skill or concept. And so the list went on. Teachers increasingly were termed “practitioners” – and indeed that is what they were becoming and have become – “practitioners” not professionals. They have increasingly become skilled workmen, tradesmen rather than professionals with “vision” and understanding about what they are doing and more importantly why they are doing it.

In writing this I am reminded of a young teacher who worked in the next classroom to me at the time that the National Curriculum was being introduced. She was a talented young lady. At the time  teachers across the nation were being asked to undertake time audits and schools to apportion dollops of time when this or that concept or skill could and should be taught No acknowledgement here of the less able child or the not very effective teacher who might take a bit longer. No acknowledgement that the skill might be being taught on the day when snowflakes fell and the class of 7 year olds were far more interested in the excitement to come at playtime! But on this day at a 11.55 am – five minutes before the lunch break the young teacher put her head round my classroom door. Looking highly embarrassed she whispered.......wait for it....... “I’ve taught multiplication by ten and I think they’ve all got it.......but I’ve still got about five minutes left on the time I allocated. Shall I do it all again!”

This is not to denigrate today’s teachers. When I worked with them I was constantly humbled by their commitment and classroom skills – far in excess of anything that I had at the same stage in my career. But they were skilled in the same way that a carpenter or a builder is. And, just as the builder works to the architects plan they too work to the plan and the plan is written by Michael Gove and his predecessors. They, themselves, have little vision or awareness of where education has been and where it needs to go in the early years of the twenty-first century. They have no underlying philosophy or historical perspective or context in which to place their lessons or the school and classroom ethos.

One of my treasured and much thumbed possessions is my copy of RS Peters’ seminal work “Ethics and Education” – it discuses important educational issues: what is education, education and the individual, education and motivation, the justification for education, ethics and the teacher, the ethical foundations of education, worthwhile activities, authority and education, equality, punishment and discipline and a raft of other considerations.  Peters, as any philosopher, raises the questions and identifies the issues that need to be considered if the nature and rationale of education is to be understood.

Sadly, I believe that Peters’ and others like him – Dewey, Rousseau and the rest – educationalists who have given some structure, context direction and foundation to what we do in schools would not today find a place at Mr Gove’s high table.  Numbers are the only ethical base required by the accountant and the payments by results inspector. Everyone knows what the curriculum should consist of - for Mr Gove and many of his recent predecessors have told us what it is. It is not a matter for debate or rational thought. Inspiration and understanding of what the needs and ambitions and experiences of young people are is not countenanced in the modern educational world envisaged by Mr Gove. We have created a school system based on the sweat shop which rewards drudgery and not inspiration and aspiration. Progressive thought, as Jenkins argued  is long dead. Thinkers and thinking is not to be encouraged in classrooms or by teachers. Drab brown tiles and high windows through which one cannot see the world were good enough for me. They are good enough for the next generation in their prefabricated utilitarian school buildings. 

President Bill Clinton’s Labour Secretary Robert Reich once famously said: 'We are creating a one size fits all [education] system that needlessly brands many young people as failures, when they might thrive if offered a different education whose progress was measured differently. Paradoxically we're embracing standardised tests just when the economy is eliminating standardized jobs.” I wonder what Reich would comment today about the ramshackle “system” in the UK.   I use the word system in its loosest possible terms for a “system” implies something planned and cohesive and thought out – precisely not what we now have in this country with academies, free schools, continual calls for more selection and higher standards, exam fiascos and a teaching workforce which is well meaning and industrious but with little concept of where it is going or why as successive governments  have de-skilled it and  neutered its professional base with an increasingly prescriptive and backwards looking curriculum.

I have absolute belief and conviction that the curriculum that is being force fed to the children of our country in this the twenty first century when combined with the poverty of inspirations and aspiration for children, the low value placed by those who should now better and are in political charge and the the total lack of any understanding of what education id and what it should be will, in the long term result in a nation of mediocrity. We will produce endless millions capable or writing shopping lists and spelling "risottos" correctly (one of my granddaughter's recent spellings) but we will not produce another Shakespeare. We will produce millions who can  add up the cost of their shopping but be unable to understand the mathematical relationships and opportunities required by modern technology. We will have a population who can spell Australia and can tell you how much it costs on Ryanair to fly there - but know nothing of this vast country where it is or what its geography and history are. We will have generations who are not exposed to the of excitement of science and discovery but can spell evaporation - and write it very neatly since they have practised it so many times. We will have a population who do not see learning as exciting and worthwhile but merely a drag and something to be slogged through. Schools will increasingly be seen as the poor relation in the face of the other many distractions and attractions of everyday life. What we will have is, I believe,  bad for teachers, very bad for schools but most importantly,  unimaginably depressing for generations of children like my granddaughter(s) -  and as Jenkins’ argued in the long term, fatal for the national interest.