Dennis Hayes2013-05-25T16:52:34-04:00Dennis Hayeshttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=dennis-hayesCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Dennis HayesGood old fashioned elbow grease.Time for a Good Old-Fashioned Debate on Educationtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.18998572012-09-24T19:00:00-04:002012-11-24T05:12:01-05:00Dennis Hayeshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-hayes/grammar school education, Classics and Latin, O-levels , 'Gove levels' or EBaccs, basic grammar, or uniforms and discipline, the coalition government's ideas about education are always variations of one simple idea, which is to go 'Back to the Future.'
These policies often seem to reflect the public or grammar school experience of members of the coalition, and this leaves them open to the criticism that they are the result of the nostalgia of an elite about their 'Toff's education', or their fantasy of a non existent 'golden age' in the school system.
Looking at the steady stream of them, these initiatives at least embody something positive, if only a fading memory of what 'education' once meant. This is something to appreciate and is more worthwhile than the focus on a thousand fads and fashions that replaced education under New Labour and the educational establishment they created. Those fads and fashions involved replacing subjects and disciplinary knowledge by rag bags of skills and social engineering activities on the assumption that knowledge was redundant in an era of constant technological age. Knowledge and understanding - argued the ideologues of the new 'learning age' - was Victorian, elitist and old fashioned. 'Learning to learn' in various formulations became the focus of educational thinking from the nursery to the university.
In this context, the use of the term 'education' has no agreed meaning that anyone can trade on. Not people's memories, or any group's supposed wisdom. Michael Gove once tried to argue that working-class parents had a 'common sense' understanding of what education was:
'What we do need to have is a recognition that working class parents are every bit as aspirational as, if not more so than, middle class parents. Often they have a common sense view about what their children need, which is wiser than that of many educationalists and professors of education.'
This may occasionally be true, but such common sense is fragile. Whatever memories policymakers have, or whatever common sense parents have, currently children from any social background, and whatever school they attend, only get a decent education by accident. Even in the best fee paying schools, a traditional education is a chance occurence. And it's getting increasingly worse. Anthony Seldon's flirtation with 'happiness' classes at Westminster College is an example of the way in which things can go wrong at places where the best education is still on offer.
The reason is that 'education' has lost its meaning and those few teachers and educationalists still holding on to a traditional view of education are few and isolated. They can only hold their positions on education dogmatically, rather than philosophically.
What is wrong with the policy proposals flowing from the coalition's apparent memory of what education used to be like is that the policies being suggested are merely forms that arose when education had meaning. When that meaning has been lost, these initiatives cannot work. As a result such proposals are parodies of what education was, the ghosts of education past. A better vision of education is needed - but it cannot just be asserted.
It's a matter of debate
The only way that education can be reclaimed is through robust debate with teachers, teacher unions, the academic education establishment, the armies of education consultants and parents. There are no shortcuts to this, and it has to be a debate about the meaning of education, a defence of knowledge and understanding against the snake-oil sellers of 'learning to learn' and the like.
The argument for education won't be easy to win for two reasons:
The first is there are few people who can consistently defend a traditional view of education and, second, there is a similar crisis of meaning about what it is to debate.
We don't know what education is and, as a consequence, we do not know what debate means. Debate is at the heart of education and if there is a crisis about one there is a crisis about the other. It is a symptom of this dual crisis that makes policy makers seek short cuts in remembered education that they hope can be implemented through consultation rather than debate.
The loss of the idea of debate as the essence of education has become confused through two new meanings of 'debate' that have emerged.
Debate is mostly just therapy. It means allowing everyone to express their views in an open unthreatening way. Even when it involves 'Socratic' questioning it consists of asking question simply to encourage more self-expression.
Alternatively, it is a process in which everyone is asked to question their assumptions and be open and 'critical' about them. This is again accompanied by 'Socratic' questioning to help people probe more deeply. The difference is that the challenge to assumptions is usually facilitated by professionals who want their debaters to get to the correct social, political, ethical or professional position. This is debate as brainwashing.
'Debate' today does not mean what it once did, and real debate is frowned upon. When I was taking recently about introducing debating to groups of school pupils, one education advisor said, in a shocked way: "You don't mean debate in the old-fashioned sense as arguing for and against?"
That was just what I meant. Call me old-fashioned, but what is needed now is a debate for and against education. An old-fashioned debate in which the defenders of old-fashioned education can get stuck into the modernisers who hate old-fashioned debate. Without this debate, all we will be left with is memories of education.
References
Richard Garner, Michael Gove 'backs more Grammar schools', Independent. 10 May 2012.
Graeme Paton, Michael Gove: schools failing to promote the classics, Telegraph. 1 April 2011.
Jeevan Vasagar, Foreign languages to be taught at school from age seven, Guardian. 10 June 2012.
Nicholas Watt, The return of O-levels: Michael Gove to get rid of GCSEs in exams shakeup, Guardian. 21 June 2012.
Nicholas Watt, GCSE exams to be replaced by EBacc, Guardian 17 September 2012.
Laura Clark, Thousands of teachers go back to school to lean basic maths and grammar so they can deliver tough new lessons, Daily Mail. 12 June 2012.
Paul Waugh, Michael Gove: Parents prefer strict discipline and school uniforms, Evening Standard. 20 September 2010.]]>Gagging Gove, Then All Of Ustag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.17975612012-09-03T06:02:09-04:002012-11-03T05:12:01-04:00Dennis Hayeshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-hayes/Leveson Inquiry came to an end on 24 July, and we are promised a speedy report. In the meantime, it is worthwhile to remind ourselves that this inquiry belongs to a historical tradition. To that tradition belong the Stalinist show trials of the 1930s, and the public trials of the 1950s conducted by the House Un-American Activities Committee under Senator Eugene McCarthy. Given the prima doña performances of showbiz celebs in the Leveson 'show' trial, Arthur Miler's Salem witch trials, dramatised in The Crucible, might be a better parallel, with its hysterical denunciations and confessions.
This may seem an extreme parallel. But if it does seem extreme, it only shows the failure to learn anything from history. There was great popular support for many of these inquisitions, and only the form is different today - no hysterical mobs, merely moralistic, smug and self-righteous broadsheet hacks, Guardian readers and Radio 4 listeners! There was hardly any criticism of Leveson. The Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins made modest criticisms of celebs for 'distorting [the] debate', but the major exception to the cheerleading of Leveson was the online magazine spiked and their excellent Counter-Leveson Inquiry.
This latest showtrial was more therapeutic than the earlier trials where there was defiance from individuals. All that was required at Leveson was condemnation and and confession. Murdoch and the tabloids were so clearly guilty that no right thinking person could abslove them of their crimes.
Gove the hero
Education Secretary Michael Gove became an unlikely, and lonely, heroic figure at least to some for consistently criticising the threat to freedom of speech that could result from the inquiry. In an after-dinner speech he said that Leveson could give rise to a 'chilling atmosphere that [could undermine] free speech in Britain'. Upon being summoned to the inquiry itself he - a journalist at heart - said he was 'concerned about any prior restraint on [journalists] exercising freedom of speech'. Leveson responded that he did 'not need to be told about the importance of freedom of speech', and accused Gove of effectively condoning criminal behaviour by defending freedom of speech. Gove was not phased by the unelected Lord Justice and, in reply to the suggestion that he was condoning criminality by defending free speech, he told him: 'I don't think any of us can accept that behaviour necessarily, but there are a variety of sanctions... By definition, freedom of speech doesn't mean anything unless some people are going to be offended some of the time'. (1)
Gove was not burnt at the stake but, in a parody of the British TV comedy Yes Minister, Leveson phoned up the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, and asked him to have a word and stop his constant critricism. (2) A quaint view of old fashioned class relationships you might think. A whiff of a world in which the elites just knew who to phone up and our betters would quietly point out to jumped-up democratically elected persons the error of their ways. It may yet work and we will never know - which is the way with such quiet words in the ear!
This suppresion of open dissent suggests that the way the inquiry is going, we can see the future for journalists and those of us who dare to speak and put forward unpopular views on any issue.
Coogan's Bluff
The clearest indicator of the future is expressed by Steve Coogan, superficially the most unlikely person to front an attack on free speech, being a stand up comedian and satirist but there is the irony. Coogan attacks self regulation and wants a mechanism of 'redress' for ordinary people who are vilified in the press. (3) He clearly, but wrongly, thinks this will not affect free speech. His vision of free speech is that you are free to say what you like, but the Sword of Damocles hangs over your head!
All this sounds very threatening and talk of 'gagging' and 'legal' action for journalists who go too far ignore the kindly nature of the probable outcome. Which is why the concerns of a comic are more scary than the actions of judges and civil servants
Gagging us all
Despite Coogan's vision of the necessity of an iron fist in a velvet glove, the broad effect of the inquiry is unlikely to result in very many new legal attacks on press fredom, or to see a return to the elite system of phoning the right person.
The logic of Leveson will, of course, inevitably lead to legislation that will threaten a tradition of freedom of the press in Britain that begins with John Milton and continues with a long line of literary defenders including John Stuart Mill, George Orwell and, soon to be added to the list, Mick Hume. (4)
But worse than that is the way in which the therapeutic culture in whch we live will likely make Leveson's proposed restrictions more effective. Rather than banning or censoring things outright, such a culture is far more likely to regulate through quiet words from friends, colleagues and even institutional authorites about not causing offence. Far more than iron legislation, such a velvet climate will make the new culture of conformism work. It is much harder to stand up to those you respect, who are your friends, or colleagues you like, than it is to judges, journalists and politicians. It is this therapeutic ethos that may silence Gove and gag all of us. The most important thing is to recognise it, and give those we like and respect some hard love through our hard arguments.
(4) See his forthcoming book There is No Such Thing as a Free Press... And We Need One More Than Ever. (Imprint Academic).]]>Academic Affairstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.15059852012-05-10T09:58:26-04:002012-07-10T05:12:16-04:00Dennis Hayeshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-hayes/
The more higher education has become obsessed with the regulation of every aspect of university life in the belief that this will ensure equity, the more educational relations become formalised with destructive consequences for the trust that should exist between lecturers and students. Formalisation of higher education consists not only in the familiar setting of 'learning objectives' and 'marking criteria' for students' work but through rules for the 'ethical' regulation of research and every professional interaction. Tutorials have to record agreed objectives signed off by the student and lecturer. It is not uncommon for doctoral students to come to tutorials with a written 'agenda' and they cannot even see why this is unacceptable. Imagine what state a marriage would be in if every interaction had to be covered by a formal contract!
University bureaucracies are not content with regulating educational relations but now feel they have to regulate personal relations between members of staff and staff and students further undermining trust and even the possibility of people having normal relationships. This interference gets expressed in 'Codes of Conduct'. Here is one from a well-known university:
University of Poppleton
Code of Conduct for Staff-Student Relationships
All staff-student relations must be consensual and agreed. Therefore, the Committee of for Academic Affairs at the University of Poppleton has produced these useful guidelines which will be available on the web and on tape/CD. Hard copies will also available in large print, Braille and all known languages.
Ethical Guidelines
The member of staff or student will have the right to withdraw from a relationship at any time without suffering any emotional or other harm by declaring, in writing on the appropriate form, at any point:
Forms for this purpose are available in the Student Wellbeing Office and the Union Bar.
Formal Contract (Stage 1)
The initial stages of any relationship are the most delicate. Therefore, the Committee for Academic Affairs has produced the following contact which must be filled in and witnessed at each stage. Copies are available in the Student Wellbeing Office, the Union Bar at and in local supermarkets, cinemas, pubs and discos.
Completed Stage 1 and any later forms must be deposited in the 'AA' section of the locked filing cabinet in the Personnel Department. They will of course be subject to the Data Protection and Freedom of Information Acts (although Mrs Dilworth has the only known key).
1. Can I ask you a personal question without causing offence?
This section of the Formal Contract Stage 2 is subject to further discussion as the probable absence of witnesses has led the Committee for Academic Affairs to pilot the use of audio visual recording and is seeking costings for the rental of 17,000 mini cam recorders to be issued to all students at Induction.
3. Morning-after Agreement: Shall we do this again tomorrow, assuming that I'm well on the way to marking your essay/dissertation/thesis, by then?
I am please to inform all staff that the Poppleton branch of the University and College Union (UCU) is fully behind these procedures and is working with the University to produce similar guidelines for any relationships between members of staff. The UCU Branch Secretary Dr Plato said that 'UCU believes that any physical or emotional contact whatsoever between members of staff, whatever their gender, is sexual harassment'.
The Vice Chancellor
Signed in his absence by Mrs Dilworth
(N.B. The VC is at a conference of VCs in the Bahamas with Susan Loose his
research student - Mrs Dilworth)
My thanks to my Times Higher Education editorial board colleague and creator of the University of Poppleton, Professor Laurie Taylor, for borrowing rights and my apologies for any misrepresentation of the University and its excellent staff and outstanding students! But apologies may also be due to many others, because when I circulated an earlier version of this 'Code', the response of several academics was: 'Oh no! Human Resources Departments will read it and adopt it!']]>Silent Strikes Benefit No One!tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.13850722012-03-28T10:37:38-04:002012-05-28T05:12:02-04:00Dennis Hayeshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-hayes/
I've always enjoyed the political drama of strikes, the picket lines and marches. But the main point of any strike, and what made it worthwhile, was the chance to talk to fellow workers and the public about what you wanted to achieve. They gave you a unique opportunity to engage in argument and win support.
The main feature of today's 'strikes' is silence. Often a picket line isn't even there. It will consist of a dusty placard saying 'On Strike' or it will be a small group of people asking passers-by to please 'Take a leaflet?' On marches there's razzmatazz. There are bands, balloons and that wild whistle blowing that makes conversation impossible. There is some rehearsed and random shouting, such as the chant heard on today's pension demo: 'What do we want? Our pensions before we die!' Certainly there are some colourful and often witty banners. But the one thing missing is debate and discussion about the issue behind the picket or demonstration. I have been on many strikes and protests over the last few years and found they are intellectually desultory affairs. There may be a lot of noise at these events, but they are intellectually silent.
On the demonstration about student fees, myself and several academic colleagues from universities in the Midlands offered to run impromptu seminars for the bored students! There was no debate about the issues.
Today's strike was the same. Like the issue of fees, what complex maters like pensions require is seminars, not strikes. Some major unions weren't striking today so debate was clearly needed! Ironically, academics and teachers have the ability to strike out intellectually, and perhaps win their case by debating with their employers and the government. They should do more of that rather than to do what most do and spend their day 'protesting' at home, or at a shopping mall!
Striking out intellectually is what is needed today. I'm not saying that actual strikes can't be the place for this, but a strike is not a strike when it's intellectually silent.]]>Let's Replace Ofsted With an 'Office for Subject-Centred Education'tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.13826902012-03-27T12:14:52-04:002012-05-27T05:12:02-04:00Dennis Hayeshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-hayes/
This 'bonfire of vocational qualifications' is another of the very good things that the Lib-Con coalition has done for education, such as the abandonment of the much vaunted 14-19 Diplomas, and the 'bonfire of the education quangos', mostly from a list suggested by Tom Burkard in a Centre for Policy Studies publication School Quangos: A blueprint for abolition and reform.
In the latter case, neither Burkard, nor the government were thorough enough, leaving Ofsted alone, and they simply forgot about small fry like the Institute of Learning (IfL), the 'professional' body for further education teachers. Belatedly the coalition government has issued a press release announcing that it will be following the interim advice of Lord Lingfield's independent review of Professionalism in Further Education and will abolish the compulsory membership requirement and remove the gatekeeper functions from the IfL. It is time that they recognised that Ofsted is not part of any solution to improving education in the UK. It is part of the problem.
Not abolishing Ofsted was a failure of nerve that expressed a basic fear of bringing this 'independent' body into the Department for Education and therefore publically taking full responsibility for the direction and evaluation of education. This is despite the fact that there is hardly anyone in the UK who truly believes that Ofsted is not a government body.
The Lib-Con government is rarely given sufficient credit regarding what it has done to restore meaning to education, and to reverse the undermining of education that occurred particularly under New Labour but also during previous Tory governments. Most importantly, they have broadly emphasised the importance of subject-centred education (albeit without thinking it through in a philosophical way). It's refreshing to hear Gove say that poor kids are as capable of academic education as rich kids. This sort of talk about education has not been heard much in recent years.
The failure to get the recognition it deserves for its education initiatives is partly because of the dislike many have for it politically. But the government's policies are also both inconsistent and lack philosophical coherence. This is not entirely their fault. They are continually advised by the educational and academic status quo. With few exceptions, wherever the Lib-Con government turns for 'evidence' and advice it comes across positions that reflect the contemporary philosophy of education that considers traditional or liberal 'education' to be elitist and old-fashioned. It is believed to be out of date in today's changing social and economic world, which many think (wrongly) just requires young people to emerge from education with sets of dispositions, attitudes and skills.
This has resulted in children being given courses in 'emotional literacy' and 'learning to learn' or whatever their teachers think will motivate them because it is 'relevant'. They then dress these time-wasting activities up as 'subjects'. The cull of 'vocational' courses reveals this most clearly. The courses being culled are not 'vocational' at all. They are desperate attempts to produce a 'relevant' curriculum that will keep children occupied. They are courses that express an attitude to education that embodies the belief that as children cannot be educated properly, therefore they have to be contained instead.
Such attitudes simply won't cut it. If you are to genuinely see yourself as a teacher, you should hold two things to be true. Firstly, that education means an initiation into what Matthew Arnold called 'the best that has been known and thought in the world', in other words, an initiation into human culture. This epistemological focus means that you must defend a subject-centred curriculum. Second, it means that you must believe that all children can be educated.
If you believe in a subject-based curriculum and don't think that all children can be educated, the result is elitism - an education for a few. On the other hand, if you think all children can be educated but do not believe in subject-centred education, then any fad and fashion will do instead. Education can be focussed on children's emotions or upon a rag bag of skills. Most popular with teacher trainers and Ofsted at the moment is the game of 'assessment for learning' in which teachers are expected to give over what they learn to the children who, of course, haven't a clue.
If the Lib-Con government had more of a clue, they would make another cull of academic advisors and educational consultants who don't believe in making subject-centred education available for all children. They would equally have the courage to abolish Ofsted and replace it with a departmental 'Office for Subject-Centred Education' (Ofsced). The title alone would give direction to teachers, parents and begin to create the possibility of a real education for the next generation of children.
]]>Flirting In Classtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.13632052012-03-19T11:43:06-04:002012-05-19T05:12:01-04:00Dennis Hayeshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-hayes/
The email did make me think about flirting as a teaching technique. Flirting is an unconscious, or even a conscious, use of whatever charms you have to make people - not always, but usually - of the opposite sex feel they are interesting, important, and worthy of attention. Flirting is not seduction, as the intention is different. It is a powerful way of engaging students in learning that will never appear in any textbook! This is a shame, as it is an aspect of pedagogy that must be discussed, or flirting will be equated with seduction in a facile way, and the consequences will be bad for male and female lecturers.
I went to watch a female colleague teach with 'flirting as a teaching technique' still on my mind and all the flirting techniques were there. Her stance was cool and poised, almost predatory but untouchable, as if she was playing Bizet's teasing Carmen. The flash of her eyes, her smiles, her open, welcoming gestures as she encouraged responses from her students: it was an intellectual 'come on'!
But all teachers do this whether they act intentionally or not. Teachers feign attention, concern, and often have to pretend they have a real interest in ill-thought-out ideas, all in the pursuit and development of student learning. I'm surprised most teachers are not charged, as Socrates was, with corrupting youth!
Of course there are caveats. First, I'm talking about students here. All the teachers and students in universities remain adults even though institutions now molly coddle and infantilise them. That is one reason why flirting may seem an improper teaching technique to those who see students as vulnerable children. Second, flirting as a teaching technique is not, as I said above, seduction and there are boundaries. Yet, although physical contact is rarely involved, flirting may, in some students' minds, mean more than encouragement in learning. This risk aside, flirting remains a powerful teaching technique.
Thinking about boundaries gave me a different understanding of the email's opener 'It's outrageous how you flirt in class!' I now read it as 'It is outrageous that you flirt so much with others and don't flirt enough with me'.]]>Science, Science and Sciencetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.13069812012-02-29T06:33:47-05:002012-04-30T05:12:01-04:00Dennis Hayeshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-hayes/
Perks is an Oxbridge physics graduate who has taught physics in state schools for 25 years. Teaching, school teaching in particular, is his love. Science is his passion. He has written an influential book, What is science education for?, and many articles for a variety of journals and newspapers defending science education. Actively engaged with education policy making, Perks has been a contributor to numerous parliamentary enquiries and is helping develop the new national science curriculum. He has written a Primary Science Curriculum and is the co-founder of the inspirational Physics Factory for secondary school students. An ideas man with a desire for educational change, he has set an ambitious target of 2013 to open a free school, the East London Science School, in, or near to, where he lives in the socially and educationally deprived borough of Tower Hamlets in London.
Perks has endorsements from some distinguished figures, including Brian Foster, the Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Oxford, who says: "In our rapidly changing world, a good education in science has never been more important. The East London Science School will open doors to pupils in East London that have for too long been closed."
I met him on his way home from a full day of teaching physics to put some key questions to him about his project. His apparent weariness soon faded and his enthusiasm for real teaching and clear arguments made me think he might be on to something important.
I asked about his interest in setting up a 'free school' and wondered why he thought science couldn't be properly taught within the existing school system instead? He talked of his 25 years in various state schools trying to do this and rattled off the list of reasons why it was impossible. First, science is "no longer taught, because teachers teach to the test." He wants to do something 'completely different' with his school and intends to put 'teaching and the subject back at the centre'.
Second, the slavish adoption of Ofsted criteria has been a disaster for science education: "we have a bizarre situation in schools where the consequence of expecting teachers to jump through hoops to satisfy Ofsted can make good teachers into bad teachers and vice versa."
Third, "there has been a complete destruction of the possibility of experimentation and what passes for 'education' is now largely driven by league tables."
Fourth, "Schools have given up even trying to get every child through", and Perks will do the opposite: "I intend to push kids towards the top universities. This is a metaphor for the whole thing...for giving education a real shot. And I mean education for all children - we will open the door to anyone who wants to walk through it."
Many of Perks' criticisms seem to be familiar complaints about the restrictions of an assessment-led curriculum, the obsession with league tables and the irrelevance of Ofsted judgements. The originality of his approach is the commitment to teaching the subject of science in experimental ways and his belief that all children can be educated rather than seeing the majority as incapable, as if they all had special needs.
You could call his proposals 'inclusive' but that usually means reducing education to something like special education for all. His idea of 'inclusion' is to offer the highest educational possibilities for all. Some will inevitably fail - Perks says we just have to accept this as reality - "but every child still deserves a good education. However, we also see it as part of our duty to our pupils to work with local employers to give our pupils the best way into a trade or profession if they choose not to take an academic route post 16."
The title of the school implies a focus on one particular subject area. Was he not narrowing the curriculum in setting up something called a 'science school'? Why not a school offering a good all round or a 'liberal' education? The answer Perks gave was blunt: "If you don't have science at the core, it's not really education."
But Perks is not part of the usual instrumental 'STEM' subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) approach that aims to target educational resources towards the supposed requirements of the economy. Nor is he revisiting 19th century debates about a classical versus a modern education. His educational philosophy puts science at the core of a modern liberal education because his curriculum is drawn from epistemology, which means from the disciplines that constitute our contemporary knowledge of the world. Foremost in our contemporary understanding of the world is scientific knowledge. His school will offer a knowledge curriculum including vanishing subjects such as history and modern foreign languages.
Perks believes that the attitude of policy makers, educationalists and teachers towards science tells us most about what's wrong with our schools today: "Schools think science is too hard and they are walking away from the subject. This is a real disaster for education. That's one reason why teachers don't believe we can educate all children."
Finally, I wondered why he is setting his school in East London. In his reply, Perks - who has two young children - became more parent than teacher: "Like many parents in East London, I aspire for a good academic education for my children. That's not a choice that exists at the moment."
The East London Science School will offer that choice: "Through our non-selective admissions policy, we will cater for more than 1,000 pupils aged 11-18, including a sixth form of 400 plus, in one of the most deprived boroughs in Europe." Perks hopes he can get support for his project from those who say they are committed to building great schools in London. He already has support from an increasing number of excellent teachers who want to work in his school.
Perks' proposal is attractive to many parents and many have already signed up to ensure places for their children. The school slogan is 'To Stand on the Shoulders of Giants', but the school is not for dwarfs but those who set out to educate the giants of the future. If you live in East London and want your child to be a science giant, get them on the waiting list.]]>Education is Bad for youtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.12499002012-02-02T11:32:44-05:002012-04-03T05:12:01-04:00Dennis Hayeshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-hayes/
Ever since that famous speech in 1996 when Tony Blair declared that his three priorities for government were "education, education, and education" and John Major replied that he had the same priorities "but in a different order", Britain has been obsessed by education and the belief that it is a good thing. As an educationalist and writer on education, I have to tell you that I disagree. Education is a bad thing, a very bad thing, and it does you harm.
Education is a bad for you when "education" just means getting more and more meaningless qualifications rather than learning for its own sake.
Education is bad for you when it is about the process of "learning to learn", rather than learning.
Education is bad for you when it reduces everything to skills and when even critical thinking becomes a 'skill'.
Education is bad for you when it takes the form of training in socially acceptable behaviour through citizenship education, or working for the 'big society'.
Education is bad for you when it is all about getting a job or meeting the future needs of the economy, rather than giving you knowledge and understanding.
Education is bad for you when it focuses on manipulating your emotions, rather than developing your intellect.
Education is bad for you when it offers classes in 'happiness', which can only make you wonder 'Why I'm I not happy?' and make you feel more unhappy than you were.
The list goes on and on and the current obsession with 'well being' that is invading 'education' is sure to produce ill being and be very bad for you.
One response to the above is to say that these are not examples of education, but of the reduction of education to instrumental socialisation and social training. There is an irony in the use of 'education' to refer to these things.
If this were all I had to say, my statement 'Education is bad for you' would be ironic because 'education' in my assertion referred to things that are not educational - and there is an important point to make about how the term 'education' is now widely used to refer anti-educational activities which crowd out real education. But I want to go further and asset that it is real education, and not these distractions, that is bad for you!
Education is bad for you because it damages your self esteem when you realise how little you know. When you realise how ignorant you are. When you realise how much work is involved in increasing your knowledge that your confidence is threatened.
Education is bad for you if it gives you enough knowledge and understanding with which you can make negative and unconstructive criticism of popular and authoritative ideas.
Education is bad for you when it undermines your fundamental beliefs, whether religious or secular. Everything you hold dear or important is questioned.
Education is bad for you because it will increasingly detach you from your family and former friends who will soon seem narrow and parochial.
Education is bad for you because it will make you so unhappy with the world and to want to change it. Then you will become even unhappier with yourself, and your inability to effect change.
Education is bad for you because it will undermine your contentment and 'well-being' and will leave you perpetually recreating yourself.
Education is bad for you because you will become deeply unsatisfied with everything your betters, whether teacher, employers or the political elites have to offer, and you will demand more.
Because of this, paradoxically, education is a very good thing for people, but not for society. When people say that education is a social good, they are wrong: at best it's an anti-social good. The unexamined life is not worth living, but the examined life does not bode well for student satisfaction or social satisfaction. ]]>A Note for the Teacher: Don't Pry into Family Lifetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9639262011-09-16T00:00:00-04:002011-11-15T05:12:01-05:00Dennis Hayeshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-hayes/
Teachers can easily be tempted to use holiday experiences as part of a lesson: 'Write about your holidays!' It's an opportunity to be 'relevant' and to tap into the children's enthusiasm. I'm not sure it works. It's almost a punishment for having had fun during the vacation. But there are new dangers in this old practice that have come about because of the concern with parental behaviour. This used to be no business of schools. Parents brought up children and schools taught them. Roles and responsibilities are now confused to no one's benefit.
Parents might well be worried if their son or daughter writes something like 'Camping was fun but mummy and daddy kept having rows because my sister has a boyfriend that mummy doesn't like! They woke me up at night and daddy kept going out smoking every ten minutes and the smoke blew into my tent, yuk!' The social workers will be coming round! A worse fate probably awaits one mother - and her children - after she wrote on Facebook that she had 'spent the day at various fine Welsh museums trying to cram a bit of education into the girls before they go back to school.'
There is too much prying into family life that goes far beyond any real concern with child safety - and it certainly isn't educational. Children can get too involved in reporting back to school; and parents may well feel they are being spied upon with questions about what they eat, if they smoke, if they watch too much TV and by demands to allocate specified reading time and even 'quiet moments' with their children. Who knows what they report back to school?
It's time to draw clear boundaries again. A young mother I know is doing just that. She intends to send a note to school with her little girl. It is a 'disclaimer' that reads: 'Please note that anything this child says, or any views she may express, do not necessarily represent the views, opinions or behaviour of her parents or family.' I recommend this 'School Note' to all parents.
Am I being unfair to teachers? I don't think so. They could even learn from this young mother's suggestion. Most teachers will have experienced irate parents coming to school because of their children's' reports about what Mr. X or Ms. Y said about their sweet child! Perhaps teachers could also send a note home to parents saying: 'Whatever this child reports that I said does not necessarily reflect my views or opinions.'
The issue here is not neglecting the 'child's voice' when it comes to things of importance. It's about re-establishing trust between parents and children. This means leaving parents to parent and teachers to teach. These, once clear, roles are breaking down.
When schools are doing things that are the job of parents, it can only lead to more pain and problems for children as their private life is made public. If you think this criticism of prying teachers is an exaggeration, I have a true story for you. A friend tells me his daughter was crying all night and said she didn't want to go to school the next day. After some coaching, she told him why: 'We've got a worry box at school and it's my turn to put my worries in the worry box! But [she sobbed] I haven't got any worries...!'
]]>Back to School: What Every Child Needstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9537092011-09-08T19:00:01-04:002011-11-08T05:12:02-05:00Dennis Hayeshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-hayes/
After many years as a teacher, teacher trainer and writer on education, I have the answer to the question about what one essential thing parents should have bought - - a single purchase that could transform the education of children and young people and make every parent's and every teacher's life better.
The cynics amongst you will be thinking: 'What's he selling? Is he marketing some new fangled educational programme or game like the ridiculous Brain Gym or Nintendo's Brain Training?' Well, I am not selling anything and what I suggest you 'buy' costs between 0p and 10p.
It's a carrier bag and you need only one. It can be a free one from Tesco, one that biodegrades to look like mice are nesting in it, or an indestructible 'bag for life'. Whatever makes you feel better or whatever you can afford. But you don't even need a real carrier bag. A 'virtual' one, what we used to call an 'imaginary' carrier bag will do.
Can a carrier bag transform education? Yes. It can.
Over the last seventeen years government and pressure groups have poured all their concerns into education. Schools and teachers are expected to solve all of society's problems from lack of civic participation and community cohesion to obesity, low self-esteem, poor 'happiness' ratings, binge drinking and knife crime. It makes you sorry for teachers. They just can't do it. When it comes to solving society's problems teachers are pretty useless. This is not to blame them. They have been burdened with too much work that they are not capable of doing. Solving society's problems is the work of politicians not teachers. The work of the teacher, we seem to have forgotten, is education.
If teachers want authority and respect, they can only get it by being able to pass their knowledge on to their pupils. Otherwise they are just moralising adults trying to influence children (and failing). This is not to say they should be heartless. If problems come up they can offer informal help. But their real job is to teach their subjects and pass on knowledge and skills to children. As teachers have become burdened with more political and social concerns subject knowledge is getting squeezed out of the curriculum.
To get political objectives out of schools, and to put knowledge back in, is the purpose of the carrier bag. A Lebanese friend told me that during the civil war, when children and their families faced terrible dangers, the teachers in one school greeted them at the beginning of term with carrier bags and told them: 'We know you have problems. You are worried about the war, your family and your friends but we want you to put all your worries in a carrier bag, leave them outside and come into school and learn something.'
All schools should be like this. They should be havens from political goals and social and personal problems. Places where children and young people can get the knowledge that will really help them in the future. Every parent should send their children back to school with their problems left in a carrier bag. Likewise, teachers should put solving society's problems in a carrier bag and invite their pupils into school to learn. Schools will be transformed and parents will get enthusiastic answers once more when they ask the question 'What did you learn in school today?'