We had an end-of-project conference the other day to report our findings to other researchers, people involved in training English teachers and a fair representation of former teachers from the period we've been studying, 1945-65. There were also a handful of young teachers from London schools.
The striking contrast with today is that there existed then a significant number of London teachers who were so concerned with how well they were able to do their job that they were willing to give up endless evenings and weekends to meet together in study groups, for discussion and to hear speakers. Teachers today work just as hard, I believe, but don't organise themselves to meet for self-driven professional purposes. As for how much professional discussion goes on in department meetings I don't know enough to say.
Why the difference? In 1949, 1956, 1965 there was little extrinsic motivation to do the job well: pay was poor and few teachers were on anything above the basic pay scale.
One thing the two groups, then and now, have in common is that both would probably agree that the society they live in leaves much to be desired. The difference is that in those post-war decades there was a belief that education could make a serious contribution to making it better; for the teachers at our meeting, teaching English was a social project. I doubt if anyone today believes that an important key to building a better society lies in what teachers do with kids in their classrooms. If teachers today are wanting to do good, and many are, it's by helping individuals to liberate themselves by education from whatever's holding them back from a full and flourishing life.
A second difference might be that in 1956 those teachers believed there was a social group in which hope could be placed, namely that huge number of working-class children -- i.e. the majority of children -- who the system had neglected, except by picking a minority out for sponsorship in the grammar schools. I never hear it said these days that the hope for the future lies in the working class.
Is there a group in which hope might be placed? One that immediately suggests itself is the immigrant population that quite clearly contains large numbers of intelligent and admirable young people. But I don't hear it said that they're the hope either, even though many teachers appreciate their contribution to the schools.
The reason surely is that what's wrong with society today won't be solved by education; the problems are structural, to do with globalisation, corporations and finance. Of course, the problems were structural then, too, in the sense of social class, though people perhaps didn't see that so clearly; they thought education could make a difference, both through new structures (comprehensive schools) and through teaching that induced habits of mutual respect and cooperation, as well as assertiveness and criticality; if the citizenry were imbued with democratic values, things would clearly be better.
Showing posts with label socialism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label socialism. Show all posts
Tuesday, 28 February 2012
Tuesday, 8 September 2009
Schools, knowledge, values
On the radio some headteacher was going on in New Labour Speak about being there to give the kids skills and ‘appropriate’ values.
Nothing wrong with either or course, but isn’t it sad if that’s what education is reduced to? What values? and what about knowledge -- physics, maths, Chinese, Russian, essays and poems? where have the inspirational ideals of education gone?
As at, for instance, New College, Hackney, a ‘dissenting academy’ for Unitarians aged 16 and over. Dr Richard Price taught there: his sermon praising the French Revolution was the occasion for Burke’s Reflections on the same; and so did the scientist Joseph Priestley. (William Hazlitt was a student there in the early 1790s.)
As reported by A.C. Grayling, ‘In his prospectus for the college [besides listing the range of demanding subjects] Dr Price wrote that “the best education” is one which “impresses the heart with the love of virtue, and communicates the most expanded and ardent benevolence; which gives the deepest consciousness of the fallibility of the human understanding, and preserves from that vile dogmatism so prevalent in the world; which makes men diffident and modest, attentive to evidence, capable of proportioning their assent to the degree of it, quick in discerning it, and determined to follow it; which, in short, instead of producing acute casuits, conceited pedants, or furious polemics, produces fair enquirers.”’ [Grayling, A. C. (2000) The quarrel of the age: the life and times of William Hazlitt. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, p.32.]
(I’ve said before that though we don’t go on about ‘virtue’ these days we can’t avoid dealing with the concept.)
The political philosopher G.A. Cohen just died. There have been items about him in the papers and there’s an extract in the current New Statesman from the book he was preparing, Why not socialism? He points out that on camping trips we behave on socialist, not market principles. I share the fish I've caught rather than selling it to you, let alone charging a higher price than Fred because of my superior fishing skill; we all muck in with the cooking and all the cooking gear we’ve brought is pooled. Out hiking, the one who knows how to read a compass doesn’t put a price on her service and if someone sprains an ankle we take turns to support him back to the road.
On camping trips and ‘in many other non-massive contexts... people co-operate within a common concern so that, so far as is possible, everybody has a roughly similar opportunity to flourish, and also to relax, on condition that they contribute, appropriately to their capacity, to the flourishing and relaxing of others. In these contexts most people, even most anti-egalitarians, accept -- indeed, take for granted - -norms of equality and reciprocity.... Most people are drawn to the socialist ideal, at least in certain restricted settings.’
You can’t infer from that sort of informal co-operative context, Cohen goes on, ‘that society-wide socialism is equally feasible and equally desirable.’ But we need seriously to ask, if it isn’t, why exactly not? and is there anything we can do about it, since we all so obviously thrive on the camping sort of social arrangement?
So what’s the connection with schools? First -- the lesser point -- how about setting 'flourishing' as what schools seek to bring about? Second, let schools challenge the unquestioned acceptance of market values as the default criterion for social decisions. If camping trips embody a set of procedural principles we might think more consciously about the value of, so do disinterested study, individual and collective inquiry and creative activity.
Nothing wrong with either or course, but isn’t it sad if that’s what education is reduced to? What values? and what about knowledge -- physics, maths, Chinese, Russian, essays and poems? where have the inspirational ideals of education gone?
As at, for instance, New College, Hackney, a ‘dissenting academy’ for Unitarians aged 16 and over. Dr Richard Price taught there: his sermon praising the French Revolution was the occasion for Burke’s Reflections on the same; and so did the scientist Joseph Priestley. (William Hazlitt was a student there in the early 1790s.)
As reported by A.C. Grayling, ‘In his prospectus for the college [besides listing the range of demanding subjects] Dr Price wrote that “the best education” is one which “impresses the heart with the love of virtue, and communicates the most expanded and ardent benevolence; which gives the deepest consciousness of the fallibility of the human understanding, and preserves from that vile dogmatism so prevalent in the world; which makes men diffident and modest, attentive to evidence, capable of proportioning their assent to the degree of it, quick in discerning it, and determined to follow it; which, in short, instead of producing acute casuits, conceited pedants, or furious polemics, produces fair enquirers.”’ [Grayling, A. C. (2000) The quarrel of the age: the life and times of William Hazlitt. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, p.32.]
(I’ve said before that though we don’t go on about ‘virtue’ these days we can’t avoid dealing with the concept.)
The political philosopher G.A. Cohen just died. There have been items about him in the papers and there’s an extract in the current New Statesman from the book he was preparing, Why not socialism? He points out that on camping trips we behave on socialist, not market principles. I share the fish I've caught rather than selling it to you, let alone charging a higher price than Fred because of my superior fishing skill; we all muck in with the cooking and all the cooking gear we’ve brought is pooled. Out hiking, the one who knows how to read a compass doesn’t put a price on her service and if someone sprains an ankle we take turns to support him back to the road.
On camping trips and ‘in many other non-massive contexts... people co-operate within a common concern so that, so far as is possible, everybody has a roughly similar opportunity to flourish, and also to relax, on condition that they contribute, appropriately to their capacity, to the flourishing and relaxing of others. In these contexts most people, even most anti-egalitarians, accept -- indeed, take for granted - -norms of equality and reciprocity.... Most people are drawn to the socialist ideal, at least in certain restricted settings.’
You can’t infer from that sort of informal co-operative context, Cohen goes on, ‘that society-wide socialism is equally feasible and equally desirable.’ But we need seriously to ask, if it isn’t, why exactly not? and is there anything we can do about it, since we all so obviously thrive on the camping sort of social arrangement?
So what’s the connection with schools? First -- the lesser point -- how about setting 'flourishing' as what schools seek to bring about? Second, let schools challenge the unquestioned acceptance of market values as the default criterion for social decisions. If camping trips embody a set of procedural principles we might think more consciously about the value of, so do disinterested study, individual and collective inquiry and creative activity.
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