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Yearly Archives: 2013
Catholics between the (spread)sheets
Teaching RE
Twigg and Hardworking Families
‘Liberalism is alive and it’s killing us.’ Maurice Glasman.
Postliberal Paralysis
When Goodhart decided to turn his critical eye on the assumptions that lay behind the support of mass immigration, he would have had the instinctive support of many a Labour voter – and yet he acted as a lone wolf, a cry in the wilderness provoking a reaction that would have (and often did) encourage many other a sceptic to keep their head down.
All of which gives the impression that any challenge to the liberal establishment is itself the action of either a defunct intellect or a defunct soul. And so, years since this (still-)emerging critique of liberalism began to find expression (I’d go back generations, but for the sake of argument…), there yet exists no discernible outlet for its expression beyond the courage of the few who are granted a (usually hostile) audience. Those who take on the mantle of agitating against the zeitgeist mostly find themselves calling out to a loose and anonymous coalition of the aggrieved. And with it another irony: a group of folk who instinctively cherish institutions have proven useless at reclaiming and, more pressingly, generating them.
Which means that for those who find postliberalism articulating something close to their own concerns, there are no discernible structures through which to channel their energy – no mere coincidence, then, that postliberalism often identifies with and shares the assumptions and concerns of precisely that group of people who have long abandoned politics in despair. Zeal of the converted wasted, resilience of the believer squandered.
And so postliberalism loses its relational edge, possessing no formal organ (for it is not a formal movement) for engaging or galvanising those, of many a political hue, who share their analysis. That group who instinctively appeal to the relational as an alternative account of the social and the civic yet have no wider structure to generate and facilitate relations between those of a similar mind. For any individual critical of mainstream liberal presumption, establishing connections with the similarly-minded is a minefield with real consequences for misjudging a situation and expressing a heretical opinion (small example: the amount of people I know, of both genders, who are critical of AWS yet dare not utter it publicly). Perhaps we postliberals, then, need our own version of the Ichthys. Perhaps we should look to create it.
Of course, the very nature of the postliberal outlook means that the criteria for success are somewhat different from the standard political trinkets signifying orthodox power and influence. Whilst one might become frustrated at the manner in which challenges to liberal presumption are still presented as the quirks of the mad or mean, nonetheless valuable work is taking place reconnecting with grassroots, influencing particular kinds of institutions from the ground upwards, forging relationships around a vision of what would make life better. This, understandably, stays below the media radar.
Yet higher structures and organisations are important too, from the perspective of both civic society and political calculation. After all, it is through institutions that one reaffirms an existence within, and commitment to, the civic and those initiatives designed to enhance it, as well as constructing a shelter from which to challenge lazy liberal presumption in a manner less akin to sending Daniel wandering, lonely, into the Lion’s Den. Some are cut out for that, and will reappear unharmed to influence the wider debate, but not all are, and might rediscover their voice, and their interest, in the company of the like-minded.
And so the Long March must commence, both through the institutions and, where they do not exist, through new ones. And since liberalism is at the core of the three mainstream parties, so its intellectual critique draws support from all political traditions and none. But then, that’s the nature of a movement – establishing communities of interest that unite a diverse range of folk in pursuit of a better alternatives to those currently available. All of which those who identify as postliberal instinctively understand. Meaning that the postliberal paralysis might just be cured by putting into practice its very own insights.
On (not) Learning to Teach
Education, Twitter and the Herd Mentality
Tories, conservatives and Gove
“We are not going to solve our problems with bigger government. We are going to solve our problems with a stronger society. Stronger families. Stronger communities. A stronger country. All by rebuilding responsibility. We have got to stop treating children like adults and adults like children. It is about everyone taking responsibility.
“The more we as a society do, the less we will need government to do. We will have to tear down Labour’s big government bureaucracy — ripping up its time-wasting, money-draining, responsibility-sapping nonsense.”
That from a speech by David Cameron in 2011, trying to reach out to those in his party, and out of it, who cling to traditional conservative instincts regarding the role of the state and the role of the individual.
Gove – a price worth paying?
Michael Gove. Elicits strong reactions that name. From both hysterical anti-reform types as well from uncritical disciples of the #cultofGove
My own reaction? More a shrug of the shoulders with the odd outburst thrown in. He’s a mixed legacy. And I suspect history will judge him the same. His greatest success has been in convincing people that his sole mission is to raise standards, and that all his reforms have this ultimate goal in mind.
Personally, I don’t buy that line. I think some of his reforms have little to do with raising standards, and will in the long run prove corrosive. And intellectual curiosity, if nothing else, must lead one to question why so much of this structural change, to raise standards natch, seems to fit so very snugly with neo-Thatcherite politics.
Still, one is compelled to ask the question: so what?
For all that I think Gove gets wrong, he nonetheless is trying to get some things right. Initiating a full and frank exchange on our degraded curriculum, pointing out the injustice of grade inflation, rehabilitating the view that knowing stuff is important for its own sake (a view not shared by all his cult devotees): these strike me as of fundamental importance. Which means that one must at least consider whether endurance of the stuff that he gets wrong is not a price worth paying.
There will come a time when some future government will have to put right the damage wrought by certain of Gove’s actions. There is little doubt about it. Nonetheless, if that is the immediate price for developing a better curriculum and shaping a more rigorous learning culture, then is it not worth it?
Some will clearly believe not and will bray at the very suggestion. Angrily. Before hurling abuse at any who dare suggest otherwise. Myself? I’m not so sure. I want change. Some of the change that I want to see is similar to the change that Gove wants to see. In that sense, for those of a like mind, Gove is less a embodiment of the diabolical and more a potential ally.
Meaning that either I, or he, is a useful idiot. Suppose you’ll have to decide for yourself.
Private Privilege
Declaration of interest: I was lucky enough to attend a private school for a year or so at the age of eight. It was an MoD funded placement given, or so I was told, to offer stability after years of moving around and multiple school changes. (I should say from the outset, to preempt the lazy assumptions of all too many, that my Dad was a corporal, and of the four of us that I remember starting that year, none of our fathers were officers. Sad to say it, but if they were, we wouldn’t have been hanging around together.)
For example, it was at this school that I first had my ears opened to classical music, bombarding the senses as we all filed into church on a Saturday morning for an unapologetically high church service. It was here that I first sang in a choir, an assemblage of students of all ages, itself increasingly unusual, all of us singing (and reading) the complex and beautiful choral music that has stayed with me to this day. The church where we sang was a beautiful if slightly higgledy-piggledy-in-a-very-English-rural-church-kind-of-way affair, set amidst what appeared to a nostalgic mind to be the deepest forest (it wasn’t), with a little gravel path wandering up to a welcoming stone porch with an offset wooden door, framed by a humorously grand pair of faux-gothic columns.
It was here that I first experienced the Latin language, and learned of Greek gods, and studied Roman generals. It was here I first played hockey, and rugby, and American football, and archery, and even horse riding (alright, I exaggerate a touch on that one – I didn’t do it. But a couple of my mates in House did. Never fancied it, to be honest). It was here I learned to play chess, and draw in 3D, and (help) organise charity events, and put on public performances, and deal with (a very old school) male teacher, a thing foreign to me up until that point and a genuine source of anxiety before I joined, all the teachers I had ever experienced being female.
And all of that in just one year.
Yet it went far beyond the standard curriculum. It was also here that I was taught many disciplines that stay with me still, little things that we could never expect a state school to attempt: how to polish my shoes properly, and tie my tie correctly, and organise my belongings and possessions. In addition, the curriculum was not just about pursuit of the humanities and sciences: we boys learned skills necessary to complete general DIY tasks, and we were also taught to sew, since it was fully expected that as time went by it was not for the sewing lady (a lovely, kindly old woman whom I only ever saw sat down in her sewing chair) to fix our school clothes, but for us to see to it ourselves. In other words, the academic was situated within a wider framework of values which brought it into a coherent whole – of thrift, self-sufficiency, and pride in oneself.
Well, for me, it is precisely this that divides private education from state – this exposure to high culture, this instinctive commitment to and formation within a higher aesthetic. I’m well aware how pompous that might sound: I do not possess the words to explain it any other way. Nonetheless, I think it is true. And it can only ever be a source of disappointment that in having such experiences I was the lucky one, the unusual one, the one who should be grateful for such a start in life but who cannot seriously expect that others of a similar background could realistically all experience the same.
But, why not? Well, resources and money is a factor that cannot be overcome here, even though I do not seriously expect anything ever to be done about that. But it also goes a little deeper. In truth, the real tragedy is that all too many teachers in the state sector not only show an ignorance of this high culture (I readily confess to my own ignorance, too), but also display an overt hostility toward it. It is bad enough that so very few of our students in the comprehensive system get to experience the cultural and intellectual treasures passed on as a matter of course within parts of the private sector – it is lamentable that this can occasionally be because of the hangup of the teacher, rather than the (equally wrong, yet mostly ignored) inequalities of the system we have created.
Doubt me? Try saying comprehensive kids should be able to learn Latin in school and see what response you get.
I must say, in closing, that for all the evident admiration I have for the education I received at my private school, this does not mean that all aspects of it were superior. From what I recall, the classroom behaviour was much worse than any state comprehensive I’ve ever taught in, certainly worse than any I had attended, and bullying was a serious problem for some poor, unfortunate souls. I also firmly believe, so far as my memory serves me well, that the teaching was not as good as that in the state school I attended immediately after it, even if the curriculum was much more entertaining and challenging.
Still, as vital great teaching is and great teachers are, one cannot help but feel that that until we naturally and routinely raise our sights and try to capture those higher aesthetic ideals, to embed them within our schools and the culture we shape within them, then our kids in comprehensives, for all their high grades and multiple certificates, will remain culturally poorer than their more privileged peers.
Education and Social Mobility
‘The good news is that we now know more about the pupil-level strategies that will close the social class gap. The challenge is to make sure they are used in the classroom.’ Estelle Morris, MP
‘Schools should be engines of social mobility, places where the democratisation of knowledge helps vanquish the accidents of birth.’ Michael Gove, MP
‘It [a more dynamic society] is the impulse that lies behind our education reforms, including the pupil premium. Education is critical to our hopes of a fairer society.’ Nick Clegg, MP
To which I reply: b*ll*cks, basically. Education is not about social mobility. I mean, it can also have that happy consequence, of course, but that is not what it fundamentally is about. Nor, indeed, is that what it is fundamentally for.
And thank goodness for that, quite frankly. As I will explain.
But to start with, the point is that too much of the modern hand-wringing approach toward education gets this wrong. Really wrong. Since education has long since become a Royal Rumble for the CHECK OUT HOW CONCERNED I AM ABOUT THE POOR crew, so the aim of helping the poor be clever enough to get a job that means they are no longer poor appears to have become this week’s educational Nirvana
Govian revolutionaries are particularly good at this, and very much resemble the liberal left when they do so (no surprise there). Determined to display their compassionate credentials, they commandeer the moral outrage of the firebrand to present their reforms as self-evidently enlightened because self-evidently about helping-poor-people-actually-get-a-job-more-like-ours-for-a-change. The intellectual furnaces from which this framework is forged are not much into the pursuit of intellect for the sake of human flourishing and expression – no, it’s about social mobility. Or, about getting a better job. Or, having whatever it is that your future employers might want you to have.
Call me a desperate romantic, but I rather fancy that somewhere, both John Keating and Crocker-Harris are crying. On one another’s shoulder. Whilst reading Browning.
And so one begins to whiff the rotting carcus of Education, now little more than a host for the parasitical feasting of a legion of wonkeries telling us all how to make sure our kids are more employable. Education herself, once the goddess we worshiped and adored as life giving and realising, has been subjugated by the new god Money, and the maximization of our chances of being able to accumulate it.
What use within a marketised utilitarianism for appeals to refinement of intellect? Once we justify education through appeal to future life outcomes, we retreat from the front line and spend the rest of our lives desperately trying to convince our victors why our kids should not just be learning whatever it is that we finally decide 21st century skills happen to be. Or, to quote: ‘Overcoming educational inequality is a huge challenge. However, we know the cost of doing nothing. It’s bad for social mobility and ultimately bad for Britain’s economy.’ Take a bow, Mr Twigg.
Dear Lord, Spare me the cold utility of the educationalist who wishes to justify intellectual aggrandizement with a costs benefits analysis of future earning potential. Amen.
Schubert? Blake? van Gogh? Died in poverty. Cry me a river. Clearly failed by the system. Don’t know how their teachers sleep at night.
So, we have the order of the day: let’s help poorer kids get clever because then they can all be richer than they would otherwise have been. Which means they’ll be more socially mobile. Which means the country will make more money. Which is what education is all about, n’est-ce pas? The demands of the market are uppermost, but the new morality is about helping the poorest cope more effectively with those demands. And if you think this will not percolate down to what we decide it is that they need to know, then I have some fresh air in a bottle here at just £5 a go – interested?
As such, the cold logic of the market utilitarian frames the education debate, and those who would argue that kids should study Latin or theology are destined to lose. Not that they won’t sometimes be agreed with – the revolutionaries will often say they should have such opportunities because their more socially mobile peers do – but they cannot really give good reasons why. Which means they will not try especially hard to ensure it happens. Which is also why, for a great many, it won’t. Funnily enough, the culture in which those socially mobile peers operate very much know why. And study such subjects accordingly. But then, they don’t go on about social mobility all that much.
Which brings us to an impasse, in which those toiling against the shallow moralism of the ‘reformers’ face unfavourable odds the magnitude of which would give a Rorke’s Drift veteran the shakes. Still, in the face of the BUT WON’T YOU THINK OF THE CHILDREN (NARROWLY DEFINED AS THEIR FUTURE EARNING POTENTIAL) brigade, the line must be held. Education is about making everyone more clever than they previously were. It is about giving everyone the intellectual refinement to engage successfully with the world around them. It is about helping in the pursuit of the Good Life, to succeed in the art of living well. Or, for those of us for whom zeal originates within metaphysics rather than the economist’s spreadsheet, it is about using what was given to reflect on those things for which it was made: ‘God wouldn’t have given us an intellect if he didn’t want us to think straight.’
To conclude, we might as well fire a parting shot: the very notion of social mobility is deeply problematic. The original Red Tory surge saw that, just as the Blue Labour counterblast did too. That for too many this is the sole criterion upon which to advance education reform is a worry. Not least because its natural logic is to diminish standards, not build them.
So, as a teacher, you’ll forgive me for not planning into my teaching strategies to ensure the improved social mobility of those who sit before me each day. That’s not my job. My job, indeed my goal, is to help children be cleverer when they walk out the door than they were when they walked through it. I’ll let the social mobility bit take care of itself. And fire off the odd salvo in futile protest.