Think it possible we might be mistaken?

Dear Quaker teachers,

So, I seem to have caused some controversy amongst a number of the readers of The Friend with my recent letter on Quaker Free Schools ¹. I particularly enjoyed reading Angela Walker’s contribution and found much within what she has written to be both challenging and truthful. However, there are a number of points that I would like to explore further. Whilst it is not fitting for me to carry on the debate within the letters pages of The Friend, I do not think that I can leave her response without my first commenting upon it in some detail ².

I have addressed each of her points as honestly as I can, and have tried to include up-to-date references to support my arguments where I think that it will be helpful. Should I be mistaken on any point, then I will gladly amend what I have written.

Building Schools for the Future and the free market economy

Friends, I cannot argue with the writer’s analysis of the place Free Schools occupy within the free market economy, and, the points she makes about this are the real Achilles heal of my argument. I can defend my position, however, by reminding you that much of what she notes is also already happening within mainstream education. ³ It is just that we are purposefully kept unaware of it, and have little control over its implementation.

It is interesting that the article seems to champion the opportunities provided by Building Schools for the Future. Perhaps Angela Walker is unaware that this work is primarily funded through the Private Finance Initiative ⁴. If you hold it up to close scrutiny you will soon realise that BSF has a Friedmanite, neo-liberal agenda all of its own; signalling as it does the introduction of the free market economy – with all of the destructive implications she describes ⁵ - into mainstream state education. What is shocking is that very few people – education professionals included – are even aware that it is happening ⁶

What I am suggesting with my proposal for a Quaker Free School is a bit of realpolitik maneuvering. Friends concerns are real, and I respect them, but when one considers how the free market has already encroached on our ‘democratic’ system of state education, then it is clear that something quite radical needs to happen. I would suggest that any alternative that allows greater participation by its stakeholders would provide a much better defence against the forces of neo-liberalism, even if, at first glance, it would be seen to be supporting them.

Positive Inclusion

I have recently finished reading John Reader’s 1979 Swarthmore Lecture, Of Schools and Schoolmasters ⁷, and was delighted to see (three decades before it became fashionable) a Quaker educationalist advocating the kind of restorative justice  described. ‘Restitution from wrong doing,’ he said, ‘is more effective than retribution.’ Such an approach does indeed chime with the values I am certain we all share, and the increasing adoption of these methods can only be congratulated. Although I do have some concerns about the extent of its application; even in institutions where positive inclusion is official policy.

My real concern, however, is that many schools are criminalising students for exercising their right to free expression. If I may, I will offer you a quotation from Gandhi made during his trial for ‘exciting disaffection toward His Majesty’s Government as established by law in India’ to elucidate my point:

“If one has no affection for a person or a system, one should feel free to give the fullest expression to his disaffection so long as he does not contemplate, promote, or incite violence. ⁸ ”

It is my contention that much of what we label as bad behaviour in our schools are simply expressions of disaffection. Furthermore, I would contend that such disaffection springs not from rudeness, laziness or even from poor teaching methods, but from the inadequacies of too standardized and rigid a curriculum. The mind of a young person is hard wired to process information – they just cannot help wanting to learn – and yet we have created an education system that repeatedly fails to tap into this basic biological imperative for a significant number of our students. All that our ‘challenging’ students seem to be asking is that they be taught things of real value, and are  given more control over the conditions of their own learning. This is nothing that I would not want for myself.

Fundraising, allotments and FairTrade

In themselves, the initiatives that are mentioned in the article are laudable, but one cannot help be reminded of the Potemkin villages of pre-revolutionary Russia; the danger being that they serve only to appease middle class consciences whilst ignoring much harder truths.

For me, it is hard not to picture the students at the school mentioned leaving their organic, sustainable allotments only to walk past Coca-Cola vending machines providing sugary drinks for their peers to quench their thirst after using sports equipment purchased with Cadbury’s Get Active tokens ⁹. Perhaps, too, their journey will end in the privately run school canteen, where on the menu today there will be largely pre-prepared and mass produced food, noticeable for its lack of fresh vegetables ¹⁰.

The wind turbines, the writer mentions, that signal the school’s commitment to sustainability, will, in reality, generate little more than 4% of the building’s energy needs ¹¹; a saving overshadowed, no doubt, by the increase in consumption caused by the new computer hardware bought using monies from that part of BSF ring-fenced for ‘Harnessing Technologies’ ¹²

In the classroom, students no doubt learn of the Fairtrade movement and will be encouraged to persuade their parents to spend a little more in the supermarket so that producers of our favourite cash crops can be paid slightly less poor wages than before ¹³. Few, however, will be asked to question the validity of this predominantly western consumerist idea of economic justice, even fewer encouraged to become activists for the empowerment of horticultural workers in developing nations ¹⁴. This will not, I would suspect, be because the teacher is afraid of politicising the classroom – although some may have these concerns – but that the demands of the examination specification being followed will be too great for the issue to be explored in any depth. School curricula seem almost purposefully designed to engender a superficiality of understanding, where one learns something for the purposes of being tested, and then is encouraged to move swiftly on.

Likewise, school fundraising is another time honoured tradition that usually fails to hold up under close scrutiny. Whilst few will argue of the worth of such charitable endeavours as helping a community in a developing country build a school, it is much more important, I would argue, to allow young people to explore the reasons why there are so few schools in Rwanda in the first place. This is rarely done on any serious level. No doubt, because such a discussion might just lead to a questioning of the foreign policies of many western democracies, including our own ¹⁵

“The Soup Kitchen in York never has difficulty in obtaining adequate financial aid, but an enquiry into the extent and causes of poverty would enlist little support. ¹⁶”

One would hope, I’m sure you‘ll agree, that any education based on Quaker values would put such an enquiry right at its very heart.

Citizenship

Angela Walker mentions citizenship lessons as a starting point for the way our young people learn to be responsible members of their communities. If only this were true. In many schools, citizenship lessons lack a specialist teacher, are held in poor regard by both staff and students, are fragmented in nature and leave students with only superficial knowledge of the issues taught. Indeed, a recent Ofsted report has suggested that PSHE provision in over a quarter of schools is poor ¹⁷. Few students are encouraged to apply what they have learned in the classroom to their lives outside of their school to any real extent. In an age when the social activist is now the ‘domestic extremist’ it probably won’t be long before it is actually illegal to offer such encouragement! ¹⁸

Even student councils – an idea popularised by such ‘dreamers’ as A. S. Neill ¹⁹ – often provide little more than the semblance of democracy. As anecdotal evidence, I offer the example of my own school, where one student representative questioned why they had to refer to their teachers by the overly formal use of ‘sir’, ‘miss’ or by the use of surnames. The teacher chairing the sessions, rather tellingly, dismissed the point as being ‘just the way things are.’ I like to think that Thomas Ellwood would have much in common with the student who expresses discomfort with such modern day ‘hat honour’ as this.

A much better model of citizenship education might be found in the American Democratic Schools movement, where students are encouraged to participate in the running of their own schools in a variety of ways; including presiding over disciplinary panels. I urge you to investigate them further, as I think that many of them are administered with many similarities to our own Quaker business method ²⁰.

Stepping away from the real world

Whenever the institutions of a society are challenged to any significant degree, someone, almost inevitably, will hurl the accusation that the challenger is trying to escape the ‘real world’ and should be dismissed as some irrelevant, impractical dreamer. It is worth, therefore, examining, however briefly, the reality from which I am attempting to run.

We live in a modern democratic society where the privately educated, upper-middle classes dominate almost every sphere of political, economic and cultural life even though they represent just 7% of the total population ²¹. Unless one subscribes to some half baked theory of the genetic superiority of the upper classes, one can only conclude that social injustice runs through the very heart of our education system ²². As high minded and noble as its principles are, universal, comprehensive education as it stands today has failed us . The real world – the one I am avoiding – is one where social mobility is pretty much illusory and as such its failings cannot be dismissed as minor or trivial ²³. Surely, as Quakers, our testimony to equality makes it hard for us to ignore this any longer.

Creativity, enquiry, self-expression and individualism

It is almost universal that good teachers value the attributes Angela Walker mentions above all others in their students. But, I wonder, how successful we are at nurturing these kinds of minds. One only has to look at the mental health statistics for young people to question just how good we are as a society in  looking after the well being of our young ²⁴. The free thinking, creative student can only ever be hindered by the demands of a narrowly defined National Curriculum, standardised testing, and the superficiality of learning that inevitable follows. I am by no means alone in this – and neither is it a view held only by cranks like me – the respected educationalist, Ken Robinson, for instance, has made the case for a radical shift from standardized schools to personalized learning so that young people’s natural talents can flourish more readily ²⁵. Friends, I think that you will find his conclusions concur with many of your own values.

Democratically governed local authority schools

It speaks volumes for the paucity of the current state of modern politics that Local Education Authorities could be defended as democratic institutions. Whilst, it is true that state education is handled by elected members of local councils, few of those with responsibilties for education have been directly voted for on the basis of their educational policies, or even their knowledge of schools. Most are simply councillors-in-general who have simply found themselves on educational committees, and this has led, in many authorities, to a mediocrity of provision.  I would challenge most people – even those who work in education – to name the Director of Education of their own Local Authority; and how many could explain his or her views with any degree of specificity?  Moreover, even though they are elected independently of central government, few LAs, despite their low-level grumblings, are courageous enough to challenge the dictates of central planning – even when, theoretically at least, they should be holding very different ideological positions. This, too, is not to forget that since 1988, Local Authorities have lost much of their power to the governing bodies of individual schools, anyway, and so questions of their accountability are increasingly something of an irrelevance. ²⁶

Many education professionals are now looking to depoliticize education; taking it away from the politicians and returning it to the control of those who understand it best; teachers, parents , governors and the like. It’s not for me to re-hash someone else’s proposals, so instead I point you to a letter from 14 professors of education  in The Guardian 31 March 2010 ²⁷, with the hope that perhaps it may prove to be a fertile starting point for recapturing some of the democracy we both agree local education so sorely needs.

I sincerely hope that you are able to reply to this letter, Friends, as it is clear that many of you have deeply held convictions about the importance of state education, and as such I would value your further comments. Just as we need teachers like you, we also need a system that can allow  you to do what you do best: ignite the spark that lives in all young minds.

Thank you for indulging me.

In friendship
Martin Layton