Problems of Public Education (2): Constrictions on Human Ability

By Sebastian Egerton-Read

The first blog in this series can be found at: 

http://birminghamstudentbroadleft.blogspot.com/2011/01/problems-of-public-education-1.html

                ‘My school days were the best of my life’. This well established cliché might well lead some to question the fact that I am writing a series of blogs criticising our systems of public education. However, besides the tactical reasons that parents use this cliché when talking to their children, it is actually a telling statement when investigated properly. When asked about what particular element of their school days were ‘the best of their lives’, people will very rarely say anything like ‘I loved my Friday afternoon Biology lessons’. Now of course, everyone remembers favourite teachers and favourite lessons, and of course some people genuinely do enjoy their time at school. However, far more common answers to this question are based around the desire to learn and the idea of missing the social element of school life. The first of these is interesting because it shows that the desire to learn and discover our talents isn’t limited to our school years, and that the opportunities for people to discover their passions are often even more limited once they leave education. I am not arguing that nothing valuable is taught at school. However, this yearning for learning is almost certainly at least somewhat routed in the fact that schools are only catering for a limited level of learning and they are not equipping the majority of people with the ability and belief to take their passions and interests on after education.

                The other happy reminiscence from school is the social side. Of course once people leave school, keeping in contact with friends becomes more and more difficult and it is perhaps one of the novelties of school that you are able to see your friends so often. Work life is somewhat like this and in some cases exactly like it, but in most work places the work force is smaller than a school, and encourages social interaction even less. This is also very useful for highlighting the lack of logic in the way we run our schools. Classroom activity is dictated by a culture of individuality; talking (accept for at specific times) and ‘cheating’ are condemned above virtually anything else a child can do, and this is continued in the way that they are tested. This rigid structure of learning is extraordinarily detrimental to many children’s learning. This brings us to another cliché: ‘two minds are better than one’. It is almost unanimously accepted that people collaborating produce better results than people working alone. Separation is actually a completely unnatural state for human beings to find themselves, we are a co-operate species after all. There is almost an admission of this in the way that we run our schools too. At break times pupils are encouraged to go out and play with their friends. During these breaks, pupils do the exact opposite of what they were doing during their lesson time, socialising in groups and in most cases completely forgetting the subject matter that they had been learning. Simply put, pupils need a break from their lessons, partly because they are largely un-stimulating. From a practical point of view our minds cannot work endlessly without a break, but there is no real reason for our schools to follow such a rigid structure. School effectively divides itself between fun time (breaks) and boring time (lessons). This socialising during break times, which is actively encouraged, is the natural state of human beings, and yet group work only plays a minor role in school life. In fact, it plays such a limited role that when group work does crop up, it becomes a chore for students and they come to resent it. The results of this can be seen by the extremely limited participation in many seminars and group discussions at universities. The desire to assess pupils individually has led us to educate them out of their natural state, not only sacrificing social and personal health, but also failing to maximise people’s potential and talents.

                This lack of logic and constriction upon people’s ability to explore their talents can be found in so many of the ways that our schools are run. One of the most damaging is the way in which mistakes and being wrong is stigmatised in the classroom. It is made so that one of the worst things that a child can do is be wrong. This is not something that we are born with, if you challenge young children to do something, they will have a go regardless of their chances of success. By the time they reach adulthood this willingness to be wrong has gone, and this is part of the reason that group discussions don’t have truly active participation in the later school years. Being wrong becomes an embarrassment and a shame, and so people do whatever they can to avoid it, especially in public. There is a serious problem with this. A willingness to risk getting it wrong is essential to being creative and reaching potential. To complete this blog’s quartet of clichés these two sum this idea up: ‘as long as you don’t try new things, you can’t learn new things’ and ‘if a first you don’t succeed, try and try again’. These clichés are engrained in our society, and yet we do not follow them at all. Being right or wrong in schools is everything; it determines which class you are in, your grades and then eventually your credentials when you enter the wider world. To say that the stakes are high is a huge understatement and therefore it is hardly surprising that a willingness to be wrong diminishes throughout a person’s education. The biggest problem with all this is that those very ideas of right and wrong are based on only a very narrow vision of intelligence and this anaesthetises the creative and adventurous potential of our school pupils.

                One of the biggest justifications for the rigid structures of our education systems is discipline. It is argued that children need to be introduced to the idea of discipline and authority in order to prepare them for the adult world. However, it is clear that our systems of discipline simply do not work. This can be tested by a couple of simple questions. Who receives least discipline? High-achieving well behaved children. Who receives most discipline? Lower achieving, so called disruptive children. Most children, who receive the label ‘bad’, maintain this label throughout their education. I do not mean to suggest that the key to achievement is no discipline or that things like politeness principles are not important for children to learn. However, it is quite clear that children who are receiving regular discipline are not benefitting from it in terms of their education performance and certainly not in terms fulfilling themselves and finding their talents and passions. There are two serious problems with our methods of disciplines. Firstly, disciplinary methods like detention and separation makes those individuals exclusion even more dramatic and unnatural than the school system makes it anyway. Secondly, we have to seriously question just what we are punishing. The first major reason for a child being disruptive is their situation at home, whether it is a tumultuous household or simply a lack of support and encouragement. What does punishing this actually achieve then? Clearly schools are not able to fix the social problems that individual children have. However, surely it should be a place where young people are stimulated, a place where they have a break from whatever unpleasantness they might have in their lives at home and not a continuation. More attention and personalisation is a necessity in cases such as these, not less. The second largest issue is distraction, often prescribed as ADHD. This blog will not get into the various debates about ADHD. However, it is not too much of a jump to suggest that distraction is often the result of an over prescriptive, impersonalised and un-stimulating curriculum. They are distracted by things that are much more interesting and stimulating to them, and it is impossible to blame them for that. So in this case we are effectively punishing children for the faults of our schools and education systems, faults that we are responsible for and not them.

                This blog has focused on a just a few examples of the ways in which the running of our schools restricts the abilities and talents of the pupils attending them. There are many more examples of this; in fact it is amazing how many aspects of our education systems appear contradictory to what is logically the best thing for both human nature and creativity. This shows itself in things like the rigid conformities of bell systems and strict timetabling, and the extremely limited numbers of different learning styles that are facilitated in the classroom. If we want to maximise human potential, we must create a learning environment that encourages creativity and stimulates, not one that suffocates and repulses our children as they make their way through their education. 

Thoughts On Tunisia

By Asad Zaidi

 As I sat avidly watching the news about the almost farcical landing of  Tunisian Leader Ben Ali into Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, after he was forced out  , I thought of my family friends there and the millions of Tunisians fighting for freedom. This unstoppable rise of a small nation of 10 million people has come as a shock . But who began this call to arms? No che guevera or malcolm x for the hapless youth of Tunisia. No, their standard bearer was someone far less well known, yet his actions have reverberated across the world.

 Mohamed Bouazizi  was a Tunisian graduate who had been unable to find meaningful employment, resorted to selling vegetables on the street to support himself and his family. The police confiscated his products and slapped him around. Later the same day, Bouazizi tried to lodge a complaint with authorities, to no avail. He then acquired a can of gasoline, doused himself in front of a local government building, and set himself alight. His death set off weeks of massive street protests and eventually leading to the downfall of Ben Ali, who had been president of the country since seizing power in 1987. Nobody thought Tunisia would have been the state to rise up . And yet it is Tunisia that has revolted, not Egypt or Saudi Arabia and rioting has spread to Algeria. It gives me comfort to think that, although Tunisians have suffered over the past few weeks, the spines of Mubarak of Egypt and Faisal of Saudi Arabia are rightfully tingling. 

 Bouazizi follows in the footsteps of Thích Quảng Đức, the Vietnamese monk who burned himself to death in Saigon in 11 1963. Đức was protesting against the persecution of Buddhists by South Vietnam's administration. His actions lead to increased international pressure and eventually lead to the downfall of regime. In both instances these acts are the desperate actions of a repressed and desperate people and sadly, we have seen this before, across the world. As unrest over political authoritarianism and economic inflation cripple the Arab World, I for one hope these uprisings spread and that nations with western friendly dictatorships (who the media funnily enough don't comment mutch on) succumb to the will of the people.  Too often in the arab world, the resources of the people are tied up in dynastic families whose plutocracies rule with an iron first. Ofcourse politics is a complicated arena and it is not easy to tell whether real change will take place in the middle east as a result of recent events. Will the movements be supressed as we have seen in the past? Will America's puppets survive to supress their unhappy people and will this further radicalise them? Or will we see emancipation take place wherin states independent of imperialist masters begin to help their people prosper?   Most likely the liberation of the majority of the arab nations will take longer (especially if the US has anything to do with it). Certainly the Palestinian's face a far stronger and more resolved opponent.

 The actions of these two desperate men strengthen my conviction that we must highlight and vociferously combat injustice wherever we see it, even if it is easier to live a comfortable apathetic existence like alot of our fellow students at this university. Ofcourse this is nothing new or innovative, just my personal train of thought that I thought I would share.  There is an afinity and kinship in the various protests and struggles happening around the world, whether it be students in britain, workers in greece or the unemployed in Tunisia- if these efforts can be coordinated perhaps we can see greater progressive change in our liftime, for everyone, not just  the rich  in the west, but for the people around the world for whom free market capaitalism hasn't produced  prosperity and political rights.  

 The usual empty platitudes of concern have begun to stream slowly from Euope but the old colonial nations of Europe won't decide the outcome of these revolts.  They are a scream of rage from a people without a future. These people are educated , yet theyre spirit is being stifled by repressive governments who cannot mobilise their people due to corruption, inefficiency and economic systems still crippled by the imperialism of the past (in the case of this palestinians by a colonial apartheid regime). The youth of the maghreb and the wider Arab street have risen and the world is watching. Their emancipation has never been of greater significance than now.

Freud, Adorno, Fascism and the Left

By Darcy Luke

“The narcissistic gain provided by fascist propaganda is obvious. It suggests continuously and sometimes in rather devious ways, that the follower, simply through belonging to the in-group, is better, higher and purer than those who are excluded. At the same time, any kind of critique or self-awareness is resented as narcissistic loss and elicits rage.” – Theodor Adorno.

 The reason that I felt the need to post this is rather simple and stems from direct and personal experience. Adorno, drawing heavily from Freud, is describing fascistic mentality. What I fear is that this mentality is more pervasive and more widespread, not merely contained within the fascist elements of society. From my own experience of particular left-wing parties, such as the SWP, there is definitely fascistic tendencies within their own membership base. This sort of claim is constantly countered by their membership, as they state their involvement in broad coalitions and alliances, and also allowing various groups to be present at SWP events, such as Marxism.

 However, this outward expression of openness and cooperation does not seem to be shared by prominent members of the party. Faced with criticisms of the SWP’s internal organisation and methodology concerning political affairs, members have, in the past, reacted with considerable outrage in the face of this narcissistic loss. I do not make the claim that this is characteristic of the SWP alone, for it is present in many so-called left-wing groups and groups that are not explicitly political in nature. My issue is that a group that is supposedly aware of fascism on an intellectual level should understand that the fight against fascism starts within their own organisation.

 I have experienced much in my time spent amongst the left-wing organisations local to my area, the most prominent being the SWP. What I have realised from extended exposure to their ideas is that a great many of the party members do not seem to understand, or fully grasp, what fascism means, and how cognitive modalities common within fascist movements can also infect the left. I feel that there has been no sufficient scrutiny of fascism from the contemporary left, as many seem to see it as a phenomenon only attributable to the Right and the police (or anyone else who is in a position of authority for that matter). I would be a fool to suggest that the left is made up of racial supremacists fighting for a revolution to bring about corporatism, however I feel that I am accurate in my assertion that left-wing parties often bear the fascist trademarks fanaticism; an inclination to white (or red)-wash history; the inability or reluctance to self-criticise; centralising and anti-democratic tendencies; scapegoating and binaristic exclusionism. This is not an exhaustive list of what I consider fascistic about certain left-wing organisations, but they are features I have noticed through interaction with a number of them. These features not only shape the organisation, but shape the membership, resulting in programmed individuals that tow the party line at the expense of their own political autonomy.

 Furthermore, I must highlight that I have been talking about the left as if it is a cohesive whole. This is far from the truth. Many who are familiar with the left within Britain understand that it now lies shattered and weak. There are countless parties, some that are radically different from one another, and others that have negligible differences but egos too big to see past them. The narcissism of many of these groups has hindered the development of a cohesive left, and has resulted in warring factions that ridicule, mock and compete with eachother. I have witnessed the childlike scoffing at smaller movements by members of bigger movements- a disconcerting example of exentuated phallogocentricism- and have heard countless accounts of why certain movements are the better ones, and why the other movement is silly and worthless.

 When the left was decimated, we were left with debris, isolated blocks that once could build a cohesive whole. Perhaps the whole was never fully realised, but we now have the hindsight and experience to begin again. The narcissistic tendency and fascist modalities need to be challenged in order to destabilise the boundaries that stand between leftist movements, boundaries that are reflective in strength to the class boundaries we seek to overcome. The left must become cohesive and unified, not narcissistic and closed. We must strive to build a movement that is forever self-critical, challenging centralising tendencies and fascistic modalities. The over-active egos that form isolated selves within the left need to be rooted out, we must embody the rhizome, individual but linked inextricably to the whole. As long as our movements are distorted by the narcissistic elements outlined, we will forever be in danger of succumbing to fascism and becoming further isolated and useless. To avoid the rubbish heap of history we must radically rethink what it means to be ‘left’ and what it means to organise. Let us move together towards this lest we be subsumed into the forever expanding mists of humanity’s obscure past. There is still nothing to lose but our chains. We have a world to win.

Problems of Public Education (1): Introduction

By Sebastian Egerton-Read

Education Secretary Michael Gove has recently said that the English national curriculum needs to be reviewed with the intention of focusing his education review more on course content and ‘facts’ rather than on teaching methods. Labour and teaching unions have accused Gove of attempting to re-assert 1950s-style education in schools. However, these debates seem to miss the real issue. Our systems of public education are broken, or otherwise their supposed purpose is the real thing that needs to be reviewed. The current two stated aims of the English national curriculum are as follows:

1.   The school curriculum should aim to provide opportunities for all pupils to learn and achieve.
2.   The school curriculum should aim to promote pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and prepare all pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of life.

                Interestingly there is generally very little disagreement about these stated aims, in fact if you asked random people on the street this question you would probably get almost unanimous agreement on the two important functions of education. To translate from the ‘official’ rhetoric above; these aims are basically to support personal development of our kids and to prepare them for the rest of their lives after education. The second aim must be stated in the context that students starting their school careers in September 2011 will at the earliest finish their education in 2023. 16-year olds finishing their GCSEs this year started their education in 1998. This is in a world that is changing more rapidly than ever and where predicting the economic climate on year to year is virtually impossible. If we take this aim in context then it can only really be said that education is attempting to maximise human potential in readiness for the world after education, rather than attempting to prepare our children for a specific world. This system is quite clearly failing though, a huge number of people, probably even the majority, leave school not really knowing what they are good at doing or enjoy in their lives, or perhaps simply do not appreciate the usefulness of their talents. These people end up in jobs and even careers that they don’t enjoy and work becomes about day-to-day survival. This is not to say that every aspect of a person’s work should be thrilling or even that work is the most important part of a person’s life. It is just to say that the majority of people who go through our public education systems leave education without really knowing what their particular set of likes and talents are, and consequently often don’t maximise their enjoyment of life and potential as people.

                At this stage it is probably worth noting the origins of our current public education systems. The introduction of public education systems in the late 1800s was a revolutionary idea and it was done to try and cope with the industrialised economies of the western world. This is where hierarchies in subjects are routed with Science, Maths and Technology largely at the top because of their usefulness in these economies. Interestingly, English is another subject that is highly prioritised, above its fellow humanities, and its uniqueness will be discussed in a later blog post. The other major influence on public education systems was the Enlightenment thinking of the previous century, which divided people into two separate groups: ‘the academic’ and the ‘non-academic’. This has resulted in our systems of education being shaped around one very narrow form of intelligence. Of course academic intelligence is very valuable, but human capacity extends far beyond just this, people think in lots of different ways and intelligence expresses itself in many different shapes and forms. Playing a musical instrument requires the same level of intelligence in terms of brain activity as solving a maths problem for example.

                The most recent key phase in our education systems was the introduction of the national curriculum in 1988, which introduced the notion of ten compulsory subjects to be studied throughout primary and secondary school. With the curriculum also came a huge amount of standardised testing and that has continued to increase at all levels of compulsory education. During its 23-year history the national curriculum has under-gone constant change and reform, the most significant of which came from Labour in 1999, where greater priority was put on literacy and numeracy skills in primary schools and citizenship was added as a compulsory subject.

                So, public education systems started with a narrow hierarchal subject structure and a narrow view of human intelligence. The national curriculum narrowed the scope further for education systems. The continued increase in standardised testing has further narrowed the possibilities of teaching methods, not to mention that the forms of testing used (mainly exams) are very limited in themselves. Far from maximising human potential, public education has become far more about simply getting students through a barrage of tests, facilitating a very limited spectrum of human abilities. It is hardly surprising then that so many people leave public education unfulfilled and un-stimulated.

                This series of blogs will argue that public education systems are completely flawed. It will not argue that all problems of society or education performance are routed solely in the education structure, but it will argue that our systems of public education in the western world enhance and play a pivotal role in these problems. Its problems lie both in its content, the methodology used to teach that content and generally the way in which our schools are run. This series will examine: the constrictions of human ability through the way in which our schools are run; the subject hierarchy and the prescriptiveness within that hierarchy; the reasons for differing performances between children from different social backgrounds; the forces against changing the current system and finally the potential of alternative approaches to public education and their possibilities.