Schools CAN treat children as battery hens (and by this I mean the institutions, not the teachers), but they don’t have to. For me, the advent of league tables has caused a narrowing of focus, which needs to be remedying. Good exam results give schools permission to ignore the creative needs of children, and as a result, the version of education churned out in the grammars, for instance; and particularly in the independents, is the spewing of facts into children that was regarded as outmoded in Dickens’ time.
I think we have a real problem in wrongly ascribed value here in Britain. The path to ‘success’ followed by the academies and the ‘livery’ company schools is a reversion to an idealised version of Britain that, thankfully, doesn’t exist anymore. Kids are forced to wear arcane uniforms, take part in near Masonic rituals, pay obedience without question; all in half arsed imitation of the class riddled environs of Oxbridge. Much of New Labour educational reform is all about reinstating deference and much of it sickens me.
Until such time as some government or other has the stomach to reverse the structural and institutionalized inequalities in our system, then any talented, creative teacher will be find themselves in an equation where the energy they expend is not equal to the learning they generate. The ‘choice’ agenda, for instance, is entirely wrong headed. Given the choice human beings will ghettoize themselves. This, combined, with allowing the church an ever increasing say in how children are indoctrinated means that, somewhat ironically, the government are fighting versions of religious fundamentalism on other shores, all the time using educational policy to ensure there will be an ever increasing amount of such fundamentalism for them to deal with on home territory in future generations.
I don’t want to come over all John Taylor Gatto though. This stuff has no bearing on why I am not teaching in schools this week. That decision was entirely fiscal and temporary. I’ll be back down the supply with my tail between my legs by late October.