Last post on Gove's Bible nonsense (probably)

Education has continued to become a more horrible place to work since I last blogged. The proposed changes to Ofsted mean that everyone has to desperately revise the way lessons work in order that we can tick the new boxes that mean you know how to do your job. This is even more tedioius and time consuming than you can imagine.

On top of that, the failure of all the teaching unions to keep a coherent strike strategy to stop the pension tax thus far means we're stuck with being screwed even more for at least a while.

And now Gove's managed to find some rich Tory fucks to pay for his narcissistic Bible project. I think I'll see if the English department want ours, since it's fuck all use in RE - as I've mentioned before.

Now Dawkins has chipped in with something fatuous.

I am a little shocked at the implication that not every school library already possesses a copy. Can that be true? What do they have, then? Harry Potter? Vampires? Or do they prefer one of those modern translations in which "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, all is vanity" is lyrically rendered as "Perfectly pointless, says the Teacher. Everything is pointless"? That is Ecclesiastes, 1:2, as you'll find it in the Common English Bible. And you can't get much more common than that, although admittedly the God's Word translation provides stiff competition with "absolutely pointless" and the Good News Bible challenges strongly with "useless, useless".

Where to start? Labour decided that not all schools need a library any more and the Tories apparently agree. So the first sentence should probably read 'I am a little shocked that not all schools have a library,' which is a sentence I could agree with wholeheartedly. As it stands, it's little more than petulent whingeing. Our school library doesn't have a copy of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, which is surely a crime against literature.

Then the further whingeing - 'they don't have a 17th century version of a book that is available in many more accessible versions but which I have a nostalgic attachment to because it reminds me of the old days at public school, but I BET they've got some of those books kids actually enjoy like that Harry Twilight fellow, eh?'

I suppose what's getting to me is the way that this whole issue seems to have become a faux-battleground where middle-England can indulge its nostalgia for some mythical Jennings/Mallory Towers-era of education (a world without If... and with no memory of Kes), and engage in yet another defence of white middle-class privilege against the evil hordes of philistines with their 'pointless'es and their 'useless'es on their Klout Twitterbooks - why, public school-educated white men are the *real* oppressed class!

And this is the battle they pick? Honestly, what do we all actually, in the sense of 'how does this help education' rather than 'how does it make Mail readers feel', gain from Gove's vanity project, other than the chance to bury a book (with his name printed in gold on the spine, no less) at the back of the stockroom?

It's not relevant to Key Stage 3 English or RE. It's not part of any of the major GCSE RE specs and is highly unlikely to form part of the English or Eng Lit GCSE specs either, I suspect. It's not useful for A Level New Testament study either, for the twin reasons of unreliability and inaccessibility. What a pointless, pointless act to become a national priority that requires the intervention of the Secretary of State and multiple comment pieces in newspapers.

So that's it. The only national story relating to RE in my memory and it's a bunch of fatuous reactionary dicks belly-aching about whether people should be made to read more 'thees' and 'thous' than they would be expected to if they aren't from Staffordshire. And RE is NOT ABOUT THAT.

Trust me, I'm a Marxist RE teacher.

Just so we're clear...

This is a BAD idea:

Ministers are scrapping a requirement for teachers to record instances when they use physical force, as part of a wider move to "restore adult authority" in the wake of the riots in England.

Here are some reasons why neither I nor any teacher I know thinks this is good:

1. Pupils should not be afraid of their teachers, as this is a barrier to their learning. If you are afraid of your teacher, you are less inclined to view your education as an opportunity, and more likely to view yourself in opposition to it.
2. There are plenty of alternatives to force in dealing with classroom behaviour issues. If you do need to use force, you have already lost your authority.
3. The link with the riots is specious. It is not a coincidence that the riots happened in the most deprived areas of London. The underlying cause is inequality, not a lack of caning.
4. I didn't get into this job to beat children. However annoying it is when a lesson doesn't go to plan, grabbing hold of a kid is not a solution to the problem.
5. This whole thing feeds into the right-wing myth that the primary cause of bad behaviour is a lack of discipline. This is part of the whole hang 'em, flog 'em, dose of national service bollocks. As Lenin recently noted: Greece has national service. It is not 'discipline' that is the problem. Discipline is an issue for the army and a prison, not a free society. Yes, we need a certain level of co-operation to do our jobs, and yes there needs to be an understanding that there are consequences for poor behaviour, but this has to be based on the understanding that co-operation and good behaviour are beneficial to the individual students and their peers, not 'cos I'll give you a clip round the ear if you don't. Which can be complicated and tedious, but has the benefit of not being neolithic.

As you were.

So, Kids.

WARNING: LONG, SELF-INDULGENT POST.

I was getting my hair cut this afternoon. One of the hairdressers was sounding off about education, one of those dreary, depressing 'bring back the birch, kids don't have no respect' monologues that I've talked about elsewhere, but it did remind me of one of those topics I've thought about a lot recently - just what should a teacher's relationship be to their pupils?

I think it goes without saying that part of being a teacher is not beating children, but what should we be prepared for? I used to think that as long as I'd given the pupils a lesson, moved them on through their curriculum, that they'd learned something new, that was enough. The longer I've been doing it, though, I've started to come to the conclusion that it isn't, not really. The ideal, I now think, is a bit more complex than that, and one which I'll be outlining in a shamefully overly sentimental and lachrymose way below.

It transpired that the reason for the hairdresser's diatribe against this new fad for not throwing things at children was the presence of a schoolgirl in the shop, who had obviously got herself a Saturday job. This girl in turn was giving her strident opinion on the uselessness and stupidity of teachers in general. I found it all quite fascinating, in a way. I've often heard pupils say that what they want in a teacher is someone who can 'control a class' and this girl was no exception. To illustrate her point she mentioned a case when a supply teacher had been unable to get her class to be silent to the point where she had left the room. The touch of bravado in her voice as she told this story said it all. Although I doubt she'd ever admit it, she obviously felt guilt over this incident. The hairdresser's confusion of 'fear' with 'respect' had stemmed from this.

Here's where I know I have a long way to go as a teacher developing their practice. I know that children are not young adults, that they are rapidly developing individuals, often with fragile egos, and that part of the job is to provide the kind of guidance and structure that will help them to make academic progress as they go through the godsawful process known as 'adolescence'. So you can't treat them as adults, no matter how grownup they seem to be - not because of their intellectual capabilities but because of everything else. I don't like to cite non-peer-reviewed sources when talking about child development, but here's some good shorthand to cut through my waffling:

¹¹When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.*

Or to put it another way: you can never go home again.

To grope my way slowly towards this post's destination, then. Despite my knowing all this, a part of me wants to give The Speech, every time I encounter some child who's worked it all out and knows everything (i.e. all teenagers, everywhere). Since I could never give the speech in a professional context (and hence it's something I've always had in my head and has never been said aloud), I've decided to reproduce it here, in my nice pseudonymous blog.

'I have absolutely no doubt that you think you know what school is, and what classes are for, and I'm guessing you think it's something like 'to pump you full of facts and some skills and get you some GCSEs then shove you out into a job'. Maybe you think this is a good thing, maybe not. But if you do reckon that's what all this is for, I'm afraid that's not quite it.

You are, and I appreciate it probably doesn't look like it to someone who has to go to 25 lessons a week and spend hours on homework as well, plus whatever hells happen outside of school, really lucky. For most of human history, most people have received little or no formal education. A hundred years ago, most people didn't get much past primary school, even in the UK. Today millions still go without any formal education at all.

But having the opportunity to learn about algebra and thermodynamics and Shakespeare and slavery and Sikhism and how cities grow and how to play cricket isn't the only reason you're lucky. You're also lucky because your teachers are people who won't hit you, or threaten you, who want to encourage you to be your best**. You're lucky because the CBI ideology that you get an education to get a job hasn't won yet, and because a lot of teachers do what they do because they think you should have a chance, at least once in your life, to learn about some of the things that make this universe and this planet and humanity so absolutely fascinating and give you a flavour of all the possibilities that your life has to offer you, that we've not yet given in to the turgid utilitarianism of 'get a trade, son' thinking - the kind of thinking that leads straight back to throwing chalk and sitting in silence with textbooks.

The proto-existential philosopher Nietzsche saw two possible futures for humanity - one where people dared to be great, and one where people lost sight of their own souls. He called this second possibility the 'ultimate man,' and wrote of him like this:

Behold! I shall show you the Ultimate Man.

'What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?' thus asks the Ultimate Man and blinks.

The earth has become small, and upon it hops the Ultimate Man, who makes everything small. His race is as inexterminable as the flea; the Ultimate Man lives longest.

'We have discovered happiness,' say the Ultimate Men and blink.

Well, some of your lessons will be dull and some of your teachers won't understand you and you'll probably get shouted at sometimes, and if you make it through your school life without at least one detention you'll be very weird, and life isn't perfect, and the next few years might see classes grow larger and resources get fewer, and there probably will be a bully who makes your life miserable at some point - and that bully may even be in school - but underneath all that stuff, what we really want to do is more than give you a good education, one that doesn't turn you out at 16 any more jaded and cynical than you're forced to be because you're 16, we want you to leave with self-confidence and skills and if at all possible the understanding that the world is an amazing place that you've barely begun to explore.

But I couldn't give that speech of course, because I'd have to explain what the CBI is, and utilitarianism. And that would be a picnic compared to Nietzsche. And because kids' attention spans aren't long enough. And it's soppy. And it doesn't really solve anything.

But basically I'd model all education on Doctor Who if I could.

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*Admittedly, this is being used as a metaphor for awakening to the love of Christ, but I think it's more useful if you look at it more literally.

**For a given value of 'your teachers'.

It's Happening, Reg! Somthing's Actually Happening!

Today was awesome for anyone who likes to see proper angry protest in a progressive cause. Aaron Porter might think those who smashed windows were "despicable", but as someone who's been on one too many protests where you see too many of the usual faces, a demo like this says something that 'peaceful' (let yourself get kettled by the cops and don't say so much as a bad word about it) protests don't quite so well: we're really angry. I think people in power tend to get more sleepless nights about angry protest than peaceful protest.

Always good to see a bit of people power and a progressive cause taking control of the streets, anyway. And if you wanted a demo without dickheads you might as well wish for a police force full of paragons of virtue. Just accept that people REALLY don't like Condem policies, guys.

Not that it needs stating, but just for the record: I don't think violence is to be welcomed, but if you're pushing through policies that hurt people, people can't always be relied on to wait for deliverence from a Mediator. Besides, as a revolutionary I tend to think that only the co-ordinated power of the working class can overthrow the class system itself and bring an end to the conflict inherent in class societies - and I don't expect the bourgeoisie to give up easily.

Not that I was on a demo, mind. I work for a living, me.

Look, it's over there! Insists Gove.*

The so-called "no touch" rules that discourage teachers from restraining or comforting schoolchildren are to be abolished as part of a "new deal" for teachers, the education secretary, Michael Gove, said yesterday.

Personally, I didn't get into this job to hug kids but to teach them. If I can support pupils, that's fine, but I don't want children to see me as part of their extended family either. I'm a professional with a job to do, not a babysitter.

Slightly less callously, and more in tune with what I most especially dislike about this idea, it's important to have a clear 'don't touch the kids' policy for several reasons. An atmosphere where pupils need to fear the teachers physically is a bad atmosphere for learning. It erodes trust between teacher and pupil. Also, kids can be very antagonising and badly behaved - pretty much every school I've worked in has been in a deprived or inner-city area and had behaviour issues of one kind or another. The last thing a stressed teacher approaching the limits of their temper needs is to feel that there is some leeway around physical contact with the kids. It's better for us as well as for them.

I know of schools - heck I've worked in them for brief periods - where there are panic buttons on the walls and teachers carry walkie-talkies. There was one school in Newcastle (not one I've worked in I'm afraid, although one I did visit on one or two occasions in my previous professional life) with metal detectors and an on-site police officer. There are serious behaviour problems at these schools.

But:
(a) there is no miracle solution to this - bringing back the birch will not make the pupils better, in fact I'd say that it would be more likely to prolong the cycle of violence.
(b) violence in schools is always found in the most deprived parts of the community, those most suffering from joblessness and poverty. The very problems, I should point out, that Gove and his government are doing their level best to exacerbate.
(c) this is a tiny minority of schools. In most schools teachers do not feel threatened by their pupils. Certainly I never have. And even if this should change in the future, and some pupil does sincerely make a threat against my personal safety, any putative moves back towards corporal punishment will be a terrible backwards step. How can we teach children that violence solves nothing if we are prepared to use it ourselves?

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* I can't help but feel this is the first salvo in an attempt to blame bad behaviour and school problems in the coming years on pupils, as schools are sapped of vital resources, much-needed refurbishments are shelved and class sizes grow.

Shamelessly Stupid

So here's the thing. A bit over a week ago, the Tories unveiled a plan to 'deter' people with Thirds from entering the teaching profession. Obviously designed to get pretty much everyone's back up, this policy was billed as 'shamelessly elitist'.

Except it's not, if they meant it in any kind of meritocratic sense. The last thing teachers need to be judged on is the class of their degree or where they obtained it. Teaching is not a profession that rewards you for your paper credentials: it is a war of attrition, fought and won in the trenches.

Well, that's probably overstating it a little - the fact is that every class is different, and every class is the same. Your job is to get as many pupils in your charge as possible to leave the classroom with knowledge and/or skills improved from when they entered it. All day, every day. And kids are complicated. And what worked wonderfully with 8x3 period 2 on Tuesday won't work with them period 4 on Friday, because Dylan broke up with Lindsay at lunchtime and Shannon's farted whilst you were telling Liam off for stabbing Jamie with his biro and anyway it's Friday so why should they have to even be in school anyway, and this is boring. What's needed is good communication skills, enthusiasm, ideas, energy, patience, a spare whiteboard marker, and a green pen. And even then, you're not guaranteed success - but it is these skills and sundry stationery items, none of which are measured in your first degree certificate, which are what make you good at the job (and these are skills only really developed by doing the job).

In case you were wondering, under Cameron's scheme I would not be one of the losers. But if I am any good at my job today (and I still feel I have a heck of a lot to learn), it has very little to do with how much of my degree modules I remember, and everything to do with what I have learnt simply doing the business of teaching. I have met TAs with far more natural feel for kids' needs than I will ever display. I love my job, I think it's the best thing in the world. But it's not what my BA says or the name of the institution on it that will help me to succeed at it.

And others agree.