They
were talking about teaching, and how it had changed. “Who would
want to be a teacher now?” “It seems to be non-stop testing
under the National Curriculum.” “Then there’s all
the paperwork to do.” “And there’s no respect for
teachers now. You used to have some status.” “When I was
at school, a look from the teacher was enough to silence a child.”
“Yes, I remember one teacher who used to come into the classroom,
open his book and say a page number quietly, and every child immediately
had their books open at that page.” “You wouldn’t
get that nowadays.” “No.”
The conversation
carried on in this way for some time. Clearly, there had been an Age
of Gold, maybe about forty years ago, and ever since then, the education
system had been going steadily to the dogs. It is this line of thinking
that argues that A-Level standards are dropping, that truancy is on
the up-and-up, that infants now have to be excluded because of violence
towards other pupils, that literacy is decreasing, that schools are
hot-beds of bullying and drug-pushing, that teenage pregnancies are
increasing and that the young people emerging from schools are unemployable.
“Of
course, I remember some teachers who could not keep order, even in
those days. The kids used to riot in their classes.” So not
everything was totally perfect in the Age of Gold? Were these halcyon
days portrayed so brilliantly in Kes, when there was vicious bullying,
when teachers kept order by harsh and violent methods, when learning
was often by rote and fairly soulless, and when opportunities for
children leaving school were often limited to the local pit, shipyard
or mill?
And when
did the Age of Gold start? In the days of Dotheboys’ Hall or
Tom Brown’s Schooldays, when bullying including roasting over
an open fire? Schooling was described as “shades of the prison
house” by Wordsworth. Leaving fiction and poetry on one side,
records in the nineteenth century show a mixture of parental appreciation
for the value of education and dedication on the part of some teachers
with ineffective teaching methods, cruelty and abuse. Many children
felt a sense of release to escape schooling for the adult life of
work.
There
never was an Age of Gold, and there never will be. At any time there
are good points and weaknesses, there are good committed teachers
and poor ineffective ones. The effectiveness of the education system
depends upon its ability to give children and young people the array
of ideas, values, knowledge and skills they need to address the circumstances
they will face as adults.
The situation
today is very different from that of forty years ago. Then, books
were the main repository of knowledge, and if you did not have access
to them, it was necessary to have the knowledge in your head. Now,
with modern technology, there is the scope for anyone with access
to the web to pick up expertise in virtually any area of knowledge.
Then, people expected to go into jobs for life. Now people expect
to switch careers, let alone jobs. Then it was important to produce
a workforce which could work en masse. Now we have a greater need
for creative individuals and people who can work in small teams. Then,
the world map was largely coloured British Empire pink. Now, we live
in a global village where millions travel daily round the globe and
we all have to tolerate and rely on each other. The world is a different
place and it needs an approach to education to match.
This
does not mean that every grumble about education today is wrong. In
meeting today’s needs, teachers do need to be respected - and
they need to earn that respect through their skill and commitment.
Teachers do need the scope to teach, and not to be burdened by excessive
testing and paperwork - but they do need to be able to demonstrate
their effectiveness and the value of what they are doing as well.
And they do need to be rewarded properly. Judging the matter in economic
terms alone, without good teaching, we will fail to produce workers
with the right skills and attitudes to serve the country’s economic
needs.
If
this little article is still available on the web in, say, forty years’
time (i.e. 2043), it will be interesting to see if people look back
to the present and say, “Those were great years. That was the
Labour Government which put so much money into education. Teachers
were given classroom assistants. They set up a General Teaching Council.
They appointed a Minister for Children. Now, however….”
