And yet, according to Gove’s tub-thumping epistle yesterday
in the Daily Hate (sorry, Mail) I, and the people I work with are simply
‘Marxist... Hell bent on destroying our schools’.
I have a few points to make in reply to our esteemed member
of the Cabinet.
Firstly, I’ll be printing his torrid article in order to
teach the power of rhetoric in writing to argue – so thanks for that, Govey.
But I’ll be at pains to explain that in writing an argument for the GCSE exam,
it’s fine to ‘make up’ facts and figures, cast aspersions, and speculate; the
examiner will never know you have. Unfortunately, for an elected member of
Parliament to use these kinds of GCSE-level features is woeful. Whipping up the (already rabid)
readers of the Mail isn’t clever; isn’t fair; isn’t even accurate in its
reporting.
Secondly, an ‘Enemy of Promise’? Does Gove have any inkling
(or indeed the inclination to find out) what happens in schools up and down the
country? That though we are indeed paid to mould our nation’s future, we are
not paid to be nanny, secretary, counsellor, baby-sitter or indeed friend? Yet
we do all these things, every day, uncomplaining... because we chose this job;
nay, vocation. Unhappily for my non-teaching husband, most of my friends and my
mother are teachers. So what do we talk about? School; what we’re doing, how
we’re doing it, what we could change to make things better. Not for ourselves –
but for the students we work with. So actually, far from being the ‘Enemy of
Promise’, I might re-label this profession as the ‘Promised we’ll do it.’
Promised, when we signed up, that we would work as hard as could to do our best by
-and for - our students.
I quite agree that education is the key out of poverty –
indeed to ‘take their place as confident, modern citizens’. So why is it that
the new reforms planned for our nation’s children seem designed to doom so many
to failure? Indeed, the lofty proposal that students should be learning and
reciting poetry by heart is a worthy one (though you might like to read Michael
Rosen’s excellent thoughts on the subject here and yet, a more out-of-touch policy could not
have been advocated for the youngest in our schools. More than ever, students
are arriving at school unable to use the toilet, use a knife and fork, or
indeed with mastery of day-to-day speech. How will it help those students to
learn the English Canon? At five? Already – the divide. It’s a shame that India
Knight has blocked me on Twitter for daring to disagree with her stance in her
ST column (£ per view I’m afraid or I’d link) because – actually – this point
‘Gove wants to
give everyone a proper education, of the kind often described as “privileged”.
“Shakespeare at school?” those parents will cry. “Far too difficult.” They won’t
mention that they’ve been reading Tales from Shakespeare to little Portia since
she was three. It’s so dishonest.’
was one I quite agreed with.
Additionally, I take umbrage at the woefully cheap jibe
levelled at the 100 academics who wrote to Gove this week; doesn’t this line
seem a bit, well, tired and contrived? ‘What planet are these people on? A red
planet, if their published works are anything to go by’. Have we suddenly
entered a time-slip? Pleased though I would be to have the Doctor come to
rescue me were this the case, we’re – happily - not in 1950s America... perhaps
someone would like to mention that to ‘McCarthy’ Gove. As I see it, making
cracks about the political leanings of your opponents is simply appealing to
the lowest common denominator. After all, it is these very ‘guilty men and
women’ who have spent a career learning and teaching others about the
pedagogies we in schools know to be right. Furthermore, should it not be these
very people who Gove should be seeking the opinions of? Oh, wait, he did... and
then rejected all their proposals. I just can’t see how it’s healthy for
education to be run on ideological lines, which is the dangerous game being
played by Gove in mentioning any political leanings as a smear.
I am at a loss to understand why, exactly, Gove appears to
feel so much revulsion towards us teachers, over any other profession.
Commendable though his intentions to ‘give children the tools they need’
undoubtedly are, the best tool for learning is a great teacher. It’s difficult
to see how that tool can remain sharp and true when it’s being constantly
chipped at and worn away by such platitudes as we’re all tired of hearing; the
‘endless holidays’, ‘gold-plated pensions’, ‘coasting schools’ ‘out the door at
3pm teachers’. I would like any of these to be true. And yet, they’re still not
the things that drew me to this profession. In fact, it was the thought of
working with our future doctors, plumbers, teachers, musicians, lawyers,
hairdressers, writers, artists and (dare I say it?) politicians that excited
me. I want to be challenged – in my classroom, by a sparky 13 year old. Not by
a politician with not the faintest idea of what I do and why I do it.
On a side-note – Gove’s performance on Question Time last
week both worried and amused me; I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the
inexplicable thickening of his Scotch accent whilst talking about his (only
initially) State education, though my feelings were certainly more decided at
hearing his response to Emily Thornberry’s point – does anyone say ‘Yadda yadda
yadda’, unless they literally have no concerted response?
This post has been quite long, and ranty. Sorry about that*
(*not sorry. This message needs to be out there).
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