Subversive education

Educational progressives will wail and gnash their teeth. The clip below may mess up their long-fermented plans to reduce the nation's youth to the condition of 'noble' savages.

Hat tip: Radical Rodent

Murderous Vapours

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

A.E. Housman

There is little pleasure to be had watching 'Question Time' or listening to the radio equivalent 'Any Questions'. Not only must one hear the same old tired clichés from the exchangeable party clones, but one must confront the reality that a large proportion of the public, especially of the politically-engaged public, are fools.

Occasionally they allow Peter Hitchens on, and it becomes watchable, although the two problems mentioned above remain. During his last appearance, we were forced to put up with one of those awful Labour women. I will not trouble myself to check her name but I will note that early in the programme she paraded herself as the product of a one-parent, council estate upbringing, but neglected to mention that her father was married to her mother for the first seven years of her life and a very highly-placed UN official and Cambridge professor, so she's hardly the average denizen of the underclass. In the clip below she gained my ire for her strawman attack on 'learning the names of the kings and queens of England'. (Also you will hear Greg Dyke saying what I criticised below).

Examining her words, no one is saying that learning the names of the kings and queens of England is 'the most important thing'. So, to say this, it is a strawman. However, she asserts that history is important for us to know 'why we are where we are'. Sure enough, it is not essential to be able to recite the list from William I to Elizabeth II, but it doesn't harm you to do so, and it gives a foundation upon which more comprehensive knowledge can be built. It's like hammering in a row of pegs, upon which you can hang the knowledge, that would otherwise remain in a non-descript pile.

If my education consisted only of what I had learned at school, I'd be ignorant indeed, and I can't think of any poem which I was taught (although I can tell you which prepositions take the accusative and which take the dative in German, thanks to Herr Alsop), but my reason for writing is in defence of learning by heart, or as it is put by 'progressives' 'learning by rote', a phrase fashioned, I suppose, to sound unpleasant and oppressive.

These 'progressives' are not consistent. If they were, surely they would attack that most fundamental thing learned 'by rote'; the alphabet. What nonsense, they should say, this alphabet! Why is J before K? Why is T after S? Why should we chain down these young minds to such a system? Let them be free to make up their own alphabet, let them put the letters in whatever order they choose, and invent new letters and sounds! Burn the old books! We shall have new books, better books!

Why do the 'progressives' not attack the alphabet? Because if they did so, if they were for once consistent, they would expose themselves and their poisonous ideology to even the most dull-witted, as ludicrously, monstrously wrong.

The great utility of the alphabet cannot be denied, notwithstanding the fact that no one knows, at least I know not, why J comes before K and T after S. The 'progressives' attack learning by heart because they don't want educated people, they want slaves, incapable of thinking for themselves, and wholly deracinated. The 'progressives' not want people to learn what previous generations learned, because if they did, they may understand concepts like independence, and standing on one's own two feet, and then they wouldn't be the knock-kneed cowards, forever holding out a begging bowl to the loving government.

The human mind has incredible capacity. The more one learns, the more one is capable of learning, or this is how it seems to me. There may be some ultimate limit, but I have not reached it, and feel sure I could live one hundred years and be no closer.

Let the experts decide

Watching the latest episode of 'Peter Hitchens versus The Idiocracy', the subject of state education came up, and Greg Dyke brought out and dusted off the one about 'taking it out of the hands of the politicians' and 'letting the experts decide'. This argument has a superficial attraction, based mostly on the people's disdain for their politicians, but if you scrape off this thin veneer, the argument loses its appeal.

Under democracy, individual power is collectivised. No longer does each person decide for himself, everyone must pool their decision-making resources. When this leads to undesired consequences, the correct response is to hand that power back to the individual, not to keep it all gathered up together and pass it over to a group of so-called experts.

Who, does anyone think, are these experts? They are in fact cut from the same cloth as the politicians, but without the need to appeal to the people. In the back of the politician's mind, he knows he can be kicked out if the people don't like him. The expert is not plagued by any such worry, and lacking this accountability, he also lacks the restraint which comes from it.

Democracy is flawed, as was always accepted. When the franchise was being extended in the 19th century, the process was driven by people who believed it to be the right thing to do, but who also recognised the necessity of educating the people of their responsibilities under democracy, similar to their responsibilities as members of a jury, so that they would know what it could do and what it should not attempt to do. The risk of the masses being swayed by demagogues and jacobins was clearly seen.

What has happened is that democracy has overflown its limits, and inundated places which it never should have reached. Prior to the coming of democracy, the struggle for liberty was always aimed at curtailing and limiting the power of the state. Once democracy arrived, too many people thought that there was no longer a need to limit the state 'now that it is our hands'. To the contrary, government must be limited whether it is under a monarchy, oligarchy or especially a democracy.

Around about now, someone will pipe up something about brain surgery, as a defence of expertise. Certainly there is such a thing, and it is most welcome in a host of areas, such as, indeed, brain surgery and civil engineering. Expertise is the product of the division of labour, which encourages us to focus on that which we are best at. If we want something done well, then naturally we should seek out the most talented - the experts. However, once we move away from the realm of the natural sciences, the experts are apt to disagree, and in any case, as free individuals we retain sovereignty over ourselves, no matter what the experts say.

The central issue is not that education is in the hands of politicians, but rather that it is under the control of the state. If this must be the case, then it is far better that it remains a political football, because at least we can observe the game, as it is wrestled from one end of the pitch to the other. The real answer to the problems of state education, as I have said before, is the state. Take away that bureaucracy and let a thousand flowers bloom.

Update: here's Hitchens' take-down of Emily Thornberry, following her outburst in the show.

Round 8,568 of the Education Debate

You know the one. We've been having it ever since the dawn of state control over the schools. On one side the 'traditionalists'. On the other the 'progressives;. The former believe in Latin and the cane. The latter want five-year-olds to explore their own sexuality and report their parents for failing to recycle. Meanwhile, away from the sound and fury, the 'progressives' have been running the system all along.

Turning to Fiona Millar's contribution from the gruesome Grauniad, we find, after the obligatory attack on Gove, this:

There has always been a compelling argument that education policy should be the preserve of political parties. Education is a big political issue – it goes to the heart of what sort of society and young people we create. But even I now reluctantly wonder whether big questions such as this one, the answers to which will have such a deep and permanent impact on the lives of so many people, should be made in this sort of haste, without proper debate and consultation, or to further the ambitions of individual politicians. Better to seek some sort of cross-party collaboration or even take the issue out of the hands of politicians and give it to an objective body that can review the evidence away from the day-to-day political maelstrom.

Here we see the collectivist, authoritarian mind peeping out from behind the layers of self-delusory 'liberalism'. Firstly, she offers nothing to back up the assertion that there be 'a compelling argument that education should be the preserve of political parties'. Such an argument would rest on certain presuppositions which I would challenge. Those presuppositions shine through the phrase 'what sort of society and young people WE create' - that's 'WE' in the Yevgeny Zamyatin sense of the word. The authoritarian social controller 'WE', to whom the idea that each of us should be free and independent to follow our own plans and principles is utterly alien.

Millar looks at the system we have, sees it's not working and reluctantly comes to the conclusion that the part which must be removed is the political part, the democratic part. She's obviously happy with a powerful state dictating to everyone and running the schools from Whitehall, but, given that democracy occasionally throws a spanner in the works, far better to put it in the hands of an 'objective body' out of sight, mind and influence of the people over whom it is to rule, and, if I may be so bold as to suggest the bleeding obvious, wholly made up of people who think - to whatever extent that verb is applicable - just like her.

Not the latest from the education debate

"If men will grant for a moment, and for the sake of argument, that, as some insist, our compulsory rate-supported system of education is wrong; that it is injurious to the domestic life of the poor; that it reduces the teacher to the position of an automaton; that it provides a quality of teaching utterly unsuited to the wants of a labouring population which certainly requires some form of technical training; that, here, it is brought face to face with its own incompetence, for some of the highest practical authorities declare that the technical education given in schools is a farce; that therefore it bars the way to all free arrangements between parents and employers, and to the only system of technical education which deserves the name; if this or even a part of it is true, if at best our educational system is a make-shift not altogether intolerable, how terrible are the difficulties to be overcome before we can retrace our steps and foster into vigorous life a new system, whose early beginnings have been repressed and strangled by the overgrowth of Government monopoly.

Those who still have an open mind should consider carefully this aspect of the question. Each addition to the responsibility of the State adds to the list of ill-contrived solutions of difficulty, and to the enlargement of the sphere of a stereotyped regimentation of human life. Inseparable from this obnoxious growth is the repression of private experiment and of the energy and inventiveness of human character. Instead thereof human character is degraded to a parasitic dependence on the assistance of the State, which after all proves to be but a broken reed."

Thomas Mackay, writing in the introduction to 'A Plea For Liberty' (1891), a collection of essays fighting the fallacies of the Fabians.

More authoritarian shit from the Tories

This time courtesy of the Wasps Nest, I learn of increased fines via the handy 'statutory instrument' method of imposing new rules to govern us without the need of the parliamentary rubber stamp, on parents whose kids manage to escape the state indoctrination camps for too many days. Yeah, because the problem with this country, is that there's just not enough fucking rules. Just a few more reams of regulations, and everything will come right.

I'm just glad I didn't vote for the government that is so far up its own arse that it thinks spending our money on a 'Behaviour Czar' is a good idea.

Why I'm not a tory; part 94

I read over at the Independent that a leak from the Department for Education has revealed that Michael Gove is planning to ban parents from taking their kids out of school during term time for a holiday.

This is described in the piece as being a discretionary matter until now, and we get comments from various educational gauleiters as to how terrible it is that a child may 'miss out' on any of the thin gruel of learning they are rationed out at the state-run schools.

As the Department has not yet confirmed whether the leak is correct, I suppose I'd better reserve judgement, but presuming it is accurate, I'd say it represents the same old shit we get from the tories in power, which bears a remarkably similar scent and texture to that supplied by the last bunch, their ideological opposites we are led to believe.

The dispute between labour and tory is merely over who is the most efficient in managing the gargantuan state they have erected together over society. So what we get is a choice between two nuanced 'visions of the annointed', imposed upon us and financed through high taxes and unfunded deficits.

Graun spinning its usual web of fabian claptrap

I'm not too hot on the heels of this story, as it was published a couple of weeks back, but I came to it via another education article in the Graun. Here's the headline:

"Public favours choice - but won't pay for it"

Given the subject matter - state schools, the headline suggests that the public, lazy and fickle as they are, wants to have its cake and eat it too. In other words, that it wants choice but isn't prepared to stump up the cash for it. But does it say that?

Not really.

As the British Social Attitudes survey shows, public opinion favours school choice. More than two-thirds (68%) agreed that parents should have this right.

But the study found that opinions had hardened when it came to making choices easier for poorer families.

Researchers sketched out the scenario of a parent on a low income who couldn't afford the bus fare to send their child to a more desirable school that was further from home. What should happen?

In 2007, 49% said the government should pay the bus fare. In 2010, just 33% supported this intervention.

More than six in ten said the child should go to his or her local school.

So, when the Graun says the public isn't prepared to pay for choice, it is really saying, or at least two thirds of it is saying, it isn't prepared to pay somebody else's kid's bus fare. The proggers at the BSA Survey try to twist this as follows:

The study says: "One explanation for this change might be that, while people think facilitating choice in this way is desirable during times of economic prosperity, they see it as a luxury and do not think it should be a priority during times of economic downturn, where cuts to public services are being made elsewhere."

You can almost hear the metal-on-metal, as the study-wonks try to shift gears from the clearly-expressed individual point of view to the collectivist group-think in which they operate. Suddenly a straightforward question - do you want choice? - becomes something else - do you think facilitating choice is desirable?

The is something else to note, here left unmentioned; the presumption that choice must cost more than the current model. The opposite is the case. Choice is the natural state of things, when you have many schools. It is conformity, uniformity, ensuring every child gets the same dumbed-down meagre measure of state-endorsed propaganda which costs the fortune. If the schools were all independent, then no action would be needed to ensure choice, and the removal of the bloated educational establishment which rides along on the back of the schools would bring a massive cost reduction. Imagine how many bus fares you could pay then?

The case for cutting all taxpayer funding to universities

Over at Liberal Conspiracy I was alerted to the protest which shut down minister David Willetts' intended speech at Cambridge. Most of the lefties over there were disapproving of such tactics, although a few defended it.

I cannot bring myself to post the YouTube clip of the whole thing, nor can I even watch it in more than one minute segments, as these mindless drones are so spectacularly creepy. The tactic they have adopted has been seen a few times amongst the Occupy people, that being: one leader recites a line, and the collective repeat the line, and on and on ad infinitum, or at least ad nauseum. The speech is absolutely chock-full of monumental stupidity, it beggars belief that people would join together to shout it out. I would quote from it, but it's so bad I'm actually too ashamed for them!

What is also shaming on Cambridge is that, with about one exception, an old fellow who looks a bit like Albert Pike, no one objects to these idiot collectivists. I don't think I could have restrained myself had I been present from trying to disrupt their disruptive action.

Much as this will not be endorsed by those at Liberal Conspiracy who have attacked the moronic behaviour, I see that and I think "cut all the taxpayer funding". Why the fuck should we pay taxes so a bunch of turds like these can loaf around? They're obviously not learning anything that benefits society, quite the opposite. If they want to do that, fair enough - but not on my taxes.

Thick Britain: monolingual (if not monosyllabic)

It's easy to accrue data on how ignorant the proverbial man in the street is, although the accuracy of such data is often debatable. Young people certainly seem to know very little about anything other than themselves, and anecdotal scraps of evidence pile up around me. So I am not surprised to read in the Daily Mail that two out of three British people claim not to know a single foreign word.

Such a notion is, in one way, preposterous. Our language is built out of foreign words. To know English is thus to know Latin, French, German, Dutch etc, and then there are all the additions, such as 'kosher', 'assassin', 'tsunami', which have been assimilated.

Elsewhere in that report it states just under half of older people are happy to try to speak the lingo when abroad, but those people were schooled in a different age, before the influence of belly-button gazing, child-centric methods completely took over.

When the teaching of facts is systematically stripped out of education, and replaced with the concept of self-expression, it's no wonder so many youngsters are incapable of conjugating a foreign verb, regular or irregular, or even recognising the French for 'hello'. Rousseau would most likely be very proud of these 'noble savages', notwithstanding the gulf of incomprehension which would separate him from them.

State education: round the houses again

Checking the Parliament website for details of today's debate on whether the people of this country should be allowed a measure of democracy regarding the nation's membership of the EU, or instead be treated as slaves and chattels of a degenerate, despised political establishment, I noticed this HoL debate:

"The House of Lords debated how history is currently taught in UK schools on Thursday 20 October. Could teaching history chronologically be a sensible way to help UK schoolchildren to make sense of the world?"

What would we do without them, eh? Given the Groundhog Day nature of the state schooling debate, I feel justified in repeating what I always seem to be saying. The problem with state education is the first word in that term: state.

To me, it goes without saying that history should be taught chronologically. Indeed, it makes no sense to teach it any other way. The only reason not to want to teach the subject chronologically would be if you wished to dispose of the subject known as history and put in its place some other discipline, disguised as history as part of a covert gramschi-inspired subversion of traditional educational principles.

What is now taught under the name of history is more accurately described as historiography. From the Wikipedia page of that title:

Furay and Salevouris (1988) define historiography as "the study of the way history has been and is written — the history of historical writing... When you study 'historiography' you do not study the events of the past directly, but the changing interpretations of those events in the works of individual historians."
Some of the common topics in historiography are:

• Reliability of the sources used, in terms of authorship, credibility of the author, and the authenticity or corruption of the text. (See also source criticism).
• Historiographical tradition or framework. Every historian uses one (or more) historiographical traditions, for example Marxist, Annales School, "total history", or political history.
• Moral issues, guilt assignment, and praise assignment
• Revisionism versus orthodox interpretations
• Historical metanarratives

Now, some note should be made of the above issues within the teaching of history. No one should be taught to believe without question. I suspect, however, the balance has gone way off-kilter, and that rather than imbuing their charges with a healthy scepticism with which to survey the record of the past, modern history teachers have sowed a cynical relativism, whereby nothing can be known for sure, and thus any historical knowledge must be viewed as arbitrary, random, designed to deceive rather than enlighten. In such circumstances, the traditional, chronological approach to history is taken out of the realm of objectivity and becomes instead a specimen for our budding historiographists to dissect, with the added danger that the impression is given that one is free to believe or disbelieve whatever one wants.

As I always say, the state-run centralised system is the problem. Getting rid of it, and enabling the schools to be independent and heterogeneous is the solution. Much as I personally love history, I do not wish to impose this love on everyone else, nor do I want anyone else to have such power over the nation's school children. That the anyone else are so often woolly-headed quasi-marxoids only strengthens the point.

Gove on education: stop me if you've heard this one before

The debate around state education, more than most debates, seems to be trapped forever in some kind of Groundhog Day. Whether it's the Blue Party or the Red in government, they will never grasp the central problem is the government, and its futile and destructive attempt to model a one-size-fits-all system. So, for the umpteenth time, we have an Education Minister declaring that all children from the youngest age will study a foreign language.

"One of the problems we have had in education, and as a country, is that we have been too insular for too long."

Insular for too long? Since the last Ice Age, in fact. I'm guessing geography isn't Michael's favourite subject. Now, I happen to like foreign languages, but that doesn't mean I want them imposed on everyone. Besides, I don't actually think learning a language in a classroom achieves much. Ten years of school lessons is nothing compared to a few months in the country.

Also, he's calling for longer school hours, and "tougher, less means-tested, fines for parents of persistent school truants so that parental income needed "for satellite TVs, cigarette consumption or alcohol" is no longer taken into account in setting the fine." Sanctimonious prick.

So, in summary, more government interference, more futile attempts to impose one version of education on everyone, more authoritarian bollocks. Same old shit.

State education: the stable of hobby-horses

I note a good article at Liberal Vision by Tom Papworth, criticising Nick Clegg's stance opposing profit-making in alternative schools (alternative to the bog-standard LEA comprehensives). The hatred of profit-making is one of those strange irrationalities one encounters with centre-leftists, an article of faith, which is difficult to follow back to any coherent principle. States Tom:

"The problem is that somewhere along the line we seem to have forgotten that. For many people, profit is a dirty word. Large swathes of society, including (sadly) large numbers of people who identify themselves as liberal, have internalised the Marxist belief that profit is inherently exploitative: that profit must be made at somebody’s expense. This is particularly odd, because Marx’s belief only stands up if one accepts his Labour Theory of Value, which most people and all liberals would reject out of hand."

My only quibble with Tom would be to point out that no 'out of hand' rejection is needed with regard to the Labour Theory of Value, as it has been properly exploded into smithereens for well over 100 years. Indeed, the failure of Karl Marx to publish the remaining two volumes of his 'magnum opus' Das Krapital has been attributed by some to his realisation that Volume One was fatally flawed by such felonious fallacies.

Elsewhere, every theist's favourite reason not to abandon faith, Richard Dawkins has turned up with the softly-spoken Malthusian David Attenborough to demand strict rules mandating the teaching of evolution to the nation's little ones, and the expulsion of heretical 'creationists' (wherever they hide!)

To the average Joe, this may seem all well and good, but it strikes me as a perfect example of the inherent problem with state-run monopoly schools. Instead of a variety of schools enabling choice, we are to get only one and the same monolithic, homogeneous, state-sanctioned, politically-correct model. Thus, all who have an opinion must seek to seize the controls and impose that opinion on everyone else.

I have never met Dawkins, but I have known equally aggressively atheistical evolutionary biologists, and the funny thing is, in my anecdotal experience, although I cannot fault the depth of their knowledge in the particular subject of their great interest, these same champions of reason manage to hold woefully fallacious opinions in other areas, such as economics.

Now, if Dawkins gets to ride his hobby horse into the school yard, and apply some kind of purity test to the nation's science lessons, when do I get my chance? Because I suspect there are a far higher number of teachers spouting marxist and keynesian ideas without even knowing it, ideas which are incorrect and damaging. Many teachers even self-identify as socialists, or worse still social democrats! Shocking, isn't it?

Of course, no such struggle would be necessary, if freedom were to take a hand. You could send your kids to the Karl Marx School, if you chose, and I'd send mine to the Carl Menger Academy.

Classic socialist stupidity

Melissa Benn's article in the Guardian illustrates one of the key obsessions in socialist thinking (if that ain't an oxymoron): the gap. In this case it's the gap between the education on offer at the top, fee-paying schools and that available at the bog-standard state comprehensives.

As usual you get the clear impression that what bothers her is not the disaster of state-run schools, but that some lucky bastards, due to accident of birth, escape from the socialist cesspit. If only, she opines, everybody could be equally fucked up by the lunatic fabian brainwash, no one would notice how bad it is.

Education's the problem: are you gonna blame the parents for that as well?

The state schools have got to go. It's not the teachers. It's not the buildings or the number of computers. It's the crap they feed into the brains of their victims - our younger generation. It's not all rubbish, but the way they present it makes even the good bits bad. Take a look at the kind of material they use for the 'citizenship' syllabus or 'personal and social development' and you will wonder no more why some of these youngsters don't know the difference between right and wrong.

In a thousand misdirections they are taught; what their rights are (and the need for limits), how big the government is (and why it must always be this way); they learn the reasons why young people steal cars (poverty etc), they learn the process of punishment they can expect if they disobey the law (first you get warning, next you get another warning with a different name etc); they learn that discipline means controlling someone by rewarding and punishing, and that there is no agreement on what is good behaviour or bad, it all depends on the situation. I kid you not.

What parent would fill their child's head with this nonsense?

A new kind of Stockholm Syndrome

I’m a great fan of Alex Jones. He always encourages people to check out what he’s saying, and here’s one I had to check. I can’t really add much to this AP report by Jenny Soffel:

No ‘him’ or ‘her’; preschool fights gender bias

“STOCKHOLM (AP) — At the “Egalia” preschool, staff avoid using words like “him” or “her” and address the 33 kids as “friends” rather than girls and boys.

From the color and placement of toys to the choice of books, every detail has been carefully planned to make sure the children don’t fall into gender stereotypes.

“Society expects girls to be girlie, nice and pretty and boys to be manly, rough and outgoing,” says Jenny Johnsson, a 31-year-old teacher. “Egalia gives them a fantastic opportunity to be whoever they want to be.”

The taxpayer-funded preschool which opened last year in the liberal Sodermalm district of Stockholm for kids aged 1 to 6 is among the most radical examples of Sweden’s efforts to engineer equality between the sexes from childhood onward.

Breaking down gender roles is a core mission in the national curriculum for preschools, underpinned by the theory that even in highly egalitarian-minded Sweden, society gives boys an unfair edge.

To even things out, many preschools have hired “gender pedagogues” to help staff identify language and behavior that risk reinforcing stereotypes.”

Read the article

Cross-posted at Orphans

Making History history

News to me: Ernest Lissner's depiction of the Poles surrendering at Moscow, 1612

I read Niall Ferguson's piece in the Graun on the poor state of state-run school History with a mixture of sympathy, resigned sorrow and I must say a measure of indifference. He is, I am sure right in what he says, and I would agree with him pretty much down the line, if I stood where he does.

I love History, and have done since I was a child. Prior to this moment, I was idly reading up on the French Wars of the Three Henrys, and before that learning something of the Polish-Muscovite War, which was triggered (my interest, not the war) by the picture above, which I saw on the RT website. However, whatever knowledge is stored away in the recesses of my mind, it did not come from the classroom. I dropped the subject aged 13. Before and since I have been eagerly educating myself, and I am confident that I will master the subject, if I apply myself for the next hundred or so years.

Every criticism Ferguson makes, I am sure to have made myself in private discussions. The lack of chronology, jumping back and forth between centuries and millennia, the concentration on histiography (interpreting is all very fine, but you have to learn stuff before you attempt to interpret it), the politically-correct choice of subject matter etc, and the plain fact that they're not doing it the way I would do it!

However, I don't see how this can be changed within the sphere of state education. The educational establishment can withstand any short-term siege by an upstart Minister. As Ferguson notes, Ofsted are content with things as they are, even when supplying the ammunition for his assault, so there will be no call for root and branch reform from that quarter. In any case, I doubt a state-mandated curriculum can ever be effective. Such a thing only continues a never-ending battle over what it should contain. Our society has been fragmented by a cultural war, and the teaching of History is one casualty. I doubt even a definition of the word could be agreed, let alone the syllabus!

So, I guess I'm going to cop out of the argument by playing the libertarian card; that state schooling is the fundamental problem. I am sure I agree with Ferguson on what History is and what it is not, and I think it a shame that most children do not have this on offer at school. What they must do, especially if they have any passion for it, is not wait for educational reforms, but follow their own noses and educate themselves.

NUT interpret poll results: could do better

The teachers' union NUT are renewing their attack on the government's free schools policy, but they seem to be overdoing it. Christine Blower, NUT general secretary, said:

"This survey clearly shows that parents are not clamouring to set up free schools, have no issue with schools being accountable to the community through democratically elected local authorities, and absolutely reject the premise of their children's education being handed over to private companies. Free schools are not wanted or needed. They are divisive and unaccountable. It is time the government stopped playing with the educational future of this country based on nothing more than the fact they can."

The poll, which they commissioned, says nothing of the kind. It shows that most people have no strong opinion about the policy, some are against and some are in favour - "A quarter of 1,000 parents said they would support a free school in their area, with 31% against and 43% unsure." In which case, those who are in favour can pursue the policy, those who are against, or have no interest, can avoid them. The government was not expecting, I am sure, the free schools to quickly take over the national school system.

The NUT is not directly concerned with the wellbeing of school children, but rather the pay and conditions of its members. It sees a threat from schools that are more independent, because they may not be so vulnerable to union coercion, and these schools may draw away children from the more talented end of the spectrum, hence reducing the average at the local authority schools. To the coercive collectivists, found in great abundance in the NUT, the duty of a smart kid is to go and stay in a shit school, to raise the average.

Whatever the fruits of the government's policy (and I should say, as a libertarian my choice would be to smash the state-run system into a thousand pieces, and then to take those pieces and grind them into dust), the NUT's critique must be taken with a generous pinch of salt. Just because it pisses off that bunch of recalcitrant syndicalists, doesn't make it bad, more likely the opposite.

Update: You can hear the NUT making a fool of herself on the Radio 4 news here.

F***ing teachers

Such as this one:

Socially and economically diverse Huddersfield ... needs mixed classes: mixed by attainment level, attitude to learning and social and ethnic background. It needs flexible grouping of pupils within its mixed classes; it needs a challenging curriculum underpinned by careful personal, continuous assessments; it needs teaching methodologies based on pupils' exploratory talk, and it needs the continuous sharing of learning outcomes so that all the pupils benefit from each others' learning.

In this way, all pupils can learn, at their own pace and in their own way. Teaching like this is very demanding. It requires a whole school ethos that is respectful of every member and focused on learning; it requires us to move away from an utterly discredited notion of "ability"

What a woolly-headed nincompoop. I may be judging him harshly. He may be good at his job, but he sounds like a robot programmed with the kind of progressive-era nonsense that has wrecked the education system in the Anglo-Saxon world. If our schools were not a state-controlled near-monopoly run by people who all sound like this fellow, we could see far more clearly whether such cockwaffle works, and people could choose whether they want this approach or another for their children. Reading his opinions, it's no wonder most children leave school in a state of uselessness as far as most businesses are concerned, which is why they generally choose a Polish worker who'll get on and do the job, rather than sit around expressing his feelings towards it.

Lew Rockwell on public schools

One of my recent things is listening to the Lew Rockwell podcast, of which there's a whole library on his blog. This one consists of an interview he gave to Mark Carbonaro of KION 1460 AM Monterey, California back in September on the subject of public schools (state schools for those of us this side of the Atlantic). Naturally he's against them all, but makes a lot of good points about why they're so bad. I particularly agree with what he says about them often being too big, and that they shouldn't really be any bigger than around 300. If this one change were made, the effects would be enormous, and enormously beneficial, I believe.

I've always quite envied my cousins who were schooled in an area which has middle schools, as this system seems to allow a more humane progression from being a young kid to being an older kid.

(List of most recent podcasts here)