It was an unusual experience reading this
book, the collected word of a number of authors, because for once I knew most
of them - from the time I spend in the midst of Bishop Grosseteste
University (nee
College). Not all of them are still at
BG, but that would have been the place where most of the paths crossed that led
to the creation of this book. I could hear they individual voices speaking through the text.
While I knew them at BG, mostly what I
shared with the authors was the usual grumbles over coffee that will be heard
in any staffroom and so it was really good to encounter them here with their
profession hats on. But I think it was
also good to have that other insight and as such to ground what is often an
idealistic book - that these ideals are not the product of super-humans but
ordinary mortals acts to empowered the writing rather than detracting from it (and
I think that they would be please to have that insight shared – these are, if
we believe what they have written, educators who would see no value in maintaining
a mystique around their presence).
Among the chapters some were more directly
practical; and perhaps I personally took less from those, but I am not a
Primary School Teacher and therefore not really the target audience and so that
is no criticism of the book. It was
instead with the more “philosophical” chapters that I personally found the
greatest connection. In part this was me
reading as a School Governor, for whom the key question is mostly “What?”
rather than “How?” a school should deliver.
But I think I was equally making connections as a “general reader” – so
much of where is at steak here is about the kind of society you wish to live in
not just the running of a primary classroom, and as such you don’t have to be
an educationalist in order to take an interest.
I was recently at Local Authority session
for School Governors where an HMI was forcefully asserting that Ofsted has no
agenda on the “How” of what you do in school, as long as it works. The difficultly comes in the definition of
“works” – which for Ofsted has to be framed in the measurable standards as captured
in SATs and other formalized assessment measures. What the HMI was sort of
saying was the best education will result in high standards in SATs etc as an
incidental result rather than as its sole focus. If you take him at his word (and I am not
sure how much Ofsted’s working practices bear witness to this belief…) Ofsted
is entirely in tune with the message of this book – an idea which might both horrify
and delight (and perhaps also mystify) its authors!
There are some fundamental skills which
Primary Education needs to impart, such as moving children from “learning to
read” to “reading to learn”, but actually a greater part of the curriculum
should be there to inspire the life long desire and the habit of learning,
rather than thinking it has delivered a package of knowledge (armed with which
the child can go away and get on with life).
I accept that my own Primary Education is
from an era when facts were out of fashion, the National Curriculum arrived in
my final years at Whitings Hill, but as far as I can tell it was yet to have
any real impact in our classrooms by the time we left – and Literacy Hours were
not yet even a twinkle in a Secretary of State’s eye. I encountered SATs only at the end of year 9,
and, having opted out of school for most of the preceding term, I ended up
doing an English SAT on Romeo and Juliet without actually having read any of
the play (it was not a complete disaster and for better or worse I have gone on
to often deploy similar tactics in the rest of my educational career…). As such I am naturally drawn to the “softer”
side of education and away from “hard” facts (I got through my History A-Level
without learning a single date – but without “flying colours” either…).
As the report “Every Child Matters” has now
been superseded we are once again freed to say that we believe that every child
matters without it being part of an “Agenda” or a hallow cliques. Running throughout the book it an approach in
which the starting point should be a delight in every child, the belief that they
not only matter but are amazing. This in
not to say that they always (or in some cases even often) make that an easy
thing to remember, but it is true.
I am not sure how much the coming together
of the authors at BG as an institution with a Christian identity will have
impacted their thought, or how many of them personally own a Christian identity,
but the valuing of the potential and the inherent gifts of each individual is surely
an expression Christianity at its best. There is much that the Church could
learn, healthy Churches will be learning communities built on individuals
exploring their potential, not on rout learnt catechisms or buzzing with this
week’s proof text.
The following quote really spoke to me “Education
should seek to produce learners that are curious, creative, imaginative,
motivated, enthusiastic, and prepared to take ricks. It should develop aspirational,
self-assured, flexible, and resilient human beings who not only can answer
questions independently, but seek to raise their own questions and hypotheses
as well. It should be liberating and
empowering … [It] should allow children to not only produce products, but also
to luxuriate in and dwell on the process of the learning journey.” You only have to substitute a couple of words
to shift it from the context of school to church.
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