The Hijacking of the Left in Education
I was speaking to a very dear friend of mine yesterday who (admittedly had had a few!) and stated that he felt that some of the views I was expressing were positively right-wing! It did make me wonder and examine where that comment came from and I can only feel that it would have been from the more traditional stance I have taken on education matters.
So is it correct (or even fair) to state that progressive education is what the left-wing in education now stands for and that traditional education is what the right-wing stands for? Of course it is not that simple – most teachers are somewhere on the spectrum of letting the children run wild and wishing the cane were back. However, it does seem to me bizarre that I am accused of being right-wing as I feel that tried and trusted methods should not simply be walked away from without good reasons or without well-thought out alternatives, based on research validated with evidence from both teachers and pupils.
So how have we got here that those who dominate progressive education seem to see themselves as belonging to the left while anyone who thinks that all should have a basic academic education regardless of where they end up is right-wing? It’s a very interesting question.
I can only purport to speak from personal experience here while I undertake study and research into this area so these are preliminary ideas and not a thorough review – a starting point not the end outcome. In terms of my views, they stem both from my schooling and my teaching practice which has consisted of teaching in inner city schools, with the exception of one while on supply a few years back.
After an amazing NQT year which mirrored so much of what I thought teaching was about, I then ended up in one denizen after another where progressive attitudes and ideals were embedded. Having been a really well-behaved child at school, I found that my teacher self was a bit of rebel!! Who would have thought. Why was I rebelling? I didn’t see that the attitudes and beliefs that were being impressed on me had anything to do with equality or equity. It’s not SATs and accountability that was producing these issues – it was the fundamental principles of progressive education and its impact on the most deprived children that caused me to buck against the system.
Why don’t I think the current progressive ideas of teaching are left-wing? Well here’s a few reasons why:
a) Individualism is promoted above the collective – examples include: personalised learning (which is impossible for classes of 30 if you wish to say eat or sleep on a daily basis) and the active promotion of the needs of the challenging pupil over those of the class. The latter strikes at me particularly having listened to more than my fair share of leaders, consultants and behaviour advisors who treat the rest of the class as some sort of anonymous blob who can take care of themselves while your true vocation as a teacher ought to be providing one to one for the child who swears at you the most. The focus on personal emotions and self-esteem above the development of empathy, moral and spiritual wellbeing (neither of these belong to the right or the left – they are essentially human) is the height of individualism. I don’t think educating children to exist in a ‘me first’ universe and indulging selfish notions of justice and fairness are exactly Marxist. Thatcherite maybe but not thinking of the left.
b) Class Prejudice – I keep asking about social mobility and not one member of the progressive crew wants to discuss it or make a comment as to why their methods have failed utterly on this front. Ah but that is the beauty of the progressive approach. By deciding that academic learning is secondary to meeting the emotional needs of a child, giving them a childhood and building their self-esteem, children from deprived backgrounds have been slyly robbed of one of their fundamental rights in the Children’s Act. Now I am not one to hand down excessive rights to children who can not exercise them wisely, but I think it is fair that they are free in their formative years of prejudice based on their socio-economic background, gender, etc. How close are we to this when the pseudo-scientific, poorly thought out views of the progressives have become so ingrained in primary schools in the greatest areas of need. The assumption that poor parents don’t care, that ‘these’ children don’t need or want an academic education, or indeed could ever be interested in anything other than their immediate wants or environment is based on prejudice. The whole concept of ‘relevance’ is another idiocy dreamt up by those who do indeed wear rose-tinted glasses. You can’t know what you do or do not like without at least some range of experience. Therefore a 5 year old telling you that they love Spongebob Squarepants does not mean you should be teaching about it, it just means that at that particular point in time that is what they know and spend time watching. It will change and most certainly it will change based on the education you give them. My understanding of Gramsci was that cultural capital was real and needed to be taken into account when teaching – not reinforced by providing different learning experiences to middle and working class children which would only serve to reinforce existing divisions. Bridging the gap would lead to more equality not widening it.
c ) Anti-academic, anti- intellectual beliefs and demonisation of intelligence – I am not talking about IQ – I don’t believe in fixed intelligence. Learning takes place all the time and your ability to learn and even unlearn is unbound. However, while multiple intelligences may be a nonsense, intelligence itself is not. It is complex and wonderful. Sometimes it develops into intellectual and academic learning at university and sometimes it doesn’t. It’s not for me to decide the path that an individual takes. However for me progressive education is so caught up with denouncing academic ability that it doesn’t seem to know what it is for. It seems like quite expensive childcare to me where learning just sort of happens and isn’t the be all and end all anyway as long as children are having fun and enjoying their childhood. I appreciate from the child’s perspective thinking about the future and ones adult self is difficult and problematic but we as adults don’t have this problem at all. What we have ended up with here is not an improvement in vocational education just a denigration of an academic one, and this has affected those in deprived schools the most. If people want to improve the life chances of the poorest children then open up all the possibilities and whatever path they take it should lead to a good outcome for them as adults. It does not mean rubbish academic education and stand on the sides moaning about the lack of vocational education while letting children pass through the education system without the ability to read, write, do basic numeracy and have an understanding of the world based on what we know at this point in time. Also the fact that the progressives seem to have such a strangehold on inner city schools troubles me as it is self-perpetuating. Nothing short of a radical overhaul of teachers and leaders in these schools will enable us to get the most deprived children back onto anything like an more equal chance of being educated as well as the richest. There is nothing inherent about being poor that makes you less intelligent, less academic or less willing to learn challenging aspects of any subject.
Ultimately the poorest have less money not less intellectual capacity. I can not for the life of me understand how children from deprived socio-economic backgrounds can be grouped in the manner they are and treated the way they are. The vast majority of children are well-behaved, smart and want to know about the world. The vast majority of parents from whatever background want the best for their children regardless of the choices they have made.
My parents were no different and they trusted teachers and the school. They did not send me to ‘inquiry learn’ my way back to the stone age. I was sent to learn and develop. They wanted me to do as well as possible, not be ‘nurtured’ instead of educated. They wanted me to get good results so that I didn’t have to work in a factory like them and have greater chances in life.
The progressives attitude smacks of good old right-wing middle class prejudice. The hint of hippy libertarianism shouldn’t fool anyone. Left-wing it isn’t. Lets not let the wolves masquerading as sheep continue their assault on the life chances of the poorest. Keep the academic, actually work on making the vocational better and teach the broadest and balanced curriculum possible for all.
May 12, 2015 @ 3:27 pm
Reblogged this on The Echo Chamber.
What now for education? | @assetteach | The Echo Chamber
May 17, 2015 @ 11:30 am
[…] left needs to rethink. As I have argued here, much current thinking and practice in education can hardly be considered left-wing in the first […]
August 5, 2015 @ 4:52 pm
The attitude of “the left” in education is a paradox only if you believe that their goal is to improve our society.
Marx,Lenin, Engels, Gramsi, Hitler etc. advocated the destruction of existing society.
They knew that the most effective way to achieve that was to subvert the education system. First they recruited the teachers.
Even the worst of them knew the value of a proper education. They turned out Politically brainwashed Party supporters, with a good all-round education.
Here and now, Political Correctness is the modern socio-political brainwashing. Mass illiteracy and innumeracy is now common, even among adults. I don’t need to tell you what that means.
I wish I could believe that I am wrong.
August 5, 2015 @ 5:16 pm
Thank you for commenting.
I would not have considered Hitler to be of the left (I think the use of National Socialism is a bizarre one and nothing socialist about it!!) and neither do I believe that the left wing authors you mention wanted to destroy society, they just wanted a different one and felt only a revolution would achieve it.
Right wingers and fascists wanted everything to stay the same or only change in a way that maintained that order.
In all walks of life societies have changed over time. However, I do not think that the idealism was ever going to be matched in reality. As Orwell observed both the extreme left and right act in the same manner when they are in power and it’s a far throw away from any form of democracy.
I fear you have not read Gramsci – he argued against progressive education, which was being introduced by the Italian Fascists, and came to realise that educational progressivism is not the same as social progressivism. So yes, he did know the value of a proper education – and he argued that all should have it!! It is Gramscian ideas that are the basis of common core and the new national curriculum here.
Also socialism or being left wing is not correlated with illiteracy and innumeracy per se – Cuba is a literate society whereas Spain wasn’t under Franco (who was very right wing!!).
Educational opportunity means that children have equal access and we do not hinder their progress through biases against them. This is not political correctness (which I think is a way for people who hold quite prejudiced views. It enables them to feel in control of what can be said in a way that is acceptable to them and then impose it on others to hide their own views) but rather lack of prejudice in the first place. It is centred in humanitarianism whereas political correctness is there to reinforce the existing divisions in new ways. I also think it stops communities getting to know each other as it presents it’s own stereotypes that divide.
My home town is multicultural and has next to no problems and elsewhere they do. I don’t think we bothered with political correctness, we just treated each other with respect, learnt from one another and found ways of cohabiting. There needs to be understanding and reasonableness from all parties.
Those places where political correctness is rife seem to hold all the same prejudices. I think politically correct people actually prefer speaking to those with extreme views from different communities (as this often mirrors their own mindset if not the content of their mindset). The moderates are shut out.
This is true in education as well as many other fields. Those that hold progressive views think they are ‘liberating’ children and simply do not reflect the views or wishes of a large chunk of society. Ironically, it is one of the reasons why many ethnic minorities and poor people have an issue with teachers – they are off on one instead of teaching reading, writing and numeracy. There is no evidence that children will not learn these unless entertained.
More worrying is the way that many assume certain parents are useless (both the very rich and the very poor) which means that progressive ideas relating to pastoral care need to be implemented. Nurture Groups whose actual mission is to make children dependent (so they can then learn to be independent although I have never seen them actively do this) is a gross experiment which is an attempt to undermine the relationship between parent and child, instead of helping to support it.
In the end I think we may differ in values more than you think but I do think you have made good points. I do not think there is only one way of being left wing, I will not be told that from a middle class socialist having grown up in a working class family, and it certainly does not involve denying children the fundamental aspects of education.
August 6, 2015 @ 4:05 pm
Thank you for your response.
You’re right: I have never read Gramsci properly (something I must find time to do).
I find a different viewpoint, so eloquently expressed, very interesting.
August 6, 2015 @ 4:54 pm
Oops, I missed a bit.
“I fear you have not read Gramsci –” Correct. Not properly anyway. On reflection I shouldn’t have included him.
I was not trying to be controversial by mentioning Hitler. I just wanted to make the point that even the nastiest piece of work of the last century knew the value of a proper education. Which seems to be more than our current Masters do.
I have given up classifying people into “left” or “right”.
One of my friends is an ex-miner. He strongly believes in democracy, free debate and generally civilised behaviour. He left the Scottish Socialist Party and several other “far left” organisations because of their violence and anti-Semitism. His Labour friends accuse him of being a “Communist”.
He posted a comment on a Left Wing forum (I don’t know which one) saying that every child should be taught to read, write and count at school.
He was promptly accused of racism. He queried this and it was explained that we live in a racist society which deliberately impoverishes black children. Therefore black children obviously can’t do as well as white children. Therefore to expect the same level of achievement was racial discrimination. Therefore my friend is a “right wing troll”. Q.E.D.
So there you go: democratic socialist, “Communist” or a “right wing troll”. What a waste of time.
August 6, 2015 @ 6:26 pm
I feel for your friend and if it is worth anything I find that kind of attitude ridiculous. I often find that those who are politically correct to be far more racist and less resistant to changing those views than others who for reasons of background and maybe out of ignorance come out with things that are politically incorrect.
I also think that anyone who took your friends comment as racist is so deeply deluded that the best thing is to leave them at it and hope that at some point in time they will mature!!
August 6, 2015 @ 10:10 pm
I wonder if I have failed to make my original point, which was that “the Left” did value a good education, as you pointed out. Michael Gove said in a TV interview that his father, a Communist Party member, believed that a good education was essential for all, and that was the then-current Communist Party policy.
My friend has lowered his blood pressure by removing himself from that forum. That was the last straw.
I sometimes wonder who these people are. If I hadn’t met plenty of that sort over the years (including a school teacher, a University Professor and a senior BBC manager, all “raving lefties”) I would be tempted to think they were agent provocateurs acting for “the right”.
I think Old Andrew has got it about right, as far as I can tell from inside my own bubble.
August 6, 2015 @ 11:48 pm
I’m not sure it did come across to be honest but then I find it is harder to conduct a conversation over social media as we are limited by the fact that it is not face to face!!
The other half and I have been watching Labour Party: The Wilderness Years and it has been eye-opening to say the least. The parallels are so clear with what’s happening now. Funnily enough it was Old Andrew who put the link in a tweet in the first place. If you haven’t already seen it, it is definitely worth seeing. I will be blogging about it next week when I have finished watching it all.
I actually think that some of the hatred towards Gove is due to middle class snobbery in the first place. Whatever one thinks of the Conservatives or Gove – he is a child of poor parents who worked hard to get his education and therefore has this experience to build on. I get him about that. It is interesting that despite being a Conservative he has not hesitated to endorse Hirsch whose book is full of Gramscian quotes!!
He said on a radio programme that it was more important that a love of history will instilled in pupils and that if that meant in the end they went off and decided that a Marxist-Leninist interpretation was better then so be it. I believed him because I think his passionate defence of educating others to the highest standards is not one to be dismissed. Look at what he has done already in his new role. He is right to increase educational opportunities in prisons and at least make that a priority instead of doing nothing to change the lives of those in there.
The upper middle class left wingers are an interesting bunch and need to be examined in their own right as I truly believe they still hold onto their prejudice against the working class while wrapping a red flag around themselves. Mind you they would have considered Attlee to be too right wing as he didn’t turn this country into a communist state. Ideology matters to them more than real people, especially poor people do, because any damage done to them is collateral damage in the greater scheme of getting their own way. It seems to me a lack of maturity and understanding of responsibility to each other as human beings that is lacking.
No idea is so great that it is worth making the lives of humans (who have but a short time on this Earth) a misery.
August 7, 2015 @ 12:16 pm
I’ll have to work on my “communication skils”.
Well said. I couldn’t have put it better myself.
I’ll be watching for the Labour program. I suspect it is a case of history repeating itself, as it is said to do for those who do not learn from it. Or couldn’t learn from it because they were never taught it. Or, as my friend says, have been taught a false history.
“No idea is so great that it is worth making the lives of humans (who have but a short time on this Earth) a misery.”
Brilliant way to put it. A great pity so many disagree.
August 7, 2015 @ 12:21 pm
I wouldn’t worry about communication skills – like I said it is just social media. I still find twitter hard as its very easy to come across as rude.
The Labour Programme is old here’s the link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIgiV8yn3xU (Ignore the Thatcherite Scot intros!! It’s just a pain!!).