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Education, isolation, alienation...

  
 
penitentvandal
09:19 / 24.02.03
(Not sure if this is entirely the right thread for this topic, so feel free to move it if it would fit better in politics or lab or whatever...)

As some of you may be aware, I'm studying to be a secondary school English teacher in the UK. I decided to get into education in autumn 2001, thinking it would be an arena in which I would be able to use my substantial knowledge of English (and other stuff), and my considerable performance skills and raconteur abilities, to communicate information to young humans and aid them in their personal development and learning...

...and I can hear you laughing out loud from where I'm sitting.

Having spent time going through my teacher certification course, and undergoing placements in various schools, I now think that the teaching of English seems most likely to turn people off it as a subject, rather than onto it. It's entirely top-down, even from above the teachers - who have to structure pretty much every non-GCSE lesson around both the National Curriculum for English (a list of books the government recommends that you read) and the National Literacy Strategy (the way the government thinks you should learn how to read and write). Rather than starting from what kids want to learn and furnishing them with that, it tells them what they'll have to learn and punishes them if they cant - or won't - learn it. I see so many English teachers who have no, or very little passion for their subject, and I only met one who actually rated his ability to actually write creatively himself. I've even been told off by English teachers for reading books, and assured that I'll lose my enthusiasm for reading when I've been in the job a couple of years.

You can see how, as a poet, that might annoy me just a tad.

I also find myself increasingly in doubt about the school curriculum on the whole. Although the government here has recently announced plans to give kids more vocational education after they're fourteen years old, it still forces them to attend lessons that don't interest them at all from the age of five. Increasingly, I think we send our children to school for too long every day: six hours being shunted from one hour-long lesson to another, usually - a regime even many adults I know would find tough - and for too long in their lives - twelve years, at least, not including further and higher education. I think what we're doing is alienating children from real life and institutionalising them to damaging, infantilised relationships with adults and authority that will last for most of their lives.

I - like my fellow students on the course that will magically transform us into teachers - have been asked to write an essay on what I think a good secondary English programme would be, and I intend to adress some of these criticisms there. But what I'd like to ask you 'Lithers about is whether you know of any alternative ways of educating children, any institutions - in Britain, natch - which don't practise this damaging form of education. I suspect guys like you would know.

Thanks for your time.
 
 
illmatic
11:23 / 24.02.03
Mr Vandal – Great topic. You might want to look at a book called Summerhill by AS Neil. Neil was a Scottish teacher who decided a some point – I can’t remember why – to set up his own free school, that is a school where the needs and ideas of the children are actually listened to as much as the teachers – attending lessons is not compulsory, each child has a vote on the school council and the underlying principle is that each child wants to learn and will do so in a more effective and happy fashion if they are given the opportunity and not coerecd or force fed learning. Each child has an autonomy which should be encouraged not surpressed. What he found was that instead of all the children degenerating into faeces-throwing deviant anarchists they begin to learn anyway, but they’re happier, less fearful and develop a natural confidence that stays with them. – the classroom becomes where the action is, instead of somewhere to avoid. Summerhill is still going and recently beat an attempt by OFSTED to have it closed down.

I first became interested in the school and these idea because of reading about Wilhelm Reich. Reich was an Austrian psycho-analyst who broke with Freud and founded his own school of therapy (amongst a lot of other interesting things). One of Reich’s basic principles was that of self-regulation ie. people do not need controlling – in childhood, we’re naturally open, caring, compassionate etc. in a spontaneous way. It’s the problems of our childhood and upbringing that cause our more selfish and destructive impulses (especially those which gather round our sexuality). Reich say it in terms of 3 “layers” – i) false politeness and social veneer which masks ii) anti-social and destructive urges which are a reaction to the suppression of iii) our natural openness and spontaneity. I think this may be a little simplistic, but I certainly agree with Reich in that we lose a lot of our emotional openness as we grow older. Reich called this armouring and approached it through body based psycho-analysis, but he found a kindred spirit in Neill who was doing the same thing in education. I can’t recall how they met but there’s a book called “Record of a Friendship” about their relationship.

I think Neill may have been a pioneer in this field so others have emerged doing very different things since then – Montessori schools for instance and I’m aware of other educationalists like John Holt (“Why Children Fail”). I also don’t think that this approach will necessarily benefit everyone. (My own impression on reading the book is that a lot of Summerhill’s achievement rested on Neill’s sensitivity -It’s an absolutely beautiful book though). The actor Orson Bean set up a Reichian free school in New York and brought up his own children in this fashion and he said he felt they didn’t have any “neurotic drive” as a consequence – so they’ll achieve less in a sense. I get the impression that standard primary schools are a lot more pleasurable environment to be in than they used to be, but secondary education has a long way to go.

On a personal note, the above tallies with my own experience. I hated school, found it really coercive and reacted badly. Gained a total of 2 GCSE’s. Did re-sits in a similar environment and got another one. But then I went to college where miracle of miracles they dropped the disciplinarian schtick, and I had to take responsibility for my own actions, instead of just rebelling against the teachers – got A, B, C in my A levels.

Hope this helps. I'm aware there's a Home Education network in the UK, there might be a few organisations for progressive teachers?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
12:11 / 24.02.03
You seem to be complaining about the educational system on two levels - its effect on children and its effect on teachers, yes? In which case...well, as the parent of a child in your school, I might not be too concerned about your status as a poet and the effect that your job may have on your poetry. I won't in all likelihood care whether you rate your ability to write creatively, or indeed whether that assessment is based in fact. I care only about your ability to read and respond usefully to other people's creative writing, and specifically to my child's.

Put another way, losing your passion for English or your love of books might be considered a bad thing, but in terms of you-as-teacher they are only bad things insofar as they affect your ability to teach successfully. Otherwise, one might say that the risk of losing your love of books as a result of working as an English teacher is equivalent to your risk of damaging your long-term lower back health as a builder; it's a risk that you have to weigh up as one of the factors in deciding whether or not to teach, or carry bricks.

However, obviously nobody wants a crocked builder still on the payroll, so to look at it the other way - how would a curriculum best enable teachers to teach, and pupils to learn? How would achievement be measured? Could these processes be applied accross subjects, or are "subjects" themselves obstructive divisions which prevent more successful holistic teachings? Would it be better, for example, if the government backed off from telling teachers how to teach, and instead let them get on with teaching however they wanted, from whatever texts, as long as the children manifested a certain level of competence at a particular point, say?

On the level of exmaples, have you looked at the Steiner Waldorf Schools Federation method? Summerhill has a website at www.summerhillschool.co.uk.
 
 
penitentvandal
17:19 / 24.02.03
Tanngelus - interesting point. I tend to see the subject as a continuum-based thing, though. (excuse the crappy English there, btw - 'continuum-based thing'? I've just been working on that essay, and my head's a little caned). If I lose my enthusiasm for literature as an active subject, rather than something I just drill into a bunch of passive kids, that makes me less use as a teacher - kind of like your 'crocked builder' analogy.

Good points also from Mr Ill. Funnily enough, I always did quite well at school - in subjects I liked. Completely fucked up the science exams - everything I know about science I learned after quitting physics. Fantastic exam grades, at GCSE and A-level. 2:1 at University. MA. But increasingly, I tend to place less weight behind academic qualifications. To be honest I treated my undergraduate years as an excuse to fart around and learn what I wanted to in my extracurricular time, while handing in the odd essay on Literature a couple of times a term - something I knew I could do in my sleep - and pretty much did, on occassion. I took my MA - in Creative Writing - because I knew I needed to put myself in a situation where people were going to force me to write poems instead of lazing about but, again, I read very few of the recommended books and found discussion with other local writers, who weren't tutors on the course, to be as much use as the officially-scheduled seminars and lectures. I was too busy getting pissed, farting about with magick, and nearly getting my mates killed to worry about being the lecturer's pet. And, funnily enough, my most useful tutor was only employed part-time, to stand in for the regular poetry tutor - and if it hadn't been for her, I don't think I'd be anywhere near as (half-)decent as I am.

And I got into the education game because it seemed like a more ethical way of making a buck than working for The Man, which I'd been doing to fund the MA. But increasingly it looks as if I'm still doing the Man's job for him. There are a few signs of hope in the system at the minute - a more skills-based approach and (I suspect) the gradual phasing out of the National Curriculum in favour of the new, swanky National Literacy Strategy which could, in theory, lead to the system Tanngelus advocates in his last paragraph. But I'm not entirely sure people are gonna get on that bus fast enough for me, and I have reservations about the Strategy anyway - I think it parcels the subject up into too many neat little boxes, when it's more about gestalts.

As to sources - John Holt's Learning all the Time arrived in the post from Amazon today, along with Postman's The End of Education and Gatto's A Different Kind of Teacher. I've heard of the Summerhill school but haven't checked it out yet, though I have taken a cursory glance at the Steiner Waldorf schools which, at the moment, form part of my educational back-up plan: qualify to teach in the present system, get some experience (and money) out of it, then retrain under the SW system. One of my ex-girlfriend's mates did it, and she hasn't looked back, so I suspect that may be the way to go. But a choice with two options is but a dilemma, after all; I'm interested in seeing what other options are available.
 
 
jeff
18:51 / 24.02.03
{This Post is not constructive in the slightest).

My own experience of secondary school English was, well, horrible. The most disturbing part of it is that unlike pretty much every other subject I did, I don't fantasise about doing nasty, nasty things to the people who taught me.
My English teachers were pretty pleasant people in general but to this day, I cannot read anything I consider to be poetic verse without physical nausea, something like a Pavlovian response.
I remember hating analysing poetry or books and a real unwilliness to write any of our essay's down, but it was only really when I left school, that I discovered this little hang-up I'd subtly developed. I still love reading books though. Odd.

Not being familiar with educational psychology, or any other field concerned, my own uninformed approach would be to treat the kid's curiosity as the engine of their own learning, and rather than steering it into subject matter rather forcefully, as is currently done, make it attractive in some way, just as long as they come to it of their own accord. The autonomy is the key to learning, from my perspective anyway.
In the same line I've always felt that the only discipline worth having is self-discipline, etc, but I certainyl think that if children become used to having information forced upon them, it damages.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
21:29 / 24.02.03
Interesting post VV. And one thing that's pure instinct talking is to say I hope you can find a way to work in this profession, as your passion sounds exactly like what makes teachers able to inspire, whatever the limitations of the systems within which they work.

Seem to have wound up with alot of teachers around (english/art degree graduate friends, so quel choque), who are passionate and doing amazing work, often within systems with which they disagree on many levels.

Anyway, will come back with thoughts, but on alternatives, and thinking about education that places responisibility with the child for learning to a far greater extent, definitely, as Illmatic has said, check out Montessori schools (which as far as i know, are primary level only) but sound like something that might interest you...

One major thing is perhaps figuring out what *sort* of teaching you want to be doing. Within the state system, the skills you'll need and the kind of work you'll be able to do will vary massively depending on whether you're working say in small, relatively well-funded school in a predominantly white, middle-class area, or in a large urban comp in a working class and/or ethnically mixed region. there are schools and schools. and teaching english, as a major subject, is going to vary massively according to this (this something that's been said by friends over and over again.)
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
22:07 / 24.02.03
Oh, and as for personal experience, I loathed secondary school, and found it pretty easy to switch off from stuff I wasn't interested in by being quiet. This I suspect due to class sizes being around the 35-40 mark in general and so it being pretty much impossible for a teacher to get to know the kids. And pretty easy for kids to disappear and spend lessons passing notes to each other.

Foudn school totally pointless and uninspiring from about 12-13 onwards (despite loving primary and being brought up very much with an education ethic) and pretty much stopped going for a year (personal stuff going on) without it being remarked upon that much (this from having had 'good kid' cred, meaning that no-one really checked up on my forged sick notes! Remember the opposite applying to my best mate, who was forever being checked up on, even when she was being totally legit. So I guess I did learn how to use a system to my own ends....) Don't remember learning anything that really stayed with me, except in Art.

Things improved a bit at A level (stayed on as I got decent GCSEs despite all this, and it was the path of least resistance) with a wonderful English teacher who I found inspiring and terrifying in equal measure, and an Art dept who tried to make teaching as un-A level-like as possible. They didn't like the restrictive system any more than we did, and these classes were really enjoyable, much more self-directed/responsibility focussed. I think they found the curriculum's limitations a bit difficult to make compatible with encouraging creativity, so ignored the course as far as poss.

The art dept became a place to hang out as much as anything else, and we'd often do extra work and sit around with coffee and fags. Was great, loved the course and the people, and am not that surprised that the friends I'm in touch with from school were all hanging around the art dept. It built up a little culture around it that encouraged us to show work to each other, take responsibility for our own creative process etc...

The end result was that most of us failed/only just passed, but as those who were going on to artschool got places via portfolios rather than on grades, think it was good for them. Those of us who needed the grades for academic uni courses on the other hand, were a bit buggered.

dunno if that helps, but think I probaby had a pretty typical comp. education....
 
  
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