Primary school champion Robin Alexander slams Gove's 'Discourse of Derision'

From the TES blog: LINK

Teachers have more power than they realise to resist government reforms to primary education, Professor Robin Alexander, author of a wide-ranging review into primary education, has said.

The respected academic, who led the Cambridge Primary Review – a three-year analysis of all aspects of primary education published in 2009 - attacked the current "discourse of derision" in which the government denounced those who disagree with its ideas was the real "enemy of progress".

He was referring to a recent argument over the review of the national curriculum in which 100 academics curriculum proposals as an "endless lists of spellings, facts and rules" and were in turn denounced as "enemies of promise" in a newspaper article written by education secretary Michael Gove.

Professor Alexander said at an event in London last night: "It's surely proper to ask whether heaping abuse on members of the electorate because they hold different views is what government in a democracy is about.
"It is especially bafflingly during a period of public consultation when different views are what the government has expressly invited."

Alexander is no fan of the current coalition government’s national curriculum review, saying it uses international data with ‘eye-watering selectivity’.

Alexander's Cambridge Primary Review contained 75 recommendations but just one - start formal lessons at six - made the headlines, and the report was consequently largely dismissed by the then Labour government and had commissioned its own overhaul of the primary curriculum.

But he pointed out that many of the 2009 report’s recommendations did not need government action, they could be and were being, implemented by headteachers and teachers themselves.

Alexander was speaking at the launch of the Cambridge Primary Review Trust, a not-for-profit company with core funding from educational publisher Pearson. The trust, based at York University, will carry out research and training building on the review's evidence and principles. There will also be a separate body to develop branded professional services and materials for schools.

The launch event included a panel debate, Any Primary Questions?, which was chaired by broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby. Graham Stuart, chair of the Commons education select committee, was one of the panellists. He said afterwards that he felt more political attention had been focused on secondary than primary issues.

“It is important that primary community speaks up, rather than despairing of politics," Stuart said. "One of the priorities of The Cambridge Primary Trust is a policy dialogue and the Trust could become a strong advocate for the world of primary.”

Sacrificing childhood to capital

I explored Fryent Country Park with 28 eight and nine year olds today. They found their way out of a maze made of willow saplings and as they emerged from the woods marvelled at the sight of hay meadows stretching out in front of them. Reading their eager faces I could see that they were yearning to run through the long grasses and wild flowers and they were ecstatic when I let them go with meadow brown butterflies rising and fluttering above their heads as they  tumbled laughing into the sweet smelling hay.

Later they saw ponies and horses in a paddock  commenting on their stature and comparing the slender legs of a pony with the stocky legs of a carthorse, describing the feel of the donkey's  lips on their hands as they fed him, the colour of  the pony's teeth and loving being so close to an animal..

In the orchard they found toads, newts, millipedes, ladybirds, woodlouse, slugs, worms and snails and examined them through a magnifying glass. All the time the children chatted about their discoveries and pointed out their observations to each other. At the ponds they found tadpoles and tiny froglets and as with the mini-beasts eventually returned them gently and safely to their habitat.

In the afternoon in the cool of the Barn Hill oak woods the children worked together in self-chosen teams to build shelters for themselves. Small children managed to drag great tree trunks across the clearing and with their friends propped them up to make a tipi or tent shape, sometimes their structures collapsed, but they returned to the task with enthusiasm and perseverance.

After saying goodbye to the tired but happy class and their teachers at the bus stop I returned home just in time to hear Michael Gove on the Radio4 news speaking about the new national curriculum and the need to keep up with our international competitors and how this meant 'raising the bar' and children of 5 doing fractions and computer programming.

I could get into an argument about the accuracy of international comparisons and Gove's misuse of the PISA evidence (see LINK) but actually this isn't the point, The real issue is the Government's determination to make education serve the needs of the economy, and by that they mean global capitalism, and introducing its ethos and discipline  into schools both through the curriculum and through its rapidly privatising structures.

The child is no longer at the heart of education and education is no longer holistic, liberal and liberating.. Instead global capitalism and rampant consumerism is in charge and children and childhood are subjugated to its needs. With a fact based curriculum producing test and  examination results as a product, teachers subject to payment by results, and 'failing' schools that don't buy into the system forced to convert into academies, schools are being industrialised.

With university teacher training set to be replaced by 'sitting next to Nelly' work-based training, teachers will effectively be deskilled and no longer have the background in educational philosophy, history, cognitive psychology, learning theory  and subject knowledge possessed by past generations of teachers. Pearson and Amplify (the education arm of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation) stand by with an i-Pad based individual curriculum for each child LINK, which rather than, as claimed, 'freeing up the teacher', could eventually replace him or her.

What is really incredible about Gove's 'vision' is that it probably won't actually serve the long-term needs of capitalism because it will produce narrow individuals, schooled into passing examinations and taught not to question, when what a society facing  the twin crises of dysfunctional capital and climate actually need is creativity, imagination and the ability to think and act  beyond self-interest.

I must return to the woods...

Has the Green Party got the capacity to take on this challenge?

Mary Seacole win was based on People Power - let's use it on forced academies

Readers may have missed another concession by Michael Gove this week.I wrote a piece a few weeks ago  LINK supporting Operation Black Vote's campaign to retain the study of Mary Seacole in the National Curriculum. The campaign succeeded to the extent that Mary Seacole is now in the main curriculum rather than just an option. This is a victory for the thousands who supported the campaign but we now need to turn our attention to other fundamentally problematic issues in Michael Gove's history proposals

Operation Black Vote wrote:

We’ve won ! - Mary Seacole, Olaudah Equiano

Thanks to nearly 36,000 signatories, letters to the Secretary of State for education, politicians, unions, writers and activist, today we celebrate the fact that our children and the next generation of children will be taught about the great exploits of both Mary Seacole and Olaudah Equiano. Furthermore, the importance of diversity within our education system, particularly in history will now be greatly valued.

Back in December a leaked document suggested that Equiano and Seacole be scrapped from the Curriculum.

Simon Woolley stated:

This is a great day for education, but also a great day for the Black community and many others who demanded greater racial justice within our education system. There are too many people to thank personally but, The Voice, The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, and Change.org all threw their considerable weight behind this campaign. Seacole and Equiano would both be saying our spirits fantastically live on with today's activist.  

Michael Gove wrote personally to OBV in response to the campaign:

We are lucky to be heirs to a very rich mix of exceptional thinkers, bold reformers and courageous political activists. I agree that is important that our children learn about difference that these figures have made, and it is right that we do more, not less to make subjects relevant to the lives of our children.

 Professor Elizabeth Anionwu, Emeritus Professor of Nursing, said:

Thanks to all 36,000 people who signed the Operation Black Vote Petition. Mary Seacole AND Olaudah Equiano & Florence Nightingale are all cited in Key Stage 3 of the proposed national curriculum. Brilliant, just brilliant!

Zita Holbourne of BARAC stated: 

This campaign just goes to show that if we stand our ground, stick together and assert our collective 'People Power' we succeed.

Let's now use People Power to defeat Michael Gove over forced academies. Yesterday's demonstration outside Gladstone Park Primary School was a great start.