Education and where it’s Heading: Re-visiting John Stuart Mill

The changing of the guard at Westminster seems as good a time as any to examine what changes could be afoot with the new brigade. Gone are the state school educated Gavin Williamson and his state school sidekick (Grammar school, mind you), Nick Gibb, replaced as Education Secretary and Schools Minister by Nadhim Zahawi and Robin Walker respectively, both products of highly selective London independent schools. Perhaps there is a message there although who would be brave enough to interpret it.

Where better to start any discussion on education in the round and who it is intended for than with that great libertarian John Stuart Mill who wrote:

“A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mould in which it casts them is that which please the dominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, an aristocracy, or a majority of the existing generation; in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by a natural tendency to one over the body.’?

It’s a refrain picked up two centuries later by Kevin Bingham who, perhaps tongue in cheek, described the purpose of a state education??. . .?

‘So you can be moulded into a state approved homogeneous drone that cannot think outside of the prescribed consensus. You will learn to repeat information instead of how to think for yourself so that you don’t become a threat to the status quo. When you graduate you will get a job, pay your taxes, in order to perpetuate the corporate system of indentured servitude.’

You might say this is stating the obvious and that in order to make education equal to all at the point of delivery, there needs to be a clear vision of what education is for (and this is an answer that keeps changing). With 8.9 million children in full-time education in England in 2020 – 2021, any change of direction, however slight, is extremely difficult – akin to turning a super tanker in the Suez Canal.

So, before even discussing whether education as wheeled out in our schools is meeting the needs of our children and our society, we should accept that it is easy to criticise, but not easy to right. As is, the system is intended to be all-inclusive (it isn’t of course), to be above politics, (sadly not), and to educate the child according to a national curriculum that measures how successful each child is, by criteria that are inevitably narrow, nuanced and inevitably work better for some children than others. Education is big business, a term I normally shy away from, but since education is increasingly dominated by funding issues and measured by top-line results, that seems a little naive.??Apart from school fees, the education grant and top-ups (pupil premium being to the fore), there are many other vested interests in education, an army of people and providers who have invested time and capital in its delivery, who will also want to be consulted. And all the time, change is hampered by the intransigence of governments, obsessed with international data and reputation and the conservatism that defines our education system. We need wide-ranging discussion not just about how we implement change, but what that change will be.??And there will many, passionate and dispassionate, with a lot to say. It should not be a debate to be limited to insiders. John Stuart Mill again,?

'Education is one of the subjects which most essentially require to be considered by various minds, and from a variety of points of view. For, of all many-sided subjects, it is the one which has the greatest number of sides.'

And despite the views of many teachers, outside is also a side . . . .

What shape this new education would take is a subject for conjecture. Will technology, remote learning or a less prescribed curriculum drive educational change? Or new, pragmatic forces from universities and employers, demanding changes to subject domains or a greater a focus on new skills necessary for employment and further education win out? Or something else altogether, a synthesis of past and present knowledge and experience to help inform a future model???But no more tinkering, trying to squeeze something else into a bloated curriculum. It is more than a debate waiting to happen; it is a revolution that is required.??

We need to find??the answer to the question,?‘what is the best education we can give our children to help them live in the world of the future’ and then keep asking it, for the answer will be ever-changing.??We need to encourage the growth of thought, of imagination, of creativity (James Dyson recently wrote,?

“It makes me sad and concerned that schools are failing to teach creativity . . .?when?. . . . life today demands it more and more).

We need to take note of what the world of work requires by way of more critical thinking, tech savviness, better listening and communication skills, the ability to write clearly and coherently, adaptability and teamwork??- but not be bound by it.??For education is about more than securing a job, important though that is. And we need to ensure children see it as relevant and embrace it with passion and a sense of belief. We need more ambition.

Perhaps the place to start our new curriculum lies with John Stuart Mill:?

‘Wherever we end up education makes a man a more intelligent shoemaker, if that be his occupation, but not by teaching him how to make shoes; it does so by the mental exercise it gives, and the habits it impresses.’???

Let’s go.