Schools - The Light and the Dark

Why does the teacher training of new teachers in school fail? Why are more teachers leaving the profession than joining? Why do consistent government directives and programs only make the situation worse? I was prompted to write this article based upon a response to a previous article on teaching that leaned towards ‘Vygotsky’ and the fact that pedagogical approaches are always wrong in schools and never discussed? This actually prevailed in my Masters studies at the University of Hull when we met previous Masters student’s who had succeeded. One of them in particular suggested that a learner in a school was a unit of production that is how they are perceived and that was all that the government considered? A very stark indictment of learning and schools in the UK, but one that must have made some impact, given that the student had passed his Masters course. To even consider this as a fact puts is into a moral and turbulent world that is draconian, not caring and frankly bleak. Yet we plan to fail people in society in every way so why stop at education. Currently in 2022 I would say every service to do with people in the UK is failing and the government it seems doesn’t care and is not listening to the people, so why should it be any different for education. If a school is a currency for production then what does government care about those within that production facility? Is it the case that government cares about those productions within Eton and Harrow more than Dunstable and Whitstable because there are different production values on exit?

If this is the case then why would we need a constructivist approach and any holistic or caring methods being applied to schools? We might as well continue with our behaviouristic approaches our military dogma to drill into young people that they will be a part of the productions government creates. Piaget clearly had it wrong and inclusive learning is not required as that only muddies the water. But what if this was the case with education in 2022, what if there was a 1984 approach to education that has seen Orwell’s prophecy realised? How would that look in 2022, would we have an education system that teachers struggled to cope in? Would we have a government that constantly looks for flaws in schools and that beats the establishment with a big stick at every opportunity? Would budgets and resources be cut to the extent that schools could no longer balance their books? Frankly yes, if you could imagine a dystopian and Orwellian future for education then it has arrived. Yet other countries do not live in the same reality as us Denmark for example has a wonderful and far reaching education policy that cares for its learners. Malaysia as an outlier and somewhere I worked in 2004 has some very beneficial polices relating to education policies and its people. Yet the UK is entrenched in failure after failure that is born from it seems a need to operate in a certain way? I think like some other countries we are victims of our past and possibly colonial leanings that helped us no end in war but not in the education of the British people. Working class men not having the vote until the 1930’s, women not even having any rights to vote and the struggles they face and still do today. The list goes on but the truth of the matter is that failure and success is dictated in schools by a higher power. It has never been autonomous and it is only now due to catastrophic breeches of its fabric further to a worldwide pandemic and a war in Ukraine that is showing its warts and all. I think to answer the question why we do not have any pedagogical control in schools is that we do not have any control over schools. Whilst we teach inclusive practice it does not prevail, policy prevails but inclusive practice does not. So I think until we start to include our learners in the conversation, include our teachers in building a better pedagogical approach then we will always have failure not the success we are looking for in UK schools. I’m afraid the big stick approach doesn’t work in education, it might do in a military setting but it doesn’t in education. That is why a behaviouristic approach failed in the 60’s and why it is failing now. Youth culture, sub cultures in society are not born from a successful transition through education and society they are born from a society that doesn’t listen. People may well poke fun at these movements and people’s choices but they are evident in our society and in our schools due to one thing and that is the failure of our education system.