I apologize to any of you who read this and aren’t involved in education, but I really need to rant today! I haven’t blogged twice in a week before, but with so much occupying my head, unless I get it out, the stuff I really want to work on will get contaminated and sidetracked…
I received an article yesterday evening that epitomizes what’s wrong with education today.
http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=6428
Now I know its not my place to comment on what happens in other institutions, but with the government proposing performance related pay, I think the situation reported in this article may well give us a spyglass into the future. In schools such as mine, where pupils are free to study whichever GCSE’s they wish, despite ability, heads will have the power to get rid of teachers who don’t subscribe to the exam factory philosophy of this government, merely because their results are affected by pupils who will never have the ability to attain those top grades. Many of my pupils take art further simply because they enjoy the subject or because they enjoy making or because it gives them an escape from the harsh realities of the rest of their education. They can express themselves freely under the mantle of “artistic license”, and comment on things that really interest and inspire them. Ability is secondary alongside the phrase; “one mans masterpiece is another mans rubbish”. But ultimately, unless other practitioners who aren’t involved in education do participate in this debate, the Arts are at serious risk of being forgotten at a stage where introductions to the new are critical.
In a brief interview with John Wilson on “Front Row” (BBC Radio 4) last night, Dame Liz Forgan commented on her final speech as Chair of the Arts Council England at the British Museum on Tuesday evening, and her thoughts on Michael Gove. She stated that as a cultured man she couldn’t understand why he was “robbing a generation of their birthright” by leaving out culture – the Arts, from the EBacc.
http://new.a-n.co.uk/news/single/ace-chair-defends-arms-length-and-attacks-gove
But why then the EBacc? Successive generations have had their education messed with. Seldom in the past thirty years has a cohort finished the curriculum it started at the beginning of their education, with successive governments finding fault with current pedagogy and increasingly blaming teachers. If it is teachers at fault, why keep reforming the syllabus? Why not invest in the profession that is best qualified to deliver the standards they claim are lacking? You can’t have it both ways, surely?
And teachers aren’t blameless either, are they? I might alienate those whose support I seek, yet many of those who know me keep telling me I might be committing professional suicide by writing this blog! Why am I brave? Am I not entitled to my thoughts – as long as I don’t pass them on to my pupils? Can I not advocate change? It surprises me of my colleague’s silence. Does the profession operate under an umbrella of fear or am I foolish to publicly air my views?
We need to add more voices to the debate and support the belief that Dame Liz Forgan advances… “our first encounter of art should be at school”… Art educators, practitioners, curators, performers, etc. All need to unite and roar out their discontent. All need to add their voices and rally around culture… it is our culture to implement and define change…
Aaah..! That feels better. Now for some work…
Sorry!
