New ideas in a London comprehensive

There are some very exciting things going on at the George Mitchell School in Leyton. It is a comprehensive school, but is doing a great deal to give its pupils a say in its government. Among other things, no new member of staff is appointed without their approval, and homework is voluntary, and described as a further learning opportunity. To read more about it, go to www.thenewspaper.org.uk/pg000639.php. What bothers me is that I had never heard about it until I picked up a copy of The Newspaper the other day. Why isn't the success of this approach national news?

School uniforms

The case of Shabina Begum, the girl who was banned from school three years ago when she was fourteen because she insisted on wearing full Islamic dress, is now awaiting a final judgement from the law lords. According to today's Observer head teachers have said that if the judgement goes in her favour, making it unlawful to exclude children for refusing to wear a school uniform on religious grounds, it would "undermine the authority of schools."
It is totally inappropriate for head teachers to invoke these vast powers – the law lords and "the authority of schools" – and the great expense entailed, to force a young person to wear clothes she does not want to wear. There are few other Western countries where there is any school uniform at all.
When King Edward VI Community College in Totnes decided to drop its uniform a couple of years ago, there was an immediate improvement in staff-student relationships. It would seem to be more sensible if the final judgement in the Begum case simply made it unlawful to exclude children for refusing to wear a school uniform, period.
The Observer leader commented, "Everyone sacrifices personal expression when they don school uniform," which struck me as a sensible comment, as I don't think anyone should be obliged to make such a sacrifice. However, this was presented as an argument in favour of uniform, rather than against it. When intelligent journalists in a moderately liberal newspaper hold such views, there seems to be little hope of reform.

Peers and young people

ESSA, the English School Students' Association, is part of a coalition of organisations campaigning against the sexual health protocols which if implemented will take away a young person’s right to confidentiality when speaking to doctors and teachers.
Danielle de Bruin, a representative of ESSA, attended a Peers Lobbying Meeting at the House of Lords, and the Peers who were present said that it was refreshing to hear a young person’s point of view on the matter.
Refreshing! What about essential? What about young people's views, rather than a young person's point of view? How can anybody discuss issues like this without finding out what the people most concerned think about it? If Danielle hadn't been present, would the peers have continued their discussion in ignorance?
Well, at least it was refreshing that the Peers thought it was refreshing.

Not pitchers, but still not human

I have just come across two illustrations of the way children are generally ignored in discussions of education.
The first was in the draft of a book, in which the phrase "democratic education" was used to mean education in which the teachers had an equal voice with the head teachers and the government and all the layers in between. And what about the children?
The second was in an article by Neal Lawson in the Guardian on Feb 24. It was promisingly headed "Our children need more than just higher grades," and included the paragraph, "Education is more than churning out more efficient workers. It's not just what job we want but what kind of world we want to create. Children need the skills not just to play the game but the knowledge to change the rules."
So far so good. But then, "We should be debating how we can improve our schools through the participation of parents and the wider community." And what about the children?
Perhaps children are no longer seen as pitchers to be filled, but it seems as if they are still seen as animals to be trained. "Democratic education" means education in which children have an equal voice with adults. We should be debating how we can improve our schools through the participation of children.

Worlds Apart: a new book

My new book, Worlds Apart, is hot off the press. The worlds in question are the world of traditional education and the world of Summerhill and Sands School, where the children share responsibility for the running of the school on equal terms with the adults.
The problem I faced in trying to compare them was that both types of school use very much the same words to describe what they do. "This is a school," says Uppingham, for instance, "which, for a century and a half has striven unequivocally to focus on the development of the 'whole person.'" South Hunsley Comprehensive School gives as one of its aims, "To ensure that the child/student is the central concern of the school and to recognise and respond to the differences between individuals, whilst at all times according each equal worth, value, respect, care and consideration." How was I to show that Sands and Summerhill interpreted these excellent aims in a quite different way?
My solution was firstly to match official statements like the ones above with statements from the opposite camp on the facing page. Diss High School's statement that "No changes occur either in the content or style of teaching unless they can be justified on strictly educational grounds," is contrasted with Summerhill's "A new timetable is created every term to satisfy the choices of the children." Opposite a creditable list of School Council achievements at Notley High School, you find the statement that the School Meeting at Sands "makes all the decisions that affect the school and takes on those responsibilities which are normally held by the head teacher." Ashcombe School proudly proclaims its exam successes, and on the facing page Summerhill says, "Despite continuous pressure from Government Inspectors we are proud not to be a factory for producing exam results."
In the next part of the book pupils from the different types of school have their say, with the comments similarly paired. They often discuss topics that are omitted from the official sources. At one nameless public school, "You are not allowed to hold hands in the street or kiss in public. This means that there are lot of couples sneaking around and hiding." At Summerhill, on the other hand, "Sometimes pairs write themselves up on the board opposite the kitchen, and you see them walking around holding hands and kissing in the lunch queue. There aren't usually many serious pairs, though – there's only one at the moment." At one comprehensive school, we hear, "The staff room and the sixth-form common room are the only places in the school where there are armchairs and newspapers, and people can make themselves tea or coffee and help themselves to biscuits whenever they are free," whereas at Sands School, "There isn't a staff room so in break times the teachers hang around with everyone else, and have just as much difficulty in getting to the kettle as the rest of us do."
I have omitted the more sensational stories I heard, because they were probably not typical. I wanted the facts to speak for themselves, so there are sixteen pages of photographs which also illustrate contrasts, though some of the lessons at Sands and Summerhill may look disappointingly normal.
Most teachers from conventional schools who choose to read only the left-hand pages of the book, which describe the kind of school they are used to, will find nothing surprising. It is only by reading across to the right-hand pages that they may feel a tremor of surprise or disapproval. Most children will feel the surprise too, but they will probably approve.

Worlds Apart, by David Gribble, is published by Libertarian Education, price £8.95. It is distributed by Central Books, but if you have trouble finding it you can order it directly from www.libed.org.uk and pay online.

Increased authority a remedy?

I read in the Guardian that the schools minister, Jacqui Smith, has announced legislation to provide teachers and support staff in lawful control of pupils with a legal right to discipline. It will also take discipline beyond the school gate, allowing schools to punish pupils for unacceptable behaviour on the way to and from school. Steve Sinnott, the General Secretary of the NUT, apparently said, "The legislation must focus on enhancing the authority of the teacher."
The issue should not be the control of unacceptable behaviour, but the removal of the need for it. If schools were places where children were welcomed, treated with respect and allowed to make their own rules most of the problems would just go away. E. F. O'Neill demonstrated this at Prestolee Elementary School from 1918 - 1951. David Wills demonstrated it at the Barns Hostel with supposedly unmanageable evacuees during World War II. Countesthorpe College demonstrated it in the early 1970s. Lorna Farrington demonstrated it at Highfield Junior School in Plymouth ten years ago or so. The Bedfordshire Schools Improvement Partnership is demonstrating it now.
Arbitrary authority fails to achieve its own objectives, but all the politicians can think of doing is extending it. How can we persuade them to consider the alternatives?

Reading Ages

More from yesterday's Guardian.
The main headline was "12m workers have reading age of children." This turned out to mean that plenty of them could read perfectly adequately, having the reading age of 11-year-olds. It would have sounded quite different if the headline has read "50% of children have reading age of adults," but it would have been just as true.
Behind the Guardian headline there is an implication that there is such a thing as an adult reading age, which everybody should attain. Reading ages are based on the average reading ability of children of different ages, so by definition half of the eleven-year-olds must be below the eleven-year-old level, and if anyone has worked out an adult reading age, half the adults should be below it. There is no point in comparing different groups.

Academic Freedom

In yesterday's Guardian Boris Johnson quoted with approval a definition of academic freedom which feels more like a definition of academic dictatorship: "the freedom to decide on academic grounds who should teach, what they should teach, how it should be taught and whom to admit." In Johnson's academic freedom the only person to be free is a single figure at the top of the hierarchy.
The resolution passed at the end of the Berlin IDEC (International Democratic Education Conference) included this sentence: "Young people have the right to decide individually how, when, what, where and with whom they learn." Remove the word "young" and replace the word "learn" with "study" and you find the essence of real academic freedom, not just in schools but in the world in general.