A British news story today concerns the constant and presently insoluble problem of violence in schools. Pupils attack teachers. Parents now attack teachers. Some teachers have always been hateful to some pupils. Pupil-to-pupil violence has long been so routine as to be regarded as an intrinsic feature of juvenile human nature. What is to be done?
Are you a free(ish) adult? If so, ask yourself what you do about unwelcome violence in your life. Answer: if the violence occurs in places you don’t have to frequent and have no control over, then you stay away in future. If the violence invades your turf, you ask it to leave, and if it doesn’t you call the police. Mostly this works. It’s called freedom of association. Unwelcome violence is mostly dealt with, by the same methods used to solve the problem of unwelcome rock music emerging from unwelcome loudspeakers, unwelcome propositions from street traders, unwelcome programs invading your television. You keep clear of it. You withdraw your consent. You switch it off. You concentrate on the things that everyone directly involved thinks are okay.
But most schools, and especially most state schools, don’t work by these rules. There the assumption is that badness won’t be walked away from. Teachers must teach everyone, however appalling and unwelcome and uninterested in what is being taught. Parents are entitled to education for even their most grotesque brats. Bad or even sadistic teaching has to be complained about and negotiated with. Bullying requires a national help line and a national policy in order that it may fail to be eradicated. Badness (which just means something that those involved vehemently disagree about) must be corrected, reformed, improved, and when all that fails, punished, agonised over, fussed over, Ministerially taken charge of and, finally, tolerated.
It is inevitable that a parallel but alternative universe of educational niceness will arise, and it is. Nothing in this educational free market is taking place without the consent of all those directly concerned. Pupils who refuse to follow the rules which the teachers insist upon have to leave. Teachers whose teaching seems pointless or nasty or educationally worthless have to find others to teach, or other things to teach, or something else to do. Parents who don’t like what they’re getting keep looking. It’s called freedom.
I have in mind that some time during this new century I will start a specialist blog devoted to education issues, very roughly along the lines of Patrick Crozier’s UK Transport, although less expert about education “policy” than he is about transport policy, and in general rather more chatty and personal. If I do get this going, stories from and advertisements for this alternative and expanding voluntary universe of educational excellence will be especially welcome.
If you have such stories now, don’t wait for Brian’s Education Blog… send them to Samizdata!
