I've just finished this interesting and informative book. Originally drawn to it by the recommendation by Roy Blatchford (National Education Trust) on the back and a desire to become more informed on the debate about the current education policy debate, I found the book both one-sided yet incredibly informative. While Benn makes no effort to conceal her partisan views, she does a great job of summarising the development of education since the second world war, and her passion and involvement in the subject helps overcome the tendency at moments to flit lightly between half-referenced evidence.By the end of the book I found myself better informed about the history of education policy in England since WWII, which, from all governments, was piecemeal and hampered by old ideas and institutions, meaning that truly comprehensive education never really took off (not like health care) and, as a result, what exists today is, as written by Andy Beckett in his review of the book for the Guardian 'a perplexing place: both inspiring and depressing, public and private, egalitarian and elitist, selective and non-selective, secular and religious, multicultural and monocultural, centralised and anarchic, politicised and above politics, under-funded and lavish, worn-out and gleaming.'
I had thought about the pros and cons of all types of school systems both in England and abroad (American Charter School, Swedish Free Schools, Finnish comprehensive education, Canadian Public schools) and ideals and ideas at play in current movements in the UK.
The final chapter left me with most to think about, as Benn reeled off changes and beliefs that rung so true with my own beliefs and experiences of being a teacher and educator; namely, that education should 'not confirm a given truth, or generate a set of IQ-related numbers, but encourage the constant recreation of self though imagination and knowledge and effort' and that this needed to be done not through increasing selection, reducing local authority oversight, increasing central government control, misdirecting funding and bringing in private businesses to run schools (current policies and practices) all of which will further segment and confuse provision in terms of quality, but by creating a genuinely comprehensive education system in which all children have equal access to equally good schooling, with additional resources being streamed to areas of greater need (socially and economically deprived areas).
Finally, she proposes three reforms that she thinks would make a huge difference to England's education system, and which I so wholeheartedly support.
Very thought provoking.
I had thought about the pros and cons of all types of school systems both in England and abroad (American Charter School, Swedish Free Schools, Finnish comprehensive education, Canadian Public schools) and ideals and ideas at play in current movements in the UK.
The final chapter left me with most to think about, as Benn reeled off changes and beliefs that rung so true with my own beliefs and experiences of being a teacher and educator; namely, that education should 'not confirm a given truth, or generate a set of IQ-related numbers, but encourage the constant recreation of self though imagination and knowledge and effort' and that this needed to be done not through increasing selection, reducing local authority oversight, increasing central government control, misdirecting funding and bringing in private businesses to run schools (current policies and practices) all of which will further segment and confuse provision in terms of quality, but by creating a genuinely comprehensive education system in which all children have equal access to equally good schooling, with additional resources being streamed to areas of greater need (socially and economically deprived areas).
Finally, she proposes three reforms that she thinks would make a huge difference to England's education system, and which I so wholeheartedly support.
- First, a change in the way we think of the profession of teaching and the teaching profession. 'We need not just subject specialists but men and women who have learned to be thoughtful, self-reflective and socially aware...Their quality, as human beings and as professionals, is the greatest guarantee we can have of the quality of our children's education.'
- Education should be properly invested in, especially towards the education of those communities and children who most need it.
- The education system should find a way to unify and integrate, offering a universal system, guaranteeing quality education to all. That means the end of segregated schooling practices.
Very thought provoking.