Education and Reason

The speech by Pope Benedict XVI to the German parliament (September 22, 2011) offers some considerable food for thought for educators. This speech can be read as an essay designed to challenge the relativist consensus which has assumed such importance in the public square today. Pope Benedict proposes the retrieval of the cultural heritage of Europe as a necessary resource for the healing of the societal fractures of the west. Here is a brief extract from his speech:

"The culture of Europe arose from the encounter between Jerusalem, Athens and Rome-from the encounter between Israel’s monotheism, the philosophical reason of the Greeks and Roman law. This three-way encounter has shaped the inner identity of Europe. In the awareness of man’s responsibility before God and in the acknowledgment of the inviolable dignity of every single human person, it has established criteria of law: it is these criteria that we are called to defend at this moment in our history."

This important speech is not ‘a call to arms’ but a call to study of and reflection on the roots of education. The contemporary educator can – and indeed must – draw on this cultural heritage in order to re- anchor educational thought in the very body of knowledge which gave rise to the institutions which we treasure today. To ignore the historical record  – a key tactic of those who wish to remove religion from the public square and especially from education -  is to ignore what is essential and integral to the human person.

Free schools in England

The opening of what are called ‘free schools’ in England this autumn is not without controversy. While these new schools are not private schools, they receive public money while remaining outwith the control of local education authorities.

Supporters of free schools claim that these schools are a response to demands from parents who are unhappy with the existing state provision. Furthermore, they claim that they will promote a more ‘traditional’ curriculum unhindered by the influence of the state. Opponents of the free schools movement claim that these schools will only cater for the children of affluent parents and create further division in education and society more generally.

This argument will continue as both sides are operating from a firm ideological basis. The key point seems to be the definition of good education. While much contemporary thinking on education seems to be focussed on achieving competencies across a range of suitably designed targets and utilitarian outcomes, there is another way that Blessed John Henry Newman encouraged: an education underpinned by solid intellectual and moral formation. Newman claimed that this  would be more useful than an education designed specifically to be useful! Perhaps the advent of the free schools movement will offer a space for some educators to offer a radical alternative to the status quo.

It will be interesting to track the development of, and the political reaction to, the 'free schools' in the coming months and years.

Summer reading

The summer break has arrived for teachers. For many, this will be a time to go to the beach, play sports, tidy the garden and visit friends. All good things for sure as some time of rest is vital. It is right that any hard-working and dedicated professional should feel tired at the end of a session. Given that teachers have longer holidays than other professionals, perhaps there should be some time earmarked for ‘serious’ reading designed to feed the mind and soul.

As we all know only too well, the educational world is awash with bullet-pointed policy statements and whirling presentations of action plans which often confuse as opposed to enlighten. Prolonged exposure to such media can leave one begging for mercy and in need of immediate intellectual sustenance. To counter this, we need to find a comfortable chair and feed our mind with some of the great books of the western canon. My own summer reading is the ‘Divine Comedy’ by Dante: much more meaningful to me now than when I first came across it as a teenage undergraduate studying Modern Languages. To return to these great sources of the western intellectual tradition can only be a moment of joy.

The teacher with the well-stocked mind  - whether in primary, secondary or tertiary education - is worth more than any number of bullet pointed action plans.

Teacher formation

It has been reported that Pope Benedict XVI will spend his summer holiday studying and writing. I wonder how many educators will dedicate some of their annual holiday to their ongoing formation. While many serving teachers rightly question the value of standard Continuous Professional Development (CPD) initiatives, it is necessary to separate this often meagre and unsatisfactory fare from the study of the great writers and thinkers on education and the history of ideas. It remains true that few teachers have been introduced to much educational thought beyond the standard promotion of writers of questionable value  (Piaget and Freire anyone?) yet there is so much awaiting those who are prepared to look beyond the hit-parade of the educational establishment.

How can this be done? One suggestion is for like -minded teachers to form small informal study groups which will share, discuss and, crucially, critique ideas from the history and philosophy of education. This approach is quite dissimilar to the 'performative' nature of much CPD and is but one small step on the journey to reclaim education from the narrow 'social science' influenced study of outcomes and locate it in its true home: the search for wisdom.

Teachers and educational reform

Schools and education systems in Britain have been under constant review for many decades and some would argue that teachers should have been more vociferous in challenging the many reforms which have been inflicted on them. Even today we hear voices saying that a teacher’s primary function is not to teach but to look after children’s well-being! To compound the matter, headline issues like the value of diversity, sustainability, globalisation and the prevention of global warming seem to have become the key points of reference of a modern curriculum. This is not to say that an exploration of such issues is not important but they have become totemic.

Some brave teachers have protested at the decline of 'traditional' education; many more are quietly and dispiritedly awaiting retirement and asking where it all went wrong. As a profession, teachers have much to contribute to educational debates and we need to hope that more teachers contribute -and are asked to contribute - to curricular reform.

One who has spoken out - and has been pilloried in return - is Katharine Birbalsingh. Perhaps this explains why so few challenge the prevailing orthodoxies. Her blog is worth a look.You might not agree with what she says but she does raise a number of points which are shared by many in education.

A challenge for education

In the previous post we considered the relationship between culture and education. In this post we will look more closely at how a rediscovery of ‘traditional’ education is a pre-requisite for a good society. (The deeper exploration of ‘good society’ is for another time.)

It is common to read of politicians discussing, for example, the link between education and ‘skills’ and how a good education system should align itself with the employment needs and industrial profile of a particular country.  Sadly, those who respond that education is a good in itself are portrayed as displaying elitist tendencies or of living in the proverbial ‘ivory tower’. When allied to possible accusations of being ‘exclusive’, this tactic is a convenient way of closing down debate in these aggressively inclusive times.

Those who wish to see the education system underpinned by the search for the good, the true and the beautiful need not despair. The search for ultimate meaning cannot be closed down by a narrow focus on the (still necessary) acquisition of basic skills. The human person needs the wider vision of the liberal arts and sciences in order to understand his or her place in society.

This traditional vision of education reminds us that we are not alone. We are nourished by the legacy of great minds, artists and artisans of the past. As humans carry the name and physical features of our ancestors, the human family can look back to and be inspired by those who sought the good, the true and the beautiful in their own time.  While we can admire and appreciate today the words of Dante and Shakespeare and the art of Michelangelo and Constable, as educators we ask ourselves two fundamental questions: will we pass on faithfully what we have been privileged to know; what will we contribute to the body of knowledge we have inherited?

This is the task we face. It is not easy. But face it we must.

Culture in education: some initial thoughts

The first post in this blog aligned education with culture. It is worthwhile dwelling a little on what we mean by culture in the context of education.

The principal understanding of culture in this blog revolves around the many processes and expressions of knowledge which have left their mark on communities. These ‘commanding heights’ of knowledge are reminders of the human person’s search for excellence, fulfillment and happiness. This search looks critically at the world around us while seeking to go beyond the merely material towards an ever greater understanding of the human person’s purpose on earth. What we call culture is the collective expression of these achievements.

To counter the obvious danger of fossilizing this collective knowledge and seeing culture as no more than a legacy from history, we need to ask ourselves what we can contribute to the ‘commanding heights’ of knowledge: this is a challenge for all educators.

Based on this broad definition, the place of culture in education would seem to be self-evident. Regrettably, this is not always the case. Much contemporary educational writing is rooted in the language of ‘innovation’ and undefined ‘relevance’ to the student: good education, on the other hand, introduces the student to what he or she does not know. Therein lies its beauty.