I don’t have any data as evidence for what I am about to write here. I don’t even know where this will be heading. All I have are thoughts and feelings and opinions to fuel the meaning and message. And experience.

In my 30 years of teaching and the six years since, I have never known an Education Secretary to have an empathy with teachers and teaching. I’m not sure that any have had an empathy with what education is. I’m not going to explore nuances between empathy and understanding and other similar words that suggest a connect between their political roles and the occupation over which they presided – for me, all Education Secretaries were more or less bereft of any variation on the theme.

I’m sure that suggests a considerable arrogance on my part. So be it. But I never fully warmed to one, and positively despised most. Estelle Morris would be the only Secretary of State for Education who seemed to have some rapport with the teaching profession, in her active role then and since when she commentates on the current state of educational affairs.

I am prompted to write this today, not surprisingly, because of Nicky Morgan’s attendance yesterday as Education Secretary at the NASUWT Easter conference. I’m not going to bother to research actual quotes, nor any supporting nonsense taken from the recent White Paper: I will simply reflect on responses I had from hearing about her appearance, seeing quite a bit of this on various news coverage, and the thoughts and feelings and opinions I have been dealing with since.

One comment from one news report was the statement that Nicky Morgan had been ‘brave’ to attend the conference. That got me going, in my already annoyed response mode. I understand what was meant by the comment, but why is it ‘brave’ for an Education Secretary to have to speak to and defend what she represents in front of a significant representation of the profession over which she presides in considerable power?

There was one moment in Morgan’s speech to conference about the success of schools and, I think, how they would be even more successful when all are compelled to become academies which drew a chorus of disapproval. Not raucous by any means, but a clear resonance of disagreeing boos. Morgan smiled – that defensive smile which is a fleeting moment of embarrassed percipience, immediately demolished by an assurance born out of a total lack of empathy – and then stopped in her stride to chide teachers for their response. Her remonstrance was that they should celebrate their successes, missing entirely the point of their anger. And this is the point: she, like all those before her, has a total disconnect with the thoughts and feelings and opinions of teachers. Such a collective [and remarkably polite] disagreement ought to ring alarm bells in a politician, but no such mechanism exists inside an Education Secretary’s head.

It should be hard to be angry with and offended by Nicky Morgan as she appears quite harmless as a person, but it isn’t. She’s not odious like her predecessor Michael Gove, but I honestly feel she is simply stupid, and that grates – not as much, but in a different and still deeply disappointed way. You would think that after her shambolic appearance on the recent BBC Question Time [specifically over disability cuts announced in the budget] and more pertinently, the broad opposing backlash – including Tory councillors – to her announcement about the national academisation of schools, that she would not talk to teachers in such an arrogant, patronising way. But she did. And that is the problem: she is a politician, in this specific case, having no connection with the realities of teaching and yet an absolute ideological adherence to policies totally at odds with the thoughts, feelings and opinions of the majority in that profession.

But as I have said, this is nothing new. I also know I haven’t said anything new above. And whilst I have challenged similar disconnects from Education Secretaries and other government representatives over an entire teaching career to ultimately little avail, I can’t help myself. Better outside than swirling inside my head.

When Morgan was castigating teachers about their ‘successes’ reaction it reminded me of how in my early days of having to deal with increasingly ludicrous government interference in curriculum matters, teachers always did their best to make daft ideas work. I obviously talk as an English teacher dealing with dictates on the English curriculum. Perhaps some brief history is useful here.

When I say ‘early days’ I mean in the early to mid 1990s, but as I said, I’m not going to undertake any detailed research here: this is from memory, seared into my whole teaching being from profound experience, but not documented by chronological, informed external details. When I started as a teacher in 1980, I joined a great secondary school with great students and a great Head of English in a great part of Devon. There’s no need to detail this further. My first few years were all about getting the job done to the best of my ability – a practical reality. I was full of my own English teaching ideology – quite a bit being about literary theory [!] – but I wasn’t adversely affected by government interference/legislation.

I think this was a time of relative freedom anyway, in terms of teaching, but regardless of how true this was, I had the day-to-day to occupy my attention and efforts. I think the first significant Government intervention affecting me was the Clegg [?] Report and action on teacher’s pay, which included an increase!

The first significant external impact on my teaching was actually through an HMI report Bullock Revisited in 1982 [I did cheat for that date]. Without entering into the ever-expanding universe of nostalgic reverie here, one of the main observations in this was about the positive impact on teaching and learning through oracy [speaking and listening]. In a nutshell, this was such an exciting and empowering revelation and I became actively involved in following its ideology in practice as well as dissemination to fellow professionals – at a time when we indulged in this kind of dynamic sharing.

To be honest, I don’t recall much that is similar around this time, apart from my continued excitement and engagement as an English teacher, both in my positive school environment and in a positive local authority advisory environment. Therefore, the next significant external impact was the Cox Report on English [1989, just cheated again]. Whilst this in some respects became the first negative interference in terms of legislating for changes with which I disagreed, many of us in the job at the time recognised the common sense of its overall focus and attempts to provide outlines and structures for the teaching of English nationally.

Which brings me back to those ‘successes’ made by teachers. It was through English teachers, for example, taking certain if ill-conceived elements from Cox – and from subsequent related suggestions and dictates – and by sheer hard work shaping these into positive outcomes that they then and ever since have made a ‘success’ out of the nonsense over which successive Education Secretaries have presided and in many cases made their ideological warfare on teachers and state education.

Of course the most insidious of this warfare was exemplified by the SATs introduced in 1991 at Key Stage 1. Perhaps predictable as an educational need but more-so a political necessity [having to demonstrate control], the implementation of national testing was never as even remotely useful as it might have been because it was predicated then on a complete and cynical lack of trust in teacher assessment, and therefore precluded serious teacher involvement in design and implementation. When Key Stage 3 SATs were introduced by Labout in 1998 [yes, I have…] that was the death-knell of a positive teaching environment for me [not my school, but on a wider level], and the inevitable target culture that followed nailed the proverbial shut.

So when Morgan remonstrates teachers for not celebrating their success in making teaching work, the irony thunders for professional with my history of experience, and those even new to the job. And when Morgan preaches about how academisation will offer teachers ‘autonomy’ that too thunders like a shit-storm because we all know that continuing SATs in primary schools and GCSEs at secondary level – all government controlled [think of the current SPaG debacle; and Gove’s personal manipulation of some GCSEs] – are the singular driving force of what gets done in the classroom: as far from being autonomous as one can get.

And I haven’t even mentioned Inspections….

So I have arrived at where I wasn’t entirely sure I would be and at best I have unraveled the swirling in my head onto the page in what I hope is some cogent and sensible effort to explain the thoughts and feelings and opinions of someone who did teach for 30 years, and never respected a single Education Secretary – in the ideological way I would have adored.

Snowflake students should feel once soft crystals
fall like shards, writing this razorword in all their
poems to slice out empathy and the urge to have a
knowing touch with language. Snowflake students need
to speak with hail and ice, rub sleet in their tone of
voice so we hear them spit out the things in blood.
When playing outside, looking for the flight of birds,
snowflake students must search out the hawk before
the fieldfare, hear the killer screech as a clarion call
much louder than winter’s song, forget about the
return of a chorus in Spring. Reading classic novels,
snowflake students will understand that human misery
is just history and not a lesson for learning, not a
tale to right wrongs or find humanity in pretty words.

News erupted yesterday across all national media outlets that a teacher at a school in Fergysville, Devon, instructed his year 9 students at the local Academy school to design satirical posters of Tom Bennett, the DfE discipline and behaviour expert, as well as make videos about the guru’s ideas on how school pupils should be educated. We tracked the teacher at the centre of this controversy to his home also in Fergysville where he agreed to give us an exclusive interview today.

Teacher Michael Glenn told us,

‘Yes, it was the last week before the Easter break and rather than show my classes the film of The Ten Commandments like I have done for the past 30 years around this time, I decided to encourage them to pursue some other activities. I’d always shown the DeMille film really as a kind of personal whim because it is very much about sacrifice and judgement and that seemed to reflect a teacher’s job. However, we had been undertaking research on historical world Tsars, past and present, exploring how this kind of dictatorial leadership compares with our rightly coveted Democracy, and in the students’ group-work research they came up with the name Tom Bennett as a current one here in Great Britain. I pointed out they actually found a political Czar – spelt with a c and z – but let this misnomer go as a positive response to independent learning  and allowed them to run with their self-discovery, suggesting in the circumstances they bring out the comedy of the error. They all then chose the tasks they wanted to use to represent their thoughts and feelings and  most decided to make group posters about Tom Bennett’s role as an un-elected DfE advisor.

To be honest, I’d also set a similar task for my GCSE Media Studies group, but I don’t think I should say much more about that as it is one of the last surviving teaching groups at this level having been almost completely banned nationally. Successive governments haven’t liked how this subject teaches critical thinking because it encourages students to think critically about all kinds of things, like governments.’

When asked how these Easter lessons became national news, Michael Glenn further informed us,

‘A parent had complained to the school about posters and films being made in lessons [they’d read in The Daily Mail or The Telegraph, apparently, these weren’t educational] and then rang the DfE to complain as well. The school got a phone call from someone at the DfE called Mr Drafter who told the Head about what I was doing and explained it had to be stopped immediately. As an Academy school my Head was a little surprised because he told this spokesperson that he thought we had autonomy to teach what we wanted to teach, but Mr Drafter informed him, as the Head later informed me, that wasn’t always the case and this was one of those many cases. Something like that. Anyway, I was instructed to stop and had to spend the rest of the week before Easter break teaching my students how to use exclamation marks! I guess someone then reported the story of this to the media. Probably one of my media studies students, the little ironic so and sos!’

Having contacted the DfE to seek confirmation of Michael Glenn’s story, all we could discover in addition before going to press was from a recorded message on the compulsory academisation of all schools and how this was being legislated to deliver national autonomy to educators.

[Read background story here]

Originally posted January, 2013:

Foreplay

I haven’t read 50 Shades of Grey – no I haven’t – and I don’t have to as it has been quoted or broadcast enough in the media for me to have picked up a strong dose of its content, but I bet it isn’t as sexy as the following:

And now that I have aroused your interest with this piece of poetic foreplay, my serious point on the sensuality of writing is how Ian Seed’s opening vignette in his excellent Threadbare Fables appeals not  because of its sexual suggestiveness but because of the humour that takes us further into its possibilities.

The prose-poem fables in this immediately accessible and engaging pamphlet remind me of Matthew Sweeney’s absurd and surreal poetic storytelling. What I like about Seed’s is how his too deal in mystery and unknowing, and though suggesting so much they never define or finalise. They are a wonderfully ‘easy’ read, and by this I mean you can cover them all quickly – if you wish: you might want to speculate and ponder after each individual tale – but they then stick with you, like images swiftly seen but leaving a strong impression, and you instinctively imagine afterwards and for some time resolutions or even reasons for what preceded their events.

There are a few recurring themes/ideas – a dying/dead father; taking an unexpected route – but overall there is a breadth of genuinely imaginative yet brisk storytelling.

New NB These prose poems can be found and are available in Ian Seed’s collection The Identity Papers here.

NB Initially published by likethispress, this chapbook is now out of print, but if you go here there is the possibility that a copy can still be purchased [read down a bit] but I do not know; and also since the initial posting, there was a recent article in The Guardian here about how charity shops can no longer accept/accommodate donated copies of 50 Shades... having been inundated!

Anyone can play!

What you need, and what to do:

• the will not to be amazed
• a computer
• this quote: An education department spokesperson said: “Pupils are already benefitting hugely from the academies programme and thanks to our reforms more of them than ever before are going to good or outstanding schools.
• put quote in search engine
• see if you find any more than ones below
• do yourself for all future DfE Drafters comments on why national academisation is a brilliant idea without any real evidence to that effect

Following on from my previous post, I have found the DfE Drafters quote [above] in the following:

• Evening Standard
• The Independent
• Leicester Mercury
• Times Educational Supplement
• Cambridge News
• Kingston Guardian
• The Guardian

NB A search engine will correct the DfE spelling of benefitting to benefiting. Like it!

I caught up with episode 2 Obamacare from the excellent BBC2 programme Inside Obama’s White House last night, and of the many details revealed about the process of achieving that healthcare goal was how the Republican party acquired and ran its opposition with the counter tagline/soundbite government takeover – born out of political consultant Frank Luntz’s meeting with a group of swing voters. It was a soundbite Republicans used incessantly to attack Obamacare proposals – and it had a significant negative effect – especially when picked up by the notorious Tea Party.

I was struck immediately with recalling how the Tory party has consistently relied on similar soundbite repetitions throughout its most recent campaign to become the government and in all subsequent comments on any initiatives and policy proposals – all of which are underpinned by the long term economic plan mantra, with other looped additions.

This is hardly new, nor exclusive to the Tories, but they have been masters at the use of this rhetorical device, most recently when Cameron managed to make a whole second paragraph of such in his response to Ian Duncan’s Smith’s resignation letter.

I mention now because the same ruse is being used by the drafters at the DfE in responding to any criticisms of the government’s current plans to implement the compulsory academisation of all state schools. The Guardian today reports how even Tory councillors are opposed to these plans, and in response – as I posted here yesterday – the drafter’s dodge has been much in evidence, as quoted in the article:

An education department spokesperson said: “Pupils are already benefitting hugely from the academies programme and thanks to our reforms more of them than ever before are going to good or outstanding schools.

“The changes we are making will put control back in the hands of teachers and school leaders – those who know their pupils best – making sure every single child has the opportunity to fulfil their potential.”

Interesting article here in today’s TES about teachers voicing their opposition to national academisation of all state schools, with the additional news that shadow education secretary Lucy Powell will be addressing this issue: I look forward to a cogent and convincing challenge from Labour. I can’t say I do so with confidence, but it is necessary and I will be hopeful of an articulation that can build on the clear public and professional desire for a challenge.

Of more concern in this article is the response to the ‘protests’ against the White Paper announcement on academisation from the DfE. It is a TES quote, but there is no reason to doubt, and the other factor that one cannot doubt is how the unattributed spokesperson has to be a DfE ‘drafter’, someone who, in my experience, knows and understands absolutely nothing about education, but is employed to express and defend government policy against anyone who questions or challenges this. It is a simple but repugnant form of regurgitation for two reasons: it is a meaningless expectorant, and it is insulting to those who do question and challenge from a base of actual experience and understanding.

I have written about these drafters and their responses to me here and here.

With full acknowledgement and thanks to Gary Kaye and the band [and songwriter of original melody, TV Smith]:

I’m sitting in the teaching hub, trying to plan my week
But the spreadsheet needs some data and the raise on line looks bleak
I’m looking at my colleagues and much to my surprise
They all require improvement and then I realise
I’m looking through Nicky Morgan’s eyes

I’m standing in the playground with a massive bunch of keys
I’m giving them to businessmen who run academies
I don’t believe that teachers should be properly qualified
Experience counts for nothing and then I realise
I’m looking through Nicky Morgan’s eyes

The teachers are all cowering and fearing for their jobs
And Ofsted are marauding like a bunch of mindless yobs
I look into a mirror, I scream and I despise
I hate what I am seeing and then I realise
I’m looking through Nicky Morgan’s eyes

Surely The Guardian isn’t running scared? Warwick Mansell’s article in today’s edition about axing parent governors [well, you have to search…] is important reading, but as of a few minutes ago there are only three ‘comment’ responses to this: one in praise of Mansell – deserved – and the other one of the same sort of time ruing the lack of comments. There are two ‘replies’ – both by me: I am omahastan when visiting.

I thought perhaps the tragic news of the Brussels’ bombings was responsible for ‘relegating’ his article, but pride of place is given to a Hot cross buns taste test feature so I don’t think that is the reason….

It is ironic. As I mention in one of my replies, we are having a ripe focus on Education at the moment because of the recent budget announcements on national academisation and subsequent debates regarding and as tangents to this, so Mansell’s article on that other bombshell that parents are to be removed from being school governors deserves prominence. I fear this education focus will wither quickly, like so many other fleeting moments of angst before. That was my other point, sadly seeming true. Since my replies this morning, there has been one further comment.

For anyone interested, here are Warwick Mansell’s recent articles. They all deserve reading, and his work supported. Someone has to expose, for example, how much leaders of academy chains can earn. Greedy guts.