Write Away

Another great web site that provides information about the best children's literature available and the authors who create it is the 'Write Away' web site. Perfect, if you are a language coordinator. You can find it here: http://www.writeaway.org.uk/

United Kingdom Literacy Association

Those who are new to this blog and to education studies may well find the United Kingdom Literacy Association (UKLA) website a useful site to visit. You can find it here: http://www.ukla.org/ I am the Kent and Surrey representative.

UKLA have their international conference every year. This year it is in Winchester. They always have interesting speakers, workshops and a wonderful bookshop. The weekend of the conference is particularly for teachers. More information on the web site.

The Safe-Guarding Inspectors

The new school inspection regime is worthy of comment. In a primary school there will be two inspectors - one to inspect the school's teaching and learning and one to inspect the school's capacity to 'safe-guard' the children.

Should the school be perceived as neglecting the safe-guarding of the children in any way then they can not receive a good inspection report.

The notion of safe-guarding children that ofsted is using is the following

"The Government has defined the term ‘safeguarding children’ as:
‘The process of protecting children from abuse or neglect, preventing impairment of their health and development, and ensuring they are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care that enables children to have optimum life chances and enter adulthood successfully.’"

Ofsted offer a whistle-blower hotline for public service employees to inform them of any 'mis-conduct' they see.

'Race to the Bottom' Savage Cuts

Is it me, or is it rather curious that all the main political parties are boasting about the extent that they intend to make public spending cuts?

Is this really the way to attract votes? Their rush to out-do each other over the cuts they want to make has been called a 'race to the bottom'.

It was the tax payer who has provided the money needed to prop up the banks. Did I also read, that bankers were back to giving themselves huge bonuses...?

I try to avoid overtly party political comment on this blog, but this strikes me as remarkable.

A Culture's Culture

I am writing a book about literacy and it's political background. I find splurging ideas out on this blog can help in the process of understanding the different positions. So forgive what comes next...

Marxists would support the view that the cultural life-styles of working class people should be respected and valued.

Yet, Marxism would argue that the cultures that have been developed within the working class have come about because of the relations that have been produced through the organisation of production within a capitalist economy. The working class are an oppressed group.

For Marxists, Capitalism is one important stage in the development of human societies. The next stage - a classless society - brought about by a revolution led by the working class would eradicate the state and the exploitation by one class upon another. Marxism wants to see the end of relations of production that make a working class and a middle class and with it bring in a new society where all can engage in the riches of a human culture.

No one can know what this culture will be like, but it will mean that all will have access to the fruits of humanity's scientific and artistic potential. What is certain, for Marxists, is it will not be a 'working class culture', that will never exist - not a culture that belongs to the working class. Nor would it be desired. The culture that currently corresponds with groups of working class people under capitalism cannot be looked at in a particularly favourable light by Marxists. It is simply the culture attributed to working class people under capitalism. In a sense it belongs not to workers but to the ruling class of society, but will ultimately be swept away when the next phase of human development is brought about. A culture linked to the working class could only be good in so far that it forms part of the seeds of capitalism's own destruction. It has no universal validity and it will perish.

In my reading of Marxist literature I see that Trotsky, one of the two leaders of the Russian Revolution, believed the working class to be a 'nonpossessing class' - that they own nothing - and who are not given access to the forms of culture that the more wealthy have. I shall read on...

Film and Education

I am about to start teaching on a course called 'Film and Education'. It is concerned with how film has represented teachers, schools and education. It is based on the belief that it is possible to learn about many of the issues that surround education through watching films.

Often teachers have been represented as charismatic figures who have the means to tackle all the problems that school students face, forming special relationships with them and persuading those in the toughest of circumstances to make the right choices in school and in life.

What's your favorite film about school?

New Term

I'm on my way to Cambridge to lead, with Professor Tony Booth, the faculty's Writers' Workshop. This is a superb opportunity to work alongside colleagues who want to begin writing in their academic careers and Cambridge is a great place to 'get away from it all' to start that process.

Tony and me have been running these trips for a number of years and it gets more and more popular the longer we run it and as word has spread.

The poster, by the way, comes from the USA - seems to suggest that teachers are recognised as holding a unique form of social power that should be feared by those who rule society...Teachers may look very wholesome and innocent but...