New Labour Leader

I think everyone was surprised that Ed won the leadership of the Labour Party. It seems to have upset many in the media and in other corners of the establishment.

Everyone thought that David would win and take on the Blairite cause of a 'New Labour'. Not so.

The Times showed their dismay:

"His politics are subtly, but significantly different than David's...he uses the 'left-speak' of equality, enjoys union affiliation more openly,and has said he would not accept private sector input into schools even if it produces better results"

Jonathan Kozol

In 1972 Jonathan Kozol from Boston in the US wrote a book called 'Free Schools' about how he and a group of like-minded individuals started a 'free school'. He writes:

'The term Free School is used very often, in a cheerful but unthinking way, to mean entirely different things and to define the dreams and yearnings of entirely disparate and even antagonistic individuals and groups. It is honest to say right from the start, that I am speaking mainly of one type of Free School and that many of the ventures which go under the name of Free School will not be likely to find much of their own experiences reflected here. At one end of the spectrum, there is the large, public school-connected, neighborhood-created and politically controversial operation...at the opposite extreme is the rather familiar type of relatively isolated, politically non-controversial and generally all-white rural free school. This kind of school is often tied in with commune or with what is described as an 'intentional community', attracts people frequently who, if not rich themselves have parents who are wealthy, and is often associated with a certain kind of media-promoted counter-culture '(p.7).

If you have an hour, watch the lecture he gives here. Kozol is a liberal, and although not talking about free schools here, one can discern that his perspectives on education are different than recent government views on education in the US and the UK and so his concept of free schools is very different to the one being promoted by the present government in the UK too. He is a good speaker.

Someone suggested to me the other day that the idea of a free school being run a by a group of local like-minded families may well be rather a smoke screen for business enterprise organisations taking over schools in the UK...

VOICES

The Centre for Language in Education (CLPE) have published their new anthology of children's poetry from Southwark in London called Voices. It is a superb book of children's poetry writing. The poems are accompanied by Phil Polglaze's wonderful photographs of the children. You can buy it from CLPE's web site. It was good to see work from children in one school that I once taught in.

As Morag Styles comments on the back of the book, it must be bought for student teachers courses everywhere to help demonstrate the power of children's writing. It must be bought for children's libraries too - after all, it really is children's literature in the true sense isn't it?

It started me thinking about children's poetry - I mean the work written by children for children not for children by adults - Vernon Scannell and others declared that children can't write poetry, well, what does this book tell us about that view?

BERA tomorrow

The British Educational Research Association are having their Conference at the University of Warwick. I'm giving a paper tomorrow at 8.30am with two other colleagues.

I drove here. M25 and M1 were horrible. M45 was a dream as normal.

I was greeted by a wonderful sunny evening in Coventry.

Our paper is on an unusual subject for me. We are discussing (in 20mins) our work on new leadership structures in schools - Federations and distributed leadership. This was a commisioned piece of research.

Reading Wars...again

Miriam Gross (pictured) has published her 'So Why Can't They Read' for the right wing Centre for Policy Studies. It has a forward by Boris Johnson. You can read it here: http://www.cps.org.uk/cps_catalog/why%20can Those who are familiar with the arguments of those motivated by the politics of the right will not be surprised by the arguments that Gross makes. As Bernstein described this educational position, she wants a 'visible pedagogy' with all the rigid discipline that comes with it. Gross hates 'child centered', 'play based' learning and demands a return to traditional values.

OK, so nothing new here. Of course, the new UK coalition government are driven by this same politics too so we must expect this pedagogy to be on the rise in the policy for state schools.

I have commented on this aspect of right wing politically driven education ideas before: how advocates for this position feel the need to provide environments in our schools that appear to model for children undemocratic, even despotic regimes. In this book for the Centre for policy studies, Gross describes the regime of a school that she contends is an example of a good school:

'Some of the new Academy schools, like Mossbourne in Hackney have imposed much greater discipline on their pupils, both inside and outside the classroom. Children are firmly assigned to sets according to ability in all subjects. There are strict rules for behaviour throughout the school: pupils are not allowed to talk to each other in corridors whiles walking from one classroom to another;mobile phones are proscribed, as is chewing gum'

The language is telling here: children are firmly assigned sets; there are strict rules. Notice how talk is outlawed in areas unregulated by authority. Once again I am in no doubt these are the school regimes recommended for poorer members of society or the working class. I would imagine, there are many (not all) private schools which try to demonstrate a more democratic environment which show trust in the children and respects their dignity and rights, perhaps allowing them to talk and discuss between lessons. Their wealthy parents would demand it. At the same time I know that some state schools have remained determined to model democracy too and have resisted the forms of school regimes that Gross believes we all need to experience.

Politics remains the driving force in education as in all things and Gross's book demonstrates the normal right win position.