Academies

"Academies represent the privatisation of a public service (Ball 2007, Beckett 2007). In 1869the National Education League was launched in Birmingham. It called for an end to schools dependent on the charity of the wealthy, and for them to be run by elected local authorities and funded through the rates. By 1870 the League had more than one hundred branches,mostly in cities and drawing from trades unions and working men's organisations.Academies are a reversal of that historic gain for the working class in education; a return to a new form of Victorian charity (which does not exclude the possibility of a future transition to a profit-making role). They pose fundamental issues of democracy and of class politics." (Hatcher 2009)

Discuss

Salt Kids

Brand new site about children's poetry is here http://saltpublishing.com/kids/. Find out what you can learn about children's poetry and how to teach it, read it and write it.

I was at the 'Poetry Summit' meeting in London yesterday. I came away much more hopeful about the state of children's poetry publishing. The summit is a group of publishers, educationalists, arts funders, literacy organisations, retailers and others who feel strongly about the need for more poetry for children.

I'll be leading a workshop at this year's UKLA International Conference in Winchester with the poet Roger Stevens, funded by Macmillan, on behalf of the Poetry Summit. We will be having some fun with poetry and I'll be briefly explaining the work of the summit.

Twittering Classrooms

I'm grateful for Martin Waller's blog for this link to twittering in Orange class: http://twitter.com/ClassroomTweets This looks very interesting

New Government

The Governor of the Bank of England has warned that whoever forms the next government will become so unpopular, due to the cuts that are expected to be made in order to 'put right' the damage done by the banking institutions and the crisis in the economy, they could be out of power for a generation afterwards.

It's being called the 'Cleggarmeron Coalition' - the question is 'how long can it last?' - political careers seem forthright in the minds of our two new leaders as they worked out an agreement.

For whose best interests do they serve?

'Most parents want their children to have a traditional education, with children sitting in rows learning the Kings and Queens of England, the great works of literature, proper mental arithmetic, algebra by the age of eleven, modern foreign languages. That's the best training for the mind and that's the best way children will be able to compete' (Michael Gove - our new Education Secretary).

More on Chris Searle

If you want to read some very interesting articles on the work of Chris Searle, visit this site:

http://www.irr.org.uk/2009/october/ak000024.html

ITE should include the work of teachers like Searle as examples of those who chose to try radical approaches. Great opportunities for discussion and debate; wonderful opportunity to offer to widen student teachers' perspectives.

Fridge Door Writing

Here's a thought that comes from Chris Bigum:

Some fridge doors have children's writing mounted on them, using magnets. It is taken home by the author and displayed there for a day or two and then removed. Could this be perceived as writing completed at school and else where that is looking for an authentic audience - maybe because its denied one in its place of production...?

Chris Searle

I have been reading about the 'left wing' teaching of Chris Searle (pictured) in the 1970s. This is fascinating work. His approach has been said to be 'critical literacy as cultural action' by Lankshear and Knobel (2009). From what I have read of his work, Searle encourages the children in his care to draw on class instincts and consciousness to create the subjects and contexts for their learning to read and write. He also insists on the importance of the children having optimal possibilities to become proficient speakers, readers and writers of standard English to be able the engage effectively in critique of and intervention in issues and problems which effect those around them. To have:

'an understanding of basic grammar and sentence analysis, the power to spell correctly and to use punctuation effectively, to know and be able to construct myriad figures of speech, and be able to write sequentially and coolly while maintaining creative strength and imaginative energy' (1998:75)

This approach strikes me as a rationale close to that of Gramsci and Freire in this move to enable children to grasp the skills and knowledge that they argue is presently in the hands of the powerful or ruling class. I am given the feeling that Searle considers some forms of literacy and 'secondary discourse' (Gee 2007), and the texts associated with them, to have an almost autonomous value and power.

Lankshear and Knobel (2009) insists on calling the uses that Searle encourages the children to make of the literacy being taught, as 'cultural action' and presents his work within a postmodern analysis of contemporary education policy and practice. However, Searle's approach appears to me to be more settled around a particular political meta narrative - namely Marxism. The 'cultural action' that Searle is said to advocate seems much more to be 'class action'.