Critical Reflections on the Language of Neoliberalism in Education, 2021
The concept of 'ability' is the cornerstone of a contemporary educational discourse. It has evol... more The concept of 'ability' is the cornerstone of a contemporary educational discourse. It has evolved from the notion of 'intelligence' mobilised in an earlier era across the English educational system--and not only there. 'Ability' is today's IQ-ism, the prime lens through which pupils and students are regarded, the legitimising mechanism by which they are grouped, and the formal language in which they are known and addressed. The 'ability' discourse manifests and validates determinist assumptions about what learners can and can't do educationally. By constructing what it purports only to describe, for example through discriminatory educational stances and interventions, the 'ability' discourse confirms itself as 'true'. This chapter describes how 'ability' works within English state education, outlines its adverse effects, and offers a critique drawn from the practice of teachers who hold that human educability is unlimited.
Scores of articles in FORUM have engaged for almost sixty years with a range of substantive issue... more Scores of articles in FORUM have engaged for almost sixty years with a range of substantive issues relating to the grammar/secondary modern school divide, and to the movement for comprehensive reform. These articles constitute an invaluable resource for campaigners and historians. Here I highlight and introduce a half-dozen such articles drawn from a group of fifty listed elsewhere in this issue. All fifty are freely available in the online archive via the FORUM website.
FORUM: for promoting 3 to 19 comprehensive education, 2017
FORUM 59/3 EDITORIAL Against Segregated Education The postWar tripartite system of education in E... more FORUM 59/3 EDITORIAL Against Segregated Education The postWar tripartite system of education in England, based on the belief that there are three types of children-those academic, those technically-minded, and the rest-came into existence on April 1, 1945. I learned as much from Derek Gillard's article, published in this edition of FORUM, about the Labour Party's attitude to selective education, and it made me laugh. What day more fitting than April Fool's Day to inaugurate such a system? But the laugh (albeit, not the last laugh) is on me, and on those who think as I do that anyone's educability is unlimited, that children do not come in kinds, and that each child, each person, is (to risk a Levinasian phrase) 'without genre'. For the ideas which buttressed the postWar system of segregated schooling retain their virulence, and, a lifetime later, help secure the education system of our day. Grammar schools survive, to ensure that secondary modern schools remain. Grammar streams exist in schools called comprehensive, and the policy of setting or grouping by so-called 'ability' is more scandalous in the breach than the observance. Behind their pay-walls, private schools go about their business, subsidised from public funds through their charitable status, the tax-relief available in respect of fees, and via exemptions to VAT and business rate. Meanwhile, like a cat at the door, the question of just what it means for a school to be 'comprehensive', and hence just what being 'comprehensive' might mean for pedagogy, curriculum, and assessment, continues insistently to scratch. A century ago in the USA John Dewey considered at length the relationship between society and school, democracy and education. He prefaced his great work on that theme by noting how 'theories of knowing and moral development which were formulated in earlier social conditions... still operate, in societies nominally democratic, to hamper the adequate realization of the democratic ideal'. Twenty years before, the Supreme Court had recognised the legality of segregated schooling on the basis of 'race' (or rather, racism), a decision it took campaigners until 1954 to overturn. When 'Democracy and Education' was published, women in most states had yet to win the right to vote. Dewey nonetheless offered an optimistic vision:
The government's policy of helping pupils and students 'catch up' with 'lost lear... more The government's policy of helping pupils and students 'catch up' with 'lost learning' misconceives learning, and endorses pedagogical approaches based on this misconception. Whether or not to learn lies with the learner, so teaching is more properly understood as an act of faith in people rather than of delivery to them. Such a view has implications for the restoration of formal education after the pandemic.
The flip-side of teaching-as-delivery is assessment-as-ventriloquism. Required to describe pupils... more The flip-side of teaching-as-delivery is assessment-as-ventriloquism. Required to describe pupils and their progress through the language of Level Descriptors and exam grade criteria, any teacher risks losing her voice. This article notes the hierarchising and normalising intention of currently authorised versions of assessment, and looks for a countervailing practice and language.
In this article, members of the Learning without Limits research team describe the establishment ... more In this article, members of the Learning without Limits research team describe the establishment and work of the Learning without Limits network. This network brings together practitioners, school leaders, academics and others involved in education to further develop approaches to anti-determinist pedagogy, and to consider the issues which arise. We urge teachers, wherever possible, to do their thinking in the company of others, seeking help, sharing complexities, supporting each other by building collective power in schools, local networks and contacts with higher education institutions. (Swann et al 2012, p. 118) Learning without Limits is a body of research dedicated to developing approaches to teaching and learning free from the constraints imposed by fixedability thinking. It was, and continues to be, developed through partnerships between teachers and academics. This way of working ensures that the ideas and principles developed through the study of individual teachers and schools are rooted in authentic, real-life contexts. But sustained support is needed if a wider group of teachers and schools is to engage with, take forward and build innovatively on the insights derived from previous projects. In this article, we describe what we have been able to do, with very limited resources, to create conditions in which the kinds of professional learning needed to foster Learning without Limits can flourish.
A review of Fiona Carnie's book: 'Rebuilding Our Schools from the Bottom Up: Listening to Teacher... more A review of Fiona Carnie's book: 'Rebuilding Our Schools from the Bottom Up: Listening to Teachers, Children and Parents.'
As it grew safer for schools to reopen fully in spring 2021, FORUM convened a roundtable discussi... more As it grew safer for schools to reopen fully in spring 2021, FORUM convened a roundtable discussion to hear more about the experience of teaching and learning through the pandemic, and how that experience might help us rethink the education system. Melissa Benn chaired this wide-ranging and insightful conversation between Eliane Glaser, a parent and writer, Jim Hudson, a secondary teacher of citizenship and history, Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, and Patrick Yarker, the editor of this journal.
Critical Reflections on the Language of Neoliberalism in Education, 2021
The concept of 'ability' is the cornerstone of a contemporary educational discourse. It has evol... more The concept of 'ability' is the cornerstone of a contemporary educational discourse. It has evolved from the notion of 'intelligence' mobilised in an earlier era across the English educational system--and not only there. 'Ability' is today's IQ-ism, the prime lens through which pupils and students are regarded, the legitimising mechanism by which they are grouped, and the formal language in which they are known and addressed. The 'ability' discourse manifests and validates determinist assumptions about what learners can and can't do educationally. By constructing what it purports only to describe, for example through discriminatory educational stances and interventions, the 'ability' discourse confirms itself as 'true'. This chapter describes how 'ability' works within English state education, outlines its adverse effects, and offers a critique drawn from the practice of teachers who hold that human educability is unlimited.
Scores of articles in FORUM have engaged for almost sixty years with a range of substantive issue... more Scores of articles in FORUM have engaged for almost sixty years with a range of substantive issues relating to the grammar/secondary modern school divide, and to the movement for comprehensive reform. These articles constitute an invaluable resource for campaigners and historians. Here I highlight and introduce a half-dozen such articles drawn from a group of fifty listed elsewhere in this issue. All fifty are freely available in the online archive via the FORUM website.
FORUM: for promoting 3 to 19 comprehensive education, 2017
FORUM 59/3 EDITORIAL Against Segregated Education The postWar tripartite system of education in E... more FORUM 59/3 EDITORIAL Against Segregated Education The postWar tripartite system of education in England, based on the belief that there are three types of children-those academic, those technically-minded, and the rest-came into existence on April 1, 1945. I learned as much from Derek Gillard's article, published in this edition of FORUM, about the Labour Party's attitude to selective education, and it made me laugh. What day more fitting than April Fool's Day to inaugurate such a system? But the laugh (albeit, not the last laugh) is on me, and on those who think as I do that anyone's educability is unlimited, that children do not come in kinds, and that each child, each person, is (to risk a Levinasian phrase) 'without genre'. For the ideas which buttressed the postWar system of segregated schooling retain their virulence, and, a lifetime later, help secure the education system of our day. Grammar schools survive, to ensure that secondary modern schools remain. Grammar streams exist in schools called comprehensive, and the policy of setting or grouping by so-called 'ability' is more scandalous in the breach than the observance. Behind their pay-walls, private schools go about their business, subsidised from public funds through their charitable status, the tax-relief available in respect of fees, and via exemptions to VAT and business rate. Meanwhile, like a cat at the door, the question of just what it means for a school to be 'comprehensive', and hence just what being 'comprehensive' might mean for pedagogy, curriculum, and assessment, continues insistently to scratch. A century ago in the USA John Dewey considered at length the relationship between society and school, democracy and education. He prefaced his great work on that theme by noting how 'theories of knowing and moral development which were formulated in earlier social conditions... still operate, in societies nominally democratic, to hamper the adequate realization of the democratic ideal'. Twenty years before, the Supreme Court had recognised the legality of segregated schooling on the basis of 'race' (or rather, racism), a decision it took campaigners until 1954 to overturn. When 'Democracy and Education' was published, women in most states had yet to win the right to vote. Dewey nonetheless offered an optimistic vision:
The government's policy of helping pupils and students 'catch up' with 'lost lear... more The government's policy of helping pupils and students 'catch up' with 'lost learning' misconceives learning, and endorses pedagogical approaches based on this misconception. Whether or not to learn lies with the learner, so teaching is more properly understood as an act of faith in people rather than of delivery to them. Such a view has implications for the restoration of formal education after the pandemic.
The flip-side of teaching-as-delivery is assessment-as-ventriloquism. Required to describe pupils... more The flip-side of teaching-as-delivery is assessment-as-ventriloquism. Required to describe pupils and their progress through the language of Level Descriptors and exam grade criteria, any teacher risks losing her voice. This article notes the hierarchising and normalising intention of currently authorised versions of assessment, and looks for a countervailing practice and language.
In this article, members of the Learning without Limits research team describe the establishment ... more In this article, members of the Learning without Limits research team describe the establishment and work of the Learning without Limits network. This network brings together practitioners, school leaders, academics and others involved in education to further develop approaches to anti-determinist pedagogy, and to consider the issues which arise. We urge teachers, wherever possible, to do their thinking in the company of others, seeking help, sharing complexities, supporting each other by building collective power in schools, local networks and contacts with higher education institutions. (Swann et al 2012, p. 118) Learning without Limits is a body of research dedicated to developing approaches to teaching and learning free from the constraints imposed by fixedability thinking. It was, and continues to be, developed through partnerships between teachers and academics. This way of working ensures that the ideas and principles developed through the study of individual teachers and schools are rooted in authentic, real-life contexts. But sustained support is needed if a wider group of teachers and schools is to engage with, take forward and build innovatively on the insights derived from previous projects. In this article, we describe what we have been able to do, with very limited resources, to create conditions in which the kinds of professional learning needed to foster Learning without Limits can flourish.
A review of Fiona Carnie's book: 'Rebuilding Our Schools from the Bottom Up: Listening to Teacher... more A review of Fiona Carnie's book: 'Rebuilding Our Schools from the Bottom Up: Listening to Teachers, Children and Parents.'
As it grew safer for schools to reopen fully in spring 2021, FORUM convened a roundtable discussi... more As it grew safer for schools to reopen fully in spring 2021, FORUM convened a roundtable discussion to hear more about the experience of teaching and learning through the pandemic, and how that experience might help us rethink the education system. Melissa Benn chaired this wide-ranging and insightful conversation between Eliane Glaser, a parent and writer, Jim Hudson, a secondary teacher of citizenship and history, Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, and Patrick Yarker, the editor of this journal.
FORUM: for promoting 3 to 19 comprehensive education, 2022
This is a review of Geoffrey Marshall's book: 'What is Education about? And other articles', publ... more This is a review of Geoffrey Marshall's book: 'What is Education about? And other articles', published in 2021 by Blurb books
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