The educational pendulum
Alec Clegg
The public education service has always been aware of the dichotomy between mind and spirit, between intellect and personality, between the cognitive and the affective, between what have been called the loaves and the lilies, but unfortunately it has not practised its principles. It does not learn from experience, it makes the same mistakes over and over again — and occasionally it treats conventional recipes as if they were fresh inspirations. The pendulum swings, in fact, every quarter of a century or so.
In 1847 when there were some 30,000 children in London who lived by begging, and 50,000 children in Manchester who were not in school, the Reverend Moseley inspected a school in the village of Kings Somborne in Hampshire. He found there something closely akin to the Nuffield science syllabus; he found an extensive use of the environment as an aid to learning; he also discovered that the subjects of the school curriculum were skilfully integrated and the parents, however poor, were fully consulted about their children's work. On this last point for instance, Moseley said of the general practice of his day, 'We break off a fragment from our own education and give it to the poor man's child in charity, we consult neither his judgment in the matter nor his independence.' But of the practice of the headmaster at Kings Somborne he wrote, 'It is in this that Mr Dawes's success appears to Lie, he has shown his knowledge of the springs of opinion amongst the poor by consulting their independence and adapted the education he offers them to their wants by a careful study of their condition'.
The Kings Somborne school must have been one of the finest examples of a village school of those, or any other, days. It wag' a school which children enjoyed, which children from all social groups attended and in which the lilies mattered as much as the loaves. But, unfortunately, many other schools of the time were so bad that when a Government Commission was set up to investigate them, it decided to devise a 'common core' or a 'code' as it was then called, and to withhold money from schools whose pupils, regardless of their background or ability, could not achieve the prescribed standards.
The effect of this common core lasted well into this century: it was to make the schools neglect what could not be measured, and reject those children whose ability was so meagre that they could not earn the per capita grant. Inevitably a powerful reaction followed the routine dullness generated by the common core of those days. It was known as heurism, or learning by discovery, and one of its chief exponents was Professor Henry Armstrong who wrote what was an abbreviated 'Plowden' of his day in the form of one of Michael Sadler's Special Educational Reports The sort of thing he recommended can today be seen in many successful primary schools. As he put it, 'The whole policy of the teacher's duty. . is to train children to do', and to this end 'nearly all classrooms should be converted into workrooms in which children would readily discuss their work one with another and where the teachers would constantly move about noticing what is being done, and giving brief directions to one group of pupils after another'. And so it was that a hundred and thirty years ago, and also seventy years ago, we could have seen the attitudes and practices which we have recently developed in our own schools.
But this second determination to cultivate the spirit as well as the mind was again arrested by legislation. The 1902 Act made secondary education viable through public funds, and the problem was how to select the 10 per cent of the elementary school population who were worth the extra money. We invented the County Minor scholarship examination which later became the 'Eleven plus'. It was the foundation of our great examination industry, and it dictated to the elementary schools what they were to teach and how they were to teach it. Again, it was the loaves which could be weighed and measured which mattered. As Edward Thring of Uppingham had put it, we gave the children 'scraps of knowledge, the cold vitals of other men's trenchers which are not valuable and are not nice'. And he also emphasised the effect which any common core or imposed syllabus was likely to have: 'The weak are pushed into a corner and neglected, their natural tendency to shrink from labour is educated into despair by their being constantly reminded that their labour is no good.'
Early in this century the return of the pendulum, from what can be measured to what cannot, from the mind to the spirit, began in our infant schools with the efforts of people like Susan Isaacs and the Macmillan sisters, and it was supported by people like Bertrand Russell. It eventually gained support from the Hadow Report on the primary schools .which, like Armstrong, saw education in terms of activity and experience. The war held up developments but much progress was made by gifted teachers in our junior schools in the 'fifties and 'sixties. But then it was inevitable that, as a friend of mine put it, some teachers climbed on the band-wagon and could not play the instruments. There were schools which failed miserably with the new methods and they became what has been described, as 'a wet play-time all day.'
And so now the pendulum is swinging back to what can be measured. Assessment and evaluation will be the criteria, and it will be done with calm and compelling wisdom and allegedly in the best interests of the nation's schools. But as the years pass it will be found that — as Oscar Wilde put it — 'we shall have sold our birthright for a mess of facts'.
What we shall be doing is once more concentrating on what can be measured, and neglecting what cannot, and there are certain facts which we ought to bear in mind as we make this change. In the first place, we must accept that recent developments in the western world in which we live are mainly the creation of the orthodox and traditional education and training of this century, If we are too permissive a society, who are the permitters? And how were they educated? We have grave problems to face which go far beyond the mastery of what is examinable. We have seen, how in Germany many teenagers sympathise with the Baader Meinhof aims; and German education, which has been as orthodox and traditional as any, has produced them. Will ours eventually do the same? Are we going to create in our society a permanent layer of unemployed who, for their own peace of mind, will have to reject any connection between self-esteem and getting a job? If such youngsters are going to exist, will our traditional curriculum meet their needs?
We used to select 10 per cent of our elementary school pupils for advanced secondary education, and the rest, taking comfort from their majority, tolerated the situation. But if we select 70 per cent for continued education, will the 30 per cent win see themselves as rejects, be equally toicr. ant? And will the traditional basic cur riculum meet their needs? If we cosset then with 'community industry' and job crcat ioi schemes, shall we not for the weakest 0 them, provide yet more hurdles at whiel they will fail? And What about the blacks Some of the most brilliant of them will b rejected by prejudice, while the dull wh are neglected because of their dullness, wi suspect that they too have met with pr( judice. Will 'back to the basics' care for a this?
Are we, in fact, to develop an ever mot pronounced hierarchy of schools: Ind( pendent, Direct Grant, Aided Gramma Maintained Grammar and Con prehensive? On this issue we are still wt. behind the principles and vision of 1847. the Reverend Moseley put it, 'Education not a privilege to be graduated according men's social condition, but the right of all as much as it is necessary to the growth every man's understanding, and into win soever state of life it may please God to c him, an essential element in his moral we being'.
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