A libertarian inclined blog for teachers and learners of all ages. Comments, emails and links to other educational stuff welcome.
Recent Comments
-
Headteacher job london on Teacher as hero
-
Tony on Exam results in South Africa are bad but the exams themselves may actually be quite good
-
suresh on Police academy
-
MBA Lady on How to learn how easy a language will be to learn
-
Jack Courtney on "There aren't very many jobs for teenagers ..."
-
MBA Lady on "There aren't very many jobs for teenagers ..."
-
Kim Ramsey on Higher paid teachers – bigger classes – better results
-
Procerin Reviews on Higher paid teachers – bigger classes – better results
-
Mia on How Chinese soldiers are trained to keep their heads up
-
Logic Prevails on How Chinese soldiers are trained to keep their heads up
Monthly Archives
-
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
Most recent entries
- Category error!
- The SATs fiasco makes the cover of Private Eye
- Summer holiday
- Grilled Balls
- Party talk
- Lowest bidder
- Another teaching blog
- Unstructured
- “Parents should not rely on SATs …”
- Let the feral kids get jobs
- Rock and roll cricketers?
- The many degrees of Robert Mugabe
- Making the students love ID cards
- The genetics of autism
- Meeting a celeb at a posh school doesn’t count
Blogroll
A don's life
children are people
Dare to Know
Educating Outside The Box
Elemental Mom
Ewan McIntosh's edu.blogs.com
Green House by the Sea
HE&OS
It Shouldn't Happen to a Teacher
Joanne Jacobs
kitchen table math, the sequel
Life WIthout School
Mr. Chalk
Mortarboard
O'DonnellWeb
school of everything
Stay at home dad
Successful Teaching
The ARCH Blog
The Core Knowledge Blog
The DeHavilland Blog
To Miss with Love
Websites
-
A-Z Home's Cool
dyslexics.org.uk
Education Otherwise
Educational Heretics Press
E.G. West Centre
European-American University
Homeschool World
Independent Schools Council
Indian Moms
Kumon
New Model School Company
Reading Reform Foundation
Ruth Miskin Literacy
South West Surrey Home Education
TES
The Supplementary Schools Project
Mainstream Media education sections
BBC
Guardian
Independent
Telegraph
Times
Syndicate
RSS 1.0
RSS 2.0
Atom
Feedburner
Categories
Adult education
Africa
Architecture
Asia
Australasia
Bias
Bits from books
Bloggers and blogging
Books
Boys
Brian teaches
Bullying
Business education
Canada
China
Class size
Comprehensive schools
Compulsion
Computers
Consent
Crime
dcsf
Diet
Discipline
Distance learning
Drama
Economics
Educational memories
Equality
Europe
Examinations
Exclusion
Famous educations
Gerald Hartup
Girls
Globalisation
Grammar
Grammar schools
Higher education
History
Home education
How the mind works
India
Initiatives
Intelligence
Languages
League tables
Learning by doing
Links
Literacy
Maths
Medicine
Middle East
Movies
Music
OFSTED
Parents
Physical education
Play
Podcasts
Politics
Primary schools
Qualifications
Quote unquote
Reading
Real life
Religion
Russia
Safety
School choice
Science
Scotland
Self education
Sex education
Socialising
South America
Sovietisation
Spelling
Sport
Targets
Teacher training
Technology
Television
Testing
The internet
The private sector
This blog
Three Rs
Training
Truancy
UK
USA
Video
Violence
Vouchers
West Indies
Other Blogs I write for
CNE Competition
CNE Intellectual Property
Samizdata
Transport Blog
Brian Micklethwait
(the personal blog)
Previous entry: Some stay-at-home dads do badly
I am immediately rediscovering one of the best things about specialist blogging, which is that I am immediately coming across more people whom I disagree with, writing about that same specialisation. Richard Craig, for instance:
The IPPR report had shown categorically that “faith schools” are socially unrepresentative of the areas that they serve and that they covertly select pupils to screen out disadvantaged and badly behaved pupils.
Craig says that these faith schools should accept whoever is allocated to them, and not discriminate. But, quite apart from anything else, what about their faith? Aren’t they even to be allowed to pick, say, the children of devout Christians, for example, over the children of devout atheists who likewise want to cherry pick, by grabbing the good education but setting aside the God stuff? Why should Christians be made to submit to such arrangements?
My prejudice is that all worthwhile institutions screen out people they don’t want, and that most of them are quite open about this, because it is perfectly acceptable to all, if often also hurtful and frustrating to the unlucky ones screened out, that they should do this. How else can these institutions set about accomplishing their purposes and keep the people who are already enthusiastic participants happy and productive? But schools are widely talked about as not things that should be allowed to discriminate in whom they accept. Instead, they are regarded as parts of a national system which any educator participates in, as a sort of public servant, subject to national supervision. If you an educator, you can’t be allowed to pick and choose your pupils, because that will upset the national system. Cherries may not be picked, because rotting cherries must - must - be rescued, and absolutely not left to rot. Each school must scoop up all the pupils in their allocated area or category. No child must be left behind. I believe that I do understand the logic of this.
But I don’t agree with it. I see the “national system” of education working best if it instead becomes the aggregate of everyone involved doing only what they consent to. Schools should not have to accept pupils they don’t like the look of. Teachers should not have to teach pupils they can’t be doing with. Pupils who dislike particular teachers shouldn’t have to submit to them. Most of all, nobody making and acting on these judgments should be obliged by anything other than their own interest in being thought reasonable to explain or justify such decisions before they take effect, any more than I have to explain why I avoid a particular shop or restaurant because I don’t fancy the look of it. This is how the national adult economy works, and, compared to the “national system” - i.e. the bad national system - bits where the consent principle isn’t followed and where everyone just does as they are told (or at least goes through some of the motions of that), consent world works quite well. Yes, the lower reaches of consent world are pretty horrible. But the lower reaches of those bad national system arrangements are at least as bad, and the average level of accomplishment, by the middle ranks, of bad, non-consenting national systems is woeful compared to the average achievements of the consenting bits of the world. All the progress these days, all the quality increases, price cutting, market expanding, excitement generating stuff is being done in consent world, along with lots of failure and disappointment of course. Large swathes of the bad, unconsenting national education system we now have are a demoralised slough of despond by comparison.
Many faith schools now operate mostly outside this slough of despond. Long may that continue.
As to the other common objection to faith schools, that they may be inculcating and spreading a toxic and threatening faith, well, the answer to that is not to pervert the entire education system just so that these particular toxic schools may be disinfected. Particular toxic faith schools should be dealt with as the special cases that they are. Further acts of discrimination are required, in other words, between toxic and non-toxic. If the principles that are proclaimed while toxic faith schools are being detoxified also mean that other non-toxic faith schools have to be shut down or otherwise unnecessarily intruded upon, then further work is needed on those principles.