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| Wasted: Why Education Isn't Educating by Frank Furedi Frank Furedi launches an excoriating attack on our education system and its failings, says Rafael BehrA few years ago, I visited a school in Leicester that inspectors had declared to be outstanding in the provision of classes in "citizenship". This was a subject only recently invented by government in response to nagging national anxiety over "social cohesion". No one seemed to have any idea how, pedagogically speaking, to make citizens. Except, apparently, in the Midlands.I was told how the citizenship "agenda" was woven through the rest of the curriculum – sequins of political liberalism sewn on to the fabric of other subjects. One history teacher explained to me how she had met her citizenship obligations by placing al-Qaida terrorism in the context of CIA support for Afghan mujahideen during the cold war. A 14-year-old pupil proved he had internalised this long view by explaining that, while the 9/11 and 7/7 terrorist attacks were bad, they were also, in a sense, "payback". A statutory duty to inculcate civic mindedness had somehow equipped British teenagers with a pseudo-jihadi notion of terrorist murder as historical quid pro quo.That Leicester classroom came back to me when reading Wasted, Frank Furedi's onslaught on schooling policy. Furedi devotes several pages to the ill-conceived citizenship agenda, but as just one example of the way our classrooms have become inadvertent laboratories in queasy liberal social engineering. Teachers are also supposed to instil such useful attributes as environmental consciousness, emotional candour and respect for racial and cultural diversity. Some of these goals are made explicit in the curriculum for children as young as two.Furedi does not necessarily object to the values implied by those requirements (although he is oddly dyspeptic about green issues). His core argument is that the aspiration to fashion children's souls according to political criteria is not really education at all; at least, not as he thinks that word should be understood.No one could reasonably claim that education has suffered from a lack of political attention in Britain. It was famously Tony Blair's top three priorities before the 1997 election. There has been some new law or initiative every year since: literacy hour, "Every Child Matters", academy schools, Early Years Foundation Stage, the "Gifted and Talented" programme, personalised learning etc. This process, Furedi argues, signals a politicisation of education that makes schools responsible for the correction of social ills. As a result, their proper function – as transmitters of the accrued wisdom of humanity from one generation to the next – is squeezed out.The curriculum, in Furedi's analysis, has come to be seen by policymakers as an easy tool for the correction of wider cultural and behavioural problems. Obesity epidemic? Teach children about healthy eating. Too much teenage pregnancy? More sex education. By extension, teachers have become mediators in a process of socialisation – policing "values" rather than directing thoughts; a secular political clergy with the education secretary as pope. Pedagogy, meanwhile, has come to look more like therapy, with motivational and psychological techniques coming to the fore, along with a fashionable horror of allowing children to get bored. Everything must be "relevant".That imperative has, according to Furedi, a pernicious consequence. If schools must always adapt their material to contemporary circumstances, education becomes simply a mechanism for coping with modernity. This is manifest in a shift in emphasis from traditional subjects to a more functional, utilitarian agenda: equipping children with "skills to learn", responding to globalisation and obligatory use of IT in the classroom.But if education is about negotiated surrender to economic change, the corpus of knowledge possessed by teachers is, by dint of their age, obsolete. Whatever adults know is old-fashioned, prejudiced and a barrier to learning instead of a precious commodity to be passed on.That observation is central to Furedi's thesis: the current fashion for "child-led" and "personalised" learning is part of a misguided philosophy that is corroding intergenerational relations. Children are taught to mistrust teachers; teachers are taught to mistrust themselves. No one has confidence to extol or exert the simple authority of adulthood and scholastic knowledge. Discipline breaks down, leading to moral panic and even greater pressure on schools to fix the "broken society".Furedi build his case methodically and argues it carefully, if not elegantly. He supports it with quotes (shrewdly selected, sometimes repeated) from politicians and educationalists. Frustratingly, he tends to give credence to anecdote and sensational news stories that support his account, but not to data – exam results for example – that might nuance the picture. That makes it hard to know if the problem he describes is a tendency on the margins of education or a crisis intrinsic to it.But the analysis rings true, as does Furedi's defence of a subject-based curriculum and a philosophy of education that recognises the duty of one generation to impart a canon of knowledge to the next. Forget the management jargon and digital neophilia. Let children be inspired by teachers' faith in the great past achievements of humanity.Furedi admits it is a small "c" conservative view, but he rejects the charge that it is elitist. If, in the past, only the elite had such an education, the policy challenge is how to extend it to all, not how to make it seem worthless by denouncing it as irrelevant in order to teach something easier instead. None of that solves the problem of how to turn children into citizens. But then, perhaps, if they have a good enough education, they can work it out for themselvesSocietyRafael BehrFrank Furediguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Poem of the week: Gascoigne's Lullaby by George Gascoigne The Elizabethan writer manages to fuse a geriatric lullaby and a love poemAs novelists and readers blush at fictional failures to rise to the challenge of writing sexily about sex, let us celebrate on Poem of the Week the wit, lyricism and, yes, subtle eroticism of Gascoigne's Lullaby. At once, that personalising title issues a warning. The Elizabethan memento mori (of which George Gascoigne's poem is a species) is as unlikely to be autobiographical as the average Petrarchan sonnet of that period. Still, when a poem's perspective seems especially distinctive, it's tempting, and perhaps justified, to look for personal reference in it, as we do when we seek the identity of Shakespeare's "master-mistress" or read Wyatt's poignant lyrics in the light of his relationship with Anne Boleyn. However, it's worth remembering that in 1572 when the poem was collected in A Hundred Sundry Flowers, George Gascoigne was most probably not yet 50. He could have been syphilitic, or otherwise infirm, of course. On the other hand, his narrator may be as unreliable as his erection.Gascoigne was a restlessly innovative writer. Here, he has spliced genres and produced something new, amusing and beautiful – a geriatric lullaby which is also, virtually, a love-poem. Assonance is revelled in, but perfectly controlled. The frequent repetition of the word "lullaby" is a master-stroke and ensures that the poem has all the onomatopoeic lilt of a true lullaby. The liquid consonant, L, infiltrates the sound-scape. We frequently meet with "still" and "stilled": "will" is three times a rhyme-word, picked up twice by "still" and once by "skill". And we also have "beguile/ beguiled", that lovely old word meaning "deceive (d)". Further alliterative effects include the repeated "w" sounds in the first and final stanzas. These sound effects are often delicately humorous, but more than that, they act as gentle brakes, pulling the poem back a little from the swift on-rush of its metre. And, of course, that braking motion reminds us of the theme: renunciation.The lulling of sexual energies leads the poet to suggest that he has become womanly as well as babyish (and old). But, whatever the state of his hormones, the speaker draws on other sources of creative energy. Gascoigne's line, despite the consonantal brake pads, never loses its robustness. There is no flaccidity, even if "little Robin" has gone to sleep.Sensual joy is not only present in the sounds; its recollection glimmers in such lines as, "Full many wanton babes have I/ Which must be stilled by lullaby" – a couplet which conjures both a scattering of illegitimate offspring, and a posse of grown-up "babes" who couldn't keep their hands off the speaker. From this moment on, it seems as if the word "lullaby" becomes, as a verb, a mischievous synonym for "make-love-to". As a noun, it hints at self-pleasuring. Whenever it occurs, it creates a motion of playful fondling.As far as I know, the poem has not been set to music, but it evokes the melodies of many traditional cradle-songs. Such tunes are often in a minor key. Is this because the genre is linked to the nativity, and Mary's premonition of the death of the Christ-child? Or is it because all child-birth was once a potent reminder of mortality? This poem's cadences carry mournful echoes, but the touch is like a skilled lutenist's, light and charming.Gascoigne's farewell to sex, after all, may not be final. Sleepers awake – sometimes with an erection. "And when you rise with waking eye, /Remember Gascoigne's lullaby." There is perhaps a suspicion here that the writer's warning to give himself a well-earned break may not be heeded.So shall we posthumously offer Gascoigne's Lullaby the No Sex Award? Or the Good Sex Award, even? And which poem would you nominate for the Bad Sex prize?Gascoigne's LullabySing lullaby, as women do,Wherewith they bring their babes to rest;And lullaby can I sing too,As womanly as can the best.With lullaby they still the child,And if I be not much beguiled,Full many wanton babes have IWhich must be stilled with lullaby.First, lullaby my youthful years,It is now time to go to bed;For crooked age and hoary hairsHave won the haven within my head.With lullaby, then, youth, be still,With lullaby content thy will,Since courage quails and comes behind,Go sleep, and so beguile thy mind.Nest, lullaby my gazing eyesWhich wonted were to glance apace.For every glass may now sufficeTo show the furrows in my face.With lullaby, then, wink awhile,With lullaby your looks beguile.Let no fair face, nor beauty brightEntice you eft with vain delight.And lullaby, my wanton will:Let reason's rule now reign thy thought,Since all too late I find by skillHow dear I have thy fancies bought.With lullaby now take thine ease,With lullaby thy doubts appeaseFor trust to this, if thou be still,My body shall obey thy will.Eke lullaby my loving boy,My little Robin, take thy rest.Since age is cold and nothing coy,Keep close thy coin, for so is best.With lullaby be thou content,With lullaby thy lusts relent.Let others pay which hath mo pence;Thou art too poor for such expense.Thus, lullaby my youth, mine eyes,My will, my ware and all that was.I can no mo delays devise,But welcome pain, let pleasure pass.With lullaby now take your leave,With lullaby your dreams deceive,And when you rise with waking eye,Remember Gascoigne's lullaby.Carol Rumensguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
New Voices: Author Brian Hart In Hart's debut novel, three misfits try to piece together a family that never was after a Vietnam veteran is released from jail. rssfeeds.usatoday.com |
'Noah's Compass' gets a little lost, but it's at least a nice trip Anne Tyler, the bard of Baltimore, is up to her usual tricks in her 18th novel, Noah's Compass. rssfeeds.usatoday.com |
Poetry and pedals Why are we all still so hung up on the Romantics? In the week that the Guardian and Observer launch a seven-day series of booklets of Romantic poetry – bringing you the best of Burns, Blake, Byron, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley and Wordsworth – we ask the former poet laureate and Keats biographer Andrew Motion how important they are today, and whether we're right to lump them all together. To illustrate their power, we've unearthed a brilliant recording of actor Michael Sheen reading Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn.We also talk to the winner of this year's TS Eliot prize, Phillip Gross, about the appeal of water to the poetic imagination, and the influences that shaped his collection The Water Table.Finally, we take a spin through the literature of cycling with sports writer Richard Williams, looking at the scandals and the celebrities of a sport that has been making its own giants for more than a century. We also challenge listeners to come up with their favourite bicycle books.Reading List:PoetryThe Water Table, by Philip Gross (Bloodaxe)Keats, by Andrew Motion (Faber)Buy the Guardian and the Observer for the next seven days for the Romantic poets booklets (or buy the full set at guardian.co.uk/readeroffers/romanticpoets)AudioGreat Poets of the Romantic Age, read by Michael Sheen, with music from Beethoven et al (Naxos)CyclingThe Third Policeman, by Flann O'BrienFallen Angel: The Passion of Fausto Coppi, by William Fotheringham (Yellow Jersey)Put Me Back on My Bike: In Search of Tommy Simpson, by William Fotheringham (Cape)The Rider, Tim Krabbe (Bloomsbury)The Discovery of France by Graham Robb (Picador)Claire ArmitsteadAndrew MotionNicholas WroeScott Cawley feeds.guardian.co.uk |