I went to school in olden days. I went to the sort of school that both Michael Gove and Diane Abbott appear to drool over. It was a school where the ‘masters’ all wore gowns, the staff room was clouded in thick tobacco fug, and we, dreadfully uniformed little lads, did all the ‘traditional’ subjects that would warm the heart of Nigel Farage.
For its day it was quite a progressive school, included in the curriculum were subjects like economics and even British Constitution! However they were cuckoos in a traditional nest that included Latin, Greek and other fairly obscure languages, like algebra and possibly calculus.
The staff was on the whole male. They were often very interesting men, the music teacher was a Jewish refugee from Germany. He had been an important conductor before the war, reduced to hopelessly trying to control inky-fingered hobbldy-hoys.
Dr Prinz was a remarkable man but a lousy teacher. Our musical education consisted of copying from the board the lives of composers into musical script books. We knew all the important dates in Mozart’s life, but I don’t remember ever hearing a note of Wolfgang. Our RE teacher was no better. Another cultured and highly literate man, Dr.Wren, once, in an unguarded moment, confessed that he was an atheist with a Doctorate in Divinity.
My education was ‘traditional’ in every sense. Like so many Grammar schools of the time it sought to ape the pretensions of the public school. We had prefects, the Head wore a mortar board and the school played rugby, not that common proletarian football.
If anyone thinks a ‘traditional’ education like mine was worth having, just look at all the political leaders, business leaders, barristers and journalists who went through the same system... and weep!
It may have produced leaders of men and colonial officers for post-colonial times, but bluntly, as a system of education for the 20th Century, it sucked!
In general I enjoyed it much of the time, and because of its location and clientele it encouraged a large number of eccentrics and radicals, both pupils and even some staff.
But was it a school that recognised talent and diversity? That realised that the country needed engineers and designers but insisted on churning out classicists and civil servants? Nope.
Strangely after such a weird education and a spell in the real world of work as a Soho film librarian, I entered teaching, based on the old maxim “If you can – do, if you can’t – teach!” only to discover the sense of exhilaration and purpose of teaching in a real comprehensive school.
There is still much to do to create genuine universal comprehensive education a prize worth aiming towards. Unfortunately the drive towards a 19th century system, and worse still the shallow commercially-led academies programme, is creating the worst of all possible worlds.
Too many politicians, themselves the products of a flawed education process, are determined to meddle and alter education to the detriment of the children.
Over the years I have seen too many interfering nonenties try to reform education. I always thought Blunkett was a disaster, until the arrival of Gove. The trouble is that the one thing these politicians have all been through is the education system, and they seem hell bent on getting their own back.
Pity it’s the youngsters who suffer.