Minister of Education, Nadim Zahawi, is mistaken about current teaching and needs to visit more schools: Dr Patricia Walker.

 

The Minister of Education, Nadim Zahawi,  has recently attacked teachers  – again – for allowing children to express their feelings about the PM’s behaviour in respect of breaking the lockdown rules – which Johnson devised, or at least sanctioned. Zahawi has proposed we ‘root out’ these teachers guilty of activism, considering them guilty of brainwashing their pupils. Furthermore, he has now issued new rules, which he describes as ‘guidance’, to introduce more ‘balanced’, in this instance  one might say ‘conservative’ , teaching.

Can the education portfolio holder really be so far removed from what actually goes on in schools? Has he experienced the day-to-day life of schools to truly understand how they work? Perhaps, as the editor of the TES advised, a year ago, he needs to visit educational settings more often. He clearly seems unable to see what  teachers are doing and appears to entirely  misunderstand the idea of dialogue as a key pedagogical strategy. In essence, he is  failing to understand that individuals have to be able to question society in order to play a part in changing, and improving, it.

Teachers in today’s schools are committed to educating the whole person to draw upon that individual’s knowledge and understanding, intelligence skills and imagination. As a result intellectual and moral virtues, as well as skills and  habits, can be developed to enable the young to play a full part in their society, including increasing their social ,cultural  and political awareness   on their own personalised terms.

The pedagogy teachers are trained to use are those which focus on developing emotional literacy.  Educational Literacy facilitates the ambiguities and fluidities of the classroom and the playground, working towards developing a whole range of emotions such as empathy and creative listening.

To encourage the development of EL teachers use whole class discussions, small group discussions, drama, lecturettes by students and/or teachers, acting out scenes on various topics followed by written or oral notes. These question students’ feelings and thoughts, either with the teacher, the teacher in confidence, or with the group. The emphasis has to be on centrality of thought and collaboration. Posing questions like ‘how did you feel when A answered all the questions, or when B interrupted you, or when you found C boring ?’ ‘What do you plan to do next time these things happen? ‘ These are important because they relate to equity and associated power relationships and give the children agency. When they learn to deal with these feelings, they are finding the ability to handle their own and others’ emotions, their personal power is improved, and consequently their quality of life. Emotional literacy improves inter- personal relationships, makes co-operative work possible and, I believe most importantly, fosters community spirit. Children are encouraged to look at their strategies asking themselves, ‘if that didn’t work is there any chance I could do it another way?’ Their progress, their results, their achievements, are discussed with them: in this way individual differences are celebrated so that all children feel valued. Comparisons are avoided, and consequently, learner anxiety is mitigated.

Sadly, this is what Nadhim Zahawi has failed to grasp. He wants heads to ‘root out activists’ ‘stem classroom debates’, ‘stop teaching activist propaganda’.    Teachers are not trained to inflict their views on their charges, ( parents and students would be very quick to spot that!) They are encouraging the youngsters to open their eyes, question what they see and hear, ask probing questions to get at the truth. They will  learn to live with some issues with which they are initially uncomfortable, find ways to avoid projecting their own anxieties onto others, develop the confidence to assuredly contest what others – yes, including their teachers, are saying. In short these approaches   empower them to deal with a society where economic wealth may have increased but where people suffer increasingly from anxiety- particularly status anxiety- how they are seen, valued, rated, by ‘the others’ and where the people who seem most happy are the ‘celebrities’ the ‘influencers’ – but are they?

These children will be running the country when we’ve all gone. Let’s make sure they’re empowered  to be  equipped for the job. They’ll need to be

 

Dr Patricia Walker. Visiting Professor, University of West London.

All  blogs represent the views solely of the named author, and not those of the Fabian Education Policy Group or the wider Fabian Society

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