Saturday, November 21, 2009

Eh?

I like history. I teach history. Like Shuggy, who knows far more about schools than I do, I think that changes to the primary curriculum, in History as elsewhere, are constructed from a particular strand of modern lunacy. I should be cheering Andrew Martin to the rafters. But then he starts his article with this:
Presumably Balls, who is highly educated, knows that the importation of a value word like "understanding" is a tactic associated with totalitarian regimes.
Hmm ... prison camps, yes; genocide, certainly; sworn obedience to a single leader, indeed. Understanding? Not too sure about that one myself.

1 comment:

Harry Barnes said...

Then in this week's "Tribune" (of all places") we have an article by Graham Lane a former chair of the Local Government Association's Education Committee which states -"Last year saw the successful introduction of the first five diploma courses in selected areas of the country.....Employers designed the course content....Labour should be publicising a major success story.*

The article is entitled "A Diplomatic Coup - Labour's educational revolution is working thanks to progressive employers".

So no wonder we also have moves to get rid of the study of history. For someone studying the history of education might just start to ask what the purposes of education are, how they are advanced the most effectively, in what circumstances and by whom?

History is littered with hopes and warnings. Or is it that we now have a new breed of model employers who are following the early ideals of Robert Owen for what he called "the economy of high wages". But even then we would need to study history to see where his ideas then took him and why.