The Richard Gerver Blog

As the last few days of the decade fade into fireworks, chimes, parties and resolutions, I think that it is really important that we take stock of where we are and where we are going. My feeling is that the last ten years have proved to be some of the most challenging since the end of the Second World War; it has been the decade which has seen the escalation of global terrorism and with it, greater socio ethnic strife and mistrust, it is the decade when the world’s finances nearly imploded, a time when conventional economics was stretched to breaking point, as a result, the West started to realise the extent of the global shift in commercial power. It is also the decade when the world’s climate really started to fight back, bringing death and chaos to many regions of planet earth.
It has been a monumental decade for me too; I started it as a teacher, became a Headteacher and end it as a speaker, author and broadcaster; who would have known? The point is, that sat at this same desk, ten years ago, I would never have been able to predict where I would be now, in fact, if someone had told me that I would have given up the greatest job on earth, a great salary and a secure pension to become self-employed, I would have laughed. You see, I was educated for a world of certainty; a simple place where your education would define your life route and lead you by the hand alone its path. It was a world where great exam grades and a degree would guarantee a great job for life; hard work and the right choices would lead to the Utopian vision of a house, a partner, 2.4 kids and a fluffy, bouncy, jumping dog.
In the last decade; because of global events and because of my own journey, I have become more and more passionate about the need to shift the way we think about preparing our children for their futures. My stand is not political; I don’t care which politician, from which country, gets it first and I don’t care whether they are right, left or somewhere in between, what I know is that we have to stop ‘tweaking’ education, we have to stop playing around the periphery of the issue. The reality is starkly simple; our generation and the generations before ours have created a world that is more diverse, more uncertain and more volatile than ever; a world that we are now struggling to live on and regulate. Yet we still try to cling to certainties, we try to pigeon hole and control. It strikes me that more and more people are becoming anxious, out of their depth and most importantly, feeling increasingly disenfranchised.
I think that the events of the last few years have made us all realise that our futures are linked, that we must all work together to ensure that the planet continues to thrive and I also think that there is a growing recognition that the way we educate our children has to be radically rethought. There can be little argument that it will be our children and their children who will have to find the solutions and strategies that will fix today and ensure that there is a positive and secure future.
Over the last twelve months, I have been fortunate enough to visit some of the most exciting countries on this little planet of ours; Brazil, Singapore and Pakistan amongst them, I have had the privilege of working with and talking to; politicians, business leaders, educators and children and the same message seems to be coming through loud and clear. If we are to fix tomorrow, we need to realise that education must be less about control and more about empowerment. I know it’s a little bit of a cliché, but it’s that time of year, the more people I meet in the places I visit the more and more I realise the remarkable power of the human spirit; the intrinsic ‘goodness’ and desire to succeed… and this has never been more apparent than in the ‘next generation’; our children are amazing and if we can trust them and help them to reach their potential, they will be able to put things right!
Here’s to the next decade; Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Mr Gove has announced a commitment to understanding the best education systems from around the world. A friend and colleague, Dr Brian Male referred me to this:

“When I was a child I had the freedom to make my own toys out of trifles and create my own games from imagination. In my happiness my playmates had their full share; in fact the complete enjoyment of my games depended upon their taking part in them. One day, in this paradise of our childhood, entered a temptation from the market world of the adult. A toy bought from an English shop was given to one of our companions; it was perfect, big and wonderfully life-like. He became proud of the toy and less mindful of the game; he kept that expensive thing carefully away from us, glorying in his exclusive possession of it, feeling himself superior to his playmates whose toys were cheap. I am sure if he could have used the modern language of history he would have said that he was more civilised than ourselves to the extent of his owning that ridiculously perfect toy. One thing he failed to realise in his excitement – a fact which at the moment seemed to him insignificant – that this temptation obscured something a great deal more perfect than his toy, the revelation of the perfect child. The toy merely expressed his wealth, but not the child’s creative spirit, not the child’s generous joy in his play, his open invitation to all who were his compeers to his play-world”.

From Civilisation and Progress by Rabindranath Tagore

It is the opening quote in the Indian National Curriculum Document… Any thoughts Mr Gove?

One of the key tranches of Mr Gove’s White Paper is a typical catchy political headline, but requires much deeper understanding. So our ex service people are to be retrained as teachers. They are absolutely the right kind of people to put in front of our children, apparently. Now don’t get me wrong, I have nothing but admiration for our armed forces; their courage, their professionalism and sadly, their sacrifice. In their field, they are the best at what they do, but that does not mean that they will necessarily make great teachers, just as great teachers would not necessarily make great soldiers! Contrary to what we have been made to believe over the last few weeks, most schools are not war zones, dominated by out of control children, left unchecked by liberal, airy fairy teachers. Yes in some schools there are problems and some of those problems are significant but it is a very small minority. We must remember, children are not animals, they are people; intelligent and sensitive. We are not at war with them!

I remember just after Tony Blair came to power, one of his big ideas was to train unemployed actors to become teachers, it was originally the brainchild of Lord Putnam, again, a great idea in theory; hugely skilled, emotionally intelligent performers setting the classroom alight as if it were the new stage at the RSC! It didn’t work and why? Teaching is a highly skilled profession, it requires unbelievable dedication, aptitude and talent. It is a vocation. Interestingly, the best teachers don’t have many behaviour problems with students, they create amazing learning environments where every child feels valued and engages in the learning. Put it this way, I wouldn’t want a soldier or an actor carrying out complex brain surgery on my own children, because they had won a war or an Oscar. do we need more great teachers, absolutely, what we don’t need are people who treat our classrooms like theatres of arts or war and we need more people who see our children as the future, not the enemy!

And so with bated breath, we await Michael’s white paper; his vision for the future of education, his vision for the future of my children, your children, heck of all of our futures! Let’s be clear, the future holds some pretty staggering challenges, particularly around sustainability; environmental, economic and social. Let’s also be clear to that education is the catalyst for change across all of these huge, global challenges… It is time to stop tinkering, time to stop with initiatives and catchy policy frames. The future of education is too important for that, it is too important to be used as a political football by professional policy junkies or media hounds, it is time to grow up and stop the stultifying heave ho between traditionalist and liberal ideologies. Education is not something to be used by ideologues as part of a higher degree thesis on social control, change or mismanagement.

So here we are, in the second decade of the 21st century and we are still playing with a system that is hopelessly outdated. So what I wonder will Gove n Gibb generate for us next week? My guess is that it will be a rehash of the narrow view of education that Michael has extolled since he was installed as shadow minister. He has talked a great deal about who runs and manages schools and education. He has hinted at a return to the traditional Conservative principles; discipline is in, cross curricular work is out. Interestingly, I am yet to hear him talk about children, real kids with real challenges in real communities. I am yet to hear him discuss his take on the moral imperative of education, on the vision he has for how it will transform the societies we live in today.

I have three real concerns that he needs to address in his big announcement;

Firstly, his preoccupation with free schools and academies. This is a diversion from his real agenda which is the castration of Local Authorities, his desire to bestow all power for education to his department. He says that he has been inspired by the parallel policy in the US, he recently hosted Arne Duncan (his equivalent in The White House), interestingly only 17% of schools in the US who have gone through similar changes have shown any real improvement… So why would we follow a policy with an 87% failure rate? Be honest Michael, right wing politicians have always been suspicious of LAs and liberal teacher types and by seizing control you can minimise their impact… It is after all the same reason you scrapped the work of and then the QCA itself, therefore bringing curriculum under the direct control of central government, one of the only countries in the western world, to take this retrograde step.

People often ask me If I would of pushed for academy status when I was a head. The answer is simple; if you could prove to me that it would mean it made school better for my students. I am also asked if I supported the recommendations of The Rose Review, my answer has always been that I appreciated the fact that the review spent a considerable time asking the experts, teachers and children to that end, it was what it stood for, rather than what it said that I supported… It marked a significant step towards empowering teachers and trusting their professionalism… The white paper must demonstrate Gove’s courage to do the same, irrespective of what the amateurs in some facets of the press may push for; God forbid that we should end up with The Daily Mail curriculum.

My second concern radiates from Michael’s obsession with E.D. Hirsh, the celebrated American academic who basically has sold the idea that knowledge is power, so obsessed are Mick and Nick that I understand that it is a running joke in the department at the moment, that Gibb feels that the core curriculum should focus on rivers of England… Oh dear! We must move away from the aged old, boring and rather ridiculous arguments about knowledge versus skills; any educator worth their salt, will tell you that great learning requires both. My real concern lies in the fact that Michael seems to think that back to basics will return us to a golden age of learning… When precisely was that? We have never had such a literate or numerate population as we do now… Isn’t it the education of the 50′s, 60′s, 70′s and 80′s that saw us create the globally challenging issues we face today? Michael’s vision, his big idea, is to return us to an education system built on certainties; defined knowledge that set us on defined pathways that lead us to a home, a mortgage, a dog and 2.4 children… If that is the vision on which our education system is to be defined, then we will continue to beautifully prepare our kids for a world that doesn’t exist any longer!

My final concern lies in the short termism that is political policy making. In the last 20 years, under successive governments, we have seen literally hundreds of policies come and go in our schools, none have had any significant impact… Why? Because the shift in thinking and practice that would ensure a real future for our children cannot be delivered in the term of one parliament, or even two or three. Education needs to be allowed to develop outside of direct Government control. Medical practice is never interfered with by politicians and look how far that has evolved? The white paper will be riddled with reactive and headline grabbing rhetoric; behaviour and truancy for example, Michael will have listened to his latest gurus no doubt, people with a limited view of young people, who would have us believe that all children of today are anarchic and in need of a cattle prod and the cane. They aren’t… The way we really deal with these issues is to remember that children are complex, critical consumers who need to be inspired, challenged and respected… They are not wild animals. I personally believe that they are the most talented generation the world has ever created. So how are we going to nurture rather than control?

This government came to power on a promise of an end to big, central government, of the development of a big society, built on the belief that with freedom comes the growth of potential, with shared responsibility comes sustainable development… Let’s hope that The Department of Education holds true to that vision and that they realise that education is bigger and better than Michael and Nick.

Yesterday I returned from a trip to Lahore. It was a long but unforgettable few days. Like many would be I guess, I was nervous about making the trip; the fear of terrorism etc. Let me start by saying it is a remarkable country, populated with amazing people; their warmth is overwhelming…Lahore is a beautiful city, a really charismatic place!

I was there to speak at a major conference that was exploring the future of education and schools in particular. The conference was staged by Beaconhouse, one of if not the largest private education provider in the world. In Pakistan the need for a private sector is sadly vital, as the state system is in complete turmoil. Beaconhouse is the vision of one woman, one family, committed to the development of a powerful schools system for Pakistan. What they have achieved is remarkable; in 35 years they have created over 450 schools and started to expand across South East Asia and are making inroads into the rest of the world including the UK.

Let me be very clear about this; Beaconhouse are not pushing any religious or factional system, they are developing one of the most forward thinking, dynamic and powerful school programmes I have ever seen; committed to the development of young people, to their empowerment and to their futures. What is significant is that they have been able to do this partly because of the political uncertainty that seems to be a constant backdrop to this country’s development. National education policy, or more accurately, the lack of it, left a vacuum which Beaconhouse has filled.

Apart from the amazing experience I had; meeting a thousand or so of the most passionate, committed and determined educators I have had the privilege to work with. What I think has struck me most is the evidence of what can be achieved when education is left to develop itself, beyond political control and free of the short termism that is democratic politics… this is a system focused wholly on the development of children for their futures… it is an organic, fleet footed organisation that has achieved more in terms of evolution and futures implementation than anywhere I have been…and why? Because, despite all of Pakistan’s considerable challenges; Beaconhouse has managed to find a special kind of freedom, which has led to a schooling system that could soon be the envy of the developed world.