Stephen King, Education and Coalition Horror

In the nineties I taught ICT in a small mixed comprehensive in Berkshire. Having arrived there from an inner London school, I noticed a lot of differences between the kids from the two areas. If you have ever played Monopoly you will have a notion of the value of the Old Kent Road and lots of the kids who lived there didn't put a much higher value on themselves. My first few weeks in the Berkshire school on the edge of a country town was spent getting used to the accents and them getting used to mine. The country yokel cry of "Please Sir" I really thought was their attempt to take the piss out of my London voice. The willingness to stand up when asked also came as a bit of a shock. These kids were different to the multi cultural environment I had spent the first 17 years of teaching in.

Stephen King : 49 books and counting

We got used to each other though. One of the things that was exactly the same in both schools, however, was the way in which boys had distinctive tastes in literature and English teachers just couldn't understand it. In my new school most of the English Department was female throughout my time there. Every year when learners chose the novel they were going to read and write their GCSE Book review on, the same problems emerged. Lots of the boys wanted to adopt a Stephen King Horror and most of the staff tried to dissuade them.

There was the underlying feeling that "King was trash" and something more "literary" and appropriate should be selected. In the last few years we have heard a lot about how the Harry Potter books have got kids reading, well 20 years ago I think King did the same thing for teenage boys.

Running ICT access meant I got lots of students asking me for assistance when they were doing research. A common complaint was the hostility many felt when a King book was their choice. Some of them kept at it, often choosing the nastiest title they could find, just to be awkward. A bit like fumbling with fags behind the bike sheds, or trying to get to porn sites in the ICT Lab. All bravado.

But I have always loved Stephen King's books. I love the ability to tell a story that starts with real life events and real life people that you care about and want to learn about. Rarely do I pick a King book up and not want to keep going until I reach the end of the story. Some of his novels are sensational rubbish but some of them I would seriously place among the best written in the English language. And for anyone who has never picked up one of his stories and has a snobbish view of them, read one: that's a challenge!

I would say Misery, Dorothy Claiborne and Hearts in Atlantis are among the best. The novellas such as Stand By Me and Shawshank, superb.The horror is subsidiary to the suspense and character development in most of his writing.

So to go back to the nineties. I was called to arms! I thought I should take up the cause of the King and argue my point on behalf of all the boys who wanted to do their review of one of his.

When I got my chance to put my case and talk about the language, the writing skills, the story telling ability, I was a bit shocked. At the time I did this, none of the teachers had read any King. It wasn't part of their cultural background. It wasn't what they knew. They had no experience of reading what the people they were responsible for liked or kept them going. They dismissed the aspirations of this group of boys who wanted to read what they wanted to read, not what someone else foisted on them. Hopefully, most of these boys went on to read a much bigger collection of literature but often the set books became hated books because they were made to read them.

I have this relationship with Dickens. Bleak House was my set book at A level. I was told to read it. Never did and still haven't up to this day.

So, a few points there but a wider one. Watched Andrew Neil's Posh and Posher yesterday. Apart from the fact that Mr Neil needs someone to explain to him what Comprehensives really are and do, and that if all the private schools were closed as Labour should have done in 1997 then education for all would be so much better; apart from all that it is pretty damn clear that all the millionaires from Eton and Oxford and Cambridge in the Cabinet have no idea what people in UK are really like.

No idea at all. They don't share our relationship with the world. Osborne needn't worry about cuts, his Trust fund will carry on isolating him. Gove can carry on organising the world so that schools reflect the education he suffered. Because none of them are really linked in to what people really want or see. There is good stuff going on in our communities. Stuff that the millionaires don't see, don't understand and don't care about.

Reminds me of Stephen King and the English teachers.

#govedefinitions - Defining the ridiculous

Gove needs some good advice on Education. He also needs some good advisers. I would readily offer to do the job but as I have worked in education all my life, I am probably someone he won't even talk to. After all to Mr Gove, Education professional is really an oxymoron.

What he wants is non-professionals setting up "free" schools, without qualified teachers, no restraints on the curriculum and essentially a return to the conditions in schools when he was just a lad. Latin, Dryden and blazers. His recipe for a successful school.

Yesterday we started a hashtag #govedefinitions that got lots of the twitterati coming forward with some excellent new versions of what we understood as education seen through the eyes of Mr Gove. Enjoy!

@alanmills405
#govedefinitions British Education. A new game for millionaires to play with the future of ordinary people.
#govedefinitions Qualified Teacher. ex-soldier about 20 hours ago via web
#govedefinitions Intelligent Debate. Daily Mail comment
#govedefinitions Success. What I did at school
#govedefinitions Geography. All the red bits on the map
#govedefinitions History. Kings and Queens of England
#govedefinitions Wider opportunities. Pardon?
#govedefinitions Trained School Support Staff. Who?
#govedefinitions School Blazer. The means by which a teacher maintains discipline and enthusiasm in their class
#govedefinitions Teacher. Anybody
#govedefinitions Technology. Chalk and blackboard.
#govedefinitions Latin. A dead language essential for the modern curriculum
#govedefinitions Education Professional. The enemy

r@ssat Holiday education fun from @alanmills405 - follow #govedefinitions and RT

@BorisWatch #govedefinitions 'Freeing schools from dogma' = 'Forcing schools to accept my dogma'
#govedefinitions 'Putting the teacher in charge of schools' = 'Putting Toby Young in charge of teachers'


@MattSL Matt Lent
#govedefinitions life skills: Speaking Latin, royal chronology & knowing how to pass a 2 hr exam to prove 2 yrs worth of learning
#govedefinitions streaming: different schools for the rich and for the poor


@ColinTGraham Colin Graham
#govedefinitions Government and Governor: both begin with Gove, the end doesn't matter.
#govedefinitions Religious Education = something the Minister for Schools does... oh, maybe not it's that Gibb chappy.
Teachers: Units of spending RT @homayon: #govedefinitions Students: Units of funding
#govedefinitions MFL is speaking English very loudly and very slowly for those who cannot converse adequately in Latin


@homayon Homayon Zeary
#govedefinitions Students: Units of funding
#govedefinitions 21st century skills: repetition, repetition, repetition oh and Latin!

@ColinTGraham Colin Graham
#govedefinitions STEM: well in my book it means to stop, as in "stem the flow" but I suppose it could be part of a flower, didn't do botany


@tonyparkin Tony Parkin
A big thanks owed to @alanmills405 for the best meme fun this month! #govedefinitions was sheer creative genius :)

@ColinTGraham Colin Graham
#govedefinitions Combining DT and ICT: making hollerith machines using empty cereal packets and knitting needles, or watching Blue Peter...

@tonyparkin Tony Parkin
#govedefinitions Teachers Pet: that Jeremy rhyming slang, ever since him and those sporty types ganged up on me, just like at school
#govedefinitions BETT Show: It's odds-on that I won't show and will send little Gibb Minor...

@ColinTGraham Colin Graham
#govedefinitions Physical Education = using a big stick and beating them till they get it right.
#govedefinitions BSF = not quite mad cow disease but near enough to ban it anyway

@tonyparkin Tony Parkin
RT @gvibe: @tonyparkin liking your #govedefinitions (why, thank you kindly Ma'am. @alanmills405 came up with a cracker there
#govedefinitions Mobile learning : putting up more portakabins in schools instead of that wasteful BSF #ukedchat
#govedefinitions Parental Engagement: is not good enough... we expect them all to be married and churchgoing. #ukedchat
#govedefinitions Principals: what we in Coalition respect and value. Principles: what we in Coalition don't have and don't need #UKEdchat
#govedefinitions Class teaching: dividing up students naturally into their respective social and economic groups for educational purposes
#govedefinitions Transforming learning : wiring up the students' metal chairs to ensure the correct responses in SATs tests #UKEdchat
#govedefinitions Bullying: the creative force that made me the snide vituperative weasel that I am today #UKEdchat
#govedefinitions Student Voice - how a pupil responds when spoken to by a teacher, and not before! #UKEdchat
#govedefinitions 'Becta: the Future' - the new DfE film where we travel back in time to an education without new-fangled digital technology

@ColinTGraham Colin Graham
#govedefinitions "Finding new money" = damn, there goes the moat and the duck house...

@tonyparkin Tony Parkin
#govedefinitions I'm in favour of diversity - it's just like university, but you have two of them?


@ColinTGraham Colin Graham
#govedefinitions Grammar: omnes quaestiones et communicationem agi tantum latine
#govedefinitions modernization: allowing the use of slide-rules in maths exams, on a trial basis for A-level only...

@thewritertype paul bassett davies
#govedefinitions "Pupils." Juvenile nuisances. A necessary evil in order to obtain funding in the education business.

@ocm102 Olly May
Very much enjoying #govedefinitions

tafkam1979 Tafkam TES
Very much enjoying #govedefinitions

@camaxwell Colin Maxwell
Continuing Professional Development: Drill in the playground with Sergeant Major #govedefinitions

@jamperfect Jamie Perfect
#govedefinitions an ideology based on turning every state school into an independent school because it worked for him.

@superdooperal Alison Livesey
#govedefinitions School Governor (archaic).
#govedefinitions Holidays- the bit in between tests

@bootleian John Connor
@markpurves Have a look at #govedefinitions - it's not just us!

@BorisWatch Boris Watch
#govedefinitions 'The proper course of British history' = 'Only the bits where foreigners = targets for Our Boys'
#govedefinitions 'Putting the teacher in charge of schools' = 'Putting Toby Young in charge of teachers'
#govedefinitions 'Freeing schools from dogma' = 'Forcing schools to accept my dogma'

@AsherJac Asher Jacobsberg
@MattSL I think you've got that the wrong way round, according to #govedefinitions it's quill pens to replace computers, isn't it?

@MattSL Matt Lent
#govedefinitions modernisation: fountain pens to replace quills
#govedefinitions decentralised education system: schools do what I say, but I don't get the blame when it goes wrong

@camaxwell Colin Maxwell
Citizenship: 'how to vote tory' #govedefinitions

@sharland Brian Sharland
#govedefinitions EMA: this definition has no funding
#govedefinitions pupil premium: one of nick cleggs pipedreams

@drugforum Andrew Brown
#govedefinitions guidance: unnecessary bureaucracy

@richardsw16 Richard Semmens
#govedefinitions EMA - Extra Money (for new)Academies

@CreativeEdu Pooky Hesmondhalgh
Not sure how to channel your creative juices now school's out?Think up some #govedefinitions #UKEdChat

@MattSL Matt Lent
@alanmills405 loving #govedefinitions

@dorristheloris Kelly Rennie
#govedefinitions QTS: Quasso, Territo, Sepelio (break,frighten, destroy)

@MattSL Matt Lent
#govedefinitions citizenship: being 'British'

@MultiMartin Martin Waller
RT @MattSL #govedefinitions student participation: putting your hands up to speak

@MattSL Matt Lent
#govedefinitions student participation: putting your hands up to speak

@sharland Brian Sharland
#govedefinitions ICT: an excellent subject on the study of how the telegraph helped forge the British empire
#govedefinitions computing: an excellent subject on the study of the Babbage machine
#govedefinitions going to correct my first definition
#govedefinitions PE: physical education and sport is a ... (this definition is only half funded)

@superdooperal Alison Livesey
#govedefinitions School days what teachers find themselves in after reading the Education White Paper

@sueellendixon sue dixon
#govedefinitions ICT: an excellent and relevant subject on the study of the wonderful Babbage
#govedefinitions parents - source of top up funding for schools whose budgets have been cut

@dorristheloris Kelly Rennie
#govedefinitions Teacher. Anybody who can afford to put up a few bobfor their own (FREE) school before Gove repays em OUR cash

@jowinchester Jo
#govedefinitions MFL - Latin/Hebrew in 60 hours for 4 yrs then wonder why rest of world seems to be better than us at language

@ronggordon Ron Gordon
#govedefinitions MP: nice little earner alongside £200 k columnist job allowing 3yrs max expenses & flipped home

@ssat SSAT
Holiday education fun from @alanmills405 - follow #govedefinitions and RT #ukedchat

@sueellendixon sue dixon
#govedefinitions An anathema - Thinking, critically adept children who question their educators and politicians
#govedefinitions History curriculum - the truth as we will now be told it
#govedefinitions phonics phonics phonics - the cure to all ills? Deny any good practice phonics them to death
#govedefinitions Local Authorities - a place to lay all the blame and deny any interference
#govedefinitions loving the creative suggestions. ' Free schools' - where the poor children will press their noses on the glass looking in

@philallman1 Phil Allman
#govedefinitions real terms increase in sch budget. about a 5% cut
#govedefinitions school sport. Rugger, football, cricket...in fact all those teams I was too weedy to get into...sob, sob
#govedefinitions Prefects. Those bullies that tormented me when I was at school...until I became one

@CreativeEdu Pooky Hesmondhalgh
Not sure how to channel your creative juices now school's out?Think up some #govedefinitions as started by @alanmills405

@ronggordon Ron Gordon
#govedefinitions Headteacher: anybody who was once in army

@dorristheloris Kelly Rennie
#govedefinitions Teacher. Anybody [who can speak Latin and quote from Heart of Darkness]

@Didy64 Diane
@alanmills405 Loving your #govedefinitions - would be funnier if they weren't so close to truth

@bobharrisonset Bob Harrison
RT @alanmills405: #govedefinitions Technology. Chalk and blackboard. and Gibb in charge of ICT?

A Coalition of Clowns - Big Top Big Society

The BIG TOP - Big Society


Dave decides to rewrite history, Nick can't answer questions until he has asked himself the question first and Osbornegump? Well he just smirks.

A coalition of clowns?

And then there is Michael Gove.
in blazer.
with adviser
and demonstrating his plans for the state education sector .

Clowns have those big feet and Gove has certainly been stomping all over the educational community in the last few weeks.

Talking to Headteachers in the last few months, it is clear there is no great enthusiasm for the new Academies. They want new buildings, more money and greater control of their school's curriculum. Gove has disappointed many with the BSF fiasco and when you get down to the detail you discover that even with new academy governance, new money won't be flooding in. In the meantime, all the expertise, local knowledge and local history built up in the Local Authority teams will be lost.

Once you destroy such a team, it is next to impossible to get it together again. Corporate history and the basics of getting things done for the benefit of the local community will disappear with the LA staff forced to hawk their services elsewhere.

In the Academies Bill debate yesterday, Glenda Jackson made an impassioned appeal for schools as part of their communities. The education world Gove is creating, is a return to the competition, to the lack of local collaboration that initiatives such as trust schools started to create.

Clowns are supposed to make you laugh. But an awful lot of people are terrified of clowns.(Coulrophobia)

I am terrified of what this lot of clowns will do. Big Society? Big Top.

The Tories, and the education they think parents want

So we have seen the manifesto from the Tories.

But haven't those of us in education, heard it all before? Michael Gove still seems to think that the education he got, will solve all the problems for schools in the 21st Century.

He still talks about parents wanting children schooled in straight lines about Kings and battles. What good do dates and lists do any of us? In the last few months I have read Hilary Mantel's excellent, prize winning "Wolf Hall" and watched the Carry On Henry film with a raucous Sid James as the King and a baffling Barbara Windsor as the a substitute Anne Boleyn. Both have the same historical background.

I studied that period for my A level History course. Did it do me any good at all to make sense of the events in each story?

More important history to consider in the last few weeks of the election, would be the terrible damage done by the last conservative education ministers under Margaret Thatcher.

Remember the leaky classrooms, the demoralised teachers, the old schools with no hope of renewal?

Well Michael Gove's vision of a new education system sounds remarkably like that historical period. A return to Grammar schools, to pre-comprehensive divisions, to strange starchy curricula even at the primary stage, to school blazers, to latin etc.

So can we all be grateful for what Labour achieved an firmly reject Gove's Etonian vision?