To think the idea that education is state brainwashing is BS

[Echobelly]

It’s a bit of a bugbear of mine that some people insist that schools serve a function of keeping young people docile and unquestioning. I mean, I was educated a while ago now, but at a state school, and the absolute #1 thing I remember from history was being taught always to question the bias of your sources. Hardly the actions of system dedicated to preventing children from questioning authority. I’m pretty sure kids these days are not being taught ‘Yay! The British Empire was Great’ or ‘The government is fantastic, questioning it is disloyal’, by those notorious right-wingers, teachers.

With DD starting secondary next term, I’d be interested to know if anyone does feel from their own child’s current experience, that schools are somehow attempting to beat them down into dumb subservience? As most of the people I hear espousing the view don’t seem to be those with kids in schools currently.

I guess people also go ‘Oh, but it’s all this “obedience” and following “rules”’ which I think is also kind of bullshit because people actually are intelligent enough to see the difference between rules needed to get along with things like learning, and things in the world that are profound injustices. You can follow the school rules all your educational life and still go on to protest against government abuses of human rights or whatever – it doesn’t mean you get conditioned to accept everything you’re told to think or do.

Don’t get me wrong, too many young people are ill-served by underfunded schools, but lack of critical thinking is probably more to do with distracting media and the rampant self-interest it promotes then schools being some wicked hand of The State.

SavingSpaces2019

I have no idea about British Colonialism because I was never taught it.

As I said we did Ancient Egypt (and Winston Churchill would have probably come under Current Affairs).

Also as my family are not British and Britain actually opened its doors to us when every other country was not safe I don’t think I feel in a position to get too worked up about a year when British History was being taught in a history lesson.

I think the brain washing comes in the form of funnelling everyone into University with
the mantra that unless you have a degree you can’t get a job.

Then there is the uniform policy in year 12 & 13. You can wear anything as long as you look like you you belong in an office.

It is almost like children are sleep walking into a 9-5 job in an office.
They won’t be very happy but are tied to the job because it pays just enough to keep them till the following week and if they do save anything then social media and advertising keeps them buying and wanting things that are just out of reach until the next pay packet. So they are just a little short of money each month.

Even tax credits and benefits play their part in keeping the masses in their place.

Benefits mean you can’t earn over a certain amount or you lose your benefits so it doesn’t pay you to try and better yourself

Property prices around work or delays in transport mean people have to get up earlier so they don’t get enough sleep. Getting to work takes up a lot of the mental load so thinking with a clear mind to question wtf is happening for many never happens.

A bit like the need to get back to work after having a child.

A few friends including me never went back. If you don’t buy into both mother and father contributing and take time out to actually think. A lot find a different way of earning money.

Uniform is part of it I suppose. I personally like a uniform because I'm skint and lazy, but they present issues. Girls can wear skirts in the summer but boys can't wear shorts, for example, resulting in a bunch of lads turning up to school in skirts. As a teacher I would personally think this was clever but understand that it undermines the schools procedures?

I also meant in terms of thought policing -
So can you have a debate about trans issues and how they disproportionately affect girls spaces?

@ Herland No it's not challenging. You present it as a dichotomy but I don't see it like that. My job is to set students on their personal route to succeed in life. That requires a necessary element of conformity. For example, if a student wants to go to art college and tear up the rulebook, I will support their creativity and world view whilst helping them to achieve their goal. They will need qualifications to get to that college - so I can support both. I mean if they can't conform enough to go along with the exam process, they won't achieve their goal! The most disheartening thing is to see a student rebel for the sake of it and throw away their opportunities.

I'm more than happy to discuss (and readily do) alternative approaches to life with students. I mean the lives of most of the poets we study are most definitely non-conformist! I can give students the skills to explore literature, philosophy and critical thinking way beyond the classroom, then it's up to them. A-Level has much more opportunity for exploration.

I do sometimes wish I could devote more time to going off on philosophical tangents, but it's not really practical within the confines of my job and the amount of work we have to get through.

I see my job as preparing students to find their way in life. Enough understanding to see why sometimes it's helpful to conform, and also the importance of self-expression. It's up to them what they do with that knowledge.

At the schools I've worked in as long as the focus is on issues and opinions and doesn't become hateful or cheap shots then debating is ok.

For what its worth, I've tended to find that students are very willing to ask difficult questions on a good range of contentious issues and part of being a strong teacher is facilitating healthy and robust debate in a respectful manner.

But I will accept that not all schools afford staff the same amount of autonomy and flexibility. I am aware of schools where there's standard approach to everything and standard PowerPoint etc. I would hate to work in a school like that.

So can you have a debate about trans issues and how they disproportionately affect girls spaces?
Of course you can’t in the current climate as the teacher would be in trouble more than the pupil.

@Lola and @Little. You both sound like the kind of teachers I would like my kids to have.

@Frusty are you a teacher? I worry that that is my perception of schools now but not being a teacher means I just don't know.

Herland
Thank you. We aren't the minority either if that helps.

Yes I am - now I don’t know for sure what would happen, but based on what happens to feminists on social media etc that is what I would fear happening.

Ahh thank you, that's nice to hear

State education is an imperfect beast, and always will be. You'll get fab teachers and mediocre ones, great leadership and poor management, same as with any other organisation. I think the current government have tried very hard to narrow the curriculum and revert to didactic teaching, but the profession has evolved too much for that to have taken over (I'm pleased to see!).

As a bit of a hippy myself, I believe in the state system and am inclined to think that private schools are far more conformist in their approach and they do far more individual coaching. As an examiner, when I mark papers each summer this is really noticeable!

All the best teachers in our school work along the lines of Lola and Little. The rest don't tend to last very long.

I do wish the UK could get over its uniform fetish and just let kids dress in their own clothes. I've saved a bloody fortune not having to buy school clothes for DD1.

I like uniforms - having a uniform did not stop my friends and I from dressing like total freaks at weekends, but also meant we had nothing to think about during the week, getting dressed-wise!

It's the bias teachers underline things with. The narrow view they present.

Eg presenting corybn as hero and Tory as awful by saying... so who wants to help people more without going into wider view.

History properly taught will convey this but sometimes only in more depth later on.

@Drasticaction who are you talking about? Which teachers where, exactly? Who?

Secondary History covers communism, fascism and everything in between. As does English, in for example the study of newspapers and their political bias. These are requirements of the curriculum.

Schools are required to teach inclusion, tolerance and charity towards the vulnerable. You could argue these are left-wing ideals, but again they are on the curriculum.

What is your evidence base?

My niece got a place at a new secondary school last September, it has a strict uniform code, pupils have to have full uniform, identical bag, coat, pencil case & contents. The school is strict, pupils get detentions for not answering quickly enough in class, if the teacher thinks they are daydreaming, if they don't contribute to the lunchtime discussion subject. The school website states "if you are not prepared to make your child conforms to our ethos or do not agree yourself, then please do not apply to our school."

My ds goes to the local comprehensive, though we were supposed to get a choice, there wasn't really a choice because I knew that he would be sent there anyway. It's time that catchment areas for secondary schools were stopped, because all it is doing is creating schools in wealthy areas full of pupils from wealthy families, these schools never look to be struggling for funds. DS school takes pupils from 5 council estates, has been rated as needs improvement, is in poor repair, has a high turnover in staff, high numbers of SEN & pupil premium pupils. In our city there is a clear divide, in the latest league tables the top half of the table had every school from the wealthy areas & only two from the poorer areas.

Education has changed since the national curriculum was introduced, the range of subjects has reduced & arts including music & drama are becoming the same subjects to have funding cut. Schools are now churning out children who know all the facts to pass an exam but don't have the skills needed for every day life.

Uniform is part of the discipline code - a way to get students to follow rules. Many teachers in fact disagree with uniform rules but it was once explained to me by a teacher (who got to the final of teacher of the year btw). She said enforcing uniform was essential part of bringing students into line. If they followed the rules on uniform they would be more likely to follow other rules on behaviour and so on. It was about the teacher explicitly displaying authority over the students. Imagine if you were told to wear a uniform to the office environment? Who else uses uniforms? Serving staff, security forces, North Korea. Ok, yeah, provocative but you get my point, uniforms are not anodyne.

Yes, but kids are also kids and not adults. I think it is OK to have 'discipline' (if not to the extent of Nat6999 's niece's school! ), as in a large group of kids, no one would learn anything if there wasn't. I don't believe experiencing discipline or hierarchical relationships (such as exists between parent and child) rules out someone also being able to challenge rules or hierarchy. In fact perhaps that's why I dislike extreme discipline as it often takes it beyond fairness (eg, preventing disruption) and into enforcing rules for the sake of displaying power (eg punishing kids who happen to be a bit disorganised for forgetting something)

I think people who grow up with fair rules know when to challenge them - people who've been battered by unfair rules either kick back against everything, whether they ought to or not, or could learn resigned acceptance.

It will be interesting in years to come to see what effect the ultra strict no talking to anyone in school type policies have on the pupils in adult life.
Being branded bad before you have even got to the school and the heavy handed approach to everything must have an affect at some point.

I know of another group of schools that expect every child to go to university. If they don’t get in it is deemed that they have failed. A friends Dd goes there.

The friend went to university but doesn’t look around at how her life has turned out with regards to her working life and seems to want to push her dd down the same path.

She considers my dc failiures as Dd went to a very lax private school which catered more for dds dyslexia than any state school could.
Dd didn’t do A levels and left after her GCSEs (which she barely scraped through which I thought was a miracle) and doesn’t have a permanent job.
Dd does run her own business and whilst her peers are at university running up debts Dd has been steadily putting money away doing a range of work and is now buying her own property (very cheap, needs work doing on it and in a seedy area miles away)

Ds is learning a trade and you can tell this friend looks down her nose on trades.
She thinks everyone should do a degree before deciding what they want to do

I know the school interview the parents before accepting their children.

I don’t think they reject the children exactly but more make the parents think the school might not be the right fit for some children.

I don’t think my children would have got in as I think going to university was the goal and I knew that neither Dd or Ds would qualify

Over the past few years, we have had successive Government people trying to impose their own fucked up views on the education system, hence the obsessions with testing, surveillance and strict uniform rules. It jused to be the case that the sort of wingnuts who favoured expulsion for having the wrong colour socks had to content themselves with writing to the Daily Mail about how children 'have no respect': now they are issuing directives about 'teaching British values' and getting taken seriously.

There are still a lot of good teachers and some pretty good schools. But there is a general drift towards making kids obedient and preparing them to spend their lives doing shit jobs to enrich their betters.

Excessive testing has brought about huge changes in Primary schools which I think have suffered the most from government policies. Teachers really have their work cut out to fit everything in whilst trying to maintain some sense of freedom and creativity in the classroom.

As far as discipline goes, I don't really see mass changes. I do know that without discipline, teaching and learning is impossible. However I can't help but chuckle when people say it's worse than it used to be, as it wasn't that long ago that corporal punishment was used, children had no voice and no one ever questioned authority for fear of being whacked with a ruler!

Getting an education made me think more and of course if you are educated you tend to read more thus broadening you mindset. In no way did my education brainwash me but infact it was the opposite.

I get the impression most of the things on ReanimatedSGB's list are purely idealists in power that impose their values on the next gen.

Got a problem with discipline? Bring back the cane. Can't do that? Bring in harsh, arbitrary rules.

I do feel sorry for the teachers, and the way things work in schools there IS an imperative to enforce hierarchical structures, rules-based discipline. Doesn't mean it is good for the children, doesn't mean it isn't a form of indoctrination, doesn't mean it is unjust.

If you want adults that care and respect for other adults, with empathy and people skills needed in literally every walk of life, then model that in school.

resigned acceptance as a one-time state teacher, this is the reality for so many of our young adults. Disruptive kids get all the attention, all the middling ones develop 'resigned acceptance'. So fucking depressing.

Critical thinking can make you bloody depressed though...

ReanimatedSGB
I should add that I don't work in a 'wrong colour sock exclusion' school anymore, but used to work in a school that started to head that way and I have some sympathy for it in some contexts (School A)

School B was a school that had been failing for 10 years. It was merged with School C that was in a similar situation to make School A. School A had simple rules. Things like:
Be respectful and courteous to staff and students.
Students must wear a plain white non fitted shirt with a collar. No fashion shirts.
Students must wear black straight school trousers, no jeans or fashion trousers and no leggings.

It was a perfectly reasonable set of rules that any sensible person would have no issue following.
Natural looking hair colours only.

The problem was that 3/4 of the parents decided rules didn't apply to their child, so these sorts of things happened:

1. Child is yelling at a member of staff for telling them to take their hoody off. This disrupts the lesson for 15 minutes because behaviour on call can't arrive as they're busy dealing with another issue where a member of staff has been verbally abused for politely reminding students that calling their ex a 'fucking slag' wasn't needed in a Science lesson. Other students turn up in leggings and off boots and when the tutors contact home they're basically told to fuck off because they're black and I'm not buying them any other trousers.
2. When the child's persistently refuses to follow basic rules and gets isolated (usually because they've repeatedly argued over their refusal to follow the most simple and reasonable uniform rules), they call home and Mum appears at school demanding to speak to senior leadership. Senior leadership are busy trying (and failing) to have order in school. Mum starts effing and blinding at staff and threatening to report staff for breaking their child's human rights to individuality. They also start claiming being in isolation is ruining their child's chance at getting GCSEs, which is somewhat ironic as when their child truanted 3 days last week Mum's response was 'but kids will be kids and it's not gonna hurt them. I did it and turned out fine'. The child, now backed by home, is still refusing to wear black school trousers and remove their hoody so they get a fixed term exclusion for defiance.

This goes on in 50% of classrooms every single day. Every day it's a negotiation and a battle. School say no trainers, but parents buy trainers. School says natural looking hair colours only but someone comes in with bright red hair and home defends them saying 'yeah but red is a hair colour. Look at ginger people'.

In the end the school got taken over and they had a very prescriptive list to remove any petty arguments from parents. There were clear lines drawn and it was a case of 'turn up in wrong uniform and we'll provide a correct item. Refuse to wear it and it will be classed as defiance'.

It was needed to get a sense of order in the school so that students could learn and achieve. The 1/3 who always wanted to learn were able to learn. The 1/3 who were pushing their luck because they saw no reason not to go along with it but otherwise were good kids fell into line and appreciated the boundaries. That left 1/3 of big hitters who were always going to be difficult to crack to put interventions in where needed and to step up sanctions as needed.

Ultimately though if you do have died red hair (dye job went wrong friend turned her hair green) wore a hoody or jeans would it really mean they couldn’t learn and you couldn’t teach.

Friend pulled her Ds out of his school because he wasn’t wearing 2 black leather shoes and was put into isolation for not following the rules.

He had broken his ankle and was wearing on one foot the grey plastic nhs boot over the cast.