Democracy as skeleton, flesh AND blood

I have, these past few days, been fixated on the question of the future of education – triggered partly by what is apparently a famous TED video with Sir Ken Robinson about how modern schools tend to kill creativity in children - very impressive performance, with lots of laughs - so sad therefore to hear of his recent death. His books include "Creative Schools – the grassroots revolution that’s transforming our schools" (2015). 

When, however, I translate these thoughts into words, I discover that I’m writing about democracy which, of course, we know is in trouble – the masses, somehow, have broken loose and are no longer accepting what their masters are telling them. This, of course, has been a perennial fear of the elites – it has happened before and, in that sense, might have been anticipated.

But the elites are not as clever as before… so let me give them some simple advice – based on a simple adage - ”If you treat the general public as idiots, they will behave as idiots”. You have, for the past few decades, made the following assumptions about your fellows –

- They need to be worked hard - but bread and circuses will keep them happy

- Told what to do and measured by how well they do it

- Given a choice at elections only of those who represent an ever-circulating elite

- you no longer even bother going through the motions of serving up promises and manifesto programmes

- the public is so stupid and so easily distracted that they will believe any of your lies

- you can do whatever you want, safe in the knowledge that you have a servile media which knows that its basic business is to keep the public entertained

I spent more than 20 years of my life helping the establishment of new democratic systems in ex-communist countries and tried to convey a sense of what that involved in a definition which perhaps reflects the thinking of the period...... 

“The Government system in a democracy is made up of several structures or systems each of which has a distinctive role. It is this sharing of responsibilities – in a context of free and open dialogue – which ideally gives democratic systems their strength – particularly in

-   Producing and testing ideas

-   Checking the abuses of power

-   Ensuring public acceptance (legitimacy) of the political system – and the decisions which come from it”.

We used to call such a system “pluralist” – with reference to its multiple sources of power and legitimacy - but, these days, it seems that the public have become impatient with talk and favour instead action. demagogues and strongmen. This is a fundamental perversion of the spirit of democracy….and the focus in the final part of my (admittedly dated) definition on institutions is meaningless without ideas and discussion…. 

The key institutions for a democratic system are -

·       A political executive - whose members are elected and whose role is to set the policy agenda- that is develop a strategy (and make available the laws and resources) to deal with those issues which it feels need to be addressed.

·       A freely elected legislative Assembly – whose role is to ensure (i) that the merits of new legislation and policies of the political Executive are critically and openly assessed; (ii) that the performance of government and civil servants is held to account; and (iii) that, by the way these roles are performed, the public develop confidence in the workings of the political system.

·       An independent Judiciary – which ensures that the rule of Law prevails, that is to say that no-one is able to feel above the law.

·       A free media; where journalists and people can express their opinions freely and without fear.

·       A professional impartial Civil Service – whose members have been appointed and promoted by virtue of their technical ability to ensure (i) that the political Executive receives the most competent policy advice; (ii) that the decisions of the executive (approved as necessary by Parliament) are effectively implemented; and that (iii) public services are well-managed

·       The major institutions of Government - Ministries, Regional structures and various types of Agencies - should be structured, staffed and managed in a purposeful manner

·       An independent system of local self-government – whose leaders are accountable through direct elections to the local population The staff may or may not have the status of civil servants.

·       An active civil society – with a rich structure of voluntary associations – able to establish and operate without restriction. Politicians can ignore the general public for some time but, only for so long! The vitality of civil society – and of the media – creates (and withdraws) the legitimacy of political systems.

·       An independent university system – which encourages tolerance and diversity

But such bodies are merely the skeleton of democracy – conversation and discussion is its lifeblood and is built on civility and respect

Take the fundamental issue of education about which the public has become increasingly vexed as international league tables have demonstrated national weaknesses in systems which are now seen as crucial for a country’s economic success…..To whom do we – and should we - turn for advice on such things?

- Politicians – who have the authority to make changes?

- Teachers – who have the responsibility for managing the system of schooling?

- Experts – who study the workings of the system?

- Parents – who have variable degrees of responsibility, activity and expectation?

- Pupils – who have their own expectations and attitudes?

When we ask such a question, the variability of the answers is quite amazing. Each country tends to have its own pattern – with the Finnish system regularly quoted as the most successful but outlier country in which highly-trained professionals are trusted to get on with the business. Most people would probably still respond to the question with a reference to the need for collaboration - few would trust the politicians. 

And yet that is precisely the situation in which most countries have landed!

Many of my generation are still marked by the critique of schools conducted from the 1960s by the likes of Paul Goodman, Ivan Illich, Paulo Freire, RF McKenzie and even Neil Postman. In that sense Ken Robinson is part of an honourable 50 year tradition which includes psychologist Howard Gardner of Multiple Intelligences fame. And it is to this strain of thinking I would like to devote a future post.  

Writing

I’ve ben racing through books in the last few days – first a marvellous tale The Last Testament of Gideon Mack by one of Scotland’s up-and-coming generation of writers, James Robertson. The link gives a review by Irvine Walsh, one of the more established of our writers, who not only gives an excellent summary and commentary on the novel but also graciously asserts that Robertson is one of Britain’s best current novellists. Certainly I enjoyed his most recent book – And the Land Lay Still which Walsh also reviews very positively (google for that). Recent political events in Scotland are an important presence in both books (indeed the main character in his most recent) – but Gideon Mack had a particular resonance for me since its main character is a “son of the manse” (who, despite lack of belief, becomes a minister himself). The sense he conveys of life in the manse (the house in which the Minister lives) as Gideon is growing up and of church activities, for me, as another “son of the manse” is very well done.
At one point he has the devil say to Mack –

I like Scotland. I like the miserable weather. I like the miserable people, the fatalism, the negativity, the violence that’s always below the surface. And I oike the way you deal with religion. One century you’re up to your lugs in it, the next you’re trading the whole apparatus for Sunday superstores. Praise the Lord and thrash the bairns. Ask and ye shall have the door shut in your face. Blessed are they that shop on the Sabbath for they shall have the best bargains. Oh yesy, this is a very fine country

Norman Lewis was also admired for his writing in the second half of the last century - although he’s better known now as a travel writer. I read earlier in the year an excellent biography of Lewis and read this week the first two parts of his autobiography – I Came, I Saw; and The World, The World. Quite sublime writing! He can summons up characters and landscapes so powerfully - and is particularly strong on the loss of traditional ways of living (whether in Spain, India, Latin America or rural Essex)

In April 2010, I blogged about the sudden commitment which appeared in Conservative manifesto to permit “free schools” – based on the Swedish model There is a story today about the apparent decline of school performance in Sweden – and some backtracking in Sweden on the concept of the “free school”

Sweden's path-breaking educational reforms of the 1990s have come under question since last December when the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development published the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment. This showed that Swedish students had dropped to 19th place out of 57 countries for literacy, to 24th in maths, and to 28th in science. This compared with 9th, 17th and 16th in studies done in 2000, 2003 and 2006 respectively. And Swedes, used to coming near the top of just about every human development index, were appalled. Jan Björklund, the minister of education, moved to tighten central control over schools and is soon to launch a parliamentary inquiry into competition and free schools.

Just two excerpts from the discussion thread which followed - 1.

Only 10% of Swedish students go to free schools (as of 2008) so for Sweden to have been dropping in the 2009 PISA tables must surely be a reflection on the whole system, for example even if the 10% did a fantastic job it could not make up for the other 90% if they underperformed.
2. Many Swedish free schools are not run for a profit, they are run by churches or charities, so you cannot generalise about the profit motive and all Swedish free schools.

and, from one of the customers,

One of those free schools I went to, JENSEN, had half-days for all its pupils, which basically ment that you started at 8 am and left at 12ish am for 1 week, and then switched to beginning at 11 am and leaving at 4ish PM the next week. The school did this because this, basically, ment that they could have twice the amount of students in 1 school as opposed to having a full day at school which would mean less pupils = less taxpayer-money = less profit.
So they have an incentive to fill classes up with 30-40 students in tight rooms, to cut the amount of hours of teacher-led classes and to basically warehouse pupils until they are old enough to disappear.

education

Interesting chat with Daryoush when we were in Waterstone’s. He’s been working on Yemen’s educational system and remarked that education was the key to a country’s future. “Yes and no” is my feeling. I remembered the veneration still accorded in 1980s Sweden to the reforming social democrat leader (Branting?)whose educational initiatives clearly made a major impact on that country’s subsequent social and economic development. Daryoush assured me that the transformation of Finland (an Denmark) was based on similar thinking. But notice that these programmes were based on a very distinctive set of values – they were not pushing education the way the technocrats do these days. And a review article of D. Ravich’s Death and life of the great American public school system in the 13 May edition of The New York Review of Books which I had bought in Waterston’s gave a clue. The article makes a distinction I hadn’t come across before – between the community-oriented schools of 19th century and the child-centred schooling which the thinking of Dewey had brought in. Apparently this was a distinction de Tocqueville made during his visit to the US in the 1830s –

In the US the general thrust of education is directed toward political life; in Europe its main aim is to fit men for private life

! Ravich’s latest book is an attack on the choice and measurement approach to schooling now dominant – and, intriguingly, Colin Talbot reveal that David Osborne who wrote the (in)famous Reinventing Government book of 1992 was opposed to choice in education.

He was asked what he thought about choice and markets in secondary education. The Charter Schools movement in the USA – very much similar to the ‘free schools’ policy of our Coalition government – had started just a few years earlier.

As with ‘free schools’, Charter Schools were supposed to be freed of state controls whilst still being funded from the public purse, and, crucially, be non-selective. Parents had the choice to send their kids to a Charter school or ordinary state school, but the Charter Schools were not supposed to select who they took. A perfect example of choice in operation, very much in line with the themes of ‘Reinventing Government’, one might have thought.
David Osborne however thought otherwise. He said that whilst he was in general in favour of choice there were some areas where it was not appropriate for super-ordinate reasons, and compulsory education was one of them. Why? Because, he argued, schools were the crucible of a pluralist society – it was the place where kids learnt to get along with people of different class, ethnic, religious and other backgrounds. Without this crucial formative experience existing divisions in society would be amplified and damaging – he even pointed to Northern Ireland as an example of what happens when you have segregated schooling. And of course the USA already had an all-too recent history of school segregation which the Civil Rights movement had fought in the 60s and 70s.
Schools choice, Osborne asserted, was already leading to renewed segregation in American schools. Whether or not the schools operated selection (and he thought they in reality did) it was pretty obvious parents were operating self-segregation. There were white Catholic and white Protestant schools being formed, black Protestant and Hispanic Catholic ones, and so on. He thought this was a disaster in the making and for over-riding reasons of democratic pluralism was against choice in this case. State-funded compulsory education, he argued, ought to be used to bind society together rather than splinter it into fragments.

His remarks clearly surprised quite a few in the audience, me included. Most of his listeners were clearly not convinced – this was after-all a mix of Tory policy-wonks and civil servants keen to do the bidding of their (current) masters – and in any case even the opposition New Labour party had gotten the ‘choice’ bug. But I came away thinking just how wise, thoughtful and courageous, his response had been. Some of our current and former leaders could do well to think a bit more about his arguments

For more see here.
Glorious weather now since I arrived here in Brussels. It’s great to have the luxury of relaxing and not having to tear around the countryside looking at areas and houses. If it wasn’t for the prices, Brussels could be ideal for a pied-a-terre. The faces in the city centre were happy and so cosmopolitan. Brussels and Sofia are definitely my favourite cities. Have been going through the last month’s back numbers of Le Monde – mainly for my vocabulary. But it is interesting to see the various issues which have been given prominence in that excellent daily - the argument about increasing the French retirement age (only 60 at the moment!); the growth of China; the future of the political centre in France; the future of the euro (naturally) and Europe generally.
The painting is

L'homme a la fenetre

by de Braekeleer