Reopening schools won’t fix our broken society
The proposed wider reopening of schools to supposedly protect disadvantaged young people and the economy is short-sighted, counterproductive and driven by an insidious political ideology to preserve a status quo that serves only the wealthy.
On Sunday 10th May, the UK government announced that reception, year 1 and year 6 students would be returning to schools on 1st June, with all primary year groups to return before the end of the academic year. The decision has been met with widespread criticism from parents, teachers, unions and the British Medical Association.
The government and its supporters argue that this is important not only for the economy but also that disadvantaged young people are being harmed by being out of school. They are wrong on both counts. Firstly, the wider opening of schools too soon is likely to lead to higher infection rates, even if it were the case — as has been suggested but not proven — that children play a less significant role in transmission than adults, because there will also be more contact between adults who facilitate young people going to school. The harm to both the economy and disadvantaged young people from the impacts of a second peak would be far greater. It is pandemics, not public health interventions that damage the economy.
Just as significant though, is the fact that schools do not address the central issue of inequality, as assumed by the supporters of early reopening. As brilliantly argued by Carol Black, schools perpetuate hierarchy and entrench privilege “through the hierarchical labeling and ranking of children that is hard-wired into our entire system of grading, testing, and one-size-fits-all standards.” My own experiences working in schools, where I have seen immigrant and non-white children consistently underestimated and undermined, have not persuaded me that schools are a progressive institution.
Even the curriculum itself is regressive in its structure and content. There has long been a tension between whether it is preferable for a curriculum to be knowledge or skills-based. In 2009 a huge independent review of all the relevant literature made the recommendation to move towards a more skills-based curriculum. Unfortunately, that year Labour lost the general election and the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government that took over threw out the recommendations of the Rose Review. In its place they installed a knowledge based curriculum, inspired by the work of an American academic called E.D. Hirsch.
Hirsch argues that skills come from knowledge, rather than the other way around, despite the evidence on which he bases his claims not showing the direction of causality. This evidence is extremely limited with questionable methodology and a highly problematic interpretation of the results. The assumption that the language of poor families (notably in the research in question, African-American families) is inherently “worse” is not only racist and classist but also circular in its argument.
There is a nasty thread running through this whole narrative that poor parents are fundamentally worse parents. This is not only a circular argument (as described above) but also demonstrably false, as shown by the work of Dr Paula Rothermel, whose UK research found that home educated children from lower socio-economic status families not only out-performed their schooled peers but also middle class home educated children.
If the problem is that significant numbers of young people are disadvantaged then we need to address inequality. Anything we need to live, such as food, housing, water, as well as health and social care should be universally provided. The complicated, expensive and bureaucratic benefits system in the UK falls short of this modest aspiration by some way, with one in nine children arriving to school hungry and 135,000 young people currently homeless.
Far from being a disincentive to work, trials of a universal basic income (UBI) have now shown the measure improves both employment and wellbeing; as well as protecting from the advancing employment issues from automation. Surely, every country in the world will be watching to see how Spain’s rollout of a UBI progresses.
In addition to this, we need an education system that actively dismantles the systems of oppression at the root of all unnecessary human suffering. Education can and should be self-directed and non-hierarchical, with teachers as facilitators of self-directed learning, which will prepare young people for a world of uncertainty better than a curriculum designed by public school educated politicians, who have only known a world privilege and have much to lose from questioning the status quo.
We also need to question the mainstream approach to behaviour management. Research by educator Sarah Ridgeon, conducted at our education project, The Garden, last year, suggested that 6–9 year olds are capable of complex moral thinking, given an unconditional approach without rewards or punishments. The potential for non-judgmental relationships with young people to develop empathy, moral reasoning, and promote pro-social behaviours could completely change the fabric of our society.
Economic issues can be mitigated for, given the political will to do so; death is rather less negotiable. Until we have effective treatments and/or a vaccine for SARS COV-2, we need to do everything in our power to stop the spread of infection to save lives. If we put in place equitable policy measures and use this time to build an education system that supports equality, rather than entrenching privilege, we could come out of this crisis with a fairer and stronger society.
References:
Black, C. (2018) Three Cups of Fiction [online]. Available from: http://carolblack.org/three-cups-of-fiction
Department for Children, Schools & Families (2020) Independent Review of the Primary Curriculum [online]. Available from: https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20100202110005/http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/primarycurriculumreview/
Department for Education (2020) Opening schools and educational settings to more pupils from 1 June: guidance for parents and carers [online]. Available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/closure-of-educational-settings-information-for-parents-and-carers/reopening-schools-and-other-educational-settings-from-1-june
Don’t Forget The Bubbles (2020) DFTB COVID-19 Evidence Review 15th May 2020 [online]. Available from: https://dontforgetthebubbles.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/COVID-data-15th-May.pdf
Gray, P. (2020) Freedom To Learn [blog]. https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/freedom-learn
Kohn, A. (2018) Punished By Rewards [25th Anniversary Edition]. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Lambrechts, W. & Hindson, J. (2016) Research and innovation in education for sustainable development [online]. Available from: https://rltauritz.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/tauritz-2016-a-pedagogy-for-uncertain-times.pdf
New Scientist (2020) Universal basic income seems to improve employment and well-being [online]. Available from: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2242937-universal-basic-income-seems-to-improve-employment-and-well-being/
New York Times (2020) Trump’s Baseless Claim That a Recession Would Be Deadlier Than the Coronavirus [ online]. Available from: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/us/politics/fact-check-trump-coronavirus-recession.html
Shelter (2019) A child becomes homeless in Britain every eight minutes [online]. Available from: https://england.shelter.org.uk/media/press_releases/articles/a_child_becomes_homeless_in_britain_every_eight_minutes
The Independent (2020) Coronavirus: Spain to become first country in Europe to roll out universal basic income [ online]. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/coronavirus-spain-universal-basic-income-europe-a9449336.html
The Mirror (2020) Most parents ‘don’t want to send kids back to school after lockdown until vaccine’ [online]. Available from: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/most-parents-dont-want-send-21995809
The Telegraph (2020) Schools need to reopen, whatever unions say [online]. Available from: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/05/14/schools-need-reopen-whatever-unions-say/
TES (2019) One in nine pupils arrives at school hungry, poll finds [online]. Available from: https://www.tes.com/news/one-nine-pupils-arrives-school-hungry-poll-finds
TES (2020) Teachers give school reopening plans a ‘resounding no’ [online]. Available from: https://www.tes.com/news/teachers-give-school-reopening-plans-resounding-no
Union News (2020) “We should not consider re-opening schools yet” — BMA comes out in support of teachers [online]. Available from: https://www.union-news.co.uk/breaking-we-should-not-consider-re-opening-schools-yet-bma-supports-teachers/
Unison (2020) Education unions agree statement on the safe reopening of schools [online]. Available from: https://www.unison.org.uk/news/press-release/2020/05/education-unions-agree-statement-safe-reopening-schools/
Yandell, J. (2017) Culture, Knowledge and Power: What the Conservatives have Learnt from E.D. Hirsch [online]. Available from: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1358684X.2017.1351231
