Education, the best thing since sliced bread?
Or is slow-fermented learning more digestible?
Our bread culture in England as well as America has greatly impoverished its consumers. Those ready-sliced, mass-produced, factory made loaves of tasteless product that line the shelves of our supermarkets and corner shops can’t compare to real bread, made with love and by hand.
For the past 7 or 8 years my home has been resident to German students each taking a year out to improve their English and to escape village life back home for the lights of London. Most become part of our extended family which might be useful in the event that my immediate biological family apply for German passports in advance of the EuroWall. I’ve had to explain the English bread situation to each of them as they look in disbelief and once again apologise for WW2. It’s fair to say that “people from foreign” don’t visit England for the bread although it’s probably why the tomato ketchup sandwich was invented here. Creativity always wins.
But we do know the difference when we’ve had delicious bread, real bread, perhaps from our local baker or, if we’re lucky, and have had the opportunity to travel. To me, great bread can make all the difference to simple meals whether it’s a sandwich or an accompaniment to a boiled egg. And yet the industrialisation of our food means that more often than not we settle for a slice of Mothers Pride and then cover it in something. Thus bread in England has become neutral.
A friend of mine, Scott Hayward, whom I used to work with in the 90s and who then went onto to work with Gordon Ramsey before opening an artisan bread bakery in Cumbria, once told me that “there’s nothing better than real bread and butter!”
I agreed with him and have been having adventures with bread every since.
One of my favourites which has become the Chez BM staple is sourdough bread. It’s got a depth of taste and a chewiness that feels like comfort, it complements almost anything from snacks to meals, makes terrific toast, it takes ages to go stale and even then it tastes great. Bought, it’s more expensive than the bland loaves from the shop but works out cheaper because it always gets eaten rather than thrown to the birds.
While studying the history of sourdough bread and how to make it I was struck by what a wonderful metaphor it made for the history of public education.
I found this article in The Guardian which I’ll summarise from but urge you to read:
Essentially the story of how we ended up accepting that bland bread was normal was down to an industrialisation or mass production problem known in business circles as “scaling”.
Until the discovery, some 6,000 years ago, of the process of fermenting, bread was typically flatbreads made by mixing water with crushed grains and baked on a hot stone. The new baking technique was revolutionary and quickly caught on across Europe and the Middle East.
Quoting from the above article:
“So satisfying was the new-style bread that over millennia it gradually took on quasi-religious status, a metaphor for nourishment, for harvest, for money, for life itself. Bread-making became an intrinsic part of village or small-town life, just as a wind- or watermill was a part of the local landscape.”
The industrial movement of the 20th century put an end to the small businesses of thousands of local millers and bakers who were replaced when the processing of wheat was concentrated to big central factories. In 1961, scientists developed new industrial processes that would increase the efficiency of bread production. The long fermentation process cut to the bare minimum meant that a loaf of bread could, from flour to wrapped product, be churned out in 3.5 hours. The result is the kind of standardised soft pappy bread with almost indefinite shelf-life that tastes of Kleenex.
To achieve this industrial marvel:
“a whole arsenal of additives is necessary: among them extra yeast, extra gluten, fat to improve crumb softness, reducing agents to help create stretchier doughs, soya flour to add volume and softness, emulsifiers to produce bigger, softer loaves and retard staling, preservatives — to extend shelf-life, and any of a wide variety of enzymes, legally defined as ‘processing aids’ which do not have to be declared on the label. “
A testimonial from the 1974 Technological Assessment Consumerism Centre report said:
“British bread is now the most chemically treated in western Europe.”
To quote the Dupont chemical company, “better living through chemistry” perhaps? However, the health impact on consumers hasn’t been positive. Diabetes, gluten sensitivity, IBS, Crohns coeliac disease and so on have been on a steep increase in the western world. Might there be a connection?
The profound industrialisation of our food means that today the majority of global brands are owned by just 10 corporations.
Post Brexit, the UK is seeing this evidenced by rising prices when currency fluctuates.
I see parallels in many sectors of the impact of industrial processes that rely on standardisation to deliver efficiencies, a standardised product and shareholder value. It is in the education sector that I see a parallel that I find more concerning.
Standardisation is the opposite of personalisation in my opinion and delivers education as decontextualised knowledge. Approaching education as an industrial science by measuring everything and then using technology to scale it ignores the artisan nature of teaching and the playful nature of learning.
Using my sourdough metaphor by seeking to speed up production, produce a standardised output and so forth aren’t we at risk of producing an education system that tastes like Kleenex?
My thoughts on the limitations of the assessment industry are documented but here my concern is whether the narrowing of curriculums, the ingredients to stretch the metaphor further, will have unpredictable results. Wouldn’t we be prudent to consider more holistic approaches to education that assist our learners to meet challenges that will be unique to their generation?
Here I’m thinking about rapidly changing geo-political conditions, protectionism and wall-building as a response to massive population growth, climate change and the automation of everything.
These seem to me as quite significant challenges to ensure a non-dystopian future. I am wondering if we are equipped?
I think we will need more artisans.
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