The standards for teachers recently promulgated by Michael Gove have excited much debate and a rather predictable negative reaction from teaching unions. The tenor of the comments has been that the standards are vague and, as one union spokesman put it, “another stick with which to beat teachers”. Perhaps. Like many new initiatives in education, though, it remains to be seen what, if any, impact the new rules will have. There has also been some criticism that the standards are an aimless mish-mash of benchmarks for the delivery of education and codes of conduct for teachers personally. There is a suspicion of splitting hairs about this, particularly as some of the standards, such as those that focus on subject knowledge, are nothing new, having been enshrined in school inspection documentation for years. In any case, this whole contention misses what, for me, is the most significant section of the document, namely the dictum that teachers must promote, or, at least, not undermine ”fundamental British values”.
The first point to mention is that one such “value”, “individual liberty” seems to be flatly contradicted by other rules which restrict teachers’ own individual liberty, insisting on specific behaviours in their private lives, including a ban on joining far right political parties. Of course, it may be argued that there is an element of tokenism here, since it is unlikely that all that many teachers are members of far right groups to begin with. Nevertheless, while the views of the BNP may be repugnant to most, it is not actually an illegal organisation and, thus, to proscribe it for an entire profession seems to go against another of the given “fundamental British values”, “democracy”. It might even be questioned if there is such a thing as a “British” value: the recent electoral success of the Scottish Nationalists suggests that at least two of the countries that comprise the Union see things in radically different ways.
In fact, the one over-riding value that Gove is most keen on is that much-advocated, but rarely well-defined, virtue – tolerance. It certainly underlies other standards that require teachers to be open to other ideologies and faiths. Again, questions are begged: is this “tolerance” a British value? And what is it, anyway? Kate Fox argues that tolerance is essentially an English characteristic. She is not, however, wholly uncritical in her discussion, suggesting that English tolerance is, in reality, no more than a species of “benign indifference”. She is surely correct – although, as I shall go on to, more exploration of her ideas is necessary – but, in striving for a clearer definition, she highlights the difficulty of pinning the concept down. The Scots and the Welsh would also no doubt present themselves as tolerant, and, indeed, hospitable. Having lived for a year in the Highlands, I can vouch for the Scots in this regard, but it should not be forgotten that there is a decidedly intolerant anti-English strain to Scottish politics evidenced by the current degree of influence enjoyed by Alex Salmond and his ilk. Whatever constitutes Scottish tolerance, then, is different in kind from that to be found south of the border; English nationalism, after all, has consistently failed to gain any real traction and there seems to be little appetite for it either at party or grassroots level.
Where Gove has erred most egregiously is in his failure to locate his cherished tolerance in a specific aspect of the national psyche. Kate Fox makes the same mistake in that she describes a practical manifestation of tolerance and not its source. Arguably, British tolerance (let’s call it that) is an aspect of an extreme form of individualism that characterises social relationships within these islands. Even compared to other Western nations, the British are incorrigibly individualistic; the Americans and the French, for instance, have written constitutions and, while these theoretically guarantee various freedoms, they are still pre-ordained political settlements which place limits on the scope of interaction and debate. In Britain, by contrast, we have a “constitution” that comprises a series of guidelines, rules-of-thumb, assumptions and precedents that have been generated over time as a result of the actions of certain individuals in specific circumstances. So resistant are the British to being categorised by their social context that they do not even bother with a national anthem, since the one they have praises not the nation, but a single man or woman, the monarch. The most popular Anglo-centric alternative, “Jerusalem”, is a revolutionary song calling for the overthrow of the prevailing social order. The British eccentric – that loveable buffoon who eschews conformity to any social norm - has long been a stock figure of comedy around the world. Even the famous reserve that many would identify as a distinctively British characteristic can be seen as an unwillingness to engage with society in general and is, therefore, just another trait of the individualist.
The new standards misjudge British values in demanding that tolerance be given to other faiths, races and ideologies. British tolerance has always been of the individual and, in its most perfect form, is blind to the social groups to which that individual belongs. Unwittingly, Gove has bought into the project of those very "social engineers" he has hitherto had cause to vilify by foregrounding group membership as any given person's defining feature. He would do better to encourage teachers to preach that genuine, and fundamental, British value – one that has informed teaching for generations and which is centred in individualism – “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.
No comments:
Post a Comment