Surviving school: Some (personal) thoughts on teachers and teaching

The funny thing about writing about the English education system is that it never really changes. Most of the things I wrote 10 or 20 years ago are still as relevant as they were back then. It is also the most depressing thing about it. I’m pretty sure, after more than two decades writing about English education, that most of the things that are wrong with it are things we believe we cannot change, even though we can. We don’t even like to talk about these things – I mean, what’s the point, right, that’s just how things are – but unless we do, nothing will ever get better. It’s true of a lot of things in British life, which is why tinkering at the margins and modest ambition just won’t do, even if it is the only thing that will get you elected. If we want a better life for all, we need to put in a few windows, slaughter a few sacred cows, lance a few boils. We should demand the Earth because our kids deserve it. What’s the point of pruning a branch here or there when the roots are rotten?

There is an unhealthy obsession in English state education with discipline and control. Unlike in most comparable countries in Western Europe – and most places in the world unstained by British colonialism – almost all state school pupils in England must wear uniforms (schools can, in principle, choose not to, but few do). They are often prohibitively expensive but there are no exemptions. If you cannot afford to buy a new one for your child, maybe you can get one second hand, or if there is an older sibling, they can wear their hand-me-downs. Failing that, some local authorities offer grants to poorer families so they can kit their kids out in the regulation 1950s-style shirt and blazer set (you know, like all their parents wear to work). School uniforms are justified as a sort of social leveller. But, of course, they are nothing of the sort. They are an indicator of class and social status through which people in positions of authority routinely adjust their demands and expectations (the difference between a benevolent slap on the wrist and being put on the DNA database).

Schools can also set rules about pupils’ appearance, and these are often pretty draconian. There are rules about hair style (length, fringe, colour, use of gel, clips and extensions, and much else), length of skirt, height of sock, opacity of tights, colour and style of shoe, and so on. Trainers are, by and large, forbidden. And, for the most part, uniforms are gendered, skirts and tights for girls, trousers for boys, reinforcing harmful and restrictive stereotypes and the idea that girls – whose appearance is subject to often quite extraordinary scrutiny – are objects. Children who fail to meet these standards, or who turn up without the proper equipment (pens, paper, proper PE kit and other things some parents struggle to provide) are frequently sent home or given detention. Pupils can face expulsion if they repeat-offend or are (God forbid) ‘defiant’. School websites abound with evidence-free gibberish about how neatness instils pride and uniforms foster togetherness and prevent bullying. But the really important message of uniform and appearance policies is one of control and knowing your place: you may not understand why these rules are in place or what they are for, but you are going to do it anyway, whatever you think of it. You’d better get used to it.

School uniform policy is not the only or even the most important thing wrong about English education, but it is indicative of much else that is and that is why it is worth talking about. While uniforms appeal to some, for others they are a constant, discomforting burden. Many students, those dubbed difficult or challenging, struggle with this focus on discipline and conformity, which penalises the kids who most need support and are often the ones with the most to give. For these students, the outcome of this high-control, highly punitive environment is not a feeling of togetherness or wellbeing, it is the opposite: alienation, stress, fear of the consequences of transgression and, for those who cannot afford the right kit, social stigma. Such feelings are not limited to the pupils; teachers often feel them too, and not just in schools. Micromanagement and overbearing accountability regimes have created a culture across education in which teachers are constantly looking over their shoulder, afraid of the next performance review or inspection. Much of this anxiety is passed on by leaders and managers who often adopt commend-and-control strategies to cope with the demands of targets and accountability and create high-control regimes in their schools, colleges or universities. The pressures they encounter are enormous. Staff feel them too, as do parents who have to support their child in navigating this high-stakes, no-second-chances environment. Anxiety to a quite large extent drives a system the main outputs of which are failure and disaffection.

Is this oppressive culture really conducive to a good learning or teaching environment or to the creation of happy, confident and inquisitive kids? It seems pretty unlikely. Good teaching is about listening and understanding, about igniting a spark the student can follow in whatever direction they like, not taking that spark and forcing it one direction or other. The most important thing a teacher can share is a piece of themselves, a passion or interest that sets the student on their own journey, that makes them curious and engaged. This is particularly true of children who appear distracted or uninterested, who are seen as difficult or defiant. Kids who don’t quite fit often feel ignored in a system so set on fostering conformity and obedience. For these students there is huge power in the moment in which they feel seen for the first time.

For me, this moment came late. My school experience was a dismal and alienating one, also a frequently violent one. I’ve written about it before. I didn’t manage to connect with any subject, even English, or with any teacher. I have no fond memories of it. I was bullied to the point that I simply stopped attending. I didn’t attend any of my final exams. I left without qualifications. It was only in further education that I finally encountered teachers who genuinely cared about their students. My English teacher shared her interests and drew out the interests of her students. She saw them. She listened to them. She thought they could be something more. For me, and I am sure for others, this was transformational. There was something magical about this grown up talking to me about the stuff she was interested in and trying to find out what I liked.

I got the qualifications I needed to study journalism at polytechnic (what was called a ‘pre-entry’ course) but not to get to university. When, after a few years of work, I started to think this might be an option. I applied to a few institutions hoping my work experience and interests would count but only one university, Cardiff, gave me an interview. I remember meeting the course leader, Barry Wilkins, in an office teeming with books and papers. He wasn’t interested in what qualifications I had but in what I was like and what I liked to read. I managed to speak haltingly about Bruno Bettelheim and his book Freud and Man’s Soul, which I had just read, and to convey my enthusiasm for the novels of Milan Kundera. I knew very little about the subject I wanted to study, philosophy. But it didn’t matter. He wanted to know if I was interested and serious and that I wanted to study. Barry became my personal tutor. His interest in his students was inexhaustible (I know I am not alone in feeling this – he is very warmly remembered by his students). What was great about him was that he made you feel like you really mattered to him, that you had value. He didn’t care about your accent or background or who your parents were. He was simply a brilliant guy.

Neither of these two teachers were memorable for their ability to convey a curriculum. What they gave me was a sense of freedom and a feeling that my interests and likes had value. I wouldn’t say they lit a path exactly, but they gave you a compass and showed you how to use it. They knew the job of teaching was not to show you through the right door but to keep as many doors open for as long as possible while they found the things they really cared about. But education, as most working-class people experience it, is about doors closing, disorientingly fast, until almost all options are gone. There were brilliant kids at my school, artists, poets, storytellers, wits, critics and dandies. Often, they were the difficult and challenging kids, the ones the teachers couldn’t stand. They didn’t fit. They were often called stupid or lazy. They were defiant. They were punished. They were bullied, coerced into lives they didn’t want, until there was little left of the person they could have been. At least then there were second chances. These are few and far between today.

When I got to university, all those years ago, I loved to spend time in the library. It was my favourite thing just to wander the shelves. It was amazing to me to suddenly have access to all these books. I would sometimes pick a novel off the shelf and spend the rest of the day reading it. I never doubted that this was what education should be like. I was taking a line for a walk, as Paul Klee put it. I was finding stuff out. I was learning how to understand, learning what it was I was into. I was opening all the doors. That is what education should be about. All learning involves learning about yourself, just as all teaching does. It should be a launchpad for ongoing, lifelong exploration.

I worry though that education is going in the wrong direction, and we are letting down vast numbers of young people and the adults they become. The obsession with control is not just about students’ appearance and behaviour. It is about what they learn and how they learn. There is little freedom because there is little trust and trust is absolutely essential in education and in fostering good learning environments and good student-teacher relationships. The thing we forget about kids is they are smart, and they can spot inauthenticity a mile off. They know when a teacher doesn’t believe in what they are teaching, they know when they aren’t sincere and when they don’t care about them or their learning.

The smartest kids are usually the ones who buck against this, the ones perceived as troublemakers and problem kids, the smartarses and awkward customers. They might show their resistance to mindless rote learning and indifferent teaching through their behaviour or their interpretation of uniform rules. These same kids – the crazy, sensitive, chaotic, inattentive, non-compliant, offbeat ones – will also be the first to notice when a teacher sees them and is prepared to share something of themselves with them. Somehow, we seem to have forgotten this in our climate of high control and accountability and anxiety-amplifying high-stakes testing. Finding these kids and helping them become their best selves is what education and teaching should be about. But, too often, they are collateral damage in the rush to produce docile workers and obedient citizens. Bright lights go out every day. And no one, for the most part, even notices.

Coercion in the classroom: Why school uniforms are bad for us

One of the peculiarities of British cultural life is our willingness to support rules and conventions with arguments that have little to do with – and even run contrary to – the reasoning that led to their introduction. The monarchy may well have its roots in military force, land appropriation and vassalage, but we retain it because, we think, it is good for tourism and a source of national pride and unity. The same applies to the UK’s antique system of titles and honours, a reward for the loyalty of feudal gangsters rebranded as a way of recognizing achievement in public life or service. It survives, despite its ugly associations with colonialism, as a means, primarily, of rewarding support (financial support, especially) to the ruling party or its leader. Likewise, grammar schools, those bright, shiny engines of inequality and social segregation, are defended, against all the evidence, as vehicles of social mobility, choice and fairness. These are distortions of language, words used misleadingly to perpetuate institutions that would otherwise be quickly recognized as straightforwardly harmful. But they are also testament to our remarkable capacity to believe things that aren’t true just because we would like them to be. We are very good at coming up with benign justifications for customs and conventions that are, in all honesty, anything but.

One of the most interesting examples of this phenomenon is the UK’s almost universal attachment to school uniforms. They are mandatory in most British schools and in many former British colonies and have been for decades. The sight of children dressed in ties and blazers to learn is so common that it is seldom questioned or thought about in a critical way. It’s just the best way to do it, isn’t it? But it is important to note just how much of an outlier the UK is in this respect, at least among comparable countries. While the practice has been adopted by many countries in Asia, the UK and Ireland are the only countries in Europe to widely apply a compulsory uniform code for children in state schools. Few European countries have any sort of tradition of uniform codes, and there is little demand to change this. In fact, in most places their introduction would be met with strenuous opposition, not only because of the additional expense involved but also, and I suspect most importantly, because there is no problem for which school uniforms would be seen as a solution. There is no evidence, for example, that school uniforms improve pupils’ behaviour or help children learn. And while some studies have shown a link between uniforms and reduced bullying, other studies reveal little or no impact. So, why are uniforms thought of as indispensable to learning in schools in the UK?

Perhaps the most important reason is tradition. The modern school uniform has its origins in sixteenth-century England, where poor ‘charity children’ at Christ’s Hospital boarding school wore blue cloaks and yellow stockings to convey their lowly status. Uniforms were not taken up by wealthy private schools (‘public’ schools in polite English doublespeak) until the nineteenth century, when the Eton suit was introduced. Other private and grammar schools followed this example, usually preferring caps to Eton’s proudly patrician top hats. They became important symbols of privilege and wealth. After the Elementary Education Act 1870 established elementary education on a national scale in England and Wales, grammar schools introduced uniforms more widely to distinguish their pupils from poorer ‘school board’ kids who wore no uniform. Once secondary school education had become free to all and the school leaving age was raised to 15 after World War II, school uniforms gradually became more widespread and, eventually, ubiquitous. While it is still not compulsory for schools to adopt uniforms – each school can write its own policy – the government strongly encourages them to do so and almost every school follows this advice, usually opting for the classic shirt, stiff collar, tie and blazer combination and often applying their often highly detailed and prescriptive rules extremely strictly. We are all like the private schools now, just not as good. And that, of course, is very much the point. From the start, uniforms have served as markers of status.

The proponents of school uniforms – and there are very many, including among pupils themselves – say that school uniforms foster a sense of belonging and institutional pride. They reduce bullying, they say (since children are sometimes bullied because of how they dress, and this won’t happen if everyone is dressed the same), and promote equality among pupils (not real equality, of course, more equality of footwear). Pupils, furthermore, will be more focused on their studies and achieve better results, it is argued. Uniforms also improve attendance, discipline and punctuality. This is an impressive list of claims, and some may have elements of truth in them. The main problem though is that the substantive claims – that uniforms raise achievement, reduce bullying and promote equality – are not well-supported by the evidence, which is inconclusive at best. There is little evidence, for example, of a link between uniform codes and academic standards. Finland, the best-performing education system in the world (with outcomes the UK education system cannot begin to match), for example, has no school uniforms. And while some studies have suggested a link between uniforms and a reduction in bullying, others have found no evidence of this. It is not really much of a social leveller either, since the poorer kids are more likely still to be in ill-fitting or second-hand uniforms and social segregation is more extreme between schools than within them. More generally, school uniforms are signifiers not of unity but of hierarchy. In Britain, where wealthy people seldom school their children alongside those of poorer people, they can tell you what part of town a child is from, what kind of jobs their parents are likely to do, how big their house is, whether it is owned or rented, and what their prospects are likely to be. Thus, uniforms accentuate the very social distinctions they are supposed to overcome.

The strict enforcement measures in place in many schools – and the insistence on a code of dress that is weirdly out of step with the fast-changing, increasingly informal world of work – suggest that there is something at play here other than a desire to promote a level playing field and boost achievement. It is common for children to be sent home for not wearing the correct uniform or to have items of clothing considered ‘inappropriate’ confiscated. For girls, such strict policies extend to skirt length and material and the thickness of their tights. There are rules too about make-up, nails and hair styles. Uniform policies are heavily gendered (for many schools, trousers are still the preserve of boys), with girls’ dress choices much more likely to be scrutinised for ‘appropriateness’. So much for fostering a sense of belonging. In fact, none of this, if we are honest about it, has anything to do with academic achievement or student wellbeing. It is about control and compliance, exercised over a part of people’s lives which is, for many, highly personal and private. It is about conformity and the intrusive hand of government. It is about learning to jump when told to jump and not asking why. As such, it goes to the heart of the question of the type of education we want for our children. Do we think the purpose of education is to force every type of peg into one type of hole? Or do we want our schools to be places of possibility where, as bell hooks writes in Teaching to transgress, ‘we have the opportunity to labor for freedom, to demand of ourselves and our comrades an openness of mind and heart that allows us to face reality even as we collectively imagine ways to move beyond boundaries, to transgress’.

As a square peg who experienced school as a series of doors slamming in my face before I had a chance to understand what was behind them, I very much want it to be different for my children. I would like it to be different for everybody’s children. I don’t want schools to be places where compliance is rewarded and those who don’t fit or see the world differently are punished and left behind. I would rather teachers and school leaders were focused on teaching and learning and not on what their pupils happen to wear. I would rather they appreciated the difference that difference makes. Schools need to change, just as education more generally needs to change. It needs to support collaboration and co-production of knowledge, creativity and critical thinking, dialogue and possibility. It’s no longer enough to educate people to be units of production but not much more. Truthfully, it never was. The adult education movement has, over many decades, expressed people’s appetite for this something more, an unrealised desire to transform and transgress, to resist and challenge, to effect change and remake the world. It continues to do so, in spite rather than because of the actions of government. The problems of the twenty-first century demand something other than more of the same. Schools should be places in which everyone is comfortable being who they are and becoming who they might be. And for that we need children who are willing and empowered to deviate from the norm and an education system that acknowledges and values difference. Finding and fostering difference, opening doors of possibility rather than closing them, is what transformative teaching is all about. Uniforms, with their emphasis on control and compliance, standardised learning and standardised learners, belong to the past. They are not at all what we need now. It’s time we moved on.