Aug
10
2009
This week’s Observer carries a powerful and persuasive article by Matthew Ryder, who is a barrister with Matrix Chambers. Its title is “The pursuit of riches destroys the lives of young black men.”
Its strapline says simply, “Teenagers are being corrupted by the ideology that sparked the recession: an emphasis on money, regardless of the price.”
Matthew Ryder is one of the “national role models” who work for Reach, a government-supported scheme aimed at raising the aspirations and attainment of black boys and young men. Through his work he’s reached the conclusion that, “It is not that disaffected young men have been ignoring society’s advice as to how to achieve success. The problem is that, in their way, they have been following it assiduously.”
Mr Ryder goes on to say, “The 20 Reach national role models are volunteers, chosen from hundreds of applicants to represent ordinary, accessible success – a fireman, a teacher, an accountant. So it was alarming when we realised that no matter how carefully we crafted our accounts about the importance of education or “giving back to our community”, one topic always seemed to arouse the most interest among our young audiences: money.”
“[This] is something that the black community has been grappling with for some time. One of the biggest-selling albums of the last decade was by US rapper 50 Cent. Its title, Get Rich or Die Tryin’, speaks for itself.”
David Lammy MP, the minister for higher education, has suggested this attitude reflects a deep-rooted problem: “Get rich or die trying is a language of fast cars and faster lives, a language that replaces the social values that once knitted communities together with a destructive law of the jungle, in which honour codes create the justification for pointless spirals of killing and revenge.”
Matthew Ryder continues, “In tackling this problem, you must not only address the actions of those chasing the money, but also the mindset that drives them. A role model who diverts someone from becoming a ruthless, money-oriented drug dealer has done well. But unless the underlying values towards money are challenged, the person may simply become an equally ruthless banker or mortgage broker. That is why role models who use material success as the means for gaining young people’s attention are taking a real risk. Difficult as it may seem to be, our goal must be to find other ways to excite and capture their interest.”
“This challenge is not unique to the black community. Society as a whole is having to come to terms with this form of money-obsessed materialism.”
“It is this extreme materialism, which prizes money and profit above all else, that exacts the highest social cost. “Get rich or die trying” merely articulates a much larger sociopathy. It is a form of the same behaviour that brought our economy to the brink of collapse last year and has cost us hundreds of billions of pounds. We must combat it together.”
“Second, in trying to find the right way to challenge this attitude, we should not lazily return to cliche. Hackneyed, idealistic accounts of morality and principle are not the answer. I have seen the young eyes glaze over, or the texting start, as you talk about working hard and “giving back”. Most young people are not interested in a lecture on morality and austerity from an older person in a much more comfortable position than them. They want to know how they can live a similarly comfortable life.”
“So how do you combine an approach that is both positive and effective? Perhaps the key lies in the University of Kent’s finding that what black boys and young men valued most from role models was realistic advice and practical guidance. That, more than anything, influenced their aspirations.”
“The best role models, it seems, are those who can impart practical life skills and give meaningful answers to real problems. I’ve watched Richard Reid, the firefighter, explain the fulfilment he gets from helping people. He is respected and admired for it. But it is his ability to answer the practical questions – the concrete ways the young men can weave what he has told them into their own lives – that truly engages them. “How long is the training?” “Does it matter if you have convictions?”
“Guidance on earning a living is one aspect of those important life skills, but it is not everything. Just like the testosterone-driven City trader, the gang member often overlooks life’s most important aspects. Finding a way to cope with failure is at least as important as planning for great success. Similarly, coping with the difficulties of everyday life is more valuable for most of us than affording a big car. That is why role models like us are no substitute for the fathers, brothers, neighbours and teachers who can be daily mentors. But even in their absence, it is coherent practical advice that young men crave.”
“Which brings us back to the connection between the teenagers I encounter and the likes of Fred Goodwin. Wider society, government included, has frequently championed the sort of role models whose ruthless pursuit of money at any social cost has set a dysfunctional template. It is an extreme ideology that spills from the City’s boardrooms to south London’s housing estates. That teenager will always believe that the pursuit of money is the key to happiness, if society constantly reaffirms that to be the case.”
“The emphasis on material success has a limited value. What the other role models and I try to convey to young people is the importance of finding their own way to attain happiness and fulfilment while living straight- forward, ordinary lives. That is, after all, what most of us are still struggling to achieve.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/09/black-teenagers-money-matthew-ryder
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“Addressing mindsets”, examining “social values”, “exciting and capturing their interest”, “articulating a much larger sociopathy”, “not lecturing on morality and austerity”, “giving realistic advice and practical guidance”, “finding ways to cope with failure”, and “finding the keys to happiness and fulfilment” are the key phrases in this article for all who work in education. Every school and college must find ways to improve whatever they offer that helps to develop young people’s social, emotional and spiritual intelligence. Every adult who works in such places has a role to play – this can’t be left to specialist teachers and appointed “mentors”. Improving the whole-school ethos is crucial. Just as “it takes a whole village to raise a child”, it takes a whole school to address attitudes, provide good models of mature conduct, and give consistent messages about values and emotionally intelligent behaviour.
Such work has to begin, of course, in the Nursery and KS1, and then continue throughout every school and college. Successful schools are already showing how it’s possible to both raise aspirations and also raise levels of spiritual, social and emotional intelligence. Sharing such good practice is also vital to the national effort to combat the corruption of young people by money worship and ideologies that literally destroy lives.
Jul
29
2009
Michael Reiss, professor of science education at the Institute of Education, had an interesting column in the Guardian this week:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/jul/28/evolution-primary-school-darwin-children
“On the origin of education.”
“Ed Balls received a letter this week from 26 of the country’s leading scientists – including Richard Dawkins, Harry Kroto, John Sulston – warning of their concerns that the proposed new primary school science curriculum does not even mention evolution.
I was happy to add my name to the signatories. To omit evolution from the education of five- to 11-year-olds would be to miss a great opportunity.”
The article concludes:
An evolutionary perspective on life can help us more rigorously assess our strengths and our weaknesses. We are the product of a mechanism that puts us first – that’s what natural selection is all about – but we also have the evolved capacities to seek after truth, beauty and goodness: that’s what being human is all about. This should start in the primary classroom”
Questions for the Primary philosophy curriculum might include:
- What are human beings “all about”?
- Is it “seeking after truth, beauty and goodness”?
- Might it also be about seeking security and survival?
- Might it be about seeking wisdom and enlightenment?
- What is goodness?
- What is truth?
- What is beauty?
- How can we best assess our strengths and weaknesses?
- How can we best build on our strengths and overcome our weaknesses?
- Is it possible for Darwinists and Creationists to understand each others’ points of view, and respect each others’ right to hold those points of view?
- If so, how?
Jul
15
2009
Jenni Russell’s column in the Guardian today is as thought-provoking as ever:
“Equality of opportunity and ambition alone are not enough. The barriers to social mobility are far more complex”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/28/social-mobility-equal-opportunity
Commenting on Alan Milburn’s report on why the professions remain so hard for young people from a working class background to break into, Jenni writes:
“Milburn sees what it has taken the government a long time to understand: that expecting mobility to improve just by getting more of the less privileged to pass more exams is a delusion. Social barriers are more complex, as are employers’ priorities. Yes, they want qualifications. What they prize most, though, are more elusive social skills: articulacy, tact, team-working. Those words all describe much the same thing – an employee who can get along with, and be understood by, those around them.”
“The existence of different social codes makes attempts at social mobility precarious. There’s much talk of Britain being more egalitarian and multicultural. In reality it remains deeply hierarchical. The dominant culture is that of the white middle class; the elite culture is that of the upper middle. Anyone who hopes to be socially mobile has, by definition, to learn to read a culture that is not the one they grew up with. Otherwise, no matter what their formal qualifications, they will either fail to get in, or fail to progress. In essence, they are emigrating from one kind of life to another, but our pretence that these barriers no longer really exist means they often emigrate without a map.”
“William Atkinson, the inspiring head of a school with a very deprived intake, says that it’s essential that pupils understand the dominant culture. He introduces them all, whether future doctors or gardeners, to great literature, theatre, art. He expects a work ethic. He tells his pupils that street culture is fine for home, but that it’s joining the dominant culture that will give them choice.
More schools need that honesty and drive. Teenagers need to spend time with adults outside their social groups as mentors, friends and employers. And we need to find a way to talk about behaviour, manners, codes. Not because one set is better than another, but because it’s the way humans recognise their groups. Pretending rules don’t exist or matter only has one result – it freezes social mobility, and entrenches elites.”
This column of course highlights the crucial importance of developing our social and emotional intelligences, and the importance of different social groups learning to respect and value one another, regardless of cultural differences, which we might call spiritual intelligence. The roots of all this learning are in the Nursery and in Primary schools.
Might we suggest that it’s not just a question of working class students learning to “fit in” with professional, predominantly middle class, groups. Is it too much to hope that existing professionals develop enough spiritual intelligence to judge would-be and new entrants on the basis of their knowledge, skills and ability rather than their accents, dialects, background and lifestyles?
Did Mr Atkinson really say “It’s joining the dominant culture that will give them choice”? Do young people really have to join “the dominant culture”, or are they allowed to live within their home cultures as long as they understand the dominant culture, and its expectations, and are able to operate effectively in professional settings? Is it OK, for example, for teachers from working class backgrounds to retain their own sense of identity, their own accents, and even continue to live in working class environments whilst teaching in predominantly working class, or even middle class, schools?
Jul
15
2009
3Di were invited to take part in a half-day seminar last month at Homerton College, Cambridge, on designing schools and learning environments for the 21st Century. This event was organised by Dr Catherine Burke.
The participants were a mixed group of about 40 individuals including academics, educational practitioners and architects.
3Di’s suggestion to the group was that they pay particular attention to the Primary Review, whose final report is about to be published by Professor Alexander of Cambridge University and his steering group of eminent educationalists.
We also drew attention to an important publication called The New Learning Revolution, by Dryden and Vos, which had many important things to say about the way in which educational practice is being transformed by computers, the Internet, and a greater understanding of the importance of multiple intelligences and their relationship with creativity and enjoyment of learning.
Jul
14
2009
3Di’s links with Japan were extended this year with a month-long residency at Mukogawa University in the Department of Education.
As ever it was a pleasure to participate in Prof Yamasaki’s work on the history of education, and in particular to work with her on the philosophy of education developed by the eminent British educationalist Percy Nunn, one time Director of London University’s Institute of Education.
Nunn’s radical critique of ‘traditional’ educational practices and his insistence that the aims of education should be directed towards the pursuit of individual freedom were highly controversial in his time, and still carry resonance today, of course, since the battle over the aims of education seems destined to be never ending.
Japanese colleagues were also keen to discuss the contributions to this debate being made by the recent Rose and the Alexander Reviews.
There were opportunities to share with both undergraduates and postgraduate students some ideas on “Excellence and Enjoyment” in the Primary phase of education. Using slideshows and video images of children and teachers at work both inside the school and beyond the school’s boundaries we were able to lead discussions about the engagement of pupil’s enthusiasm for learning, and for learning how to learn. The key concepts of motivation for and the enjoyment of learning were thoroughly debated.
There were also opportunities to deliver lectures and seminars to a mixed group of postgraduates and practitioners from education, health and psychology on ‘The Aims of Education’. These took place on Saturday afternoons, and were extremely interesting as a forum for specialists from different disciplines to consider together issues connected with the wellbeing of children, and particularly children whose special needs and whose dislike of school are not well addressed by educational practices principally aimed at preparing children for tests and exams.
“Teaching to the tests” and the narrowing of the curriculum and educational opportunities continue to be controversial subjects in Japan, just as they are in Britain and America, and elsewhere.
3Di’s “Three Dimensional” approach to developing multiple intelligences was also thoroughly discussed with the staff and students at Mukogawa.
My own interests in the role of religion in Japan, and in the development of spiritual intelligence, were extended and developed by several more visits to Buddhist temples belonging to various sects, and to Shinto shrines. These were mainly in the Kyoto and Nara districts. I was extremely fortunate to have these opportunities to visit the temples and shrines and their magnificent gardens during the cherry blossom season, which has long been an ambition, and which proved to be even more exciting and enjoyable than anticipated.
As a keen geographer I was also delighted to be able to take part in a three day visit to the Japanese Alps, which has also been a longstanding ambition. The icing on this particular cake was the beautiful Spring weather, which was sunny and warm throughout. Unexpected treats were walks in snow, and being present at a Buddhist dragon festival and a Shinto fire festival.
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