Politics must be banished from the classroom. If it does creep or barge in, we must preserve a serene neutrality, even though we might feel that Brexit is rubbish, that UKIP is bunkum, that rampant narcissism, vicious bigotry and the tyranny of the inarticulate are in the ascendant – and the wretched of the earth must continue to suffer. No matter. We must not get on a soapbox with our righteous rants. Anyway, sections 406 and 407 of the 1996 Education Act prohibit this.
Mind you, teachers flatter themselves about the hold they have over the infant mind. I don’t think I’ve ever really influenced any pupil to actually change his/her mind, unless it’s to enthusiastically embrace the contrary opinion.
On the rare occasions I’ve flirted with overt politics, it fell on deaf ears. It bored them. It bored me. My subject, English, trumped this stuff. It offered nuance and complexity, not dogma and simplicity.
But teachers, like anybody else, are political. My old, grammar school teachers, with few exceptions, would have thought themselves, politically neutral. They weren’t. They were men, White, One Nation Tories, smoked pipes, wore mortarboards and were in favour of the status quo.
My chums in inner city comprehensives were mostly liberal, leftish – or “loonies” as the tabloids had it. The rabid left were very rare but pupils were resolutely immune to the charms of Marxist-Leninism and saw them off, often on sartorial grounds.
“Blimey, sir/miss, do something about yourself. Get a suit!”
We often went on demos for nurses, firemen or miners and strikes against Academies, the National Curriculum, the National Front, all wars – that sort of thing – but we didn’t bring it explicitly into the classroom. Anyway, they were mostly futile gestures, but the pupils liked them. It was a day off school. But it’s not that simple anymore. It’s all so extreme now. Where does politics end and ethics begin?
I don’t know anymore.
Do you let Bad Stuff slide? Do you go selectively deaf and move on to the wretched syllabus? Do you permit the impermissible? Even to suggest kindness, compassion and decency seems like a political act these days, when cruelty, callousness and foul manners seem to be all the go for so many politicians. Isn’t it tempting to unleash a rant? Isn’t it tempting to mock the clowns? Isn’t it our job? Isn’t it part of educating our pupils? Aren’t we all they’ve got?
The barbarians seem to be through the school gates. Stupidity rules. Reflection doesn’t. Is this an index of our failure? Maybe “neutrality” just doesn’t cut it anymore? It will certainly be severely tested in 2017.
- Ian Whitwham is a former inner city London teacher.