Doubtless, you will be familiar with Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’- the monster created by the well-intentioned Victor Frankenstein from a wide mixture of body parts resulting in something which looks complete yet is at the same time lacking. In itself, it is a text which contains timeless and powerful messages. It is also a story which bears a strong resemblance to what is happening in Scottish education at the moment.
In all honesty, there is not a single teacher who believes that those responsible for creating and promoting the current education agenda are doing so deliberately to damage the system, to curtail our pupils’ ambitions or to harm our profession. However, there are many teachers who believe that this has been the unintentional result.
In the last two decades, we have taken elements of the Scandinavian system, while failing to adopt the professional autonomy which Scandinavian teachers are afforded. We have endorsed a restorative justice approach in our classrooms – used widely (and successfully) in the criminal justice system – while failing to balance restorative and punitive measures and, more recently, have suggested non-violent resistance (as used by Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela), as a successful approach to dealing with dysregulated pupils. In theory, great. In practice, without massive investment in training, time and money – a complete failure. What we have successfully achieved, however, is the creation of a monster.
Scottish pupils are now less literate, less numerate and less confident. Every day across classrooms we are witnessing a crisis in behaviour. The mental health of children and teachers is suffering. In recent years, I have heard our schools being described as “war zones”. Teachers have openly expressed how they feel they are being “gaslit” by senior leaders and those in the local authority, as the failures of the current system are laid squarely at their feet. Staff members who love their profession are using language such as “surviving the term”. This is not and can never be good enough. Yet, despite a growing sense of discontentment, those who have real power to influence change are continuing to peddle the same rhetoric – that, fundamentally, the relationship between the teacher and their pupils is front-and-centre to success.
As with much educational theory, this premise is sound. However, when those overseeing educational progress are increasingly using an individual’s failure to establish a positive relationship with a pupil as the reason for lack of academic progress, poor school attendance and classroom indiscipline, we are entering a dangerous zone.
It cannot be ever be seen as the failure of individual teacher. On the one hand, this is an over-simplification of a very complex issue. On the other, we are often overcomplicating a simple fact. Yes, very worryingly, there are individuals who are dysregulated and who are genuinely distressed within the classroom setting and who deserve tangible and meaningful support. However, much of what teachers witness every day is the result of a failure to provide clear boundaries and a sense of personal responsibility and high expectations for our young people.
We need to move towards this as our first goal and this must be supported at the highest level. In our desire to “get it right for every child”, to “make Scotland the best place to grow-up”, we are increasingly moving away from these admirable aims. Rather than promoting endless educational theories and ignoring the profession’s belief that we are being “blamed” for the failures which are all too apparent, let’s move towards a commonsense approach where classrooms once again become places where all pupils are expected to strive towards achieving their very best.
It will not be perfect. It will not live up to the overarching and grandiose statements which have become the lynchpins of Scottish educational theory. But it will serve to unite an increasingly dispirited and divided profession. More importantly, it will better serve the majority of pupils who attend school every day with the desire to achieve and to be safe.