It is sad that the NAHT has been so hostile to Michael Gove. Heads are dedicated people who, in my long experience, are dedicated to raising the performance of all children and giving the best to all the pupils in their charge. That is what Michael Gove wants as well, so why can’t they have a civilised dialogue?
Two factors:
1) None of us can “have a civilised dialogue”; because we have neither information-sharing nor discussion;
we must all pitch in at the outset of any “issue” or “problem” or “need” via “rule of law democratic debating”
i.e. win-lose “we’re right, you’re wrong”.
2) The “hostility to MG” is likewise likely due to immature, reactionary and constitutionally-corrupted social and professional “pecking orders” and variously inhibited human-developments
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Dr Edward de Bono many decades ago ‘warned’ us that we need to recognise six different ‘thinking-modes’ and make ourselves able to use them cooperatively and constructively in meeting and parliamentary places; and one of these modes is the “Emotional-Thinking” one during which every participant around the table wears, as it were, a “red hat” and is allowed to vent any emotion without having to give reason or justification.
Dr de Bono also tells us that whilst recent research shows that the emotional-brain (amygdala) is the first to “wake up” and “respond”, yet the final decision is always arrived at pre-dominantly out of emotion,
that we should allow and facilitate rational awareness and comprehension timeframes, under respectively the White (Factualities) Black (Risks) Yellow (Posirives) Green (Creative-possibilities) “hats” before trying to draw conclusions.
It appears evident that we are, all, still stuck in class-and-numbers-privilege-ocratic pecking-order;
“we are the historically longstanding and traditionally successful world-leading Great English and British Nation, and have no need for such new-fangled and mere junior school-classroom notions”.
“Method III of win-win-win Cooperatively Participative problem Solving ?
Our ‘leaders’ have never heard of such nonsense, so why should we waste time checking it out ?”
@Baroness Perry:
Actions speak louder than words.
If these head teachers truly had their charges best interest at heart, they would not want to be part of, or witness to, the devastation currently taking place in our schools. So, even if they didn’t whole heartedly approve of Gove’s moves to change matters, they would welcome anything that could alter the present process of endless illiteracy and meaningless half fact/half fiction dished out today.
How the public go on paying for this politically correct no mans land is an enigma.
All a parent can do today, if they do not have the means to educate independently, is home school. Teaching a love of reading and knowledge of vocabulary is the spring board to self education.
If a child is bright, it has little chance, in most inner cities, of reaching anything close to his/her potential. In fact the further away you keep a child from a state school the better off they will be in many areas. This does not mean all independent schools are wonderful. They are not.
All Gove can do is use the power of his office to get things moving as fast as he can. This doesn’t mean I agree with all his ideas, I don’t. But, unless there is serious change, which will create an explosion of movement, the UK will be lost to the total mendacity we see as common practice now.
And it goes right from top to bottom. The worst being so many know it and for fear of reprisal, do nothing. Or, pretend they don’t see it.
Those in government who creep around and go along with the political mantra, opt out and send their kids to fee paying places they know their child will flourish in. How utterly deceitful and shallow.
Very few inside, or even outside, are willing to face facts and tell the real story. And without honesty, no matter how hard it is to confront, nothing can be righted. Just as it is with the NHS. First you have to face the absolute horror of what has been tolerated, as that is the starting point to renewal. Without it, you are simply wasting time and money.
It really boils down to addressing the mistakes that have been made and owning up to them. And those who fear retaliation of some kind, will fight to the death rather than expose their failings.
Face the confusions, rather than dismissing them as ‘not my remit’, ‘not my pay-grade’, ‘splitting-hairs’:
1) How should we (could we) effectively distinguish between
“Training for The Workplace (skills, jobs, career-ladders, fitnesses-for-purpose, and so on)” and
“Enablements (education) for The Lifeplace (majorly for a long-term sustainworthy lifestyle) ?
Note please: The Workplace occupies only 25% of the person’s (worker’s) day;
whereas The Lifeplace not only occupies 75% of the day but is where the worker becomes consumer, spender, and probably percentage-wise more so lifesupports-constructive, or lifesupports-destructive, than s/he is in The Workplace.
2) Within the above, distinguish between an
Individual Human Development Model and Index essentially for The Lifeplace, and both
a) an Ecolonomic Workplace Efficiency/Effectiveness Model; and
b) the UN HDI (Inter-national Aggregates Human Development) Index and Model.
(More: held in waiting, whilst I “give way” to others).
“It is sad that the NAHT has been so hostile to Michael Gove”
Well if he gives jobs back to teachers cnvicted of having Child Pornography he should go.
If it was hostile toward Mr. Gove before, public feeling now ought to terrify him