Photo: JOHN STURROCK (Report)
Responding to demands from the Confederation of British Industry, Prime Minister Callaghan called this week for a new emphasis in schools on the 'three Rs'. His policy implies that the state will take control of the school curriculum to effect changes in the interests of big business.
The attack being made on the teachers of William Tyndale School has provided fuel for this initiative. The teachers face an Inner London Autority tribunal which starts on 1 November. They are being charged on the basis of the recent Auld Report into the events at the school.
Red Weekly asked TERRY ELLIS, headmaster of William Tyndale school, for his course sation.
suspended views on some of these issues. We do not agree with all of his opinions - especially on workers control of education - and we hope that this interview will spark off a discussion to which readers are invited to contribute. However, the most crucial thing of is to pull everything possible behind the defence of the Tyndale teachers against victimiMoney for legal fees is urgently needed [the bureaucracy of the National Union of Teachers is refusing support]. Financial assistance and resolutions of support should be rushed to: Tyndale Defence Fund, 32 Clifton Court, Finsbury Park, London.
public debate raised by school, I.can't quite see.
William STOT Meanwhile the fight for action on 17 November is bullding up with the holding of a public forum on tne ignt agains! cuts and unemployment, supported by Shop Stewards and other activists in the Bristol area. The forum call came after a motion calling for the Trades Council to organise a delegate conterence tor action on mne day nac been defeated as a result of opposition Party members.
MOnday o NorenUC! 7.30pm at the Central Hall, Oldmarket.
SOUTHAMPTON: Two years ago, telehealth autority. phonists at Southampton District Genstrike action for additional pav for the responsibility o manning new emergency alarm systems.
After conceding their case the management shoved their claim into the machin ery of the Whitley Council. The strikers went back to work pending the result Now action is starting again, with the calls except allest. As usual the mousiy bassed management is trying to put responsiconsequences onto the South Wales The only known effective antidote is being applied by the workers seeking support from other sections of are hospital staff and the labour movement cenatnc nosara.
SWANSEA: Miners' leader Dai Coity La member of the South Wales Executive Committee of the NUM, chaired a 90 strong meeting of trade unionists tract!
cinenoa enquiry is the question of the relationship between teaching technique and educational standards. The Auld Report says that the "Tyndale teachers spent-400 much time philosophising and not enough time on the basic day-to-day work of teaching the pupils how to read, write and add'. What's your reaction to that?
TERRY ELLIS: Well, I'd make two points on that. First, the time spent allegedly philosophising was after school hours. How this could have interfered with the day-to-day teaching In Secondly, there is a basic fallacy in this argument. Auld fails totally to see that one cannot have a teaching technique or a teaching method without having a philosophy first, and philosophies have to be hammered out before techniques are appled. He seems to suppose, quie wrongly — and perhaps because he knows nothing about schools - that there is some kind of consensus about what people are actually doing in schools.
Something that the press has focussed on has been your giving of optional projects to pupils who were able to exercise the option of not doing a project at all. What was the thinking behind giving children this range of choice?
Well, the press reports are wrong in saying that the children had the option of doing nothing at all. The widest range was provided so that there would be something for everybody to choose from.
La wide range of options was provided, it was to catch the interests of a wide range of children, to ensure that everybody did something. And one shouldn't make false distinctions either between work and play - that is something that is taught in all the best training colleges. It has been part of educational ideology for the last twenty years.
example. the Plowden Report emphasises positive discrimination for the underprivileged in the school. But when you actually try to do it, you get jumped on by a lot of middle class managers who say you aren't catering for the whole range - by which they mean you aren't catering for the middle classes exclusively, and leaving out everybody else.
The Tyndale affair has taken place over the past couple of years against the background of cuts. A lot of people link the two, since there is a need on the part opposing cuts in the health service in West Glamorgan. Graham Attwell, loca Nure oranch onaian ,stole the limelight when he revealed the contents of a previously secret document which detailed cuts and closures by the loca The revelations underlined Dr Berry Beaumont's speech to the meeting callThe Tyndale affair did not come abor because of the cuts, but having coe about, the Inner London Autority are hoping it will encourage other teachers not to take strike action on things like the cuts. They hope it wil frighten people into being docile Auld emphasises this. The kind of teachers he likes are docile, who don'! discuss how schools should be run or who have union consciousness. Tyndale was well-known for these things, and by putting down the Tyndale people the hope to say "Watch out".
It is being suggested now that reformed managerial bodies should be created with direct representation of local busines interests.
Well, if big business gets control over what goes on in schools, this will be a retrograde step. One good thing about the present system is that it has not been seen as a way of simply providing fodder for DIO DUS TeSS LO USC If this happens, then we will ge businessmen wanting workers trained to be docile and trained only in certain limited techniques. This has been the cry or big business for many years. Lioctal sing the curriculum hasn't provided fo management needs.
The NUT are partly to blame for this They have sold themselves on the basis that they are providing a bright future for kids. The working class has on the whole had a reactionary approach to education They want to see it in terms or individu: mobility, to become "bourgeoisified", an to make it to mne los. oi coursc. som individuals have.
We've had a small door, and 100 peop have fought each other to get through tha door. Ninety-nine out of the hundred haven't got through. Nobody's ever tried to get everybody together to get the whols wall down. That's why Rhodes Boysor has had such success. He expresses th reactionary views of the working class Progressive education has been wor against working class opposition, not with working class support. Working clas parenis want inei chua to ger to tnc to) - it is extremely naive to think that bring ing in parents and ancillary workers 10 run the schools is the answer. It may be consciousness raising question to brin them in and let them know what we't doing, but these are the most reactionar forces in education.
You have got to have a change in working class consciousness, rather tha try to sell what's going on in schools i terms of working class consciousness. I the end I don't think schools chang society, society changes schools.
NCC Cuts Suplement