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So Michael Gove was on BBC Breakfast this morning, talking about his proposed school reforms. He seemed to return to two particular obsessions during the interview: getting people from the military qualified as teachers, and encouraging team sports.
Military types, he said, would make the perfect teachers, since they're well versed in both maintaining discipline and "motivating young people". Never mind the fact that the military specialises in quashing creativity and individual thought, and promoting blind, unquestioning obedience to authority — not exactly a trait I'd like to see more of in schools. And never mind, too, that this plan would seem to involve importing sizeable amounts of testosterone-laden young men from an almost exclusively male, macho-poisoned culture into an environment full of attractive, impressionable young ladies in skirts.
And team sports, he says, are the ideal way to build "teamwork" and "cooperation". He contrasts sports like these, with his prime example of a silly, pointless P.E. activity: "circus skills". Yeah, because who needs coordination, control, skill and patience when you could be out rolling around in the mud for a bit of male bonding with a bunch of burly young men?
These two obsessions of his seem hint at an obsession with promoting group thought and obedience at the expense of individualism and creativity. And the former in particular makes me wonder if education is really his priority, or if to some extent he sees his position as the ideal opportunity to get military men and military thinking into schools, and thence beef up our armed forces.
Euch. Fucking Tories.
Military types, he said, would make the perfect teachers, since they're well versed in both maintaining discipline and "motivating young people". Never mind the fact that the military specialises in quashing creativity and individual thought, and promoting blind, unquestioning obedience to authority — not exactly a trait I'd like to see more of in schools. And never mind, too, that this plan would seem to involve importing sizeable amounts of testosterone-laden young men from an almost exclusively male, macho-poisoned culture into an environment full of attractive, impressionable young ladies in skirts.
And team sports, he says, are the ideal way to build "teamwork" and "cooperation". He contrasts sports like these, with his prime example of a silly, pointless P.E. activity: "circus skills". Yeah, because who needs coordination, control, skill and patience when you could be out rolling around in the mud for a bit of male bonding with a bunch of burly young men?
These two obsessions of his seem hint at an obsession with promoting group thought and obedience at the expense of individualism and creativity. And the former in particular makes me wonder if education is really his priority, or if to some extent he sees his position as the ideal opportunity to get military men and military thinking into schools, and thence beef up our armed forces.
Euch. Fucking Tories.
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It's stealth National Service.
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My younger brother went to a school where military exercises were all but compulsory — although you got to choose army, navy, or air force; whoo — so I feel there's an uncomfortably heavy military presence in a lot of our schools already.
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I still remember the day at school that I realized I could simply not turn up to PE and nobody would care. I went to the library and got some work done instead. It was the first, and possibly only, valuable thing that I actually learned at school.