FAST-TRACK ACADEMY: PATHWAY TO PARADISE OR PERDITION?

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The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries. (Winston Churchill)



The flagship of Britain’s new right-wing coalition government is its education policy. A central theme here is an offer for schools designated ‘outstanding’ to be fast-tracked to independent academy status.

Over the past few days I have been interviewed twice by BBC journalists: What do I think of highest achieving schools being encouraged to break away from ‘Local Authority’ support and take up central government’s offer of fast-track to new independent academy status? Would I mind making my views public?

Are You Kidding?! Me? Speak out?? Ok, if you insist; as my arm’s in a twist:


1 – One size does not fit all – each case must be taken on its merits. Generally I am in favour of a non-uniform school system that reflects the diversity of pluralist society. Independent academies can be a very good thing and I personally welcome this government’s widening the ‘gene pool’ of models for 21st century schools (whatever its motivation). But as always, it’s not what you do it’s the way that you do it!

2 – The proposed fast track system threatens to be socially divisive, increasing polarities of wealth and opportunity in a Britain already rent with dangerous divisions.

3 – There is only a finite (and shrinking) national education budget. The new academies will be given big start up budgets and will be allowed to set their own budgetary requirements. They will be allowed to hire as many staff, and to pay them as much, as can arguably be justified. And the government will foot the bill, out of the finite and shrinking national education budget. It hardly takes a genius to see that schools which are not judged to be highest achieving, typically schools in deprived areas will lose out on funding.

4 – A lot of the schools judged as highest achieving are in more privileged areas rather than the rougher ones. What has been packaged by an ideologically driven government as ‘rewarding excellence’ is, in many (but not all) cases, no more than rewarding privilege with even more privilege – and all at the expense of the most vulnerable and underprivileged and, of course, of the punchdrunk tax payers reeling from the flurry of blows to their economic and social wellbeing.

5 - Schools not judged ‘outstanding’ will remain under Local Authority support.

6 - Local Authorities have teams of experts in all aspects of education and schooling. Their expertise is as good as it gets in the UK (i.e. roughly middling to high in world ranking). The roles they have played in helping support schools to achieve ‘outstanding’ status is not acknowledged enough.

7 – It is assumed by central government that the new academies will use specialist expertise from other sources, a leaner and sharper breed than those working for local authorities. But the fact is most private education consultants are either ex-local authority ones now working for big consultancy companies, i.e. the same breed who have defined local authority models and professional teaching cultures till now; or they are academics whose knowledge of social and cultural problems in education is based on a life lived at a safe remove from the real world. Troubleshooting hotshot freelancers like me who risk their neck every day and have done so most of their lives, - man of the world man of the people - shotta from ten, never gone wide, turn to the pen when I hit my stride - are as common as pink string bikinis at the Teheran Lido.

8 – But my biggest criticism is that those fast-track academies which actually do serve a socially advantaged client base are short-selling their core purpose and selling their souls. Perhaps they should remind themselves of Jesus’ teachings – unless they presume to know better!

For the devil -

- whoops, silly me, I mean the government, everyone knows the devil is red –

- For the government, very blue with a yellow streak, is appealing to the weaknesses and frailties of human insecurity, tempting select schools with offers of worldly power and glory.

Actually, the Tories did the same under Margaret ‘no such thing as society’ Thatcher.

For a privileged school to accept the government’s temptation to gain glory and wealth at the expense of wider society instantly calls into question the integrity of its core mission. For all schools have at the heart of their purpose to promote equal opportunities, social cohesion and a future citizenry of caring and understanding adults. Any ‘outstanding’ privileged school which accepts the government’s ‘fast-track’ offer and turns its back on the wider community of schools can only multiply the social woes of division, corruption, greed, cynicism and despair. In higher business circles that would be what they call the dodo leadership model.

Criticism is easy and floats no boats. Making practicably positive suggestions is more difficult and more useful. So, how should the outstanding schools respond the government's offer?

The body needs many parts in order to function well: arms, legs, organs. I work with Local Authority schools, independent academies, private schools, supplementary schools for minority communities, religious schools, international schools, further education colleges, higher education sector, referral units for challenging pupils – you name it. I am in a very privileged position therefore, front row centre, and have an accordingly wide perspective.

The holistic paradigm of 21st century science and society demands that all parts of the body of education to work for the good of the whole (for each part is equal to the whole). That needs to happen here. The proposed new breed of fast track academies need to do more than the government expects or demands. They need to consider an operational framework that enables them to take advantage of the government’s offer and to spread the benefit of it to other less fortunate schools in their area. Ideas could include taking on special community responsibilities, ringfencing a significant pot to fund outreach support, forging special links with pupil referral units, helping to provide opportunities for gifted and talented pupils in other local schools. I have been working on a sackload of ideas for the past year – with all the schools, local authorities, private consultants and creative artists I work with.

As usual, those interested in dialogues around the points raised in this posting can reach me discretely by email or publicly here on the blog. But much more importantly, those genuinely interested in the healthy functioning of the body educational and in enhancing social cohesion through schools need to talk to each other!!! You cannot teach community cohesion if you cannot practice it with integrity!!! The same goes for humanities, citizenship, PSHE, ethics, even good sportsmanship! We are a team in education, from strikers to right backs to goalies. In the long run winning takes a lot more than just strikers scoring goals, it takes teamwork! We do not want our strikers to score any own-goals!

The government’s offer of fast-track academy status inadvertently presents all ‘outstanding’ schools with a momentous choice between revealing the depth of their shining quality or of their shady ignominy. It is a choice they should welcome and know just what to do with!

Now our schools can teach the politicians what citizenship really means as so many of them on all sides seem to have forgotten. Our schools can form a coalition that will strike first alarm then awe and finally admiration in the heart of divisive ideologues of all hues.

This will require collaborations between governing bodies and head teachers, staff and teachers, community and pupil voice, from all sectors and in every region. Perhaps we should start by asking fast-track academies to host, fund and lead on this, together with – you guessed it – Local Authorities. I would advise strongly against involving central government, they’ve provided the framework, it is for us to use it.



If you are going through hell, keep going. KBO (Keep Buggering On). (Winston Curchill)

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TO BE OR TO BE NOT

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As a storyteller I am comfortable with the idea of recycling stories. To tell a story well you have to really make it your own.

There was a time when poets did the same, before the advent of printing gave poems a definitive wording. Take for e.g. Wordsworth’s ‘Daffodils’. We all know the poem says “I wandered lonely as a cloud”, and anyone who cites “Cloudy and alone I go” is just plain wrong. But back in say Homer’s time the poems were owned by the tellers not the printers, and the words could, and doubtless did, vary.

As a spoken word artist I suggest we rethink the idea of recycling poems. Maybe it’s time to do what storytellers and musicians have been doing all along, borrowing, lending and sharing in the animation of the artform!

(Interestingly, it is worth noting that written scores, say Mozart or Beethoven, have not been considered suitable for recycling in quite the same way as jazz standards have. For jazz has more of the improvisational about it. But my guess is Mozart or Beethoven would have been happy to see people improvising around their written compositions, and changing the notes, because they were renowned improvisers themselves.)

Putting my money where my mouth is, here’s a recycling of Shakespeare’s most famous bit: Hamlet’s big speech. I’ve shortened it, but hopefully the depth and gravitas of his tone and metre is retained, along with the condensed meaning. I like to think that Willy would have liked it, especially some of the extra references that he failed to allude to in his original. (e.g. to the original, pre-Shakespearian, Hamlet’s all important mill.)

Anyway, read and see what you reckon. I have done similar with Blake’s ‘Tyger’ (relating it to the experience of African American slavery), and if you like this one I may post that one too. Some kids are scared of poems, especially old-wordy ones. Letting pupils pull them apart and put them back together like this might be one way to beat that fear and loathing, and to give today’s young people a hook into ownership of some of the greatest ideas ever spoken in English.


To be or not to be – or to pretend:
what questions suffer noble minds defend
to sling outrageous arrows to the sea
in arms against opposing troubles’
mill and fortune’s end
to rend a thousand shocks of flesh and sleep
to keep enduring – singing - sighing
sweeten dreams that mortal coil but soft demure
in dying whip and scorn defying time
to rhyme the name of action with great moment
by sins’ devout horizon
fair Ophelia
… remember.


And a quick reminder of Shakespeare’s version:

To be or not to be– that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep
No more – and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to – ‘tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’ oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveler returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.—Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.
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The Faster You Go ...

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"Wake up in the morning slaving for bread, sir,
So that every mouth can be fed ... "

"It is no coincidence that the most explosive period of growth for the human species has occurred during our period of greatest scientific progress.

… Nanotechnology replicators could have population doubling times comparable with bacteria (which double, on average, every 20 minutes). Such replicators … could also be the cause of growth rates higher than ever before achieved [or imagined] by humanity." (David A. Coutts)
(http://members.optusnet.com.au/bnbg6billion/6billionZPG.htm)

"The faster you go, the shorter you are." (Albert Einstein)

"Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true." (Niels Bohr)

Some thoughts on diverting the express train of reality – before it smashes head on into deep rooted concrete …

Scientists say the universe is expanding at an infinitely increasing rate, faster and faster to infinity. Coincidently, so is the world stock of information. French computer scientist Jacques Vallee has mapped the rate of information doubling from Stone Age till now.

If 1-I is the total information required about the world to create a stone axe (including complex geological knowledge and skills, understanding of animal and vegetable processes, etc.) it took 4,000,000 years for information to double and arrive at 2-I. This first doubling occurred around the year dot, at the height of the Roman Empire. Little things like literacy, empire and transport systems really sped things up. Now we could chop trees and build empires. Cool. Of course, a lot of people got whacked by the Romans, but that’s omelettes and eggs.

The next doubling, to 4-I, took just 1,500 years, to the Renaissance, with the birth of Protestantism, the age of the printing press and Leonardo. This was accompanied by some of the bloodiest wars and purges in European history, including the start of African slavery and the murder of up to 1/3 of Europe’s females and gay men by the Catholic church. More omelettes? Now we could chop, build and replicate God (not least through the development of ‘perspective’ which gives us a God’s eye view, sub-species aeternitatis, raised above our object: the world).

The next doubling, to 8-I, took a mere 250 years, to 1750, the age of reason and the rights of man, the nadir of African slavery, the American and French revolutions, the next world-wide blood-bath. Now we could chop, build, replicate God and experiment with utopias.

The next doubling, to I-16 took 150 years, to 1900, with the industrial revolution. Now we could chop, build, replicate God, experiment with utopias and harness the machine. This period saw the birth of nihilism and the death of meaning, as finally made clear to all by the event of World War One. Welcome to our world: cars, Max Plank's first paper on quantum physics, Freud's 'Interpretation Of Dreams', America's first submarine, the first Kodak camera: modernity. Jazz was invented by a barber named Buddy Bolden down in New Orleans.

Just 50 more years to I-32. By 1950 we'd had the second world-war and the holocaust and used nukes for real, we’d had dictators, photocopiers, Gandhi, and the discovery of LSD; we'd split the atom, and Charlie Parker had expressed the mathematical bases for today’s complexity theory. The last person to know all of mathematics died in 1950.

To I-64, ten years. In 1960 there were an estimated 200,000 new mathematical theorems published annually, we had civil rights marches and tranquilizers, the first earth-orbiting space satellite was launched, using computers, and the world teetered on the brink of global annihilation with the Cuban missile crisis. A taste of things to come. And soul music and rock and roll were already the greatest force for progressive cultural change.

To I-128, seven years. By '67 all the world had heard of jazz, blues, soul and rock'n'roll. DNA was discovered by geneticists to be the building block of all life, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, the Kennedys and transatlantic direct dialing had all happened. Bell's theorem of super-luminal non-local effects was published, demonstrating how an event here can have an instant and immediate effect billions of light-years away, billions of times faster than the speed of light. ‘Zoom’ wasn’t fast enough? We had to have ‘phwit’?

According to Bell Laboratories magazine there were already more computers on the planet than humans back in 1982. And according to Moore’s law, they double in capacity every 18 months. (Presumably Moore’s law needs rewriting if computer development follows similar exponential growth pattern to information.)

Information is doubling faster and faster, every year now, and every time it doubles there is huge upheaval and mayhem, wars and calamity, as value systems are challenged and norms uprooted. Changes of the type that once took 4,000,000 years to adjust to we now face every year. More wars on the planet than at any other time in history? Mushrooming eco-disaster? What’s the big deal? That’s normal for us now. You’d better hang on tight, you ain’t seen nothing yet, we’re just getting to the top of the rollercoaster – wait for the acceleration on the downaways!

By 2012 information will be doubling every second, and shortly thereafter every nano-second (one-millionth of a second). And for each doubling more wars, complexity and turbulence.

Mayan predictions aside, is there any hope of avoiding total entropy and disappearance up our own information derrieres? Surprisingly, yes. The quantum physicist Schrodinger gives us hope that an anti-entropic vector might cut in at the crucial moment and save us all from final meltdown. And logic dictates that every flick of the lengthening tail of crisis has the potential to set us on a different trajectory, more sustainable, ethical and creative.

Two world wars and a world economy founded on conflict and destruction have put paid to a lot of the talent that might have helped us out of the hole. Most of our great leaders have been wiped out and we are left to flounder under the velvet gloved iron fist of the tyranny of mediocrity. But as long as we’re here there’s wriggle room for sanity to prevail, and because even a single point of light can fill an empty pool of darkness there is a real possibility of kickstarting a dynamic that can divert the runaway train.

Sure, the odds don’t look worth a punt. But all religion and mythology from the ancients to Hollywood suggest that we are hardwired for hope. Hope inspires vision and vision begets new narratives, new realities. That is what ‘history’ is made of. While most so-called hard-nosed gamblers (bankers, investors, corporate c-suite execs, etc.) wouldn’t bet on us making it they would bet on political and economic systems run by myopic pygmies with egos more fragile than porcelain butterfly wings. And that’s the smart money? ‘Playing smart and not being clever’!

So, how can we divert the express train? Clues abound.

There is no direct economic or scientific fix, so the answer must lie somewhere in cultural action. For culture informs all of society including science and economy. Culture is the code by which we express our humanity. Only cultural action can enable us to adapt to life set to super spin. We need to develop a cultural framework that allows us to manage the future positively, decisively, wisely. Ducking the challenges with celebrity media nonsense is like driving across London with your eyes closed.

And when we talk cultural action we talk education, for schools are the locus of enculturation. Media like TV and ICT may colour and describe the narrative of culture but school frames it and establishes the value of its currency, i.e. its social economic meaning.

And when we talk school we immediately talk youth too, for youth culture is a key element in the cultural dynamic of schools.

Ever since the tomb raiders entered the Valley of Kings we have seen how the influence of jazz, soul and rock and roll has curled out of New Orleans, like smoke from a reefer or a mummy’s curse, stretching across the globe. Since 1900 the blended folk music of African and European traditions has led the dance of the world’s heartbeat, giving us youth culture itself.

Clue: The problem contains the seeds of its own remedies. Cultural pluralism is the very essence of youth culture. And it is an important part of the historical process of information and population doubling. It should therefore be used for its potential remedial qualities.

In particular we need to use the cultural excellences of the Black peoples of the Americas, for they have the best track record of transforming ultimate adversity into blossoming partnership, co-creating pluralism with European folk-culture to form the twin pillars of all youth culture.

And we need to recognise and acknowledge that Jamaican culture has a special significance here, for all US and UK urban youth culture is disproportionately Jamaican influenced. Jamaica’s tiny population and economy makes the disproportion of its cultural footprint equal only to the disproportion of ancient Israelite culture in terms of it’s world influence: rarely has so much been owed to so few by so many. 'Why' is complex, but has to do with the highly concentrated enforced pluralism of island slavery and the heterogeneous predisposition of the predominantly Ashanti culture of those kidnapped from Africa to work that island.

Some may argue that certain negative aspects of ‘Black-influenced pluralist urban youth culture’ present big challenges to positive learning cultures in our schools today, with growing attitude and behaviour issues, underachievement (especially for males), lack of motivation and decreasing faith in society. This may even help to explain why boys of Jamaican descent are four to six times more likely to be permanently excluded from English schools than Whites. (I was one of those statistics myself, expelled from school for demanding anti-racist curriculum reform.)

But if such an argument holds true at all the opposite must also be true by the same token: i.e. the positive aspects of ‘Black-influenced pluralist urban youth culture’ must present some of the biggest opportunities for the development of positive learning cultures in our schools today (especially for males?).

If we are looking for education to break the chain of bondage to global destruction we should think about how we can work with that ‘pluralist urban youth culture’.

And yes … I do have some idea of how to embark on such a course and of the possible roadmap, opportunities and risks involved.

The only certainty is that the walls are about to go wavy and the ground shaky in the wobbly era now dawning. And when the going gets tough …

Where are those who can pull true sense and meaning from the infinitely complex super-spin that so disorientates our societies? Who has the nerve and the ability to divert the express train of reality before it crashes headlong into that rooted concrete, spilling eggs all over with no chance of an omelette in sight?

There are plenty of us out there, in schools, government, business and communities. We must work together to trace the huge cultural footprint of our youth culture, influenced as it is by urban, cyber, White, Black, Asian and, oddly enough, especially Jamaican. There is scant time for delay and the responsibility is all ours.

Education is the trigger, culture the ammunition.

We’ve got one shot.

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"Don't want to end up like Bonnie and Clyde
Poor me - the Israelite" (Desmond Decker)