Shameless And Sordid.......And Education

Shameless And Sordid

Strong and stable became weak and wobbly and has now become shameless and sordid. When the Grenfell Towers disaster happened everybody rightly praised the fire and paramedic services for their heroic (I can't think of a more apt word) efforts to contain the disaster. They put their own lives at risk. If anybody ever deserved a reward, they did. What did they get? They got Parliament voting to deny them a pay rise above 1% which, with inflation running at close to 3%, equates to a pay cut of around 2%. That is shameless. What is even worse is that some members of the government were reported as cheering when the result of the vote on an amendment to pay them more was rejected, only through the intervention of mercenary DUP MPs known as bigoted. That is not simply shameless it is also sordid. Any decent Britons who voted, in good faith, for what has been revealed as a bunch of bigots, mercenaries and conscienceless power seekers should now be ashamed of their vote.

What is the aim behnd this nefarious enterprise? It would appear to be a determination to hang on to power for as long as possible to ensure as hard a Brexit as possible, the dream of the extreme right, and to make it as difficult as possible for any succeding government to undo their work. Short of a 1968-style French revolution, I don't see any immediate remedy in the UK. It may be that the UK will have to rely on the goodwill of the EU, which has the whiphand in Brexit negotiations, to resolve this problem for us.

It may be worth recalling that the beginning of this whole sad story was a result of an internal spat in the Conservative party, a referendum to appease the extreme right wing. The extreme right wing won that and the tail is now wagging the dog, showing itself in its true colours, red (paradoxically) in tooth and claw. Appeals to patriotism, «the last refuge of rogues», or party before country? Either is despicable.

Dubito (again)

Daniel and his most recent lady friend came to eat this evening and we got to talking about the Internet for some reason I can't remember. Daniel surprised me by saying it had made things very difficult for him (and other teachers) because students could come up with model answers for tasks/projects, answers that they had found on the Internet. In fact I was really shocked that this could be considered a real difficulty. My immediate reaction was that, as a teacher, you investigate the student's basis for the model answer and should quite easily be able to ascertain whether the student had worked this out for him/herself or simply «borrowed» it. Daniel's response was that that required a lot of work on the part of the teacher, more than was involved in evaluating an original answer. I realise that teachers' time is scarce but «Tough», I said, «that is what you have to do».

In fact that is what I now believe teaching at the senior level should be all about. It is less about what you think you are supposed to know about history, geography, economics or whatever but why you think you know it. I quoted Descartes at Daniel and he blithely quoted Descartes back at me with the «dubito» and «cogito» the wrong way round. In his subject, French literature, that probably doesn't matter much, which is no doubt why he made the mistake, but in education more generally, in my view, it matters enormously. The «dubito» has to come first. It may not be easy but it is essential if people are too be truly educated. And, in current circumstances, it may even be essential for the future sanity of the world.

The first time I formed a company in the UK I had, as it turned out, a very good lawyer who proved his worth again when I signed my first office leasing contract. He said he could do the necessary paper work for me but suggested I should do it and he would approve it (or not). His stated reason was that if I did it I would understand the process intimately and therefore be able to answer any questions on it, rather than referring them to him. That was education; lawyer by trade, he was also a teacher and I'm immensely grateful to him, even if I can't remember his name (Leopold something?). It also gave me an insight into law which was analogous to computer programming: you need to know the precise meaning and implications of every statement and clause.