Last week I
spent an afternoon in the Genetics department of the Royal Marsden Hospital.
Fascinated by the concept of genetic research, it proved an insightful hour or
so, discussing new technology that can now identify mutated genes known to
cause certain types of cancer. Having spent time with the Genetics Counsellor
and having some blood samples taken for testing, I left the clinic with a
myriad of thoughts swirling around my head. As impressive as this new technological
advance is at being able to pre-empt cancerous cells before formation, is it a
good thing that we are playing a fortune-telling God with our medical progress?
By having pre-empted knowledge that you are carrying a mutated gene (really
dodgy adjective I reckon, sounds all gremlin or alien-like) that may (or may not) develop into something unwanted,
are you then not opening your mind up to a self-conscious awareness of your own
fallibility? I remember talking with a friend in Tanzania about natural
selection and how I felt extremely lucky that the health care in my country was
able to treat such potentially threatening illnesses as cancer; being born in a
different world at a different time, I may not have been so lucky. But are we
taking it one step too far now that we are meddling with our futures? Should we be granting ourselves the power to play God, meddling with our own self-created futures? I just don’t
know. But for now, I’ll just wait for my
results before I start pondering some of those questions a bit more!
The concept
of playing God with people’s futures is a thought that has struck me several
times over the past week. Doing the work I am currently involved in with Bright Green Enterprise means I get to
see a lot of very different schools from a lot of angles and find out a lot of
things I never noticed before when ensconced in the role of a classroom
teacher. I spent one day last week working in what has been classified as an “inadequate
school”. A little unsure what this meant (was the roof still intact? were the
kids missing? had they got any teachers?)...
...I was
rather relieved to find quite a delightful looking school, with engaged and
friendly students and some very bright sparks amongst them. It seems that what the school
had been judged to fail on (by those smart-suited deities, The Ofsted Team) was
the teachers and teaching within the school. Aside from a myriad of apathy and neglect during
the day, I was most struck by the response of a Deputy Headmaster at the end of
the day, when approached by us to discuss encouraging some of the bright
students to be pushed with their interests in the programme. His first comment,
thanking us for encouraging the Y10s to spend the day making “organised noise” as
oppose to their usual chaos struck me as a rather bleak way to summarise their
excellent work and progress. But what saddened me was when he went on to
dismiss any interest in pushing his students’ capabilities further, saying he
was far too busy, and that we should talk to someone else (namely the apathetic
teacher who’d been sitting mute in the room with us all day) instead. It got me
thinking (a common habit of mine, I’m sure you’ve noticed).
Is it a case of Russian roulette as to which world you are put in and which God you choose to follow? I am not talking about religion here, but the power of influence in your life. School is a huge factor: the teachers, the learning and the environment. Having someone that believes in you; that pushes you, that inspires and supports you is so valuable to any human; most significantly to children. How then, attending an “inadequate school” with apathy written all over it, are these young minds being given something to believe in; something to strive towards in the future? Why are these people becoming teachers in the first place, if they don’t believe in adding value to the children they work with?
Is it a case of Russian roulette as to which world you are put in and which God you choose to follow? I am not talking about religion here, but the power of influence in your life. School is a huge factor: the teachers, the learning and the environment. Having someone that believes in you; that pushes you, that inspires and supports you is so valuable to any human; most significantly to children. How then, attending an “inadequate school” with apathy written all over it, are these young minds being given something to believe in; something to strive towards in the future? Why are these people becoming teachers in the first place, if they don’t believe in adding value to the children they work with?
The whole
concept of a teacher is to nurture; to (quote Oxford English Dictionary) “cause
someone to learn or understand something by example or experience.” What example
is it setting children when teachers are talking over the top of us as we
explain the importance of Speaking and Listening skills? What example is it
setting children when teachers cannot be bothered to help or encourage their
interests and skills? I always remember being rather shocked on my teaching
course by one of my classmates who couldn’t spell and hated reading. Not that
uncommon, maybe, but rather a worrying C.V when you’re training to be an
English Teacher. And she passed the course and got a job; set off to “cause
someone to learn something by example”…
I’m not
trying to be judgemental here; I am however vociferating the importance of
examples on young minds. They are impressionable and will most certainly learn
from example. Some of the most interesting schools we’ve been into this year
have had perhaps very challenging students with a myriad of issues they are
dealing with, but a no-nonsense approach to standards, behaviour and learning
and thus a very positive school environment. It is simple really; show and
tell. If you say one thing but do another, you’re not likely to teach anything
useful. And, like it or not, educators are playing God with young people’s
lives; filtering them into a belief system and a knowledge and understanding of
the world and how to live in it. Teaching is not a job to take on lightly and
we should all perhaps be a bit more conscious of the significance of the job. The more I see of education in other
countries, the more I worry about how we are still doing so poorly here for
many of our children when we are privileged with access to the foundations for success. I found a fabulous sketch the other day by Matt Groening
which is a clever summation of many of my thoughts on our current education
systems here. No need for any other comments; it speaks for itself.
I had the
immense pleasure of giving a lecture on some of these thoughts at a good friend’s
school in Ascot last week. She became Headmistress a few years ago and is
running a delightful school with a pack of very dedicated and inspiring
teachers. I spent a very pleasant hour or so talking to a room full of
students, parents and teachers about how much wisdom there is in schooling the world.
I get very
passionate talking about global education (hence me writing a book on it) and I
found it hard to stop. Frustratingly my technological ineptness was sparkling
at its finest during the lecture, and my ability to show a two minute clip failed miserably. Such a shame: so
I’ve put it below in case it’s of any interest. It’s a brief but excellent introduction
to one of the most inspiring documentaries I have ever seen.
Education
is seen as a universal religion and more and more I am reading about different
models of education in the developing world that are following our western
practices; channeling children to follow our paths and playing God with the
direction their lives will take. With the UN preaching Education for All, this
is not a religion that is going to fade away, but one that is getting stronger and gaining more followers each day. Yet, in a world that houses over 4000 different religions, why is
education not allowed to have such a diverse freedom across the globe? Why is
there only really a dictate for one standard of education; one model, one
religion? Why are we making all of tomorrow’s children learn in the same way?
This educational picture of repression makes me think of of a group of people I met a few weeks ago at The
Globe Theatre. Immersing myself in Shakespeare once again (love it!) I was
fortunate enough to get a ticket to see a production of King Lear, by the Belarusian Free Theatre. It was a fascinating
production; not necessarily, in my opinion, a good representation of Shakespeare’s
text, but instead an extraordinary show of rebellion and political activism within
the realm of theatre.
I attended a pre-theatre lecture with the
directors and was overwhelmed by the story of their lives, their repressed freedom
and their struggle to break free from the rule of their homeland, Belarus. Admittedly, before the lecture, my
knowledge of Belarus and its inhabitants was fairly limited to a smidgen of
politics and a bit of knowledge of Stalinist history. I was aware that it had a
very hard political ruling, being known by many as the last dictatorship of
Europe. But what was explained by the directors was staggering. For a start,
the culture of the country is being suppressed and, for the most part, lost
through the complete governance of the state; playing God with the freedom of
its people.
The theatres are owned by the state and, as a result,
there is a complete control over any artistic freedom. No contemporary theatre
is allowed, with predominantly the work of 1960s soviet playwrights being
directed. The Belarus Free Theatre came together almost ten years ago as an
underground theatre company; meeting, rehearsing and performing in secret. Many
times their productions were raided and shut down; the majority of the company has
been arrested several times and some (including the two artistic directors)
imprisoned. The directors left Belarus a few years ago coming to the UK
with two contemporary and highly political plays. Because of this, and because
of their continued work with developing the theatre company, they can never
return to Belarus and have been granted political asylum by the UK. (They
explained that they can, of course, re-enter Belarus, but they would have their
passports taken off them and would not be able to leave. Also, they are now
known "artistic activists" and would not be able to continue working
underground back home.
They talked a lot about the oppression
of Belarusian governance - even the state language is not Belarusian - it is
Russian; with citizens being punished (through beatings on the street) for
speaking their native language. The
God-like control of the government on intellectual, social and artistic freedom
meant that they had been channeled into a way of thinking and, in order to
break free and express themselves, they were forced to flee from the control of
Belarus. These guys’ dedication and commitment to giving their country a voice,
an artistic freedom and a future of opportunity was inspiring; made bittersweet
through the knowledge that they were entrapped in political asylum.
We have it
good here in this country. There is political stability (you know what I mean);
freedom of speech, we have peace and opportunity, we have clarified and
sustained human rights, we have education served daily on a golden platter.
Just look at the news over the last week to realise how much of the world does
not enjoy the wealth of moral, intellectual and spiritual freedom we do: the
massacres in the name of God in Nairobi, Nepalese migrant workers brutalised in
the name of western progress (for the F.A) in Qatar, hundreds of African migrants
drowned in the hope of a better life off the Italian coast. Every day we are
lucky in the world in which we grow, yet every day we are pushed into wanting
more and more; pushing progress to the point where the grass is always greener,
the future always brighter and tomorrow always a better day. Well, for me, the
sun is shining, it’s a beautiful day and my roses smell divine. That’s all the
celestial influence I need for now. (Click the link for a refreshing little talk from a delightful man called Life is Easy.)
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