What an interesting year 2010 promises to be. Just watch out for those shiny politicians who will rediscover their local schools, armed with shovelfuls of smiles and promises.
There is something surreal about the sameness of it all as we face what could be five general election months of the tightrope of promises of more money, or is it less?
More pressure, more control, more rigour, more changes? If only it were less.
We need thinking, reflection and ideas development time. While education whirls on the political roundabout, Heads are spinning, and only the most confident are able to slow things down. Yet we need our school leaders to have clear and steady minds as they steer the direction of their schools through this next decade.
And we need our politicians to realise that their four to five years of office represent only a fraction of a learner’s educational lifespan.
In these times of unprecedented change to the world’s economy and climate only the self-deluded would believe that it’s possible to jiggle and juggle our lives without taking a reflective longer term view of what is needed. Unfortunately, we seem to have a political structure which encourages our representatives to keep their eyes on the pavement to avoid tripping up, rather than preparing our country for the decades ahead.
As a Headteacher I always believed that I could not do my job effectively if I did not understand the past, present and future context of the children I was working with. We are after all educating them not just for the present but also for their future and ours; they will be living and leading the future.
The present context is in the throes of sandstorms of change; the future will be a different place as a consequence. Our job as educators is not to be buried in the sand but to look for the shapes on the horizon, to adapt our curriculum and pedagogy to be dynamic and developmental, and not static and sterile.
The unprecedented challenges to the world’s economy and climate are not merely articles in the news; they should be catalysts for change in our educational establishments.
Take enterprise education as an example. In response to the DCSF’s recent additional funding for the delivery of enterprise education, hundreds of schools and FE colleges are collaborating in newly organised enterprise hubs. In response to political will, there is now money in the system for enterprise education. Schools are using a myriad of approaches, developing and deepening students’ generic skills.
What disappoints in relation to the political will is that a project like this could and should be strategically linked to our need as a nation to find new models of entrepreneurship and business: models which will be more sustainable and resilient than those which have led to the current global turmoil.
Open the conversation with any school about their fundraising and community ventures and you will hear a torrent of examples where children and young people have set up eco-enterprises, fair trade stalls, been inspired by Comic Relief, Children In Need or a local community cause. They have organised themselves into teams, developed their ideas, worked out their project plan and made money for their chosen charity.
The impact of these enterprises goes beyond the recipients’ benefit or the team’s satisfaction of making money. Children are left with a sense of having done something good, with moral purpose and compassion. This is surely what we need to recognise and foster as we prepare our young people to live and lead in the future. It is a small leap to build the language and development of enterprise and the newly trumpeted financial skills into these activities.
There is a growing debate promoted by the New Economics Foundation and many respected economists that social enterprise/not for profit business could provide a route to more sustainable and cohesive communities. Schools, steeped in a wide variety of mini social enterprises, could add real value to this essential debate.
Any shift in global economic models will take time of course, perhaps two decades to see the ascendancy of social and community enterprise. That’s approximately the life of five parliaments.
Hmm, it might take that long to shift our political system too.... So maybe it's up to us then.
Happy new thinking!
Carole Whitty is a NET Leading Thinker, recently Deputy General Secretary of NAHT.
