HUNDREDS of teachers will be meeting in London this weekend at the "Politics of Education' conference called by the Socialist Teachers' Alliance and sponsored by Teaching London Kids.
iencing the threat of redundancies, compulsory transfer and school closures. Alongside this insecurity, their competence is being questioned. The autonomy they thought was theirs teaching methods, and methods of assessment - are being lost. How will teachers respond?
help teachers understand and respond to changes in their work. This is vital as it is becoming increasingly evident that the ritual howls of professionalism from the National Union of Teachers won't help teachers. To be told that teachers only need adequate resources and that they should then be left to 'get on with their jobs' doesn't aid teachers in meeting the mounting problems they are facing.
WHAT IS the crisis in education?
It is not enough to say that it arises simply from the changed needs of industry", It is also an aspect of the political and ideological crisis in the workers movement. Here, an elsewhere, the inadequacies of reformism are highlighted. Ton after 1904 and the tr dae tion after 1944 anc towards comprehensivisation, iceds of late capitalism. They also corresponded to, and absorbed, the Jimited demands of the working class organisations. While these isations led a movement to develop equality of educational opportunity they never tackled the problems of who should carol education and what the content of education should SERIOUS Apartment of Education and Science and local authorities; the second, to the teachers in the schools, working with state bodies such as the Schools Council and the inspectorate.
To make these points is nor to deny at le comprenesve morme was a major democratic advance; but it is to allim that the retorm move. ment did not seriously concern itself with the class nature of education — Its structural relation to capital.
The National Union of Teachers. the single most important political alon: 3p per word D lumn Inch Radical Education and The conference is timely. Teachers are today exper- about course content, The conference hopes to develop a framework to influence on teachers, supported, comprehensive movement. It utiled somewhat belatedly, the opportunities provided by educational expansion to increase its in fluence over the curriculum and organisation of education, It did this in co-operation with a part of the state educational apparatus, which pushed Tor the transtormatoo of oducation to meet a dual need: on the one hand, other, the needs, as interpreted by educationalists, af the individua child. Teacher inittative was seen as the best means of achieving this change at the level of the curriculum By the carly 70%, a complex system interests existed. The abour movemen: backed by the UT, supported the extension of ec acation on egalitarian grounds. The dorsed by most sections of the capitalist class HOLISHCHES BETUDE amental social change, but because they seemed to offer a means of training suited to desclopments in nroduction techniques and to the growth of new sectors of emplayment. Comprehensives were also seen as a means of breaking down divisions between classes, and as the best way of educating working class children in the responsibilities of "citizen*Under the impact of the social and CUELEINES achieved then is breaking apart, Imwant to take back many of the consakey Fleids, London WCT cessions made to teachers and working class intereses during the 60s Now, they want to relate education muen more pose y to maustral mun ing. to strengthen those aspects of educahon winch sist in the socia control of youth, to reduce expendwe da was accus products as pects of education.
CONTENT Thar is why the attack on education Some areas of educational spending the Manpower Services Commssion. whose ducational projects will pro vide a low level of post-school industrial training, in a purely vocational manner. traditions of the labour movement, of But there nothing in the recen the NUT, of progressive teachers, of the organised educational left-to encourage such a response. Until the last two years, most forces have found the existing system of educational control adequate to their aims. The labour movement saw its task as only to press for the further extension of oduo ation: the Labour Party and the local education authorities were seen as adequate tools for this task. Teachers ere happy with a system that seeme to allow sociated the development of educ ation with the furthering of their rofessional intere wise seen as unproblematic Educ tion was thought to be good in itsel -bringing better jobs for school leavers, providing a higher level of culture, beneliting industrial production and the development of ser* The conference organisers inform us that the conference is now booked aut, and to avoid being turned away after travelling long organisers urge only those registered to come.
vice and white collar sectors, distributing social privilege more equally, allowing the development of pedacogical theory and practice.
Yet it is the existing system of con trol, and the existing conent of educ ation which are now being attacked by the DES and industry. And these are the questions we on the left have to raise if we are to redefine the purpose of clucation, and activate forces in the working class movement to fight for them.
But there are many obstacles. Fore bost is the professionalism of teach ers, as expressed by the NUT. The Stanley House, Upper Parilament St, Liverpool 8 1978 NUT conference re-affirmed all the union's must weaknesses A resol ution proposed by the Communist Parts insisted that teachers alone have the "necessary professional expertise to develop me owncwan, executive members poured scorn on the idea of an allance wIth ine working class movement, to develop education in the interests of that class.
The conference roled to continue in artnership with the DES and d its past, but not is future allies, While complaining of moves to centralise control of the curriculum, it nowhere nored the source of these ments of industry. The NUT prefer red to interpret current dehiles as a discussion taking place purely within educaton. A lumn stand by teachers it was argued, could put the man darins of the DES back in their place It was not necessary to ally with the working class to do this it was cough to firmly restate the old terms of the partnershipCONSCIOUSNESS The Connunist Party has fostered this consciousness. While it was in the Lore ront of the movement tor como. rebensive reform, it has never in prac tice gone beyond the view that the problems of education are questions of quantity, access and class bias. It did not see the process of education a a matter of class domination.
Leading CP teachers now answe the problems of content and control by denying that there is anything radically wrong with the existing system Were on the enough they sae. But there are fought the CP's policy of alliance with the burcaucracy, militant group: within the NUT have tended to put "educational" issues as secondary in the political struggle to narrow econ omic questions - teachers" pay and working conditions, the guantitative aspects of the cuts. The assumption has been that teachers can be radicalized simply by engaging them in such campaigas.
CURRICULUM But this ignores the way that teachers consciousness is shaped by their part in the educational process and the relation of education to the main The Socialist Teachers' Alliance cstablished itself as which would try to relate both educational and econome struggles to polltical goals. Even so, it has been slow to respond to the educational crisis — though its record as the only force in oppose the NUT resolution on the curriculum is praiseworthy and to Ic Saran London and FLAT SHARE Asslable Juy а нінтв and the Wamp- agains i Fair cern for the whole working class.
At the other extreme, some radical groups and individuals have filed to relate their educational practices to wider struggles even though they are acutely conscious of the effects a the educationa crisis on teachers b confusion of many progressivist deeply ambiguous relation of 'progressivisa" to socialism.
Is radicalisen has always been indiv Idualistic; it has sought ways of teaching that value rather than repress the unique experience of each child. It actually originated in n liberal political desire to achieve social control through consensus. rather than coercion. Its main rationale is an often muddled version of bourgeois pay chology.
PROGRESSIVE It is from such Utopianisn/LiberalIst thal whal is good in progres siviser has to be rescued. Socialists can only do chis if they overcome a 50-ycar old weakness of their own, and recognise and assimilate the strengths of progressive education -the insistence that what we teach and how we teach really does matier What we are faced with at the moment is a deliberate devaluation of the whole process of education. We have tothink what sort of organisation will be able to respond most effectively le that challenge without losing the strategic perspective of working clas strugele. It will have to be socialis That means combining an efficient political organisation with a materia Jist theory of education. 11 is not a question of either/or.
PROFESSIONALISM Without the one, it could offer only an academic critique; without the other, it will be just another profes sional pressure group. It must b concerned always with teaching, an not just the conditions in which teaching is done. It must contribute to an oppositional educational practice, for politics happen in the classroom a well as in the union. enodid not te defensive, but must be prepared to intervene nepressively 10 Dublic de bates Finally, it will have to be un ailiance. That means breaking down the professionalism which still divides tenchers from students, parents and other workers in schools and colleges. It means drawing to it not only teachers from all levels of education but from different radical traditions with dilfering modes of thought and action.
Those differences will be objectively present and there will be tensions lenge to the Socialist Teachers' Al while encouraging tbe genuine debate which is necessary for the development of socialist strategies? That is what this conference is trying to achieve. That is why it is important others Hicken Dancina SOCIALIST CHALLENGE 27 Apni 197B page 1.
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