PART 1 – A VISION OF SCHOOLING
I’m one of those people who has faith in the power of primary schooling to lead a nation to greatness.
I hold immense admiration for those teachers who spend long, unbroken, learning-charged hours with our beautiful young children creating a purpose for learning; and I share with Abraham Lincoln the notion that the fate of humanity is in their hands.
I have also been lucky enough to share with dedicated, interested others a vision that portrays schools as exciting learning places where pupils, for seven or eight years of their institutionalised life, will be not just happy to attend, but will be anxious to do so, each day of their school life.
Yes…through to the end of all of their school life. School life will be a curriculum of learnacy.
Pupils of the 21stC will be anxious to get to school each day because it is an exciting learning place and for no other reason.
In this presentation I want to concentrate on primary school matters, as a major partner in the business of compulsory schooling.
The arrangements for primary schooling in many countries and authorities have pretended to share such visions, but other matters seem to have overtaken any real dedication towards the task.
It is not that they dislike young children or don’t care much about them or prefer to find other things to do when it comes to real support. It is what Duki calls ‘semi-controlled mindlessness’.
Although it appears so, I doubt if politicians and their favoured parvenu mean to be schadenfreude. They just don’t know any better. Their mindlessness prevents them from looking first at what schooling and pupilling is all about, before they make their egregious decisions.
