Monday 2 December 2013
Schools; the hidden curriculum
It is, I think, pretty widely known that I am not a great fan of schools. They do a necessary job in society, it is true, but at that same time they cause a fair bit of collateral damage. From a purely educational perspective, they achieve their purpose; just. From many other points of view, they are profoundly unsatisfactory.
One of the reasons that I chose not to send my child to school was that I did not like the ideas which they propagated, alongside the education being offered. One of these ideas is sexism. When we were raising my daughter, it was very important to us that she learned that girls could achieve every bit as much as boys in any field at all. This meant, among other things, that she was able to climb trees better than any of the local boys and was also quite happy to take a swing at any boy who laid hands upon her. She also knew that she could be anything at all that she wanted in her future life.
I have for the last week or so been working in a fairly typical, under-performing primary school. I have been observing the subliminal messages being given to boys and girls there and I have to say that they are far from satisfactory. Let us look at a few random instances of what I mean.
Every single member of staff, bar one, at the school is female. All the teachers, learning support staff, officer staff and cleaners; all are women. Anybody care to guess what the exception is, the one man in the place? Yes, it is of course the Head. This is an awful message to give children, right from the beginning. A man is in charge and the women do his bidding. You might say that this is unavoidable, but there are many other things which are avoidable. Walk into a Year 4 classroom and look at the book corner. There are two big, plastic crates; one marked ‘Boys’, with a picture of a boy with a toy car and the other marked, ‘Girls’, which shows a girl holding a doll. These contain the books appropriate for boys and girls respectively. I am sure that readers will have no difficulty guessing the gendered colour coding of these two boxes…
Here is a science lesson. We are looking at the different sorts of light and dividing them into two categories. On the one hand there is natural light and on the other…well, what do readers think? Artificial light, perhaps? Why no. Apart from natural light, we have man-made light. During the lesson, the teacher explains helpfully to the children that while static electricity can give rise to light naturally, as in lightning, current electricity can only, ‘be produced by man’. (Bad news, I am afraid, the next time any female readers want to switch on the light. Only Man can produce current electricity you see…
Here’s a reading lesson, in which we are talking about astronauts. The teacher wishes to give examples of astronauts. Who does she come up with? Inevitably, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Yuri Gagarin. Of course, one of the earliest astronauts and incidentally the first civilian to go into space, was Valentina Tereshkova, in 1963. A woman, incidentally. Nobody remember her?
I could go on all day about this. These children are, in effect, being indoctrinated with sexism and guided into different roles in their future lives. The school has about two million policies on sexism, but none of them make the least difference in practice. Every thing I see at this place confirms that I made the correct decision not to allow my child anywhere near such an institution.
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Definitely agree with all this, Simon, and it's all the sadder because it's so unconscious and engrained.
ReplyDeleteAnne
'because it's so unconscious and engrained'
DeleteYes, it's part of the whole system and not the fault of any particular individual. The overall impact though, upon young children, is pretty awful. You still, in the twenty first century, hear boys call another boy 'gay', simply because he was playing a skipping game with some girls!
"During the lesson, the teacher explains helpfully to the children that while static electricity can give rise to light naturally, as in lightning, current electricity can only, ‘be produced by man’."
ReplyDeleteNot only is this sexist, it's utter nonsense; electric currents occur naturally in nature, and lightning itself is an electric current that flows to discharge a build-up of static charge.
It wasn't a science lesson; it was simply mindless regurgitation of incoherent dross.
'It wasn't a science lesson; it was simply mindless regurgitation of incoherent dross.'
DeleteWhy yes, but I rather took for granted that readers would know that! Here is another classic piece of misinformation, still on the subject of astronauts. We see a photograph of the interior of the international space station. Of course, it looks as though those inside are weightless and floating around. The teacher explains that this is because, 'There is no gravity'. In fact of course, at that height above the earth, the astronauts are subject to 80% of the gravity we feel on the surface of the Earth. It is gravity which is making the space ship circle the Earth.
Even higher, in fact; something like 88% at the altitude of the ISS.
DeleteWeightlessness in orbit is simply free fall - like the decline of science education in our schools.
'Weightlessness in orbit is simply free fall - like the decline of science education in our schools.'
DeleteTrue, but to be fair, many children's science books say the same sort of thing!
You may also be amused to hear that the Sun, 'never moves at all'. Everything else moves, but the Sun stays completely still! The one, fixed point in the entire universe! Talking later to one of the children, I found that he believed that this meant that all the stars in the sky circle the Sun. Practically every 'fact' given in science was faulty.
DeleteI think this also has something to do with society’s view of men who work with younger children. A friend who runs a nursery had one male employee and a couple of the mums said they were not happy with a male looking after their children and wanted him gone. Thankfully she told them if they weren’t happy they could remove their children. I have worked with voluntary youth groups for many years and had to listen to comments from people who thought it odd that I gave up my time to work with them. The press try to make you believe that every adult is now a danger to your child and wishes them harm. All these issues combine to make teaching in primary school less attractive to men. Therefore when you advertise posts the percentage of male applicants applying is either very low or nil. Those who do are usually outperformed at interview by females simply because they are so outnumbered. It’s a vicious circle.
ReplyDeleteWe toured a school the other day. The Year 6 tour guide showed us the school's MI6 club, for boys who are good at maths. Then she showed us the MI4 club, for girls who are bad at maths. I can't believe a primary school, and the parents and children, aren't questioning this.
ReplyDelete' I can't believe a primary school, and the parents and children, aren't questioning this.'
DeleteHmmm, that is a puzzle! Unless of course we live in a hideously sexist society, where there are implicit, and false, assumptions about the intrinsic abilities of males and females?
I listened to a radio discussion involving five top female scientists and engineers (lecturers and heads of departments at Cambridge, Oxford and Southampton amongst them). All five went to all girls schools, where studying science and maths was seen as perfectly normal. So there's your answer Simon, apparently you could have sent your daughter to an all girls school to achieve your aims.
ReplyDelete