Educating our citizens
Daryl Taylor on a real Citizenship Education
“IT IS NOT ALWAYS THE SAME THING TO BE A GOOD MAN AND A GOOD CITIZEN” said Aristotle. It may seem bizarre as a socialist to quote Aristotle of all people, but it is this sentence which made me reconsider my depressingly dull role as an administrator, enter the rollercoaster of teaching. I have met multitudes of good men. I have met hordes of good citizens. It pains me that I seldom meet a combination of both.
What is a ‘good citizen’? Well that’s the question isn’t it? Thatcher, Benn, Stalin and Hitler; none of these prolific and controversial figures across the spectrum would have had a consensus. When Citizenship Education was phased in under the New Labour administration following the Crick Report, advocates looked to an era where people partook in community engagement, elections and political activities on their own volition. We didn’t get there. It was terribly managed and regulated; it’s implementation sparse – especially considering its status as a core subject.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau said, observing from 18th century Geneva, that “The people of England regard themselves as free; but they are grossly mistaken; they are free only during the election of Members of Parliament. As soon as they are elected, slavery overtakes them, and they are nothing.” In 21st century Britain, we have certainly troughed, given our universal suffrage and plethora of de jure political rights.
As socialists, this point is absolutely pivotal. What kind of citizens do we want to nurture? All of us can agree that leaving the job of governance to a self-governing Parliament has proven itself to be destructive.
We must drive Citizenship Education, capturing the energy, drive and brilliant minds of young people. We must make it as much of an ‘applied’ subject as possible. We must arm our next generations with the knowledge of our political and legal systems, confused and constructed in elitist, Etonian/Oxbridge language. We can trust our brilliant teachers to be impartial, let them decide their own enemies, but dear God, let us arm those children to the teeth with the skills and knowledge to shape a wonderfully engaged and democratic society to undermine those bastards who would rather us in our place.
If it doesn’t come from schools, it comes from popular culture, or from parents. Students in my classes last week were discussing Russell Brand’s very tempting arguments during his appearance with Jeremy Paxman, not include his subsequent exposure as a result of this. They had concluded, before even being voting age that democracy is invalid. I took it upon myself to counter this argument, because no person other than Nick Clegg was attempting to argue for democracy in mainstream media. I did not want to manipulate their opinions, but I was determined to present a balanced case. So in the next few lessons we considered each of Brand’s points on the democratic process. I provided a history, a focus and a context of the development of democracy and its current status today. Students will not be exposed to this anywhere in this hyper-consumerist, media-driven world!
So there is my case: Left Unity and all leftists must surely support a drive for Citizenship Education in schools. We leave our students vulnerable to oppression by an elite who would rather they didn’t know. We leave them vulnerable to utopian anarchists, left-libertarians; those who dream wild dreams but fail to recognise the reality of daily life. Teachers can provide sufficient depth and context for students to consider their own place in the world and realise their potential political power.
In the words of the ever-wise Tony Benn: “An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern”. Do the former, and the latters shall follow.
7 comments
7 responses to “Educating our citizens”
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nowhere is the need for Citizens education more necessary then in northern ireland. If you have a look at the latest posts on eurofree3.wordpress.com you will be appalled at the Loyalist mentality. I do not know if Citizens needs to go through schools. I myself have proposed some sort of evening education classes, posters and even a soap opera on TV. But I firmly agree something is desperately needed.
I think you have misunderstood what Brand was saying. He is definitely NOT against democracy. Rather, he was saying that none of the existing parties were worth voting for and that the government (whether Tory, Labour or Lib Dem.)‘shouldn’t destroy the planet, should create massive economic disparity, shouldn’t ignore the needs of the people’….as they have been doing. Do listen to what he says: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YR4CseY9pk&feature=youtu.be
I find it a bit rich to cite Nick Clegg as someone who upholds democracy and democratic values.Do we need to remind ourselves that before the 2010 election, he and many subsequently elected Lib Dem MPs signed the NUS ‘vote for students pledge’? Its words: “I pledge to vote against any increase in fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote_for_Students_pledge
After the election, Clegg and many Lib. Dem. MPs broke this pledge and supported whopping fee increases that are now £9, 000 and higher.
It was precisely this kind of rank double-talk that Brand so effectively skewered in his recent Paxman interview.
The type of ‘citizenship education’ we as socialist favour should have two key tenets, among others:
1)the capitalist system is anti-people and rotten to the core; 2) it is right to rebel.
I must say that I find the ‘citizenship education’ you are advocating is one full of liberal bromides.
@ Alan Story – I certainly understand Brand’s argument, the point I was making was that there was no context to it. My students took what was presented as an argument saying “democracy doesn’t work”. This was my point; there is broader context other than Paxman meekly arguing his brilliantly articulated points.
Also, as much as I would love to tell students to rebel against capitalism, it is not right for any teacher to transmit their values. You are absolutely correct, but we should certainly not use our position as transmitters as knowledge to transmit values instead.
And don’t get me wrong, Clegg is (to borrow a Bevan-ism) lower than vermin. It id terrifying however that
@ Alan Story – I certainly understand Brand’s argument, the point I was making was that there was no context to it. My students took what was presented as an argument saying “democracy doesn’t work”. This was my point; there is broader context other than Paxman meekly arguing Brand’s brilliantly articulated points.
Also, as much as I would love to tell students to rebel against capitalism, it is not right for any teacher to transmit their values. You are absolutely correct, but we should certainly not use our position as transmitters as knowledge to transmit values instead.
And don’t get me wrong, Clegg is (to borrow a Bevan-ism) lower than vermin. I will always defend democratic elections. More was done for working class social justice in 1945 by a democratically elected party than any rebellion in English history.
My argument is beat the neo-liberals at their own game. Dominate their sphere and destroy it from within.
The kids wont be politically educated by their teachers. The teachers will get sacked for even trying to do that. We are not citizens, we are “subjects” of the queen, who voluntarily her authotlrity on that parliament to govetn us ! opens parliament, and renews
Citizenship classes were based on lies.
We should encourage the building of a left unity youth movement, support it and give it a framework and let those youth attracted decide and try to build a hearing in the schools. We would be part of defence campaigns as we should be for university students when they are punishef for speaking out at university.
There used to be school students unions in britain, we should support this, promote it in schools where we can. But its more about enabling and supporting the youth to build there own autonomous youth orgs. If that can be put on citizenship curriculum then good!
Pete b
Daryl, I put this on the thread about democracy, but I think it should be here, too, because it illustrates that a narrowly electoral campaign by LU at election times would be wrong and a missed opportunity. The crisis in British democracy runs so deep that we have to raise the oligarchical nature of it loud and clear and explain how a real form of democracy would differ from the 17th century institutions we hav einhereited and which have been re-branded as democracy when they blatantly are not:
“Here is definitive evidence of the extent of the democratic deficit in this country, absolutely, relatively and in comparison to other OECD regimes:
http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/theory/37-theory/14906-the-crisis-of-the-british-regime-democracy-protest-and-the-unions
The implications of this must be taken fully into account in the way we campaign around elections – it is crucial that we expose the ‘democratic’ system as THE central plank of our campaigning, both at election time and outside elections, too. We are a new party and this democratic deficit is what we need to emphasise to the working class”.
Finally, Daryl, as someone with 8 years teaching experience in FE A levels (History), I have been able to get students to question by giving them the pro- and anti-capitalist interpretation of just about every historical controversy, so they are able to judge the quality of argument of each. If you were to ask your students to define democracy and what the criteria are for calling something democratic, they would be able to work out for themselves that the British parliament is 50% not elected at all and that the half that is is not even accountable to the basis on which they were elected (just about every political commentator takes it for granted that manifestos will be dumpred upon coming into office) and that the House of Commons cannot hold the Prime MInister to account because the party whip system means they fear for their careers if they do. Career politicians and democracy are incompatible. An unelected executive branch of government and an unelected senior judiciary are incompatible with democracy. A commercialised lobby system is incompatible with democracy.
We don’t have democracy – we have something that has been re-branded as democracy quite recently in history. Take a look at the Republican Socialist Platform statement for a taster in how much power and wealth the Crown enjoys in this country.
It would be great if school students could get a balanced curriculum and input for Citizenship. But having read that the new Citizenship curriculum book contains the line “The Conservative party is the party of fairness’ I came to doubt that balance might be possible – notwithstanding all the arguments above!