Parents, Should our New Year Resolution be Revolution?

This may sound uncharacteristically heartless, but I was so pleased, though the context is horrific, to read Brian Walton in the TES expressing the prevalence of fear in his working life these days. It’s horrifying to learn it is the emotion which keeps him ticking. He states, ‘fear will become a strength’, and you know I get incensed by the role of resilience in the survival of students, teachers and school leaders in our education system. But it is so important to hear the truth spoken candidly, and I do think we, as parents, need to start expressing our fear too.

Our children are growing up in frightening times. Let’s face it, the discourse on climate change has ramped up dramatically in recent months, let alone years. I was in California this summer and witnessed apocalyptic scenes. Obviously, access to areas of fire danger were closed, but the suffocating air and the ash landing on us as we walked home was nothing less than disturbing. And then we have Brexit and increasing social division; Britain on the brink of…no one actually knows what. I can safely say I fear for my children and what their future will look like. But it’s hard to find solace in ‘the system’. And that probably comes back to fear once more.

I think it is time for a parental revolution. I fear my children becoming quiet, compliant cogs in this fear-ridden system. I fear they will not know how to raise their voices, to protest and state their rights to a future which is safe, secure and full of possibility. This is why I call for a parental revolution. We have to model this behaviour and we have to demand better for our children before it is too late for their generation. Let’s start with their right to a rounded, valuable education which prepares them all appropriately for adulthood in the 21st century.

The first thing we need to stop doing is accusing the ministers at the Department for Education of having their heads in the sand or for ignorance of the realities, the crisis which is of course well and truly evident to anyone looking at the status quo objectively. Yes, we are run by the elite, who have always lived in their bubble, but they are fully aware that they are stripping schools of resources. They are fully aware that schools are struggling across England. They are fully aware teachers are either leaving or hanging on by one finger to that cliff edge. And that leaders, such as Brain Walton live their careers in a perpetual sweat elicited by fear.

Policy today is about minimising the state and pushing for the privatisation of all public services. Let’s face it, if Conservative MPs have the audacity to be pictured celebrating the good work of food banks, they will happily accept the struggle of anyone and accept that for many, their lives are in a state of absolute crisis. Of course, they will not use these words themselves! They are not fools! They are not going to commit political suicide. They will just wait. School leaders and teachers will battle until the very end, until they have to stumble out of their crumbling reception doors with their white flag of surrender leading the way. The government ministers will be ready, having twiddled their thumbs for months, anticipating this moment, and then they’ll make the call to one of their booming academy beasts and the corporatisation of the defeated institution will begin. Now, the teachers may well have gone on strike, for weeks, months. One secondary school in my borough experienced months of two-day school weeks as the teachers attempted to stave off their school’s imminent take over by one of these beasts. They failed.

Geoff Barton once wrote that it will not be until the ire of parents is felt that the policy makers will listen. I agree. Look at places where parents have fought. Newham for example. It’s when the parents activate and absolutely refuse to accept what they are being ‘sold’; when parents come back and remind the powers-that-be that they also are not fools, that they understand the agenda and stand their ground. It is then that it works. I call for more of this in 2019.

Let’s also consider the diet we are being offered. Remember this whole policy was sold on parental choice, on the empowerment of our voices in the system to create learning opportunities for our children, to be able to create a system which we determine rather than have imposed on us by the ‘evil state’. Today, parents are not involved in the creation of schools. This was always going to fail, but report findings this year tell us we have business leaders opening our schools. Our children are being led through a system which has been corporatized. Our children are becoming homogenised under a brand name, with a tag-line such as ‘Reaching beyond your grasp’. And it is within these homogenised, ‘one size fits all’ contexts that we see the increased application of zero-tolerance behaviour policies, the increased reliance on isolation rooms and increasing exclusion statistics amongst the most vulnerable members of our school communities. I was talking with a fellow ex-school teacher today and we were commenting on the reading of student’s behaviours; how we could see if things were slightly off-kilter as a student entered our classroom, and how we, as teachers, would adapt our behaviour and attitude, even our lessons to ensure those students avoided conflict and instead were offered space in which to settle and find focus. But schools aren’t so much about communities any more, they’re about the growth of corporations.

Our children enter a school and they have to wear the same outfit, carry the same bag and have the same haircut. This is always sold under the ‘equality’ banner. I don’t buy that. Uniform has never ever hidden poverty in my experience.  And let’s question why we want to hide poverty, why we want to hide diversity, why we want to hide individuality. Is it to stop the debate on what real social justice looks like? Is it to stop giving voice to those who might realise they are the have nots? And is it to create a generation of ‘Yes Men’ who won’t question the status quo in times of terrifying flux? Are we creating a generation who can successfully manage the very uncertain future of our planet? Are they going to be able to stand up and raise their voice above the crowd to right a wrong? I fear not.

I urge all parents in 2019 to start campaigning, to start asking why things are happening in their children’s schools; to demand inclusion in the improvement of their local schools; to refuse to allow corporate voices to overrule those of the community; and most importantly, to not allow the government the excuse of ignorance. Let’s stop our schools being places within which our children are uninspired data columns, lost in a crowd of neat back and sides and tartan skirts, but, instead, places where they find their individual voices and learn how to be the change tomorrow will so desperately need. It’s over to us if we really want to get this ball rolling. If we all make the same resolution, could there be a revolution of ‘the system’ in 2019?