Introduction

From the World Bank to a classroom near you: what this book sets out to do

Most teachers love their job. That may sound like a bold statement, but after nearly forty years as a classroom teacher, activist and teacher educator, I know this to be true. Conversely, most teachers think they spend far too much time and effort on tasks and duties that sap their energy and contribute little to the learning of their students. Teachers don’t mind working hard and they expect to do so: what they find dispiriting is the whole paraphernalia of the last twenty years or so, which has so complicated the straightforward – if challenging – business of getting young people interested and learning.

This book sets out to strengthen the voice of the vast majority of teachers who still hold to the belief that education is about the whole child and who believe in creating opportunities for making learning creative and exciting. They do this despite the mass of measures they encounter daily in the form of high-stakes observations, performance-related targets, the drive for results and constant, ill-considered innovations. The book challenges the notion that all of these measures, relentless and draining as teachers find them, have created a generation of educators which has bought into a narrow and reductive view of what education is for.

What follows places the experience of teachers in a political and economic context. It argues that a global, neoliberal approach to education has its impact on the daily lives of teachers and concludes by arguing that it is necessary for teachers to understand this in order to challenge it. When writing about World Bank financing of education, Jones (2007: xvii) suggests that notwithstanding ‘the impact of globalization on educational theory, policy and practice ... since 1990, the impact on classroom practice has not been as great as we might imagine’. This book takes issue with such analysis on two counts. First, the impact of global reform plays out most days in almost every classroom as teachers are compelled to turn their actions into measurable data. Second, it argues that only by placing the daily experience of the classroom teacher in this wider context can we begin to make sense of where we are as educators.

My hope is that this book will be read by teachers and that it will reinforce their belief in what they are doing. At conferences, events and in everyday conversations, it is plain that many teachers welcome such reaffirmations, faced as they are with demands that undermine their vision of what teaching could be like. Teacher educators and beginning teachers in schools and universities may also find it a useful analysis and a helpful reminder of what should be going on beyond the quest to produce proof, evidence and paperwork. I also hope that parents, school governors and anyone involved in teaching, learning and the welfare of young people will find material of interest here. By the end of the book one message should be clear – we have many thousands of inventive, committed and energetic teachers out there. What they need – and what our children deserve – is for them to be left to their own devices much more than they are at present. They are very good at what they do. Above all, whoever reads this will, I hope, choose to challenge and present alternatives whenever the opportunity arises.

Because I do want this book to be read by as wide an audience as possible (as every author does!) this is not an academic volume in the traditional sense. There are plentiful illustrative anecdotes from teachers, and the occasional minor digression. I have shamelessly used what I hope are illuminating and entertaining episodes from my own experience to reinforce some of the thinking about what is under discussion. There are, however, plentiful references to literature and sources which I hope will be used as helpful gateways for those who want to investigate further some of the issues raised here. I encourage teachers, especially those at the start of their careers, to do so.

One final note. This book relates to the situation in England and although the circumstances are contextualized as part of what is happening globally, the instances cited and references to policy and practice are specifically English. Nonetheless, teachers from many parts of the world will be familiar with what is written and will be able to associate with it.