We have learned this year about what is essential and
what is inessential. Everything that is truly essential has remained open,
everything that is not completely essential has at times been shut. We found
that we did not really need to go to restaurants and pubs. We could watch films
on Netflix. But strangely we have discovered that schools are not really
essential either. Exams could be cancelled, and schools could be shut.
From March to the summer schools were shut and pupils
in state schools rarely even heard the voices of their teachers. They were
given work to do and it may have been marked, but few pupils did more than a
minimum of schoolwork. Since August pupils have been back at school in Scotland.
But with Covid increasing and lockdown returning like a March wind in January
we find once more that schools are not being treated as essential services that
must be kept open no matter what, but rather as buildings that can be closed
like pubs, restaurants or cinemas.
Previously I would have considered a doctor’s surgery
and a hospital to be essential services that would never close, but access to
both has been limited this year, but schools if anything are even more
important to society.
Schools are essential not merely because children
learn there, but perhaps more importantly they learn to socialise with other
children and adults. Much of what we learn in school is forgotten, but the
social lessons stay with us throughout life. Schools are also essential for a
reason that has nothing to do with education. They enable parents to go to
work. Schools are a vital component of an economy that is based on both parents
going to work. Without them we go back to the 1950s, with men earning more so
that they can afford to buy a house and look after housewives who look after
children and keep things tidy.
We should be very reluctant indeed to shut schools.
School children in Scotland learned far less from March to the summer than they
would have done if schools had been open. What’s more the failure to allow school
pupils to sit exams has done lasting damage to them by preventing the most able
from distinguishing themselves from the moderately able. Not only have pupils
learned less, but they haven’t been properly tested on what they have learned.
Worse this situation will continue into next year and probably forever.
It’s a matter of medical judgement whether schools
should be shut because of the present escalation in Covid. Although school
pupils are very unlikely to die from Covid, they can catch the illness and pass
it on to their friends and families. But it is not a matter for teaching
unions. Supermarket workers don’t get to stay home, because society needs them
to keep working. They continue working cheerfully and get paid rather less than
teachers do.
It may be that pupils going to school has contributed
to the increase in Covid cases. But people going to supermarkets has also
contributed to the increase. No one has seriously suggested shutting
supermarkets because how else would be we be able to feed ourselves. We keep
supermarkets open because we deem them to be essential. We shut schools because
we think they are inessential. It’s a value judgement as much as a judgement
about epidemiology.
But given that we have decided that schools are
expendable and not as essential as supermarkets and given we decided this last
March, what plans have schools made for the possibility that they will be
closed again?
Apart from the role of babysitter, schools could if
they wanted almost exactly replicate the school experience online. But while
business has adapted to the changing circumstances this year state schools have
made minimal effort to move beyond the black board and duster.
Decades ago, in Australia virtual learning was
provided for children in the outback too far away from a conventional school.
With the technological improvements the Internet has given us teaching over the
Internet could be almost as good as teaching in a school classroom. But
schools, teaching unions and individual teachers have shown minimal interest in
providing a quality online learning experience for pupils.
With imagination and effort in Scotland there is no
reason why pupils could not have learned almost as much this year as any other
year. They could have sat exams online. There would have been failures. Some
pupils would not have had access to equipment. Some attempts at teaching would
have run into difficulties. But we have not even tried to replicate the school
room online. We have not learned to make the experience better because we gave
up before beginning, because it was too hard, too unfair and anyway we could
not be bothered.
This year I have been massively impressed by
supermarkets. The staff have been uncomplaining and more important to most of
us than the emergency services. Only very briefly were there shortages due to
panic buying last March. Even that problem was solved quickly. So too if I want
to buy something from Amazon for a small amount of money per year, I get free
shipping and it arrives the next day. If I want to return what I buy I take it
to a local shop scan the barcode and I get my money back.
If the Scottish education profession had the same
attitude to problem solving and achievement we would not once more have
Scottish school children being sent home again to be taught by harassed parents
who are supposed to be working. We should at the very least have full time
online teaching. After all we’ve had since March to get it up and running. But
no in SNPland neither schools, nor pupils nor parents going to work are
essential. All that matters is Nicola Sturgeon on TV every day telling us what
a wonderful job she is doing. Perhaps if she spent just a little less time
obsessing about independence and the EU, which are not devolved issues, she
could think about health and education which are.
The reason Scotland is slipping down the international educational league tables, is not because either pupils or teachers are any more stupid than anywhere else, it’s because when faced with a challenge that requires innovation, adaptability and willingness to change, we find we can’t even be bothered to try. No wonder we want to give up testing pupils when the main lesson they learn from their teachers is to give up before you start.
