More News, Less ViewsUKWatch.net - 1 Oct 2008News is a procession of the powerful. Watch it on TV, listen to the Today programme and marvel at the orthodoxy of views and the lack of critical voices. When the credit crunch hit, we were given a succession of bankers, stockbrokers and even hedge-fund managers to explain and say what should be done. But these were the people who had caused the problem, thinking nothing of taking 20 billion a year in city bonuses. The solution these free market wizards agreed to, was that tax payers should stump up 50 billion (and rising) to fill up the black holes in the banking system. Where were the critical voices to say it would be a better idea to take the bonuses back? Mainstream news has sometimes a social-democratic edge. There are complaints aired about fuel poverty and the state of inner cities. But there are precious few voices making the point that the reason why there are so many poor people is because the rich have taken the bulk of the disposable wealth. The notion that the people should own the nation?s resources is close to derided on orthodox news. When Northern Rock was nationalised, TV news showed us pictures of British Leyland and the old problem ridden car industry. Never mind that it was actually privately owned when most of the problems occurred and that company policy had been to distribute 95% of profits as dividends to shareholders, rather than to invest in new plant and machinery. This is all lost in the mists of history and what is conveyed is the vague sense that nationalisation is a ?bad thing?. We showed how this affects public understanding by asking a sample of 244 young people in higher education (aged 18 ?23) about the great spate of privatizations which had taken place in the 1980s. We asked whether the industries involved had in general been profitable or unprofitable. Actually, the major ones of gas, electricity, oil and telecommunications were both profitable and major sources of revenue to the state, but nearly 60% of the sample thought that the industries had been losing money. This is especially poignant now that energy prices are being jacked up and the foreign owners of many of these companies are not interested in passing on their windfall profits to the British people. Countries such as China, Venezuela and even Russia keep key industries very firmly in state hands, but where are the critical voices in broadcasting here, who are given space to raise these arguments? They can be heard in the outer reaches, occasionally on Question Time, Channel 4 News or Newsnight. But is this what the population want? At the start of the Iraq war we had the normal parade of generals and military experts, but in fact, a consistent body of opinion then and since has been completely opposed to it. We asked our sample whether people such as Noam Chomsky, John Pilger, Naomi Klein and Michael Moore should be featured routinely on the news as part of a normal range of opinion. Seventy three per cent opted for this rather than wanting them on just occasionally, as at present. The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is another area of great imbalance in the views that are heard. Our study of the main TV news output showed that pro-Israeli speakers were featured about twice as much as Palestinians. This year BBC News covered Israel?s ?birthday? of 60 years since the setting up of the state. This was of course also the anniversary of what, from the Palestinian perspective, was the great disaster when they were forced from their homes and land. Israel?s superior public relations machine meant that they set the agenda on broadcast news. The Palestinians were featured, but rather less and as a sort of afterthought. As a presenter on BBC?s Today programme put it, ?Today Israel is 60 years old, and all this week we have been hearing from Israelis about what it means to them?. Quite so. We commissioned YouGov to ask a sample of 2086 UK adults whether they thought that more coverage should be given to the Israeli point of view, or more to the Palestinians, or equal for both. Nearly twice as many people thought that the Palestinians should have the most as compared with the Israelis, but the bulk of the replies (72%) were that both should have the same. Only 5% of the population supported what the broadcasters have actually been doing in the main news output. Politicians and broadcasters say they are worried about a growing lack of interest in politics especially amongst the young. Our work shows there is no lack of interest in lively critical debate. The problem is that a news which largely features the views of two political parties with very similar free market policies at home, and an international agenda which follows America, does not provide this.
Let the Quartet DieUKWatch.net - 1 Oct 2008One of the great hopes and subsequent disappointments in modern Middle Eastern diplomacy has been the “Quartet” of four major international players that was supposed to monitor, shepherd and promote Palestinian-Israeli peace-making during the past five years. The group – comprised of Russia, the United States, the European Union and the United Nations – has not only failed to advance the peace process since its establishment in 2002; astoundingly, it has also whittled away the political credibility and impact of two of those parties – the EU and UN. Now, not surprisingly, a coalition of 21 respected international aid agencies working on the ground in Palestine has openly criticized the shortcomings of the Quartet for failing in its mission and leaving the diplomatic arena dangerously leaderless. The agencies – including Oxfam, Save the Children, Care, Christian Aid and World Vision – said that in five of the ten main areas the Quartet had identified to improve Palestinians’ daily life conditions, the situation has actually deteriorated. The situation also has worsened, rather than improved, for most Palestinians since the Annapolis peace process was launched last November. It added that the Quartet has not held Israel accountable for continuing to build settlements on occupied land, and that travel restrictions on Palestinians has also increased. Christian Aid director Daleep Mukarji noted that nearly a year after the Annapolis process was launched, “we are seeing exponential settlement growth, additional check-points and – because of this – further economic stagnation. The Quartet is losing its grip on the Middle East peace process.” Things could have been very different had the Quartet been a truly impartial and decisive instrument of peace-making. In retrospect, the Quartet was another fig leaf designed to hide American dominance of a diplomatic process that was driven primarily by Israeli interests. This was initially visible in the Quartet’s habit of merely issuing verbal statements criticizing Israeli settlement expansion but doing nothing about it, while acting with more force against the Palestinians. The epitome of that double standard was the Quartet’s position supporting the Israeli response to the Hamas parliamentary elections victory in early 2006. It refused to deal with Hamas until the latter accepted the conditions Israel and the United States laid down. It did nothing of equal magnitude to demand that Israel, for its part, also respect international law and UN resolutions and stop using excessive violence against Palestinians. In recent years, I raised the issue of the Quartet’s ineffectiveness and pro-Israeli tilt several times with EU and UN officials, asking them why they did not simply withdraw from an institution that had proved ineffective. Their response was uniformly limp and unimpressive: They argued it was better to be inside the Quartet trying to influence and temper the ideological pro-Israel tilt of the United States. That goal has proven to be an illusion. Not surprisingly, a dishonest institution like the Quartet named as its special envoy former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Diplomatic Olympics Gold Medal Winner for Political Fraudulence. The Quartet keeps on meeting, and doing nothing, while conditions deteriorate for most Palestinians, and Israel continues to expand its theft and colonization of Palestinian land. The EU and the UN were once trusted mediators and impartial actors who truly worked for the best interests of Israelis and Arabs alike. Today, they have lost that aura of fairness and confidence, leaving the Middle East dangerously lacking in powerful international actors who enjoy both credibility and impact. The damning report by the 21 aid agencies should be taken seriously by the EU and the UN, who should consider the consequences of their continuing to provide cover for Israeli colonialism and its American guardian. The EU and the UN should quickly announce that the Quartet was a valiant attempt that failed, and they should withdraw immediately, to prevent any more damage to their own reputations and ability to play constructive roles in the region. Their withdrawal would send powerful signals to all concerned that American-Israeli charades will not be allowed to define the diplomacy of all other potential actors in the region. The Quartet was a good idea in principle – a powerful body of leading global powers that would push Israelis and Palestinians alike to adhere to their commitments and move to a negotiated peace agreement. In practice, it failed because it was not sincere, serious or impartial. International aid agencies at least have the self-respect and courage to say this out loud. The EU and the UN would do well to follow suit, and regain a modicum of their own dignity in the process. Truth and honesty still carry weight, and should be exercised now and then to counter the prevailing agents of dishonesty that try to bludgeon us with their brute force.
Another Education is PossibleUKWatch.net - 1 Oct 2008The testing regime in schools is breaking down. Before the summer break SATs papers were lost or badly marked; pupils were absenting themselves from the tests and head teachers were demanding an end to these wasteful and useless exams. One parent from Sunderland, truck driver Stuart McAnaney, has two sons: James, 11, and nine year old Matthew, at St Anne’s RC Primary School. He said, “I think it is absolutely disgraceful that this has happened. When James was sitting his SATs he was in a terrible state because he was so stressed. I think they should be scrapped altogether.” From this month a new secondary curriculum has been introduced which encourages schools to put the creativity and fun back into learning. Some in government seem to have recognised that the teaching by numbers approach to learning doesn’t work for all children. However, the pressure of league tables will force many school management teams to play only lip service to the new rhetoric. Teachers will be forced to continue teaching for the tests as accountability mechanisms such as performance management and lesson observations are used to enforce compliance. This tension between creativity and the current testing regime can be exploited. Staff at Filton High School, South Gloucestershire, have begun to offer a glimpse of another type of school where learning is more engaging and relevant. We have started to develop a collective approach to curriculum design that engages pupils by dealing with relevant social justice issues and offers them a real audience for their ideas. Since 2005 both teaching and non-teaching staff have formed a curriculum group called Alternative Futures. We wanted pupils to begin to act in a more critical way. Meeting after school, between 15 and 35 staff regularly attend and plan two-week themed cross-curricular learning projects around current issues. All departments have been represented. Laura Storey, an English teacher and South Gloucestershire NUT equal opportunities officer, says, “The cross-curricular nature of the fortnight enables our students to see the links between their lessons in a way that makes their learning both fun and relevant. Perhaps as important, it also enables teachers to work collectively. Many staff feel that we are beginning finally to control the content of the curriculum.” Radical thinking Notwithstanding the new changes in the secondary curriculum, as it stands the school curriculum is geared towards preparing young people for career paths and to promote “an efficient and flexible labour market”. What radical teachers have to ask themselves is, how can we promote radical thinking in our pupils? With the rise in anti-immigrant racism and the success of the British National Party (BNP), this year staff decided to tackle the issue of cultural diversity, identity and racism. The school has increasing numbers of parents from Portugal and Eastern Europe. Bristol itself is a major centre of Polish migration. The council has estimated that between 15,000 and possibly 25,000 Polish workers have found employment in the city in the last two years. In last year’s council elections the BNP stood in a neighbouring ward to the school on an anti-migrant ticket and, with little canvassing, got 400 votes. Therefore in the maths department they created a resource called “The Human Race – the Migrant Species”. This allowed pupils to examine the history of migration not just of peoples throughout time but of how mathematical concepts travel from one culture to another and become assimilated into our thinking. They then went on to ask the pupils to examine two statements: “Too many immigrants are coming into this country” and “Our country cannot afford to help immigrants”. Pupils were then able to use data to help them critically examine contentious issues based upon facts and not preconceived notions. As Year 9 pupil Louis said, “I always thought that there were lots of immigrants coming to this country, but I see that was wrong.” Pupils were able to calculate that the difference immigrants make to our population is 0.03 percent. But unless we are able to develop critical faculties within our young people they will always be at the mercy of the misinformation deliberately fed to them by the political right who own the media. This work was complemented by the science department who worked on deconstructing the concept of “race” as a non-scientific term by exploring the idea of genetic variation. The English department took an empathetic approach to migration. Using photographs taken by photographer Guy Smallman, pupils explored the journey of a Polish migrant who is shown to be living in appalling conditions in a wood outside a small English town. Information about how immigration benefits society and the reasons why people change country was fed into groups who then began to try to create the “story” of the man in the photographs. The next stage was to give the groups information about shortages of workers in key areas in Bristol such as hospitals and schools. The pupils began to come up with solutions to staff shortages, as well as identifying any barriers that a migrant might have to taking up employment. Finally they had to write an autobiography as if they were the man in the photograph. As with the other examples from last year’s project, an attempt has been made to embed learning in real, often controversial, issues. However, as this is a type of “offline” simulated reproduction of reality, a bridge is being built between everyday issues and more abstract concepts such as justice or equality. This process allows pupils an opportunity to reflect and offers them the option of repositioning themselves to work out their own values and beliefs. During this year’s project on racism one Year 9 pupil, Tasha, commented, “I liked learning about other people. I didn’t like Polish people before – they’re foreign. But now I know they’re not trying to take over. I like the work we’ve done in English because writing about someone’s life makes you realise how hard life is for immigrants. They don’t just get everything they want, like benefits and a house, like we think they do.” To make projects more real we move out of the four walls of the classroom and bring in people involved in the struggles we are exploring, to talk and work with students. Last year the school looked at climate change and had an expert witnesses’ day. One of these was Elaine Graham Leigh who represented the Campaign Against Climate Change. Learning also takes place offsite. During the Climate Change project in 2007 Year 9 pupils were offered a choice of trips: to learn how to measure a community’s carbon footprint; to work with community artists to make fashion items out of “rubbish”; to cook in Bristol’s top organic restaurant. This year pupils went out and asked questions of the public about living in a multicultural society, and some of the responses shocked the students. We also decided to work with Love Music Hate Racism (LMHR). Martin Smith and Weyman Bennett led workshops on music and migration. On the last day LMHR put on a concert for all the school’s pupils with Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. and Bashy. The National Union of Teachers (NUT) has been very supportive. This year acting general secretary Christine Blower attended the last day of the project. She told staff that she was working with LMHR to see how a website could be developed so that anti-racist teaching resources such as our own could be shared across schools. Since the late 1970s education unions have been squeezed out of education policy development and shoe-horned in to concerning themselves with pay and conditions issues. Nevertheless, the successful ballot over the NUT’s political fund earlier in the year showed that many teachers believe that the union has to engage with broader political issues such as racism and fascism. This concern with broader political issues is reflected during the themed learning projects. There is a real buzz among a wider layer of staff about social justice issues. Twenty five staff turned up to an after school meeting of the Alternative Futures group to hear Martin Smith talk about racism and migration. The discussion focused on how to expose the BNP and the relationship between multiculturalism and anti-racism. During the Climate Change project in 2007 discussion took place about individual and social responses to increasing levels of carbon dioxide. Anna Brooman, who is in her second year of teaching, was a key organiser of this year’s event: “As a new teacher, working on these projects has opened my eyes to the wider political agenda behind education and has also led me to get involved in my union. Earlier this year I represented the school NUT group at the lobby of parliament. I also spoke about our work at the Education for Liberation conference in London in June. It has been a fast and very enjoyable learning curve.” Outside of the school we have begun to tap into new networks such as the Global Education Network which is exploring ways of introducing “global” issues into the curriculum. We were able to explain how our model of curriculum change offers a coherent method to enable this. We have been invited to lead a session at the Climate Change and Development conference for educators in October. Not surprisingly, other schools are signing up to the Alternative Futures vision of education. The “common sense” of government approaches to teaching and learning then is in contradiction with what many teachers feel they should be doing. One London teacher put this well. “In my school I have to train staff in how to prepare a lesson for Ofsted. After I have done this I then suggest what they could do on a daily basis. Needless to say, the two are not the same.” Alternative Futures is situated within this political contradiction. There are also plans for a radical education conference on Alternative Futures next year sponsored by several university education departments. Educators are beginning to want concrete solutions to the present ideological and political crisis in education. The practical initiatives we have outlined begin to pose questions about the struggle for control within the system and offer a glimpse of a different kind of education based on the needs and interests of teachers and students.
