Reimagining schools

Partners:

Lockdown has thrown many aspects of school life into question, from classroom-based teaching to formal exams. Education and technology expert Joysy John spoke for many when she said: ‘Covid-19 has exposed these fault lines in our education system, but perhaps now we have an opportunity to reimagine what education might look like as we rebuild after the pandemic.’

What should a reimagined school look like? Business leaders frequently call for schools to devote more energy to preparing young people for the world of work, echoing educators who favour the teaching of ‘twenty-first century skills’ such as creativity and problem solving. The introduction of coding to the national curriculum in 2014 is seen by some as a model for teaching more ‘skills for the future’.

Others look beyond the workplace, hoping schools will promote social mobility and inclusion, tackle poverty and create politically engaged citizens. If knowledge-based approaches to education were once seen as implicitly socialising young people with enlightened and universal values, today’s socialisation is often an explicit project of politicised influence. According to the UN: ‘In the classroom, young people can be taught the impact of global warming and learn how to adapt to climate change. Education empowers all people, but especially motivates the young to take action.’ Similarly, rather than teaching pupils the history of colonialism or civil rights, many schools seem committed to training the young in the activist tools of anti-racism.

Perhaps schools should be the vehicle to teach character, whether that be the ‘British values’ outlined by the government, the attitudes to relationships described in the RSE curriculum, or the attempts to foster moral virtue and pride in national culture at Michaela Community School. Or maybe schools should simply aim to create a generation of happy, mindful and mentally healthy lifelong learners?

Which, if any, of these outlooks should shape the schools of the future? In the ‘new normal’ schools, will socialising the young into traditional values and behaviour be replaced by social engineering for modern political ends? Does the traditional ideal of an open-ended liberal education in ‘the best that has been thought and said’ have anything relevant to offer youth today? Is now the time to be bold and daring, throwing educational norms in the air, or have teachers and pupils lived through enough disruption already?