EDUCATION FOR THE GOOD SOCIETY - Support

training, be part of a local system that does. In aworld of academies, free schools and state schools,school sixth forms, colleges and the workplace,we have to find the glue. Any local regulationaround admissions by reinvigorated local authoritieswould have to be based on a strong moral andeducational case. Rather than seeing commonalityas imposed from above, we need to createthe situation where government empowers thosewho seek fairness and cohesion from below. Thissuggests that a moral and political battle has toprecede organisational change and a recognitionthat educating for togetherness takes place indifferent ways. Commonality and cohesion canbe pursued, for example, through the notion ofthe ‘strong area’, in which diverse institutionscollaborate. In the current or foreseeable politicalcontext, the idea of the strong area or locality mayhave to prefigure the eventual widespread developmentof the ‘common school’.3 A more common, yet more openform of learningThe left has traditionally tended to overestimatethe reforming power of organisation and underestimatedthe power and controversy of the curriculumand of pedagogy. What should be taughtand how learning should take place has become apolitical battlefield. As Martin Yarnit observes inChapter 11, education is full of unnecessary polarities.It is here that we have to show the greatestimagination as we try to turn the term ‘versus’ into‘and’. It would seem that the fundamental valuesof educability and togetherness point us towardsa relationship between apparent opposites. Onthe one hand, education is about what we share incommon. On the other, innovation and maturationlead to specialisation and diversity. We haveto relate the two. A comprehensive curriculumwould need, therefore, to be underpinned by anew set of balances – knowledge and skill; understandingthe past and discovering the new; theindividual learner and the curriculum; fosteringlearning for its own sake and understanding thepower of relevance; individual subjects and theirintegration; the value of established texts and theopen excitement of the web.4 Educators and democratic relationshipsWho is best placed to make sense of all of this?It is well-trained professional educators, collaboratingwith others and through the art of teaching,who translate these opportunities into practicesthat meet the needs of their students. Thus farunfortunately, teachers and lecturers have spenta good part of their time and energy on policydamage limitation. A new approach to policymakingcould slow down the rate of change andcreate new freedoms of interpretation in orderthat professionals can play a full role in the policyprocess. The kind of ‘democratic fellowship’Michael Fielding has talked about in Chapter 7 inrelation to students can be broadened to includea range of educational relationships.5 The Good Economy and the potentialpower of ‘situated learning’Learning is about much more than schools,colleges, universities and their teachers andlecturers, critical though they are. The mostpowerful forms of learning can take place outsideeducational institutions – in the workplace, thehome and community, through a variety offormal and informal learning opportunities. Seenin this way, the role of educational institutionsis to prepare people to take advantage ofthis learning landscape although all too often,because they are pressurised by national examinationsand other accountability mechanisms,these institutions fail to fully grasp this essentialpoint. Learning in this wider sense, however,does not happen by chance. It has to be fostered.Here workplaces can play a fundamental role, butthese have to be places that offer expansive ratherthan restrictive learning opportunities.6 Lifelong learning: the ultimate comprehensiveidealA commitment to education throughout the lifecoursecan be regarded as the ultimate comprehensiveideal. Among its many virtues is thefact that lifelong learning can re-engage thosewho did not succeed in school as well as providesupport for individual and community wellbeing.7 Thinking ecologicallyThe ideals discussed here could also be viewedas part of an ecological perspective on education– the nurturing of balance, evolution, interdependence,adaptation and resilience. We haveto now make critical choices– either educationcan be about the reproduction of the divided60 | www.compassonline.org.uk