Education Workers Network

The talk below was delivered at the Belfast Grassroots Gathering, October 23rd 2004 by a member of the Armagh and Down local of Organise!. Subsequent to this talk, discussion took place around the possibility of arranging a time and place for a future meeting.

To this end, it was agreed that a discussion group be set up where education workers in Ireland can continue the debate on where to go from here. To join this group, send a blank email to:

edworkers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

‘Education and an Educational Workers Network’ Talk

Belfast Grassroots Gathering

23.10.04

Introduction

Education in our schools

What is Libertarian Education?

Have the Trade Unions failed us?

Building an Educational Workers Network?

Conclusion

Introduction

The main objective of my talk today is to introduce the possibility of setting up an Educational Workers Network (EWN) here in Ireland. I would hope this talk will lead to some discussion afterwards as to whether we, gathered here today, believe an EWN is, not only possible, but also desirable. If it is possible and desirable, then other questions also need to be addressed: what form should an EWN take, how would it function and how would it relate to the myriad of different trade unions in which education workers currently find themselves? As for the talk itself, I would like to focus on a few issues: first of all, and more generally, I would like to give an overview of education in Ireland today, the effects of privatisation on our schools, the effects of the education system on our teachers and our students alike, and the reasons why these types of educational methods need to be replaced. I will look next at the role of libertarian education in history and how its ideas can be applied to the schools we wish to create in the future. I will then provide reasons why, on a more practical level, trade unions have not provided education workers with the support they need in the struggles they face, and how an EWN is a workplace strategy we should adopt in the future.

Education in our schools

-Our schools –education for sale

There can be no doubt that schools today are rapidly becoming commercialised ghettoes, capitalist centres of control where pre-workers can have their knowledge and creativity properly harnessed and made to serve. With greater globalisation, schools are becoming increasingly exposed to, and financially dependent on, corporate pressures. A few years ago, prompted by the powerful European Roundtable of Industrialists (ERI), Tony Blair identified the "knowledge economy" as the driver of future British growth. The UK is hoping to specialise in industries such as information technology and bio-technology, industries which would act as a replacement for the more traditional service industries. Richard Hatcher, a lecturer at the University of Central England, argues that the private education industry "has to be fostered and nourished by the state until it is strong enough to compete with US and other competitors" (1). While the United Kingdom's schools might one day be worth some £25 billion a year to potential "investors", the US system has already been valued at $700 billion.

The expansion of corporations like MacDonalds and Nike into everyday school life, not only ties schools down financially, but offers those companies a ready market for their products and propaganda. Last year, for example, the British government agency ‘Scottish Enterprise’ distributed 20,000 copies of a magazine called Biotechnology and You to schools. The magazine disguises itself as a "teacher's resource" helping children to navigate the moral and scientific complexities surrounding genetically engineered crops. But ‘Scottish Enterprise’ failed to warn teachers that the "Biotechnology Institute” which published it, is a lobby group funded by Monsanto, Novartis, Pfizer and Rhone-Poulenc (2). The magazine repeats Monsanto's misleading claim that its best-selling herbicide is "less toxic to us than table salt". It attacks organic farming and suggests that it would be "immoral" not to develop GM crops.

There is little doubt that the corporatisation of Irish schools has already begun. In Ireland, the Public Private Partnerships are the first major warning signs of the oncoming privatisation of education. An OECD report (11th September 2004) entitled ‘Education at a Glance’ has revealed that schools in the south receive the second lowest amount of financial support behind the Slovak Republic (3). While most countries in the EU spend on average 26% of their GDP on education, Ireland spends only 18%.

In the north of Ireland, we also have to deal with the imposed division of grammar schools and secondary schools, which is essentially a recreation of the basic capitalist imperative of creating a society of producers and labourers, of order-givers and order-takers. Added to this are divisions of religion which segregate schools and pupils into Bantustans of prejudice, where the sectarianism of segregated housing after school is replicated during the school day.

-The role of students

There is no question that pupils across Ireland feel let down and frustrated at the current education system. While the abolition of the 11+ in the north is a step in the right direction, and while greater amounts of coursework gives pupils more opportunity to express themselves, there remains a culture of obedience that conveyor-belts students into factories and offices with mind-sets accustomed to the status quo. The pattern of the school day prepares students for daily working life under capitalism. Students are taught to ‘respect authority’ regardless of the principles of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. Systems of punishment and reward act as behaviourist triggers in the same way as they do in the workplace where ‘toadying‘ to the boss is encouraged. Students feel robbed of their individuality, and feel that time is wasted on subjects for which they have no interest. In Ireland, we are spoon-fed a diet of religious mysticism from an early age while History is recreated to align itself with statist demands. For example, how many 16 years old do you know have heard of the collectives in Spain? Not a lot. Politically, pupils are taught to trust their ‘leaders’, to write to their MP or TD if they have doubts, for example, whether Blair and Bush should have gone to war in Iraq. The mass walk-outs in schools across the country was a positive sign of students freeing themselves from control.

–The role of teachers

Teachers are viewed by some as the ‘soft cops’ of the state; a junior wing of the police force whose objective is to atomise individual creativity, to accustom young people to their role as submissive industrial fodder, and to indoctrinate against subversion and unorthodoxy of any kind. In Ireland the role of meting out the Christian faith in form assemblies and classrooms across the country is hand in glove with statist control.

Others remember their own experiences of over-aggressive teachers, using positions of seniority and power to allow them to vent their own emotional insecurities.

However, in the vast majority of cases it is the system, not the individual teacher who is at fault. We all deserve an education, but we also deserve the right kind of education. This doesn’t mean learning by rote useless information to be recycled only once in coursework or examination, but the provision of a holistic learning system centred on the individuals needs -one which can be applied practically throughout our lives.

It may be true that, used to roles of authority and the myth of ‘professionalism’, teachers are perhaps less inclined to rock the industrial relations boat. It does not help that education is viewed by many as a bastion of middle-class norms and values, with the implication being that all teachers share in these values. Nor does it help that performance-related pay and other sliding pay scales have helped weaken solidarity in schools, have promoted individualist ideas where Jacks and Jills everywhere are looking after ‘number one’. Teachers are victims of a system which over-works, and under-pays, where the onset of performance-related pay will soon increase competitiveness at the expense of solidarity, weaken morale, and create even greater layers of hierarchy. A libertarian approach to education where teachers guide pupils’ learning, and encourage free thinking and self-expression is something we all need to aim for.

What is Libertarian Education?

The history of libertarian education has its roots firmly in the anarchist movement: from Louise Michel to Paul Robin to Sebastian Faure to Francisco Ferrer. Beginning with Michel came the realisation that schools were the breeding grounds of the social evil that existed in society as a whole. Only by changing the way the young were taught, and what they were taught, could there be any hope for changing the way society was run. Michel believed that children, still protected from ideas of class and caste, could receive an education that would teach them mutual respect and a respect for nature. Michel influenced the later ideas of Paul Robin who attempted to put Michel’s ideas into action with his Modern School at Cempuis, France. There, children would be taught to forget the bourgeois concept of heredity which doomed generation after generation into a cycle of poverty and destitution. Children would be given a:

“Proper economic and social environment, the breath and freedom of nature, healthy exercise, love and sympathy, and, above all, a deep understanding for the needs of the child--these would destroy the cruel, unjust, and criminal stigma imposed on the innocent young. (4)“

Robin's teaching was based upon a more holistic approach to education. Physical, manual and intellectual education were complemented with 19 different workshops that provided children with the skills needed to learn at least one trade. These workshops also provided the school a certain financial autonomy.

Later, Sebastian Faure, another French anarchist, was to set up an educational commune at La Ruche, France. Writing about his efforts there, Faure wrote that:

“They (the children) have learned a new method of work, one that quickens the memory and stimulates the imagination. We make a particular effort to awaken the child's interest in his surroundings, to make him realize the importance of observation, investigation, and reflection, so that when the children reach maturity, they would not be deaf and blind to the things about them. Our children never accept anything in blind faith, without inquiry as to why and wherefore; nor do they feel satisfied until their questions are thoroughly answered. Thus their minds are free from doubts and fear resultant from incomplete or untruthful replies; it is the latter which warp the growth of the child, and create a lack of confidence in himself and those about him. (5)”

In Spain, the Spanish educationalist and anarcho-syndicalist Francisco Ferrer managed to set up 34 modern schools as a reaction against the clericism of the church-dominated Spanish school system. A massive demonstration in 1906 in support of secular education was attended by tens of thousands of supporters. As a reaction to this, Ferrer was later blamed for involvement in the assassination of the Spanish king later that year. Although he was released in early 1907 because of lack of evidence, the Spanish authorities finally used the pretext of a general strike and street violence during the so-called ‘Tragic Week’ of 1909 to condemn Ferrer to death.

In spite of his death, and the closure of his modern schools, Ferrer’s ideas lived on in the United States with the successful Stelton Modern School that ran for decades and the Summerhill school set up by A.S. Neill in England which has survived several attempts to have it closed down by the British government.

For educationalists in Ireland today, would it be possible in the future to set up a Modern School, or in the near future, perhaps find the space to provide free adult education courses or workshops which could promote ideas of libertarianism?

Trade Unionism in Education

There can be no doubt that the current state of trade unionism in Ireland falls pitifully short of anything approaching the revolutionary impetus required to inspire and maintain resistance in the workplace. Instead, in education, as elsewhere, trade union bureaucracy acts as the watchdog of capitalism, creating a bridgehead between workers and the bosses who exploit them. Rank-and-filism behaves, in its turn, as the recruiting sergeant for the various groups on the authoritarian left, and while a genuine practise of this strategy is one which members of Organise! support, we recognise the need to put into practise other methods of organisation, that used today, will prepare us for the types of organisation we will need in the future.

This is required as much in education as in other industries. A genuine need exists to build a new culture of resistance. But there are specific problems.

First of all, education in state schools, north of the border, is weakened by divisions along ‘traditional’ religious lines. Somehow, what religion a person is, is of paramount importance to the struggles teachers face, whether these struggles are for higher pay (or simply parity with teachers in Britain), greater lesson time, less coursework, less administrative responsibilities and so on. Depending on what side their bread is buttered teachers find themselves in such unions as the UTU (Ulster Teachers Union) if they work in the ’controlled’ sector or in the INTO (Irish National Teachers Organisation) if they teach in ‘maintained’ schools. None of this should be seen as in any way bizarre, of course, it merely reflects how different interests in the north have demanded our children be taught.

In education, natural divisions along class lines are fudged while the risk remains that teachers in dispute may back their own claims for ‘orange’ or ‘green’ pay-rises without having to concern themselves about their counterparts facing similar problems. Add to this that teachers are further split into unions north and south of the border because of differing education systems and we are left with a more diluted workforce with less solidarity, less opportunity for solidarity and a greatly weakened culture of resistance.

Apart from this, we have to remember part-time teachers, supply teachers, teachers in adult education, teachers of Essential Skills, or English as a Foreign Language who may not have the same recourse to trade unions and find themselves defenceless in sectors where there is an over-abundance of tutors and not enough jobs.

Teachers are also not the only people who work in education. Classroom assistants, cleaners, ground staff, secretaries, kitchen staff, cooks are all part of the daily life of a school. Pupils themselves should be given the opportunity to play a role in the running of our schools. Dividing the school’s workforce according to skills, differing aptitudes, academic qualifications etc., is destructive of solidarity amongst workers with a common goal. I recognise, of course, that support staff can belong to the same union, i.e. SIPTU, but we must ask ourselves whether education branches of SIPTU have the collective power to affect real, sustainable change, or to avoid the pitfalls of trade union bureaucracy? Do the education branches meet regularly with other branches in the county or province? Do janitors and cooks in a school ever have a chance to voice their concerns with those first and second level teachers? These would be some of the benefits of an EWN, but obviously, being a member of an EWN does not mean members have to leave their education branches.

Building An Educational Workers Network

What the creation of an Educational Workers Network (EWN) in Ireland will mean, in my opinion, is the bringing together of all workers currently divided either because of religion, educational system or job description. It will cut through the red tape that over and over again is used to gag the voices of the working class. School workers in local areas will have a means to get in touch with one another and join with others in their local communities, to fight more effectively and with greater confidence for the things most important to them. Such groups can form and federate with others at local, regional and eventually national level.

However a workers’ network without workers won’t get us very far. Many of us are involved already in education as teachers, students and in administration, but without the sheer weight of workers getting involved we will not be able to move forward. That is why the network must and will be open to everyone, and will be run equally by all those involved.

I think there are enough people to get an EWN up and running, in Belfast, Dublin and elsewhere. I think, given our numbers in education, an EWN would be a good place to start. Not only will we be doing something pro-active, (let’s face it, social revolution might not happen in our lifetimes!) but it will test ideas of mutual cooperation and give us the confidence, I would hope, to build other networks in other industries.

Conclusion

Our discussion today will hopefully thrash out ideas as to where to go from here. Nothing is written in stone and I think our meeting today will prove that. We may have different opinions as to how to get from A to B, but we all surely agree that we have to get to B. Hopefully, the next time we meet, it will be to set up an EWN!

Extracts from this talk first appeared in an article ‘Building an Educational Workers Network’, Issue 5 of ‘Working Class Resistance’ and online at:

http://flag.blackened.net/infohub/organise/content.php?article.11.8

1. George Monbiot ‘The Corporate Takeover of Childhood’ February 12, 2002 (http://www.csudh.edu/dearhabermas/privatization01.htm)

2. Ibid

3. ASTI website (www.asti.ie)

4. Emma Goldman ‘Francisco Ferrer and the Modern School’ (http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/Writings/Anarchism/ferrer.html