Power - Obama's bio

As a youth, Obama was taken to Indonesia when his mother married an Indonesia student who was then recalled back home after the coup in the 1960s. This extract comes from the realisation of political realities, making passive acceptance the only way to live safely.

"Power. The word fixed in my mother's mind like a curse. In America, it had generally remained hidden from view until you dug beneath the surface of things; until you visited an Indian reservation or spoke to a black person whose trust you had earned. But here power was undisguised, indiscriminate, naked, always fresh in the memory. Power had taken Lolo and yanked him back into line just when he though he'd escaped, making him feel its weight, letting him know his life wasn't his own. That's how things were; you couldn't change it, you could just live by the rules, so simple once you learned them."
Barack Omama, Dreams From My Father, p.45.

The socio-political status quo acts as a powerful block to free enterprise. It blocks opportunity for all, and replaces it with opportunity for those favoured. We need to did out who benefits from the status quo. There are cases where that benefit can be removed (as in the recent case of banker's bonuses) and others when benefits need to be spread more fairly. Power and its benefits is therefore a powerful problematic in the analysis of society and social institutions.

Also some thoughts from The Audacity of Hope (2006):

"I find the President and those who surround him...possessed of the same mix of virtues and vices, insecurities and long-buried injuries, as the rest of us. (p.48)

He goes on to talk about values and empathy, the importance of trying to see things from someone else's point of view even when (or especially when) you disagree with them. It strikes me also that this is an agenda for personal reflexivity, that is, evaluating one's own position and life journey. We might think of our contribution to life, the world, and to knowledge; our attitudes and prejudices and were they come from; our feelings of threat, the borderlands where our comfort zone ends; and life traumas that may have an impact on out thoughts and feelings. For work in education, how we ourselves were 'injured' by the system may affect our current views, just as the winners, the minority, those who succeeded and went on to hold political or economic power, are concerned to maintain whatever helped them succeed, even when it failed the other 80%. And working out our values is one thing, distinguishing between reality and rhetoric is another. Obama adds: what is it you actually spend your energies, time and money on? This is what we really values and may be consequential or inconsequential.

On his induction to the Senate, he cites the octogenarian Senator Byrd with general approval despite his once belonging to the Ku Klux Klan. He says,

"I wondered if it should matter. Senator Byrd's life - like most of ours - has been the struggle of warring impulses, a twining of darkness and light" (p.75)

He sees this as an analogy for the senate, over time supporting both civil rights and slaveowner rights. "Struggle of warring impulses" points in all of us to those tensions which pull us in different directions - the pull of greed over the nag of altruism; the joy of power over the benefits of cooperation. For teachers, the imperative for order over the freedom of creativity. Identifying our own tensions and ambiguities is part of reflexity in action. Which we call darkness, and which light, is also not unproblematical.

Finally here, talking about the Constitution as a defence againse absolutism and tyranny, he says,

"we must test out our ideals, vision, and values against the reality of a common life, so that over time they may be refined, discarded, or replaced by new ideals, sharper visions, deeper values" (pp.94-5)

This also is reflexity in action, the process of probing, checking and testing. It puts one's life on the line, exposing some things we hold dear as empty, some gods as idols, some certainties as delusions. If research does not do this, I for one would find it not deserving of my time, and not worth the candle.

A New View of Society

Last week we were in Scotland, ending with New Lanark and Biggar. The latter was probably not home of my forebears, although my paternal grandparents came from Scotland, settling via Canada in Dublin where the Bigger family had a history. Probably grandmother Macmillan family was 'settled' in Canada to make way for sheep. Grandfather was a bookbinder, an artisan. Together they had thirteen children in Dublin, a large Protestant family.

A society which promoted wealth over poverty, fostered ignorance through child labour rather than education, and oppressed its already traumatised workforce, leads us to New Lanark and Robert Owen. The cotton mill there is now a World Heritage site, with exhibitions, preserved buildings, and one mill rebuilt into a hotel which was filled, when we stayed, with Freddie Mercury fans attending a tribute concert. A ghost train in an exhibition mill let Annie guide us round her times, the work she did, how her family lived - and how she was educated. Robert Owen was the first employer to open a nursery school in the mill, ensure that both children and adults had opportunities for education, introduced a health service, and ran a fairtrade shop for the benefit of workers. For him, healthy intelligent workers were worth investing in. If all other employers did likewise, society itself would change.

His treatise A New View of Society argued the point, but failed to win over his fellow employers. Rather it made him enemies. I quote merely his essay heading quotations:

Any general character, from the best to the worst, from the most ignorant to the most enlightened, may be given to any community, even to the world at large, by the application of proper means; these means are to a great extent at the command and under the control of those who have influence in the affairs of men.

It is not unreasonable to hope that hostility may cease, even when perfect agreement cannot be established. If we cannot reconcile all opinions, let us endeavour to unite all hearts.

Truth must ultimately prevail over error.

It is beyond all comparison better to prevent than to punish crime. A system of government therefore which shall prevent ignorance, and consequently crime, will be infinitely superior to one, which, by encouraging the first, creates the necessity for the last, and afterwards inflicts punishment on both.

This was a radical, new, rationalist view of society which sowed seeds for the modern world.

Do we today need a new view of society? Education has not created utopia. Nor has it empowered young people. Nor does it provide the skills and creativity that citizens and employees will need in twenty years time. Employers and entrepreneurs are more likely to be created by school failure than by success. The curriculum fails to excite, and refuses to allow focus on things that do excite. There is no flexibility, no broad measure of achievement other than mechanistic SATs and exams. There is no room for the joy of ambiguity, or wrestling with problems and issues. None of this is the fault of teachers; rather it is the myopia of policy makers of both ruling parties since 1988, supported by media idiocy.

If the answers to my questions will be challenging to find, we need now to begin asking the right questions of how education, the curriculum and assessment fits children and young people to become adults who have something worthwhile to contribute to their world, a world in which there will be no smooth sailing. I hope this is a world without prejudice, persecution, oppression and injustice - such is certainly worth fighting for.

Night Thoughts, Thames Television 1987

I wrote these seven short talks in March 1985 and recorded them in early summer for later transmission starting 27.1.1986 for one week, in a two minute block at the end of each evening’s programmes after which ITV went off air. See http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/615699 and http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/series/11342.

The series specialised in a spiritual/religious reflection relevant to the time, with a mix of contributors including Chad Varah and Trevor Huddleston. In my case, as an atheist, my comments were more spiritual than religious with the general theme of multi-faith religious education, which at the time was my bread and butter, having been a religious education teacher and then a teacher trainer. I was invited because of an account of a talk I gave in Banbury on multifaith religious education, reported in the Methodist Recorder (I wrote the copy). My stance was that informing children about a range of religions would reduce the tendency towards prejudice and racism but increasing understanding and enthusiasm, taking away the fear of the unknown. Today, I am pleased that diversity is generally more comfortably accepted than then. However, the anti-racist task requires more than making children/people more informed. Some ‘nice’ and well-informed people are racists and profoundly bigoted.

Writing something meaningful in 200-250 words proved to be an exacting task, a very important discipline for my later writing. Reading it to camera proved no less simple. Here are the talks followed by a few comments.

Monday. Teaching World Faiths.

Imagine, if you will, a class of six year olds. Their teacher decided to hold a Passover celebration to be fair to Ben, the only Jewish boy in the school. The children acted out the Elijah story, visited a local synagogue, made a Menorah candlestick and other items, and as a climax held a Passover meal. With the help of Ben’s parents, food was prepared in accordance with Jewish food laws, a search for bits of hidden leaven was made, and the wine (really grape juice) flowed. The ritual followed simply. Ben recited the four questions in Hebrew, unleavened bread and bitter horseradish were eaten, the afikomen was hidden, and found. By this time, Elijah’s cup had been mysteriously drained. A child called out, “Three cheers for the Jews”, which prompted a spontaneous response. The children had learnt that most important of lessons, that learning about people, their culture and religion can be fun, and can be meaningful. They had taken a big step towards understanding and empathy.

Next term I unexpectedly received a card, skilfully crafted by a six year old hand, wishing me Eid Mubarrak, a Muslim blessed fast-breaking greeting. The Muslim children had also shared their celebration, the end of a month of spiritual discipline, prayer and fellow-feeling for the hungry.

A nine year old Sikh boy from another school exclaimed, when I recognised a picture of Guru Nanak, the first Sikh spiritual teacher, “How do you know about our Gurus? No one in school knows about them. Later I ended the assemby with the words “And now for a Sikh prayer”. Sikh children responded with devotion, others with genuine interest and respect.

Teaching world faiths is not a chore, but a joy which can be exciting, stimulating and truly moving.

Discussion:
Teaching world religions was a new development in the 1980s. None of us were trained properly to do it, and many teachers did not dare. They got rather confused about who believed what, though to be fair the children grasped things rather more quickly if clearly taught. I tried things out in various schools, covering Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism. I gave a talk about this to a Methodist group in Banbury, which I wrote up for the Methodist Recorder. Thames Television researchers saw it and invited me to record seven daily talks about religious education. The scripts, otherwise not archived, have emerged from my attic, and here they are.

In my lifetime as a teacher of religious education, the curriculum moved from being pro-Christian and Bible based, to an attempt to lead children to understand religion itself. The teachings of the major faiths therefore became more central. I regard this as an important shift, but there is still a further shift to be made. The curriculum has promoted the major religions, aiming for understanding and empathy. And that has been useful. However, we are in a post-religious age, and there are secular ethical and moral positions. Religion has over the years been harmful where personal freedoms have been curtailed and orthodoxy has been forced. We as a species need to decide over the next century or two whether religion, and in particular fundamentalist and tribal religion which regards all others as wrong, is in itself helpful or harmful. For me, the potential for harm outweighs the potential for good.

Tuesday – Without Prejudice.

The 1944 Education Act, still the current law on religious education states that religious education should be “not distinctive of any particular religious denomination”. Wisely, Christianity is nowhere mentioned. I recently sat five young children down around a tape recorder to discuss beliefs and customs – a Hindu, a Sikh, a Muslim and two Christians, from the Moravians and the Brethren. Each contributed openly and with deep interest and fascination without condemning others, and without condescension.

Teachers are committed to developing children’s understanding through open and unbigoted investigation. Religious education partly involves learning about religious stories, rituals, festivals and beliefs. In part it illuminates what, beneath the surface, religion means. In part, too it explores issues that religion ought to confront, such as purpose, meaning, justice and social concern. One such issue is prejudice, deep-seated in all societies and a profound influence on children and their parents. Fortunately in the primary school children’s opinions have not yet hardened into prejudices, and attitudes are mostly positive and open.

It is the task of religious education to confront prejudice by encouraging children to reflect upon its root causes – ignorance, low social concern and patronising assumptions. This task requires sensitive handling, but will be well worth the effort.

Discussion:

The law regulating religious education changed in 1988 in the Education Reform Act. Christianity was made the dominant religion, but the requirement for a broadly based curriculum covering the other religions was enshrined in law. I recognise that the term ‘other religions’ is demeaning, but this division of status is implied by the Act. Practitioners were not deterred from good multi-faith practice by the new law. The LEA Agreed Syllabuses continued to cover five or six world religions.

Over time, I continue to emphasise that issues of purpose, justice and prejudice should be the starting point for religious education. I later developed this further in ‘Challenging Religious Education’ (linked here): religious education should challenge children’s assumptions and open them up towards inter-faith understanding and global relationships. A sound knowledge of world faiths is not enough to conquer prejudice – prejudice itself and its effects have to be one of the lens through which children should develop understanding of why people have valued religions.

Wednesday – Frogs

Each March hundreds of frogs migrate through our village for their annual courtship rituals in a small pond in our garden. Some die on the road, though we help as many as we can. We are powerfully reminded that life goes on. Frogspawn is often taken into school to let children see it hatch and develop into tadpoles. I have seen tanks of oxygen starved dead tadpoles in many places, so a greater emphasis on care for fellow creatures would be helpful. I recently overheard a proposal, thankfully thwarted, to kill and dissect tadpoles in a primary school. The pupils would learn one vivid lesson, that wildlife can be mistreated and killed for our benefit and interest. That lesson, if learnt young, will not go away but be there fore life.

“I am, therefore I exploit”. This sums up a widespread western attitude to the world and the environment. For Buddhists, non-violence is a vital principle that should govern our relationships with all living things. Bushmen of the Kalahari and Australian Aborigines, both cultures savagely and wilfully hunted down within recent history, regard people as part of creation, not as its kings. Theirs is an intimate and harmonious interaction with their world, expressed through attitudes, myths, rituals and behaviour.

We too in the developed world have powerful myths. “Life came by accident and destroys itself selfishly and wilfully”, we say. This of course says more about us than about life. As for our responsibilities to life forms and the environment, we have a great deal to learn from such groups as the Bushmen.

Discussion:
I was influenced then by the writings of Laurens Van Der Post, especially his children’s story A Far Away Place in which white and Bushman children relate comfortably and learn from each other. The filming came at a time when the frogs were breeding in the garden, and my other more prosaic ideas were falling through. A teacher training student had proposed to dissect a tadpole, and I had dissuaded her for the reasons given, and with the more persuasive instruction to consult the headteacher.

Religious issues seem to me to be central ethical issues of life itself. In fact, ethics are an absolute must for all subjects of the curriculum – this is a real preparation both for childhood and for adult life. Respect for life is part of this, more trendy today than then. Animals are still generally assumed to not have rights – we kill to eat, and kill animals such as foxes, badgers and seals who threaten this carnivore business by being carnivores themselves. There is a balance which we have not yet found.

Thursday – Teaching Christianity

“The trouble with multi-faith religious education”, an infants teachers said to me “is that Christianity loses out”.
“By no means”, I responded “in fact Christianity can gain a great deal”. By not demanding that children accept Christian dogma, teenage rejection diminishes. The clash between religion and science disappears. Some denominations get a fairer deal – Mormons, Rastafarians, Jehovah Witnesses and Pentecostals.

Take Jesus. That Jesus is Messiah is a Christian belief, but not an objective fact. That this is meaningful to Christians is a fact worthy of exploration. Educationally it is inappropriate to demand belief, as if we are in a fascist state; nor conversely to make a dogma of agnosticism, the “don’t know” cop-out. Children need to be allowed to weigh up evidence, positive and negative. They can legitimately explore how the life of Jesus helps Christians visualise something of what God is or does. The virgin birth and resurrection, described by Christians themselves as ‘myth’, become less problematic. Pupils are able to discover what different Christian groups claim, and why. They ask what Christians mean when they represent God in human form, and how the belief in God’s continuing presence in the world affects the way believers think and behave. Whatever they personally decide, they will have a greater understanding of Jesus’s importance.

Discussion:
British education has been an imperialist Christian enterprise that discussions of religious education can become meaningless. The objectors referred to here of course were arguing from the point of view that religious education should preach and convert. I taught in a school in the 1980s that regarded its multicultural intake as all ‘English’ which was represented by hymns such as ‘Onward Christian Soldiers” in Assembly. Imagine a hymn today, “Onward Muslim Soldiers”!
My promotion of rationalism generally received short shrift – that was not what they meant at all. Yet I would still assert it today. The impact of preaching within religious ‘instruction’ did lead to total rejection of religion (Christianity) which had been ‘shoved up our throats’ and went the way of Santa Claus, that other major adult fraud against children. Uncovering the one led to rejecting the other. Adults (teachers and parents) should not lie to children and leave problems to be sorted out later. God becomes a problem, as does death and Santa Claus. Adults follow social pressure to conform, to confirm the lies. I discovered the truth about Santa Claus aged about 3. I am still angry about the deception. A friend traumatically discovered it aged 10, and is still traumatised by the shame. Rationalism is the only way. Talk to children as to adults. Do not patronise.

Friday – Integrated Learning.

We divide knowledge too easily into convenient sealed packages or “subjects”. Integrated learning, common in primary schools, can help children see themselves and their world as a harmony, with various perspectives enriching the counterpoint. I worked recently with a class of seven year olds on the topic ‘Earth’. This explored the world they experienced and invited their deep inner reflection.

In observing our earth, we interpret what we see. Human issues emerge – of value, feelings, mystery and responsibility. We reflect on meaning and purpose, putting feelings into words in a poem, or creation story perhaps. We reflect on our place on earth, our potential for good, and our habits of possession and destruction. We express our feelings, our hopes, our wonder or sheer joy, through art, drama, movement, music or creative writing. Myths, stories, poetry – like the Psalms of old – express similar responses in religious language. We encounter and enjoy life and growth, with wonder, respect and concern. And we contemplate death, the ultimate mystery.

Such reflective attitudes to life and the world are the stuff that religion should be made of. Enriched by it, children can begin a real dialogue with others, their environment, and with the world they inhabit.

Discussion:
It has always amazed me how the simple truth, that knowledge is unified and too important to be divided into so-called ‘subjects’, should cause politicians and the Daily Mail to get their knickers in such a twist. After 1988, the National Curriculum divided ‘knowledge’ savagely into subjects with learning objectives and content in ways which made integrated thinking impossible. Children, after all that abuse, cannot therefore think holistically, and nor than the teachers who were trained post 1988. Most of those dedicated experts trained before that were edged out by the inspection regime which recognised compliance but not talent. Still today, attempts to return to a sensible curriculum are met with cries not to return to ‘topic work’. I agree in the sense that we should not return to superficiality; but we should be building connections across all aspects of knowledge and help children to make ingenious and unexpected links, which will be the creativity of tomorrow.

Saturday – Symbols.

We take symbols for granted, but children cannot. To recognize what common emblems mean gives them a good start. When they express themselves through symbols they create, children gain a deeper understanding of why symbols are used and what they seek to express.

Religions express deep concerns through more than emblems. Clothing (like prayer shawls), food (like the Eucharist) and images all point to symbolic meaning and evoke devotion. Initiation rituals act out commitment. Sculptured images and icons, of Jesus, Durga, Krishna or Buddha, evoke a realm of meaning far beyond the significance of their raw materials, deeper even than the real lives of those depicted.

Religion explores concepts and insights far beyond descriptive language, and often resorts to pictures. Images can be verbal. If God by definition is beyond description, not attempt at description can be authentic. So we use symbol. When we call God father, mother, creator the sun, even the wind (or spirit) we say nothing about God but a great deal about ourselves. We may prefer to visualise God through a human being – a Jesus, or a Krishna.

Religion involves profound human concerns, the human spirit expressing what it feels and means by creating images for what it finds impossible to describe. Yet symbols alone, without reason, justice or compassion, can be diabolical, not benign. The value of a symbol lies in the quality of what is symbolised, not in its origin.

Children can symbolically express their own feelings and ideals through art, drama or creative writing. Exploring ideals, insights and perplexities through symbols and symbolic metaphors of their own making can greatly enrich their learning and understanding.

Discussion.
The confusion between symbolic/metaphorical language and literal description presents crucial lessons to be learnt. Much that is accepted as ‘real’ is in fact metaphorical: a radio ‘wave’ does not resemble the sea, nor does an electrical ‘current’. Yet we need metaphors to understand things, by analogy. Religious writings are full of imagery; working out the reality is far more difficult and is always problematic. Education’s task is to make a child’s understanding of metaphor to be liberating and thereby an aid to learning and understanding.

Sunday – Religion and Science

The clash between religion and science began long before Charles Darwin; but the problem is a false one, created by a religion more concerned with literal biblical interpretation than with deep contemplation of life. It was a clash of rival certainties, with appeals to authority coming from different directions, from religious teaching on the one hand, to observation of the universe itself on the other.

Dogmatic approaches to the hypotheses of science, or to religious beliefs, tend to close the mind to wider – and deeper – possibilities. Science observes, records and seeks to explain, contributing tiny pieces to the cosmic jigsaw. Imaginatively filling in gaps, it theorises on what the completed jigsaw might look like. This raises more questions, which it then takes into account. This process ideally begins in the primary school when children explore and experiment, stimulating their scientific skills. When children learn to ask the right questions, they begin to glimpse the wider picture and become part of the universal search for knowledge and meaning.

Religion in contrast contemplates ultimate meaning. We each perceive this in a personal way. We express it all too inadequately through our attitudes, behaviour, art, stories and rituals. We are human and may prefer a quick, easy fix, and off-the-peg belief system. Children are aware that life is miraculous, the birth of a kitten or lamb, the pupating butterfly. They respond with wonder and excitement. Within the egg lies the mystery of life. The Hindu Vedas recognized this when they celebrated the birth of existence as the hatching of a cosmic egg. For Jews this creative mystery is God, fashioning order from the void by the divine word. Christians and Muslims continue this insight. Children can respond to the mystery through their own art, poetry and speech. They may find traditional responses enriching, or constraining. Their personal responses can deepen with time, or dulled by dogma. Yet together scientific investigation and inner reflection are formidable tools for reflection and understanding, helping children to come to terms with their world and, more importantly, with themselves.

Discussion.
Christian creationist views have come to blows with science since Darwin, but other religions to not so much share the same battleground. Scientism, which is the use of scientific ‘knowledge’ as the only basis of understanding, is an atheistic fundamentalism which battles against religious fundamentalism. Yet there is middle ground in which positive dialogue takes place.

Education as Research.

My question is about how education and research inter-relate, and where the border is between them. Research is about questioning, theorising, seeking to explain, deconstructing other explanations and generally getting under the skin of a problem. My experience of undergraduate education (29 years now as a lecturer) is that this generally does not happen, and that the curriculum and assessment impede rather than promote research activity. Even in a BA level 3 course for mature students which centres on work-place research, at best students achieve a sound methodology and descriptive write-up.

However, it is my belief that even in schools, primary and secondary, children should problematise explanation, deconstruct arguments and learn to be creatively critical. Sometimes schools achieve a measure of this, but the curriculum and assessment patterns tend to focus on knowledge rather than thinking. That is why artificial ‘thinking skills’ programmes were designed, too little, too marginal and too late.

Education should be about questioning, problematising, arguing based on evidence, explaining, and testing explanations. So from the infants onwards, education and research should happen together. That is a better model of education than knowledge, so-called ‘facts’ and regurgitation of other people’s ideas, but formal assessment requires regurgitation and punishes creativity. The questions now taking place in Universities about integrating education and research are welcome, but should be applied to all education. If young people are to be prepared to manage their (and our) futures, education and research need to be one and the same, encouraging the new generation to ask awkward questions and tackle difficult problems. This is I am afraid the opposite of the model of education that we have.

Of course, new knowledge is rooted in the old, so deconstructing current knowledge claims are as important as rigorous attempts at reconstruction. Both require disciplined learning which has both a depth and a breadth. And it requires teachers who are tuned into this. The aim of teaching is to produce challenging learners – learners who are never content with easy answers, ask challenging questions, are skilled crap-detectors, and who look for better answers to better questions. Learners such as these also been to work cooperatively to recognize that knowledge creation is a team effort, in which positive discussion and creative disagreement have parts to play.