Tuesday, February 19, 2008

The Spice of Life

There's a little bit of the fascist in all of us. The desire that everyone should do it the same way - the way that I do it - is a human constant. I imagine that anyone who becomes a teacher has more than a small dose of the dictator about them. And that's why I'm pleased to say that I generally and genuinely do like the idea of people doing things differently. I suppose the only real idea I have about education and schools is that it would be a good thing if pupils came across teachers of a wide range of character types pushing an even wider range of ideas. The virtues of variety.

This seemingly reasonable notion appears to be so much at odds with the philosophy of pretty much every school I've ever worked in that it's quite comical. At one time I would have found this irritating, but that was the fascist in me talking. In the meantime, the fascist in me remains thrilled by a neat pile of well-organised files and a tidy classroom, which is more than a little worrying.

2 comments:

The Hierophant said...

Hmm. Oh dear. That's a mild form of fascism. Bureaucratic fascism.

Trebuchet said...

Schools are inherently fascist institutions. The very term is all about constraint towards a normative excellence. I could say more, but this little Wikipedia article should prove interesting...