Immediate Education Reform or 'David Tries Being the Education Secretary'

Michael Gove is an idiot.

This is a fact. He's out of touch and quite frankly a dangerous influence to have so high up the pyramid of power.

This morning it has been revealed that his new curriculum for GCSE students omits To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Two of the best and most important novels ever written. They're novels that appear on scores of lists of favourite books, and communicate important messages to the reader. Yet the fact that Of Mice and Men being in the reading lists of 90% of GCSE students is seen as 'worrying' by Mr Gove.

I'm sorry, but why. A novel about two men who share a dream. It shows that life is difficult and sometimes you don't get what you want. It's a sad novel, but an important novel. It's a 20th Century novel.

Gove believes that anything post-1800 is unimportant. His curriculum is composed of Shakespeare, Austen, Dickens and romantic poets. I'm not saying that these aren't important. But the point is they're not more important than anything else. They're authors, not gods. They're highly acclaimed because people like Gove sit in their ivory towers and deem it so. If I had a lot of money, I could get myself into a position of power. I could buy myself a great deal of land, get myself into the circles of the high and mighty and forge myself a career in politics. And then I could say We're Going on a Bear Hunt is the finest novel in the English language. And it is one of them. What kid hasn't heard it? What child doesn't have 'we're not scared' as part of their personal identity? And if they don't then that's fine too because no one person should measure importance in literature. What if a Twilight fanatic became education secretary, or a 50 Shades desperado? We'd be taught that male-centric relationships and lack of consent bondage sessions are the most important things in literature.

But that's the point, anyone with power and money can say anything's great. And whatever Gove's reasoning, he's saying that a collection of authors who are a) all dead and b) all English, are the most important things our children should be reading.

But lets look at the children in the class for a second. How many people are 100% English these days. I'm not, I'm Irish/Scottish/Italian and I'm not seeing my nationality represented on the curriculum. That's just an example. What about middle eastern children? Wouldn't they benefit from seeing something like The Kite Runner on the curriculum? How about Noughts and Crosses? Malorie Blackman's groundbreaking novel that shows us that race and labels should not be an issue. Michael Gove's message is if you're not English then you're not important. Congratulations, you've just alienated the vast majority of English classrooms.

Diversity is so important in modern Great Britain. We are a multicultural nation and this should be celebrated, not locked in a cupboard and deemed 'unimportant' and 'worrying'. What's next? Only British artists in galleries? Only British musicians on the radio?

In my opinion, the curriculum of all subjects, not just English, should be decided by a council of teachers, authors, students, politicians, parents and whoever else has a say on the subject in question. Not by one man with the world's most elite view on literature believing that every child will relate to someone who's been dead 400 years.

Ask any teenager these days what literature they think is important and a lot of them won't say Shakespeare. They'll say The Perks of Being a Wallflower. They'll say The Fault in Our Stars. They'll say Divergent. Why do we disgregard these novels purely because a) the authors are alive and well, b) they sit in the Young Adult section not Classics, and c) if you're Michael Gove, they're American? I could write an essay each on these novels and a thousand others why they deserve just as much right on the syllabus as Hamlet.

All novels have equal importance because they can mean something to someone. I disgregarded Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey earlier in this blog. Just because I have a personal dislike for them doesn't mean they should be disregarded either. They mean something to a lot of people. No one person, myself included should have the final say on matters as important as literature.

I urge you, whatever party Michael Gove sits with in next year's general elections, vote the opposite. He's a dangerous man.

We need an immediate education reform. Basically, boot grandad out.

This Blog Might Break Your Head, I Apologise or 'David Tries Being Intellectual'

As the title clearly states, this blog may well break your head, so for this I must apologise sincerely. I include this as a disclaimer at the beginning to save me from any libellous cases involving brains falling out of your noses to escape the realm of mindfuckery I'm about to embark into.

Oh no I swore, should I swear? I don't see a particular problem with swearing personally as long as children know, that like drinking, driving, sex and everything else a bit fun in the world, it is age appropriate. However I would like younger people to read this. So I'll change it to mindfickery. You know what I mean.

A third blog in three days! I'm on a roll, and as before it's not because I've physically left my house and tried anything new. I suppose I've just tried a new way of thinking about something as I sit here musing in the morning about life the universe and everything, as is my usual routine. I've recently been doing some reading for my dissertation, which concerns the literary canon. (The collection of books which educated professor like folk deem it necessary to be taught in schools, Shakespeare, Austen, Aristotle etc) My thinking being, is this necessary and what attributes in books qualify them to be added to it. By the way, that's all approved and kosher, no stealsies.

What a power trip! Imagine being the guy that chose that! I won't go into my own dissertation topic, otherwise I'd probably be in danger of plagiarising myself. Imagine failing university because you plagiarised yourself, the ultimate shooting self in foot/peeing into wind/slapping self in face. Indeed the ultimate form of any unpleasant, embarrassing activity.

I don't think I'd be a good canon chooser, or Lord of Literature or whatever they call themselves. The power would go to my head. I'd start adding 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' to be studied at university level as post-colonialist literature. The bear is the foreign other which must be hunted and we're not scared! At all times is must be noted that the native people must catch a big one, meaning that they must exorcise the largest foreign influence from their nation before it takes over in a country-wide bear epidemic. It'd be like Planet of the Bears and they'd store honey in the Statue of Liberty. Honey being our identity.

I've gone off on one. But my surreal rant does paint a picture of what I actually want to talk about. It is frightening that little old me, sitting in my living room, watching Friends in my dressing gown, superman trousers and bed hair, could think up a completely fabricated reading of a children's book that thousands of children read ever day. What if I did become a Lord of Literature, Master of the Canon and I decided that 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' was post colonialist literature, and was a warning about foreign influences. Maybe it was a 1984-esque foreshadowing of middle eastern terrorism encroaching on our shores. Now that's a complete load of rubbish, but if I had enough people behind me and enough teachers and lecturers teaching the same thing, this idea, this anti-foreign people idea could be planted in the minds of the next generation of children. All because of this charming story of bravery by Michael Rosen.

This is a scary idea. And I'm afraid I must refer again to the vlogbrothers. While watching John Green's vlog on people's perception of Islam this morning something clicked in my head. He said that we are taught about Christianity and Judaism, but our teaching on Islam is limited at best. He didn't say this, but surely this means that Islam is an easy target for people to fear and victimise. Because we don't understand it, as is an unfortunate trait of our own humanity. John also said that we are taught in schools that 'our history' is the story of christianity in europe, whereas our actual history is a history of people in the world. The idea of religion and different sects of the big old confusing cookie jar of life that is religion.

Now I've always been a straight chocolate chip man, and the trying of any other cookie was a fearful image for me. The very thought of a white chocolate chip and macadamia?? Madness. But I tried it, and god it's good. I hope you see my metaphor. I'm not saying try other religions, or indeed try no religion at all, but I'm saying, full understanding is the key to everything. How many arguments in the world, big or small, from playground to nuclear war, are based around one or both sides not having full understanding of the other. I'd be willing to bet most of them.

Picture the scene, nameless London suburb, street corner, Cherise and Tiffani are having an argument in their tracksuits because Cherise is squeezing Tiffani's boyfriend Jorel (who is Irish and his name is actually Seamus) for money for child support for their baby, Kai. Tiffani has no idea that Jorel fathered Cherise's baby so she hits Cherise because she thinks that she just wants a slice of her boyfriend's Irish ass. If everyone in the situation understood, and didn't lie to one another, things could probably be sorted out.

Ok that humorous, hideously stereotyped picture is a bit silly but I think it illustrates my point. We're not lied to in schools exactly by saying that our history comes just from Christianity, but a certain level of the truth is withheld. I know why, someone upstairs has deemed it too complicated to teach the youth of the world that our existence is multi-faceted, complicated and ultimately mindfickery.

There are a certain amount of factors against my argument. John Green for instance was more than likely talking about American schools. I do not know the level to which we are taught about Islam in this country, because I'm old and can't remember. However if this is true of american schools, then surely recent history has taught us that understanding of the Islamic faith is nothing short of vital to the education of young American minds.

The fact that the educational canon is limited is a flawed and dangerous idea. The fact that anything can be taught in a certain way with the right amount of twist and backing is a terrifying idea. In my view, the literary canon is in some way necessary. Personally I read the likes of Shakespeare and then went on to look at others around him which aren't necessarily taught at schools. Because I like reading and it interests me. In schools though, where things like religion are concerned I think full understanding is completely and utterly vital. I could argue about the whole teaching evolution vs teaching the story of Adam and Eve thing but I could go on forever and people will stop reading. You get my point though I hope.

In short, understanding things before we rush off and argue about them is so important to the human race.

I hope all of that made some form of sense, and if you'd like to comment on anything I've said, please do, I'd love to hear what you think.

John Green's vlog: http://youtu.be/TpcbfxtdoI8