Sarah Evans: We cannot lose sight of our humanity
Mar 12 2010 By Sarah Evans
I’m not a Michael Gove groupie and some of his educational ideas, like those of so many who haven’t lingered in a classroom for many a long year, are simply batty, but he did say something in an interview last week that gave me a little glimmer of hope.
The shadow Education Secretary indicated that Tory education policy would be formulated by “people who want the intellectual life of the nation to be revived”.
We will forget his keenness to embrace Goldie Hawn as an educational adviser and his eagerness to encourage the now fancy-free Cheryl Cole to find the teacher within. He explained these away as the longings of a “man of a certain age” and while one might think women of any age would be a trifle less erratic in their choice of the nation’s mentors, his enthusiasm for literature and history is encouraging.
He intends to introduce Browning and Byron to children “at a relatively early age” and claims parents understand that education is “not just about being able to do business in Europe, it’s about access to Goethe and Dante”.
Teachers charged with this new vision may quake, but nevertheless it’s a noble aim.
However, it is at odds with the current position on higher education.
Our Government has put its shoulder behind not Shakespeare and Balzac but STEM – those university departments that the Government feels will provide a glorious scientific future once more for Britain – or will be funded by multi-national companies rather than by government.
Promoting STEM subjects – science, technology, engineering and mathematics – might possibly lead us to a future where we can harness the hugely diminished natural resources of the planet for the benefit of all, but far more important is the need to change the mind-set of those now living in prosperous countries to understand that sustainability is not the same as increased prosperity for the few.
It is the humanities, literature and art that illuminate values and give some moral and historical perspective to our everyday lives.
Not that Michael Gove can be seen as a saviour of all that is precious. He also said: “Learning … the great works of literature, proper mental arithmetic, modern languages. That’s the best training of the mind and that’s how children will be able to compete.”
Learning the greatest and best that has been thought, said and written is nothing to do with competition.
But he did sign up to two of my favourite poems – Tennyson’s Ulysses and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.
* Sarah Evans is Principal at King Edward VI High School for Girls
