The revised and updated paperback edition of The Welfare State We're In is published tomorrow. As part of the publicity for the launch, I have written an article that appears in the Sunday Telegraph today. Here is an extract:
According to research published last week, Britons have the worst reputation for yobbish behaviour in Europe.Three-quarters of Europeans think Britain has a problem with anti-social behaviour - a higher figure than for any other country on the Continent, the study, devised with help from the Jill Dando Institute, discovered.
It blamed drunkenness and a breakdown in discipline in homes and schools.
The Victorians would have been appalled and astonished. A principal finding of this report would have been quite contrary to one of their strongest beliefs: the idea that schools have contributed to the "loutification" of Britain.
Victorians thought that education was crucial in the fight against crime.
When I first came across the assertion that compulsory state schooling had contributed to the amount of crime in British society I found it an extraordinary idea. We are so accustomed to thinking that schools are good, admirable institutions that it is strange to think that they might be doing harm in any way at all. But the more one considers the evidence, the more credible this surprising thought becomes.
The full article is here.
There is more on the subject in the chapter on education in The Welfare State We're In.
Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Behaviour & Crime • Education
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It is interesting to consider what is often forgotten: the very different projects in state and private schools. C.S. Lewis spoke of it in 'The Abolition of Man' (a rather neglected book that is well worth reading; it makes a great intellectual companion to dystopic fiction such as Brave New World and 1984). Lewis said progressive (ie, state) education saw its task as "cutting down forests" -- expunging nascent racist tendencies and other forms of social re-education, essentially preparation of a docile production unit that the state could farm for its taxes. On the other hand, the traditional education project, which private schooling is still attached to, Lewis called "irrigating deserts": this is liberal education, seeking to open out and enrich a child's mind and prepare a citizen for freedom. It emphasises truth, and therefore fact, and instilling shared values by example, not engineering a generation in new ways of being that are judged useful and proper by their masters. Small wonder that results fall off in schools devoted to 'cutting down forests'. Exams test accumulated knowledge and skill, which remains the central goal in the private sector, but not the state.
Posted by: Sancho's Ass at May 15, 2006 01:06 PM