I’m currently copying the audio from this morning’s Today Programme (a serious, incisive news show on BBC Radio 4). Jon Humphries interviewed the former UK Attorney General — a sort of super lawyer for the government — about his suggestion (on Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s instruction) that UK schoolchildren should swear allegiance to the monarch upon leaving school. The point Lord Goldsmith was making was that this would bind people more closely to the British State, allowing them to be “better citizens”: Humphries, a fine journalist, and a very level headed broadcaster, suggested that such a ceremony would be faintly ludicrous. However, he missed something far, far more important.
The reason I recorded the interview for posterity is because Lord Goldsmith said something truly sinister:
“What I want to suggest is that there should be some coming of age ceremony; some marking of this passage from Student Of Citizenship to full member of the community.”
Link to audio file for “Goldsmith: Student Of Citizenship” Audio
This may not seem odd to those of you used to swearing allegiance to a flag, or some symbol of nationality, but to me the phrase “students of citizenship” smacks of the indoctrination of children into becoming parts of a system. In other words: school is not a place for education, it is a place to create good citizens — good subjects of whatever hierarchical system will rule their lives in the future.
Why the fear?
First, let me show that this is compounded in the UK schools syllabus. Part of the core curriculum is Citizenship, a compulsory activity that the UK Government introduced a few years ago:
In September 2002, citizenship education became a statutory part of the national curriculum in secondary schools, building on the important work developed through the PSHE and Citizenship Framework in primary schools. Citizenship aims to ensure that students:
– know their rights and responsibilities
– analyse and discuss significant issues
– understand how society works
– play an active role in society.
(from UK Government TeacherNet Site)
The syllabus for students starts fairly light, with basic ideas on democracy, rights, conflict, respect etc. As the student reaches the age when they are about to leave school, it takes a turn for the more sinister, including previously left-out sections on how the economy works, the importance of business, and the functions of the legal system. Obviously nothing is explicit here — the government won’t purposely give their agenda away (unlike Lord Goldsmith, who made it very clear) — but you can read a lot into the text of certain sections.
This is from “How and why Laws are made”:
Children should learn:
– about different ways of making views known and the roles of individuals and voluntary and pressure groups in bringing about social change
– that some forms of protest can result in breaking the law
– about how to take part responsibly in aspects of policymaking in their school and local community
(from Department For Education Standards Site)
The detailed text essentially says to students that they can change the law as long as the law allows it. That is known as totalitarianism.
I deeply fear for any individual human (“citizen” is actually just word for “city dweller” but the modern connotation is “subject”) that lives in a culture that tries to indoctrinate them into a particular way of thinking. History teaches us that regimes such as the Third Reich, Lenin’s faux Communism and Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge always seek to subvert the individual, leaving control in the hands of those who crave wealth and absolute power. This Western form of “democracy” appears to be no different; and like the Hitler Youth, children are being made part of the system before they have a chance to decide what life they would actually like to lead.
I’m not sure if this “new” agenda in your British education system is anything different than I already expected from public education. Granted, I’m from the US, but I would think it would be in the best interest of a public institution to maintain the general social order, meaning that it’s always been the intention of public education to teach children to be good citizens of whichever society. If part of being a good citizen is having a basic knowledge of reading, writing, math, and science, then they’ll certainly include those things as well. I think if one would desire education based on a different ethos one would have to attend a private school.
Your list of specific citizenship education points doesn’t seem that horrible either. US elementary school children recite the Pledge of Allegiance every day, and are thus also exposed from a young age to the concept that one can choose not to recite the pledge, a route a few of my friends with dual citizenships chose. Learning how government and the economy work is equivalent to learning the rules of the game. And by knowing the rules, you also learn what it means to break them, and can begin to separate what is legal from what is moral or ethical, a fundamental step in realizing that the institution is not always right.
Although you say that this education policy is totalitarian, I’m not surprised at all by it. I would hardly expect a system that has integrated a legal framework by which it can be changed to then go and advocate to its newest members that they modify it by some other means. I think at best this policy will produce adults with a firmer grasp on the mechanics of society and a stronger drive to participate in its cultivation. At “worst” (for society at least) it will create a generation of activists that have a clear idea of the methods available to them, both legal and illegal, for promoting their own agendas.
All good points, Laura. I would just add that the UK Citizenship syllabus is purposefully leading students away from finding out anything useful that they might unintentionally find out in a less controlled syllabus.
I can well understand, from what you say, why people like Derrick Jensen rail so strongly against the educational system in the USA.
K.
What society has ever lasted that did not educate its youth to be good citizens of the society? If anything, the lack of participation in our electoral system in the US points to more of a need for this rather than less of a need. It all depends on how “good citizenship” is defined. If defined, in a democracy, as understanding the history of the nation, the values and ideas that define the nation such as the concept of “inalienable rights” in the US, the themes of a clash of ideas throughout that history, the workings of government and government systems within the nation, and the ability to read and question the news, politicians, and others, then how could teaching this be a bad thing? In a totalitarian state of course, “good citizenship” would be defined as obedience to the state. If that is what is being taught then we should be thankful that the second amendment is still in place.
I think one would be hard pressed to find any of the great thinkers in history that would argue that good citizenship should not be taught and that society can last without educating youth to be good citizens.
Mark
Mark
Please name me some great thinkers who thought that citizenship should be taught, and who have not lived near the top of their respective hierarchies.
Citizens are no longer just people, they are subjects, cogs in the machine, and children are being taught to be economic instruments above all. Governments cannot afford to teach people to be free thinkers, critical thinkers – that will lose them control.
Keith
Keith,
Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, Augustine, Aquinas, Burke, Jefferson, Adams, Madison – those come to mind just off the top of my head. And with the later (American) ones, I could go look for their quotes about questioning government and the importance of teaching citizens to question government.
The point is pretty fundamental. Without the education of youth into the fundamental values of a society, the society perishes. You’ve built in a (not-so-hidden) hidden premise to your argument – namely, that governments (presumably the UK and US specifically) exist to control their people and are not very democratic. I would argue that, to the extent that is true in the US, that is due to the failure of citizenship education rather than it’s promulgation. The UK might be another matter because the UK is not a democracy founded on a document based on ideas but a monarchy that has, over the years and by various traditions, managed to permit its people to have certain rights.
Mark