Free Schools
While looking for manual handling train the trainer on google yesterday, I somehow stumbled across this article on The Guardian website:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/03/michael-gove-free-schools
There is a big cultural difference between attitudes towards education in the UK and in the USA. I didn’t really understand this until I became a mother and started talking to other mothers about sending my daughter to school. I was raised to love learning and there is a certain American attitude that pervades our education system that is filled with ambition and perseverance. From the elections, to the start of the new con-lib government, I have been interested in the possibility of Free Schools, as a viable option, to create a place where there is a positive attitude towards learning with a creative hands-on approach.
When Michael Gove announced that there was fewer than 20 that were in the pipeline to open, it is not surprising at all. It is a lot of work to set up a school, find a location, gather other parents, teachers, and voluntary institutions to get on board with the project. When does all of this work happen? In the free time that has been created by unemployment? The public sector cuts have stressed out the general population so much that there is no space for the “Big Society”in people’s consciousness. David Cameron might talk about a “Big Society in which power is devolved to the grassroots”but the grass roots as they are struggling to cope with mortgages, unemployment, and debt crisis will have less and less time and energy to improve their lot. It makes me think of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, which says that human’s instinct is to deal with their survival first, then comfort, and only then they can move on to psychological needs and self-actualization. It seems that setting up a free school is up there with those higher level needs and when the population seems to be struggling with survival, then there are not going to be a lot of people jumping on board.
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