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Are Stephen Twigg's school plans good? Debatable
State schools need proper investment, not an attempt to ape the ways of private education
Barbara Ellen
The Observer, Saturday 19 January 2013
Stephen Twigg, MP on Westminster Bridge. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian
The Labour party has come up with a plan to introduce debating societies to schools. Shadow education minister Stephen Twigg floated the idea, along with more PE and the introduction of cadet forces. The party feels that the state sector should copy private school tactics to ensure pupils gain a range of life skills. The Communication Trustargues that too many children are arriving at school unable to express themselves and leaving in a barely improved state, which urgently needs addressing. Still, debating societies? Really? Haven't we done enough to underprivileged youth already?
I'm joking. Well, to a degree. The most high-profile debaters are politicians, prancing about, enunciating their stilted scripted "banter" ("My dear fellow"), in a way that suggests their heyday was back in the fifth-form debating society, thrilling the throng with their zingers and put-downs.
Indeed, it's often all too easy to spot former school debating society leading lights in politics and I don't mean that in a complimentary way. The sad truth is that we know, maybe even they know, that all the posturing and expostulating, so highly prized among the green leather benches, would get them glassed within 10 minutes if they tried it on in the average British pub. And these skills are something the yoof of today need? Well, yes, actually, they are sorely needed, certainly in terms of self-assurance and brio, but I can't see it happening this way.
Those who champion debating societies have hit upon an essential truth. In any walk of life, confidence is key: being able to argue your point, to hold your own, is beyond a mere life skill, it's the indispensable fuel for everything you want to do.
This is what Twigg seems to be suggesting – instilling private school-style confidence in a state school setting. What he's forgetting is that this kind of confidence costs and costs big. And, while I imagine good state teachers would volunteer to run these societies, this still misses the point. Private schools don't just have debating societies; they have the kind of funding, resources, culture and infrastructure that result in debating societies. Try copying all that in an inner city comp.
In this way, it becomes clear: you can't just put debating societies into state schools and declare the problems of social inarticulacy and lack of confidence miraculously solved. This would be like Sellotaping a dog's tail on to a cat and willing it to wag. They are totally different beasts.
Who says that state education's only hope is to copy the private sector anyway? Many state school pupils emerge confident, especially if they've started off bright, are blessed with good teaching and have a clear view of their future. They've also probably encountered their own version of debating. I have dim memories of myself and some friends, hosting a "CND assembly" to rapturous indifference. If you look around, you can still see confidence bursting through, in the most inauspicious of circumstances. Even those moppets on X Factor have to muster the courage to audition and well done them. In a way, it's their stab at public speaking and who are we to mock?
With this in mind, it's difficult to see how Twigg's ideas could work. For pupils with confidence, a debating society would be a great diversion, not to be sniffed at, but certainly no educational panacea. For those who are struggling, the ones being targeted, simply tacking a debating society on to their state school experience would change nothing. For all of them, a good education, in a stable school environment, with committed teachers, means more than any amount of extracurricular waffling. While confidence building is key, debating societies aren't the pat answer. State school pupils deserve more than some downgraded version of what the posh kids get.
James Bond – not such a licence to thrill after all
A forthcoming drama will portray Ian Fleming as a misogynist spanker, with a mother fixation, who lied about his espionage war record. Which doubtless explains the engorged machismo of Fleming's creation, James Bond.
What a curse 007 has been on the western male, even otherwise perfectly sentient ones. How disappointed they must be that the world isn't full of poison pens, tuxedos, posing on beaches in budgie-smugglers, and women so one dimensional they wouldn't pass muster as cardboard cutouts in a cinema lobby.
It's long been my opinion that James Bond is nothing but the male Bridget Jones in that only his own gender finds him remotely interesting. And yet people revere Bond and reserve their bile for "chick flicks". Say what you like about the likes of Sex and the City, but at least all the sexually active women don't get killed off. Similarly, Girls is the biggest cultural hit of recent times, and there isn't a tragic over-compensatory speedboat in sight.
Male Bond fans need to get real. Just as it is suggested Fleming faked his war record, Bond is all about faking masculinity. Those girlie martinis were always a giveaway.
Chump Chope takes the biscuit
Oh dear, will they never learn? Tory backbencher Christopher Chope has referred to Westminster catering staff as "servants". He wasn't "overheard" – there were no bike/side gate shenanigans. He stood up in the Commons and said it.
Chope was complaining about food prices in restaurants at Westminster (a cause we all hold dear to our hearts) and described the service as "fantastic". "There were three servants for each person sitting down." Chope later refused to apologise, saying that it was a general Westminster term and: "Everyone who works for the House is a servant of the House." Hmm. Why does a picture keep springing to mind – of a man in a graveyard furiously digging?
Clearly Chope is scared of this turning into Plebgate: The Sequel, but that's unlikely. We servants are likely to laugh this sort of thing off, not least because we're tuckered out from all the silver polishing, grouse beating and forelock tugging that makes up the average day here in the 19th century.
Chope should feel more anxious about waiting staff. It's well known in catering circles that, if a customer is rude or belittling, some (not all) staff may feel the urge to wreak revenge in various unpleasant, unpalatable ways. I'm not suggesting that staff at Westminster would be well within their rights to tamper with an MP's food… no wait, I was suggesting that.
Ultimately, this could be viewed as another gaffe revealing what truly lurks beneath the "all in this together" pinstripes. Snobbery and over-entitlement are packed in so tightly that it's a surprise they doesn't ooze out their Turnbull & Asser collars and cuffs. Sure, the "servants" are likely to laugh this sort of thing off, but that doesn't mean it hasn't been noted, m'lord.
RESPONSE:
Are Stephen Twigg's school plans good? Debatable
State schools need proper investment, not an attempt to ape the ways of private education
Barbara Ellen
The Observer, Saturday 19 January 2013
Stephen Twigg, MP on Westminster Bridge. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian
The Labour party has come up with a plan to introduce debating societies to schools. Shadow education minister Stephen Twigg floated the idea, along with more PE and the introduction of cadet forces. The party feels that the state sector should copy private school tactics to ensure pupils gain a range of life skills. The Communication Trustargues that too many children are arriving at school unable to express themselves and leaving in a barely improved state, which urgently needs addressing. Still, debating societies? Really? Haven't we done enough to underprivileged youth already?
I'm joking. Well, to a degree. The most high-profile debaters are politicians, prancing about, enunciating their stilted scripted "banter" ("My dear fellow"), in a way that suggests their heyday was back in the fifth-form debating society, thrilling the throng with their zingers and put-downs.
Indeed, it's often all too easy to spot former school debating society leading lights in politics and I don't mean that in a complimentary way. The sad truth is that we know, maybe even they know, that all the posturing and expostulating, so highly prized among the green leather benches, would get them glassed within 10 minutes if they tried it on in the average British pub. And these skills are something the yoof of today need? Well, yes, actually, they are sorely needed, certainly in terms of self-assurance and brio, but I can't see it happening this way.
Those who champion debating societies have hit upon an essential truth. In any walk of life, confidence is key: being able to argue your point, to hold your own, is beyond a mere life skill, it's the indispensable fuel for everything you want to do.
This is what Twigg seems to be suggesting – instilling private school-style confidence in a state school setting. What he's forgetting is that this kind of confidence costs and costs big. And, while I imagine good state teachers would volunteer to run these societies, this still misses the point. Private schools don't just have debating societies; they have the kind of funding, resources, culture and infrastructure that result in debating societies. Try copying all that in an inner city comp.
In this way, it becomes clear: you can't just put debating societies into state schools and declare the problems of social inarticulacy and lack of confidence miraculously solved. This would be like Sellotaping a dog's tail on to a cat and willing it to wag. They are totally different beasts.
Who says that state education's only hope is to copy the private sector anyway? Many state school pupils emerge confident, especially if they've started off bright, are blessed with good teaching and have a clear view of their future. They've also probably encountered their own version of debating. I have dim memories of myself and some friends, hosting a "CND assembly" to rapturous indifference. If you look around, you can still see confidence bursting through, in the most inauspicious of circumstances. Even those moppets on X Factor have to muster the courage to audition and well done them. In a way, it's their stab at public speaking and who are we to mock?
With this in mind, it's difficult to see how Twigg's ideas could work. For pupils with confidence, a debating society would be a great diversion, not to be sniffed at, but certainly no educational panacea. For those who are struggling, the ones being targeted, simply tacking a debating society on to their state school experience would change nothing. For all of them, a good education, in a stable school environment, with committed teachers, means more than any amount of extracurricular waffling. While confidence building is key, debating societies aren't the pat answer. State school pupils deserve more than some downgraded version of what the posh kids get.
James Bond – not such a licence to thrill after all
A forthcoming drama will portray Ian Fleming as a misogynist spanker, with a mother fixation, who lied about his espionage war record. Which doubtless explains the engorged machismo of Fleming's creation, James Bond.
What a curse 007 has been on the western male, even otherwise perfectly sentient ones. How disappointed they must be that the world isn't full of poison pens, tuxedos, posing on beaches in budgie-smugglers, and women so one dimensional they wouldn't pass muster as cardboard cutouts in a cinema lobby.
It's long been my opinion that James Bond is nothing but the male Bridget Jones in that only his own gender finds him remotely interesting. And yet people revere Bond and reserve their bile for "chick flicks". Say what you like about the likes of Sex and the City, but at least all the sexually active women don't get killed off. Similarly, Girls is the biggest cultural hit of recent times, and there isn't a tragic over-compensatory speedboat in sight.
Male Bond fans need to get real. Just as it is suggested Fleming faked his war record, Bond is all about faking masculinity. Those girlie martinis were always a giveaway.
Chump Chope takes the biscuit
Oh dear, will they never learn? Tory backbencher Christopher Chope has referred to Westminster catering staff as "servants". He wasn't "overheard" – there were no bike/side gate shenanigans. He stood up in the Commons and said it.
Chope was complaining about food prices in restaurants at Westminster (a cause we all hold dear to our hearts) and described the service as "fantastic". "There were three servants for each person sitting down." Chope later refused to apologise, saying that it was a general Westminster term and: "Everyone who works for the House is a servant of the House." Hmm. Why does a picture keep springing to mind – of a man in a graveyard furiously digging?
Clearly Chope is scared of this turning into Plebgate: The Sequel, but that's unlikely. We servants are likely to laugh this sort of thing off, not least because we're tuckered out from all the silver polishing, grouse beating and forelock tugging that makes up the average day here in the 19th century.
Chope should feel more anxious about waiting staff. It's well known in catering circles that, if a customer is rude or belittling, some (not all) staff may feel the urge to wreak revenge in various unpleasant, unpalatable ways. I'm not suggesting that staff at Westminster would be well within their rights to tamper with an MP's food… no wait, I was suggesting that.
Ultimately, this could be viewed as another gaffe revealing what truly lurks beneath the "all in this together" pinstripes. Snobbery and over-entitlement are packed in so tightly that it's a surprise they doesn't ooze out their Turnbull & Asser collars and cuffs. Sure, the "servants" are likely to laugh this sort of thing off, but that doesn't mean it hasn't been noted, m'lord.
RESPONSE:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2013/jan/27/big-issue-state-school-debaters-as-ardent-as-etonians
Debating clubs: state school debaters are as ardent as their Etonian rivals
Debating clubs: state school debaters are as ardent as their Etonian rivals
Barbara Ellen was wrong to typify debating as the preserve of private schools
The Observer, Saturday 26 January 2013
Last week, Barbara Ellen attacked the idea of putting debating clubs in state schools ("Are Mr Twigg's school plans good? Debatable"). Her argument that debating remains the preserve of private schools serves only to reinforce the very stereotype she mocks. That state school pupils and their schools cannot benefit from debating is a fallacy, a fallacy that we at Debate Mate expose daily.
Debate Mate runs after-school debating clubs in 180 primary and secondary schools in areas of high child poverty. Michael Wilshaw, Ofsted chief inspector of schools, has stated: "Debate Mate is a wonderful organisation that inspires young people."
He said this because debating equips young people with the skills to listen and speak with confidence; to articulate arguments; to see the world beyond the classroom and engage with the issues that affect them. All of this for less than £150 per student per year.
The young debaters of Britain are not only on the playing fields of Eton, they are in Debate Mate clubs in inner-city London, Birmingham, Manchester and Nottingham. Annie had this to say in the comments section of the Observer website last week:
"I'm a young black girl from east London. At the start of my education, the odds looked stacked against me, now I've got an offer to study at my university of choice [Oxford]. While I recognise that a number of other factors played a part, debating played one of the biggest."
Peter Bazalgette
Vice-president, Debate Mate
London SE1
Barbara Ellen is right to say that "state school pupils deserve more than some downgraded version of what the posh kids get". They deserve well-resourced, quality education, which has never been offered the masses by the privileged. The latter "buy" educational success for their offspring, including easier access to costly postgraduate courses such as those offered at St Hugh's ("Student sues Oxford college over 'selection by wealth' policy", News).
When discussing educational inequalities, it's all too easy to talk about adding a debating society here, "levelling the playing field" there, or providing more postgraduate scholarships for the poor. Only a massive shifting of socioeconomic "tectonic plates" will suffice to create genuine educational equality and no major political party is offering even the prospect of that.
Professor Colin Richards
Spark Bridge
Cumbria
Barbara Ellen is articulate, confident and humorous and uses that confidence to communicate her opinions in an engaged and entertaining fashion and she generally shows signs of listening, too. All proper debating skills. I was therefore surprised that she misunderstands what debating can accomplish. Debating is not an activity rooted in a parody of 1950s Oxbridge; it is thriving across the UK for students from all backgrounds.
The English-Speaking Union (ESU) trains thousands of young people, empowering them with the skills and confidence to realise their potential. Ms Ellen may not appreciate that school debating societies are not about glib remarks and witty put-downs. Debating encourages young people to think, to evaluate, to communicate and to weigh up the opinions of others and respond to them respectfully.
Steve Roberts
Director of charitable activities
The English-Speaking Union
London W1
Barbara Ellen is worried that Stephen Twigg's school debating societies will only target students with confidence and be pale imitations of their private school counterparts. I was privately educated at a school with a strong debating background, but have since been honoured to work in some of the country's poorest schools. The result of the amazing programmes run by the English-Speaking Union, Debate Mate, Noisy Classroom and others is that students who start out terrified of speaking in public become twice the debaters of anyone I was at school with.
Ben Woolgar
Best speaker
2012 World Debating Championships
London NW3
I find it difficult tio understand the logic behind Barbara Ellen's argument that public school children should be denied the chance to debate as if only wealthy private school students should be the only ones able to debate. I would love to work/volunteer for debate mate. It must be my American upbringing with the ethos of teaching ALL students equally well that makes me dumbfounded she actually believes what she has written
ReplyDeleteas a reason to leave debate skills education only to the richer. I am starting to see more clearly why there was an American revolution 200 years ago. "The servants" is beyond a response. Im still reeling from the notion only the rich deserve debate opps. Never thought i d read that. jja123usa@gmail.com James Ahern MSE Teaching and Learning
I'm head of debating in a state school that just won a major competition, against plenty of public schools who enjoy "the kind of funding, resources, culture and infrastructure that result in debating societies". Our debaters certainly do not lack confidence, but I don't think that's the only thing we've been teaching them since they joined us in Y7. Their confidence has grown in proportion to their knowledge, their ability to incisively analyse an argument, and the fluency and persuasiveness with which they can express their insights. This is what debating teaches. There's no reason to think state school students need these skills any less than public school ones, or that state schools cannot nurture them. And to suggest that the culture of a state school must be inimical to such abilities would be pretty objectionable.
ReplyDeleteAdmittedly, we don't have the kind of the kind of funding, resources or infrastructure that the public schools do; we subsist largely on good will (partly mine, mostly the students'. Our team that won at the weekend had to subsidise their travel themselves, and contribute a great deal of their time helping me run training and competitions for their younger schoolmates. They're very keen on preserving their legacy!) But a bit of passion is worth more than any amount of funding. We seem to do alright. Did I mention we just won big a competition? YAY US!