Wonderful, wonderful news! Not that I am particularly interested in Honours Lists, which is why I have only just discovered the news but it seems that David Griffiths, a head teacher of some twenty plus years, has received a knighthood for his services to education.
David had taught for many years, had a keen focus and interest on literacy and became a head teacher in a deprived area of the country at the time of significant governmental influences in the abhorrent reign of Ma Thatch.
He resolutely stuck to his principled belief that education was about empowering young people to love learning, to be excited and challenged by the world around them, to understand the joys as well as the needs of a life of literacy and to develop their whole being; physically, spiritually, morally, socially, personally.
An Ofsted report from David’s school highlighted the utter brilliance of a creative curriculum that enabled young people to freely learn and develop wholly as human beings who were going stand a far greater chance in life than those who had merely been spoon-fed a diet of unadulterated boredom of tests and facts and preparations for adult life. Okay, the report didn’t quite say that but that was the gist of the thing.
Thank goodness there are still people like David Griffiths serving education and making sure that real education exists for those who need it most.
Thank goodness for David Griffiths.
Only he doesn’t bloody well exist.
He is a figment of my furious imagination.
There may well be some Derek Griffiths-like head teachers out there but they are a) certainly not going to be rewarded in this way or b) they are so frightened of voicing their opinions and sharing their views about what education really ought to be about that they are best served by burying their heads, keeping away from inspectorate and local authority lunatics and getting on with the unappreciated task of supporting young people in their growth and development, in the manner that they know is going to nurture them most effectively.
No, Derek Griffiths doesn’t exist but bloody Chris Woodhead does!
Remember him? One of the so-called “Wise Men” of education? The man who became the Chief Inspector at Ofsted and ended up having to resign because of the influence that he had mustered to overrule a decision on Islington Green School, ensuring they were listed as failing despite the inspectors finding no evidence to back this up? The man who thought that education was purely about standards, standards and standards? The man who has crippled education in this country to the point of seemingly no return? The man who continues to mouth off about the inadequacies of an education system as soon as someone tries to mend the appalling mess he created? The man who now heads up an organisation that owns and runs independent schools, showing that he never really had an interest in the poor sods whose educational experience have been utterly scarred by the diktats of this man who knew NOTHING about their lives, their needs for a real and purposeful education?
I am incandescent but not entirely surprised. It was bound to happen, especially when you’d got another set of lunatics in power who also know nothing about education but quite like the idea of what Woodhead stands for; the glorification of exam results at the expense of real learning.
Look at the link below to see that I am not alone in my views on this man and what he did for education in this country.
http://community.tes.co.uk/forums/p/495824/6800147.aspx
Oh pity, pity, pity.
Chris Woodhead was and continues to be wrong about education. Yet because of the fact that these politicians who hold the real power of how our education system develops, and not those who actually are educationalists, decided that this man was some sort of gobby genius, they went along with his views on education, crippling thousands of pupils, stifling thousands of excellent, imaginative teachers and creating the sort of havoc for our youth that was so clearly reflected in the Unicef “league table of child wellbeing”.
This is a crime against humanity; admittedly not as clear as certain atrocities like Rwanda but the lasting effect of these policies are going to be damaging our young people for years to come, as well as the fact that they have already created a generation of disaffected people whose needs were never truly met because the enlightened amongst us were extinguished with a vehement hose of vitriol.
And it is no good blaming the Tories. This block of wood was head of Ofsted when a certain Tony Blair took office. Teachers up and down the country pathetically assumed that the Saviour from Sedgefield would have Woodhead in his office within days of being in power, giving him his cards with a boot up the backside. But not our Tone! Oh no! He let the bastard continue in his job, creating more havoc, giving him more powers, ruining more lives.
And now, Tone’s rightful successor has ensured that this man is honoured; probably done so before he pops his clogs from the Motor Neurone Disease which now afflicts him. As someone points out on the link above, perhaps there is such a thing as Karma.
But returning to my fictional head teacher, one day Derek Griffiths will be recognised and so too will the many like him who stuck to their beliefs and values about what education should be about.
I have to be optimistic. I have to believe that rational and reasoned views on education will eventually cycle back round to lead the way, and one day, one day, I hope that a certain Chris Woodhead will be a forgotten man, vilified for his destructive stance and reduced in history to a man who knew NOTHING!
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