a

AND SOCIAL EDUCATION

VISION OF A SCHOOL

Books in this series:

R. Best (ed.): Education, Spirituality and the Whole Child
R. Best, P. Lang, C. Lodge and C. Watkins (eds): Pastoral Care and PSE:
Entitlement and Provision
G. Haydon: Teaching about Values: A Practical Approach
P. Lang (ed.): Pupils Can Be People Too: Affective Education in Europe
P. Lang, R. Best and A. Lichtenberg (eds): Caring for Children: International
Perspectives on Pastoral Care and PSE
0. Leaman: Death and Loss: Compasionate Approaches in the Classroom
J. McGuiness: Teachers, Pupils and Behaviour: A Managerial Approach
1. McGuiness: Counselling in Schools
S. Power: The Pastoral and the Academic: Conflict and Contradiction in the
Curriculum
P. Whitaker: Managing to Learn: Aspects of Reflective and Experiential Learning in
Schools

CASSELL STUDIES IN PASTORAL CARE AND PERSONAL

AND SOCIAL EDUCATION

VISION OF A SCHOOL
The Good School in the Good Society

Jasper Ungoed-Thomas

CASSELL
London and Washington

Cassell
Wellington House
125 Strand
London WC2R OBB

PO Box 605
Herndon
VA 20172

Jasper Ungoed-Thomas 1997

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying,
recording or any information storage or retrieval system without prior permission
in writing from the publisher.
First published in 1997
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 0-304-33655-6 (hardback)
0-304-33646-7 (paperback)

Typeset by BookEns Ltd, Royston, Herts.

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Biddies Limited,
Guildford and King's Lynn

Contents

Series editors' foreword

vi

What is a good school?

Respect for persons

10

A curricular crisis of identities

12

Persons: being and becoming

18

Education's ideals of a person

31

The personal school

52

The whole truth

59

The true curriculum

74

Justice and responsibility

99

10

The school: institution and community

126

11

Justice and the government of education

134

12

The good school in the good society

154

References

157

Index

165

Series editors' foreword

The title of this series is 'Studies in Pastoral Care and Personal and Social
Education'. As editors we have sought to ensure that the books included in
it represent as broad as possible a view of what these areas are concerned
with. Consequently, some books in the series focus directly on aspects of
pastoral care and PSE, whilst others involve topics which have an identity
of their own but have significant implications for, or relationships with,
pastoral care and PSE. This book adds a new dimension to the series, for it
both focuses on pastoral care and PSE and roams widely over broader
issues which are rich in implications for schools' pastoral work.
Vision of a School is a book whose arguments all those involved in
pastoral care and PSE would do well to consider, but its message is
significant for a much wider audience; indeed it has something important
to say to everyone involved in education today, be they teachers,
politicians or parents. It sets out to answer one of the most fundamental,
but hitherto inadequately answered, educational questions: 'What is a good
school?' It does this in a rigorous, scholarly and above all convincing way.
Though its arguments are often in opposition to key elements of the new
political and theoretical orthodoxy, the rational, measured and analytical
way in which they are presented makes a welcome change from the illconsidered and dogmatic assertions which are typical of contemporary
debate.
The new educational orthodoxy has been influenced as much by the
concept of the failing school as by that of the effective school. Both types of
school have been characterized in terms of inputs and outcomes,
effectively using what in research is described as the 'black box' model,
where the concern is solely for the relationship between inputs and
outcomes and not for the actual processes going on in the institution
concerned. Where consideration has been given to processes, this has
tended to be at a simplistic and mechanistic level, and still closely tied to
outcomes. A good example is the current emphasis on whole-class
teaching. This is based at least in part on the fact that this approach is
used in Pacific Rim countries which achieve high levels of success in terms

SERIES EDITORS' FOREWORD vii

of measurable outcomes but does not seriously address the other

implications of the way teaching and learning are organized and carried
out.
Although there is an undeniable need to promote the development of
effective schools and revitalize failing ones, much of the current approach
is narrow, naive and inadequate. Narrow in its use of a 'black box'
approach, inadequate in the way that many significant variables are
ignored, and naive in the assumption that all that failing schools need to do
is emulate what is done in effective ones. More seriously, the approach
promotes a very limited view of the purpose of education and perceives
the role of school from a predominantly economic perspective. In our
view, the most serious omission is the way this perspective all but ignores
the underlying question of what we might mean by a 'good school' in the
first place.
In our view there is an increasingly worrying vacuum at the centre of
current educational thinking. Indeed, it may be that the term 'thinking' is
in itself inappropriate, for the vacuum is in part the result of a decline in
rigorous analysis and reflection, encouraged by those politicians,
pedagogues and quango officials who systematically denigrate both
theoretical and empirical research in education. The failure to address
the issue of what we mean by a good school is a failure which could have
the most serious effects for the way in which education develops into the
next millennium.
The publication of Jasper Ungoed-Thomas's book is therefore
particularly timely, for it both offers a convincing case for what a good
school ought to be and provides an impetus for renewed debate of this
important question.
Of course, Jasper Ungoed-Thomas's 'good school' is concerned to
produce well-educated students, but his view of what being 'educated'
means is far broader and more holistic than that which informs the school
effectiveness movement discussed above. He is not rejecting the aims of
this movement however. On the contrary, he argues that a confident and
shared vision of a good school is essential if we are to identify good
performance and promote good practice. But by returning to first
principles he shows up the superficiality with which the pursuit of this
aim is so often treated.
His analysis of what features would go to make up a good school is
insightful and systematic. He begins with the identification of several
significant areas of study within education: in the 'personal school'
(Chapter 6) pupils will learn to understand themselves and the sorts of
worthwhile people they can become; in the whole school curriculum
(Chapter 8) there is concern for various forms of understanding,
exploration and expression; in the school as an institution pupils learn
to appreciate fair rules, the need to behave in an acceptable way and to
discipline themselves (Chapter 9); in the school as a community they learn
to contribute to school and wider community (Chapter 10). These areas
are of course highly significant for those concerned with pastoral care and
PSE.

viii

VISION OF A SCHOOL

Jasper Ungoed-Thomas goes on to argue that the good school has

readily recognizable moral and intellectual traits that can be related to the
areas of study outlined above. Of these, he sees the most significant as
respect for persons, truth, justice and responsibility, which he calls the
first virtues of education. Thus: respect for persons is the first virtue of the
personal school; truth is the first virtue of the whole school curriculum;
justice is the first virtue of the school as an institution; responsibility is
the virtue of the school as a community. Clearly, this analysis is of great
significance in a much wider educational field than that of pastoral care
and PSE.
Throughout the book we are reminded that 'education is concerned with
encouraging respect for persons, self and other ... [and that] ... schools
cannot hope to do this effectively unless they are clear about the ideas of a
person which they value' (p. 31). This theme is developed in Chapter 5
where the various ideals of the person which exist in our society and
influence our schools are discussed. These include the 'Christian' person,
the 'classical' person, the 'rational' person, the 'humanist' person and the
'economic' person. His examination of these models fills an important gap
in the literature of PSE, but it is again clear that what the author has to say
is of importance to a far greater audience than those directly concerned
with this aspect of the curriculum.
Jasper Ungoed-Thomas is not just concerned with the good school but
also with the good society in which the school exists. As we have seen, the
good school is, for him, one which successfully reflects in its teaching and
learning the qualities of respect for persons, truth, justice and
responsibility. He believes that these are the first virtues of education
and central to its affective dimension. He argues that they are both ends in
themselves and means towards achieving the aims of the school. Notably
he believes that the nature of the good school should not be 'read off from
a particular view of the 'good society' but, having established the qualities
of a good school, it becomes possible to infer the kind of educational
system which might promote it. For Jasper Ungoed-Thomas, an education
system to which the comprehensive ideal and the comprehensive school
are central is the most appropriate environment for the development of
good schools.
Offered a choice between the fashionable concept of the 'effective
school' and the model of the 'good school' offered in this book, we know
which we would encourage parents to choose for their children. For an
education which goes beyond the purely economic and is of real benefit in
equipping children for Life (with a capital 'L'), we commend Jasper
Ungoed-Thomas's vision to all those with a concern for education - and
that should be everyone!
We hope that the ideas in this book reach as wide an audience as
possible for they have the potential to make an important and positive
contribution to current debate and to the future development of education.

CHAPTER 1

What is a good school?

'Nobody,' wrote Kingsley Amis in his memoirs (1992, p. 127), 'can really
put his head into our (or probably any other) educational arrangements
without a twinge of fear for the survival of the nation.'
Be that as it may, there certainly are those who, whether or not they
have taken the trouble to take a good look at schools, express hyperanxiety
about the state of education. From journalistic Cassandras to political axegrinders, cries of alarm fill the airwaves and emerge in print.
And whatever their reactions, the world appears to be full of people
who are interested in, or concerned about, what is going on in schools.
Schools may have their problems; but lack of attention is certainly not
one of them.
The general hue and cry has led to certain matters, in particular, being
pursued with especial vigour. For instance: What sort of evidence reliably
indicates how good a school is? How can one assess whether a school is
good, bad or indifferent? How can a school be improved, that is, become
better? Should the national system of education be reorganized; and if so,
along what lines? These, and similar questions are, self-evidently, of
immediate practical importance.
There is, however, another, deceptively simple question, which also
needs to be asked - one which has received rather less attention. This
is:
What /S a good school?
Initially, the answer must be that it is one which reflects, or is consistent
with, a notion of what a good school is.
Do we have a common idea of the good school? In other words, is there
a shared vision of the good school which encompasses comprehensives,
secondary moderns, grammar schools, City Technology Colleges, public
schools, primary schools, prep schools, and so on?
Or are there differing, even idiosyncratic, ideas of the good school? Are
different types of school, perhaps in certain cases, even individual schools,
all trying to become good schools in the light of ideals which are discrete,
disparate, even mutually incompatible?

VISION OF A SCHOOL

Or do we, in fact, have only a vague idea, or ideas, of what we understand when we talk of good schools?
The answers to these questions seem to me to be pretty clear. We lack
any confident, shared vision of what a good school is. Insofar as we have
any ideas of what a good school is, they tend to be specific to particular
types of school. However, in general, we have little more than rather illformed notions of what we mean when we refer to a good school.
One could suggest various reasons for this state of affairs. We have, for
instance, spent very little time and effort considering what we mean by a
good school. Other issues have, perhaps understandably, taken priority.
And, anyway, we may have been happy to assume that we all know what we
are talking about, to stick closely to the pragmatic, and to avoid anything
which smacks of the theoretical.
But surely the main reason is to be sought in the nature of our society.
In a pluralist liberal democracy there are different, at times antipathetic,
social, religious, political and ethnic groups, each evolving and
subscribing to sets of values which differ to a greater or lesser extent.
In turn, such values are liable to generate various expectations of
education. The result is, on the one hand, dispute and confusion, and on
the other a lack both of consensus and of clarity. Such circumstances are
hardly conducive to the emergence of a clear vision, or even visions, of
the good school.
All this does matter. For unless we have a clear notion of what we
understand when we talk of a good school, we cannot hope to be in a
strong position to identify what indicates good performance, to seek out
good features of high quality education, to develop ways of making schools
better, or to judge how best to organize the national education system.
Analysis, management and leadership of education only acquire substantial
meaning in the context of a view of what a good school is.
Furthermore, if we are poorly placed, as we are, to consider what
contributes to making a good school, and to identifying its characteristic
features, then quite serious practical difficulties are likely to arise and
indeed do. While other factors, no doubt, make their contribution, our lack
of agreed understanding of what a good school is surely helps fuel disputes
over such matters as the role of public tests and examinations as
indicators of a good school, and the best ways of inspecting or evaluating
school performance. Since there is uncertainty, or disagreement, over
what on earth it is we actually believe to be good, it is almost inevitable
that we can become confused about what represents achievement, about
how and what to assess, about how to interpret relevant evidence, and
about what weight to attach to any judgements made.

A vision of the good school

In this book, I shall discuss a vision of the good school.
This is not a vision that came to me, as visions are conventionally
supposed to, in a moment of sudden illumination. Would that it had! Little
by little, over time, jigsaw-like, a notion of the good school has gradually
crystallized and taken form in my mind.

WHAT IS A GOOD SCHOOL?

This vision is, if not entirely down to earth (that would quite possibly
represent a contradiction in terms), at least close to earth. It is as
someone actively involved with schools, whether as student, teacher,
parent, governor, inspector or voter, that I have struggled to be able to
understand and perceive the real nature of a good school.
The vision, accordingly, arises from, and closely relates to, actualities.
It came into existence because I was looking for a comprehensive idea
which could help both to make sense of and to provide an inspiration for,
the multifarious educational activities which I observed and in which I was
involved. While these activities were often sustained by good intentions,
too frequently in practice they appeared, to me at least, confused,
confusing and static.
What I have to say is intended as a contribution to a discussion which is
already beginning, albeit sometimes in rather different terms. For it has
become very evident that we need a clearer sense of moral purpose in
education, whether in some schools or in society more generally. To date,
the most significant recent thinking on this theme has probably come from
the National Forum for Values in Education and the Community,
established by the Schools Curriculum and Assessment Authority (SCAA).
What it has to say (National Forum, 1996) is consistent with much of the
argument I shall develop, particularly as concerns key values to do with
self, relationships, society and the environment.
The vision I shall explore I see as being akin to a working hypothesis. It
is a model whose real worth and viability can only properly be tested in
debate and practice. Accordingly, it must take its chances in the
educational market-place. If it proves to have some validity and usefulness,
so much the better. At the least, I hope it may provoke thought.
And so, I ask, what is a good school?
The good school is a community of learning.
It produces well-educated young people.
This much is clear.
But what about the detail?
The good school contains, and recognizes, various fields of education.
These overlap, and interconnect, but nevertheless are readily identifiable
(see Figure 1.1 for a diagrammatic outline of the analysis of the good
school given in this chapter).
In the good school, the most significant fields of education are:

The personal school (people, or persons, in the school);

The whole school curriculum (courses of study concerned with the
teaching, learning, investigation and application of selected elements
of organized knowledge and systems of thought);
The school as an institution; and
The school as a community.

Within the good school there are a range of worthwhile practices

which are both inherent in education and which contribute to the
achievement of the school's aims and purposes. Groups of these activities
relate particularly, though not exclusively, to each major field of education.

THE GOOD SCHOOL

AIMS

Fields of Education-

Worthwhile practices

'Moral and intellectual qualities

(First virtues of education)

Purposes
(to do with:)

The personal school

Academic, pastoral, personal, social

Respect for persons

Persons

The whole school curriculum

Teaching and learning

Truth

Curriculum

The school as an institution

Managerial and administrative

Justice

Institution

The school as a community

Social and networking

Responsibility

Community

Figure 1.1

The good school

WHAT IS A GOOD SCHOOL?

The worthwhile practices include:

Academic, pastoral, personal and social education in the personal
school;
Teaching and learning in the whole school curriculum;
Managerial and administrative matters in the school as an institution;
Social and networking matters in the school as a community.
Through worthwhile practices:
In the personal school, students will learn to understand themselves,
their abilities and the sorts of worthwhile persons they could become.
They will also learn to cope sensibly with authority, relationships with
fellow students and staff, and with conflict.
In the whole school curriculum, students will learn to think; to study; and
to remember, organize and present information, in writing, graphically,
numerically and orally. They will also learn to understand, explore and
express themselves through spiritual, artistic and physical experience.
As appropriate, they will learn how to apply their knowledge.
In the school as an institution, students will learn to observe and discuss
fair rules and to understand their nature and necessity; to behave well;
and to discipline themselves.
In the school as a community, students will learn how to participate fully
and contribute positively as members of the school and wider
community, not least through extra-curricular activities; to practise
democracy; and to prepare for citizenship.
Teachers and other staff, through pastoral, teaching, organizational and
administrative practices, will support and promote the worthwhile
practices of students in the various fields of educational practices, and
throughout the school.
The good school has readily recognizable moral and intellectual
qualities, or, more specifically, traits. Of these, the most educationally
significant are:
Respect for persons (self and others);
Truth;
Justice; and
Responsibility.
In the good school, each of these qualities is associated with,
particularly but not exclusively, a specific field of education, together
with that field's related worthwhile practices. In such circumstances, the
traits may be called the necessary first virtues of education.

Respect for persons is the first virtue of the personal school.

Truth is the first virtue of the whole school curriculum.
Justice is the first virtue of the school as an institution.
Responsibility is the first virtue of the school as a community.

A school possesses virtues where it is consciously organized, both as a

whole and in its various fields, to encourage the development in students
of particular moral and intellectual traits. (See Rawles, 1972, p. 3 for a

VISION OF A SCHOOL

discussion of the idea of first virtues, especially with reference to truth and
justice; see Steutel and Spiecker, 1997, for an incisive discussion of the
possible distinctions and relationships between moral and intellectual
virtues.)
As for students, they possess virtues where their characters are
consciously organized in such a way that they display traits of character,
and hence dispositions to act, that are positively valued. Students, like
schools, should at the least show signs of, and a commitment to,
developing those virtues that are intrinsic to education. The first virtues of
the student and of the school correspond with each other, and indeed are
mutually supportive.
In the good school, students display, and are encouraged to display,
respect for self and others, respect for truth and truthfulness, a sense of
justice and a sense of responsibility.
The first virtues of education are not the only relevant virtues. Other
moral and intellectual virtues are educationally important. For example, a
good school will encourage, and students will display, patience,
perseverance and self-control, as well as open-mindedness, respect for
rational argument, and so on. Nevertheless, all these qualities, however
and wherever exercised, are, in the final analysis, supplementary to and
supportive of the first virtues of education - respect for others, truth,
justice and responsibility.
Nor do the first virtues of education apply exclusively to their
immediately related fields of education. For example, a sense of
responsibility can help students manage their learning effectively.
Similarly, a sense of justice can help to develop community spirit And
so on.
The possession and development of the first virtues of education, in
schools and in students, are necessary for two reasons.
First, it is a good in itself that schools should be moral places, and that
students should become moral beings.
Secondly, a virtuous disposition, together with, hopefully, ensuing
educationally valued behaviour, whether in institutions or persons, is
essential if the practices of schools are to lead to success. (For a detailed
discussion of the relationship between virtues and practices, see
Maclntyre, 1985, chapter 14.)
In the school, arrangements to promote respect for self and others are
crucial in enabling students to acquire a personal sense of worth, and to
help them to deal positively with fellow students and those in authority.
Truth is an essential trait of organized knowledge and systems of
thought. The curriculum must enable students to verify facts, to establish
the coherence of propositions, and to consider the extent to which
revealed truth may be considered reliable.
Justice is a vital aspect of all institutions, including schools. If the
formal and informal rules and arrangements of a school are fairly
conceived and implemented, then it can function efficiently as an
institution. Further, in such a school students can learn about justice
from the way the system works.
Responsibility is a key feature of the school as a community. Practical

WHAT IS A GOOD SCHOOL?

preparation for citizenship and democracy, together with social and extracurricular activities, can only thrive where responsibility is effectively
practised.
Correspondingly, in students, respect for self and others promotes the
ability to relate appropriately with others; concern for truth contributes to
academic understanding; a sense of justice encourages an awareness of
the nature and significance of fair rules and arrangements and a
commitment to sustaining and developing them; and a sense of
responsibility provides a moral foundation for learning about democracy
and citizenship.
The need for schools and students to display the first virtues of
education becomes very apparent if one considers what would be likely to
happen if these virtues were disregarded.
Where the school does not adequately incorporate procedures and does
not promote attitudes requiring respect for self and others, there is liable
to be a lack of concern to meet students' personal and learning needs.
Teachers will often be suspicious of, and unwilling to cooperate with,
colleagues; they may show contempt for students, may shout at them and
may ignore their learning needs. As for students, if they have low selfesteem, they are hardly in a good position to perform well. And where they
do not respect others, they are liable to disrupt, bully and taunt.
If the curriculum is structured without a concern for truth, then the
content and skills being taught and learned will, morally, intellectually and
practically, be of negligible use to students, or indeed to society.
Where rules and procedures are arbitrary or inconsistent, and where
staff and students act unfairly towards one another, then those who work
in the school are liable to feel alienated and resentful. This is hardly a good
environment in which to work productively, or in which to learn about the
workings of a just institution.
Similarly, where the networks of the school community are uninspired
by any sense of responsibility, there will be little feeling of shared concern,
or of common endeavour. A school of isolates, self-centred and selfregarding, would be ill-placed to encourage education in democracy and
citizenship.
In fact, a school which fails to encourage, and where students do not
practise, the first virtues of education cannot but be a bad school. It does
not provide the conditions necessary for effective learning, and it neglects
the moral education of its students.
Clearly, moral and intellectual virtues in students are essential to the
effective and efficient carrying out of the worthwhile practices of a good
school. Unfortunately, few if any students arrive at school in a fully
virtuous state. With luck, they will have, whether inborn or acquired, an
inclination to contribute to their own, and the general, educational good.
But this will need encouragement.
So if the practices of education are to flourish, good teachers will be
concerned not only to teach particular skills and abilities, but will also
realize the importance of teaching the educational virtues. They will do
this by example (that is, by virtue of the sort of people they are), through
the myriad of daily school circumstances. They will also do it through

VISION OF A SCHOOL

precept, that is by explicitly focusing with students on the educational

necessity of certain sorts of good behaviour if particular practices are to
be successfully carried out. Specific lessons, courses or other planned
activities to do with matters such as the practice of moral reasoning, the
exploration of social and moral issues or the development of virtues
could also be of value. But, they certainly could not be sufficient in
themselves. In the good school, moral education pervades the whole
enterprise.
Worthwhile educational practices, together with their related first
virtues imply, and help to define, the aims and purposes of the good school.
In the good school, all particular purposes relate to the major fields of
education, and are subsumed under aims for the whole school. The latter,
at the least, reflect the requirements stated in the Education Reform Act
of 1988 (Sections 1, 2a and 2b).
The aims of the good school are to promote the full and balanced
spiritual, moral, social, cultural, artistic, mental and physical development
of students at the school and of society; and to prepare students as fully as
possible for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult
life. More particularly, the good school aims to educate students as moral
beings who are respectful of themselves and others, who are truthful and
concerned with truth, and who are fair-minded, and responsible.
The purposes of the good school are:
In relation to practices concerned with the personal school: to encourage
full and balanced personal development; to provide informed and
caring guidance, welfare and pastoral care; and to promote respect for
self and others.
In relation to practices concerned with the whole school curriculum: to
ensure that students achieve to the best of their various capabilities,
and show serious regard for truth. The school intends to ensure this
through the provision of a broad, balanced, coherent and relevant
curriculum, characterized by truth; together with specific objectives,
for particular subjects, courses and topics, and for the development of
related skills and attitudes.
In relation to practices to do with the school as an institution: to ensure
that students are well-behaved, self-disciplined and fair-minded; that
there are just rules; and that there are effective, efficient and
equitable leadership, management and organisation.
In relation to practices to do with the school as a community: to ensure
that students learn to participate as full and responsible members of
the school, and wider, community; and that they are well prepared,
through experience as well as through the curriculum, for their role as
citizens in a democracy.
Good schools will differ from each other in the detail of particular
practices, aims and purposes. But they will have in common a recognition
of the importance of each of the key fields of education, and of the need to
identify integrally related purposes.
Above all, however, the good school will acknowledge the vital
importance of the moral qualities of respect, truth, justice and

WHAT IS A GOOD SCHOOL?

responsibility. And it will succeed in ensuring that its educational practices

incorporate, and its students display, those virtues.
In the following chapters, I will explore the necessary first virtues of
education. I will discuss how in the good school these may influence
arrangements and activities in the major fields of practices. I will consider
how the national system of education could best support the development
of the good school. Finally, I will draw the threads together by offering a
vision of the good school in the good society.

CHAPTER 2

Respect for persons

If we are to teach, learn and exercise respect for persons we need in the
first place to have an informed grasp of what we mean when we talk of
respect.
The idea of respect once came with strong connotations of deference.
Those who occupied positions of power or prestige, or who were members
of the higher social classes, expected respect as of right from those in
more humble situations than themselves. Likewise, adults looked for a
similar sort of respect from the younger generation. Anyone told to 'Show
a little respect' understood immediately what was meant. However, that
secure and hierarchical world, profoundly missed by some, despised by
others, is disintegrating around us. Before long all that is likely to remain
are stray, no doubt occasionally spectacular, outcrops of obsolescent
custom.
Our deeper understanding of what is meant by respect is illuminated by
those religious and philosophic traditions which, in different accents, in
different times, and formulated for different audiences, explore and justify
in their own particular terms the proposition that we should learn to value
and respect persons because, in the final analysis, all life is inviolable.
Theologically, in Judaism and Christianity, such arguments are rooted in
the concept of human beings as created in the image of God, and for
Christians more specifically, in the scriptural commandment that we should
love our neighbours, and, moreover, love them as we love ourselves. Other
major faiths, in the context of their own doctrines, develop similar
approaches.
Philosophically, the thinking which perhaps resonates most powerfully
today is the Kantian view that persons are citizens of a 'Kingdom of ends',
a Commonwealth where persons are not purely subjective ends, whose
existence has a value for us only as means, but where they are also
objective ends, or beings, whose existence is an end in itself, for which no
other end can be substituted. A person as an end has 'an intrinsic,
unconditioned, incomparable worth or worthiness' (Paton, 1958, pp. 35,
91).
It is on such foundations that contemporary discussion of the meaning

RESPECT FOR PERSONS

11

of respect for persons is grounded. Modern thinkers generally suggest

that respect is a disposition required on account of the essential nature of
persons as human beings. Iris Murdoch (1992, p. 365), for example,
argues that we should value persons, 'not because they are created by God
or because they are rational beings or good citizens, but because they are
human beings'. Similarly, Ronald Dworkin in Life's Dominion (1993, p. 24),
his work on issues relating to abortion, suggests that all human life can be
seen as sacred, as having intrinsic value, and that one major reason why so
many people have reservations about abortion is that they believe it
'denies and offends the sanctity or inviolability of human life'.
What can we call behaviour which originates from the virtue of respect?
Certainly, sometimes, respectful. But the actions we observe, or have in
mind, may not fully be described by the term 'respectful'. Genuine and
deep respectfulness may result in conduct which might, quite reasonably,
be considered caring, or concerned, or loving. For, the fact of the matter is
that respect provides a moral basis for engagement with, for commitment
to, persons.
The essential understandings of respect which we have inherited are
powerful. But they are also general. The concept is quite heavily
dependent upon its object for any specifity. Only when we begin to get a
focused notion of what it is we wish to respect does the idea of respect
emerge with sharp-edged definition. And this is where the real difficulties,
at least for education, begin.

CHAPTER 3

A curricular crisis of identities

Martin Buber (1961, p. 148), opening a lecture on 'What is man?', recalled

that a certain Rabbi von Przysucha, one of the last great teachers of
Hasidism, once said to his students, 'I wanted to write a book called Adam,
which would be about the whole man. But then I decided not to write it.'
The rabbi's title, together with his synopsis, suggests questions about
gender, spirituality and corruption, just the sort of value-laden, powerful
and emotive issues which almost invariably arise sooner or later in any
consideration of personhood which is more than superficial. It is perhaps
hardly surprising that the good rabbi, who no doubt like many teachers was
a cautious individual appreciative of a quiet life, decided that discretion
was the better part of valour.
However, if we wish to encourage respect for persons in education, it
would be as well not to follow the rabbi's example. Both logically and in
practice, it is difficult if not impossible to teach, learn about or exercise
respect for persons in the absence of a secure grasp of what one is
supposed to be respecting. Accordingly, we need to be clear about what we
mean when we talk of persons.
Schools, however, are currently facing a curricular crisis of identities.
The crisis is manifest because too few of those with responsibility for
education have much more than an implicit notion of what it is they, and
others, mean when they talk of persons. At worst, where such unexamined
views are inconsistent with each other, they may lead to conflicting
perceptions and actions. Even at best, they are seldom likely to be
sufficiently coherent to make any worthwhile contribution to the definition
of educational thought and practice.
In such circumstances, there is an ever-present danger that the actions
of many of those who provide education, whether politically, professionally
or as representatives of local communities, will ultimately come to be
informed by little more than an enfeebled and token sense of humanity.
This is hardly a satisfactory way in which to try and develop a system of
education in which respect for others is likely to flourish.
The crisis arises, not so much on account of flaws intrinsic to education,
as because of the difficulty which schools can find in evolving effective

A CURRICULAR CRISIS OF IDENTITIES

13

responses to powerful external forces. In particular, the sense of personal

authenticity within a school can be undermined by the historic and
continuing attacks on that view of the centrality and moral worth of the
individual which has been characteristic of mainstream Western thought.

The attack on the centrality of persons

We are faced with a modern feeling of loss of certainty over the place and
nature of persons. There is a suspicion of having come adrift. We have our
being in a climate of anxiety provoked by those questions which, over
time, have challenged the centrality of persons, and have also led, both
directly and indirectly, to a shrouding, even to a decomposition, of the
notion of personhood.
While this atmosphere is general, it is also one to which education, by
its very nature, is particularly sensitive. Schools need to move into a
position from which they can have a reasonable opportunity of dealing with
the underlying historical and cultural aspects of the crisis of identities
which they face. An essential first step is to clarify the nature and extent of
the attack on belief in the centrality of persons.
Paradoxically, questioning of the pivotal position of the individual
originated in the Renaissance. On the one hand, of course, the period saw
the emergence of a confident humanism. The concern of the ancient
classical world with the individual was rediscovered. The medieval Civitas
Dei, a universe divinely decreed, ordered and guided, was deconstructed;
and citizens of the divine commonwealth, not necessarily any more
children and servants of God, were freed if they so pleased, to enjoy
personal freedom, unguided by inner immutable essence or external
doctrine.
On the other hand, the newly liberated intellect was now at liberty not
simply to celebrate, reflect upon and explore its own significance. It was
also able to turn its full attention upon questioning its place in whatever
scheme of things might be discovered to exist.
There emerged the successive assaults, now deeply familiar but still
retaining a capacity to unsettle and provoke, upon all the major
assumptions which enabled persons to be placed centre stage in whatever
particular piece of explanatory narrative, theological, philosophical,
scientific and so on, was being represented. Copernicus and Galileo,
disrupting the harmony of the spheres, despatched the Earth, together
with all its creatures, away from its place at the fulcrum of the universe.
Darwin appeared to demonstrate that the human species, far from being
the end and instrument of divine purpose, was simply the product of a
mindless evolutionary process of natural selection, of adaptation, of
survival of the fittest. Hegel argued that self-conscious persons, far from
being free-standing, independent members of their communities, could
only become fully real and individualized in the larger whole of society,
itself a greater individual being, of which all humans were lesser parts or
moments. Metaphysically, and in due course politically, persons became
not arbiters but ciphers. Finally, Karl Marx proposed that individuals were
no longer the admittedly often beleaguered, at times tragic, but ultimately

14

VISION OF A SCHOOL

controlling arbiters of history. Rather they were little more than victims,
or at best participants, in an inevitable, dialectically determined sweep of
inevitable happenings.
Accompanying the dispersion of persons, there developed a sustained
and prolonged questioning of their interior coherence and stability. The
unpredictability of human behaviour, the apparent absence of any unifying
personal identity, the seemingly multifarious natures of single individuals
were all observed and explored. Such perceptions could lead to attempts
to reestablish the integrity of the person, for example through the
workings of the rational mind or of the divine spirit; or they could result in
acceptance of the inevitability of disintegration. Either way, the effect was
unsettling at best; pessimistic, even nihilistic, at worst.
Doubts over the oneness of persons began to be expressed as the early
humanist confidence of the Renaissance waned. Montaigne (1991, p. 5,
1:1), kept returning, almost obsessively, to reflecting on 'Man ... an object
miraculously vain, various and wavering,' and upon The natural
inconstancy of our behaviour and our opinions.' In similar vein the
Catholic and Jansenist, Pascal (1966, p. 64, section 131), exclaimed, 'How
many natures lie in human nature!', and 'What sort of freak then is man!
How novel, how monstrous, how chaotic, how paradoxical, how prodigious!
Judge of all things, feeble earthworm, repository of truth, sink of doubt and
error, glory and refuse of the universe!' Meanwhile, Pascal's near
contemporary Descartes (1968b, p. 127) was ruminating that, 'The whole
of my life may be divided into an infinity of parts, each of which depends in
no way on the others.' And later, in the English empirical and sceptical
tradition, Hume (1978, 1, iv, 6), pursuing a similar theme, was to say that
there was not 'Any single power of the soul which remains unalterably the
same'; while as for the mind, 'There is properly no simplicity in it at one
time nor identity in different [times].'
Over time, such thoughts have gradually extended their influence, until
now we are hardly surprised to come across them in academic philosophy
and popular culture alike. In today's world it seems many of us, whoever
we may be, have difficulty in knowing what to make of ourselves or of
others. Thus, we can find Derek Parfit (1985, pp. 216-17), an Oxford
Fellow of All Souls, writing that 'We are not separately existing entities,
apart from our brains and our bodies, and various interrelated physical and
mental events ... It is not true that our identity is always determinate ...
Personal identity is not what matters.' More prosaically, Denis Healey
(1989, p. 570), contemplating his experience of politics, reports that
'Human behaviour is infinitely diverse'; even Mick Jagger, interviewed in
the Observer (10 January 1993), reached a similar conclusion, though
perhaps by a rather different route: 'People seem to find it hard to accept
that you can be several people almost at the same time. I refuse to believe
that everybody's just got these tiny constricted little personalities and that
they can only behave in one kind of way.'
Under pressure persons of necessity, or even as a matter of choice,
could attempt to ensure survival through the adoption of certain sorts of
identity indicative of their destabilized situation. They might simply
present themselves, or be perceived, as anxious, resentful, insecure. As

A CURRICULAR CRISIS OF IDENTITIES

15

Dollimore (1989, p. xxx) has pointed out in his study of Renaissance

drama, the playwrights, having 'Subverted the idea of a divinely ordered
universe ... also subverted its corollary the unified human subject ...
Hence the Jacobean anti-hero: malcontented, dispossessed, satirical and
vengeful.' And, one might add, eventually hence also the alienated theatre
of Brecht, and the marginalized world of the existential Outsider.
Alternatively there was the possibility not of becoming defined in
contradistinction and antagonism to conditions of existence understood as
unacceptable or as unreal, but of retreating into the sort of private
identity, or even identities, which were now becoming a genuine choice.
As George Eliot (1994, p. 537) perceived, from her still morally secure
position in what Leavis was to categorize as The Great Tradition', there
were indeed those to whom a world on and of their own could offer a real
temptation. 'We have all,' said Mrs Cadwallader to Dorothea in
Middlemarch, 'to exert ourselves a little to keep sane, and to call things
by the same names as other people call them by.' Dorothea, supported by a
world which for the most part remained comfortably centred, in both
divine and human terms, did indeed exert herself, and successfully. But
there would be others, living in less privileged circumstances, who would
not be so fortunate. Private identities could lead to psychosis, to
personality disorder; even to multiple personalities, to the three faces of
Eve.
When defiance or escape could not adequately sustain personal
meaning, the effort to endure and secure a sense of identity might
collapse or even never be attempted. Individuals might appear as
overwhelmed by the sheer unmanageableness of unstable, mutant,
transient and multiple elements. They could, like Louis MacNeice, in
his poem 'Snow' (1935) conclude that:
World is crazier and more of it than we think
Incorrigibly plural.
They could find themselves in sympathy with Shakespeare's Antony
(Antony and Cleopatra, IV. xii, 3-22):
Sometime we see a cloud that's dragonish,
That which is now a horse, even with a thought
The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct,
As water is in water ...
... now thy captain is
Even such a body: here I am Antony,
Yet cannot hold this visible shape ...
... there is left us
Ourselves to end ourselves.
Or they might identify with the less heroic figure of Decoud in Conrad's
Nostromo (1963, pp. 409, 411-12) who 'caught himself entertaining doubts
of his own individuality. It had merged into the world of cloud and water, of
natural forces and forms of nature.' Decoud, seeing the universe as no
more than 'a succession of incomprehensible images', shoots himself, and

16

VISION OF A SCHOOL

vanishes 'without a trace, swallowed up in the immense indifference of

things'.
Imagined, or actual, instances of the inability of particular individuals to
cope with existence prefigured and accompanied the development of
assaults, increasingly systematic and assertive, directed at the viability of
the notion of the person as such. In the first place, both socially and
psychologically, the significance of consciousness was diminished. 'It is
not,' said Marx, 'the consciousness of men that determines their being,
b u t . . . their social being that determines their consciousness.' (Preface to
a critique of political economy', 1859, in McLellan, 1977, p. 389). Freud
and Jung, through their postulation of the underworld forces of the id and
the collective subconscious, while not exactly disempowering consciousness, at the least located it in a threatened situation.
From this point on, analysis of what was now increasingly seen as a
crisis, developed in detailed pessimism to the point where it became
difficult to distinguish diagnosis of what was generally agreed to be an
identity-threatening condition from forecasts of imminent demise. Adorno
talked of the 'withering of the subject', its shrunken consciousness, its loss
of awareness, spontaneity and truth (see, for example 1973, pp. 60-76).
Barthes (1977, p. 143) refers to 'a dispersion of energy in which there
remains neither a central core nor a structure of meaning. I am not
contradictory. I am dispersed.' For R. D. Laing (1960, p. 47), the
predicament of the person lay not so much in diminution or diffusion as in
being voided of content. He talked of implosion, of 'the full terror of the
experience of the world as liable at any moment to crash in and obliterate
all identity, as a gas will rush in and obliterate a vacuum. The individual
feels that like the vacuum he is empty. But this emptiness is him.'
The ground was prepared for Levi-Strauss's (1966, p. 247) rallying cry,
The ultimate goal of the human sciences ... [is] ... not to constitute but to
dissolve man.' For Foucault (1970, p. 387), the achievement of that
objective was thought to be well within reach: 'Man is an invention of
recent date ... likely soon to be erased, like a face drawn in the sand at the
edge of the sea.' While the poet John Ashbery, even more optimistic, or
pessimistic depending on one's point of view, considered that the foretold
demise of the individual had, to all intents and purposes, arrived, 'Just
being a person does not work any more' (quoted in Murdoch, 1992,
p. 151).
And now, there is deconstruction. As Iris Murdoch (1992, p. 202) has
pointed out, Derrida joins with Wittgenstein and Heidegger in rejecting
the philosophical concept of the autonomous T; while structuralism and
Marxism, in her vivid phrase 'Hold hands under the table' in a shared
concern, through attacking the individual, not to explain the world but to
change it.
Derrida, in particular, challenges the 'metaphysics of presence' (see
for instance, Writing and Difference, 1978). Proceeding from Wittgenstein's and Saussure's argument that language depends upon, and
develops from, internally related groups of concepts, he proceeds to
propose that all language is a vastly complex multi-dimensional network
or system of signs, a structure of 'primal writing', 'archi-ecriture', which

A CURRICULAR CRISIS OF IDENTITIES 17

unavoidably transcends the parochial words of any individual. In fact,

language speaks the person, and humans do not have the capacity or
responsibility for generating meaning in any other than a trite or trivial
sense. Persons cannot validly articulate and interpret experience derived
from an inner, owned, flow of consciousness. And this holds equally true
for real life, whatever status that may now enjoy, and for fictional
existence.
Authority, and a sense of what is truly real, reside not with ordinary
persons, however imagined, but with the modern clerisy of critics. It is
only these latter day hierophants who have the gift of interpreting 'le jeu
des signifiants', of deconstructing the text, of finding real meaning in the
transcendent, or alternatively in the deep metaphysic of language.
For all theoretical and practical purposes the person is effectively
gutted by post-structuralism. In the universe as revealed by Derrida
virtually the only beings of worth are the critics, and it would be little short
of blasphemous to describe them as anything so earthbound, so mundane,
so relentlessly contingent, so troubled, and so ordinary as mere persons.

CHAPTER 4

Persons: being and becoming

Schools are hardly in a position where they can credibly deny or ignore the
thinking which considers a person as decentred. They find themselves in a
situation where such notions are not only influential, but where, in certain
instances, they may appear to evoke contemporary experience in
persuasive and convincing tones. Moreover, schools have to sustain their
existence within the cultural climate of the times. This is not a period in
which a few, selected, self-confident certainties about what it means to be
a person readily thrive.
Conversely, however, schools cannot make any substantial educational
use of notions which see persons as having minimal capacity for choice, or
as being disintegrated, or as finding themselves existentially overwhelmed
by the social or historic circumstances in which they find themselves. The
nature of such individuals is manifested not in coherence but in
dispersion, not in progress but in dissolution, not in responsibility but
in capriciousness. This is not an idea of humanity with which education
can readily work, nor one which it can realistically help to develop towards
a condition capable of inspiring respect.
So what should be the overall approach of schools?
Education, by virtue of its purposes and its procedures, is inescapably
committed to certain general propositions concerning the nature and
purpose of being human. Schools really have little choice but to accept:
first, that persons are able to improve in ways generally agreed to be
worthwhile; secondly, that different ideals of a person can emerge, and
that these have to be treated as potentially worthy of respect; thirdly, that
persons have, in however limited a way, some capacity and freedom to
chose what sort of person they wish to become; and finally, that the way
persons develop is open to influence. A school which failed to subscribe to
any of these postulates would be training, indoctrinating or child-minding
its students: it would not be educating them.
Certain consequences follow from the above.
First, schools have to teach now, as they predominantly have in the
past, within, and with reference to, the major Western traditions of
perceiving, understanding and interpreting persons. That is to say, they

PERSONS: BEING AND BECOMING

19

need to work in the context of an inheritance which sees persons as

conscious, inward, private, capable of exercising freedom and responsibility, and, if not necessarily situated at the fulcrum of their universes,
certainly significantly placed within them. This is an approach which is not
only consistent with the nature of education, but which, for many,
represents an idea of what it means to be human which continues both to
make sense and to command respect.
Secondly, with substantial reference to the received systems of thought,
schools need to have confident notions of what a person is; of what it is in
the being of persons which enables them, when young, and throughout life,
to develop and progress; and of what are the ideals of being a person which
education can, and should, help students to achieve.
Thirdly, schools need to provide students with an understanding of
those particular views of the human being as a unified subject which
should inform all teachings and activities to do with persons. Any failure to
help students consciously to experience and learn about this tradition
would be a failure in enabling them to understand the personal, social,
cultural and historical situation in which they find themselves.
However, teaching predominantly within, and about, the main Western
notions of what it means to be a person is not an alternative to providing
young people with the means to understand the full complexities of
modern views of a person, and of how they have reached their present
point; it is, rather, a necessary precondition to it. As schools become more
secure in reflecting in their activities concepts of a person as centred, so
they become better placed to provide students with a firmer base from
which, as they grow older, they can explore or at least try and come to
terms with, notions and feelings of decentredness. Ideas of decomposition
cannot properly be grasped in the absence of some prior knowledge of
what is composed.

The centred person

When we talk of the Western tradition of the person, what, in particular,
are we likely to have in mind? How can we best describe the more
significant characteristics of the centred person?
Each centred person, in its particularity, is itself the substantiation of a
universal, an instance of a given human nature. It is Tuomo singulare,
1'uomo unico, 1'uomo universale' of the thinkers of the Renaissance. As
Samuel Johnson put it, there is 'Such a uniformity in the life of man ...
that there is scarcely any possibility of good or ill, but is common to
humankind' (quoted in Dollimore, 1989, p. 73).
The centred person is a whole, or to put it more accurately, of her or his
nature has the capacity and desire to achieve wholeness.
The condition of being as an entity is fundamentally moral. A person
develops as a whole through a willed, sustained and continuing effort to
become at one with a particular founding and guiding principle, identified
most usually as the divine, the rational or, more generally, the good.
To be moral, persons must be capable of exercising choice. They will be
autonomous, or endowed with free will. It is within their power, indeed it

20

VISION OF A SCHOOL

is of their nature, to recognize and align themselves with the magnetic

poles of good or evil, and with different points in relation to those poles.
Through the quotidian decisions required in the life of each individual
humans create themselves as more or less moral beings.
Ethical thought and behaviour can only properly arise where persons
have the capacity, not merely to observe external phenomena, but to
evaluate and judge them in the light of an inner sense of reality. Hence, as
Iris Murdoch (1992, p. 294) has pointed out, 'The concept of the individual
as it has been developed... since Homer requires the idea of consciousness, inwardness, privacy, separate worlds.' Each centred person, in this
perspective, could be said to inhabit his or her own universe; or, at the
least, to have their own unique, perhaps even idiosyncratic, perspective on
a shared universe.
Ideas of difference and interiority were, in due course, to help fuel
exploration of the person as decentred. However, within the family of
concepts which nurture the notion of the centred person, perhaps their
main effect was to contribute to the generation of various sibling concepts
of the individual.
From the resulting debates and controversies arose those by now wellworn issues which have become the familiar landmarks of any serious
consideration of the nature of persons. Thus, for instance, it is asked, are
persons exclusively, or somehow in compound, material, spiritual,
rational? How far are they autonomous and self-creating, or to what
extent are they influenced by their environment, whether social or
physical? Are they fundamentally flawed, even intrinsically evil, or are they
naturally good? Are they basically driven by altruism, or by self-interest, or
to differing degrees by both?
We can, if we so wish, trace the evolution of such thinking through
every significant period of Western thought; from the classical era of
Aristotle and Plato, through the early Christian and medieval writing of
Augustine and Aquinas, to the Enlightenment works of Hobbes, of
Descartes and Kant, and of Locke and Rousseau.
Finally, we can follow the apotheosis of the individual through its high
noon of nineteenth-century romanticism and bourgeois triumphalism to
the dark uncertainties of the twentieth century. In the latter, we can
identify the destructive tensions between the Nietzschean Ubermensch,
and Vaclav Havel's (1989, p. 57) reincarnated liberal individual, with its
'Human predisposition to truth' which, even in totalitarian regimes lies
ready to break through 'the orderly surface of lies'; and between the
existentialist hero of Sartre (1948, p. 29) who 'is responsible for what he
is', and who not only 'chooses himself, but in so doing 'chooses for all',
and the Kafkaesque victim of labyrinthine and malign bureaucracy.

What a person is
So centred persons can not only be understood as having certain general,
shared characteristics. They can also be seen as displaying various
differences. And these differences can matter. They have the power to
confer contrasting identities and senses of personal meaning. They can

PERSONS: BEING AND BECOMING

21

evoke commitment. And they are more than capable of provoking

controversy.
All this poses challenges for schools. When they consider what it means
to respect persons, is any understanding they may have of what centred
persons have in common sufficiently specific to be educationally useful?
On the other hand, do any differing views of what it means to be a centred
person have sufficient mutual consistency to provide an educationally
viable set of ideals, or models?
We therefore have to ask very specifically, looking for detailed answers:
should one respect all persons? Every One? The centred, whatever the
particular identity? Even, perhaps, the disintegrated?
Presumably one would respect, in the fullest sense of the word, a
Nelson Mandela or a Mother Teresa. On the other hand, one might pity a
disorientated, empty person, a Lee Harvey Oswald; or one might fear
someone who gained their identity through a greater whole, a totalitarian
state, for example, an Eichmann. But respect?
A genuine respect for others is, of course, only likely to develop where
there is a securely grounded belief that such respect is deserved.
Equally evidently, lack of respect can come from rebellious, alienated or
anarchic attitudes. However, a failure to feel or show respect can also be
symptomatic of a real uncertainty about what should be worthy of respect
in people.
There are two aspects of the concept of a person which, like the chains
in a double helix, are mutually linked. The first of these is concerned with
what all persons, of necessity, are; what has been called a status concept
(Thatcher, 1990, p. 123).
The second is to do with what persons are capable of becoming, in different
ways, for better or worse. This latter notion has threaded into it an idea of the
ideal; it is not, however, identical with it since persons can develop along lines
which are not always or universally agreed to be desirable.
Respect for status, for what all persons intrinsically and inescapably are,
should be absolutely unconditional. This applies equally to persons
whether on their own or as members of groups.
However, respect for what persons intend to become, are becoming, or
have become, is not usually, and should not be, unconditional. Whether
respect is given or withheld should be influenced by a view about how a
person is developing; and about what sort of person an individual seems to
be, seems to wish to be, or seems likely to become.
I consider the status and the becoming of persons in this chapter. In the
next chapter, I discuss ideals, and particularly educational ideals, of a
person. Throughout I refer predominantly, but not exclusively, to the
traditions of thought concerned with notions of the centred person.
What, then, can be said to constitute the status of a person? For a start,
it makes sense to follow the Oxford English Dictionary definition, itself
supported by ordinary usage, which understands a person to be an
'individual human being, man, woman or child'.
The concept of person includes the ideas of 'self and of 'other'. It is, in
normal usage, quite acceptable to refer to oneself and to others as
persons. Persons have subjectivity and objectivity.

22

VISION OF A SCHOOL

The task of seeking to establish what a person is can, accordingly, be

approached by following two initially distinct but ultimately converging
paths. First, through personal reflection upon one's own nature. Secondly,
through observation of the characteristics of others.
The importance of self-knowledge has long been emphasized. 'Know
thyself,' commanded Socrates, in Plato's Timaeus. Some, however, have
expressed reservations. Chekhov (1964, pp. 100-1) was one of many who,
while accepting the importance of the axiom in principle, wondered how
easy it was to put into practice: 'Know thyself is excellent and useful
advice; the pity is the ancients did not think it necessary to show us the
way to avail ourselves of this advice.'
Today if we wish to look inwards we may well consider ourselves to be
better placed than Chekhov was. After all, are we not armed, even
enlightened, by the insights and findings of modern psychology?
For contemporary sensibility, it is perhaps especially through exploration of our own subjectivity, and through encountering reports of the
subjective histories of others, that we become most acutely aware of what
it essentially means to be a person. More particularly, it is within the
psyche of the individual self that we may look to see defined and played out
in its fullest actuality the drama of the present-day person. It is here, above
all, that we can find the conflict between multiplicity and unity, dispersion
and integrity.
And, as one contemplates what the future might bring, it is through
considering the struggles of the subjective individual that one may
perceive a perspective of optimism. As persons seek to survive and make
sense of experience, it appears that there are those who can not only
identify what is happening, but who can begin to synthesize and integrate,
to relate plurality within schemas of wholeness.
'Which self?' asked Katherine Mansfield (1977, p. 205) in her journal,
'Which of my many - well, really. That's what it looks like coming to hundreds of selves?' But, she did not accept legion as inevitable. 'There
are signs,' she wrote, 'that we are intent as never before on trying to
puzzle out, to live by, this own particular self ... our persistent yet
mysterious belief in a self which is continuous and permanent.'
Under other stresses, in very different conditions, Brian Keenan, as a
hostage, found himself having to explore, through traversing his own
spiritual terrain, his understanding of what a person essentially is. He
found how difficult, even fearful, it can be to travel the way of selfknowledge. 'How little a person knows what is in himself. To see all the
fissures and cracks, to throw light into the dark cavities, to see the
landscape of a mind and recognize no part of it but know that it is yours is
a fearful and disturbing thing,' (1993, pp. 80-1).
He came upon other selves pursuing their own existences within the
contours of what he believed to be 'myself. 'During my captivity I . . . was
forced to confront the man I thought I was and to discover that I was many
people.' These other people were, doubtless, potentially psychologically
disruptive. However, for Brian Keenan, that preeminent element of his
personality which he identified as 'myself proved to have both the desire
and the capacity to integrate the other selves within an harmonious whole.

PERSONS: BEING AND BECOMING

23

'I had to befriend these many people, discover their origins, introduce
them to each other and find a communality between themselves and
myself/ (p. xv).
Above all, however, during the course of their prolonged crisis, it
became apparent, not only to Brian Keenan, but also to his fellow
hostages, that the critical characteristic of being a person was the attribute
which enabled one to be open to, aware of, the experience of transcendent
otherness, the Good. It was this which was crucial to being and to
surviving as a person. There was a sense of self greater than me alone,
which came and filled me in the darkest hours (p. 204) ... In searching
through the complex panorama of our past one thing emerged again and
again: our relationship to and understanding of love underlay everything
else' (p. 271).
If we turn from looking at personhood through self to considering it
through observation of, and reflection about, others, we may well find that
there is a gain in clarity of definition. But, arguably, this is obtained at the
expense of depth of insight.
Given that persons are by definition human beings it is evident that
creatures other than humans cannot be counted as persons. There have
been various attempts, for instance in a collection of essays by Richard
Dawkins and others, The Great Ape Project (Singer and Cavaliaeri, 1994),
to extend the definition of persons to include all the major primates. Such
proposals have been put forward partly on grounds of genetic similarity,
but mainly as a way of trying to ensure that the rights of persons can be
claimed on behalf of, for instance, chimpanzees and gorillas, so providing
for them some sort of ethically grounded defence against neglect or illtreatment.
Views of this sort have considerable moral, if perhaps less compelling
logical or scientific, strength. However, while they do not convincingly
demonstrate that the meaning of the term 'person' should be stretched
ever wider, they do properly remind us of two important matters. Namely,
first, that members of other species do, as Mary Midgley (1995) has
demonstrated convincingly and in detail, share many characteristics with
human beings. And, secondly, that any discussion of respect for persons
should not, in whatever sense, be taken to imply lack of respect for other
forms of life, or indeed for the physical environment. It can be
persuasively argued that these deserve consideration fully as much as
persons. It is just that the rationale for such respect rests on arguments
different from, albeit related to, those which justify respect for persons.
On the other hand, no human can be excluded, on any grounds, from the
status of person. It has been suggested, for example by Glenn Langford
(1978), that one can distinguish between being a human being and being a
person. As Richard Pring (1984, p. 13) has pointed out, while this 'on the
surface appears to be simply wrong', it can in fact be interpreted as
highlighting some 'important conceptual truths', for instance that a foetus
may be regarded by some as not yet a person. Nevertheless, all attempts
to identify humans and persons separately ultimately fail to counter the
view that any identification of such a difference is liable to give
unjustifiable authority to the treatment by some humans of others as

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VISION OF A SCHOOL

morally inferior. If we can look on any other individuals or groups as nonpersons, then we may feel we can legitimately regard them as subhuman,
and treat them accordingly. It is therefore, as Ralph Ruddock (1972, p.
203) has put it, 'in all cases... ethically imperative that a recognisably
human individual should be accorded the status of a person'.
It follows that personhood cannot, in any sense, be racially exclusive. In
the realm of persons there can be no subtle discrimination, and certainly
no apartheid.
All persons have life, and consciousness is an essential attribute of
being a person. Such a state may be more or less clear and focused, it may
be heightened or dulled, it may be dispersed or intermittent The nature of
consciousness remains fully as much a matter for debate and research now
as when John Locke (1947, p. 26) asserted that the mind is 'white paper,
void of all characters, without any ideas'. Nevertheless, persons as such
have forms of consciousness which inanimate entities, clouds and rocks,
for instance, do not.
No one, however, can be declared a non-person on grounds of lack of
rationality or intelligence. The educationally severely sub-normal, the
senile, the chess champion, the crossword expert and the professor, they
are equally persons.
Of course, this is not to deny that the faculty of reason is not a vital, and
in its ability to speculate in abstract terms, an exclusive, human attribute.
How one views its role is open to debate, and is closely related to any ideal
one may hold of persons. Thus, a variety of functions may be assigned to
reason, in relation to the will, to instincts, to drives, to motives, to
emotions, and, more generally, to the whole complex structure of the
human personality. Reason may be viewed as integrative; as identifying
priorities among internal desires, and choices between external possibilities; as a slave, or ruler, of the passions; as informing the will, or as
marginal, even irrelevant to the workings of the will; etc., etc. One pays
one's money, and makes one's choice between the solutions on offer from
various schools of philosophical and psychological thought. The crucial
point, however, and the one which must not be obscured by the
complexities and niceties of the debate over the nature and function of
reason, is that rationality, while a necessary attribute of persons in
general, is not a defining characteristic of persons individually.
As humans, persons are embodied. Scientifically, humans have a
chemical and biological basis. Their nature is encoded in their genes and
DNA. 'Chemistry is us!' as a Guardian correspondent put it (14 September
1993). However, it does not follow that one has to accept a reductionist
approach to the human as organic machinery. The material nature of
humans is no more, and no less, than one necessary criterion of being as a
person. Philosophically, it has been argued by Strawson (1959, pp. 101-2)
that a person is a type of entity such that predicates ascribing corporeal
characteristics are applicable to a single individual of that type (equally
with predicates ascribing states of consciousness).
More ambitiously, the body may, as Peter Brooks (1993) has suggested,
citing Rousseau's Confessions as the seminal work, be seen as a prime
determinant of life's meanings, and intertwined with the new notion of

PERSONS: BEING AND BECOMING

25

personal identity. It may even nowadays be placed, as Michel Foucault (for

instance in 'Nietzsche, genealogy, history', 1977) has argued it should be,
at the centre of all our concerns as the fundamental material of experience
upon which are constructed the various structures and norms of Western
society.
However, the influence of our inherited culture has tended to distort,
minimize or relegate (for example through the mind/body dualism
endemic in Western philosophy) issues to do with the significance of
the body. This has perhaps been particularly true of the sorts of questions
which deal with gender and sexuality. Persons are female or male; are
sexual creatures; have at one time or another erotic energies and
appetites, libidinous impulses and orientations. Despite the detailed
analysis and exploration of such matters in recent years, it can still be
true, not least in education, that discussion of personhood is carried out as
if all persons were male, or as if sexuality was, at best, a peripheral issue.
Any such approaches devalue the status of persons.
Persons exist in a social environment.
The social environment generates culture. In particular, it generates
the ability of persons to create, share and reflect upon knowledge and
values across groups and over generations.
Persons have access to complex systems of non-verbal and verbal
communication. It is, above all, through the use of networks of symbols,
signs and abstract and concrete terms that persons sustain and develop
society and culture. It is through their vocabulary that persons explore,
discover, make sense of and construct their scientific, mathematical,
aesthetic, moral, religious and spiritual universes.
From time to time persons may withdraw, for longer or shorter periods,
voluntarily or otherwise, from society. However, in even the most extreme
cases, individuals will, even if only in infancy, have lived with, depended on
and interacted with other humans.
The social nature of persons, of their environment, and of how these all
relate to each other, is interpreted according to various traditions. These
not only differ, but may be mutually antagonistic. Nevertheless, what they
have in common is an acceptance, ranging from the reluctant to the
enthusiastic, that persons are social creatures insofar as, at the least, they
are directly or indirectly dependent upon the society of others for
individual and collective survival.
The interpretation of what a person is which is perhaps least likely to
accept any necessary social component is what David Marquand (1988, p.
214) has identified as a 'reductionist model of human nature'. This he sees
as influenced by The reductionist materialism of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries - that just as the world is made of solid lumps of
matter, so is society made up of sovereign, atomic individuals.'
In such a view, which to some degree underpins a capitalist, laissez-faire
interpretation of society, humans are the first premise and any social
organization is derivative. The humans in question may, as in Hobbes's
eyes (1946, p. 81), be competitive, fearful and dangerously quick to take
offence; or, as in Locke's eyes, rational, capable of cooperation and,
possibly, also capable of altruism. Nevertheless, even for reductionists,

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VISION OF A SCHOOL

humans, whatever they themselves or others might like them to be, cannot
of their nature be entirely solitary creatures. For the isolate is threatened,
or diminished, cannot prosper and ultimately is extinguished.
The most significant alternative tradition is inclined to see persons
more as social beings, less as lone riders; that is to say, as individuals who
acquire identity and value primarily as contributing and dependent
members of communities. This view, for Western culture, originates with
Aristotle (1905, p. 29) who considered that 'he who is unable to live in
society, or who has no need to because he is sufficient to himself, must be
either a beast or a God'. Rousseau shifted the emphasis towards the
significance of society as an entity, believing that 'We begin properly to
become men only after we have become citizens.'
Modern enquiries into the social nature of persons, while conducted in
the language of various disciplines, come to similar conclusions. Ethology,
the science of animal behaviour, sees humans not as solitary beasts, but
rather as creatures who, of their nature, need to live in complex and
differentiated social organizations, and who, as such, have only been able
to develop their unique capacities through membership of larger and
smaller groups. 'If it were not for a rich endowment of social instincts,
man could never have risen above the animal world', wrote Konrad Lorenz
(1966, p. 246). While Mary Midgley (1995, p. 130), discussing the human
species, has concluded that 'insofar as there is one "compelling force", it
is sociability'.
More particularly, social anthropology and social psychology have,
between them, contributed to, in Raymond Williams' words (1965, p. 98),
'an enormous strengthening of the tradition which emphasized the extent
to which individual personality is formed by social processes'. The result
of this is perhaps best summarized in the words of David Hargreaves
(1975, p. 5): 'A person's self develops in relation to the reactions of other
people to that person and ... he tends to react to himself as he perceives
other people reacting to him. The self system is not merely a function of a
person's manipulation of the environment, but a function of the way a
person is treated by others. The self is a social product.'
This sort of thinking raises a crucial, if familiar, question, and one not
seriously at issue in the reductionist tradition of the person as individual
atom. How far can persons, if they are seen to be integrally involved in
social processes, be said to be autonomous or independent beings?
Raymond Williams, for one (1965, p. 117) saw 'danger in certain trends in
the new sociology which isolate the group, the society or the culture as an
absolute point of reference'. His own, surely convincing, conclusion was
that the autonomous self should be seen as growing within a social process
which radically influences it, but which nevertheless gains a degree of
autonomy that 'makes possible the observed next stage, in which the
individual can help to change or modify the social process that has
influenced and is influencing him' (pp. 100-1).
There is a third, less familiar, approach. While this equally takes for
granted the reality of a necessary social dimension to the experience of the
person, it attempts dialectically to synthesize the two contrasting
traditions of the individual as a self-contained entity within society, and

PERSONS: BEING AND BECOMING

27

the individual as participant member of community, or even as an

integrated unit of a greater whole. For Martin Buber (1961, p. 244), 'The
fundamental fact of human existence is neither the individual as such nor
the aggregate as such... what is peculiarly characteristic of the human
world is above all that something takes place between one being and
another the like of which can be found nowhere in nature.' Buber
describes this 'something' as 'the reality of the mutual relation between
man and man' (p. 15).
Persons are complex and protean. They metamorphose, physically,
socially, psychologically. In different times and places they appear in
various forms, roles and guises. As the attacks on the centred person have
argued, these characteristics may be both cause and effect of confusion
and destabilization. Either way, they can contribute to the undermining of
whatever unifying force, principle or psychological function may be
present in the self.
On the other hand, the possibility of achieving human authenticity
arises from this same capacity to change appearance and identity. The
Renaissance humanist, Pico della Mirandola, in his 'Oration: on the
Dignity of Man', has the Creator tell Adam that he has been deliberately
made without fixed identity, 'neither of heaven, nor of earth, neither
mortal nor immortal' (Cassirer et al., 1948, p. 225). An amorphous
condition allows the possibility of persons exercising free will, and of
choosing the sort of persons they wish to become. To be able to create a
particular identity, working with the material of one's original nature, is a
necessary aspect of what it means to be human. It gives to the individual
responsibility for what she or he is to become, for better or for worse.
The person as narrator in a quest
So we have had a preliminary look at some of the main traditions of
thought with reference to which persons can be located. We have a view of
what all persons necessarily are. And we recognize that we require a
notion of the ideals of being a person towards which an individual might
strive.
The next major step, therefore, is to consider the ideals of a person.
However, there is another question which must be addressed first.
What sort of a person does one need to be to be able to progress from
actual 'is' to desired 'ought'?
In one sense, such a question has always been at the heart of moral and
religious concern about the good life.
However, any problems to do with the pilgrimage involved in becoming
a worthwhile sort of person were conventionally seen as arising from
weaknesses inherent in personal psychology, rather than from any ambiguities or complexities to do with ideals of a person.
In traditional perceptions of Western thinking it was mostly accepted
that, while there might be a range of ideals of personhood, ultimately these
could usually be interpreted as, if not necessarily entirely consistent one
with another, at least sharing a common core of being. Above all, the
person was seen as incorporating an essential self. It was this, effectively,

28

VISION OF A SCHOOL

which enabled all individuals, whatever the nature of the self to which they
aspired, or which they were, to cohere, to achieve oneness. In these
circumstances, it was generally taken for granted that, by exercising
various spiritual, intellectual or physical disciplines, a person could, if
typically only after great struggle and often at the cost of considerable
suffering, make progress from what he or she was towards ends which
were readily identifiable, and were mostly, if not always, believed by
society to be desirable. The question of whether one needed to be a
particular sort of person to be able to develop scarcely arose. One did, or
at least accepted that one should try to do, one's utmost to control,
educate and perfect one's given being.
Now, however, the situation is different. Today persons are presented
with a plurality of ideals; and these, whatever they may be, are liable to be
perceived as fundamentally different from each other. For we have moved
from an era which preferred to emphasize commonality to one which
would rather highlight, and make a virtue of, difference.
So the question inevitably arises. If persons can have contrasting,
possibly mutually incompatible ends; if persons are internally diverse,
possibly to the point where they are in danger of ceasing to cohere; if
these things are so, then how may persons be interpreted as whole
individuals with the capacity to progress towards a desired, and morally
justifiable, condition of human being?
One idea which meets this requirement is that of the person as a
narrator in quest. The attention given to the particular aspects implicit in
this notion can vary. Thus, Alasdair Maclntyre (1985) emphasizes the
unity of the person. Ricoeur (1988) and Rorty (1991) seem perhaps more
concerned with ambiguity. Wilna Meijer (1995) focuses, rather, on
expectations and their relationship to experience. Nevertheless, all share
a concern to assert the possibility of the progress of persons as actually or
potentially coherent beings towards particular identified ends.
So what might be the distinguishing features of the person as narrator
in quest?
Being in quest requires, fundamentally, that individuals seek to develop
as, and into, particular sorts of worthwhile person.
However, individuals may not, as yet, be sure what their ideal is or
should be. This may be because they are still in the process of trying to
discover it; or because, while involved in the activity of discovering, they
have not been able to decide between various ideals which they can
envisage, all of which appear to have value in some sense or other.
In order to distinguish and to follow an ideal which seems to them
worthwhile, persons need various skills and qualities. They must have
intentions; be able to discriminate between differing intentions, the long
and the short term; and have the capacity to put the intentions in an order
of priority. Having decided upon their first priority, their ideal, they must
intellectually be capable of choosing, and emotionally capable of
committing themselves to striving to become, a particular sort of person.
And they must have the will and tenacity to enable them effectively to
pursue their goal.
A person in quest is on a journey. With any luck, there will be times

PERSONS: BEING AND BECOMING

29

when direction is clear, and progress smooth. But, as tends to happen all
too frequently with any journey, there may also be misleading directions,
wrong turnings, dead-ends and confusion. The problem is, how can a
person in quest, potentially destabilized, or actually dispersed, by erratic
internal and external happenings, build a reliable sense of identity? For, if
self is in a state of inner disunity, then pursuit of a purpose of being can
become virtually impossible.
To some extent, the very identification of an ideal gives meaning to the
individual. Indeed, it can be that which predominantly provides a sense of
authenticity. I can become integrated, gain integrity, by virtue of a vision
of the worthwhile person I am aiming to become, or aiming to become
more fully.
But this, in itself, is not sufficient. For it does not really provide me with
the wherewithal to identify, analyse, cope with the challenges, crises,
metamorphoses, which threaten the achievement of my ideal. And if I am
still struggling to discover my goal then, self-evidently, a notion of my ideal
cannot help me to secure a belief in the reality of what I am, because I am
as yet possessed of little more than the inklings of any such vision, if that.
It is now that the idea of a narrator becomes helpful.
Persons as narrators tell the story of their own lives. But persons are
not only observers of the relevant events. They are also the subjects. Each
is the central character in the unfolding drama. And the dominant theme of
the action is quest, the actor as being in quest.
As a narrator, the attribute of which I am in greatest need is the ability
to reflect upon happenings. As in a modern novel, I may interpret the
developing saga from different perspectives. I may take account of the
views of others. I may come to accept that facts are, as a rule, contingent;
the present ambiguous; the past a shifting landscape whose features may
appear to change as I move on, and as I come to understand more, or
remember less. I may not only interpret, but I may well reinterpret both
the marginal detail of my life and, perhaps in moments of personal crisis,
those beliefs about my existence which I have previously taken for
granted, or at the profoundest level, accepted as true.
Nevertheless, it is through a sustained and continuing ability to create
for myself a realistic, viable, responsive network of meanings that I can
keep in play a notion of a person whose experience and self-image cohere
as a unity. This unity will be multi-faceted; it will evolve; it will reflect and
refract numerous passing phenomena. But, ultimately, it can cohere. And
if it fails to cohere, then the person will be at risk of ceasing to quest, of
disintegrating, of breaking down.
The making of a viable self, through the act of quest and the creativity of
the narrator, is a drama which occurs in what Alasdair Maclntyre calls
'settings'. Persons do not arrive on an empty stage, devoid of scenery. Far
from it. While they have their own starting points, they join an eddying
flow of people, events, surroundings. They inherit histories; present
environments of family, community, nation; and shared aspirations. They
are on set with others, each of whom is narrating a story in which she or
he plays a focal part.
Persons are constrained by conditions, over time and simultaneously, to

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VISION OF A SCHOOL

play a variety of roles. Roles are not, of course, identical with persons.
Indeed, where identification occurs, the integrity of the person is at risk.
What roles do is to remind us that the actor has to function in relation to
others, and the narrator to interpret a world where persons cannot but
operate, amongst other things, as social beings.
Each person, in fact, is at once limited and enabled in their
opportunities for development by a kaleidoscope of given and potential
contingencies. Whether as narrator or actor a person needs the ability to
make sense of, and to make a safe way through, the given circumstances of
his or her existence. If these are dismissed, or misunderstood, or
neglected, then the survival of self is in danger. Thus, as well as the everpresent threat of inner dissolution, as when an individual fails to find order
in the lived existence, there arises external danger: the menace of
annihilation through collision: the arrogant or ignorant person splintering
against the rocks of external reality: and, always, the possibility of
becoming the victim of random, chance occurrences.
The narrator in quest is searching for the good, and thus for a
sustainable version of personal truth. He or she is intent on becoming a
true person. In consequence, the chronicle which unfolds must essentially
be enacted and interpreted as a moral history. The central person must be
a person who is responsible for his or her actions; who is ready to be
answerable to others; and who can give an intelligible account of, and
justify, what has been done, is being done, or is being planned to be done.
Such a person cannot be an isolate, but will have the will and the ability to
contribute to the dialogues, spoken and unspoken, intimate and public, of
what Michael Oakeshott has called 'the conversations of mankind'. In the
last resort, the person as narrator continuously elucidates a moral purpose
and a coherent being, and in the light of that developing understanding,
the person as actor makes a sane progress through the contingencies of
existence to the desired ideal of self.

CHAPTER 5

Education's ideals of a person

So education is concerned with encouraging respect for persons, self and

other. And schools cannot hope to do this effectively unless they are clear
about the ideas of a person which they value.
We have now reached the point where we can attempt to answer the
question: what are, and should be, those valued ideas? Or, to put it another
way, what are the models or ends of a person which education should
consider worthy of respect?
The ideals of a person which a school can justifiably hold are, as already
argued, in certain respects predicated by the nature of education. In
practical terms, they are also generally limited to such inherited and
current notions of a person as a society may approve: education is not in
the business of promoting values significantly at odds with or detached
from the community it serves. Only marginally, if at all, are schools in a
position to make any unilateral declarations of independence over models
of persons.
However, there is a range of such models. They vary from those which
were once almost universally revered to those which are respected by
some but by no means all of the individuals and groups who together
constitute our pluralist society. Of the latter, it is prehaps the ideals of the
principal religions represented in Great Britain which evoke the most
powerful sentiments. The extent to which any of these ideals will influence
a particular school will depend on the leadership of the school, and on the
views of the communities it serves.
There is room for argument over what are the key, culturally inherited
ideals of a person which influence schools. I would propose that they are
the Christian, the classical, the rational and the humanist. Schools are
also, increasingly, likely to be influenced by current notions of what it
means to be an economic person. Finally, I would also suggest that schools
have a working model of what persons ought to be. This draws upon
inherited ideals, but is predominantly influenced by contemporary
thinking.

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VISION OF A SCHOOL

The Christian person

Schools in the United Kingdom have traditionally been dominated by the
Christian and the classical ideals of a person.
The Christian ideal is refracted through debate, and controversy, over
questions about the nature of God, Jesus Christ, and human beings as
persons. Nevertheless, the Christian idea of what a human being should
be, as a person, continues to retain power and meaning for many in British
society, and not only for active members of the Christian churches.
Much of Western Christianity sees the whole person as an 'anima
naturaliter religiosa'. One feature of this view, given more or less
emphasis according to doctrinal position, is of persons as capable of illdoing; not simply on account of their circumstances, although these may
indeed play a part, but on account of the sort of beings persons necessarily
are.
For St Augustine the whole of humanity was a 'massa peccati', a mass of
sin, its flesh weak, its reason fallible, its will perverted. A similar message
was subsequently developed by others. John Donne (1955, p. 202, lines
193-4), for example, Anglican Dean of St Paul's as well as metaphysical
poet, wrote in The anatomy of the world: The first anniversary':
For, before God had made up all the rest,
Corruption entered, and depraved the best.
John Calvin (1949, Institutes II, 3, 5), with the insight of a modern
psychologist, noted that people not only had an ineradicable tendency to
do wrong, but in fact often chose to do so and got pleasure from it: 'Man
sins ... by liking and strong inclination.'
In recent times, on both historic and domestic scales, events and
behaviour continue to occur for which the Christian belief in the fallen
nature of humans provides, at the least, a plausible explanation. William
Golding, himself a Christian, whose ideas were radically influenced by his
experience of war and by the Holocaust, came to the conclusion (as quoted
in the Guardian, 21 March 1993) that: 'Human beings do have a strand or element if you like - of real malignancy. I think we ignore it at our
absolute peril.' And those closely concerned with certain crimes of murder
can be heard struggling, with the deepest reluctance, towards similar
views. Following the conviction of two men and two women, all younger
than 30, for burning to death a girl of 16, having held her captive for a
week and tortured her, a detective inspector said: 'Psychological reports
say that these are absolutely sane individuals. It's frightening that they are
such ordinary people. There is nothing special about any of them'
(Guardian, 18 December 1993).
Unqualified pessimism about human nature is ultimately nihilistic. For
Christians, however, it is counterbalanced, indeed in the last resort
outweighed, by what are seen as greater truths. While the orthodox view of
a person is constantly being reintepreted, the characteristic lineaments
are clear enough. 'We are,' as Cardinal Basil Hume (1991, p. 4) has
expressed it, 'made in the image and likeness of God and are created
ultimately so that we might share the life and love of God for eternity. We

EDUCATION'S IDEALS OF A PERSON

33

are a unique whole, a physical reality which is also an immortal spirit.'

Thus, identity is created, in accordance with divine will and law. 'Man is
man,' said T. S. Eliot (1951, p. 485), 'because he can recognize supernatural realities, not because he can invent them.'
Furthermore, the person is an amalgam of the material and the
immaterial. A human being is referred to by Thomas Browne (1977, p.
103) in his essay 'Religio medici', as 'that amphibious piece between a
corporeal and spiritual essence', who has to live 'in divided and
distinguished worlds'. Kierkegaard makes a similar point when he talks
of the human that holds together the infinite and the finite.
The distinction between soul and body has at times been identified, or
confused with, that between good and evil. It is notorious that this can
lead to the expression of fear, anxiety, hostility towards the body. It also,
and with potentially equally disastrous results, may result in refusal to
accept that spirituality may have its dark side. While this can be a
contentious issue, it is at the very least arguable that malevolence may
have spiritual, as well as emotional or physical, sources (see, for
instance, Hans Kung, 1978, p. 369, on the Christian New Testament
belief in evil spirits).
Much of modern theology is concerned to suggest notions of a person
which, while not necessarily denying traditional or orthodox views, can
transcend them in such a way as to indicate solutions to some of the
dilemmas which they may raise. Thus, it is argued that a person is a unity
'logically and objectively prior' to distinguishable elements of matter and
spirit (Rahner, 1966, pp. 161-2). This proposition, while succeeding in
keeping body and soul distinct, at the same time, through synthesizing
them in the concept of a person, makes it more likely that they will be seen
as having a necessary mutual relationship, rather than one of potentially
endless conflict.
To the modern mind the idea of a person as, in the last resort, an effect
of God is one which, at the least, can raise difficulties. This orthodox view,
even allowing for the doctrine of free will, may appear to limit the
independence of the individual, and so appear to deny a certain dignity to
persons.
And there are, of course, all those doubts raised in popular and
theological debate concerning 'the death of God'. Don Cupitt (1980, p.
164), for instance, suggests that mankind is emerging from its
mythological childhood. As it does so, the self appears more like a selfdefining relation, freeing itself of the myth of the divine as essential
reality. 'We should not suppose God to be a substance and independently
existing being. No external object can bring about my spiritual liberation
... Only I can free myself. So the religious imperative that commands me
to become spirit must be regarded as an autonomously authoritative
principle that I impose upon myself.' Such an approach has inevitably
provoked serious anxieties about where this leaves the idea of an
omnipotent divine presence. Nevertheless, it does illustrate one possible
way of constructing a religious concept of a person which takes account of
contemporary concerns.
Ultimately, in religious terms, 'a fully achieved ... spiritual subject'

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VISION OF A SCHOOL

must be a person who has a transcendental purpose, and who is so

developing that such an aim may be increasingly realized. What then is, to
a Christian, the meaning of fulfilment for a person? The first answer which
can be offered is that sanctification, a growth in holiness, is what we are
about. Such a view can be supported by Bonhoeffer's statement that: The
Christian goal is ... pure and simple ... to be as Jesus was.' The second, in
St Augustine's words (De Trinitate, I, 17), is that: The contemplation of
God is promised us as being the goal of all our actions and the everlasting
perfection of all our joys'; or, as St Thomas Aquinas (1939, p. 172) put it
more briefly: 'Man's ultimate happiness lies in a supernatural vision of
God.'
It is the nature of Christian personal, spiritual and religious experience
which often fascinates. It intrigues, at least in part, because of the
paradoxes it seems to suggest. It does not, for instance, appear to be
exclusive, but it seems to involve forms of perception and enlightenment
reported by followers of other faiths and traditions: there seems to be, in
Aldous Huxley's phrase, a 'perennial philosophy'.
Further, in what could be interpreted almost as a contradiction in
terms, it is reported that spiritual fulfilment as a person may be
accompanied by an obliviousness of self. For Eckhart there is the 'empty
soul', for Simone Weil the 'decreated person', and for Pascal (1966, p.
309), 'the world forgotten, and everything except God'.
Spiritual experience may be reflected in a certain personal maturity and
integrity. This comes about, according to John MacQuarrie, because as
persons go out from or beyond themselves, the spiritual dimension of their
lives is deepened, they become more truly themselves, and they grow in
likeness to God, who is Spirit. MacQuarrie (1972, p. 45) also goes on to
suggest that where, on the other hand, a person increasingly 'turns inward
and encloses himself in self-interest, the less human does he become. This
is the strange paradox of spiritual being - that precisely by going out and
spending itself, it realizes itself.'
The classical person
The person was, for the Greeks, an object of the greatest fascination. In
Antigone, Sophocles wrote (1947, p. 135):
Wonders are many on earth, and the greatest of these is man.
As in their natural landscape, the Greeks saw themselves illuminated
with great clarity. This was no Northern European scene, with its changing
shades and chiaroscuro, no Shakespearean universe where one might
observe psychological humours and subtleties. Here dominant traits stood
out in sharp relief, with clear-cut and dramatic contrasts between light and
dark.
Greeks portrayed themselves as cunning and self-interested; as
courageous, aggressive and ruthless; as highly intelligent and endlessly
talkative; as curious and observant; as proud; and as dangerously
susceptible to overconfidence. These were people who, given the choice,
would combine jaw-jaw with war-war, emerge as victors, and then go home

EDUCATION'S IDEALS OF A PERSON

35

and write it all up in the most factual, detailed and objective style they
could manage.
The Greeks lived in a world which, they believed, was overseen and
visited by Gods. These beings were, for the most part, amoral, self-centred
and unscrupulous. Not infrequently they might interfere in the mortal
scene, simply for fun, or in pursuit of their own interests. Occasionally the
results were beneficial, but more often than not they caused trouble.
These Gods, however, did not really dominate the proceedings. Rather,
they personified the unpredictability and callousness of fate. They also
displayed, in vivid colours, some of the more dramatic characteristics of
the Greeks themselves. Greeks had created a universe which, in its
essentials, was anthropomorphic; and in which, whatever the difficulties,
persons were free agents.
The Greek ideal of a person was essentially masculine, and reflected a
society in which males dominated. It is true that women (albeit acted by
men) were given parts of great power in Greek drama. And female Gods
were very far from being mere bystanders. Nevertheless, particularly in
Athens, women were socially and legally underprivileged. While modern
research has modified this picture, it has not altered it in any really
significant respects.
Not only were women relegated to hearth and home, where like
Socrates' wife they were no doubt often unhappy, but they appear to have
played little more than a reproductive part in the relationships between
the sexes. In the odes of Pindar, in the dialogues of Plato, it is love
between men rather than between men and women which is considered
the more natural and the more noble. Here was an environment where,
according to Kenneth Clark (1956, pp. 65-6), it was the male rather than
the female nude which was regarded as 'a more normal and appealing
subject'. This was perhaps only to be expected, given that women went
about covered from head to toe while men, divesting themselves of the
short cloaks they usually wore, would strip naked for sport.
It was, however, the power, and in particular the destructive power, of
the emotions which perhaps most fascinated the Greeks when they
observed and tried to make sense of human personality. And here, at least,
there was full sexual equality. Women and men alike could be the victims
of passions which ran out of control, bringing harm or annihilation to
themselves, and to those with whom they came into contact.
Whether one turns to drama, to philosophy or to history this theme
repeats itself. Euripides shows Medea, betrayed by her husband Jason,
murdering, in addition to Jason's new wife and children, her own
children. This last happening was invented by Euripides, who altered the
original myth so as to show the utter and self-defeating devastation which
unleashed passion was capable of causing. In The Republic Plato (1955,
p. 345) remarks that: 'Even in the most respectable of us there is a
terribly bestial and immoral type of desire'; while Thucydides (1972, p.
245), reflecting on the effects of war, reveals a similarly bleak outlook:
'With the ordinary conventions of civilized life thrown into confusion,
human nature, always ready to offend even when laws exist, showed itself
proudly in its true colours, as something incapable of controlling passion,

36 VISION OF A SCHOOL

insubordinate to the idea of justice, the enemy of anything superior to

itself.'
It was, for the Greeks, a matter of the utmost practical importance to
find an ideal of a person which could help in the control or sublimation of
the worse passions, while at the same time legitimating and strengthening
the virtues. That they never fully succeeded perhaps helps to explain the
rapid disintegration of their civilization.
How, then, was a person to develop in a way which was both morally
desirable and socially acceptable? For Plato, all emotions except proper
pride were classed as appetites and subjugated to those powers of reason
which, if properly used, helped an individual to achieve wisdom through a
knowledge of the true and the good. However, for such persons reason
became at once dominant and threatened: for the emotions make unruly
subjects.
At the height of Athenian civilization, before the time of Plato and when
it was at its most self-confident, it was generally accepted that the
emotions and reason should work together. At best, this would result in a
harmonious equilibrium of psychological forces, in a balanced personality.
Equally importantly, inner concord would manifest itself in completeness. The Greeks valued the idea of a whole person. The ideal of
wholeness was reflected in all spheres of life, from the artistic to the
political. Kenneth Clark identifies the Hermes of Praxitiles as representing, in its strength, grace, intelligence and physical beauty, 'the last
triumph of the Greek idea of wholeness'.
And it was expected that an individual would make use of his full range of
gifts, not simply for personal benefit, but for the good of the polis. The
citizen whom Athenians respected was an all-rounder. Like Socrates, he
should be able to fight, argue, play an active political role, philosophize, and
so on. Mere specialists were held in low esteem. Officials and bureaucrats
were usually slaves.
The Greeks had a particularly strong belief in the importance of the
person achieving excellence, arete. This conviction, although not
necessarily incompatible with the ideal of balance, was certainly distinct
from it. While the ideals of both wholeness and excellence involved the
notion of a person as an individual entity and as a social being,
achievement of excellence was, in the classical perception, dependent
on securing the recognition and approbation of society in a way that
becoming a balanced person was not.
The ideal of arete, originating in the heroic age of Homer, was almost
infinitely adaptable. For the Athenians it was a teleological concept.
Persons were born with certain natural capacities. Their ultimate purpose
was to develop these as fully as was humanly possible. In particular,
abilities should be displayed, tested, refined and strengthened primarily
through action. To Greeks it was despicable to let faculties lie idle, to
evade challenges, to seek out a quiet life. 'II faut cultiver son jardin' is not
a phrase likely to have been uttered in classical Greek. The person who
aroused admiration was one who fought with all his power, in full view of
his peers, to be true to himself, and to achieve his full potential.
A Greek came to excel primarily through the exercise of power. This

EDUCATION'S IDEALS OF A PERSON

37

involved the ability to make the most of one's capacities and opportunities;
more specifically, it meant employing the skills of political manoeuvre to
help one on one's way in whatever fields one desired to succeed. This
preoccupation was reinforced by the religion of the Greeks which, in C. M.
Bowra's (1957, p. 59) phrase, displayed a 'cult of power'.
The greatest prize which society offered for the achievement of excellence
was fame. This the Greeks desired with an inordinate passion. They longed
to transcend mortality; but beyond the grave humans were mere shades.
Only the Gods were immortal, and to aspire to join the Gods was
blasphemous. However, while life in another world was not on offer, one
could, through great deeds, hope to live on, celebrated, in the memory of this
one. To reach this end many of the greatest of the Greeks directed their very
considerable resources and vitality. The best seek one thing above all
others: eternal fame': so wrote Heraclitus, the early Greek philosopher
(quoted, with references, by Karl Popper, 1966, vol. 1, p. 17). And, a century
later, Plato, in The Symposium (1951, p. 17), was making the same point: 'It
is desire for immortal renown and a glorious reputation ... that is the
incentive of all actions, and the better a man is the stronger the incentive.'
Tragically, as the Greeks understood only too well, the longing for fame
carried within it the potential to destroy both personal and social balance.
Ambition and self-assertion, the usual fuel of any drive for fame, could in
principle be guided by reason. In practice, they often proved to be highly
volatile elements which might erupt at any time into ruthless behaviour
and unjustifiable risk-taking. A need to excel could degenerate into an urge
to dominate, even to humiliate, others.
The Greeks had a sense of wholeness, not only of persons and their
activities, but more widely, of existence. They sought not simply
underlying realities, but rather one single sustaining essence. The quest
for ultimate unity increasingly came to influence, and in due course to
dominate, the Greek view of the person.
The reality which was sought by the Greeks could readily be identified
with the Good, and with Truth, which it encompassed. Its apprehension
could be seen as the main purpose of human existence. According to Plato
(1955, p. 269), 'Good is the end of all endeavour, the object on which
every heart is set, whose existence it divines '
If one was to have any chance of aiming successfully for such a goal, one
needed to develop as a person along certain lines. Persons must have the
intellectual capacity to search for the truth. They must also display the
moral qualities of respect for understanding of reality, combined with the
persistence to acquire the necessary knowledge. 'Unflinching thought,'
said Parmenides, the early Greek philosopher, 'must lead to truth' (quoted
in Burn, 1990, p. 142).
The rewards for being, or becoming, such a person lay in the journey as
well as in the ultimate arrival. For the pursuit of Truth and Goodness itself
gave a sense of satisfaction. One was both motivated and rewarded for
following the path towards wisdom. 'Of the three types of pleasure,' said
Plato (1955, p. 357), 'the pleasantest is that which belongs to the element
in us which brings us knowledge, and the man in whom that element is in
control will live the pleasantest life.'

38

VISION OF A SCHOOL

Whatever the benefits might be, the way of wisdom was more likely to
be travelled by the few than by the many. Indeed, Plato's idea of what a
person should become was developed to a large degree in critical response
to the culture of Athenian democracy and the sort of personality and
behaviour which it appeared to encourage.
Consequently, just as Athenian civilization was beginning to decline,
Plato's philosophical perspective led to a turning inward of attention, and
to a view of the person which was in contrast to the hitherto dominant
ideals. Where they had been activist, and incorporated elements of both
the heroic and the democratic, Plato's perspective was predominantly
concerned with spirit and the life of the mind. It offered a moral and
intellectual vision of what a person should aspire to be; it was elitist in
tendency.

The rational person

During the Enlightenment, or the 'Age of Reason', persons were, above all
else, beings defined by their capacity to think. The intellectual foundations
on which this image of a person were built was substantially the work of
Descartes.
The Cartesian stance 'Cogito ergo sum' is individualist. The process ofThe Cartesian stance 'Cogito ergo sum' is individualist. The process of
thinking is carried out unassisted, alone. Identity is established with little
or no help from others. Relationships have no significant role to play;
meaning comes from an inner world.
But Descartes was not only an individualist; he was also a dualist.
Because being a person is equated with having the ability to think, any
function the body might have is seen as subordinate and not significant.
Physical care and exercise are only worthwhile insofar as they ensure that
effective functioning of the thinking processes is not impeded. As for
feelings and emotions, material and somatic as they substantially are in
origin, they need to be kept in check. Spiritual, moral and aesthetic
awareness arise from the workings of the mind.
Of the various attributes of the rational person, the ability to make
choices emerged as the one with perhaps the most far-reaching practical
implications. A person was an individual with the capacity to decide what to
think, or even feel, and say on whatever topic engaged his or her interest, be
it, to use J. S. Mill's words (1979a, p. 138), 'practical or speculative,
scientific, moral or theological'. Persons also had the capability to decide
upon the 'tastes and pursuits' which appealed to them. More fundamentally,
persons could determine what sort of person they wished to become;
although their room for manoeuvre in this respect was inherently limited by
the nature of reason itself. 'The end of man,' said von Humboldt (quoted in
Mills 1979a, p. 186), 'or that which is prescribed by the eternal or
immutable dictates of reason... is the highest and most harmonious
development of his powers to a complete and consistent whole.'
Such a person was essentially autonomous. Consequently, she or he
greatly prized the idea of liberty. In the absence of either freedom of
conscience or of action, any sense of personal independence would
atrophy, while the capacity to make choices would be stunted for lack of

EDUCATION'S IDEALS OF A PERSON 39

opportunity to exercise it. At the very least the rational individual required
a circumference of inviolable personal space.
Rational persons had the capacity to take ethical decisions, and to act
morally. All moral concepts originate a priori and entirely in the reason.
Moral worth existed, according to Kant (quoted in H. J. Paton, 1958, p.
84), where persons acted according to objective moral necessity, without
ulterior motive. 'Act only on that maxim through which you can at the
same time will that it should become a universal law': thus ran the
categorical imperative. Rational persons might not always act morally.
They were not necessarily inclined by nature to be virtuous, although
Kant, like other contemporary thinkers, was ambivalent about this. On the
one hand he could comment that 'Out of the crooked timber of humanity
no straight thing was ever made'; on the other hand he could write that
humanity was 'not basically corrupt, but capable of improvement'. In any
case, the capacity to choose meant precisely that. And without doubt the
rational person both could and should opt to become a moral person.
The idea of a person as a rational being could command, paradoxically,
strong emotional commitment. It was perhaps only to be expected that it
would achieve more than a cult, almost a religious status. Isaiah Berlin
(1969, p. 138) has argued that rationalism 'is a form of secularized
Protestant individualism in which the place of God is taken by the
conception of the rational life, and the place of the individual soul which
strains towards union with Him is replaced by the conception of the
individual, endowed with reason, straining to be governed by reason and
reason alone and to depend upon nothing that might deflect or delude him
by engaging his irrational nature'.
The rational faith attracted followers because of its intrinsic appeal. It
also came, from the nineteenth century onwards, to provide some
reassurance for those fearful of the excesses of romanticism. Rationalism
could be turned to in the hope that it might offer at least some form of
protection from emotional turbulence, and above all from belief in the
moral, even spiritual, value of opening oneself to such turbulence. 'My
respect for reason as the rock of refuge to this poor exaggerated surexcited humanity increases and increases,' wrote Mathew Arnold to his
friend Arthur Hugh Clough (quoted in Lowry (1932), pp. 116-17).
The main attacks against the rationalist notion of a person were
undoubtedly fanned, but by no means exclusively fuelled, by resentment at
the presumption of setting up an ideal which undervalued, neglected, or
even ignored the religious. A major criticism was that the spiritual capacity
of the individual to be aware of the numinous, to encounter Other, was
effectively denied. The profundities, the wonder, the awe, even the
fearfulness of existence were sanitized and tidied away. In their place
emerged an ultimately arid preoccupation with the thinking self as the
scale by which everything must be weighed and valued.
Criticism along these lines was widespread. It came from various
quarters. Creative artists, theologians and intellectuals alike had their say.
According to Samuel Taylor Coleridge (quoted in Clark, 1956, p. 22):

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VISION OF A SCHOOL

The intelligible powers of ancient poets,

The fair humanities of old religion,
The Power, the Beauty, the Majesty,
They had their haunts in dale or piny mountain
... all these have vanished.
They live no longer in the faith of reason.
Much the same point, albeit from a very different perspective, was
made by Cardinal Newman (1982, p. 165): 'Knowledge, viewed as
knowledge, exerts a subtle influence in throwing us back on ourselves,
and making us our own centre, and our minds the measure of all things
... A sense of propriety, order, consistency and completeness gives
birth to a rebellious stirring against miracle and mystery, against the
severe and the terrible.'
Similar doubts could even be heard from Reason's own congregation.
Reflecting on his early life, particularly in the Cambridge of G. E. Moore
and Bertrand Russell, in his memoir, 'My Early Beliefs' (quoted in Annan,
1990, p. 323), Maynard Keynes recalled, 'I can see us as water spiders
gracefully skimming, as light and reasonable as air, the surface of the
stream without any contact at all with the eddies and currents underneath
... We practised a thin rationalism ignoring both the reality and the value
of the vulgar passions.'
The humanist person
Humanism is a broad church. It can appeal to those with an orthodox
scientific view of the universe, as well as to those interested in the
personal nature of heightened perception and of immanent, even
transcendental, spiritual experience. It allows Huxley to speak unto
Huxley, Aldous to Sir Julian.
Humanism sees itself as having much in common with other life
stances. Like members of the major world religions, many humanists
consider that they belong to a faith community. Like rationalists, which
numbers of them also consider themselves to be, they value the role of
reason. And, in common with many believers and non-believers alike, they
subscribe to a morality which is ultimately grounded in a belief in the
inviolability of human life. Humanists are inclined to consider, and with
some justification, that they seek the common ground, that they work for
consensus not division.
However, as an explicit, and reasonably coherent and consistent system
of ideas and values, humanism does, of course, have its particular defining
characteristics. If everyone accepted these, we would all be humanists.
Since we are not, there are those who disagree, more or less strongly, with
what humanists stand for.
Many of the fundamental tenets of humanism were first articulated, at
least in the modern era, by Rousseau. A key axiom of humanism is that
persons are essentially incorrupt and free from sin. 'Man's first instincts,'
wrote Rousseau, 'are always good.' (see, for example, Rousseau, 1967,
p. 426). And his successors have expressed a virtually identical belief. For

EDUCATION'S IDEALS OF A PERSON

41

Carl Rogers (1967, p. 194), The basic nature of the human being ... is
constructive and trustworthy.'
Instincts are one thing. Whether one is willing and in a position to
follow them can be quite another. Humanists are, for the most part, not
unrealistically optimistic about the way people are likely to behave. Again,
the line taken by Rousseau (1953, p. 405) has tended to set the general
tone: There are no perfect beings to be found in Nature. Their examples
are too remote from our world.' Maslow, who like Rogers was an American
psychologist, considered that one sign of maturity was an awareness of the
shortcomings of the human species.
For humanists, the environment plays a critical role in influencing our
development. 'Climates,' declared Rousseau (1953, p. 381), 'seasons,
sounds, colours, darkness, light, the elements, food, noise, silence,
movement, repose; they all act on our machines, and consequently on our
souls.'
However, our surroundings do not, in the last resort, determine either
our personalities or our behaviour. It is we who ultimately have both the
responsibility and the capacity to decide whether or not we wish to try and
become persons worthy of respect. 'Virtue is only difficult through our
own fault,' as Rousseau (1953, p. 69) declared.
What then, for humanists, is the ideal of a person? It certainly is distinct
from any theological notion since, if humanism has one major defining
characteristic it is that it does not accept belief in a personal God. For this
faith, the purpose of existence cannot be a life lived in and for the
illumination of the divine.
The realization of the real self and 'self-actualization' are terms which
have been used to describe the humanist vision of the true ends of a
person. Maslow (1954, p. 46) considered that individuals were motivated
to develop their gifts to their utmost, and that they would become
discontented unless they were able to be true to their own nature. 'A
musician must make music, an artist must paint, and a poet must write, if
he is ultimately to be at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must
be.' The same, one assumes, goes for women.
Individuals who were, if not necessarily 'self-actualized', at least clearly
'self-actualizing', exhibited, according to Maslow, a number of key
characteristics. These included concern for others, a sense of social
responsibility and a sense of personal autonomy. Such individuals also
derived inspiration, strength and even ecstasy from the everyday
happenings of life. Further, they could have peak experiences, greatly
valued feelings of being outside time and space. It is evident, from the
work of Maslow and indeed many others, that the humanist model of a
person is, in various important respects, not only moral, but also spiritual.
The humanist idea of a person is perhaps best exemplified in the work
of Carl Rogers (1967, pp. 123-4). Here we see the characteristic belief in
the significance of personal development and its achievement crystallizing
into a clear-cut concern with questions of identity and self-fulfilment. 'Each
individual,' says Rogers, 'appears to be asking himself a double question:
"Who am I?" and "How may I become myself?'". Here we also see an
approach to an individual's environment which interprets it potentially,

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VISION OF A SCHOOL

not only as a source of disturbance, but also as a source of support: 'In a

favourable psychological climate a process of becoming takes place; the
individual drops one after another of the defensive masks with which he
has faced life ... he experiences fully the hidden aspects of himself.'
And here, finally, as the concealed features of the individual human
being emerge into the light, we see the charactistics which are most highly
valued. The ideal person is one who is 'a sensitive, open, realistic, innerdirected member of the human species' (Rogers, 1967, p. 181); who is
'creatively realistic, and realistically creative' (ibid.)', who has 'an openness
to and acceptance of other individuals' (p. 174); and who, perhaps above
all, is someone who is 'open to all the elements of his organic experience
... who is developing a trust in his own organism as an instrument of
sensitive living' (p. 124).
In essence, what is of the greatest significance to Carl Rogers, and in
this he is typical of many humanists, is, as he put it in the title of his bestknown work, becoming a person. Present being and future achievement
are both incorporated in a dynamic view of personhood. In this, all that is
truly valued is synthesized in a continuing experience of ever-present
development.
The economic person
The inherited models of a person have tended to disregard economic
motivations, aspirations or concerns. Partly in consequence, the idea of
humans as economic beings has traditionally been ignored by schools, or,
where acknowledged, seen as a regrettable reality. There has unquestionably existed throughout education what has been called a 'disdain for homo
economicus'. Moreover, while such an attitude is less strong than it used to
be, it is by no means simply a historical phenomenon. It persists. And,
understandably, it has been widely attacked.
What schools require is clear enough. They need a view of a person
which, while properly acknowledging attributes and motives appropriate to
economic behaviour, is at the same time worthy of respect.
Schools have been inhibited from developing a positive approach to
people as economic beings, at least in part, by the existence of strong
cultural forces, which they have both reflected and helped to sustain.
In England the notion of economic activity has been devalued by the
class system and the manner in which power has been distributed and
used within it. Mathew Arnold (1964, pp. 308-9) pointed out in his report
on 'Schools and universities on the continent' (originally published in
1868), that we have 'A professional class brought up ... with fine and
governing qualities, but without the idea of science; while that immense
business class ... is ... cut off from the aristocracy and the professions,
and without any governing qualities.'
In schools, this resulted in the much-discussed phenomenon of a fault
line appearing between liberal and utilitarian education, with the former
looking down on the latter from what it saw as the moral, and also not
entirely incidentally, the social high ground. By the early twentieth
century, a point had been reached where, as Martin Wiener (1985, p. 23)

EDUCATION'S IDEALS OF A PERSON 43

has put it, The ethos of later Victorian Oxbridge, a fusion of aristocratic
and professional values, stood self-consciously in opposition to the spirit of
Victorian business and industry; it exalted a dual ideal of cultivation and
service against philistine profit seeking.'
Through the twentieth century such attitudes, while challenged
frequently and with a sense of increasing urgency, even despair, for the
most part became further entrenched and extended. The ideology of
liberal education, public service and gentlemanly professionalism,' says
Philip Elliott (1972, p. 52), 'was elaborated in opposition to the growth of
industrialism and commercialism... It incorporated such values as
personal service, a dislike of competition, advertising and profit, a belief
in the principle of payment in order to work rather than in working for pay
and in the superiority of the motive of service.'
Today, the influences which questioned the place, purpose and worth of
economic effort as a human activity are in decline. The possibility exists of
moving forwards, towards an agreed ideal, and away from the dogmatic
positions into which numbers of the various protagonists have dug
themselves over the years.
However, there exists a wide range of possible forms of economic
organisation. One can reasonably talk of a social market, a free market, a
controlled market, and so on. Each of these is likely to be sustained by
rather different notions of what an economic person should be.
What then are the main economic ideas of a person?
An initial problem arises because there has been relatively little detailed
exploration of the nature of individuals as economic beings. Thinkers
concerned with this field are, by and large, more interested in systems than
in persons. Where analysis of human motivation and behaviour does occur,
it is typically inferred from, or illustrative of, economic structures. One
does not look to economists for depth psychology.
Having said that, if one considers first the free market idea of the
economic person, one finds reasonably clear, if rather general ideas of
human nature. To begin with, it is said that persons have a range of
interests (not identified or explored by free-market thinkers in much
detail), which they pursue more or less regardless of other people's
concerns or any wider considerations. As Will Hutton (1995, p. 228) has
put it, The economic man of free-market theory is an amoral fellow ...
[he] ... exists to consume and indulge his pleasures.'
More specifically, wants are most likely to be satisfied through the
acquisition of financial assets. 'An augmentation of fortune,' said Adam
Smith (1986, p. 441), 'is the means by which the greater part of men
propose and wish to better their condition.' There is, moreover, an
intimate association between the possession of riches and personal
fulfilment. Bentham (1931, p. 103) considered that 'Each portion of wealth
has a corresponding portion of happiness.'
The wants of the free-market person are liable, whether taken
individually or as a whole, to prove unlimited. There is a restless and
insatiable desire for further gratification. A laissez-faire capitalist is not
likely to have any notion or experience of inner serenity or a balanced
lifestyle. There is,' wrote Adam Smith, in the same passage quoted above,

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VISION OF A SCHOOL

'scarce perhaps a single instant in which any man is not so perfectly and
completely satisfied with his situation as to be without any wish of

alteration or improvement of any kind.'

It is also worth noting, since the point recurs so frequently in
subsequent debate, that Bentham (ed. Stark, 1952, vol. Ill, p. 430)
believed a desire for happiness, and so for wealth, inevitably led to a desire
for power. He put it like this: 'Human beings are the most powerful
instruments of production, and therefore everyone becomes anxious to
employ the services of his fellows in multiplying his comforts. Hence the
intense and universal thirst for power; the equally prevalent hatred of

subjection.' Such a view may seem to have lost some of its force in the
electronic age. However, it still seems to be the case that the sort of

person who is highly motivated to make money is also often gratified by

the exercise of control over others.
Free-market persons have, of course, been widely criticized for this
inherent self-interestedness and the resulting avaricious and dominanceseeking behaviour. Lord Hailsham, as Quintin Hogg (1947, pp. 51-2),
referred to individuals under capitalism as being involved in, 'an ungodly
and rapacious scramble for ill-gotten gains'. More recently, the judge who
presided in the Guinness fraud trial attacked in a public lecture what he
described as 'the power-driven, greed-fed, dishonest excesses of the
1980s' (Sir Denis Henry, 1992).
The defence of such behaviour ranges from the crude to the subtle. Ivan
Boesky, one-time Wall Street financier and guru, before being jailed for
fraud, used to inform cheering graduates at graduation ceremonies (film
exists of one of these speeches) that 'Greed is good' - a statement which
he apparently felt no need to justify, presumably on the grounds that, since
it was axiomatic, it did not require vindication.
David Willetts (1992, pp. 85-7), in his book Modern Conservatism, took
a rather different tack. He protested against the perception that free
markets rest 'on a base view of human nature, according to which we are
driven by greed and self-aggrandizement'. Rather, he argued that 'Modern
free-market economics makes no claim to be a psychological theory of
behaviour. Individual economic agents have a host of different motives.'
He wrote that only one or two basic assumptions about the nature of
persons are made, 'such as unmet material wants'. However, the drive to
meet such wants is precisely what is meant to power the free market.
Consequently, it must be of significance in the capitalist view of the nature
of persons.
In the classic theory of free markets it is argued that the pursuit of
economic self-interest may be justified, through no virtue of the agent, but
as it were through grace, by the mysterious workings of a greater,
benevolent, almost divine design. This 'invisible hand', as Adam Smith
famously called it, is thought to lead individuals, through their private and
selfish activities, to promote the general economic good.
The difficulties with this idea are first, that it does not offer any notion
of redemption for individuals from the intrinsically mercenary egotism of
their natures; and, secondly, that it hardly corresponds with observed
facts. Whether in the nursery or the business place, sustained and

EDUCATION'S IDEALS OF A PERSON 45

persistent self-seeking behaviour appears more likely, in practice, to end

in tears than in harmony.
Market capitalism, according for instance to Nigel Lawson (Financial
Times, 4 September 1993), is based on freedom and liberty. It would seem
reasonable to infer from this, as indeed Lawson does, and in no uncertain
terms, that free-market persons are endowed with the attributes
characteristic of free persons. Undoubtedly, they do, at the least, appear
to have the capacity to make choices.
It is true that the capitalist economy does offer a degree of freedom,
albeit greater for the winners than for the losers. Furthermore, by contrast
with any fixed order of society, free enterprise can encourage social and
geographical mobility. As such it helps individuals to redefine their social
and economic roles. In particular, they may express their preferences as
consumers, and decide in what particular persona, as producers of value,
they will attempt to make their fortunes.
However, the ability of the individual, through the enjoyment of
freedom, to develop as a person is, in certain respects, limited in a freemarket society. People do not have any real opportunity, whether acting
on their own or collectively, to attempt to develop according to their
aspirations through the creation of forms of social and economic
arrangement that differ significantly from market capitalism. Persons in
a laissez-faire economy are at liberty to roam at will around the marketplace, to purchase, barter or set up in trade. What they are less free to do
is set up a prayer meeting on site, work for personal satisfaction rather
than profit, challenge the morality of the market rules, act on a personal
motivation inspired by an ideal of service rather than of profit, or move
beyond the boundaries with a view to constructing a different sort of arena
for human activity. The individual who does not wish to be or become freemarket person is liable, where the writ of homo economicus runs, to be
forced to be free.
Free-market persons are social beings, but only just. They have to
compete in order to survive, and if possible to prosper. The ability to
compete is both their moyen and their raison d'etre. Such individuals have
no interest, and hence negligible skills, in cooperative behaviour. Each is
an atom, careering around at random, every now and again colliding with,
fusing with, or destroying others.
Alternatives to the free market rest, as it does, on particular views of
homo economicus. These views are often, explicitly or by implication,
critical of the free-market model of the person.
Thus, it is argued, that persons in their economic roles ought to be seen
less as isolates and more as social animals. Only where this happens, as J.
Gray (1993) has written, can there be a chance of developing that rational
approach to planning necessary to create the conditions in which
enterprise can flourish and markets operate in an orderly fashion.
Further, it has been suggested that economic persons should be seen as
having a sense of and a desire for justice. Where this is not respected,
economic inefficiency, or disruption, may well result. Thus, Marc
Thompson (1993), in a study for the Institute of Manpower Studies, has
reported that the introduction of performance-related pay could be

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VISION OF A SCHOOL

counter-productive where workers considered it to be unfairly structured

or managed. Similarly, Robert Solow (1990) has argued that a vital key to
making the labour market effective is to respect people's desire for
fairness.
Economic behaviour is governed, according to Robert H. Frank (1988),
as much by the emotions as by rational (but necessarily seldom fully
informed) estimates of profit and loss. In particular, humans are capable of
altruistic behaviour. This is not simply an optional extra, a sort of fashion
accessory for the conspicuous consumer of morality, but a necessary
condition of economic success. An individual who always pursues selfinterest is bound to fail, argues Frank. On the other hand, he suggests that
morality often conveys material benefits on those who practise it. In other
words, humans can act as moral beings, and whatever the more spiritual
benefits may be, this characteristic is cost-effective.
There is a long, and well-established, tradition which holds that
economic individuals of their nature aspire to find work intrinsically
worthwhile, look in fact for 'job satisfaction'. Thus, for Plato (1955, pp. 745), work is something which one cannot but do for its own sake: The
shepherd's only care is the welfare of the flocks of which he is in charge
... the doctor brings us health, the pilot a safe voyage, and so on.'
However, it does not follow that, because one's first priority is to do the
task in hand, one should not also look for payment. In fact, says Plato, it is
necessary to be paid, since otherwise, apart from any other considerations, one would be unlikely to be in a position to continue practising one's
particular expertise.
Plato is also clear that work which is fairly rewarded is as desirable for
society as it is for the individual. Payments which are consistently too high
or too low undermine any sense of the value of work, intrinsic or
pecuniary, and are likely to lead to trouble. 'Wealth and poverty ... one
produces luxury and idleness and a passion for novelty, the other
meanness and bad workmanship' (p. 167). Furthermore, concluded Plato
(p. 327), 'Love of money and adequate self-discipline in its citizens are two
things that cannot co-exist in any society.'
Particularly during the Enlightenment, but also discernible earlier, there
emerged a view that persons who choose, or are forced, to work only for
money are likely to be at the mercy of their own motivation, or of their
paymasters, or of the unpredictable forces of the market-place. This
perception, sharpened by a resentment of the powers of autocratic patronage
and of the emergent workings of laissez-faire economics, was essentially
stimulated by a desire for a non-capitalist freedom: freedom of self-expression,
freedom to be one's own master, freedom to explore and to express the full
range of one's own abilities. 'Nothing vigorous, nothing great,' wrote
Rousseau (1953, p. 375), 'can flow from an entirely venal person.'
In this tradition, work is seen as an inherent source of human wellbeing. As Caleb Garth put it, in George Eliot's Middlemarch (1994, p. 562),
'You must have a pride in your own work, and in learning to do it well.' And
some modern economists are returning to this understanding, developing
it, and relating it to contemporary circumstances. Robert Lane (1991) of

Yale University, for instance has explored, in his book The Market

EDUCATION'S IDEALS OF A PERSON 47

Experience, the role of work not as disutility, as a tedious activity justified

only by the financial compensation it should bring, but as an occupation
which should be individually enriching. Production and work, argues Lane,
are key sources of both utility and satisfaction. It can encourage personal
development, deepen skills, help bring humanity and structure into lives.
In particular, it has the potential to make us more clever, and more
independent.
Clearly, any educational ideal of an economic person cannot be partisan.
It would be neither right nor acceptable for schools to ground their
relevant teaching on any particular philosophy. Still less would they be
justified in aiming to produce, for example, capitalists or socialists. It is
this consideration, quite as much as any cultural antipathy to homo
economicus, which has hindered schools from developing an agreed notion
of what an economic person should look like.
Nevertheless, the outlines of what could become an acceptable ideal can
now, if with some difficulty, be discerned (see, for example, Sir Ron
Bearing's 1996 Review of Qualifications for 16-19 Year Olds).
Thus:

Individuals have a right to gain satisfaction from what they do.

Accordingly, work should be widely defined, to include occupations,
paid and unpaid, from home and family care to labouring or banking.
Persons should expect to work, and be able to work.
Persons have an ability to choose, and this ought to be practised in
relation to occupation. Of course, individual circumstances or the way
in which the economy is organized and managed may make this
difficult or virtually impossible. However, that is a consideration which
suggests that society should be run along different lines. It does
nothing to invalidate the view that an intrinsic attribute of persons as
economic beings is the ability to make career choices.
Persons, as beings endowed with cognitive faculties, should have a
grasp of key economic concepts such as wealth creation. They should
have an idea of the relationship between economy and society in
different economic systems, and of the role of government and of
international agencies.
As social beings, all persons should have the opportunity to play a
worthwhile economic role, whatever their intelligence, ability, social
background, gender or ethnicity.
As moral beings, persons should, in the words of a National
Curriculum Council paper, Education for Economic and Industrial
Understanding (1990b, p. 5), be capable of developing such attitudes
as 'respect for alternative economic view-points and a willingness to
reflect critically on their own economic views and values; sensitivity to
the effect of economic choices on the environment; and concern for
human rights, as these are affected by economic decisions'.
As socially responsible beings, persons ought to be aware that a desire
to make money is morally neutral, in itself neither good nor bad, right
nor wrong. They need to know that people have to make up their own
minds about how far a desire for wealth is justifiable in terms of

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VISION OF A SCHOOL

intention and outcome; and about what, in practice, is the golden

mean for themselves, as individuals and as members of society,
between avarice on the one hand and the sort of laziness or arid selfdenial on the other, which erodes the well-being of oneself and of
others. Above all, they should be prepared to accept that moral
responsibility for personal economic aspirations and behaviour rests
with the person and not somehow, somewhere, Beyond, immanent in
the mysterious workings of the system.

The school's working model of a person

In addition to ideals of a person which are predominantly acquired or
inherited from society, schools have what I refer to as a working model of a
person. This does not replace but supplements education's other ideals. It
is a 'working' model in the sense that it provides an educationally useful
notion of what persons are capable of becoming and should become. The
working model is referred to by educators in various terms, or is often
implicit, or taken for granted. Nevertheless, it does and has to exist in
some form or other because without it, it becomes virtually impossible to
plan and practise worthwhile teaching.
The working model, inevitably, has its own perspectives and
emphases. However, it also incorporates some of the main features of

the ideals I have discussed. On balance, it offers a focus for consensus

rather than for conflict. As such it can help professionals to work
together towards shared goals. It also enables schools, insofar as they
attempt the task, to discuss more easily with the outside world - parents,
the local community and so on - what sort of persons they would like
students to become.
The working model is dynamic. At its best, it is responsive. However, of
its nature it is not a finished product. This means it can appear to lack
sharp outlines, or to be somewhat disjointed. However, such inherent
problems do not, for the most part, interfere seriously with its functioning.
There is room for argument about what are the more significant
characteristics of the working model. The main educational concern,
however, appears to be to establish a viable ideal of human nature, which
takes into account the actual characteristics of young people, which
students can reasonably be expected to value, and which a good education
can help them to achieve.
According to the working model, individuals should become whole
persons. This is taken to mean that they have spiritual, moral, social,
cultural, mental and physical attributes which should be developed
harmoniously, and in mutual balance, for the benefit of the individual
and of society. This view was reflected in various official documents during
the 1970s and 1980s, and culminated in the 1988 Education Reform Act.
Underlying much educational practice is a particular view of the person
as learner. This, as one would expect, is consistent with the main findings
of modern research, and in particular the findings of child psychology (see
for a detailed and outstanding exploration of the relevant issues,
Donaldson, 1978, 1993).

EDUCATION'S IDEALS OF A PERSON 49

The working model sees individual learners as protean, and not readily
to be interpreted in reductionist terms. This understanding derives, in
part at least, from cognitive social psychology, which portrays humans as
infinitely complex learning animals. H. A. Simon (1969) has reported, for
example, that people engage in a huge range of indeterminate behaviour
which cannot be fully explained by any constructable model, and the
motives for which can be varied in the extreme.
The working model tends to perceive persons as beings who gain
knowledge and understanding through experimental behaviour. Relatively
little emphasis is placed on the role of pure reason, and considerably less
on revelation. To put it at its simplest, learners are mostly seen as
individuals who progress through making guesses which are accepted,
modified or rejected in the light of experience. This, in its essentials, is
the view argued by Karl Popper (see Chapter 7, p. 69).
Individuals who are capable of learning through the intelligent
management of trial and error, and through reflection on the results,
are bound to have a degree of freedom, choice and autonomy. They are
accordingly, to some extent, responsible for their own learning.
It is assumed in exploratory learning that persons are creatures who
come by knowledge in a social environment. An obvious implication of this
for education is that teachers should do their best to make certain that what
is to be learned is matched, at appropriate levels of difficulty, to the
existing knowledge and experimental skills of the student. Much of modern
education is, therefore, very concerned to ensure that this happens.
It is sometimes believed, by supporters and critics alike, that
experimental learning necessitates a more or less exclusively experiential
approach. However, while the emphasis is undoubtedly on activity, it does
not have to be. Students can effectively accommodate new information,
didactically presented, provided certain conditions are met. Students must
have the necessary intellectual skills. Data or ideas must be presented in
terms which make sense in terms of students' current understanding. And,
finally, students must be given the opportunity to interrogate whatever
material is presented; in this way, they can not only assure themselves of
its internal consistency, but can compare it in their minds with their
previous understanding of the matter being considered.
The working model includes ideas of persons as creative and
imaginative beings. It draws such notions in part from traditional views.
Thus, for instance, it is influenced by the Judaeo-Christian concept of homo
creator, an individual made in the divine likeness of the creative God. As
Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford (1993 p. 102) puts it, 'Human beings,
made in the image of God, share in the divine creativity. We also have the
capacity for creative, beautiful ordering ... Artists of every kind share in
the work of the divine artist by giving form to recalcitrant matter. They
make music of inchoate sounds and speech of incoherent babble. They
give shape to the shapeless and in doing so reflect the work of eternal
wisdom.'
Also of significance in influencing the notion of persons as creative and
imaginative individuals have been ideas derived ultimately from the
romantic movement, with its valuing of emotion, inspiration and vision, its

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VISION OF A SCHOOL

questioning of the hard-edged rules and rationality of classicism, its

openness to the demands of the unknown, its suspicion of the preordained,
and its awareness of Other. The primary imagination,' said Samuel Taylor
Coleridge (1965, p. 167), 'I hold to be the living power of all human
perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of
creation in the infinite I AM.'
The working model, however, although clearly influenced by traditional
views, is, as one would expect, more evidently the product of
contemporary thinking. It has evolved, in part, in response to an
educational belief that young people have imaginative and creative
faculties which need to be developed. Thus, David Holbrook (1961,
chapter 4), quoting from John Stuart Mill's autobiography, argued for a
'culture of the feelings', writing that if we are to be able to make sense of
our existence, we must be capable of exploring and sharing 'experience in
fantasy'.
Equally influential has been the growing interest in the processes of
creativity. This helps to inform understanding both of the nature of
persons and of how people learn. Whether through the work of
psychologists such as Jerome Bruner, or of art critics such as E. H.
Gombrich, or of creative writers and thinkers such as Arthur Koestler,
teachers are coming to see how students can and should be considered as
imaginative and creative beings.
Accordingly the working model, in its interpretation of imagination and
creativity, tends to focus on these faculties as enablers of learning and
moral sensibility. An ideal emerges which may be represented along the
following lines:
Persons are seen as active participants in the world of the imagination.
They are thus well placed to conjure up those pictures in the mind which
can suggest the sort of questions and hypotheses which lead to meaningful
explorations of reality. They are also in a position, through observation of
contrasts, to distinguish that which may prove to be substantial from that
which could turn out to be illusory.
Individuals exercise the imagination, not only to throw light on the
nature of that which is, but also to explore and exploit the considerable
territory of metaphor for its own sake. It is here, not least through the
language of poetry and the arts, that human beings can perhaps best come
to express themselves and to understand each other. A whole person is
one who is equally at home with actuality and fable, and who is in a
position to see both as aspects of a greater unity.
All living things inherit a created world. Persons are also involved in its
creation. As they learn to discriminate with sensibility between the subtle
and overlapping shades of that which is real and that which is imagined,
they are composing in their minds a reflection of, and also a reflection on,
what is perceived. Thus, in his Reith lectures, the biologist J. Z. Young
(1951, p. 61) said, 'The brain of each one of us does literally create his or
her own world ... In some sense we literally create the world we speak
about.'
In this perspective, we originate our personal reality. In so doing, we
can come to discover how far that reality is shared with, and how far it is

EDUCATION'S IDEALS OF A PERSON 51

distinct from, that of others. In terms of our own understanding, we can

also investigate and evaluate not only the nature of the physical world, but
also the nature of the social world which has been created in the past and
the interpretations of which are carried in and transmitted through the
cultures of our society. Finally, we become well placed to make our own
contribution to the making of the future.
Persons can express their creativity through the medium of art. In
attempting to depict visual experience, the artist, as E. H. Gombrich
(1960) has argued, follows a rhythm of schema and correction (or, in the
parallel terminology of cognitive psychology, of construct and modification), which is similar for both perception and representation. The
eventual end-product of this process is not simply a copy or record of what
has been observed, but 'the faithful construction of a relational model' (p.
90). In other words the artist, even when apparently reproducing, is in fact
creating.
More evidently, creation can be seen to be occurring where something
clearly new is presented, something that has little similarity with any
artefact, composition or notion that has previously been encountered. As
Arthur Koestler (1964) has pointed out, creation of this sort is often
believed to arise from a moment of given certainty, a flash of inspiration.
Be that as it may, whether or not insight comes dramatically, what we are
dealing with in this instance is essentially creation which arises from
discovery rather than observation. Picasso said that he did not seek, he
found (see Gombrich, 1956, p. 438). Here, images emerge from the
inchoate, the imagination responding and giving form to the hints,
suggestions, even revelations which emerge in conversing with the chosen
medium. In this mode, the creator is less craftsman, more seer.
The sort of persistent thought and action which result in creation can,
in the final resort, only be sustained by what is perhaps most appropriately
described as moral optimism. The ability to make or find, and give form to,
that which previously did not exist or was unknown, gives substance to the
autonomy and freedom of persons. It helps individuals to be more than
simple, passive consumers of life's goods, able at best to opt between
given offerings. It enables them to envisage, and strive for, not only the
given, but also that which previously was hardly imagined, or even
unknown.
In creating, persons give identity and meaning to themselves, and to
their world. Through what they shape and become, they reveal what it is
they value. Intrinsic to acts of creation are questions of worth. Through
the free play of the imagination and openness to reality individuals have
the opportunity to develop a self and an environment which they believe to
be worth working for.

CHAPTER 6

The personal school

How, then, should schools set about educating students to respect

persons?
Thought, policy and practice need to be informed by awareness of
contemporary culture's concerns about the nature of persons. If schools
are ill informed they are not well placed to orientate what they do towards
the perceptions of the modern world; they are liable to become detached
from reality and, in the negative sense of the word, academic.
Schools must recognize what persons, of their nature, necessarily are:
living human beings, female and male, embodied, having the attribute of
consciousness, of varied intelligence and ethnic origin, complex, social and
protean. Respect for these characteristics should be taught and learned.
Schools need to be in dialogue with students about their personal
ideals. Young people can have strong ideas about what they desire to
become. Some may even hold that they were born to become a certain sort
of person. They may believe that they have a calling, or simply that they
have certain abilities which must be developed. Their ideals for
themselves, where they exist, can vary from inspired, through the socially
acceptable, or the idiosyncratic, to the apparently or actually subversive.
Schools need to be ready and able to discuss with young people, in their
own terms, how to become worthwhile sorts of persons.
But what about the differing inherited and current ideals of a person?
Christian, classical, rational, humanist and economic? And what of the
contemporary educational debate, with its references to ideas of wholeness and balance, of spirituality, of the person as learner, of imagination
and creativity? Schools need to have a view of how these both do influence
and should influence educational aspirations and practices. Only where
schools have such a perspective are they fully and securely in a position to
start effectively exploring with students and teaching them how to become
persons worthy of respect, and how to respect others.
In education, there is a sensitive balance to be achieved between
introducing students to a clear and realistic moral vision of how they could
develop and respecting their right to choose for themselves what sort of
person they wish to become. Where a school succeeds in achieving such a

THE PERSONAL SCHOOL 53

balance, it can with justice claim, in this respect at least, to be a good

school.
Aspirations
Schools may be tempted quietly to obscure or ignore any spelling out of
what sort of persons they intend students to become. And some at least of
their reasons for doing so may appear persuasive.
First, there is the sheer complexity of the situation. It is not as if schools
are dealing with one or two straight-forward, readily described and
communicated ideals. Secondly, there is the potential for dissension.
Schools are naturally wary of becoming arenas of conflict. Staff, parents,
students and others may, explicitly or implicitly, be committed to differing
ideas of what they think a person ought to be. Once these are identified, and
become of evident relevance to discussion about a school's purposes and
planning, then it is quite possible for sometimes acrimonious debate and
argument to arise.
However, a school leadership which, even if it is clear in its own mind
about what sorts of person it wishes its students to become, fails to
communicate its aspirations to others, is hardly in a position to provide
education of quality.
So, headteacher and governors need to elucidate their own beliefs about
what persons should become. Within the general sense of direction given
by a sense of common purpose, a school should become a forum where
contrasting ideals of a person are clarified, common ground discovered,
and differences respected.
All this is far from being a paper exercise. Developing and sharing
notions of what human beings ought to become is demanding. The process
engages with questions of identity and value about which individuals
frequently feel strongly, and not least where the education of young people
is concerned.
Where a school does achieve a commitment to the significance of
particular ideals of a person, it can develop a confidence in itself as an
institution which has high and appropriate expectations of the sort of
persons students can become; and it can be significantly strengthened in
its efforts to create in students a sense of self-worth and of informed
respect for others. On the other hand, a school leadership which attempts
to achieve its aspirations without consultation, or which simply funks the
challenge, is liable to find itself faced with apathy at best, disaffection at
worst.
Aims, curriculum and pastoral care
Ideals of a person do not appear in decontextualized isolation, intellectual
wares waiting to be chosen according to taste. They may, and of course
should, be specifically identified. But they are also encountered through
the rhythms and accidents of school life. The ideas they represent
underpin, sustain and are reflected throughout the fabric of education.
Schools, accordingly, need to be clear not only about their own beliefs

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VISION OF A SCHOOL

about what persons are and should become, but also should be able to
identify where their aims, and curricular and pastoral care approaches, are
promoting particular ideas of a person.
There should be little difficulty in discovering where schools have been
influenced by the Christian idea of a person. One would look, at the least,
to their general aims, to religious education and acts of collective worship,
to the study of literature (English and modern foreign language), to the
humanities, and to their pastoral treatment of students.
How deeply and extensively schools look to educate students in the
light of Christian ideals will inevitably vary. Living as we do in a multicultural society, and in what has been called a post-Christian world, it
would be easy to take a view that the significance of the Christian ideal of
the person is being marginalized in education. However, quite apart from
the fact that Christianity continues to be a lived faith for very many
individuals and communities, its values and ideals continue to echo
through our school system, with its church and secular schools, as well as
through our educational practices and debates.
The study of the classics is disappearing from the curriculum of the vast
majority of schools. Nevertheless, in education as elsewhere one still finds
strong traces of the Greek notions of what a person ought to be. To this
day, especially perhaps in the aims and objectives of schools, one
discovers recurring reference to self-fulfilment, the achievement of
excellence, the development of the whole person, the exercise of reason,
and the particularly Platonic notion that the individual ought to have and
develop capacities as a moral, truth-respecting individual who is above all
else motivated by a search for the good.
On a less exalted note, speech days, silver cups, prizes of all sorts, team
photographs, etc. all bear witness to a continuing belief in the importance
of encouraging and rewarding a striving for, if not personal fame at least
public recognition. Also still identifiable in some institutions, though more
as a covert sub-text of the educational lexicon, are intellectual elitism, the
belittling of women and fear of the emotions.
The notion of the rational person has exerted very considerable
influence in education. For instance, the encouragement of autonomy
remains an important objective for many schools, and while this may no
longer attract the zealous support it once did, it continues to be widely
seen as a worthwhile and valid goal.
The curriculum - particularly but by no means only at secondary level is as a rule organized so as to promote all-round intellectual development.
In this it now receives significant help from the National Curriculum.
However, less support is usually offered for spiritual, aesthetic, physical,
creative or emotional education.
Choice, a key attribute of the rational person, is frequently seen as a
good in itself, as well as a necessary means to the achievement of
particular ends. Guidance and advice on the selection of curricular options,
exam courses, careers, higher education and post-school activity in general
are built into the life of schools. Naturally enough, given the inclination to
value those students who are skilled at thinking, the quality of what is
available to them is often better than it is for their contemporaries.

THE PERSONAL SCHOOL

55

Education, where influenced by the ideal of the rational person, has

been inclined to pay relatively little attention to the significance and value
of relationships. Accordingly, the needs of individuals arising from their
existence as social beings has, at times, been a matter of relatively little
concern. Some English schools, particularly perhaps those of a more
academic nature, have, at least until recently, characteristically perceived
themselves as places where various separate persons, who ought to be
rational even if they are not always apparently so, meet together for the
primary purpose of developing their minds.
The influence on schools of humanism, and particularly of humanist
psychology, is a relatively recent phenomenon. But it is a considerable
one. It has also been accompanied by some controversy.
Humanist-inspired thought and research has played a significant part in
moves to child-centred education. At best, this involves a concern to
understand how children learn, and to match classroom activities, together
with teaching methods and materials, to students' developing needs and
abilities. At worst, it leads to the pursuit of process at the expense of
content, to the apotheosis of the 'how' of education at the expense of the
'what'.
The provision of pastoral care is a long-standing tradition of English
education, albeit one that from time to time has been submerged or
ignored. The motivation to provide it was frequently religious, as the
term itself indicates. More recently, however, humanist-influenced
approaches, particularly deriving from humanist psychology, have made
their own significant contributions. Humanism has done this through
offering its own perspectives on the nature and needs of children, and
through suggesting relevant curricular and pastoral strategies. Where
such approaches have remained isolated, and have not been fully
integrated into overall school approaches, they have sometimes been
charged with lacking effectiveness.
Humanists have been active in any consideration of the place of
religious education and worship in schools. Their contributions, while
certainly distinctive, have only occasionally been provocative. Indeed,
humanists have frequently worked together with members of religious
faiths in questioning the spiritual propriety of the notion of compulsory
worship; and in seeking to secure that religious education is just that, and
not simply initiation into particular dogmas, doctrines and practices.
In the debate over the extent to which schools can justifiably promote
the religious idea of what a person is, humanists have claimed to speak for
a fairly wide constituency. Just as there are apolitical people, so there are
those who are areligious, whether lapsed, sceptical, atheist, agnostic or
simply uninvolved. Addressing themselves to many of these, if concerned
with education, humanists have articulated positions on the teaching and
practice of religion in schools which have sought to clarify views about
what schools should be attempting to achieve (see, for example, the 1995
pamphlet by the British Humanist Association, Education for Living: A
Humanist Perspective).
Humanism brings optimism to education, and that is perhaps its
greatest contribution. Believing, as it does, that all individuals are innately

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VISION OF A SCHOOL

good and, moreover, that they each have their own unique gifts, it strongly
believes that education has both the obligation and the capacity to help
students develop as fulfilled and moral members of society.
Ultimately, humanism holds a democratic rather than an elitist ideal of
personhood. For this it has been attacked, sometimes directly, more often
indirectly. However, it is hardly surprising that such a notion of a person
has come to find a place in the theory and practice of modern education.
English schools, as I have already discussed, have traditionally done
very little to educate students as economic beings. However,compared
with even the recent past, the scene is changing with gathering speed.
School aims and objectives often talk of the economic development of
students. In personal and social education, pre-vocational and other
courses, in tutorial programmes, and through cross-curricular links, ways
are explored, with admittedly varying success, of promoting economic
knowledge and understanding. And work experience, increasingly related
to the curriculum, is now usually provided for all students. Schools do now
accept and, for the most part take seriously, their obligation to the
individual and to society to encourage personal economic development.
However, few if any would claim to have evolved all-round successful
practice. Good in parts, like the curate's egg, is probably the best that can
realistically be claimed.
The working model is, essentially, concerned to provide an ideal which
takes full account of the actual characteristics of young people, and which
reflects the broader shared values, explicit and implicit, in current
approaches to education.
The notion, crucial to the working model, that students should develop
as whole persons, spiritually, morally, socially, culturally, mentally and
physically, now appears, in one form of wording or another, in the aims of
the great majority of schools. However, sometimes, that is where the
matter rests. Much can remain to be done, at least as far as the structure
and management of the curriculum and pastoral care is concerned, to
ensure that students may indeed have reasonable opportunities to develop
as complete persons.
Perhaps the most evident influence of the working model is to be seen
as a result of the emphasis it places on the person as learner. Both in
primary, and increasingly in secondary schools, subject content and
method, as well as assessment procedures, attempt to take into full
account the nature of learning. This has, at times, led to an underestimation of the importance of the logic and disciplines intrinsic to
particular subjects. Hence there are sometimes reservations expressed
about child-centred education - however, it must be said that these can
arise from an instinctive rejection of the idea that young people should be
anything other than passive recipients of knowledge, the wax upon which
the pedagogue inscribes.
Imagination and creativity, insofar as they are implicitly or explicitly
recognized as part of the learning process, nowadays usually, but by no
means inevitably, find some place in the curriculum. They are most likely
to be discovered in art, English and drama, but also, where the teaching is
lively, may be found across a range of other subjects and courses.

THE PERSONAL SCHOOL 57

Nevertheless, ingrained habits die hard. The once overwhelming influence

of the rational ideal of a person still inclines many schools to envisage
imagination and creativity not so much as fundamental personal attributes
but rather as luxury extras, to be acquired from peripheral and often
optional timetable activities, and indulged in once the really serious
learning has taken place elsewhere.

School nature and ethos

The ideals of a person held by a school are significantly influenced by its
nature and ethos. Thus, schools with particular religious foundations will
intend to educate students as good Christians, Jews, Muslims, and so
forth. Public, and some other longer established, schools are likely to
nurture both Christian and classical ideals. Schools selecting on the basis
of academic ability will be inclined, at least implicitly, to place a fairly high
value on the belief that persons should aspire to be rational beings.
Comprehensive schools frequently emphasize the importance of educating
the whole person.
More generally, any school which is fee-paying, whatever its other
ideals, will more probably find itself in tune with economic, and more
specifically free-market, notions of a person than one which is not. On the
other hand, non-fee-paying schools will tend to see the virtues of humans
as social creatures, dependent on and contributing to society.
Where schools cater for students of particular social, cultural, faith or
even economic backgrounds they often serve relatively homogeneous
communities or groups. Under these circumstances, one might assume
that it should be fairly straight-forward to define and organize education in
such a way that it helps a school to fulfil particular ideals of a person.
Specifically, one would expect that one or two ideals would be identified
and attract general support, and that other ideals would be adopted so as
to play a complementary role, or would be marginalized or rejected.
In practice, to a certain extent, this is what does often occur. Thus, for
instance, in a Roman Catholic school, the Christian notion of a person will
usually in reality, as always in theory, act as a unifying ideal for all who
work in that community.
However, in an open society a school cannot, any more than an
individual, be an island 'entire of itself. For a start, the way it has evolved
will have been influenced, not only by the character of its foundation, but
also by external forces. Whatever the dominant ideal, differing notions of a
person will be found to feature even in the most tightly controlled
curriculum, to be alive even within the most orthodox ethos.
And this is as it should be. While there is every justification to teach in
the light of certain beliefs, indeed to do so is a characteristic of all good
schools, education can have nothing to do with any approaches motivated
by an intention to impose or inculcate particular doctrines.
Schools, as well as making their own stance clear, need to help students
to look outwards. Whatever their founding and guiding principles, schools
should acknowledge the range of ideals which different people hold
regarding the ends of being; and they should offer students a balanced

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VISION OF A SCHOOL

insight into the ideas of a person that are valued by those with experiences
or perspectives which may be in contrast to their own. Where this is not
done, there can be little worthwhile education in respect for persons.
Perhaps the greatest opportunities, and by the same token the
greatest dangers, in educating students to respect persons lie not so
much with those schools which select their students, on whatever
grounds, or with those which in some sense offer a special or distinctive
curriculum and ethos, but with those schools which in principle and
practice aim to provide for all the children, and the children of all
families, in their area.
The direct influence of classical civilization, and to a lesser extent of

Christian faith, on our culture and education is fading away. As this

process, regretted by some, welcomed by others, gathers pace, it is
gradually becoming apparent that it is through comprehensive schools that
there now begins to flow the mainstream of educational traditions and
present-day concerns. It is in these schools, with their commitment to a
contemporary inclusiveness of culture, mind and society, that can be most
fully manifested the full range of perceptions of human nature - what it is,
what it is capable of becoming, and what it should be - which our
civilization has inherited and which it is exploring.
At best, comprehensive schools provide that richness and variety of

understanding of persons which is the foundation upon which any

education of quality has to be built. From such schools can come students
who are learning a real respect for themselves and for others, arising from
informed understanding of how many and valuable are the ways of being to
which individuals may aspire.
But, where comprehensive schools fail to realize what they can and
should achieve in encouraging respect for persons, the results are often
dismal. Such schools can damagingly lack belief in the importance of what
they are doing and in their capacity to succeed. Here, amidst apathy and
confusion, students can be counted lucky if they achieve even a blurred
vision of what it means to be, and how to become, a worthwhile person.
For all schools, whatever their nature, the challenge is to create
institutions and communities with the knowledge and confidence to enable
students truly to learn to respect persons, self and other.

CHAPTER 7

The whole truth

The absence of respect for truth seems to me one of the greater

casualties of the modern world.' So said a recent Archbishop of Canterbury
(Runcie, 1990). It would be hard to dissent from his judgement.
If the contemporary curriculum is to have a good opportunity of
effectively encouraging genuine and informed respect for truth it must be
put together, organized, taught and learned in the context of an informed
understanding of those forces (whatever they may be) which are liable to
undermine it.

The attack on truth

Attacks on truth are mounted by various forces. Amongst these, two
groups are of particular significance. The first operates informally. Its
members consist of those individuals who, through their actions, reveal
that they have little concern for truth as a guide for behaviour. The second
favours more systematic and overt tactics: from differing theoretical
perspectives, the meaningfulness and value of the notion of truth are
challenged.
As can happen in conflict, the effectiveness of assaults may be
diminished by some apparent ambivalence amongst the assailants. Thus,
those whose behaviour is consistently or profoundly deceitful may publicly
subscribe to the importance of valuing truth. Conversely, those with
philosophical doubts about truth may personally be models of probity. In
their different ways, personal hypocrisy and private virtue may well result
in a certain weakening of attacks on truth. In the long run, however, a
secure belief in the importance of truth is hardly likely to survive simply
because some inconsistencies may exist among those who, for whatever
reasons, wish to undermine that belief.
There are cases where truth, while being respected, may be modified
for the sake of what is seen, in particular circumstances, as a greater good.
This is, of course, familiar territory for ethical debate. Thus, one may
argue that it is justifiable to withhold from an ill child, frightened of death,
the fact that she is suffering from an incurable disease. It is surely hardly

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VISION OF A SCHOOL

reasonable to identify a temporary subordination of truth to a course of

action explicable in terms of concern for the well-being of others with any
sustained undermining of the notion of truth as such. There can be no
sustained and effective attack where there is no hostile intent.
In detail, different aspects of truth are attacked; motives vary
accordingly.
As we all know only too well, some people in both private and public life
are capable of lying to get their own way, or to cover up any wrong-doing.
They can also convince themselves that what they believe is true, even if
there is apparently little evidence to support them. So far as private
individuals are concerned, some psychologists have described such
perception as 'narrative truth', i.e. that is true of their personal experience
which people believe to be true, irrespective of the facts. This has been
contrasted with 'historic truth', i.e. that is true of individuals' past
personal experience which corresponds with what are generally accepted
to be the established facts and circumstances. The way in which the value
of truth can be overridden and justified by the need for the effective
psychological functioning of the individual has been documented in detail
by Philip Rieff (1966, 1975).
Public bodies can also seem to believe their own, what can appear to
some others, idiosyncratic versions of the truth. Executives of McDonald's, for example, have apparently sincerely upheld the view that the
food they sell is nutritious. They have, nevertheless, been contradicted by
various experts and, in some American states, officially ordered to cease
from advertising their food as nutritious. People can come to have faith in
their own advertising, or even propaganda. While the line is thin between
intentionally deluding others and unknowingly deluding oneself, it would
nevertheless be unrealistic to deny that it can exist.
While to the detached observer self-deception may often seem
inexplicable, or even bizarre, certain motives, even although in the nature
of the case inevitably unconscious, can in fact make quite good sense. Thus,
a sufficiently strong commitment to one's own particular version of the truth
may well lead, especially if supported by a helpful arrangement of
supporting evidence, to others coming to share it. Where this does happen,
the rewards, whether personal or not, can be considerable. So, for example,
false allegations or denials of sexual abuse may come to be credited. Or a
food retailer may succeed in convincing its customers that the company has
their well-being at heart, and so succeed in selling more goods.
Truth suffers where its problematic nature is over-emphasized. The
motive for doing this may be to provide, by way of a smokescreen, a
defence for untruthful behaviour. Thus, government officials, faced with a
need to justify alleged political dishonesty, may at times resort to raising
doubts about the notion of truth. 'Truth,' suggested one civil servant in a
notorious remark, in 1993, to the Scott inquiry into alleged government
involvement in illegal arms dealing, 'is a very difficult concept.'
Commented another, when asked, during the 1985 trial of Clive Ponting
on secrets charges, whether ministers had a duty to give truthful answers
to MPs, 'In highly charged political matters one person's ambiguity may be
another person's truth.'

THE WHOLE TRUTH

61

Obscuring the meaning of truth may arise unintentionally, and not out of
malign intent, but from apparently quite reasonable motives. For whatever
reasons, there is no doubt that interpreting what is meant by truth can
cause difficulty.
Thus, the philosopher J. L. Austin has written that 'A statement is said
to be true when the historic state of affairs to which it is correlated by the
demonstrative conventions (the one to which it 'refers') is of a type with
which the sentence used in making it is correlated by the descriptive
conventions' (quoted in Hamlyn, 1970, p. 133). Austin's thesis has been
described by D. W. Hamlyn, a fellow philosopher, as 'easy to state'. That
may well be. It may also be that it throws light upon areas hitherto seen as
dark by those professionally concerned with the interpretation of
language. However, the argument, at least as formulated, is unlikely to
be of much use to anyone other than those seriously interested in
linguistic philosophy. Unfortunately, the use of technical terminology in
debates about truth may have, at least in the short term, the effect of
leading lay persons towards believing that a serious concern with truth is
an arcane matter, quite possibly beyond them, and one which it is perhaps
pointless to worry too much about.
And so, we reach the point where we need to consider systematic and
speculative questioning of the nature and value of truth.
The main theoretical assaults on truth are mounted by those thinkers
and schools of thought whose arguments, whatever their differing points of
departure, all tend to lead to the conclusion that truth, for whatever
reason, is 'relative'.
Thinkers whose influence has been strongest in relativizing truth, have
included those who have attacked the traditional Western notion of the
centred person. For these philosophers and intellectuals, neither truth nor
persons exist as ends in themselves; rather, they are primarily perceived
as dependent variables.
The notion that truth can be defined in terms of the interests of the
state is perennially convenient for individuals and groups who wield
political power. Those who hold such a belief owe much to Hegel. Debts of
gratitude to him have been openly acknowledged by numbers of apologists
for totalitarian regimes (and more discreetly by some democratic
politicians).
Hegel considered that 'The state has, in general, to make up its own
mind concerning what is to be considered as objective truth.' He reached
this conclusion by equating the real with the rational, the so-called
'doctrine of identity'. Reality he saw as the state: 'The state is real.' He
perceived the state as a conscious organism, endowed with free will: To
the complete state belongs, essentially, consciousness and thought. The
state knows what it wills.' What is real is not only rational, but necessary.
Consequently, any action taken by the state must be moral, needful and
self-evidently right: 'The state is the actually existing, realized moral life.'
(All quotations are from The Philosophy of Law, except the last, which is
from The Philosophy of History: detailed references given in Popper, 1966,
vol. 2, p. 305, n. 8.)
However, this is only a part of the picture. Even states are more or less

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imperfect or unreal. But each is striving to become the embodiment of

reality and reason, or as Hegel also put it, 'the absolute Idea'. The state is
inescapably caught up in a dialectic struggle for survival and dominance. In
this permanent condition of war, potential or actual, no holds are barred,
for there exists no morality other than that dictated to each state by its
own interest. The state which conquers comes, by virtue of the nature of
the dialectic process, closer to reality. Hence it follows that 'might is
right'.
Where does all this leave truth? Truth,' said Hegel in The Philosophy of
History, 'is the unity of the universal and subjective will, and the universal
is to be found in the state.' Or, as he expressed it in The Logic, This unity
is the absolute and all truth, the Idea which thinks itself.' (Quotations
given in Russell, 1954, pp. 761, 767.)
From these highly abstract notions certain practical consequences
follow. First, since the truth is the whole, nothing which is not the whole
can be wholly true. Secondly, states, on account of the collective unity of
their nature, and amongst states the most powerful, are closest to
embodying the truth. Consequently, the state is not only best placed, but
has a moral duty, to define what is and is not true.
Strictly speaking, Hegelian truth, from a philosophic point of view, is
absolute. But, historically it is partial, or as Hegel himself put it 'relative',
because it is conceptualized in situations which are dialectically always
more or less distant from the universal. More specifically, it varies in
practice because it always has to be interpreted by states. It varies not
only between states, but also within individual states over time and
depending on circumstances, as the interests of the state dictate.
However, the more powerful a state, the closer will it be to the unity of
the universal will: hence, the more truthful are its interpretations of reality
likely to be.
Marx, like Hegel, dismissed the idea of objective truth as commonly
understood, and redefined it in his own terms. The question is,' wrote
Marx in 1845, in the 'Eleven theses on Feuerbach' (in McLellan, 1977, p.
156), 'whether objective truth belongs to human thinking is not a question
of theory, but a practical question ... The truth, ie. the reality and power
of thought, must be demonstrated in practice.' What this implies is that an
idea is only true if, having prompted action, that action can be
demonstrated effectively to have promoted 'reality'.
Precisely what Marx meant by reality is notoriously difficult to pin down
with any degree of precision. However, it is at least not seriously
misleading if one thinks of it as dialectic progress through time, driven,
not as for Hegel by spirit, but in the first instance by matter, and
secondarily by mankind, in its necessarily dependent relationship with
matter.
From such a premise it followed, as Engels wrote in a letter of 1890
(quoted in Williams, 1962, p. 260), that 'According to the materialist
concept of history the determining element is ultimately the production
and reproduction in real life.' In other words, the processes and
relationships involved in economic activity provide the foundations of
society in all its manifestations.

THE WHOLE TRUTH 63

On this basic economic structure rises what Marx, in the 'Preface to a

critique of political economy', (in McLellan, 1977, pp. 389-90) called 'a
legal and political superstructure'. This, in turn, has corresponding 'forms
of social consciousness', or 'ideological forms', specifically, 'the legal,
political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic'.
Thus, what we have is a two-fold system, consisting of an economic
structure, and a legal and political superstructure, together with its related
ideological frameworks. It is with the latter, and particularly the
philosophic form, that we are concerned.
It follows from what has been said that any philosophic forms, or what
Marx also called, 'habits of thought and conceptions of life', are generated
by 'the several forms of property ... the social conditions of existence'
(quoted in Williams, 1962, p. 259). Thus, any ideas that classes, groups or
individuals may have will inevitably have initially been received through
mediums, in particular 'tradition and education', totally dominated by and
integrated with the economic groundwork of society. It may be that a
person, or a 'unit' to use Marxist terminology, considers that his mental
habits and conceptions 'constitute the true reasons and premises for his
conduct'. If anyone did believe this, they would be suffering from an
illusion, fantasizing, a victim of false consciousness. In the last resort,
economic forces determine ideas, and hence any behaviour which is
influenced by ideas.
All this suggests that, since there can be no such thing as genuinely free
thought, any human initiatives resulting from beliefs, values, induction,
deduction, interpretations of observed data, and so on, are likely at best to
be not inconsistent with the current stage and direction of the material
powers of production; at worst, they are likely to be more or less seriously,
if impotently, mistaken. The former situation would be likely to arise
where the thinker was a historically aware, conscious, member of a newly
emerging class, say, the proletariat; the latter where the thinker was a
falsely conscious member of a class threatened by a transformation of the
economic foundations from which it derived its identity and power, say,
the bourgeoisie.
In fact, in Marx's view, this is not entirely the case. Particularly as
Marx's and Engels' thought developed, reflective reason and any resultant
initiatives came to be viewed as operating within, and having the capacity
to make some positive contribution to, the complex, subtle, evolving and
multi-dimensional field of human activity. As Engels, in the letter already
quoted above, put it, 'Political, legal, and philosophical theories, religious
ideas and their further development into systems of dogma ... exercise
their influence upon the course of historical struggles.' While no such
notions could in the long run divert the general course of history from its
inexorable progress towards socialism, they could exercise significant
influence. For better, or for worse, they could facilitate or distort the
onward path of history towards its preordained future.
So it comes about that truth, for Marx, is simply a practical matter.
Insofar as a concept of what is true is part of any intellectual system, it
must in the final analysis be defined in terms of materialist determined
structures, forces and relationships. However, since beliefs, theories and

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ideas can lead to actions which have meaningful effects, then notions of
truth can also play a part in the world of current affairs. Ideas which
approximate least misleadingly to truth are those which are seen to bring
closer the dawn of socialism.
Truth is, at least to some degree, an element in those ideas which
promote materialist progress. Falsehood, on the other hand, is reflected in
those ideas which oppose it. Marxist truth is relative in the sense that it
changes in line with the requirements of given circumstances in any
particular stage of the class-based dialectic of history. Truth is what those
with the most scientifically accurate grasp of history say that it is at any
given moment.
The Marxist perception of the nature of truth is neatly illustrated by the
attitude adopted by most communist parties to publication in general, and
to the press in particular. The press must be concerned with truth. Indeed,
the organ of the communist party in the former Soviet Union was called
Pravda (Truth'). But this truth does not imply the objective reporting of
facts. This is mostly opposed. Truth is interpreted as requiring the
presentation of information in such a way as to further the progress of
socialism; and more specifically, to serve the interests of those particular
individuals or groups, either wielding or seeking power, who see
themselves as best placed to ease the advance of history. Thus, it was
entirely consistent with a Marxist view of the duty of a press serving the
interests of truth that Pravda should have supported, by propaganda
amongst other means, a putsch intended to overthrow the recently
established liberal democracy of Russia, and to replace it with a
communist government. That same liberal democracy was perhaps less
true to its own beliefs when it suspended Pravda.
In parenthesis, it is necessary to mention the debate about sociology
and values. One of Marx's most fruitful insights, and one which was
revolutionary at the time it was made, proved to be his perception that the
social environment was a critical factor in influencing not only behaviour,
but also belief. In the wake of Marx (and also of Comte, of the ultimately
less influential social Darwinism of Herbert Spencer, and of others),
emerged the new discipline of sociology. The part played by institutions in
the promotion and maintenance of social cohesion and unity was explored
by Durkheim and his followers.
The massive body of research and controversy associated with the
whole range of sociological work has sometimes been interpreted as, in
the general tendency of its assumptions and findings, promoting a
relativist approach to values. Certainly, numbers of sociologists have been
or are Marxist or neo-Marxist in their approach. For these, and no doubt
for some others, values, including the concept of truth, are relative in a
materialist sense.
However, in the context of the present argument, sociological enquiry is
not seen as necessarily, either on account of its premises or of its
methods, leading to the conclusion that truth is relative. Of course,
sociologists may investigate the effect of social structures, functions,
conditions, and experience on the formation of values; and they may,
following Levi-Strauss and others, enquire into how far the mentalites or

ideologies generated by a society can develop from epiphenomena intois generated by a society can develop from epiphenomena into
independent, guiding, even coercive systems of thought, in their turn
playing a less or more active role in influencing society and its individual
members.
All this can assist us in seeing the subtlety and complexity of the way in
which moral concepts, such as truth, can develop within and come to effect
human behaviour and social environment. Such sociological enquiry does
not, however, in any way establish as inevitable the relativity of truth.
Indeed, not only is it perfectly feasible for practising sociologists to hold
beliefs, whether philosophic or religious, which at the least countenance
the possibility of objective truth; but the commitment of sociology as a
rational, intellectual discipline to scientific methods of enquiry in itself
should preclude the possibility of sociology being seen as, of its nature,
subversive of that aspect of truth concerned with respect for facts.
An epigram of Nietzsche's holds that Truths are illusions which one
has forgotten are illusions.' This challenging dictum, which would probably
have found favour with both Hegel and Marx, has certainly been looked on
with approval by structuralists.
For Derrida and others, language is the actuality which reveals
meaning. Linguistic reality is interpreted as being a self-referential,
internally related and enclosed system. The intricate patterns and
movements of words, le jeu des signifiants, occur on a field of play entirely
cut off and isolated from the ordinary world.
Language, therefore, is not understood as being owned by the people
who commonly use it, as arising from the exigencies and contexts of daily
life, as emerging from incarnate existence as part of a persisting effort to
make sense of, and come to practical and moral terms with, the human and
natural world of phenomena. Rather, language forms a separate universe
in terms of which, for those who have the expertise, real meaning can be
established.
In such a scheme of things facts have no primary significance or
integrity. They are there to be shifted about, toyed with even, so that they
may become intelligible in the light of autonomous language. In this
situation it would hardly be rational to attempt to establish a correlation
between observed fact and belief. Consequently, respect for evidence
becomes extremely difficult, if not impossible, to defend.
Post-structuralists, in fact, show little sign of concern for truth. They
are not, therefore, really bothered about attempting to define, or to
redefine it. Whether or not it may be understood as relative is hardly an
issue. For them it is a concept of marginal significance; it is not really
worth the effort of trying to adapt its meaning to their own perception of
authenticity. As deconstruction proceeds, so truth happens to become an
incidental casualty, a sad relic from an era of European philosophy,
religion and civilization which has had its day.
But why do some thinkers postulate essences, whether spiritual,
material or linguistic, whose natures as variously manifested lead, among
other things, to a questioning, a relativizing, a destabilizing of accepted
notions of truth?
In the kingdom of philosophy there are Queensberry rules which lay

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down that, in the event of combat breaking out the contestants should
confine themselves to rational argument. In particular, any form of
personal attack, of argumentum ad hominem, is frowned on.
Nevertheless, not even philosophers are above temptation. From time
to time they do indulge in doubtful practices. In particular, they are prone
to question each other's motives.
It has been argued that Hegel, Marx and the post-structuralists have all,
in different ways, been affected in the development of their thought by selfinterest. Thus, Karl Popper (1966, vol. 2, pp. 34-5) argued with regard to
Hegel, 'We have more than sufficient reason to suppose that his
philosophy was influenced by the interests of the Prussian government
by which he was employed.' Popper went on to interpret Hegelianism
mainly 'as an apology for Prussianism'.
Marx, existing in a political wilderness far, far outside any ruling circle,
was in no way subject to the enticements which lurked for Hegel.
However, by the very nature of his concerns he was almost bound to be
deeply interested in, even fascinated by, the exercise of civil power. Some
evidence, at least, including correspondence with Engels, suggests that he
was not above seeing the proletariat, whose necessarily emerging strength
he himself had identified, as a vehicle for his own advancement
(Schwarzschild, 1986). Whatever Marx's motivation, there is no doubt
that many theoreticians who followed in his footsteps, from Lenin
onwards, revealed an ability to develop political and moral theory as a
springboard to personal power.
As for the post-structuralists their inclination, despite their individuality, to see themselves as part of an exclusive set has been remarked
on often enough. Iris Murdoch (1992, p. 208), for instance, has
suggested that initially, 'The motives, or ideals, of structuralism have
as their nemesis or accompaniment the wish to establish oneself as a
member of an elite.' She sees the original intellectual desire to explore
the nature of reality metamorphosing into a predominantly psychological
drive to secure an esoteric, perhaps almost shamanistic status; to be
admired, even envied, as something like a thaumaturge for our modern
times. 'Here,' says Iris Murdoch, 'the search for truth becomes a search
for magic formulae and the seeker desires to become a privileged initiate
of a secret cult, a sorcerer or pharmakeus.' This, she points out, 'is a
form of a familiar and enduring style of thought, Gnosticism, knowledge
as power'.
Attacks on truth of metaphysical origin may in part be discredited or
their impetus diminished by querying the good faith of the assailants.
However, in the final analysis, these offensives arise from perceptions of
reality at odds with those which sustain conventional and traditional views
of truth. When it comes to counteracting the arguments of those who
question the value and meaning of truth it may be that the best form of
attack is defence. Truth is liable to suffer weakness, and to get
progressively weaker, unless we clearly understand and can effectively
justify both what it is and the reality in which it is grounded.

THE WHOLE TRUTH 67

Ideas of truth
Confidence in truth ultimately depends on a sound grasp of, and a
commitment to, what should be understood by ideas of truth. Further, it
requires an awareness of how truth may be verified, and of the nature of
the reality which may underlie it. While truthfulness, i.e. faithfulness to
truth, may well arise instinctively, and needs to be maintained by acts of
will, it is more likely to be secure where it is informed by relevant
knowledge.
The main theories of truth may be stated simply. The correspondence
theory proposes, in Bertrand Russell's words (1946), that 'A belief is true
where there is a corresponding fact, and is false where there is no
corresponding fact (p. 129) ... truth consists in some form of
correspondence between belief and fact' (p. 121). This is, of course, the
common-sense criterion of truth. It is a bedrock definition, embedded in
everyday language, and as such fundamental to ensuring a realistic, normal
contact with truth. It serves most people, from children to adults,
reasonably well. The cry, 'But it isn't true!' is generally accepted to mean give or take the odd qualification - that a statement fails to correspond
with fact.
The coherence theory concerns, in Hume's phrase, the 'relation of ideas'.
In this context, ideas deal with a priori propositions of mathematics and
logic. Here, a belief is true where propositions are mutually consistent.
The metaphysical theory can be variously formulated. I will deal mainly
with Platonic and Christian ideas, since it is these which have been most
influential in education. For a Platonist, the supreme form of the Good is
ultimate reality and truth. All unembodied forms derived from the Good,
together with the embodied and particular instances which are more or
less flawed reflections of such forms, are true only insofar as they partake
of the One form.
For a Christian, a metaphysical belief is true to the extent that it is
infused with and reflects divine reality, itself both Being and Truth, the
Augustinian esse ipsum, verum ipsum (Being itself, Truth itself).
These theories are just that. They have to be viewed in the light of a
range of reservations. Thus, correspondence theory has been called, in
Karl Popper's words (1983, p. 181), 'a strangely elusive idea'. As debate
from Locke to Wittgenstein demonstrates, perhaps the main problem lies
in defining with sufficient clarity the nature of propositions and facts, and
so their interrelationships. The less well defined these matters are, the
less reliable will be any correspondence claimed.
The coherence theory, it is generally agreed, is watertight if tested
simply in terms of the analytic and logical relationships between
propositions, or between component premises and conclusions. Where
doubts do emerge they arise from a questioning of the theories of reality
which sustain the propositions and associated concepts employed. So, for
example, are logical and mathematical truths discovered or invented? Do
they derive from a universe of Platonic ideas, or can they, in some sense,
be derived from the material world? These questions, and the differing
answers to which they give rise, ensure that prepositional truth cannot be

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grounded in anything like absolute certainty. Nevertheless, for both

practical and theoretical purposes, the truths of mathematics and logic
work remarkably well. That is quite sufficient for all except the purest of
academics.
Metaphysical theories of truth, whether Platonic or theological, have
been widely dismissed, in particular by those influenced by logical
positivism. It is argued that the term 'truth' can only properly be used in
connection with statements of belief that are in principle either
empirically verifiable (i.e. 'correspond'), or logically justifiable (i.e.
'cohere'). A proposition that fails to meet these conditions can not ever
be described as true in any sense. It must, as A. J. Ayer (1936) argued in
the preface to the first edition of Language, Truth and Logic, be
metaphysical, and 'Being metaphysical, it is neither true nor false, but
literally senseless.'
One can, then, place question marks against the various theories of
truth. Nevertheless, we have not yet reached a point where there is a
generally accepted view that they lack viability. Accordingly, we can now
go on to ask how, in any particular case, we could find out whether any
belief is true or false - or, in other words, to discover how to verify a given
proposition.
Verification has been described as a search for certainty. This is one of
those journeys where one needs to travel hopefully. The difficulties start
with the nature of persons as observers and interpreters of experience,
whether sensory, emotional or spiritual. Humans are fallible, and remain
so, however stringent the precautions taken to save them from
themselves. 'It must be admitted,' said Descartes (1968b, p. 169), 'that
the life of man is very often subject to error in particular cases, and we
must, in conclusion, recognize the infirmity and weakness of our nature.'
Nor can our environment, whether artificial or natural, be regarded as
wholly dependable. For instance, if we rely on it to support our research, it
may let us down. To take just one example, even demonstrations of logical
or mathematical truth can be falsified by computer error.
Much more fundamentally, the universe is unpredictable. Of course, for
practical purposes, many expectations of the future have to be, and can be,
relied on. And some predictions, for example that the sun will rise or
objects fall to earth, are regarded as so secure that we come to look upon
them as governed by laws. Nevertheless, any scientific truth which is
established in relation to a particular set of facts and circumstances will
not necessarily always remain true. For the disposition of the facts, and
the nature of the circumstances may, in due course, change.
Furthermore, because persons are by nature valuing and evaluating
creatures they can never succeed, however hard they may try, in entirely
detaching themselves from the values they hold, or which, viewed from
another perspective, may be considered to hold them. Our values
inescapably influence both what we choose to observe and how we
observe it. 'In deciding what the initial data are, we are working with
values. Value goes right down to the bottom of our cognitive situation'
(Murdoch, 1992, p. 384).
And value inheres not only in ourselves, but in our world. In the first

place, the wealth and infinity of its facts, in all their multiple aspects and
manifestations, force choice upon any person trying to make sense of it all.
The essential nature of both person and world impregnate the relationship
with value, and so with partiality.
Finally, all ideas; persons; facts; circumstances; and cultural, social and
economic phenomena; together with their interrelationships; are encountered and interpreted through language. The language we use is value
laden; and remarkably resistant to attempts to sterilize it. Language does
not create bias; but it helps to integrate us irretrievably in the universe of
values.
In the light of all this, verification of truth is unlikely to enjoy much
success unless carried out with the greatest possible care. And even when
this is done any findings, however apparently secure, need to be
scrupulously reexamined over time, and as circumstances change.
So, let us now return to correspondence theory. Here, for a start, the
inductive approach is out. According to this, it was believed that
conclusions could safely be drawn from unbiased observation of valuefree facts. Quite apart from the now recognized social-psychological
naivety of this method, its reasoning procedures are suspect. Thus, an
example might be, 'All crows observed were black; therefore all crows
must be black.' The difficulty here is that, unless all crows have been
observed, one or more may not be black.
The various problems so far discussed, as far as correspondence theory
is concerned, are taken account of in the 'falsification' theory of Karl
Popper (1959; 1966, vol. 2, p. 260). He accepts that any statement of
belief, or hypothesis, can be no more than a 'crystallisation of a point of
view'. This point of view may be the outcome of any number of processes,
singly or in combination, for instance pure thought, reflection on observed
facts, intuition, imagination, inspiration, etc. If empirical tests confirm the
hypothesis, then the original proposition can be provisionally accepted as
true. However, it cannot be accepted as wholly true, now and forever,
because it only requires one finding that fails to correspond with the
hypothesis for it to be disproved. A counter-instance is always possible
both because the original experiment (or experiments where there has
been replication) may have been flawed, or because circumstances
relevant to the test have changed over time, or because of human error.
Truth as coherence is verified, through the use of logic, by establishing
consistency between propositions. Thus, it may be demonstrated that a
chain of mathemetical reasoning lacks inconsistencies: proofs, including
proofs by contradiction, may be constructed, and so on. Verification, as
required by coherence theory, may, but does not necessarily have to,
involve considering the possible truth of first principles, or other related
propositions. Where no attempt is made to verify axiomatic statements
they may be regarded as purely formal. Provided the terms are defined,
and agreed, they may be used in any structure of propositions. Of course,
where this occurs, any conclusion demonstrated will be tautological; that is
to say, its meaning will be entirely dependent upon and contained within
the original premises.
Metaphysical truth, like the truth of coherence theory, cannot be tested

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by scientific methods. For a Platonist, it is primarily verified through the

philosophic use of reason. Here, what is essentially attempted is a
demonstration of the logical necessity of forms. Insofar as such arguments
can be shown to be self-contradictory, then metaphysical truth in this
system of thought has to be regarded as not established.
Where metaphysical truth is presented in theological terms it has long
been recognized that significant problems arise where any efforts of
verification are made. As the seventeenth-century divine Richard Hooker
(1845, p. 470) expressed it, 'That which is seen by the light of grace,
though it indeed be more certain; yet it is not to us so evidently certain as
that which sense or the light of nature will not suffer a man to doubt o f . . . I
conclude, therefore, that we have less certainty of evidence concerning
things believed, than concerning sensible or naturally perceived.'
Verification of religious truth is basically undertaken by, and for, those
who are, in Paul Tillich's phrase (1953, vol. 1, p. 26, and chapter 1), in 'the
theological circle'. Both the formulation and the acceptance of religious
truth is essentially dependent, whether directly or indirectly, on faith and
spiritual experience as interpreted within a given dogmatic framework.
Thus, as regards Christianity, those who do not accept its teaching in some
form (whether, for instance, because they are members of other faiths, or
are agnostic, or atheist), are most unlikely, in fact are not really in a
position, to accept the particular arguments of Christianity for religious
truth.
Nevertheless, arguments for the truth of religious propositions are
addressed to those outside as well as within the theological circle, and
rightly so. Within the circle, believers need to know how to approach the
task of distinguishing the real from the bogus, and of providing their faith
with firm foundations. Outside the circle, the agnostic and the interested
will be more likely to respect theological notions of truth, or to move
towards personal acceptance of it, if they encounter reasoned consideration of the grounds on which it might be accepted. Finally, religious truth
is hardly likely to earn proper attention in any discussion of the overall
nature of truth if the ways in which it may be verified are not made explicit.
Theological truth may, in principle, be verified through those
ontological and cosmological arguments (see, for instance, Davies, 1982,
chapters 1, 4, 5) which seek to establish proofs of the existence of God, in
whom is truth. It may also be apprehended through what is perhaps best
described as intuition, a sort of halfway point between faith and revelation.
For a Christian, intuition involves the exercise of rational, moral,
emotional and spiritual attributes. In considering Cardinal Newman's
theology his biographer, Ian Ker (1990, p. 645), interprets intuition as
follows: 'It is the cumulation of probabilities, which cannot be reduced to a
syllogism, that leads to certainty in the concrete. Many certitudes depend
on informal proofs, whose reasoning is more or less implicit ... Such
implicit reasoning is too personal for logic. The rays of truth stream
through the medium of our moral as well as our intellectual being. As we
gain a perspective of a landscape, so we personally grasp a truth with a
"real ratiocination and present imagination".'
Ultimately, religious truth, certainly for a Christian, is made manifest

THE WHOLE TRUTH

71

through divine revelation. Disclosure may occur to persons, in scripture

and the word, through history, or through nature.
How may one confirm whether or not a claimed revelation is authentic?
Revelation may be authentic where, when received personally, it seems
so to transform the nature of the person's life that it appears an 'imitation
of Christ'; or, in the case of Christ himself, a reflection of Divine Being.
Revelation may be authentic where, when recorded by word or in
scripture, it seems to be validated by the various techniques of textual
analysis.
Revelation may be authentic where, when emerging through history or
nature, given events, facts, things or objects can be shown to prepare for
the final revelation. In the sense used here, 'final revelation' is taken to
mean the absolute manifestation of transcendent Being in Christ. From
the time of Jesus, this revelation has been potentially open to all persons.
Clearly, actual verifications of metaphysical religious propositions can
be, and frequently have been, challenged. Doubts are expressed not only
from outside, but from within the religious circle. However, a point
sometimes overlooked is that while theological truth cannot be
conclusively demonstrated, there is no universal agreement that it can
be convincingly disproved. In this respect, theological truth is not so very
far from scientific truth. While the latter is not wholly secure because it
may at any time be disproved, the former is not wholly insecure because it
may at any time be proved.
The verification of statements, whether factual, logical or metaphysical,
needs to be supported and confirmed through critical debate. Accordingly,
propositions ought to be publicly stated, in terms that allow them to be
verified as appropriate, and in language that minimizes the likelihood of
misunderstanding.
The pursuit of truth is not only a personal, but also a social, activity.
Individuals explore and propose. Groups appraise, suggest and affirm.
This, of course, is not to go so far as to claim that a belief can only be true
when it is accepted by those deemed trustworthy judges, or more widely
by society at large. What has been called 'inter-subjectivity' is essentially a
verification procedure.
The question now arises: are these theories of truth, together with their
related methods of verification, associated with one reality, however
differentiated and complex, or with various and not necessarily compatible
realities?
Falsification theory has no direct bearing on this issue. That a
proposition, once proved, may subsequently be falsified, does not
necessarily mean that it will be. 'If an assertion is true,' says Karl Popper
(1966, vol. 2, p. 221), 'it is true for ever.' On the other hand, even if a
proposition is true for all eternity, we do not on that account know
whether it is grounded in a unitary or in a plural reality.
The belief that all knowledge ultimately reflects a whole is deeply
rooted in Western ways of thinking. Reflecting and reinforcing this
perception of Being as One is the traditional European view of the nature
of persons. This has always seen individuals as being endowed with a
capacity, even a desire and a need, to understand all phenomena as facets

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of a single totality. Our modern culture inherits, often subconsciously, this

interpretation of human psychology. We tend to have an initial expectation
that what is, is ultimately One. The idea of a self-contained unity or limited
whole is a fundamental instinctive concept,' writes Iris Murdoch (1992,
p. 1). 'We see parts of things, we intuit whole things ... The urge to prove
that where we intuit unity there really is unity is a deep emotional motive
to philosophy, to art, to thinking itself. Intellect is naturally one-making.
To evaluate, understand, classify, place in order of merit, implies a wider,
unified system.'
Nevertheless, even leaving out of account relativist and post-modernist
attacks on truth as such, considerable difficulties lie in the way of
accepting that truth must be associated with a unitary view of reality. Such
a view typically justifies, and is justified by, a metaphysical system of
thought. Whether a system is, for instance, Platonic, Christian or Hegelian
there are those who are not persuaded by the axiomatic propositions,
together with the dependent or supporting chains of reasoning, which are
needed to sustain these or similar structures of ideas.
Further objections arise insofar as it is quite possible to discover
statements which, while verified according to particular theories of truth,
are nevertheless apparently incompatible. Looking back on the intellectual
history of his time, Noel Annan (1990, p. 277) suggested that 'Values
collide and often cannot be made to run in parallel. And not only values.
Propositions too. Truth is not a unity.' In fact, from whatever angle one
approaches, reason can suggest that to sustain a view of reality as a whole
is more likely to be founded on an act of faith than of intellect.
On the other hand, both psychologically and intellectually, there is a
price to pay where ontological unity is denied. Psychologically, we can
become disorientated, even feel a sense of disenfranchisement as persons,
where the existence or possibility of oneness is queried or denied. 'We
fear/ says Iris Murdoch (1992, p. 1), 'plurality, diffusion, senseless
accident, chaos.'
Intellectually, in the absence of a belief in the coherence of reality,
there is an ever-present danger that all forms of enquiry, including the
academic, will come to be characterized by narrow-mindedness, dogmatism and timidity. Specialists, unable or unwilling to look beyond the
boundaries of their particular interests, will be inclined to assume that the
actuality with which they are working represents the only significant
essence, and that by reference to its terminology all can be interpreted, or
alternatively, dismissed. 'Doctors and philosophers,' wrote Rousseau
(1953, p. 245), 'only admit to be true such things as they are able to
explain; they make their own understanding the measure of all
possibilities.'
The pursuit of truth requires an open mind. This is encouraged where
there is a belief in the unity of existence, in that no phenomenon is likely
to be dismissed as detached from significance. On the other hand,
acceptance of plurality, while it well may, does not necessarily predispose
one to a limited focus on one entity amongst many. It can develop a regard
for the value of contrast and dissonance.

THE WHOLE TRUTH

73

We need an open mind if we are to perceive hitherto unrealized

connections. It is through these, whether analytic or artistic, whether
within or across disciplines, that we can achieve new insights, and go on to
establish worthwhile truth. It is truths that emerge from the recognition,
or creation, of relationships, which are likely to transcend the mundane,
and to illuminate understanding.
'Only connect,' wrote E. M. Forster. This ability is dependent on what
persons know. We can only connect where we have concepts that can be
connected. We therefore need to acquire knowledge. In this respect, the
more restricted our knowledge, the less likely are we to become aware of,
or to discover, significant truth.
However, with the best will in the world, there are limitations on the
knowledge humans can acquire. It is not simply that, even where he knows
of infinity, what an Einstein knows cannot be infinite. It is also that,
notoriously, the explosion of knowledge in modern times makes it
impossible, except perhaps at the highest levels of generality, to gain any
sort of realistic overview of the major fields of human learning. The days
are long gone when Mozart's father, Leopold, writing in 1770 to his wife
from northern Italy, could report that he had encountered 'two gentlemen
who in all respects have the same outlook, friendliness, placidity, and a
special love for, and insight into, all branches of knowledge' (Anderson,
1989, p. 122).
It is, however, one thing to accept the obvious, the finitude of what we
can know. It is quite another, in face of that recognition, to retreat into
intellectual dead-ends where no worthwhile connections have a chance of
being made, and where the only truths one can recognize are the trite and
the tedious.
The initial fascination, and indeed necessity, of truth lies in the act, and
a
truth demands an understanding of truth in all its complexities, and of the
whole truth.

CHAPTER 8

The true curriculum

The curriculum, as a whole, should provide, in intention and practice, an

explicit and balanced treatment of ideas of truth. That is to say, objectives
and activities, taken together, should give due regard, as it has been
expressed, to 'the forms of enquiry and justification appropriate to
different kinds of knowledge and experience' (Seminar, University of
Cambridge Department of Education and King Abdulaziz University,
Jeddah, 1993). In particular, there should be clear identification of
correspondence, coherence and transcendental ideas of truth, and of
possible ways in which they may be verified.
I do not intend to imply that the curriculum should be confined to
teaching related to systems of thought and knowledge, of which truth is
the first virtue. It should also be concerned with promoting other virtues,
and in particular justice and responsibility. Accordingly, any well-balanced
timetable, in addition to activities concerned with truth, should also deal
with institutions, of which justice is the first virtue, and with community,
of which responsibility is the first virtue.
Likewise, there are a range of expressive and practical activities which
may, or may not, be justifiable in terms of the first educational virtues.
Even if they are not, valid reasons for their inclusion in the curriculum can
frequently be provided on a number of other grounds.
It follows from all this that there is no question of my intending to argue
that a curriculum is only properly grounded where it can be demonstrably
vindicated in terms of justifiable true belief. This is a necessary, but not
sufficient, basis for a curricular rationale.
What I am suggesting is that schools have no option, whether morally or
educationally, but to commit themselves to the teaching and learning of
truth. This must be a major curricular obligation.
The battle of the truths
An explicit and balanced curricular approach to the teaching of truth can
be difficult to achieve because, as I have argued in the previous chapter,
schools have to contend with a pervasive climate of thought and action

THE TRUE CURRICULUM 75

which disparages the value of truth. Further, even assuming that the
general importance of teaching students to learn about truth is accepted,
controversy is liable to arise over the weight which should be given to
different ideas of truth. Such dispute, whether overt or covert, makes its
own baneful contribution to inhibiting the thriving of a true curriculum. It
is this question which I now wish to explore.
Initially, conditions exist for controversy, rather than for a fair-minded
and amiable exchange of views about differing perspectives, because our
sense of personal identity and worth can be inextricably involved with
notions of truth. Thus, if I see myself above all as a rational individual, I
will be likely to differ, in the nature of my commitment to, and perhaps
even understanding of, different ideas of truth, from someone who, for
example, sees himself or herself as a religious person. Further, as a
rational creature, at least in my own eyes, and because I value being that
sort of person, I may wish to persuade others to try and become rational
persons. Conversely, if efforts are made to convert me to being a religious
person, then I may well feel threatened, and resist. Here are
circumstances with ample potential for conflict.
Disputes over the nature of truth have loomed large, and from the
beginning, in the history of Western thought. They were certainly rife in
classical Greece. Plato, in particular, was a notable polemicist. For him,
truth was transcendent and coherent. The idea that truth might be
concerned with any sort of correspondence between belief and fact was
rejected. Consequently, scientific observation was deemed irrelevant to
the pursuit of truth. 'If anyone tries to learn anything about the world of
sense, whether by gaping upwards or blinking downwards, I don't reckon
that the result is knowledge - there is no knowledge to be had of such
things' (1955, pp. 297-8).
Artistic and creative approaches to truth were also rejected. In what
Plato referred to as a 'long-standing quarrel between philosophy and
poetry' the latter was condemned. In particular, Homer was to be excluded
from the ideal Republic. As for architecture, art, sculpture and drama, they
fared little better. The inexcusable error of all these artistic activities did
not essentially lie in what they were mostly trying to achieve. For the
leading dramatists and artists were, like Plato himself and indeed the
Greeks generally, predominantly interested not so much in mere mimesis,
a copying or representation of transient ephemera, as in, to quote Maurice
Bowra (1957, p. 160), seeking out 'an abiding reality behind the gifts of the
senses'. No, the difficulty in Plato's view was that any artistic or creative
approach to truth was hopelessly and irredeemably flawed in its
methodology. Painting, for example, on account of its use of such
techniques as perspective, was dismissed as 'falling little short of
witchcraft'. The senses could, at best, only perceive, and so evoke, a
distorted reflection of ultimate reality; thus, any exploration of truth that
depended on use of the senses would be bound to go off track. Only pure
thought could hope to approach truth. Art, poetry, drama, even science,
might usefully illustrate and support truths propounded by philosophy; but
they could not have any sort of independent role.
Plato's view of truth was, ultimately, metaphysical. He perceived the

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Good (even if he was not very specific about defining it) as the source of all
reality. It was to be approached by reflection, contemplation and pure
thought. Plato's follower, Aristotle, albeit deeply concerned with scientific
observation and classification likewise, in the final analysis, held a
metaphysical notion of truth. For him, real essence was to be intuited, not
approached through any sort of empirical process.
With the advent of early Christianity, and in particular of theological
thought, a second strand of metaphysical understanding became
established in Western thinking. Here, truth was equated with, and seen
as deriving from, the one, omnipotent and universal Godhead. From
Augustine to Aquinas and beyond, truth was established, ultimately and
above all, through divine revelation. In the absence of revelation truth was,
at best insecure, at worst non-existent.
These metaphysical approaches to truth, albeit differing, did not initially
prove irreconcilable. Indeed, they came to establish a long and
comfortable joint hegemony. For over a thousand years, and especially
through the universities of medieval Christendom, the congruent
doctrines of neo-Platonism, of Aristotle, and of the theological Summa,
reigned supreme. This was a universe of truth received, not observed.
With the Renaissance, however, came a subversive and enquiring turn
of mind. In particular, there were now demands to know how this material
world, in its astonishing diversity of manifestations, actually worked. And
further, it was being asked whether such knowledge, once acquired, could
be put to practical use for the benefit of mankind.
It was very clear that even Aristotelian reasoning, let alone Platonic
rationality, or Christian revelation, were little interested in addressing
issues of this nature; and insofar as they were, they were signally failing to
come up with satisfactory answers.
Consequently, a different notion of truth, and of approaches to verifying
it, began to be considered. Francis Bacon argued that Man was the servant
and interpreter of nature. 'Gaping upwards or blinking downwards' were at
last back in favour. For Bacon, truth was established inductively through
the disciplined observation of systematically collected and organized data.
It was this type of scientific thinking which Descartes (1968a, p. 78) had in
mind when, anticipating the sort of utilitarian uses to which research
findings would frequently be put, he wrote:
Instead of the speculative philosophy taught in the Schools, a practical
philosophy can be found by which, knowing the power and the effects of
fire, water, air, the stars, the heavens and all the other bodies which
surround us ... we might ... make ourselves, as it were, masters and
possessors of nature. Which aim is not only to be desired for the
invention of an infinity of devices by which we might enjoy, without any
effort, the fruits of the earth and all its commodities, but also principally
the preservation of health.
The search of Renaissance and Enlightenment thinkers for more
satisfactory and differentiated notions of truth set the scene for the
emergence of characteristically modern modes of thinking. Compatible
with the Platonic-inspired tradition there developed the idea of truth as

THE TRUE CURRICULUM 77

coherence, that is the notion that logical and mathematical statements are
true where propositions are consistent. Also surviving, but beleaguered,
was belief in truth as of divine origin. That is true which exists in the mind
of God. But it is the notion of correspondence which has emerged as the
dominant idea. Truth is held, above all, to emerge where fact and belief
can be convincingly shown to match.
These ideas of truth are not, of course, held by everyone to be
necessarily mutually exclusive. Nevertheless, each has attracted its camp
following of active, indeed at times pugnacious, adherents. These are not
necessarily always content simply to pursue their own paths to truth.
Some of them, not infrequently, are given to mounting assaults on those
whom they see as rival bands of truth seekers. So, scientists, as good
empiricists, may attack a passing choir of theologians. Logicians and
mathematicians, on a different flank, may have a go at the same quarry.
Scientists and mathematicians have the occasional skirmish over the
possible existence of pure forms. And philosophers, as is their wont, are
liable to sally forth, behind diversionary smokescreens of concepts, against
any one who looks vulnerable.
And all this is reflected in the curriculum.
As in the wider world, so in the school, one can readily detect signs of
conflict over differing ideas of truth, over the value which should be placed
on them, and over the priority they should be given.
In certain respects, these curricular conflicts can be viewed simply as
replays, in a minor key, of the greater controversies. But they are much
more than that. For it is only too well understood that the curriculum, for
better or worse, influences minds, attitudes and values. Consequently,
control of the curriculum can be used to promote particular beliefs, and
not least those related to truth and its nature. What is taught to young
people not only reflects, but is a critical element in, the struggles over
truth.
One should not expect to find, if one considers the evolution of the
curriculum as exemplified by its changing subject-matter and method, that
any one theory of truth succeeds in establishing its kingdom at the
permanent expense of others. For, at least from the perspective of the
protagonists, the various verities are eternal; accordingly, it is hardly
likely that any one idea of truth will be left entirely without its apologists.
At worst, one might fear to discover an apparently endless battle of
attrition, with fortunes swaying, but with no ultimate victor. At best, one
could hope for some sort of arbitrated or agreed armistice, where at least
those involved would agree to respect each other's territory.
From the earliest moments in the recorded history of the curriculum in
the Western world we can start to trace the influence upon it of the
changing priorities accorded by society to the different notions of truth. At
the heigt of Greek civilizatio, prior to Plato and Arisotle, schools in fifth

century Athens provided a common curriculum (Castle, 1961, part 3). This
was open to, and as a rule attended by, all the sons (but not the daughters)
of free citizens. While a basic grasp of the three Rs was taught, the main
emphasis was on poetry, drama, art, music and physical education. All
Athenian citizens learned in detail and depth about their cultural heritage,

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VISION OF A SCHOOL

and about how to perform, create and evaluate in a wide range of artistic
activities. Above all, they learned that by trained and sophisticated use of
the senses and the emotions it became possible to seek out and to express
the nature of the underlying, true reality.
The Platonic counter-reformation eventually led to the predominance of
a very different sort of curriculum. It focused on intellectual and moral
capacity. While it gave, in theory, equal rights to male and female (a
principle followed in practice by very few Platonist educators), it was
otherwise elitist and selective. In the Republic, only the guardian caste
qualified for any education worth the name, and only the brightest and best
survived the full course. Classes other than the guardians were taught how
to ply their more or less menial trades, and to obey the laws and other
edicts of the state as laid down by the rulers.
The Platonic curriculum found no place for any empirical or
investigative activity. While the term 'science' was mentioned, its function
was simply to illustrate or demonstrate what had been discovered by
logical thought. Similarly, the arts, literature, drama and poetry were
rigorously censored, and relegated to an extremely restricted supporting
role.
By contrast, the study of mathematics was given a high priority. Indeed,
above the entrance to Plato's Academy were inscribed the words, 'Let no
man enter who knows no geometry.' Above all, however, the curriculum
was concerned to educate the intellect so that those few who proved to
have the capacity might 'look straight at reality, and at the brightest of
realities, which is what we call the Good' (Plato, 1955, p. 283). This, in the
final analysis, was a curriculum designed to enable those who followed it to
achieve, through exercise of the mind and of virtue, the intellectual
contemplation of transcendental truth.
The Platonic curriculum, in some respects given a rather more civilized
veneer by the Aristotelian emphasis on education as 'liberal and noble
activity', became over the succeeding centuries the standard model.
Following the rise of Christianity, the ecclesiastical authorities, who
controlled virtually all of education up to the Renaissance, and who
continued at the least to influence much of it subsequently, found little
difficulty in evolving a curriculum on the basis of Platonic thinking. During
the medieval period it taught 'the seven liberal arts', logic, grammar and
rhetoric, together with arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. The
latter, consisting as it did mainly of a training in the performance of divine
praise, safely subordinated education of the senses to the fulfilment of
spiritual purpose. The grand educational aim was to train students,
according to their social position and spiritual and intellectual capacity, in
contemplation of the nature of divine being as realized in the Holy Trinity
of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. This was a
curriculum founded in a belief in metaphysical truth, both divine and
rational, and designed to secure and spread that belief.
Following the Renaissance, and right up to the present day, the
curriculum can be seen as a battleground where wave after wave of
assaults have been mounted on the sorts of courses of study derived from
the philosophies of medieval Christendom, and of classical Greece.

THE TRUE CURRICULUM 79

The major stronghold in English education of the traditional curriculum

has historically been found in the public schools. Through much of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries these represented a late idiosyncratic,
but nonetheless robust, flowering of neo-Platonism. What they taught was
a splendid edifice of knowledge, balancing impressively if precariously on
the twin pillars of respect for revealed and rational truth.
This curriculum was buttressed, not simply by the strength of the public
schools as such, considerable in social and economic terms though this
was, but by the nature of the education system as a whole. At the height of
its influence, the public school curriculum both embodied a neo-Platonic
notion of truth and was at the apex of a more or less coherent hierarchy of
schools designed to educate the whole school-age population in
accordance with the principles of rational and theological hierarchy, at
least insofar as this was possible in late imperial Britain rather than in
twilight imperial Athens, or medieval Christendom.
Thus, any attack on the public school curriculum, to have any chance of
serious success, also had to be an attack on the whole system. At this
point, I am only concerned with the curriculum. However, it would be
unrealistic not to acknowledge that curriculum and system were linked.
Each formed, philosophically and educationally, part of a single entity.
It followed from this, first that, since it was integrated into one
conceptual and social whole, any changes to the public school curriculum
would be very slow in coming. For it would not be simply a matter of
altering courses, but of redirecting and redesigning the sum total of the
national educational arrangements through which were planned to flow
those streams of thought intended to irrigate the minds of the young. It
also followed that when changes did eventually arrive they would be
accompanied by a gradual transformation of the national organization of
education.
Thus, as one approaches the contemporary scene, one increasingly
finds that an emerging modern curriculum is supported by a different
system of education. In place of the old hierarchy, hesitantly and with large
exceptions but nevertheless perceptibly, one sees the public schools
becoming academies for the brighter offspring of an ambitious plutocracy;
and the former elementary, secondary modern and grammar schools
coalescing, albeit in the face of substantial opposition from the old order,
into comprehensives, institutions which can perhaps best be understood
as aspiring to become communities of students of all classes and abilities.
Particularly as developed from the late eighteenth century onwards, the
major features of the traditional curriculum which have been subject to
attack have been:
first, the absence, or at best minimal presence, of any enquiry-based,
and more specifically scientific, teaching;
secondly, the general downgrading of the arts;
thirdly, the central emphasis on the transcendental, in particular when
perceived as Christian divinity;
and finally, the reluctance to provide for practical, including
technological, subjects.

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Demands that the curriculum should include science, and more generally
enquiry-based activities, grew in urgency and frequency from the earliest
period of the Enlightenment. In certain areas of education, these were
heeded. Thus, by the time Victoria came to the throne, science was a
normal part of the curriculum in most private and dissenting academies,
and in many grammar schools (Wiener, 1985, p. 17).
In the socially dominant public schools, however, it was a very different
story. Here, the a priori approach continued to dominate. Throughout the
nineteenth century, and in many cases well into the twentieth century, the
introduction of science on to the timetable was strenuously opposed, or at
best allowed on sufferance. The much-admired headmaster of Rugby,
Thomas Arnold, gave a flavour of prevailing attitudes when he wrote to a
friend, 'Rather than have physical science the principal thing in my son's
mind, I would gladly have him think that the sun went round the earth, and
that the stars were so many spangles set in the bright blue firmament'
(quoted by Strachey, 1934, p. 188).
In public schools, and indeed in the many others of all types where
science was regarded with suspicion, the subject eventually became well
established. But it has been a long struggle which has lasted almost, and
some would argue right up to, the present time.
Opposition to teaching empirical approaches in establishing truth
centred on efforts to prevent, or to marginalize, the establishment of the
sciences in the timetable. But hostilities were not confined to this sector
of the curriculum. In any subject where they might justifiably be
introduced, the teaching of research and enquiry methods was liable to
be resisted on principle. So for instance the social sciences, unlike in
numbers of other European and English-speaking countries, have never
established more than a toehold in the timetable (see Hargreaves et al.,
1988, pp. 31-2, for a succinct summary of succeeding, post-1944 attempts,
and their relative failure, to establish social studies on the timetable).
Further, history and geography, until the influence of innovatory Schools
Council Curriculum Projects began to be felt, were frequently simply
taught as received wisdom. More generally, attacks, sometimes inspired
by the press or politicians, were often made on the broad target of childcentred learning. While certain abuses undoubtedly existed, the hysterical
and sweeping nature of some criticisms tended to undermine the very
notion that children should be expected to think for themselves, to reach
valid conclusions on the basis of evidence, and to justify findings.
The arts have, so far at least, had an even more difficult, and
considerably less successful, struggle than science to establish themselves
securely in the curriculum. And the basic reason for this is clear. While the
various scientific disciplines could powerfully appeal to their own idea of
truth, the arts could not.
Of course, in support of their cause, advocates of arts education can,
and do, call on a range of arguments not directly concerned with the
truthfulness of their subjects. Thus, to refer only to recent debate, a range
of reasons have been offered in support of arts education. It encourages
fuller human development, in particular intelligence and creativity
(Robinson, 1989). It contributes to the development of multi-cultural

THE TRUE CURRICULUM

81

understanding (Owusu, 1986; Willis, 1990). It helps in the education of

feeling and the emotions (Ross, 1989). It should inform students about
their own artistic heritage and that of other cultures; and it should
encourage mastery of technique and the ability to perform (see, for
instance, the National Curriculum Orders for Art and for Music, DFE,
1995).
Why do the arts have difficulty in appealing convincingly to a notion of
truth?
The problem is not so much one of countering open denial that truth
matters in art. Nor is it really, any longer, a matter of fighting professional,
or even public, perceptions that any artistic truth is somehow a lesser
truth, a distorted reflection at best of a greater verity.
The predominant difficulty lies in a different direction. It arises from
the sheer multiplicity and richness of ideas of truth which can inspire art.
Thus, there is, for instance, the notion that when contemplating human
beings art should attempt to reveal what Wordsworth (1936, p. 734), in the
preface to the Lyrical Ballads, called 'the primary laws of our nature'. Even
more ambitiously, there is the almost mystical belief, articulated by,
amongst others, Saul Bellow, in his Nobel lecture (1994, p. 93), that 'there
is another reality, the genuine one, which we lose sight of. This other
reality is always sending us hints, which, without art, we can't receive.'
And such a credo can be associated with the view of the artist, not simply
as an almost shamanic interpreter of ultimate reality, but as, in some
sense, its creator. Deeply ingrained in the consciousness of the Western
mind there is, as Kenneth Clark (1956, pp. 9-11) has expressed it, 'an
instinctive desire not to imitate, but to perfect'.
In contradistinction to a perception of the artist as unique, universal
interpreter, or creator, of transcendent actuality, there is the perception
that art is to do with making sense, through disciplined observation,
honest attention, scrupulous interpretation of the phenomena of
existence. In Karl Gombrich's words, 'language does not give name to
pre-existing things or concepts, so much as it articulates the world of our
experience. The images of art, we suspect, do the same' (1960, p. 90).
Thus the very variety and dissimilarity of interpretations of artistic
truth create problems for education. There is no sustained and systematic
tradition that deals with the notion of artistic truth; or, more precisely,
with the idea or ideas of truth that art may explore or exemplify.
All this substantially helps to explain why the arts have not been well
placed to make a coherent and clearly focused case for their presence in
the curriculum on the grounds of their truthfulness. Nor has there been
much help in this regard from elsewhere. With few exceptions, neither
philosophers, nor theologians, nor anyone else very much, have directed
significant attention to art in their investigations and definitions of truth.
So, in the battle of the truths, the arts suffer. There have been some
apparent advances; for instance, a widely welcomed government report
(Department of National Heritage, 1996) recently advocated strategies for
promoting the arts in schools. Nevertheless, the curricular case for the
arts remains handicapped by the lack of its systematic and explicit
attention to notions of truth.

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VISION OF A SCHOOL

A belief that truth is transcendent and divine is represented and

explored in the curriculum predominantly through religious education.
Characteristically, religious education is also concerned with related
subject-matter, covering such issues as the religious beliefs, practices and
lifestyles of Christianity and other major world faiths.
However, in the absence of any belief in, or at least acceptance of the
possibility of, divine truth, it could be argued that the study of religion
deals with little more than a curious, and possibly dangerous or delusory,
cultural phenomenon (see, for example, an article by Richard Dawkins in
the Spectator, August 1994).
And indeed, in a multi-cultural society such as ours, there are those
who, since they cannot accept any notion of truth as emanating from God,
at the least question the right of religious education to a place in the
curriculum.
Although modern questioning of the validity of transcendental religious
truth had its roots in the Enlightenment, and indeed in even earlier
periods, the teaching of religion in the great majority of schools remained
secure so long as religious bodies remained substantially in control of
education.
However, as the state first became directly involved in the provision of
education there began a questioning of the content and purpose of
religious instruction (as it was then called); in due course, this developed
into overt attempts, by some, to undermine the subject.
At the time of the first national legislation dealing with schools, the
Education Acts of 1870 and 1902, it was taken for granted, with only rare
exceptions, that all students should learn about religion. Compulsion was
unnecessary, and so was not legislated for (see Murphy, 1971). The only
real arguments, which admittedly could be ferocious, were over whether
teaching in publicly provided schools should, or should not, be
denominational. It was originally decided, by the so-called Cowper-Temple
clause of the 1870 Act, that, in the newly created Board Schools, 'no
religious catechism or religious formulary which is distinctive of any
particular denomination shall be taught in the school'. This is a principle
which, although initially frequently challenged, has, for county schools,
and for grant-maintained schools which were formerly county schools,
remained intact up to the present day.
However, circumstances had changed considerably by the time of the
next great piece of national legislation concerned with education, the 1944
Act. Various subsidiary, but nevertheless important, issues had arisen. For
example, there was anxiety about what should be the nature of religious
education to be taught in those church schools which catered for all
students in a particular district. The main issue, though, was not so much
about what should be taught, although that still retained some of its former
power to divide, but about what place, if any, the teaching of religion
should be accorded in the curriculum.
Various diverse, and not necessarily mutually supportive forces,
threatened the traditionally secure place of religious instruction.
First, there was the growing disaffection from organized religion, so
characteristic of the twentieth as compared with the nineteenth century.

THE TRUE CURRICULUM

83

This might, but did not necessarily, involve a rejection of the spiritual
values religion claimed to stand for. It did, however, incline many to view
with distaste any denominational squabbling over the content of religious
instruction.
Secondly, however, there was increasingly vocal, if not necessarily very
widespread, hostility to religion on grounds of principle. This was usually,
but not necessarily, stated in humanist or rationalist terms, (as, for
example, in Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not A Christian, 1957).
Finally, there was the long-standing liberal belief, originally articulated
by John Stuart Mill, that all schools should have control over their own
curricula, and that any state intervention should be resisted on the
grounds that it would be likely to interfere with individual freedom. As the
social consensus which had secured the place of religious instruction in
schools began to disintegrate, the principle that schools should be free to
chose what they taught clearly evoked the possibility that, institution by
institution, religious instruction might fade from the timetable.
While R. A. Butler's education bill was being debated, there was
considerable concern, and not only among Anglicans, Roman Catholics and
Nonconformists, over the negative impact all this might have on the place
in schools of the teaching of religion. It was one thing for adults to give up
regular, or even all, religious observance. It was quite another to be faced
with the prospect of present and future generations of children being
educated in ignorance of the beliefs, practices and lifestyles of
Christianity. There is, I think,' said Chuter Ede, the parliamentary
secretary to the Board of Education, in the parliamentary debate on the
education bill, 'a general recognition that even if parents themselves have
... encountered difficulties that have led them into doubts and hesitations,
they do desire that their children shall have a grounding in the principles
of the Christian faith as it ought to be practised in this country' (Hansard,
10 March 1944, vol. 397, no. 45, col. 2425).
There was much discussion. One favoured action was to make religious
instruction compulsory. Of course, there were those who opposed this
(see Dent, 1966, p. 25). However, the mood of the time was against them.
Parliament duly voted for compulsory religious instruction.
For the teaching of religion, the new legislation represented a
watershed. Not only was this, as Dent (p. 25), put it, 'a new departure
in educational legislation'; it also gave religious instruction unique status
as the only subject which had to be taught by law.
However, the 1944 settlement was rooted in a paradox. On the one
hand, compulsion was deemed necessary because Christianity, once so
powerful in society that schools unquestioningly taught it, now, as A. J. P.
Taylor expressed it (1965, p. 568), 'had to be propped up by legislative
action', because 'the Christian devotion of teachers, or of parents, could
no longer be relied on'. But, on the other hand, there was the widespread,
even if by no means universal, public desire to ensure that the subject
continue to be taught.
The effects of the paradox were to exert strong, if almost inevitably
contradictory, influences on the teaching of religious education over the
long period leading up to the Education Reform Act of 1988. There were

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VISION OF A SCHOOL

those, particularly in the schools themselves, who came to resent

legislative ukase. The subject generally acquired, if it did not already
possess, low status. It was often regarded with condescension, if not
outright hostility, by heads and by the generality of teachers; while
students frequently resented having to take it. Indeed, the legal
requirements were widely ignored, whether blatantly or deviously.
But support in the country for religious education as it at last began to
be called, while only often little more than half-hearted and anaemic,
nevertheless stubbornly refused to die away. One influential survey, for
instance, even found that parents considered the subject more important
for their children to learn than science, modern languages or history
(Schools Council, 1968).
Any underlying support for the teaching of religion was reinforced by a
number of factors. Organized religion, for instance, continued to be able to
exert, even if only intermittently, effective political and public pressure.
Religious educators themselves began to take a range of initiatives (for
example through the Schools Council Religious Education Curriculum
Projects) to reform and bring up to date their subject.
More intriguingly, there now appeared some participants in the field
who previously had hardly existed, and where they had, had intentionally
kept a low profile, or had simply been largely ignored or sidelined. Many
members of world faiths other than Christianity, mainly but by no means
exclusively from new immigrant communities, began to express an active
interest in what schools were doing. Jews, who had had their own aided
schools since 1944, Muslims, Hindus and others essentially believed
strongly in the importance of religious education, or at least religious
instruction. However, they often queried the nature of what was happening
in state schools. In particular, questions were raised about the preeminent
status of Christianity in the curriculum.
As in 1944, so in 1988, the introduction of a comprehensive and
reforming education act proved to have significant implications for
religious education (for a detailed analysis of government policy and
religious education 1985-1995, see Robson, 1996). The government's
initial proposals, laid out in The National Curriculum 5-16 (DES, Welsh
Office, 1987), revealed an indifference, if not actual hostility, from
ministers and their officials towards religious education: understandably,
this came as a shock to many advocates of the subject. However, in some
respects, the attitude should perhaps have been expected. Ministers in the
Thatcher administrations, and not least at the Department of Education
and Science, had frequently been antagonistic to the interests of ethnic
minorities, and these interests certainly included religious education. As
for civil servants, they, in their tidy-minded, rationalist, Confucian way,
have nearly always tended to feel uneasy with the numinous, through
whatever set of beliefs it may be expressed. Given this official climate of
opinion, it was perhaps hardly surprising that a low priority was given to
finding a place in the curriculum for religious education.
What was bizarre, however, although perhaps just explicable given the
nature of the administration, was the neglect and apparent ignorance of
the lessons history had to offer. Those responsible for framing the bill

THE TRUE CURRICULUM 85

appeared to have overlooked entirely the potential which the issue of

religion in schools had always had to provoke national controversy.
And mayhem duly erupted. Many voices were to be heard, but it was
predominantly bishops and lords who articulated in Parliament the various
anxieties. Two major issues came to the fore. First, it was felt that a
guaranteed place for religious education in the common curriculum was at
risk. This anxiety remained even when ministers explained that religion's
place was still guaranteed by the relevant sections of the 1944 Act, which
would remain in force. Eventually, with great reluctance and after much
prevarication, the government legislated to include religious education as
part of the 'basic curriculum', thus reaffirming its position on the
timetable.
However, the solution to one concern uncovered the other concern. If
religious education was safe, what about the place within it of Christianity?
Traditionally, of course, it had been generally assumed that the teaching of
religion and of Christianity were to all intents and purposes synonymous.
But, as we have seen, that situation was changing. As in 1944 the
apparently growing secularization of society made it necessary to afford
religious instruction legal protection, so now in 1988 the increasingly
multi-faith nature of the country meant that the status of Christianity in
religious education needed similar statutory help. Having failed to bury
this issue, along with religious education itself, the government moved
with some alacrity to deal with it. Subject to various safeguards, it was
enacted (Education Reform Act 1988, 8(3)) that the teaching of religion
should 'reflect the fact that the religious traditions in Great Britain are in
the main Christian whilst taking account of the teaching and practices of
the other principal religions represented in Great Britain'.
Following the passage of the Act, controversy over the place of religious
education, and by implication or explicitly of the significance for teaching
and learning about transcendental truth, continued virtually undiminished.
On the one hand it was argued, for example by Richard Dawkins, in a
whole range of articles, that religious education syllabuses were
inadequate in their view of life and the universe in that they failed to
deal with the questions raised, and the answers proposed, by scientific
enquiry. On the other hand, in defence of religious education, the chief
executive of the Schools Curriculum and Assessment Authority (SCAA)
(Tate, 1995) criticized educational and social attitudes which dismissed
'anything to do with religion as relics from the infancy of mankind', and
which saw virtue only in 'a narrow, utilitarian view of the curriculum'.
On a more practical level, there were certainly continuing reasons for
anxiety over the place and effectiveness of religious education. Various
sources of evidence, not least inspection reports (e.g. OFSTED, 1995),
suggested that both timetable coverage and students' knowledge of the
subject were often less than satisfactory.
Nevertheless, there were grounds for considering that the place of the
subject might be becoming more rather than less secure. The reinforced
statutory requirements, new inspection arrangements and guidance from
SCAA, such as the model syllabuses issued in 1994, all combined to
encourage many schools to take their responsibilities more seriously.

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VISION OF A SCHOOL

Further, the revision of the National Curriculum undertaken by Ron

Bearing led to both history and geography becoming optional for 14- to 16year-olds. As a result, religious education became the only compulsory
humanities subject at Key Stage 4. Finally, greater flexibility in public
examination requirements allowed short course GCSEs to be awarded. All
in all it was arguable that the status of religious education was slowly being
raised, and was on a rising trend for the first time in many years.
Practical education became a matter for debate and concern in the
United Kingdom from, at least, the late nineteenth century onwards. In
1887, for example, the National Association for the Promotion of
Technical Education was established. In part, without doubt, the interest
in practical education was inspired the successful German system of
technical education, and spurred on by anxiety about the technological
advances of Germany.
However, those who fought to see practical education introduced as a
significant element of the school curriculum, and indeed of the school
system, faced, at least in the first place, particularly intransigent
opposition. The main problem was that supporters of the traditional
curriculum saw it, and persuaded many others to see it, as occupying, to
the virtual exclusion of any other possible arrangement of courses, the
moral high ground.
In effect, the argument ran thus. The aim of the curriculum is ultimately
moral. The substance of the curriculum, its content and procedures, are
mainly concerned with knowledge. The first virtue of knowledge is truth,
and particularly a priori truth. Practical education has little or nothing to
do with truth, however understood. Therefore, practical education can be
no more than a peripheral and inferior curricular concern.
There were, historically, various unhappy consequences of this
dismissive view of practical education. Prior to, and even to some extent
following, the introduction of comprehensive education, it meant that,
reinforced by the hierarchic implications of Platonic philosophy, an elite
would follow a curriculum predominantly concerned to promote reflective
ability and the powers of abstract reasoning; while the lower on the
educational scale one found oneself, the more likely one was to follow a
course restricted to the three Rs, religious instruction (or education) and a
number of practical subjects. This was liable to be the case whether
students found themselves in the lower classes of particular schools, or in
a school near the base of the educational pyramid.
Paradoxically, however, the denial to the elite of skills relevant to the
world of work in no way impaired their employment prospects - far from
it. As one Thomas Gainsford remarked in the nineteenth century, 'Greek
not only elevates above the vulgar herd, but leads often to positions of
considerable emolument' (quoted in Healey, 1989, p. 13). This has meant
that one of the reasons parents have battled to get their children into 'top'
schools has been, not so much to equip them to contemplate the nature of
the Good, but to get them off to a flying start in their careers.
Perhaps the most unfortunate effect of the Platonic-inspired hostility to
practical education was the dynamic of arrogance and resentment which it
helped to build into the educational system. Originally, this could be

THE TRUE CURRICULUM 87

powerful indeed. Those educated in public schools seldom had much

regard for those who attended lesser institutions. In memoirs published
just after the First World War, a chief inspector of schools (Holmes, 1920,
p. 64) wrote of the pupils whom he had seen that 'as they all belonged to
the "lower orders", and as (according to the belief in which I had been
allowed to grow up) the lower orders were congenitally inferior to the
"upper classes", I took little or no interest in .. .[them] ... either as
individuals or as human beings.' Hardly surprisingly, elementary education
was widely perceived to be 'training in followership' (Eaglesham, 1967,
p. 53).
Two strands, in particular, can be distinguished in the arguments of
those who supported practical education. First, it was said that numbers of
students would come to be better motivated if what they were learning was
related to the real world, and if its ultimate purpose could be seen to be of
direct relevance to life after school. This line of thinking can be traced
from Cobbett, who attacked 'book learning abstraction', through the
Hadow Report of 1926, The Education of the Adolescent, to the Newsom
Report of 1963, Half Our Future, and right up to the present time.
However, this sort of argument has tended to lose credibility, although not
necessarily cogency, through its tendency to direct itself at the needs of
students of lower ability and social class.
The second major strand of argument put forward in favour of practical
education has in recent times perhaps come to receive the greater
attention. It is concerned less with the needs of the student and more with
those of society. It proposes that schools have significantly failed to
prepare young people to make an adequate contribution to the world of
work, and thereby have been a significant cause of national economic
underperformance. As a publication of the Social Affairs Unit (1984, p. 12)
expressed it, 'Our school pupils have not been adequately educated for
employment and enterprise; this is responsible for high unemployment,
for Britain's economic decline over the last half-century, and her failure to
keep pace with other nations.'
The proper response to such an analysis was seen as being greater
emphasis on the practical aspects of education. The nation's prosperity,'
declaimed a National Curriculum Council report (1990b, p. 1), 'depends
more than ever on the knowledge, understanding and skills of young
people. To meet this challenge pupils need to understand enterprise and
wealth creation and develop entrepreneurial skills.'
In principle, this argument was directed at the curriculum of all
students. In practice, a continuing emphasis on the importance of
academic achievement, especially through GCSEs and A levels, and the
published success in these public exams of the selective schools, whether
in the private or state sectors, had the actual effect, yet again, of relating
proposals for curricular reform predominantly to the schools and the
curricula for the less advantaged, and the less able.
Various means were advocated, and some implemented, even if
frequently only as experiments, of achieving a wider introduction of
practical education. Success was often limited, and where secured, usually
hard won. Perhaps the clearest progress was made with teaching method,

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VISION OF A SCHOOL

where it has become generally accepted that one significant criterion of

good teaching is that it should be practical in the sense that it relates to
the real world and to students' actual experience. Some success (though
perhaps not as great as was sometimes claimed) was also achieved through
giving a reasonable priority to subjects with evident practical aspects, as
the National Curriculum did with technology and science; through
supplementing the curriculum with vocational and pre-vocational courses;
and through cross-curricular initiatives.
More problematic were attempts to reinterpret, or even redesign, the
curriculum as a whole so as to give it a more practical spin. A 1981 Schools
Council working paper, The practical curriculum,' proved too general to
exert any significant influence. The suggestion by a professor of education
(Skilbeck, 1982; Times Educational Supplement, 23 February 1982), that
English, maths, science and modern languages might be made optional,
and that a core curriculum of practical pursuits, identified as health,
physical education, creative arts and interpersonal relationships might
exist, was praised as original or dismissed as dotty depending on one's
point of view. Either way, it hardly seemed realistic. The Education
Reform Act of 1988 required, in principle, that the curriculum should have
a practical aspect, stating that it should prepare pupils for 'the
opportunities, responsibilities and experience of adult life'. However,
apart from the emphasis on science and technology already mentioned, the
Education Reform Act actually did little directly to enable the effective
introduction of a practically orientated curriculum.
Finally, and most ambitiously, changes in the system both of education
and even of government were introduced. A new category of school, the
City Technology College, was established. And in 1995 the Department for
Education was amalgamated with the Department for Employment.
However, the extent and influence of the City Technology College
initiative proved less than was hoped for by ministers; and it remains to be
seen whether governmental reorganization, not generally a very successful
means of changing ingrained national practices, habits and cultures,
proves effective in helping to establish practical education more firmly in
school curricula.
Lack of official will (despite all the fine words), together with
considerable continuing academic opposition, have both made their
contribution in rendering pretty ineffective the plethora of attempts to
raise the status and worth of practical education.
However, perhaps the bedrock of opposition has come, over the years
and right up to the present, from significant numbers of parents and
students (as exemplified by the critical attitudes to the General National
Vocational Qualification revealed in a 1995 Gallup survey, as reported in
the Times Educational Supplement, 18 August 1995). They have continued
to believe, despite any official protestations to the contrary, that practical
education, particularly when it comes in the form of vocational or prevocational courses, are likely to cater for the less able, to lead to restricted
post-school opportunities, and to suffer from teaching and content of a
lower quality than courses leading to academic qualifications. They choose
courses, and indeed schools, accordingly.

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And so we come to the heart of the matter. The fact is that practical
education has not successfully challenged for a place on the moral high
ground of the curriculum. Until it does so it is unlikely to find itself with a
secure, valued and significant curricular presence.
How can it realistically hope to mount an effective challenge? The
apparently obvious move, at the level of principle rather than practice,
would be to develop a rationale for practical education which demonstrated
that it, too, was concerned with enquiry into and verification of truth.
There is no doubt that much could be done in this direction. Whatever
else practical education should concern itself with, it should certainly aim
to develop in students an informed and realistic, i.e. true, understanding of
adult occupations, of the nature and expectations of the work-place, and so
on. Equally, it ought to teach accuracy in a range of practical skills. Here, a
respect for truth is required insofar as it is necessary to the achievement
of a close correspondence between the plan of what is required and the
actuality of what is produced. Products of accurately used skills will be
true to the extent that they match a particular model or pattern, or
effectively meet a perceived and real need, social, occupational, industrial,
etc.
However, practical education can and should be justified not only in
terms of truth, but also in terms of responsibility. The argument runs like
this. Practical education helps prepare for life in the community,
particularly, but not only, in its economic aspects. The first virtue in
relation to community is responsibility. Learning the nature of responsibility, and how to exercise it, both helps students to achieve practical
learning and ought itself to be an aim of practical learning.
Practical education has, in fact, a moral justification which rests
securely on its intrinsic need to promote the virtues of truth and
responsibility, both as means and ends of its activities. Accordingly, it is
entitled to quite as secure a place on the commanding curricular heights as
any discipline which is grounded in the same or other first virtues of
education. That practical education continues, by and large, to scrabble
around in the curricular foothills, is arguably due to the fact that it has
largely accepted, or at least not seriously attempted to challenge, the
Platonic-inspired view of its modest place in the moral and educational
scheme of things.

The whole curriculum

It should, I have argued, be an evident purpose of the curriculum, as a
whole, to provide explicit and balanced coverage of ideas of truth and their
verification.
To what extent is this the case in schools today?
Initially, one needs to have an idea of what is happening in individual
subjects.
Nationally, the National Curriculum subject orders have no common
structure of aims, and no individual subjects have specific statements of
purpose. Accordingly they are poorly placed to say anything about any
overall intentions to take account of truth in teaching. Religious

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VISION OF A SCHOOL

Education, while not featuring in the National Curriculum, does have nonstatutory model syllabuses, issued by the SCAA in 1994. They, at least,
provide clear aims. While these do not specifically refer to the concept of
truth, they do make statements which implicitly, and in general terms,
encourage it to be taken into account. The suggested content in the
various subjects, as identified in the National Curriculum programmes of
study and the Religious Education model syllabuses, make a range of
references to ideas of truth, and to their verification. These mainly arise,
however, incidentally and unsystematically. This one might well expect,
given the absence of relevant identified aims.
Within schools, subject schemes of work and other relevant material
provide little evidence of any systematic or sharp focus on truth as an end
or means of achieving knowledge. In the first place, this almost inevitably
arises from the lack of helpful national guidance. But there are other,
powerful, reasons which also contribute to this situation.
Thus, there is for some subjects the absence of any overall,
differentiated theoretical framework which can readily enable educational
practice to take account of questions of truth. As I have already argued,
this is particularly true of the arts, and of practical fields.
For other subjects there can be a disorientation, a lack of intellectual
security and confidence, which may arise as a result of an academic
questioning in their disciplines of the worth or applicability of notions of
truth.
So, amongst historians (see, for example, Appleby et al., 1994; Davies,
1996, pp. 2-6), there may be worries about the way 'general impressions'
of historians may be not only influenced, but also possibly inevitably
distorted, by time, place, gender, ethnicity, culture, and so on. There may,
further, be deep anxieties over the extent to which evidence may be
rendered suspect by the possible powers of mentalites to determine social
life, and of language to construct its own realities. While Appleby et al.,
like many other historians, believe that, whatever the difficulties,
'qualified objectivity' remains feasible as well as desirable, it would hardly
be surprising if such debate made some teachers of history a little
circumspect in identifying the role of truth in their subject.
Similar difficulties can arise in English. Here it has traditionally been
considered that the curriculum should provide opportunities for students
to consider whether 'life', or existence, is such of its nature that it would
be reasonable for a writer to try and distinguish between universal and
contingent elements of character and circumstance. In literature, at least
until relatively recently, it has been more or less taken for granted that it
was a proper undertaking to explore what was immutable. So for example,
Turgenev (1898) in his short story, 'A Lear of the Steppes', writes of
'Shakespeare and his types', and of 'how profoundly and truly they were
taken from the very heart of humanity'. A group of friends 'admired
particularly their truth to life and their actuality; each of us spoke of the
Hamlets, Othellos ... whom he had happened to come across'. Here, the
notion of truth being considered refers to the correspondence between
what is observed and depicted, and an idea of nature or being as
unchanging and eternal in its essence. Current critical argument, and not

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91

least in Shakespearean studies, rages around the question of universality.

Its possibility may be denied outright, as for instance by cultural
materialists (Hawkes, 1992); or it may be subtly modified but in practice
defended by, for example, accepting some commonality of experience
through time, if not universality in the full meaning of the word (various
modern followers of the Victorian critic A. C. Bradley). This, then, is the
drift of much of the argument in contemporary literary criticism. In view of
all this, it would readily understandable if, like some history teachers, a
number of English teachers, at least the more aware and up to date, were
somewhat wary of exploring their subject in the language of truth, however
interpreted.
All this may serve to undermine the effectiveness and confidence with
which various subjects relate their activities to truth. It does little,
however, to lessen the mostly subterranean struggle to establish the
supremacy of particular truths in the curriculum. Scientific truth
persistently works to secure its preeminence through physics, biology
and chemistry; logical truth does its best maintain its place, particularly
through mathematics; transcendent truth timidly defends its modest
corner in religious education. And all, to a greater or lesser extent, assert
their claims across the curriculum.
From all this, two conclusions emerge with some clarity:
First, the different subject areas, individually, are in urgent need of
developing an explicit and systematic approach which relates their
teaching to notions of truth and to procedures for verifying it.
Secondly, schools need to develop curricular policies which enable
them to establish a balanced approach to the teaching of truth.
For both of these objectives to have a reasonable chance of being
achieved, schools have to be able to think and plan in terms of the
curriculum as a whole.
So, the question arises. To what extent do thinking and policy at
national level encourage, and enable, schools individually to operate in
terms of a whole curriculum?
The current position is that the vocabulary of education does indeed
include in its terminology the notion of 'the whole curriculum'. Moreover,
its defining characteristics are legally identified. It must be broad, balanced
and relevant (DES, 1989, 2.2). Further, a quite detailed 'description' has
been offered by the National Curriculum Council (1990a, p. 1).
This, however, although necessary, is by no means sufficient. The whole
curriculum also requires a structure of aims, and a coherent form. In the
absence of these it is liable, as we have seen, to degenerate into an inert
mass, lacking intelligible and purposive relationships between its
constituent, and very possibly mutually antagonistic, elements. In such
circumstances, the quest for truth can neither be properly identified as an
overall purpose of teaching nor planned in an explicit and balanced way.
So, does the curriculum as a whole, nationally and locally, have a
structure of aims? Until quite recently, it certainly used to. Indeed, during
the 1980s considerable effort at every level, from government to individual
school, was devoted to developing objectives for the overall curriculum
(DES, 1981a; DES, 1981b, DES, 1983; DES, 1985a; DES, 1986). More

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generally, the Education (No. 2) Act of 1986 (sections 17 and 18) required
that local education authorities (LEAs) 'make and keep up-to-date, written
statements of curricular policy' and that governors of maintained schools
consider the LEA policy, and 'the aims of the secular curriculum', and
produce their own policy. Even before the introduction of the legal
requirement, all the government-initiated activity was beginning to achieve
significant success. Her Majesty's Inspectorate (HMI) were able to report
that aims proposed by the government 'command widespread support and
they are reflected in the aims drawn up by many local education
authorities and individual schools' (DES, 1985b).
However, with the introduction of the Education Reform Act came a
change of direction. The original bill included no reference to any
requirements for the curriculum as a whole; these were only added
(section 1.2) in the face of government reluctance, during parliamentary
debate. In effect, from 1988 onwards, the government showed little
interest in promoting whole curriculum aims at national level.
At local level, however, schools and LEAs continued to be exhorted to
develop statements of curricular purpose. The National Curriculum
Council proposed (1990a, p. 8) that schools should, in carrying out a
curricular review, ask themselves whether they have 'a whole curriculum
policy'. And in a discussion paper on primary schools the so-called 'three
wise men' (Alexander et al., 1992, p. 47) argued that 'effective
headteachers have a vision of what their schools should become ... The
vision will have at its heart a clearly articulated view of what constitutes
the school curriculum ... and of how planning, teaching and evaluation will
be undertaken in order to ensure that the aims and objectives of the
curriculum are translated into pupil learning.'
Splendid rhetoric. But it is asking a good deal to expect individual
schools to develop whole curriculum aims when, at national level, that very
task is being evaded, and by implication devalued, by the government and
its educational agencies. The real message schools have been given is that
they should pose no serious questions for their curricula to answer, but
should concentrate on administering an imposed system.
So, if aims of the curriculum as a whole are neglected, is the position
regarding coherence any better? Some uncertainty can exist about what
precisely is meant by coherence. David Hargreaves (1991, pp. 33-34) has
clarified this question, and I intend to follow his definitions. Coherence, he
proposes, exists where 'the various parts of the curriculum have a clear
and explicit relationship with one another'. There is 'content' coherence,
which is 'about the relationships between knowledge and skills', and this
applies both within and between subjects. There is also 'experiential
coherence, or coherence as it is experienced in the routine world of the
classroom by both teachers and pupils'.
If there is to be any possibility of coherence being consistently
experienced, it must first be intended.
Is there any evidence to suggest that those responsible for national
policy have been interested in promoting the coherence of the curriculum
as a whole?
The professional world of education, including those responsible for

THE TRUE CURRICULUM 93

advising the government, has consistently advocated coherence in the

whole curriculum. However, Conservative governments, at least from the
early 1980s, opposed it. Thus, on the one hand, early in the Thatcher
administration, HMI (DES 1980a, p. 15) argued for coherence. On the
other hand, the government White Paper, Better Schools (DES 1985a),
while listing various 'fundamental principles' of the curriculum, omitted
coherence. Following the Education Reform Act, the National Curriculum
was developed in line with government-dictated procedures which
effectively denied the possibility of curricular coherence being promoted.
In contrast to initiatives taken both in Northern Ireland and in Wales
(Northern Ireland Curriculum Council, 1990; Curriculum Council for
Wales, 1991), in England no working party was established with
responsibility for producing a whole curriculum framework. Further,
curriculum working parties were set up, not simultaneously, but in
sequence, thus effectively removing the possibility of any more or less
informal joint planning.
Despite all this, the professionals did not, at least immediately, entirely
surrender their position. The National Curriculum Council (1989, p. 1), in
early guidance, stated firmly, 'above all, schools need to give the
curriculum structure and coherence'. Second thoughts, however, showed
a greater awareness of political realities. The paper on The Whole
Curriculum (1990a) made only incidental reference to coherence.
Meanwhile, the National Foundation for Educational Research (Weston
et al., 1992) was carrying out a survey, The Quest for Coherence, into how
schools managed the whole curriculum. The research illustrated how
substantially government policy, in practice, restricted schools' ability to
develop coherent approaches to the whole curriculum. The report
concluded, nevertheless, that coherence remained educationally desirable,
and that the best chance of achieving it lay, despite the impediment of
government policies, with schools themselves. In the circumstances, this
looked suspiciously like putting the best possible gloss on what was
interpreted as a bad situation.
Why was government apparently so opposed to the development of
strategies which could support effective development of whole curriculum
policies in schools?
To begin with: why, at national level, did government discourage the
articulation of aims for the curriculum as a whole, including the national
curriculum? The key point here is that, at least in the existing educational
context, the process and achievement of identifying aims would have been
likely to encourage reflection and discussion, and quite possibly to
encourage yet further calls for curricular change. While many interested
parties might have been expected to contribute, one of the most active
groups would certainly have been teachers and educationists generally.
But, it has become almost a cliche of political discourse that
educationists, largely left to their own devices as they mostly were for
generations, have failed to secure sufficiently high student achievement
across the school population as a whole. Where exactly the blame lies for
this state of affairs is open to discussion. That it exists is, however, well
documented.

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VISION OF A SCHOOL

Accordingly, it seemed to many, and not least to those in government,

that educators were as much a part of the problem as a solution.
Consequently, there was much to be said for keeping them quiet and
telling them what to do, rather than encouraging them to give tongue. And
what better way of doing this than by laying down a National Curriculum,
and by omitting to state its specific aims, thus minimizing any opportunity
for discussion of curricular nature and purpose? (The autobiography of
Kenneth Baker, 1993, particularly chapters 8 and 9, makes very clear both
the ministerial suspicion of educational professionals - 'the educational
establishment' - and governmental determination to establish its own
highly pragmatic, and confined, view of the curriculum and its objectives.)
The next issue is this: why did the government set its face against the
development of coherence for the curriculum as a whole?
In a specifically educational context, the answer is because it became
wedded to the idea of a curriculum of subjects.
This, however, in turn raises the questions, first, of why the
government wished to understand the curriculum predominantly in terms
of its discrete components; and secondly, of why this led to hostility
towards considering the overall form and interrelationships of the subjects
considered collectively.
The government supported a subject-based approach, at least in part,
because at the point when the introduction of the National Curriculum was
being considered, no other alternative presented itself which it found
convincing. Thus, educational philosophers and some others had for a
considerable time been discussing proposals aimed, for instance through
demonstrable analysis of particular conceptual frameworks and tests of
truth, to justify particular higher order categories of knowledge and
meaning (Phenix, 1964; Lawton, 1973; White, 1973, 1982; Hirst, 1974;
Bailey, 1984). These, however, tightly argued though they were, proved to
be open to criticism. They were also more or less discrete, thus inhibiting
the emergence of any consensual view. Finally, although the theoretical
structures were worked out in terms of curricular requirements, the
various proposals were sometimes considered to lack educational realism.
In particular, they were not seen by either politicians or their officials and
their advisers as offering a pragmatic basis for legislation.
It might have seemed, and indeed this has been suggested, that the
thinking of HMI could have provided a framework for the development of
the curriculum. The inspectors, through a series of exercises, had tried
out and developed areas of 'learning and experience'. These, however,
specifically disclaimed any ambition to serve as fields of knowledge which
could be taught as such. Their purpose was quite different. They were to
'constitute a planning and analytic tool' (DES, 1985b, p. 16). In other
words, these areas were to be employed in relation to an existing
curriculum, not as a substitute for it.
Finally, if one looked at schools to see what happened where the subject
approach was dispensed with, the evidence was varied. Nevertheless,
where integrated approaches were adopted whether for instance in
primary topic work or in GCSE humanities, there did at times appear to be
a lack of rigour and clarity. Even critics of a subject-based approach, aware

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95

of its capacity for encouraging a narrow, compartmentalized, inwardlooking pedagogy, could hardly claim with confidence that school
experience of non-subject-based work indicated a proven and viable
alternative approach.
So, a National Curriculum of subjects it was. And of course subjects were
tried, tested, of proven durability and known strengths (Ribbins, 1993).
But a curriculum of subjects does not necessarily have to result in a
state of maximum possible curricular incoherence. There have been in the
past, after all, and indeed are today, societies, cultures and socio-economic
classes which, in their different ways, have evolved education systems
where curricula have been perceived as coherent, albeit categorized into
areas that we would have little difficulty in recognizing as subjects.
So, for instance, what Maurice Bowra has called the desire of the
ancient Greeks 'to find an abiding reality behind the gifts of the senses'
(1957, p. 160) was the inspiration for the coherent curriculum which
emerged under Athenian democracy. Here, supported by the social unity
of the polls, a curriculum was constructed whose internal consistency
derived immediately from the priority accorded to the arts, and in
particular to poetry, drama and music.
The same search for ultimate being, transformed by Plato and Aristotle
into a philosophic quest, came to coexist with Christian theology, and
eventually to provide a framework for the English public school curriculum
of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Here, classics and religion
ruled, and other subjects enjoyed more or less status depending on the
extent to which they demanded the exercise of powers of reflection and
abstract reasoning.
And, in communities of faith, knowledge and understanding are
characteristically seen as fundamentally unitary. 'All that exists as
contemplated by the human mind,' wrote J. H. Newman (1982, p. 33),
'forms one large system or complex fact, and this of course resolves itself
into an indefinite number of particular facts ... knowledge is the
apprehension of these facts, whether in themselves or in their mutual
positions ... all possess a correlative character one with another, from the
internal mysteries of the divine essence down to our own sensations and
consciousness.' Seen against this background, subjects are simply 'various
partial views or abstractions by means of which the mind looks out upon its
object'. And, naturally, a hierarchy of subjects follows, those concerned
with ultimate, religious truth, and the whole, being at the apex.
There are, then, identifiable professional and political reasons why
England, nationally and locally, lacks coherent and unified,curricula. But,
why is it that our particular society has had such difficulty in generating a
community of shared knowledge, where the parts are related to the whole
through one underlying philosophy, or, more generally, a common view of
existence?
We inhabit, or so it seems, a world characterized by diversity, multiculturalism, and even, from time to time and place to place, anomie.
Perhaps we should start to look here for any deeper explanations of the
fragmented curriculum. Our cultural environment is at once product and
cause of social, economic and intellectual dispersion. Coherence in

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VISION OF A SCHOOL

modern society is only likely to be found within particular communities,

whether of faith, interest or social group, which are ready to stand firm
against the undertow of history. And in education, it is, quite possibly, only
schools belonging to such communities that are likely to have any ready
success in securing a coherent curriculum.
To exacerbate matters further, society in England has generated an
academic culture the currently dominant forces within which both reflect
and reinforce atomization. Thus, if we consider universities, we find a
milieu often described as characterized by anxiety, antagonism and
absence of mutual concerns. Here we have disciplines, as Harold Perkin
(1989, pp. 395-6) has expressed it, 'using strategies of closure to
segregate themselves from the laity and from one another'; and who, not
content simply to exist in self-sufficient and self-regarding isolation,
struggle for supremacy. Perkin refers to the study of English literature as
a good example of academic Darwinism. This discipline, which as he points
out only became a university subject in the early twentieth century, 'has
since tried to become the humane discipline, the modern substitute for
theology and philosophy'. In fact, with its inevitable backwash into the
theory and practice of the curriculum in schools, what we have is what
Peter Scott, in his study of The Crisis of the University (1984) has referred
to as an unravelling of political, intellectual and moral fabric.
There is perhaps no better way of summarizing the position than by
referring to the analysis of T. S. Eliot (1939, p. 41). He talked of 'a
negative liberal society', i.e. a place where individual rights and freedoms
reign over any sense of tradition, continuity, social obligation, or even
respect for others. Intellectually, the result is predictable. 'You have,'
writes Eliot, 'no agreement as to there being any body of knowledge which
any educated person should have acquired at any particular stage: the idea
of wisdom disappears and you get sporadic and unrelated experimentation.'
Such a multi-form, disjointed, atomized academic cosmos is not
inconsistent with that individualistic, libertarian philosophy, predominantly originating with thinkers of the early nineteenth century, and
resurrected by the apologists of Thatcherism. It was therefore perhaps to
be expected that the conservative government which introduced and
implemented the curriculum reforms of the 1988 Education Act should
have been hostile to the notion of shared purposes, and of coherence. And
that those who attempted to promote such approaches should have found
the task, whether politically, philosophically or practicably, hard-going.
So, we have come full circle. An explicit, balanced approach to teaching
concerned with truth requires the development of a whole curriculum,
directed by relevant aims, and coherent in form. However, while the idea
of a whole curriculum exists as a working concept, it is seriously
underdeveloped, at national and at local level, both intellectually and in its
practical applications. The reasons for this are to be found immediately in
the prevailing climate in which government policy-making and educational
thinking occur; and more fundamentally in the nature of modern society.
The outcome in schools is that the whole curriculum is seldom, if ever,
conceived, presented or practised in ways which enable the question of

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97

truth to be systematically addressed. What we have is a static curriculum,

lacking in detailed, declared and debated intentions, and consisting of
fragments which might once arguably have been understood to belong to a
greater whole, but which now are widely seen to be isolated pieces having
minimal mutual relationships. Insofar as it is possible to analyse and
interpret what is actually taking place in classrooms it seems reasonable to
conclude that truth is taught, or indeed sought, in a way that is
insufficiently purposive, explicit, informed, systematic or balanced.
Given the weakness of practice in relation to truth, the fundamental
virtue of knowledge, it is hardly surprising, although there may also be
other reasons for it, that criticism is ever more loudly voiced, and not least
from higher education, that school students' knowledge is inadequately
informed by a sound grasp of the principles and practices of particular
subjects. It could also be added that, insofar as they are not educated about
the nature of truth as a whole, young people are not afforded their rightful
opportunity to develop fully as whole persons.

The way forward

Where do we go from here? One thing is transparently clear. The clock
cannot be turned back. We have to start from where we are, not from
where we might like to be. There is no option but to work on the curricular
foundations laid by the Education Reform Act, and to join in the discourses
of the culture which generated, and are being furthered by, that
curriculum.
Another fact should also be evident, although unfortunately it may be
necessary to spell it out. We should root all our curricular approaches in
those political, philosophic and theological systems of thought which value
truth, respect for self and others, justice and responsibility; and which,
accordingly, encourage us to understand teaching and learning as a
process by which individuals may be educated to take their place in, and
contribute positively to, a world with the potential for meaning, coherence
and mutuality.
Given these principles, there is action that we should support.
First, building on the Education Reform Act, we should articulate and
develop through dialogue national aims for the whole curriculum. These
should, mutually and taken together, give moral purpose and direction to
the teaching and learning of schools. They should give priority to respect for
truth. They should also make clear that the curriculum should contribute to
developing respect for self and others, and a sense of responsibility and
fairness. (See National Forum for Values in Education, 1996, which also
identifies these values as being of key importance for schools.)
Secondly, we should try to ensure that the profession of education is
fully enfranchised to make its proper contribution to any consideration of
the purposes of the curriculum within the national education system.
Thirdly, we should make certain that the curriculum is so planned,
organized and monitored that in its parts, and as a whole, it enables
students to learn through a balanced and coherent experience what is
meant by the first virtues of education, and in particular, by truth.

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VISION OF A SCHOOL

Finally, in gaining knowledge and experience, students should be

educated to practise particular truthful attitudes, skills and behaviour:
Young people need to learn to pay attention, to discriminate, and to
reflect upon their experience so as to be able to get things right
factually.
They should discover that, in order to find out for themselves whether
or not something is true, they must be able to think creatively, to pose
relevant questions, to suggest hypotheses, to make, construct and
compose that which may reflect or establish truth.
They should learn to reason logically, whether in concrete or abstract
terms.
They should begin to explore the manifold implications of the
possibility that in the depths and heights of existence there is to be
found an ultimate presence which is, and manifests itself as,
transcendent truth, that which is.
They should be helped to realize that truth, in all its manifold
complexity and diversity, gives meaning to all forms of imaginative
undertaking. Whether in making or in evaluating, the student of the
arts must be encouraged to speak the language of truth. For the artist,
as Iris Murdoch puts it, using the word in its broader meaning to
include all expressive arts, 'truth is always a proper touchstone ... and
a training in art is a training in how to use the touchstone'. And as for
the critic, 'a study of any good art enlarges and refines our
understanding of truth, our methods of verification ... Critical
terminology imputes falsehood to an artist by using such terms as
fantastic, sentimental, self-indulgent, banal, grotesque, tendentious,
unclarified, wilfully obscure, and so on' (Murdoch, 1992, p. 86).
Students should learn that the pursuit of truth requires sustained
application, courage, and the sort of humility which is prepared to
admit that, in the light of the evidence, one is in error.
And as students advance in their understanding of what is meant by
truth, they will need to recognize that there are limits to the extent
that truth can be explored, by whatever means, by those who are
personally careless of truth. Sustained, informed and genuine respect
for truth requires both intellectual clarity and individual integrity.
In every classroom, and throughout school-life, students should be
enabled to learn how to be truthful as persons, how to be true
persons.

CHAPTER 9

Justice and responsibility

Each school is bound to do its best to ensure that students learn, in theory
and practice, about justice and responsibility.
Justice and responsibility are social virtues. They acquire contingency
and depth in the context of institutions and communities and in the
context of their related forms of control. This holds true at local and
national level, on a small and on a large scale.
Different societies give expression to differing notions of what is
understood by justice and responsibility.
Schools are themselves institutions and communities. They are also
situated within larger societies. If they are to understand how they
themselves do, and should, function as moral societies, they must have an
initial idea of their location in the networks of values, expectations and
beliefs, inherited and contemporary, which influence both the way they do
operate and the views of how they should function to promote the social
virtues.
To begin with, therefore, I need to deal, albeit only in outline, with
certain key questions. First, what are the major ideas of society (and also
of government), which have, over time, exerted a significant influence on
educational thought and practice? Next, how, within such notions of
society, are ideas of justice and responsibility understood? And finally, how
does our own culture perceive justice and responsibility?
In the light of discussion of these questions, one becomes better placed
to consider what should be the approach of schools to justice and
responsibility.

Societies and government

Certain central traditions of political philosophy have exerted particular
influence on education, whether beneficially, or otherwise.
Thus, there are individualistic authoritarian ideas of society. Here, the
world is viewed as little more than a savage terrain, where humans, lacking
all grace and love, bleakly struggle to survive and dominate. They may
fight as individuals, or as groups. Thus, for Hobbes, persons, governed by

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self-interest, and by 'passions' such as ambition, covetousness and anger,

exist in a condition of perpetual dissension and fear.
In a society of individuals dominated by human aggression and egotism
an autocratic state may be established simply by the strongest, and ruled
predominantly or exclusively in their own interests. Alternatively, as
Hobbes advocates, such a society might be ruled, equally autocratically, by
a monarch. However, such a monarch would not have seized power, but
have had it given to him by the people so that he could, in the interest of
all, establish the rule of law. A Hobbesian veneer of legitimacy may have
its significance in justifying an autocratic regime. However, from the point
of view of the ruled, the distinction is likely to be largely immaterial.
Authoritarian societies may be identified, not as individualistic, but as
organic. Here, the emphasis shifts from the more or less desperate and
benighted condition of the individuals who form society, to the idea of
society as such. Society is characteristically envisaged as one single whole.
However, it may, as in Marxism, be seen as being made up of constituent
parts, or classes, each of which in its own terms, functions as a whole, and
which is locked into the rest of society in a struggle, through the
mechanisms of the materialist dialectic of preordained historical process,
for control of the totality.
An organic society is, in essence, an association of persons where, as
Aristotle succinctly expressed, The whole is naturally superior to the part'
(quoted in Jowett, 1905, p. 143, at 1288a). Two features are particularly
characteristic of organic societies. First, they may be perceived as specific
living entities. As Tom Weldon (1946, p. 45), amongst others, has put it,
The fundamental principle of the organic theory is that society or the
state is actually and not metaphorically an individual person; and that, as
such, it has the same unqualified control over its subordinate members as
is sometimes allowed to reside in a biological organism.' The second
feature is that all 'subordinate members' must serve the interests of the
whole, and not vice versa. Thus, in the words of the Protestant theologian
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1964, p. 150), hanged by the Nazis, 'the individual is
understood only in terms of his utilizable value for the whole ... the
collectivity is the God to whom individual and social life are sacrificed ...'
The government in organic societies may take various forms. Power
may rest with a philosopher king, as in Plato's Republic, or with a
hereditary monarchy, as in the nineteenth-century Prussia of Hegel, or
with a fascist tyranny, as in Nazi Germany, or with the dictatorship of one
class over others, as in Marxist states, etc. In every instance, however,
government would claim to be carried out in the interest of society as a
whole, irrespective of the particular claims or alleged rights of
individuals.
In authoritarian societies of whatever sort, individuals may find a
degree of security and some sense of belonging. But not only do they pay
the price of a drastically restricted personal freedom; such protection as
they do enjoy, and indeed such identity as they may be granted, may
always be diminished, or even removed, if the interest of the ruler, or the
greater good of the whole, requires it. And this is true not only of those
remote from power, but also of those in authority. The paradox of societies

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which often justify their authoritarian nature by appeal to the order which
they can appear to provide is that, ultimately, no one is safe from the
apparatus of government. As Mussolini put it, The individual exists only
insofar as he is subordinated to the interests of the state' (quoted in Mack
Smith, 1983, p. 162).
Hardly surprisingly, humans generally aspire to higher goods, including
not least personal freedom, than are generally on offer from authoritarianism. In more recent times, people have mainly turned to democracy in
their efforts to create a better world. And, in this country, influenced
religiously by Protestantism, philosophically by the Enlightenment and
economically by notions of the free market, it is especially the idea of
liberal democracy which has dominated.
All democracies, including liberal democracies, are founded, morally, in
respect for individuals. The democratic hypothesis depends upon a moral
or religious faith in the absolute value of men' (Weldon, 1946, p. 126).
So, in the first place, the effective existence of any full democracy relies
upon its unconditional recognition of, and respect for, what persons, in
their essential nature, are. That is, complex, protean, individual,
embodied, men, women and children, of whatever racial or ethnic origin,
who have their being in a social and cultural environment, who are capable
of rationality, but who enjoy the status of persons irrespective of their
degree of intelligence.
Thus, the struggles to establish democracy, and liberal democracy in
particular, can largely be interpreted as attempts to build societies which
gives full membership not only to already dominant individuals, classes
and groups, but to all persons, including those who historically have been
underprivileged, whether on grounds of gender, race, religion or economic
status.
However, when it comes to considering what persons should be, as
contrasted with what they necessarily are, members of liberal democratic
societies hold, not one, but a range of ideas. It follows from this that
different persons in a liberal democracy hold varying, indeed virtually
contradictory ideas, about the sort of democracy which they value and
would like to see develop. For each, as a rule, desires to live in and
promote the sort of community where the ideal of a person to which he or
she aspires is likely to be favoured.
The ideas of a person which inform, and can lead to conflict over, the
nature of liberal democracy are, for the most part, those which have
animated the main traditions of Western thinking and debate over the
nature of persons. They are consequently, and hardly surprisingly,
substantially the same notions which, to a greater or lesser degree,
sustain educational understanding of ideals of a person.
So, now we need to look again at those key ideals of a person which I
have already considered. The question now is: what do those who
subscribe to these ideals expect a democracy to offer?
The key ideals can be broadly divided into two categories. First, there
are the two major European notions of a person which significantly
preceded the rise of liberal democracy. These are the Christian and
classical ideas. Then there are those notions which immediately inspired

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and substantially influenced the rise of liberal democracy. These are the
rational, humanist and economic ideas.
Those who wish to see liberal democracy predominantly informed by
Christian or classical ideas of a person are at a disadvantage. First, it was
not their beliefs which originally led to the strongest calls for, and
subsequently most directly to the evolution of, liberal democracy.
Secondly, Christian and classical ideals of a person can exhibit various
features which, at best do not fit comfortably into any rationally justifiable
models of liberal democracy, and at worst are incompatible with them.
So, whenever contests arise over the influence which particular notions
of a person should exert on the nature of liberal democracy, it becomes
apparent that one group enjoys an advantage. The high ground is occupied
by liberal persons, the rational, the humanist and the economic. The others,
whether rightly or wrongly, can have difficulty in establishing themselves
securely alongside those who enjoy the rights of original possession.
We come, first, to the Christian idea of a person. In the Augustinian and
Thomist view persons have the potential, through the use of reason, to
comprehend or formulate the basic precepts of the divine law. They also
have a capacity, through the exercise of free will, to choose to follow divine
law, and to put that choice into practice. The Christian person also, of
course, whether through destructive passion, or through evil habit, or
through a pervasive natural tendency to do wrong, may be inclined to
choose to disobey the commandments of God.
It is in this respect that Christian persons are particularly dependent
upon institutions and community. It is highly desirable, though not
essential, that they live in a just society. Where they do so, they may be
guided and helped to develop as persons who strive to live the Christian
life, and fulfil the Christian goals of existence.
A society which is supportive of a Christian way of life will be one where
the laws, institutions and customs are consistent with the will of God. Such
a state may be organized on authoritarian, or democratic lines. What
matters, is not so much its particular form, but rather whether its
arrangements and practices can be theologically justified.
Nevertheless, at least in the contemporary Western world, very many
Christians see democracy as the form of society best suited to promote, or
at least not to undermine, the way of life they advocate. From this
perspective, democracy should sustain a system of government which is
capable both of controlling the harmful impulses of a congenitally flawed
human nature and of liberating and training the more noble qualities of
that same nature. 'It is,' said the American Protestant theologian Reinhold
Niebuhr, 'the evil in man that makes democracy necessary, and man's
belief in justice that makes democracy possible' (quoted by Tony Benn, in
Mortimer, 1983, p. 35).
Such a view of democracy requires the existence; first, of some
constitutional arrangements, for example of checks, balances and rules,
together with laws and powers, designed to ensure that democracy is not
subverted by any immoral pursuit of self-interest or power; and, secondly,
of genuine and continuing opportunities for all citizens, through
mechanisms and cultures of active participation, to discuss, consider

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and contribute to the just promotion of compatible private and public

goods. Above all, however, these goods must be consistent with the beliefs
and teachings of Christianity.
The classical, and particularly the Athenian idea, of a person, has
exerted an ambiguous influence on attitudes towards, and the practice of,
democracy. On the one hand, the individual, striving, competitive,
passionate, creative, autonomous, was regarded by the Greeks with
fascination and, acknowledged defects not withstanding, was highly valued.
But, on the other hand, not all classes of individual were regarded as
complete persons. Neither women nor slaves were accepted as citizens.
Further, all individuals were seen as members of the city state, and as
such to a considerable extent dependent for their sense of identity on that
membership. Accordingly, sitting uneasily alongside respect for the
individual was to be found a tendency for persons to be seen as parts of
an organic social and political unity. Finally, this holistic propensity was
allied at times with a class-driven desire for aristocratic rule. In the light of
all this, it becomes evident that Athenian notions of persons, and of their
possible social and political roles, were liable to provide a somewhat
fragile inspiration for democracy.
The arrangements of Athenian democracy emphasized two objectives in
particular. First, they were concerned to ensure the observation of
contractual obligations entered into by individuals with citizens and state.
Secondly, they tried to secure the full consent and participation by all
citizens in managing the business of democracy. In gaining active
involvement they had some much-trumpeted success, particularly insofar
as they succeeded both in ensuring that citizens took on a range of roles
and responsibilities and in preventing bureaucrats and specialists from
getting any sort of firm grip on power. Ultimately, however, there were
spectacular failures in achieving respect for contract and assent, resulting
most devastatingly in civil war. The political legacy of the Athenian idea of
persons to democracy includes both the statement and exemplification in
practice of certain basic democratic principles, together with a deep
suspicion of the viability of those same principles.
For contemporary ideas of democracy, the notion of persons as rational
beings is pivotal. More particularly, it is a modern mantra that it is through
the, exercise of choice that the rational person can best fulfil the rights
and obligations of citizenship. Accordingly, for the rationalist, the salient
characteristic of liberal democracy becomes the possibility of changing
government through elections conducted according to whatever procedures may be locally acceptable. At its most basic, to today's commentator,
a society where it is possible to alter national leadership through elections
is democratic, while all others are not.
Humanist and economic ideals of a person, like the rationalist, place a
high value on a human capacity to make choices. However, while
influenced by the traditions of rationalist thought, the humanist and
economic ideals have evolved certain features which have particular
implications for the theory and practice of democracy.
The humanist notion of persons sees them as moral beings, concerned
certainly with achieving their own ends, but also with securing the public

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good in the interests of all. Those who hold this rather generous view of
persons have, from John Stuart Mill onwards, tended to believe in social
progress, driven by the enlightened self-interest and social conscience of
individuals, and assisted by active and beneficent government. Since the
time of John Dewey, early in the twentieth century, they have also put
increasing faith in the potential of social science, combined with open and
informed public debate, to contribute effectively to the formulation and
implementation of policy at national and local level.
On the other hand, the economic ideal of the person has very different
implications for democracy. These have been analysed in detail by C. B.
Macpherson (1977). The free-market individual, as pictured by Jeremy
Bentham and James Mill, is a self-interested, amoral, materially acquisitive
being. He is, in C. B. Macpherson's phrase, 'a possessive individualist'. As
such, one might consider he could only be controlled by an authoritarian
regime. And indeed, any state founded on this utilitarian view of persons is
more than likely to have absolutist tendencies. However, economic
persons, while being quite capable of anti-social and aggressive behaviour,
are above all concerned to achieve their own personal pleasure and
satisfaction. It is, accordingly possible, if only just, to envisage them as
members of a democracy, albeit one of a particular and limited nature.
A democracy for creatures of this sort must first, as best it may, create
the optimum conditions for the pursuit of private gain. Next, it must
protect them from each other, and from those whom they appoint to rule
in their name. Once these two aims have been met, democracy has
effectively done its job. In C. B. Macpherson's words:
In this founding model of democracy for a modern industrial society
there is no enthusiasm for democracy, no idea that it could be a morally
transformative force; it is nothing but a logical requirement for the
governance of inherently self-interested, conflicting individuals who are
assumed to be infinitely desirous of their own private benefits...
Responsible government, even to the extent of responsibility to a
democratic electorate, was needed for the protection of individuals and
the promotion of gross national product, and for nothing more. (1977,
p. 43)
Recently, of course, new life has been breathed into this model of
democracy, and into the idea of persons which sustains it. Neoconservatives have emphatically reaffirmed faith in the active existence
of homo economicus. They have also updated the description of democracy
so as to bring it into line with, indeed virtually to assimilate it into, current
schema of the workings of a capitalist society. Thus, to quote C. B.
Macpherson again, the purpose of democracy now becomes 'to register
the desires of people as they are... democracy is simply a market
mechanism. The voters are the consumers; the politicians are the
entrepreneurs... political man, like economic man, is essentially a
consumer and appropriator' (1977, pp. 78-80).
So, in the struggle to establish a liberal democracy fit for a particular
ideal of person, which ideas have, at least so far, proved the most
successful?

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To begin with, one thing is certainly evident. The Christian and classical
notions have never really succeeded in overcoming their various
handicaps. They, and particularly the latter, remain marginally influential.
Rational persons were, in effect, the founding members of liberal
democracy. As such, they continue to enjoy some preeminence and
respect, if perhaps nowadays of a rather ritual nature.
The ideal of the humanist person, while it has enjoyed substantial
support, has also eventually proved incapable of playing a dominant role.
Positive individualism has been shown to be too optimistic in its
expectations of human behaviour. In consequence, it has at times
overestimated the likelihood of a motivation to perform altruistic political
actions. It has also tended, when such actions have been attempted, to
underestimate the capacity of malign opposition, and of the sheer
intractability of facts to impede, deflect or destroy planned progress.
The ideal of the economic person has appeared at times, particularly for
much of the nineteenth and for a decade or two in the late twentieth
century, to emerge as the strongest influence on the arrangements and
conduct of liberal democracy. However, as in the Victorian era, so again
now, it is becoming apparent that negative individualism contains the
seeds of its own destruction, at least as a political force.
If a society is selfishly individualistic, its collective neglect of the good
of the whole permits the flourishing of those social evils which in due
course are likely to make it difficult or even impossible for individuals
freely to pursue their own purposes. Thus, as the Elder Zossima explains
in Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov (1958, pp. 356-7), 'today everyone
is still striving to keep his individuality as far apart as possible, everyone
still wishes to experience the fullness of life in himself alone, and yet
instead of achieving the fullness of life, all his efforts merely lead to the
fullness of self-destruction, for instead of full self-realisation they relapse
into complete isolation ... everywhere today the mind of man has ceased,
ironically, to understand that true security of the individual does not lie in
isolated personal efforts, but in general human solidarity.'
And, in the economic sphere, much the same results follow. Possessive
individualism, the promotion of sectional interests at the expense of
common interests inhibits, as David Marquand (1988, p. 212), amongst
others has argued, the development of those nationally shared and
generated policies which alone, in the modern world, can sustain effective
economic growth.
So, if the key European ideals of a person have proved, for whatever
reason, inadequate effectively to sustain it, where does liberal democracy
go from here?
What many now appear to be seeking is a notion of what one might call,
'persons in community', to reinvigorate, reshape and give a renewed moral
authority to the theory and practice of democracy. This quest, in principle,
is as ancient as civilization. It was Lao-Tzu in the Tao Teh King (1922, p.
67), who wrote in the sixth century BC, 'Do not desire to be isolated as a
single gem, nor to be lost as pebbles on the beach.'
In essence, what modern thinkers are attempting to do is to relate LaoTzu's advice to contemporary circumstances. Their endeavour can

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perhaps best be understood as a complex, even dangerous, attempt to

balance the emphasis placed, in holistic societies, on the social aspects of
human being, with the absolute value placed on the individual by
liberalism.
To establish and develop the concept of persons in community various
traditions are being explored. Theologians and Christian thinkers have
certainly entered the debate. Responding to an address by Mrs Thatcher in
1989 to the Church of Scotland's General Assembly, its moderator took
her to task for her almost exclusive emphasis on the individual. Speaking
as a theologian, he stressed the religious importance of 'our sense of
community, our sense of belonging ... I am not just an individual. I am a
person who belongs to a community' (Guardian, 18 February 1989).
Political philosophies, not least, are likewise involved in this dialogue.
Democratic socialists, drawing on labour movement traditions of
syndicalism, friendly societies, the cooperative movement and unionism,
have looked to roots of fraternity, justice and egalitarianism. Conservatives have been more inclined to seek out the traditional Toryism of
Edmund Burke (1901, vol. 6, p. 147) with its emphasis on society and
nation not so much as an 'individual momentary aggregation', but rather as
'an idea of continuity, which extends in time as well as in numbers and
space ... a deliberate election of the ages and of generations'. Within such
a community traditional customs, classes, hierarchies, laws and constitution are all valued and preserved, and should not be at risk from any selfseeking, envious, disrespectful, anarchic or rebellious individuals.
Insofar as the idea of persons in the community can reasonably look to
individualism for support, it is to the traditions of humanism that it
generally turns. This system of thought, with its optimistic belief in the
possibility of social improvement through government or collective action,
provides a natural foundation for a philosophy favourable to persons in the
community.
There is also a further, if subdued, feature of individualism which, it has
been argued, is of relevance. This is to do with rights and duties. Always
implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, most famously by Jefferson in drafting
the Constitution of the United States of America, individualist thinkers
have talked of the rights of the person. Less frequently, and even then
mostly only by inference, thinkers in the individualist mould have also
referred to the duties of the person. Some modern thinkers have recently
sought to build on this strand of thought. John Tomlinson (1992, p. 50),
referring to Kant and John Stuart Mill, discusses a 'republican
individualism [which] puts duties alongside or before rights ... [and] ...
is the kind of individualism which is no threat to moral or civic duty'. And
David Selbourne (1994), in greater detail, also develops within an
individualistic framework of reference, what he calls 'the principle of duty'.
In such interpretations of individualism, persons are seen not just as
single entities, but also as persons having social needs, and so as being
necessarily involved in and committed to reciprocal and, in certain
respects, moral relationships, both in the personal and civic spheres.
And, finally, all these ideas in one form or another tend to have
influenced the synthetic view of persons in community presented as

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communitarianism. Amitai Etzioni (1995, p. 247) describes communitarianism as 'a social movement aimed at shoring up the moral, social and
political environment. Part change of heart, part renewal of social bonds,
part reform of public life.' Etzioni sees this movement as needing to
operate through family, schools, the social webs of neighbourhood, work,
and ethnic clubs and associations, and the national society. He believes it
must be sustained by commitment to democratic process and respect for
one another.
Notions of the individual in the community, as the debate over
communitarianism in particular is demonstrating, have certain weaknesses
and internal contradictions. Nevertheless, they do offer a number of
increasingly influential ideas about the practice of democracy in modern
society. The sort of suggestions starting to emerge generally propose that
a democracy supportive of persons in community would, at the least,
identify and protect individual rights; promote the practice of corresponding duties; encourage active citizen participation in society at local and
national level, through both informal and formal arrangements; and strive
for the articulation of a sense of shared national purpose. In principle,
democracy would be open and equitable. The means and conditions
necessary for the implementation in practice of democratic values would
be legally articulated and enforceable.
The attack on justice and responsibility
Non-democratic regimes sign up for interpretations of justice and
responsibility' which are, or at least should be, more or less alien and
unacceptable to those who claim to subscribe to democratic values.
To begin with justice. Where individualistic, arbitrary, regimes hold
sway, ideas of fairness are defined by those in control in their own
interest. As it was succinctly expressed by representatives of imperial
Athens to a polis with which it was in conflict, 'justice depends on the
equality of power to compel and that in fact the strong do what they have
the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept'
(Thucydides, 1972, p. 402).
In a Hobbesian type of society the situation, for most practical
purposes, is little different. 'Justice in a commonwealth,' as R. S. Peters
(1956, pp. 232-3) in his book on Hobbes explains, would be 'simply what
was commanded by the law of the land.' The sovereign makes and enforces
the law. It is true that, in contrast to a dictatorship or to any other state
where power can be employed arbitrarily, there are in theory checks on
capricious acts by the sovereign. The commandments of the civil law are
required to reflect the theorems of natural law. Any decree which fails to
do so is inequitable. However, The sovereign was the sole judge of
equity.' In practice, only where a sovereign is honourable, wise and
conscientious is justice likely to reflect natural law, and to appear to the
citizen as something other than the absolute, coercive use of power finding
its only justification in the will of the supreme authority.
In organic societies, the emphasis is very different. Here, the state is
regarded as a coherent whole, rather than as a dangerously disparate,

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potentially explosive collection of mutually antipathetic components. In

such a polity justice is that which, as Karl Popper (1966, vol. 1, chapter 6),
has demonstrated in discussing Plato's Republic, promotes the interests of
the state as a whole.
As for individuals, they have roles, or belong to classes and institutions
which have a particular part to play in maintaining or furthering the good
of the state. Depending upon which organic society or philosophy one has
in mind, persons may or may not have the right to social mobility. What is
critical, however, is that what is just, or unjust, treatment is defined in
terms of socio-economic status. Thus, there will be one set of rules and
laws for government officials, another for the military, another for the
workers, another for employers, industrialists, etc., and so on. Alternatively, where there are universal decrees, they will be applied differently
according to the occupations of those concerned. Each group in society
has a hierarchically ordered social good, or goods, which it is its duty to
aim to achieve as its contribution to the welfare of the whole, to the
smooth running of society and state.
For individuals in these circumstances, The laws,' in Hegel's words,
'presuppose unequal conditions' (Popper, 1966, vol. 2, p. 45). Or, to put it
from the point of view of those on the receiving end, 'Justice is keeping
what belongs to one and doing one's own job' (Plato, 1955, p. 182). What
all this means is that justice is defined according to merit and desert. That
is, one is protected, punished, or compensated according to one's station
in life, and according to one's success or failure in contributing to the
common good.
In society as understood by Marx, the sovereign is the class which, at
any given moment in the materialist dialectic of historical progress, is in
effective control of economic and political power. The ruling class defines
justice as that which defends and promotes its interests.
Various critical issues are highlighted by a Marxist approach to justice.
The first is that ideas of justice may be relative, both within and between
societies. The second, is that ideas of what is just are predicated by social
and economic circumstance, and are ultimately the product of historical
processes of development. Thus, in a Marxist view, however strongly
individuals may be fired by a personal belief in justice, and whatever the
immediate benefits of any action they may take, in the last analysis they
are doing no more than giving history a helping hand. The final issue is
rather different. It is that, for the oppressed, the notion of justice is
revolutionary. History may be on their side. But the downtrodden can be
disinclined to patience. Faced with the dominant vocabularies and
institutions of exploitation, they may turn to insurrection.
The notion of responsibility, like that of justice, takes on its own
peculiar meanings in authoritarian societies.
The responsibility of the individual under individualistic arbitrary, or
Hobbesian, regimes is reduced to little more than an obligation to look out
for the interests of one's self, probably of one's immediate family, and just
possibly of any close neighbours and associates. The notion of
responsibility is inevitably weak because it is not at all clear to whom
one is responsible. To the state? One simply fears that. To other

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individuals or groups? They are mostly objects of suspicion rather than

secure and established sources of moral authority. To self? A fearful entity,
virtually devoid of scruple or conscience.
In an organic regime, the position is different. Here, it is abundantly
evident to whom one is responsible, and for what. Each person is
answerable to society as a whole. And it is the duty of everyone, from the
highest to the lowest, so to think and act that they at all times promote the
interests of all and of the totality. Society, to whom persons are
accountable, esteems as responsible those who put the prosperity of the
collective, as one and in its manifold manifestations, before those of
themselves and of their immediate intimates, if such there be. In the last
resort, organic society and state require that all the virtues of personal
life, trust, faithfulness, love, must be overridden by the demands of
collective responsibility.
For Marxism, a substantially identical understanding of responsibility
holds. With one crucial exception. Responsibility operates within the
organism of the class, not of society as a whole. Except, of course, where a
classless society has been achieved.
Justice and responsibility in a democracy
Those who live in a liberal democracy can have difficulty in reaching
agreement over what they understand by justice and responsibility.
In the first place, this is simply because they live in a society which is
open, and which has evolved from past societies of a non-democratic
nature. It follows that citizens of a democracy have available to them
interpretations of justice and responsibility which have their origins in
authoritarian philosophies and practices. So, for example, justice can be
understood, in a fundamentally inegalitarian view of what is fair, as a
distribution of benefits and harms in relation to the moral deserts and
social roles of individuals. Or, responsibility may be understood as an
overriding obligation to act according to the perceived best interests of a
particular class, society, institution, or of any given significant social group
or organization.
Secondly, agreement about justice and responsibility can be difficult to
achieve because, as I have suggested, a liberal democracy is an arena
where those with varying ideals of a person vie to shape society in such a
way that it will mirror their own values. Thus, there is a more or less
intermittent struggle to make democracy a place fit for Christians, or
classicists, or, for rational, or humanist, or free-market persons, etc. More
generally, democracy may be perceived as a field for conflict between
those who are committed to individualist notions of society and those who
believe in an approach which places greater emphasis on community.
Those who hold these differing ideals of democracy are liable to have
differing interpretations of justice and responsibility.
In these circumstances, what is self-evidently required is a rationally
justifiable, universal, objective standard to which appeal can be made to
decide, amongst other things, what should be meant by justice and
responsibility. If this existed, we would have secure and logical grounds

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for rejecting non-democratic notions of justice and responsibility, and for

deciding among those rival views which are more or less compatible with
democracy.
However, it is a defining intellectual and social condition of liberalism
that it is not able to agree on any such ultimate standard. As Alasdair
Maclntyre (1988, p. 334) has argued, post-Enlightenment philosophy has
constantly failed, from Kant onwards, to establish 'a neutral set of criteria
by means of which the claims of rival and contending traditions could be
adjudicated'. Thus, we 'inhabit a culture ... [with] ... an inability to arrive
at agreed rationally justifiable conclusions on the nature of justice and
practical rationality' (pp. 5-6).
So, given that secure consensus has, so far at least, proved difficult to
achieve, there is, at least initially, little alternative but to identify the main
differing democratic concepts of justice and responsibility.
Ideas of justice are often related to rights, to notions of social contract,
and to standards of utility. Ideas of justice which rely upon the concept of
rights tend to appeal to advocates of the rationalist and humanist ideals;
various versions of social contract, particularly where these imply duties
as well as rights, can be of particular interest to communitarians; and
standards of utility are liable to be quoted by those who favour free-market
theory.
The varying concepts of justice have differing practical implications.
Thus, notions of justice which refer to rights will be likely to require clear
and enforceable statements of what those rights are; while notions which
refer to contract will probably need to look to society to make explicit
those webs of informal relationships, rules and laws which are necessary
for the effective support of mutual rights and obligations.
The implications of utilitarian notions of justice are likely to be of
particular interest where the influence of free-market thinking is strong.
According to the utilitarian view, as John Rawles (1972, p. 22) has
expressed it, 'society is rightly ordered, and therefore just, when its major
institutions are arranged so as to achieve the greatest net balance of
satisfaction summed over all the individuals belonging to it'.
From this definition, two significant points follow. First, it does not
particularly matter how the overall sum of satisfaction is distributed. So,
some individuals or groups may be very well endowed with the goods they
desire, and others may be relatively impoverished. However, as long as
society as a whole is providing its members collectively with the best
possible means for fulfilment of individual desires, it does not much matter
who exactly gets what. So, it is just, in principle, for very considerable
social and economic inequalities to exist.
And this leads to the second point. Precepts of justice, agreed by many
to be necessary for the maintenance of liberal democracy, e.g. the
protection of individual liberty, appear, in the final analysis, to be of
secondary importance. In practice, it is assumed that it will virtually always
be needful to obey these precepts as a means of ensuring the maximization
and satisfaction of society's desires. However, in principle, one has to
recognize that there may be occasions where personal liberty and so on
may need to be sacrificed to secure the utilitarian good of all. Where this is

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so it is fair to set aside, suspend or ignore any decrees which may protect
the person at the expense of pursuit of the best possible overall
equilibrium of fulfilment (see Rawles, 1972, p. 26). What all this means, of
course, is that justice and a sense of what is fair are weak, and of marginal
significance, in a free-market society. Indeed, Friedrich Hayek (1978,
p. 57) has gone so far as to claim that in a 'society of free men' the phrase
'social justice ... has no meaning whatsoever'.
Given all this, one might expect liberal democracies to be riven with
internal, internecine disputes resulting from lack of consensus about what
is just, and a consequent inability to build, maintain and administer
anything remotely approaching what its inhabitants could agree to call a
fair society.
But, on the whole, this does not appear to be the case. Liberal
democracies, for the most part, have seemed able, anyway so far, to
maintain at least the semblance of societies which respect and abide by
shared rules and laws. Of course, there are always stresses and strains,
and sometimes prolonged periods of turbulence. But descent into
conditions of endemic anarchy is historically rare.
How is this achieved? In the first place, there is an acceptance, indeed
even an endorsement, of the realities of the situation. Namely, that
members of liberal democracies, while holding, and often doing battle for,
their own view of what is just, have to concede that there is no shared,
universal understanding of what is fair for either the individual or for
society (see Walzer, 1985).
From this it follows that, if society is to have any chance of cohering, it
must have, in all the various spheres of its multitudinous activities,
accepted procedures for reaching agreement.
As concerns justice, this means there must be rules which provide
persons with the opportunity to secure consensus. These rules must
ensure that everyone, whoever they are and however otherwise
disadvantaged they may be, are: first, not excluded from the chance to
participate in the decision-making processes of democracy; secondly, able,
at least in principle and within limitations shared by all, to articulate and
realize their perception of what is good; and, thirdly, able to appeal to, or
against, society's laws, which ultimately should derive from decisionmaking in which all citizens can be involved. To put this in other words, in
a liberal democracy, justice, whatever the practical limitations, must in
principle be egalitarian insofar at least as it seeks to ensure that persons
have full opportunity to be equal as members of the electorate, before the
law, and as consumers or achievers of their personally identified good.
Of course, all this begs a crucial question. How on earth, given the
competing views of justice, can consensus be achieved even over the
identity of those procedures to be followed in pursuit of assent over what
is to be called fair? The short answer is that assent arises out of continuing
debate. This is not a debate which is widely expected to reach any final or
substantive conclusion, although every now and then it may. Rather, it is a
complex argument which as occasion demands usually, but by no means
always, defines an interim position which can temporarily be accepted by
all for working purposes, subject to continuing review and the possibility,

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indeed probability, of future emendation. Thus, in a liberal democracy,

people are usually in practice prepared to accept as just those decisions,
rules, etc., which result from following procedures agreed in an on-going
public debate whose shared purpose is to enable a fair society, however
that may be seen, to evolve (for a more detailed exploration of these
matters, see Maclntyre, 1988, chapter 17).
And now, what about the conflicting conceptions of responsibility to be
found in liberal democracy?
Certain of those ideals of a person which inform liberal democracy see it
as a vital aspect of being human that one is responsible, in the sense that
one has the capacity to accept moral accountability for what one thinks and
does.
For Christianity, and indeed for other major world faiths, humans are
spiritual and moral beings answerable before God, or to a transcendant
reality, for the conduct of life.
For rationalism, persons may be seen as answerable to an absolute law
of nature or reason. More prosaically, rationalism is liable, in practice, to
see persons as responsible to themselves and others, as rational
individuals, for willed actions.
The humanist is predominantly concerned with self-fulfilment, and with
the individual achievement of a range of goals which she or he identifies as
desirable. This allows for the idea of responsibility to self and others,
insofar as personal objectives are moral. However, it can also be important
to experience private felicity. Where this is a priority, any notion of
responsibility, in the sense of being answerable for one's actions, is liable
for some if by no means all persons to lack real vigour.
For apologists of the free-market ideal of a person, the idea of
responsibility as moral accountability can have little real meaning. This is
inevitably so, since the philosophy of laissez-faire economics recognizes no
need for any moral authority, whether personal, societal or divine: the magic
ghost in the free-market machine arranges everything for the best, in the
best of all possible worlds. Strictly speaking, the free-market person is
morally unaccountable, and therefore not constrained to act responsibly. Of
course, from time to time, those who do believe in moral accountability may
try to call free-marketeers to answer for their actions. Such economic
persons really cannot cope with demands of this nature. Characteristically,
they respond by blaming others for whatever is wrong, or even by behaviour
which to the detached observer can appear more psychotic than normal.
For what are persons in a liberal democracy prepared to accept
responsibility?
Individualist persons, for whatever reason, are usually ready to accept
responsibility for those in their immediate circle, particularly family.
However, they may well be less inclined to pay any great attention to
the notion of responsibility to community and society. The best that
rationalism or humanism can usually say is that, given a suitable education,
it is possible to achieve quite a broadly encompassing sense of social
responsibility. 'Genuine private affections/ says J. S. Mill in Utilitarianism
(1979b, p. 265), 'and a sincere interest in the public good, are possible,
though in unequal degrees, to every rightly brought up human being.'

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But, of course, for economic individualism, the notion of responsibility

for whole communities or societies is rubbish. And for a very simple
reason. As Mrs Thatcher famously informed readers of Woman's Own in
1987, Tou know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual
men and women, and there are families.'
Despite the dominant influence of individualism, the belief that the idea
of responsibility should include caring attitudes and behaviour towards
wider communities has survived in liberal democracy. This has occurred,
however, often only within the context of fading, fragmented, threatened
or minority social, moral and religious cultures.
The ideals of person and society which do provide a rationale for the
notion of social responsibility broadly interpreted derive from contrasting,
indeed antagonistic, sources. In the first place, there is an egalitarianinspired ideal, perhaps most frequently expressed by radical Christianity
and by democratic socialism. This interprets social responsibility as
needing to be exercised within and towards national or local communities
of equals. Such a notion sees the practice of responsibility both as a moral
end in itself and as a means of achieving agreed greater goods for all.
Another way of putting this is to say that through socially responsible
behaviour it becomes possible to create social capital. By social capital is
meant those arrangements of coordination and cooperation which result in
mutual benefit (see Commission on Social Justice, 1994, chapter 7).
Those who hold a more hierarchical view of society see social
responsibility rather differently. They tend to emphasize the importance
of social coherence rather than of equality. It is usually not long before
Edmund Burke is quoted reverentially and extensively. The virtue of
membership of 'little platoons' and of other groups, such as Church, party
and nation, is characteristically invoked (see Douglas Kurd, New Statesman, 22 April 1988). What is usually implicit, but less often explicit, is the
assumption that these platoons, and so forth, are part of larger forces, all
of which are organized in interconnecting pyramids of authority. Within
these hierarchies, social responsibility involves obedience and deference
from those at the base, foot soldiers etc., to those in command, together
with leadership and care for the well-being of underlings on the part of the
higher ranking. It is the final, reluctant surrendering of active life by this
pre-democratic, organic order which is now so profoundly missed by many.
It is not so much that people wish to bring back a world of static,
immutable privilege as that they desire to see again the practice of social
responsibility which they imagine it guaranteed. But, of course, that is an
impossible dream. As Joseph Schumpeter (1976) long ago pointed out,
capitalism devours historical inheritance.
Finally, if one turns to consider the influence of the liberal democratic
state on the understanding and practice of responsibility, one finds that its
structures, procedures and actions compound the difficulties generated by
the jostling of the competing ideologies to which it affords living space.
Where, as is usual, individualism predominates, it influences the state,
through the development of its systems, as well as through the nature and
implementation of its decisions, to create a society of winners and losers.
The latter tend to feel little or no allegiance to platoons, class, country,

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state or anything else very much, other perhaps than to organizations

antagonistic to establishment values and organizations. The practical
results, all too well documented, are a persistent aversion to exercising
democratic rights, a pervasive sense of alienation, and exacerbated
criminal activity.
In fact, if an individualistic ethos is dominant in a state, it is likely to
result, as J. K. Galbraith (1992) has argued, in a contented majority voting
to ignore the needs of the underprivileged minority, who thereby are
effectively disenfranchised. In such a scenario the wretched are
irresponsible insofar as they refuse to involve themselves in what they
see as pointless participation in society, and insofar as they may well act
so as to subvert, overtly or covertly, the rules of the community. But,
equally, and more culpably, the fortunate are also irresponsible. While
frequently blaming the rejected, they themselves are reluctant to take any
steps to ensure a more equitable society. Not only are the poor always
present in an individualist state; the system operates, and is operated, to
ensure that they always will be.
But, when the liberal democratic state has attempted to structure itself,
and to legislate, so as to reflect and promote values and practices of social
coherence, a different set of systemic difficulties has emerged. Whatever
the benefits of the welfare state, it is now difficult to deny that it has
created a sense of dependency as well as of security. The achievement of
equal social rights of citizenship, which as T. H. Marshall (1950, p. 56),
pointed out was both inspirational aim and effective outcome of the
creation of a society which accepted communal responsibility for common
need, was not in the event balanced by an exercise of corresponding duty.
While the individualist state created selfish winners and irresponsible
losers, social democracy resulted in a society where too many expected
simply to get, and too few to give: here, responsibility to others
degenerated too easily into an anaemic virtue.
For a society to encourage, to good effect, a balanced exercise of
personal and social responsibility between equals there has to be faith in
its procedures, shared commitment to common values, and clear, agreed
purpose. To the extent that these conditions do not exist, the citizens of a
liberal democracy will not only have disparate views of what responsibility
means, but collectively will have an enfeebled sense of the importance of
responsible behaviour, at least as concerns their own actions. Of course, a
belief that they themselves need not behave responsibly will not
necessarily hinder them from calling for responsibility from others. As
things currently stand, where responsibility is successfully practised, it is
achieved despite confusion, and against the grain of the values which are
actually dominant
Justice and responsibility in schools
Against this background, what approaches are open to schools to take, and
which should they try to pursue?
There are essentially two paths which schools can follow in teaching
students about the social virtues of justice and responsibility.

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First, they can teach about them as an academic topic. That is to say,
they can offer a curriculum which provides for the consideration of the
major different meanings, of whatever origin, democratic or nondemocratic, which can be attributed to the notions of justice and
responsibility; and which explores the implications for society of
attempting to implement particular interpretations.
The academic approach can be promoted through general studies or
appropriate specialist courses. However, much of the subject-matter is
necessarily complex, detailed and abstract. The whole curriculum cannot
realistically be expected to give a high priority to this particular issue.
Schools can, however, also adopt a more overtly moral approach. And
this is what society, and in particular those who appoint themselves or who
are appointed to speak for it, mostly favour. That is to say, they can teach
about justice and responsibility as virtues to be valued and desired. This,
as in moral education generally, may be done through rational, justifiable
precept and through practice. The two are mutually dependent.
Teaching the theory underlying justice and responsibility can be a
relatively straight-forward matter for schools established to educate
students according to particular sets of beliefs, theological, philosophic,
cultural, social, and so on. Here, the notions of justice and responsibility
can be interpreted by reference to the given systematic doctrines and
credos.
Most schools, however, are committed, in principle, to accepting
students of whatever background. For them, matters are less straightforward.
One major difficulty arises because schools, whether they like it or not,
are inescapably members of a pluralist democracy. Contemporary society,
as has already been argued, has no explicit, unambiguous, coherent
interpretation for either justice or responsibility. It can only offer a range
of overlapping, and in places mutually inconsistent and competing,
meanings.
Faced with this situation, schools apparently have a number of options.
They can, in theory, choose one set of meanings in preference to another.
However, for most schools this is unlikely to prove a realistic strategy. It
would, no doubt, in due course alienate those groups connected with a
school who did not sign up for the particular approach being adopted. If
there is one thing schools are understandably very anxious to avoid it is
causing conflict over values with the communities they serve.
On the other hand schools could, at least hypothetically, try to make
explicit the various democratic understandings of justice and responsibility, and do their best to teach all these, through explanation, example,
procedure and ethos.
However, one has only to spell out this possibility to see its
impracticability. To function effectively, whether as a learning or a moral
community, schools have to have a reasonable degree of coherence in
their purposes and general arrangements. Any attempt to implement
educational policy in the light of the spectrum of democratic notions of
justice and responsibility would in all probability condemn a school to
interior inconsistency and operational disfunction.

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So, faute de mieux, schools, at least in the maintained sector, mostly in

practise implement what is, in effect, a pick'n'mix policy. They choose,
more or less instinctively, the approaches which they think will best suit
them in their particular circumstances. This seldom leads to disaster, and
at least usually enables schools to struggle along in a fashion generally
seen as acceptable. However, as has been widely noticed, it does not
always produce students with a highly developed and articulate understanding of and commitment to justice and responsibility.
Thus, this is hardly an ideal option. It does not, and cannot, offer any
clear connection between a sustaining system of ideas and the moral
notions and behaviour being advocated. Consequently, a fundamental duty
of any education is not fulfilled. There can be no cogent explication of the
nature and justification of particular notions being presented as morally
desirable, in this case justice and responsibility, nor of the sort of attitudes
and behaviour to which they are expected to lead.
Many schools, then, simply because they belong to a liberal democratic
society, have considerable difficulties to overcome if they are to teach
justice and responsibility in a justifiable and effective way. But that is not
the only factor which can cause problems.
Some schools have also been hindered predominantly, but not
necessarily exclusively, by historic circumstance from developing a
democratic approach to educating students as fair and responsible
persons. This consideration obtained more in the past than nowadays,
although arguably it still may exert a certain influence on institutions, and
not least, perhaps, those with a special regard for past traditions.
The problem here is that particular schools may look to a significant
extent to earlier, inherited, non-democratic traditions of thought and
practice to define their understanding of justice and responsibility.
Schools may, in particular, exhibit individualistic authoritarian, or
organic tendencies.
In a school with individualistic authoritarian characteristics, justice
primarily originates in the arbitrary will of the ruler, that is the Head.
Heads may be shamelessly, indeed even proudly, despotic. More probably,
however, they will claim that edicts promulgated in their name, are
justifiable by reference to divine, or even natural, law. Nevertheless, even
where this is so, as in a Hobbesian state, the Head is usually both the
interpreter of the law and the arbiter of its application. Accordingly, for all
practical purposes, what the Head says is just defines what is fair. Acting
fairly involves no more, and no less, than carrying out the will of the Head,
as enunciated in the rules, codes, edicts, utterances, emanating from that
all-but-sacerdotal source.
In school polities where justice flows from an autocratic source of
power, it is inclined to be administered coercively. Characteristically, it
frequently relies for its effective implementation upon threat, retribution
and punishment, until recently often physical.
This approach both arises from and provokes an absence of consent
amongst the governed. In schools of this sort a counter-culture is liable to
arise. While some students, as a result of official pressure or natural
inclination, will probably identify themselves with the ruling adult or

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adults, most, in a way which Marxists would well understand, will perceive
themselves as underprivileged and exploited. As such, they develop their
own primitive critique of their society, together with its specialist
vocabulary and concepts. The language of the oppressed will define its own
understanding of justice, which will be more or less antithetical to that
deriving from the Head. In an authoritarian school there are two justices,
and two views of what is just. One is official, and that of the establishment.
The other is covert, and potentially or actually subversive of the former.
As for responsibility, unadulterated authoritarianism, in whatever sort
of social organization, blights any sense of social obligation. In schools, it
encourages students to emerge as persons who are self-centred and
bullying, or cowed and resentful. Either way, any feeling of social duty is
likely to be restricted to immediate associates, and just possibly to family.
Schools with organic characteristics reveal a strongly hierarchical
nature. Power flows pyramidically, down from the Head, a most
appropriate title for the commander of a corporate body, via a duly
stratified staff, through to ever inferior layers of students, from head boys
and girls, through prefects, monitors, and captains of various cohorts, to
students who as they get younger and younger, or less and less brainy, are
seen to have less and less value or significance.
Such an institution is rule ridden. There are rules for everything. The
rules provide a framework which helps to define students' roles.
Obviously, there are different rules for different groups, together with a
complex range of related sanctions. The main concern in the administration of justice is to ensure that all students, whatever their functions
within the body of the school, make their required contributions. Needs of
individual students are not a high priority.
Within schools of an organic nature, there is a very significant emphasis
on responsibility. There are, at least in principle, acknowledged mutual
responsibilities between those who hold differing roles. Equally, and often
in practice more importantly, each member is expected to demonstrate a
sense of responsibility in regard to the good of the whole; or, as it is
usually expressed, to be loyal to the school. As a result, at best, regard for
the good of the school as a whole commands a real commitment from both
present and past students to furthering its educational goals specifically,
and its reputation more generally. At worst, however, the practice of
loyalty takes precedence over the fulfilment of individual talents and
ideals, especially where these differ from the culture of the school: a sense
of loyalty may also may be appealed to and exploited to enable abuses
within the school, or by those connected with it, to be covered up: and it
can be used to further the immediate interests of the school at the
expense of the greater social good.
Organic schools tend to consider that there are particular roles, with
associated responsibilities, which their students should be expected to
fulfil in the adult world. What they believe these roles to be is influenced
by the perceptions which they and others hold of their position in the rank
ordering of society.
Schools at, or aspiring to be at, the apex of the social hierarchy
emphasize leadership, and an obligation to show active concern for the

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poor and the underprivileged. Hence, for example, at the turn of the
century, there was the establishment by many major public schools of
clubs for working-class boys in deprived areas. Hence, also, there was the
development of what used to be called the Officer Training Corps, with its
concern to teach, amongst other things, a responsibility to look after those
in the other ranks.
As one descended the scale of schools, through minor public schools,
through grammar schools, to elementary, and later to secondary modern
schools, so values changed. An ethos which, at least in principle, favoured
an ethic of duty to the less favoured, was gradually, if at times disjointedly,
replaced by a social morality of submission. Students from schools
intended for the least able, the least well-off, or the least socially privileged
were, as a rule, expected to learn a responsibility to follow, to obey, to
conform, to play their particular economic or social part, however humble,
in contributing to the greater good of the integrated community. For
these, deference was the outward and visible sign of socially responsible
behaviour.
Of course, non-democratic educational interpretations of justice and
responsibility are open, in principle, to attack and rejection on democratic
grounds. Indeed, it is largely as a result of such criticism that these more
long-standing, inherited ideals attract much less support than used to be
the case.
Nevertheless, tradition in education can attract fierce devotion. And
there are those who still value these particular ancient verities. Particular
arguments have been evolved to support the non-democratic stance.
It can be pleaded that schools are in a special situation, and so more or
less exempt from any obligation generally to organize themselves along
democratic lines, and specifically to follow democratic notions of justice
and responsibility.
In certain limited, but ultimately unimportant, respects, it is true that
schools are not fully democratic.
Thus, if one considers the overall arrangements for the management
and provision of education in schools, it is the case that while, at least in
maintained schools, some governors are elected, no one with teaching or
other professional responsibility is. On the other hand, it is not common
practice for formal organizations in a liberal democracy to use the vote as a
means of selecting people for particular jobs. More importantly, however,
all schools are, to a greater or lesser extent, dependent on democratically
provided funds. And all are answerable to its laws.
Schools are also not fully democratic in another limited sense. Most
students are not of an age to exercise the full democratic rights and duties
of citizenship. Nor, in any case, are they sufficiently mature or experienced
to behave in a fully democratic way in school. But then, they are not in a
position to act as full members of any sort of adult society, democratic or
otherwise. They are at school to learn. And one of the most important
things they have to learn is how to act as democrats. This they can hardly
do by being inducted into non-democratic modes of thought and behaviour.
The crucial point is to do with educational aims. However the polity of a
school is ordered in detail, it must in general be so structured as to enable

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its ethos and educational programme to further democratic values.

Specifically, this means that it must be actively committed to promoting
democratically inspired notions of justice and responsibility. It cannot
legitimately encourage interpretations of justice and responsibility which
ultimately derive their meaning from non-democratic philosophies and
practices.
So, what ought to be done?
Schools should have, and in some cases are already developing, specific
and explicit understandings of justice and responsibility which make sense
in the educational context.
These understandings need to meet various criteria.
They must be democratic. Students should both learn about the social
virtues which society believes to be desirable, and should acquire a secure
standpoint from which non-democratic interpretations may be evaluated.
They must be as inclusive as possible. Of course, for the reasons
already discussed, they will not be able to cover all possible interpretations acceptable within a liberal democracy. But, as far as is reasonably
possible, they should not obviously exclude particular definitions.
Finally, they should be readily capable of being applied in educational
activities.
Thus, one needs to establish definitions. In principle, it would be
possible to suggest all-embracing, comprehensive definitions for both
justice and responsibility. However, any such attempt would more than
likely be self-defeating. Ultimately, it would almost certainly turn out that
one had done no more than add further, and equally debatable definitions
to those which already exist.
So, there is actually no serious alternative to basing any viable
educational definitions of justice and responsibility on already existing
approaches. It is a matter of adopting definitions which are most likely to
prove generally acceptable and educationally useful.
How, then, can schools most appropriately define justice?
As a framework for an interpretation of justice I shall refer to the
principles of justice as fairness proposed by John Rawles (1972).
Rawles (p. 60) formulates two main principles of justice as fairness.

First: each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic
liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.
Second: social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that
they are both:
(a) reasonably expected to be to everyone's advantage, and:
(b) attached to positions and offices open to all.

Where these principles are put into practice, a society or institution can
reasonably be described as just.
I use Rawles's approach: first, because it is almost certainly the most
comprehensive and influential contemporary account of what is meant by
justice; and, secondly, because it is intended to apply not only to society in
general, but also to particular institutions within society. This means that,
where any reference is made to institutions, it can reasonably be assumed
that it includes schools.

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Of course, Rawles's theory has not only been widely discussed, but also
criticized. That is inevitable, given the variety of approaches to justice
necessarily characteristic of a liberal democratic society. However, the
major thrust of the critical points raised is not seriously damaging to the
view I wish to adopt.
One common complaint is that Rawles's theory, despite the careful
procedures adopted to ensure impartiality, are in fact rooted in and reflect
the values of liberal individualism (Maclntyre, 1988, p. 4). However, for
my purposes, that is not a very significant issue. Rawles's principles are
sufficiently broadly conceived not to exclude consideration of the key
personal and social ideals with which schools ought to be concerned. And,
in any case, it is appropriate for schools, in a liberal democracy, to use as a
framework of reference principles of justice consistent with the values of
liberal democracy.
A second sort of reservation is that the principles do not take
sufficient account of the particular concerns of certain interest groups to
be found in a liberal democracy. Thus, David Willetts (1992, pp. 63-4),
from the point of view of the free-market philosophy, considers the principle of justice should place greater emphasis on the need for economic
inequality. However, this issue is really only a matter of degree. For
Rawles's principles do not posit full economic equality as a criterion of
justice.
The principles of justice refer to two key concepts: right and equality.
Both of these must be central to the vocabulary and practice of schools if
they are to work as just institutions.
The right to liberty, as defined, requires, in general, that each person is
able to decide his or her own good.
This, of course, includes the educationally vital right to decide what sort
of person one desires to become.
More particularly, the right to liberty requires that a person has full
access to certain goods which it can reasonably be assumed are desired by
most, if not all, individuals. These, called by Rawles (p. 92) 'primary
goods', are 'rights and liberties, opportunities and powers, income and
wealth'. Some, or even all, of these social goods can be important as ends
in themselves. To a greater extent, however, they are likely to be helpful
in achieving the good one desires for oneself.
For a student at school, these social goods are likely to be understood in
terms of freedom to chose certain courses, realistic opportunity to gain
necessary educational experience and qualifications, and absence of
financial, social or other constraints to the achievement of personal
educational goals.
What, more specifically, are the basic rights of students?
The most important of these have been spelled out in the United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (see Newell, 1991), and
were in 1992 ratified by the government of the United Kingdom. They
include the rights of students:

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to an education which should be directed to the development of the

child's personality and talents, preparing the child for active life as an
adult, fostering respect for human rights and developing respect for
the child's own cultural and national values and those of others
(Article 29);
to freedom from discrimination (Article 2);
to express an opinion and to have it taken into account (Article 12);
of thought, conscience and religion (Article 14);
of association and peaceful assembly (Article 15);
to benefit from an adequate standard of living (Article 27).
to protection of privacy (Article 16), and from abuse and neglect
(Article 19).
The second concept which plays a key part in formulating the principles
of justice is equality. Rawles spells out the place of equality in some detail
under what he calls a general conception' of the principles: 'liberty and
opportunity, income and wealth, and the bases of self-respect - are to be
distributed equally, unless an unequal distribution of any or all of these
goods is to the advantage of the least favoured' (p. 303).
The question which now arises is this: in schools, are there
circumstances in which an unequal distribution of goods can be to the
advantage of all students, including the least favoured, and so promote
justice?
To begin with, there is a semantic difficulty to be clarified. The word
'equality' means 'the condition of being equal in dignity, privileges, power
etc. with others: fairness, impartiality, equity' (Oxford English Dictionary).
The opposite of equality' is 'inequality': that is to say, superiority or
inferiority to others in dignity, etc.
'Equality' can be confused, whether deliberately or not, with 'sameness', which is in fact an entirely different concept.
'Sameness' means 'the quality of being the same. Uniformity,
monotony' (OED). Its opposite is 'difference', meaning 'the condition,
quality or fact of being different, or not the same; dissimilarity, distinction,
diversity' (OED).
It can happen that difference is identified as the opposite of equality.
And, similarly, inequality can be identified as the opposite of sameness.
Where this occurs one result is simply unhelpful confusion. But another
is more malign. It is that, since the idea of difference is generally valued,
the idea of equality, where assumed to be its opposite, is by implication
denigrated. Likewise, since sameness is not generally valued, inequality
where assumed to be its opposite is esteemed.
It is clearly important that all these four terms are given their correct
meaning if any discussion of equality is not to be distorted (see box).
EQUALITY
SAMENESS
EQUALITY
EQUALITY

is
is
is
is

the opposite of
the opposite of
not the opposite of
compatible with

INEQUALITY
DIFFERENCE
DIFFERENCE
DIFFERENCE

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Everyone should have equal basic rights. In schools, this means that all
students, whatever their needs, social or ethnic origin, gender or personal
attributes, should have those rights identified by the United Nations (see
p. 121).
Persons should share an equality of regard. All individuals, in schools as
elsewhere, should see everyone, including themselves, as having what
Raymond Williams has called 'equality of being' (1962, p. 305). Such
equality is, in Simone Weil's words (1952, p. 15), 'a vital need of the soul'.
To quote her again, 'it consists in a recognition, at once public, general,
effective and genuinely expressed in institutions and customs, that the
same amount of respect and consideration is due to every human being
because this respect is due to the human being as such and is not a matter
of degree'. That is to say, it is both a psychological need and a moral
imperative that, whatever an individual's character or circumstances, he or
she should regard self and others as ends not means, as ultimately
significant, as sacred. At birth, in death, throughout life, all are of
unquantifiable, unquestionable and equal value.
Next, there is equality of opportunity. As a phrase, equality of
opportunity does not specify for whom the equality should be provided.
Nor is there universal agreement about this. I shall take it to refer to all
individuals and groups in a school.
For equality of opportunity to be wholly realized three criteria have to
be met.
First, in any particular school, full and equal opportunity should exist
for each student, and all groups of students, to participate in all courses of
study, personal and social education provision, and extra-curricular
activity.
Secondly, in all schools, a broad, balanced, coherent and efficacious
range of educational experiences, taking account of society's expectations,
should be offered so that students have the chance both to acquire the
core knowledge and skills seen as necessary by society and to develop fully
their particular abilities, potential and interests.
Thirdly, support and guidance must be given to ensure, as far as
humanly possible, that students are able to take up and benefit from
opportunities offered.
Equality of opportunity should lead to increasingly different and
differentiated learning experiences for students. As essential, common
knowledge, skills and attitudes are mastered, and as students develop as
individuals, so increasingly they require a curriculum which meets their
particular needs. Equality of opportunity enables students to progress
from a common to a differentiated curriculum.
All persons must have full equality as citizens (equal right to vote, be
eligible for public office, freedom of speech, assembly, thought,
conscience, etc., see Rawles, 1972, p. 61). One could argue that this
does not apply to students insofar as they have not acquired all rights of
citizenship until they are 18. However, all should have equal status as
future citizens. This means that they must all be fully educated in the
nature and practice of democratic citizenship.
Finally, there is the question of economic and social equality. Students

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123

can come to particular schools from widely contrasting backgrounds.

There is great potential benefit in this. Students gain the opportunity to
get to know, become friendly with, put up with, understand, and so on,
those from different class, cultural, faith and financial background from
their own. They can come to see the unfamiliar, not as stereotypes, but as
persons whom, whether they like them or not, have their own strengths,
weaknesses and idiosyncrasies. It is in such experiences that a realistic
sense of community can be rooted.
Of course, teaching students to appreciate and cope with difference is
one thing. Ensuring equality is another. It is all too well established that
the social and economic status of students can be of educational benefit to
the privileged, and a handicap to the underprivileged. Within schools there
is no moral justification whatsoever for the education offered to particular
individuals or groups to be influenced positively or adversely by what can
be afforded on their behalf. Any discrimination, on grounds of ability to
pay, is bound to result in a denial of educational rights.
To return to the original question under discussion. Are there any
circumstances in which an unequal distribution of goods can be to the
advantage of all students, including the least favoured, and so promote
justice? The answer must be that it is hard to find any circumstances in
which any form of inequality can be of advantage to all students. Indeed, it
seems likely that the reverse is true. That is to say, education of quality for
each and every student is more likely to result where equality of rights,
regard, opportunity, citizenship and economic treatment are observed and
promoted. Consequently, a just school is one where equality, in its various
manifestations, is valued and practised. Of course, it does not necessarily
follow that a just system of national education might not, in certain
respects, lack equality. But that matter is considered in the final chapter.
And so now, having considered justice, what about responsibility?

In a liberal democracy, responsible persons are those who acknowledge certain legal and moral obligations, and who do their best,
through their actions, to perform the duties required of them by their
obligations.

This interpretation of responsibility raises two questions. First, to

whom is one responsible? The short answer is that one is responsible to
other rational, moral beings, or Being. Religious persons will see
themselves as being accountable, above all, to divine Being, and then to
other humans, especially those who, however they gain that status, appear
to speak for deity. Rationalists, those strongly influenced by rationalism,
and humanists, will see themselves as preeminently accountable to other
rational, moral persons.
The second question is: for what is one responsible? In a democracy, a
person is responsible for carrying out those duties which they incur as a
result of a need to ensure that mutually held rights are respected and can
be practised.
A hierarchy of duties exists, in principle, in all democratic institutions,
including schools.

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First, there is a general duty to uphold the principles of justice.

Secondly, there is a duty to cooperate with others to ensure there is a
fair implementation and effective review of the principles of justice.
Thirdly, there are duties which individuals incur as a result of the
rights they should automatically acquire, simply by virtue of membership of particular types of institution. Thus, as members of a school,
students have a right to a good education. Assuming this is provided,
they have a duty to work and to learn to the best of their ability.
Fourthly, there are duties which individuals should fulfil arising from
any general advantage they may enjoy in an institution. Advantage for
students can arise from a range of attributes, such as intelligence, age,
physical development, ethnic background, and so on. They may also
benefit, at least indirectly, if they come from relatively privileged
economic or social backgrounds. Whatever the source of advantage,
there is an obligation to use it, not only for the satisfaction of personal
goals, but also for mutual benefit.
Fifthly, individuals have duties arising from specific roles they hold in
society or institutions. So, in schools, any students who have rulemaking, administrative or other responsibilities have an obligation to
carry them out openly and fairly.
Finally, there is a common duty to observe, maintain and promote, in
the interests of justice, specific laws and rules, provided they are fair.
All types of duty may be justified by reference to a range of moral or
religious beliefs. However, insofar as they are associated with principles of
justice, they can equally be justified by prudential considerations. It is in
the interest of all to live in just institutions. Consequently, it is in
everyone's interests to fulfil the duties which are essential to the
maintenance and development of such institutions. And of course, the
greater the benefit individuals obtain from belonging to a just institution,
for example through personal, social, occupational or economic status, the
greater will be their interest in fulfilling the duties which accompany
privilege. For those who enjoy privilege without carrying out the
corresponding duties are creating an unjust society. And sooner or later
unjust institutions, and not least schools, together with those who benefit
from them, are at risk of self-destructing, or of being destroyed.
In conculsion, as well as having specific duties which arise from
membership of institutions, persons also have responsibilities for a wider
community. And it is imperative that schools teach students about those
responsibilities.
One must be responsible, as taught in the major religions and moral
philosophies, for all other human creatures. This responsibility cannot be
artificially restricted to nearest and dearest only. There is a great, but not
an exclusive, responsibility for them.
However, there is more to it than this. There are wider circles of
responsibility. Traditionally, Western thought has seen persons as being
predominantly, albeit not always exclusively, responsible for other
persons: some thinkers, such as Hume, have also emphasized responsibility for property. This is a human-centred world of responsibility.

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It is now very evident that this is not enough. Both on moral and
practical grounds, notions of responsibility which focus on persons are
necessary, but not sufficient. Humans also have to acknowledge a
responsibility for that which is created, for nature, for the animate and
inanimate world. Inescapably, as human power and control over the
environment increase, so must responsibility for human action taken
towards it. The universe functions according to its own laws, its
phenomena have their own value, and their own imperatives. There is a
human responsibility for that cosmos of which we are a part, upon which
we depend, but in which we have our own distinct and privileged
existence.

CHAPTER 10

The school: institution and

community

As an institution, the school provides an organizational and administrative

framework, whose first virtue is justice.
As a community, the school provides a network of social relationships,
whose first virtue is responsibility.
In schools, institution and community are interdependent. Accordingly,
I shall not attempt to deal with them separately. I shall consider them
together, in their mutuality.
As institutions, schools must strive to be just.
They must do this, in the first place, so as to enable students to learn,
through study, observation and practice, about the meaning of fairness.
Students should gain an increasingly secure grasp of what is meant by
justice, both in the school and in the wider society.
Schools must also strive to be just so as to enable them to function
effectively and efficiently. Where a school operates as an unjust institution,
that is to say, where particular individuals and groups are favoured at the
expense of others, or where rules are irrational, or are applied selectively,
or are broken with impunity, then many members of that school will be
discontented, resentful, alienated and underperforming. The school, to a
greater or lesser extent, will be failing. Justice as fairness in education is
not simply an essential virtue for students to learn and practise. It is also a
necessary condition for successful education.
As communities, schools must strive to be responsible.
They must do this, in the first place, so as to enable young people to
gain knowledge of the moral requirements of being good members: as
students, of the school community; and as future citizens, of the wider
democratic society.
Schools must also strive to be responsible for the sake of the school,
here and now. Where a school fails to encourage, condones, or even
actively connives at irresponsible attitudes and behaviour, by whomsoever,
then such valid educational objectives and procedures as it may have,
including any concern with democracy and citizenship, will be liable to be
distorted, neglected, derided. Schools, like the larger society, have little
chance of success, or even ultimately of survival, if its members fail to

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recognize and practise the responsibilities which come with belonging to a

community.
How does one set about developing schools as just institutions, and
responsible communities? The answer is: through leadership, structure
and management. Leaders have been defined as those who 'by word and/or
personal example, markedly influence the behaviours, thoughts and/or
feelings of a significant number of their fellow human beings' (Gardner,
1996, pp. 8-9). The critical questions are by whom, with what purposes,
and how, is leadership to be exercised?
The immediate, day-to-day leadership of a school is formally vested in
the headteacher. Of course, others have a contribution to make. For
example, the chair of the governing body and the governors have a
contribution to make to the overall leadership of the school. Deputy heads
and heads or coordinators of particular subjects and courses have a
contribution to make to the leadership of particular elements of the
school. But the headteacher should be the guiding light.
The overriding concern of the headteacher must be with the definition
and implementation of school aims (see G. Holmes, 1993). In maintained
schools, this is a legal responsibility, shared with the governing body.
Schools need a range of moral and utilitarian aims. Moral aims, with which
we are mainly concerned, should refer to the teaching of respect for
persons; of truth through the curriculum; of justice in the school as an
institution; and of responsibility in the school community.
Headteachers need to ensure that school aims identify justice and
responsibility in terms which are unambiguous and pragmatic. More
specifically, they should ensure that the relevant aims are supported by
particular objectives, which are in turn sustained by explicit, written
policies, and that these together provide realistic, substantial and
comprehensive guidance on achieving the overall aims.
Objectives and policies whose purposes include the promotion of just
and responsible schools should deal with rights, equalities, duties and
obligations.
I have dealt with the major educational rights in the previous chapter.
In general terms, they are mostly covered, if often only indirectly, in
legislation. Schools, accordingly, have to take account of them. Their
overall aims should make absolutely clear their commitment to recognizing all students' major educational rights.
Schools need to articulate an intention to promote the educational
aspects of equality.
Equality of regard should be discussed in the context of moral and social
development, and of ethos.
Equality of citizenship, and the means for ensuring that students learn
about this, should be set out in what is said about the promotion of social
development.
Equality of opportunity for ethnic minorities, for girls and boys, for
those with special educational needs, and for potentially high achieving
students, should be, and increasingly are, spelled out in detailed objectives
and policies.
Schools also require coherent strategies to ensure that socially or

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economically disadvantaged students have full and effective access to

curricular and extra-curricular activities.
The duties predicated by the experience of receiving equal treatment
should be as firmly identified as the equalities themselves.
It ought to be spelled out that equality of regard is a two-way business, a
question of giving as well as of receiving. Those who are treated with
respect as equal beings have an obligation to treat others similarly, to look
after their welfare, and certainly to refrain from abuse and bullying racial, social or personal.
Likewise, objectives and policies dealing with behaviour, discipline and
responsibilities need to articulate that students have an overriding duty to
observe and promote just rules, to listen to and consider with an open
mind the opinions of others, and to act with concern for others, taking
reasonable account of their needs and interests.
Finally, it should be made clear that students being provided with
equality of opportunity are under a double obligation: first, to use any
advantages they may receive for the benefit of others as well as of
themselves; and, secondly, not to diminish opportunity for others, for
example through disruptive behaviour.
So, assuming relevant objectives and policies are intended or in place,
what structures are required to enable students to understand and practise
justice and responsibility?
The National Curriculum and religious education provide, in principle,
the foundations for a curriculum which is just in the sense that all students
have full and equal access to it.
Nevertheless, all is not necessarily flourishing in the curricular garden.
In particular, when it comes to content as opposed to access, there is no
statutory requirement, as there most certainly should be, for the
curriculum systematically to cover notions of justice, right, equality,
responsibility and duty. Nor, equally shamefully, do students have to learn
about the rights and duties of citizens in relation to law; work, employment
and leisure; public services; family and the wider community; and, more
generally, local and national democratic arrangements.
There are, it is true, independent initiatives to help schools that wish
to deal with such issues, for instance, 'The Law in Education Project',
1988-9, published by Edward Arnold. The National Curriculum Council
has issued guidance on the teaching of cross-curricular themes, which
covers some of the relevant matters (National Curriculum Council,
1990a). And, more recently, the National Forum for Values in Education
(1996), set up by the Schools Curriculum and Assessment Authority, has
strongly advocated model syllabuses concerned with the promotion of
spiritual, moral, social and cultural values. However, despite a promise in
the 1997 government White Paper Excellence in Schools to set up a
consultative committee on citizenship education, there continues to be
little indication of a serious official intention to provide statutory backing
for the area.
Many schools, of course, do their best, despite the absence of legal
support. But, inevitably, it is seldom enough. Other schools do little. And
at the dead centre of bad schools are to be found curricula which care little

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for justice, rights, equalities, responsibility, duties, democracy and

citizenship.
The school should be so constituted that it enables students to learn
about the nature of justice and responsibility through experience,
reflection on theory and practice, and discussion. Curricular and social
provision should be complementary, providing students with the
opportunity to gain the knowledge and the understanding, the skills, the
attitudes and the insights which together contribute to the development of
a just and responsible person, committed to upholding a fair and decent
society.
Councils, or similar bodies, should enable students to consider a range
of issues. In relation to justice and responsibility, matters such as school
rules, codes of behaviour, student contracts of duties, and charters of
rights, bullying, equal opportunities and racism should all qualify to be on
the agenda. Equally importantly, the democratic procedures themselves,
the processes by which students may or may not raise particular matters,
and make recommendations or decisions, should be open for consideration. This is essential if students are to learn how citizens of a liberal
democracy can debate and reach consensus about what may, and what may
not, be accepted as just and responsible.
Democratic responsibilities may be learned through electing representatives, for example in councils, or through contributing to the choice of
particular officials, e.g. head girls and boys, prefects, monitors, etc. In
councils, and less formal groups, students should be able to learn to put
their own views clearly, to pay serious attention to views which differ from
their own, whether minority or not, and to accept and abide by majority
decisions.
Responsibility for the observation and maintenance of rules should be
learned through helping to administer rules by performing specific roles
(membership of sixth form, prefects, etc.); through contributing to dealing
with rule-breaking (e.g. through informal pastoral discussions, or more
formally through arrangements such as school courts); and through
keeping rules as members of the school community.
While a general ability to take responsibility for one's work should come
through study, a more specific understanding of the nature and
responsibilities of the adult world of work, employment and leisure
should arise from interrelated work observation and experience, and classroom activities. Similarly, through the curriculum, outside visits or other
involvement, students should have the opportunity to see how vigorous
public services are dependent upon and contribute to the exercise of
responsible citizenship. Finally, through a range of initiatives and
activities, including, as happens in many schools, fund-raising, students
can learn the social and moral responsibilities they have, whether as
individuals, or as members of families, and local and international
communities, towards their fellow humans, other living creatures, and the
environment.
A majority of secondary schools, and a substantial minority of all
schools, probably now support some form of organized democratic activity,
particularly though councils of one sort or another (ACE, 1993). However,

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traditionally English education has been fully as reluctant to promote an

experiential approach as it has been to promote a curricular approach to
democratic education. Of course, there can be difficulties. The remit of
councils may not be made sufficiently clear; there may be uncertainty over
whether, or to what extent, there are delegated powers, an advisory,
consultative or executive role; some staff may be openly or covertly
hostile; many may, at least initially, lack the necessary professional
abilities effectively to teach students democratic skills and attitudes.
Ultimately, however, a failure in school, for whatever reason, to educate in
the practice of democracy represents a failure to educate for a just and
responsible society.
Bearing in mind, particularly, the need to practise and promote justice
and responsibility, how should a school be managed?
The answer in general is: so as best to ensure that its structures and
procedures enable it to pursue its aims, including its moral aims.
Those who manage are the staff of a school. It is misleading to suggest
that there are some teachers who manage ('the management') and the rest
who do not. All manage. But different individuals and groups will have
different tasks.
The headteacher, deputy or deputies, and sometimes one or two others
('the senior management') have to ensure that all teachers are as well
placed as possible to manage successfully.
The senior management need to make certain that a concern for justice
and responsibility informs all planning. Thus, when objectives and policies
are being formulated, or when particular strategies or actions are
proposed, the question should always be asked: is this particular
suggestion, if implemented, likely to help in building the school as a just
and responsible society? If the answer is yes, then, subject to practical
considerations, the suggestion should be accepted. If no, then whatever
other favourable arguments there may be, the suggestion must be
rejected.
Good management encourages teachers always to interpret and
implement objectives in the light of the overall sense of direction
provided by the relevant aims, and not least, the moral aims. The purpose
of objectives is to identify the targets which have to be achieved in
particular fields. This means that objectives, while clear, should be seen as
being flexible, as being capable of being changed and altered, as the need
arises, so as to ensure that they can provide the best possible signposts, in
specific circumstances, to progressing towards reaching the ultimate goal.
Objectives ought never be permitted to become a substitute for aims.
Where objectives become ends, rather than means, they are liable to
become ossified into axioms.
One likely outcome is administrative inefficiency. Objectives tend to be
taken for granted, and left unexamined and unchanged. Or, if changed,
altered without reference to any overall rationale. Consequently, they
show an increasing tendency to be incoherent, to lack consistency, and to
be formulated in terms which are irrelevant to the overall circumstances of
a school. Planning based predominantly or exclusively on objectives, which
neglects or entirely ignores overall moral and utilitarian aims, almost

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inevitably becomes increasingly piecemeal, short term, perfunctory and

meaningless.
Even worse, management by objectives alone encourages an authoritarian style of leadership. Where objectives are taken as given, it is
usually senior management who give, or, to call a spade a spade, impose.
Top-down leadership discourages professional participation and discussion
of purpose. It is fundamentally anti-democratic, and, as such, in opposition
to the essential moral purposes of education in a democracy. It results in,
at best, passive obedience amongst teachers, at worst unreliable
compliance, or outright antagonism. Where the leadership of a school
manages in such a way that a sense of shared purpose is discouraged, any
sense of justice and responsibility is diminished.
It follows that senior management needs to make sure that all teachers
have appropriate opportunities to contribute to the development of
objectives and policies. Overall, the intention should be create a
reasonable professional community where all can feel included in the
debate about ideas, listened to seriously, and able to exert influence as
suitable. More generally, all should be in a position to comprehend, from
their particular perspectives, the way the thinking of the school is
developing.
If teachers are to be in a position to implement objectives and policies
as intended, then the senior management has to ensure that they receive
systematic and carefully considered support. This comes through fair
arrangements for distribution of resources, training which meets
identified need, assistance as necessary over pastoral and disciplinary
issues, access to personal counselling if required, and sensible deployment
of staff. It is also notoriously difficult to teach effectively in inadequate
accommodation, or without proper funding. However, the capitalization
and income of a school are matters which are only marginally, if at all,
within senior management's control, however much most of them wish it
was otherwise.
Teachers who are isolated or ill informed about what is happening or is
intended in a school are poorly placed to perform as well as they could.
Senior management has to ensure that there are good systems of
communication, whose purposes are clear and relevant, and which
function smoothly. Equally important, however, is informal communication. The school needs, as an educational community, to encourage an
open atmosphere, which encourages easy exchange of views, information
and support, and where informal networks readily reinforce and
supplement formal arrangements.
Where staff are involved in planning, and supported in performance, the
result should be that they feel committed to the aims, objectives and
policies of the school, experience trust in leadership and colleagues, and
gain satisfaction and motivation from performing professional tasks. Above
all, they should be in a position to gain a sense of self-worth from doing,
and being seen to do, a good job of work.
A number of issues arise, however.
First, there is a responsibility on teachers to respond in good faith to
any opportunities offered. All need to see themselves as involved in a

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joint, collaborative management venture with the school leadership. Some

will themselves have particular management responsibilities, as subject
coordinators, heads of department, heads of year, and so forth. Others will
simply have those responsibilities which come with being a subject or
class teacher, or a tutor. All, however, should be ready to respond, to
contribute, to initiate.
Whatever the opportunities provided by senior or middle management,
however relevant their expectations, the school community can hardly be
fairly, responsibly and successfully managed unless teachers respond
constructively and creatively. Management is a two-way process. Just as
committed teachers virtually always experience frustration when faced
with poor leadership, so good senior and middle management are unlikely
to do as well as they would like where they encounter defensive, inwardlooking teachers, indifferent or even hostile to the notion of the school as
a just institution or a responsible community.
The second issue is this: parents, governors, students and not least
teachers themselves need to know how effectively and efficiently a school
is promoting justice and responsibility.
Relevant and reliable information is only likely to emerge from a
continuing process of evaluation.
Who should carry out the evaluating? Primarily, teachers should, and
with rare exceptions virtually always do, evaluate their own performance
and students' achievement. They observe what gives results, and what
works less well, and they modify their approaches accordingly. Teachers
should also carry out joint evaluation activities with colleagues. From such
collaboration they can gain a broader perspective on their professional
strengths and weaknesses. Self-evaluation can also gain from more formal
assessment, whether from line-managers or outside observers, such as
advisers or inspectors. However, this is only likely to be worthwhile if it is
seen by all concerned not so much as an externally imposed judgement but
more as a contribution to a shared dialogue about the effectiveness of what
a teacher is doing. Evaluation of teacher performance is an art, not a
science. It gains credibility where it illuminates and contributes to
constructive debate, or consensus, about the quality and effectiveness of
teaching. It loses it where it is presented as an authoritative truth. For
such it can never be.
The key issue, however, is not so much who evaluates, important
though this is. It is by what criteria are judgements made?
The school is developing as a just institution and a responsible
community to the extent that related objectives are being met; that
students are achieving particular targets; and that teachers know their
subjects and their students well, prepare work thoroughly and can make
good use of a range of teaching strategies and pastoral skills. More
generally, the school is succeeding morally where it enables all students to
progress, and teachers to perform, to the best of their abilities.
Students are showing satisfactory levels of attainment in the understanding of justice and responsibility where, at the least, they know the
basic language of justice, rights, equality, responsibility, duties and
obligations; where they have a sound grasp of national and local

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democratic legal and democratic systems; where they are able to call on
personal experience to illustrate how an institution can try to ensure
justice, and a community, responsibility; where they demonstrate an
ability to respect the rights of others, and to undertake effectively
particular social duties; where they can show, in practice, a reasonable
grasp of the basic skills required of a responsible citizen in a democracy;
and where they exhibit at least a minimal commitment to the school as an
institution through observation of rules, and to the school as a community
through good behaviour and attendance.
The evidence by which judgements are supported should come from a
range of sources: observation, documents, discussion with staff and
parents, etc. However, since justice and responsibility are, above all,
virtues demonstrated and experienced in a social context, it is crucial that
the views of students be taken into account. Do they consider that they are
treated fairly and responsibly? That they are encouraged to treat others
fairly and responsibly? That they are able to make their views known to
teachers, and, if so, that what they say is taken seriously, and leads to
action if necessary? That they have opportunities to practise worthwhile
responsibilities? That the curriculum, and the school generally, offer
genuine equality of opportunity? And, how do they consider that they
respond to what the school offers?
Finally, one needs to have an idea of why particular teachers perform
well, badly or acceptably. Of course, a teacher's possession, or not, of
particular knowledge and abilities will provide much of the evidence
required to make a considered judgement. However, it won't provide all
the necessary information. A potentially strong teacher may, for example,
be undermined by students hostile to school, and by lack of proper
support. Alternatively, a teacher with weak skills may appear successful by
certain criteria because, for example, students are able, highly motivated,
and receiving extra help from elsewhere.
So, where there appear to be particular teaching weaknesses or
strengths, the proper response is, to ask. What is it that inhibits, or
destroys, teaching? Or, what is it that helps teaching to flourish, or at least
get by? Is it inappropriate, or appropriate, objectives? Is it hopelessly
vague, or properly balanced and detailed, policies? Is it inadequate, or
adequate, support? Is it ineffective, or effective, management? Is it poorly,
or highly motivated, students? It would be unjust, and irresponsible, to
make judgements on teachers' performance without taking full account of
the circumstances in which they have to work.
In a nutshell, a just and responsible school is a thinking, creative,
reflective, self-aware society.

CHAPTER 11

Justice and the government of

education

Government can be perceived as an institution.

The first virtue of institutions is justice. Accordingly, it is the exercise
of fairness which should provide the main moral means by which
government attempts to achieve its goals.
The educational good which a government desires should be the same
as that which should be sought by schools.
It is schools, individually, which have the main responsibility for
ensuring that the major goals of education are achieved, and that the first
virtues are properly taught, learned and developed.
A particular responsibility, however, rests with government. Government alone can provide the conditions necessary for all schools, nationally,
to have a reasonable opportunity of achieving the major aims of education.
Government should exercise justice, and so provides support for schools
to pursue the major goals of education, through implementing policies
designed to develop and maintain a fair education system.
If government is to be well placed to create and administer just
educational policies, it should have, in the first place, an informed view on
two key questions. First, to what extent is the education system just?
Secondly, what are the major interests, together with their actual or likely
effects, which a fair system should take into account?
Justice and the national system of education
In considering to what extent the national system of education can be
considered just, the central issue is this: in the terminology of John Rawles
(see above, Chapter 9, p. 119), are economic and social inequalities in
education so arranged that they can reasonably be expected to be to
everyone's advantage?
If the answer is mainly affirmative, then it becomes possible to argue
that, at least in a limited sense, the education system as a whole is just. If
on the other hand the answer is mainly negative, then evidently our
national arrangements for education cannot be considered as fair.
Initially, one needs to have some idea of the degree of inequality in

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society as a whole. The Rowntree Foundation (Joseph Rowntree Inquiry

Group, 1995) has calculated that, before housing costs, the actual net
income in 1990/1 at April 1993 prices for a couple with two children aged
5 and 10 in the bottom fifth of national income distribution was up to 181
per week. For an equivalent family in the top fifth of income distribution,
income was at least 492 per week. For a similar couple in the top tenth,
income was at least 629. Overall, wealth is far more unequally distributed
than income. Since 1979, income inequality in the United Kingdom has
grown rapidly. It has now reached its highest level in the last half century.
In contrast with the rest of the post-war period, the poorest 20-30 per
cent, unlike those with higher incomes, have not benefited from economic
growth, and so have fallen behind in relative terms. Some groups,
including ethnic minorities, and some areas, have suffered particularly. As
for children, the Commission on Social Justice (1994) has calculated that
9.2 million, or 73 per cent, are in households earning below the average.
In the face of such evidence, it would be virtually impossible to argue
that economic and social inequalities in our society can be expected to be
to everyone's advantage. The better off certainly appear to benefit. Indeed,
in defiance of the laws of natural justice, there seems to be a trickle up
effect. However, the bottom 20-30 per cent, at best, gain no advantage. By
even the weak definition of justice being used, what is being described is
inescapably an unfair society.
In education, it is theoretically possible, at least for a limited time, to
have a just school system within an unjust society. Indeed, it has often
been argued that education should be used as an engine to drive society
towards greater equality.
However, as in society, so in education, there are substantial
inequalities. Within the state system there can be significant variations
of funding between LEAS, types of school, and individual schools. Much
greater, however, are the differences between state and private education.
For example, average annual fees for a student attending a private
secondary day school are approximately two and a half times the cost of
providing for a place at an LEA-maintained school; while comparable costs
for a private secondary boarding school are approaching five times those
for an LEA-maintained secondary school. Comparable statistics for capital
(buildings, land, investments, trusts, equipment, etc.) are not available.
However, as in society generally, it is extremely likely that in many cases
there are great disparities of wealth between the more and the less
privileged institutions.
Could it credibly be argued that these inequalities are so arranged that
they are to everyone's advantage?
To answer this one needs to look, initially, at the achievement of
students. Despite some difficulties over interpretation of statistics, there
does seem to be some agreement about certain fundamental issues. Thus,
nationally, for the last twenty years at least, performance of school leavers
in GCE 0 level, and later in GCSE, indicates a modest trend of improving
achievement.
However, this overall picture obscures underperformance by two
particular, and numerous, groups of students. The first of these is the less

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able in maintained schools, and the second is formed by the very many
students from socially and economically deprived backgrounds. For the
latter group, the situation is particularly unfortunate. As the Chief
Inspector of Schools put it in his Annual Report (OFSTED, 1995, p. 7),
'Standards of achievement remain depressed.'
One example may illustrate the general situation. A report in the
Financial Times (21 November 1992) looked at schooling in the London
borough of Southwark. In three private secondary schools, which included
Dulwich College, at least 92 per cent of 15- to 16-year-old students passed
GCSE with five or more grades A to C. In no LEA-maintained school did
more than 34 per cent of students gain similar good grades. The report
commented, 'There lie the two nations. Attending schools often a stone's
throw apart, their career paths will never meet and their salary and
lifestyle are at polar extremes. It is the same in most other English cities.'
The factors which contribute to this state of affairs are various. The less
able throughout the maintained system are the victims of a regrettable
cultural and historical legacy. This has led our society to value, and to
support accordingly, children of intellectual ability, and those from affluent
families, to the detriment of the remainder. In particular, this has resulted
in a public examination system which, whatever particular innovation is
currently being touted to solve the problem, remains obstinately and
consistently unable to provide appropriate, motivating, and publicly
accepted qualifications for those students unwilling or unable to follow
the GCSE and A level routes.
For young people attending schools in deprived areas, the reasons for
low achievement are cumulative. High staff turnover, difficult working
conditions, low morale and inadequate expertise, alone or severally, mean,
in the words of an OFSTED report (1994, p. 43), that many students 'have
only a slim chance of receiving sufficiently challenging and rewarding
teaching throughout their school career'. Poorly planned, inadequately
maintained and inappropriate accommodation, together with limited areas
for games and recreation, often exacerbate classroom problems.
But, above all, a situation is now being reached where funding, in some
schools, is simply inadequate to provide for a decent education. In private
schools, and in maintained schools in affluent areas, parental and other
sources can, as a rule, readily be called on to supplement a school's basic
income, whether this comes from fees or the state. This is seldom, if ever,
so for maintained schools in deprived neighbourhoods. Duncan Graham
(Graham and Tytler, 1993, p. 132), chief executive and chairman of the
National Curriculum Council from 1988 to 1991, has explained the
position succinctly: 'As parental contributions towards the costs of
essentials have risen, so have the inequalities between the "have" and
"have-not" areas. Self-evidently, schools in relatively well-to-do areas are
better equipped than those in run-down districts, often thanks to parents'
fund-raising activities or direct contributions. The contrasts, always
disturbing to the visitor, are now painful to witness.'
Nor has government, at least so far, seriously attempted to make up the
shortfall. Teresa Smith and Michael Noble (1995) found that central
funding programmes for disadvantaged areas and schools had been cut

JUSTICE AND THE GOVERNMENT OF EDUCATION 137

back, and that expenditure on social needs had not been allocated on the
basis of relevant evidence. Further, the educational market, developed by
government policy initiatives, financially penalizes schools with low
numbers on roll. Of course, parental choice, where it effectively exists,
can be a real incentive for schools to improve and take reasonable parental
expectations into account. However, there conies a point where, with the
best will, leadership and expertise in the world, it becomes virtually
impossible for an undercapitalized school, with low income, to provide the
conditions for a decent education. That point has long been passed in
many inner city schools.
So inequality in the education system contributes to underachievement
by the less able and those living in deprived areas. This helps to ensure
that overall results produced by schools nationally are less satisfactory,
and improve more slowly than is possible or desirable.
Such a situation is very evidently not to everyone's advantage. Great
numbers of individual students have both educational development and
career prospects blighted. And the country as a whole suffers economically
and socially from an undereducated workforce and citizenry.
We have, therefore, an unjust educational system. It systematically fails
to operate so as to enable all concerned to give of their best. It
endemically malfunctions. This costly, ramshackle contrivance has
deficient moral steering arrangements. And in any case those in charge
have had, at least in recent years, an unreliable sense of moral direction.
Interests and the national system of education
In planning for a just national system of education, whose interests should
the government take into account? What are they? What are their more
significant effects? And are they legitimate or illegitimate?
In the first place, then, who are those who should be regarded as having
significant interests? As Maurice Kogan (1975) has shown, there are a
great range, and very substantial numbers, of groups who can claim an
interest in education. More recently, Philippa Cordingley and Tim
Harrington (1996) found that perceptions about the identity of stakeholders can vary according to community circumstances, and to whether a
point of view is local or national.
Those with substantial and continuing interests in education divide
essentially into users and providers of the educational service. The key
users, self-evidently, are students and parents. The key providers
necessarily include teachers. Of other providers, in a centralized national
education system civil servants have increasingly come to exercise
significant responsibilities. There will also, always, be those who
contribute the thinking which helps give life to the content, practice,
structure and management of education. These certainly include
academics, and increasingly individual journalists, politicians, and so on:
in addition, political ideologues have always had some interest in
education, and in recent years this has become one of their dominant
concerns. I shall consider the interests of students, teachers, parents, civil
servants and political ideologues.

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To begin with students. They have a stake in the system which can be
understood in abstract terms, and which can be formulated in the
vocabulary of rights and duties, as discussed above. From their own point
of view, what students want (see, for example, Wendy Keys and Cres
Fernandes, 1993) generally includes high expectations, clear explanations
and regular feedback from teachers, together with good classroom
discipline and fair, comprehensible and systematically applied school
rules. They also expect, within reason, lessons to be relevant and
interesting. They certainly believe that they should be able to leave school
properly prepared and qualified for their next steps in life. In general, they
like schools to be sociable places, where they can make friends and enjoy
what they are doing.
Students' illegitimate interests (avoiding work, bullying, vandalism of
school property, etc.) are extraordinarily well understood by schools. And
they need to be. Students pursuing illegitimate interests can cause very
serious educational damage. Even in the best run of institutions they are
present. They always need to be dealt with effectively, in the best interests
of themselves and of everyone else involved in teaching and learning.
But what happens if students consider their legitimate interests are not
being met?
To put it bluntly, they use, or threaten to use, their power. And this
power, despite their dependent position, can be considerably greater than
many adults care to admit.
Wherein lies their power? In the first instance, it derives, paradoxically,
from the extent of liberty enjoyed by the individual student. A certain
element of freedom is essential to education, and exists in all but the very
harshest of institutions. Legitimate dissatisfactions undoubtedly can and
do coexist with the varying degrees of autonomy which schools allow
students. That autonomy enables the expression of dissent.
However, student power derives predominantly, and quite simply, from
strength of numbers. Whether in the classroom, or in the school as a
whole, students will virtually always outnumber, and by a very
considerable ratio, those in charge of them. As any strategist, from the
chess-board to the battlefield knows, to have the greater numbers is
potentially to be at an advantage. To be in the great majority offers the
possibility of successful confrontation.
The fundamental condition of membership as a school student increases
the possibility that such power as students have will be used. Young
people aged 5 to 16 have to go to school. They cannot opt out (except for
the tiny minority for whom other legally acceptable arrangements for
education are made). Accordingly, the population of any. school is, at the
least, likely to contain some unwilling recruits. Other things being equal,
conscripts are more likely to feel dissatisfaction, and to try and do
something about it, than volunteers.
If they are dissatisfied, how can students use their power?
Their situation is analogous in many respects to that of citizens who
belong to authoritarian states. They find themselves in circumstances they
have not chosen, and allocated an imposed role which is conditioned,
circumscribed and controlled by complex social, moral and legal networks

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139

of rules and obligations. Ultimately, they can do no more than hope to

influence the society for which they have been signed up. Certainly they
cannot, at least in any formal or sustained way, control that society.
To begin with, they can complain, gently or vociferously, constructively
or otherwise. It may be, it certainly should be, that school or the wider
society is prepared to listen and to make reasonable changes.
But suppose school and society are not responsive? Like the citizen, the
student, assuming he or she rejects the idea of submission, effectively has
the choice of opting out or rebelling. Both of these are essentially negative
gestures.
The individual student's main means of opting out is through the
various forms of truanting.
Truanting is a threat to the reputation, if not necessarily to the smooth
running, of schools. So, schools either tend to try and cover up its extent
(until recently it was extraordinarily difficult to get hold of accurate
truancy figures on a school, let alone on an LEA or national basis). Or they
argue that its causes lie predominantly outside their control. In fact, as
O'Keefe (1993) has demonstrated, truanting takes place largely for good
reason. Truancy has close links with general school and lesson dissatisfaction. Truants, suggests O'Keefe, are mainly voting as consumers in
the only way open to them, with their feet.
Where education is experienced by students collectively as seriously
bad, and where quite possibly schools are so authoritarian, or possibly so
inchoate, that the voicing of legitimate concerns is not a significant
possibility, then as a last resort students may turn to rebellion. The history
of English education is, in fact, marked by episodes of revolt, from the
riots in late-eighteenth-century schools, of which those at Eton are
probably best known, through to the national school strike of 1911, and on
to the endemic anarchy in some secondary moderns following the Second
World War.
Students who rebel seldom gain anything for themselves. Indeed, they
have often been savagely dealt with, and their actions ruthlessly
misrepresented. However, in the longer perspective things can look
rather different. Where the governed withdraw consent, substantial
change often follows after a discrete lapse of time. The public schools
were reformed in the nineteenth century, state education was transformed
by the 1944 Act, and tripartitism was replaced by the comprehensive
system. While complex and multiple causes led to all these changes, it is
not unusual for the most obvious cause, the unwillingness of substantial
numbers of students to cooperate, to be given little attention. But where
students are opposed to what is on offer, then something has to give. The
educational population can be a powerful force for progress, and ultimately
for justice.
Now for the interests of parents. A parent's interest in education is,
quite simply, to obtain the best possible schooling for her or his child.
Recent national policies, and not only in this country, have emphasized
choice of school as a means by which parents can achieve a good education
for their children. Of course, other approaches are also open to parents.
The interest which they take in their children's school activities, and the

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nature of the support they give them is crucial, whatever the quality of any
particular school. Further, they may be able to influence what the school
does through contact with teachers, through involvement in school
activities, and through participation in policy-making, for example as
governors and, in LEA schools, through local democracy.
In practice, choice does not seem to be a major issue for many parents.
Mike Feintuck (1994) has pointed out that most children attend their local
school. And since opinion polls show that roughly eight in ten parents are
happy with the state schools providing for their children (see, for example
MORI for the National Consumer Council, 2 August 1995), it seems
reasonable to conclude that active exercise of choice is not seen by most
parents (although, of course, it is by some), as essential, as far as they
themselves are concerned, in achieving a good education.
However, as many studies now show, any system claiming to offer
educational choice is bound to be deeply flawed. For many, access to
choice is, in practice, a privilege, determined by income and neighbourhood. For parents in the state sector, when real choice appears to be on
offer it can turn out to be no more than the right to express a preference.
And, as Sandra Jowett (1995) has shown, where preference is denied,
raised hopes are more than likely to turn to frustration and disappointment.
Where effective choice does operate, it can lead in the direction of
social and racial segregation. Further, market mechanics inevitably put
pressure on schools to compete for motivated students who will produce
good exam results and who will be likely to sustain a positive ethos. All too
often the result is that more successful schools attract larger numbers and
increased funding, and reject students with extensive learning difficulties.
In this scenario, the fortunate can choose, and have; the unfortunate
cannot choose, and have not.
There is little to suggest that choice delivers what are usually claimed
as its main educational objectives. In a report from the Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development, Donald Hirsch (1994) points out
there is no direct evidence that competition improves school performance.
Furthermore, choice, far from promoting diversity, has a strong tendency
to encourage uniformity: schools in the market-place, like politicians, fight
for the centre ground - because that is the area occupied by most
consumers (see Ron Clatter et al., 1996).
Overall, where parental choice becomes a significant force it can lead
schools, in the interests of self-preservation, to overemphasize the arts of
public relations and image-making. And it can result in successful schools,
not parents, doing the real choosing. Neither eventuality is likely to
promote an education to everyone's advantage.
And yet. And yet. Parental choice remains a vital issue. Why?
For parents, the possibility of choice, however limited in practice, can
bring a sense of empowerment. Moreover, it encourages them to think
specifically about what they want for their children, and to check out the
local schools.
Parents who are interested in choice, or simply, initially, in making sure
that the local school is satisfactory, can have difficulty both in making

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141

sense of published evidence about schools and in knowing what

specifically to look for when visiting schools. However, the issues which
generally matter to them are becoming clearer (Hughes et aL, 1994; West,
1993). What they are mostly looking for includes schools with good
reputations, closeness to home, sound academic results, a supportive
atmosphere, good behaviour, and an emphasis on all-round education.
Numbers of parents also want either single-sex education, particularly for
girls, or alternatively, mixed education. Some of those parents whose
children have a particular interest or ability may well want a school which
can offer relevant specialist expertise.
For schools, having to think about what parents require can bring its
own benefits, whatever the limitations of choice. Hirsch (1994) points out
that competing for students can enhance the quality of leadership. It can
also make schools more responsive to parental views, and so lead them to
improve the quality of their communication, formal and informal, with
their local community.
Parental choice, on purely pragmatic grounds, would always be likely,
and rightly, to be a matter of some significance. It is, however, potent
moral and social forces which have been mainly responsible for propelling
parental choice towards the top of the educational agenda.
In the first place, choice must be a question of principle. We live in a
liberal democratic society, where the act of choice, procedurally and
morally, is of central significance. Further, our education is sustained by
inherited ideals of the person, all of which share the belief that humans
should be responsible and choice-making beings. To deny parents the
possibility of choice would be to undermine a core value of both our
society and of the curriculum and ethos of schools.
Secondly, in a pluralist society such as ours, different groups of parents
hold differing sets of values. Some hold their values so strongly that they
desire their children to be educated in schools which explicitly set out to
educate students according to their beliefs. In a liberal democracy, the
wishes of such parents have to be recognized.
So what are the sets of values parents may hold? And what, in
consequence, are the types of schooling they may desire for their
children?
Parents may hold community and egalitarian values strongly. If so, they
may want schools where students of all abilities, from local neighbourhoods, can be educated together.
They may hold particular religious beliefs strongly. If so, they may want
schools which reflect those beliefs.
They may hold meritocratic values strongly. If so, they may want
children of higher academic ability to be educated together. And they may
be predisposed to believe that their own offspring are sufficiently
intelligent to qualify as potential members of the meritocracy.
They may hold class values strongly. If so, they may want their children
to be educated with others from the same or similar social class, or who
come from families which aspire to belong to those classes. In effect, in
contemporary circumstances, this is likely to mean with children from
professional and managerial families, and those from the middle or upper

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classes. Quite possibly, they will also want their children to have a
boarding education. This, of course, can have its own intrinsic benefits,
and may be used to promote a wide range of educational philosophies.
However, it traditionally and effectively supports the class-based traditions
of English education.
They may hold free-market values strongly. Such a philosophy can be
closely associated with a belief in the importance of accumulating, holding
and wielding the power of wealth. This view of the world characteristically
brings with it an understanding that choice of school should be seen as a
purchase of commodity. Here, lavish provision for the successful, and
deprivation for the impoverished can be seen as inevitable, natural and
acceptable.
Each of these interests, in their own terms, may be justified as
legitimate - even though such justification can be less convincing in some
cases than in others. They can, however, be accompanied by illegitimate
interests. Thus, with schools which have social prestige, it is always
possible that parents may choose them primarily with a view to displaying
their own success or status; in effect, using their children as items of
conspicuous consumption. Or, parents may choose a school which could
indoctrinate; or which is clearly unsuited to the educational needs of a
particular child.
Parents' interest in securing a worthwhile education for their children
is predominantly to do with achieving private good. The selfish gene is in
control.
But, especially for parents who hold particular sets of values, egalitarian,
religious, meritocratic, class, free-market, and so on, there is a substantial
and inevitable overlap with public visions of good. What parents see as, in
the first instance, educationally desirable, they and others will also see as
socially desirable, as desirable for society as a whole.
The sets of values which are of interest to parents can have some
common elements. Nevertheless, they are seldom likely to be wholly
consistent. There is, accordingly, potential for both theoretical and
practical friction.
In education, the differing value systems contribute to the generation of
differing, albeit in places overlapping, school systems, or more accurately
sub-systems: comprehensive schools, grammar schools, secondary modern
schools, public schools, schools with religious foundations, schools ranked
by parental ability to pay; and so on.
These systems of school are, like the value systems they reflect and
promote, more or less incompatible. But, in the true tradition of liberal
democracy, ways are found, under certain circumstances, of enabling them
to exist side by side, at least in name.
For those who wish to exercise right of choice, practical difficulties can
arise.
Parents who want a comprehensive education may live in an area with
selection. Or, conversely, parents who want a grammar school education
may live in an area with comprehensives. Or parents who want education
according to particular religious, social or other principles may not have
access to a suitable school for financial or geographical reasons.

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143

For a fortunate few, some of these difficulties may be soluble. A

minority of families, seeking either comprehensive or selective education,
may have the opportunity to choose to move to a neighbourhood which
provides the schooling they would like. Or they may live on the boundaries
between comprehensive and grammar/secondary modern systems.
Parents seeking private education may have sufficient income or capital
with which to pay fees, or they may have access to scholarships or
bursaries. The great majority of parents, however, have no real choice
between types of school. Of course, they are much more likely to have
choice between schools of similar types, especially primary and
comprehensive. But that is an issue, not so much of choice of values, as
of choice between more or less good education of a certain sort
The differing values sustaining schools can also provide moral dilemmas
for parents who find themselves in a situation where choice, possibly not
desired, becomes necessary. Such difficulties essentially arise where one
school appears to support the values endorsed by the parents, while
another appears otherwise better suited to meet the needs of the child.
For political reasons, some sorts of dilemma have been better publicized
than others. But they exist across the board. Parents wanting to educate a
child at a fee-paying school may find that their offspring express a
preference for the more democratic style of a local school. Rationalist or
humanist parents may find that a neighbouring church school provides all
their child requires, save for daily mass and four hours of religious
education a week. Parents who want an egalitarian education may find the
local comprehensives so heavily creamed that, for all practical purposes,
they are secondary moderns, effectively unable to provide an adequate
education for bright children. And so on.
Schools rooted in particular value systems not only educate students in
those values. They have the potential, through their former students and
their wider activities and networks, to help and promote the acceptance of
those values in society at large.
So, not only certain parents and those immediately concerned with
particular schools, and types of schools, are interested in their well-being.
Those who strive to create a society arranged according to given values
favour those schools which promote such values. And needless to say, they
are unlikely to look benignly upon schools which support different values.
Thus, certain types of school are fought for, attacked or defended
depending on whether they are likely to create or undermine a given ideal
of society. The achievements, failings, merits and drawbacks of the
different types of schools are all too frequently presented and assessed not
so much in relation to fact, as in relation to the value placed by
protagonists on the type of school being considered. Clouds of black- and
rose-tinted propaganda swirl around our schools, making it unnecessarily
difficult for the would-be impartial observer to perceive what on earth is
going on, and - the ultimate irony - for parents to make well-informed and
objective choices.
We now come to the interests of major providers of education, in
particular teachers, civil servants and political ideologues.
Teachers have two major legitimate interests in education. The first

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lies in knowledge, and the second in pay and conditions of service. It is

this latter interest which is fundamental, and on which I intend to
concentrate.
Teachers have a legitimate interest in gaining knowledge of their
subjects and related disciplines; of methodology; and of how to
communicate to those whom they serve the purposes, procedures and
outcomes of what they do. Their main concern is with the application of
knowledge. But creativity is also involved. For good education, from the
class-room, through curriculum planning, to school management requires
a continuing, controlled process of innovation and experiment.
The interest in knowledge should be accompanied, morally, by a
concern for truth. The essential interest of teachers is in the integrity of
knowledge, and in truth.
The creation, growth, application and communication of knowledge
originates with persons. Of course, individual thought and initiative can be
valuably developed through cooperation with others. And, in a liberal
society, bodies of knowledge are public, and open to debate. Knowledge
develops and becomes more secure through democratic scrutiny and
challenge. However, in principle, it is the individual who knows.
So, it is as individuals that teachers acquire and use knowledge. This
inevitably raises the question of moral responsibility. In the social and
civic milieu of education, all teachers are answerable for what knowledge
they teach (subject to statutory requirements), and for how knowledge, of
subject content, methodology, etc. is used.
In the first instance, teachers have a responsibility to themselves as
professionals. In other words, in their moral dialogue, both internally and
with colleagues, teachers always need to be considering whether they can
provide good reason for what they are doing, or are planning to do.
Teachers also have a responsibility to fellow teachers. This requires
that shared aims and procedures are agreed and followed. More generally,
it requires that professional standards of conduct are upheld.
Teachers have what are now well-understood responsibilities to those
who use and who fund the education service. Responsibility to users
involves provision of full information about the curriculum, and about
students' achievements in their studies. It also requires that users have
sufficient evidence to judge how far educational provision (quality of
teaching, of accommodation, of resources, of welfare and guidance, etc.) is
adequate to promote effective learning.
Responsibility to funding agencies involves providing evidence that
resources provided are being deployed so that the agreed purposes for
which support is provided are pursued as efficiently and effectively as
possible. It demands that the best possible results be achieved with the
available provision.
Where teachers do not accept, or are denied, responsibility for
knowledge there is serious danger of erosion or breakdown of education
in schools and through the system.
Where teachers do not accept responsibility, they are liable to teach
courses which take little, if any, direct account of the needs and interests
of anyone other than themselves. They oppose accountability, being

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hostile to any evaluation of their work, whether by fellow teachers or

through the more formal processes of inspection by those from outside the
school. They are reluctant to provide more than the most minimal
information to users of the educational service. They pursue, individually
and collectively, an illegitimate interest in establishing an exclusive and
unquestionable right to ownership and use of the knowledge in which their
professionalism is grounded.
Where teachers are denied responsibility for knowledge, a curriculum is
imposed on them, whether within a school, or nationally. They are
consulted, individually or through those who represent them, perfunctorily, or not at all. Their involvement in assessment of student achievement
is substantially taken over, or at least directed, by others. They are, in
effect, treated as administrators, rather than as professionals.
And so, to the real administrators, the civil servants.
The civil service has a legitimate interest in certain aspects of the use of
power, in particular in advising on the formulation of policy, and in the
administration, and interpretation, of laws and regulations.
However, although, day in and day out they sit at tables where executive
power is exercised, civil servants are constitutionally denied any grip on it.
Nevertheless, evidence suggests that they are liable to wish that they
could be in the seats where the substantive decisions are taken.
Civil servants may try to convince themselves and others that they have
no interest in executive power. Indeed, to hear the almost-institutionalized
contempt many civil servants routinely express for politicians individually
and collectively, one might be excused for imagining that the last thing
that would be in their minds would be any desire to usurp part of the
governmental role.
Nevertheless, the direct use of executive power, particularly when it
comes to making policy, is a continuing and ever-present illegitimate
interest of the civil service. Educational civil servants, over the years, have
seldom appeared to turn away from any chance to create policy. Certainly
they have been seen by ministers of both Conservative and Labour
administrations as eager to develop and implement their own ideas
(Lawrence, 1992, pp. 61-2; Graham and Tytler, 1993, p. 12). Equally
certainly, while just about observing the constitutional niceties, senior civil
servants have also been ready to justify promotion by the civil service of its
own thinking on what should be done in schools (Pile, 1979, pp. 35-6).
And, over the years, the officers of the education department, under its
varying titles, have proved remarkably successful in getting their own way;
or, to put it more tactfully, in achieving the implementation of government
policies which are in harmony with their own. Thus, when the structure of
the school system was the key issue, top civil servants ensured that the
1944 Education Act resulted in grammar and secondary moderns, not in
comprehensives or technical schools (Annan, 1990, p. 362). Come national
concern over the curriculum, the civil service early put down a marker on
its interest in a subject curriculum, which downgraded the arts and gave
little attention to personal and social education or citizenship (DES,
1980b; DES, Welsh Office, 1987). This was in striking contrast to the then
influential thinking of Her Majesty's Inspectorate (HMI). The subsequent

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National Curriculum, as legislated and implemented through governmental

guidance, reflected the civil service line with considerable faithfulness
(Graham and Tytler, 1993).
Civil service interests are strongly influenced, for better or worse, by
the bureaucratic nature of the structure within which they operate. The
relevant features of the education department would still be readily
recognized by Weber. It is a hierarchy, bound by rules, in which each
member is trained to occupy a closely defined role. No official may
monopolize any position, and hence each is moved from job to job at fairly
frequent intervals. Functions are, in principle, kept strictly separate from
both the personal and political domains, a requirement which in practice
frequently results in the civil service transacting its affairs behind an arras
of secrecy.
Authority, within any bureaucracy, derives from the legitimate use of
power. Power is used legitimately where it is exercised in accordance with
rules, procedures and objectives which derive from higher order
regulations and aims which the civil service accepts as rational. The
exercise of rationality, in the identification and carrying out of bureaucratic responsibilities, together with the creation of structures intended to
support the performance of those responsibilities, is fundamental to the
nature of bureaucracy. Educational civil servants like, above all else, to see
themselves as rational beings. They are inclined to perceive those outside
the privileged environs of Whitehall as sometimes less than entirely
rational.
In their illegitimate interest to exert direct control over the education
system and the school curriculum, civil servants, in the first instance, are
inclined to seek arrangements which reflect their own values and
experience as bureaucrats. Accordingly, they are sympathetic to the
principle of hierarchy, and tend to favour an educational system, whether
layered along social or, preferably, meritocratic lines, which is pyramidically structured. When it comes to the curriculum, they like the
appearance of subjects which require the exercise of reason, preferably
abstract. They look with suspicion on activities requiring the development
of spiritual, aesthetic, emotional or social faculties.
Civil servants can also be tempted to see considerable benefits in
arrangements of the system and of the curriculum which reflect their own
educational experience. Traditionally, many senior civil servants have had
a classical background, and in recent years this has remained true of
numbers of senior figures in the education department. The principles of
such an education can dovetail nicely with the respect for rationalism and
ordered rank endorsed by bureaucracy.
Civil servants frequently display an illegitimate interest in maximizing
the size of their bureaux, a phenomenon that is often commented on
(Marquand, 1988, p. 77). A major reason for this interest is a desire to
increase the ability to exercise power. The greater the strength and reach
of a bureaucracy, the greater is likely to be its capacity to flex executive
muscle to good effect.
Bureaucracies can be inclined to give a low priority to respect for truth.
For them, the ultimate justification of administrative action is whether it is

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in accordance with the organization's objectives, procedures and

regulations. These may, or may not, place a high value on veracity.
A government department may expect civil servants, in pursuit of
ministerial objectives, to manipulate or suppress data, or to encourage
others to do so. In such cases, while civil servants are no doubt being
inducted into a culture of deception, they cannot be said to be acting
dishonestly on their own behalf.
In certain respects, whatever the pressures of their role as bureaucrats,
and as government employees, civil servants have an interest in honest
administration. In its absence, their public reputation is likely to suffer.
Further, however hard government works to turn civil servants into
smoothly operating, obedient functionaries, many obstinately remain
creatures of conscience. As such, they have an interest in integrity.
However, civil servants can also have interests, specific to themselves,
which are not best promoted by total honesty. Where they have their own
policies to pursue, civil servants are adept, when operating in that noman's land between ministerial fiat and administrative interpretation, at
putting a spin on ideas which suits their own purposes. Needless to say,
this is nearly always done with masterful ambiguity. It is rare indeed to
catch a civil servant telling anything so indiscreet as a lie. Duncan Graham
(Graham and Tytler, 1993, p. 14) put the point nicely when commenting on
negotiations between the National Curriculum Council and the Department of Education; and Science: 'it was always difficult to know when civil
servants were acting on behalf of their political masters and when they
were acting on their own account.'
Civil servants may also attempt to restrain others from truth-telling.
This is most likely to occur where truth-telling will inhibit fulfilment of
bureaucratic aims, and where consequently it may undermine not only
administrative efficiency, but also the power of the civil service. The longstanding tensions between the civil servants and Her Majesty's
Inspectorate (HMI) are best understood in this light. The recent
emasculation of HMI, and the slow erosion of its reputation for
independent judgement, have in part resulted from the enthusiasm which
civil servants have brought to bringing the inspectorate into line with
bureaucratic, and congruent political, requirements.
Probably the crucial issue for bureaucracy, however, and the one which
has the strongest influence, for better or worse, on the development,
pursuit and realization of civil service interests, is the nature of the
bureaucracy's objectives, and the processes by which they are decided.
Civil servants have an overriding, legitimate interest in being involved
in the formulation of departmental objectives. As Anthony Woollard, a
former education mandarin, has argued (Times Educational Supplement, 23
February 1996), they need to be managed through shared vision, and a
recognition of their concerns as stakeholders.
Where this occurs, civil servants have a very reasonable opportunity to
secure acknowledgment of their legitimate interests. Correspondingly, the
chance that they will be anxious, or able, to pursue illegitimate interests
stands to be reduced.
However, trouble arises where, as has too frequently happened in

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recent years, government ignores the civil service interest in participating

in the development of objectives for the administration. Individual civil
servants are liable to come into conflict with ministers, to be peremptorily
moved, to be denied promotion, or even to resign. Civil servants as a body
are inclined to become alienated, and so are more likely to follow their
own agenda. In such circumstances pursuit of power, aggrandizement of
bureaux, efforts to impose civil service control over system and
curriculum, erosion of respect for truth, all become characteristic of
educational administration. Good practice is debased.
And lastly, briefly but critically, there are the interests of the political
ideologues. In the vocabulary of neo-Marxists and post-structuralists the
term 'ideology' has acquired distinctly negative connotations: thus 'a
system of illusory beliefs ... which serve to perpetuate a particular social
formation or power structure' (Dollimore, 1989 pp. 9-10). I shall use the
term in an earlier, more innocent, less value-laden sense. I take it to refer
to coherent systems of ideas concerning the phenomena of social, cultural,
economic or political life.
Political ideologues have two major legitimate interests in education.
The first is to develop and make available systems of ideas, and related
policy proposals intended to give form and substance to the underlying
philosophies of political movements or parties.
From this follows the second legitimate interest: to influence political
parties, both in and out of government, to act in accordance with the
thinking of the ideologues. In a democracy, such influence should be
developed primarily through open persuasion and debate.
It is a characteristic of ideologues, whether individually or in groups,
to be utterly convinced of the Tightness of their beliefs. Their cast of
mind is absolutist. And this frequently leads to an intention to impose
their views by authoritarian, or clandestine, means: obviously, an
illegitimate interest.
The moral government of education
And now. How should government set about achieving justice in
education?
The answer is that it should be guided by two major concerns:

First, a concern to act fairly towards those users and providers with
interests in education.
Secondly, a concern to develop and manage the system justly.

So what principles should government follow if it is to act fairly towards

key users and providers of education?
The predominant educational interests with which government should
concern itself are those of students. Young people, whatever the power
they may be able to exert from time to time, are vulnerable. In the absence
of a written constitution, the less organized and the less powerful are
always at risk.
In the normal course of events, parents and teachers will always do

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their best to protect and further the legitimate interests of those students
with whom they are directly concerned. But only national government is in
a position to ensure that the interests of all students in receiving a good
education can be met.
Parental interests coincide with those of students insofar as both should
have an overriding concern to gain access to education of quality. However,
parents in particular, may have a strong interest in choice of school.
Once government is doing its best to provide for education of
universally good quality it should provide for choice of school.
Systems of schools are means of reflecting and promoting particular
sets of social, cultural, religious and educational values. Intrinsically, none
offers a path to an education which by some universal, agreed standard is
better than any other. Different types of school offer paths to different
forms of education, no more, no less.
It is, however, the unique tragedy of English education that class and
social pressures have so operated, over more than a century, that
particular types of school have tended to enjoy higher status, to attract
better resourcing and to gain greater parental support. In these
circumstances, almost inevitably certain systems have come to be
considered, of their nature, as better than others. But this is not so.
They are simply more privileged, which is quite another matter.
The tasks of government in meeting parental interest in choice are:
first, to secure a level playing-field; secondly, to ensure that any changes in
the composition and balance of the whole national system enjoy
substantial and majority support from those with relevant interests; and
thirdly, itself to refrain from promoting by undemocratic or devious means
any system its ideology may lead it to favour. Thus, government should not
repress or distort information necessary for the reaching of objective
conclusions about the merits or otherwise of particular types of school;
and it should not impose, or unilaterally undermine, types of schools which
the party it represents respectively supports or opposes.
Government in education has always found difficulty in managing
appropriately and effectively the interests of providers.
As regards teachers, left-wing governments have generally been
inclined to look with some indulgence on restrictive practices, in
particular the desire to exert exclusive control over the curriculum.
Right-wing administrations have historically been inclined, albeit for
different reasons, to take a similarly laissez-faire approach. However,
recent conservative governments have adopted a different tack entirely.
While attacking illegitimate interests, they have also frequently worked to
undermine the legitimate interest of teachers in knowledge, in what is
taught, and how. They have frequently imposed, and at least as often they
have failed to consult.
It does now appear that, on balance, the legitimate interests of teachers
would best be served by the establishment of a General Teaching Council.
Until such a body can be established, with status and self-regulatory
powers, well-founded conditions are unlikely to exist for the development
of a balanced relationship between the teaching profession and government. (There has been considerable debate over the possible benefits and

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drawbacks of introducing a General Teaching Council. A clear and

reasoned assessment is offered by Peter Smith, general secretary of the
Association of Teachers and Lecturers, in the Times Educational
Supplement, 6 May 1994. The balance appeared to have swung in favour
of establishing a Council, when it was advocated in the 1997 government
White Paper Excellence in Schools).
As with teachers, so with bureaucracy. Government has frequently
failed to deal reasonably with civil service interests. Government has
veered in the decades since the 1944 Education Act from leaving the
educational civil service more or less to its own devices to regarding its
every action with suspicion. Particularly recently, government has made
clear its view that it perceives the educational bureaucracy, certainly no
less than the rest of the Whitehall machine, as, in Adam Smith's phrase, a
conspiracy against the laity. Actually, it has tended to include itself in the
notion of laity.
Just as government needs to consult teachers over their fundamental
concern with knowledge and curriculum, so it should involve civil servants
in their main concern, planning the purpose of bureaucratic activity. If
government has sufficient will, ministerial continuity and consistency of
policy, it should have the strength to manage the civil service, not by
command and control, but through a shared sense of purpose. Only if the
civil service feels that its skills and experience are trusted and its views
valued (if not necessarily accepted) is it likely to work consistently for its
legitimate rather than its illegitimate interests.
The final key educational provider whose interests government has to
manage are those of the political ideologues. And, particularly, those of the
ideologues who are in sympathy with the government of the day, and seek
to influence it.
In dealing with political ideologues it is essential for the executive to
distinguish the interests of party from those of government. Ministers, as
representatives of a party, need to be able to draw on coherent sets of
ideas and policy proposals arising from their own political philosophy. In
the absence of such fuel, administrations are liable to run out of steam,
and to drift.
Ministers as members of a national government, however, have to deal
with the notions of ideologues as only one thread in the complex web of
legitimate interests which the executive has to consider in formulating
policies for the benefit of education as a whole. Whenever, in education,
a democratic government is driven predominantly by ideology, rather
than by a concern to promote good schools, one is likely to observe,
whatever the official language, a practical neglect of the first virtues of
education.
The second major concern of government should be to develop and
manage the whole system justly.
It would seem that, since the system is unjust, it ought to be reformed.
The difficulty is that all the familiar proposals for reform, and even the new
variations on old ideas, seem likely to result in little more than simply
changing existing patterns of injustice. Abolish private schools? Right of
parental choice is denied. Give brighter students, irrespective of social

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151

class and ability to pay access, by whatever means, to what is seen as

privileged education (as, for instance, proposed by Walden, 1996)? The
educational rights of the majority remain neglected.
Currently fashionable approaches, whether from the left or right of the
ideological spectrum, have in common that they accept substantial
elements of the free market in education. For the right, for instance,
Robert Skidelsky (1996) proposes a root-and-branch reform of the system.
He wants all state schools to be established as legally independent, nonprofit-making private corporations, in line with most existing private
schools. On the left, New Labour, along with many others, are mainly
concerned to raise standards within the system as it exists, give or take a
few relatively insignificant changes.
Such approaches are destined, however good their intentions, to
exacerbate, preserve or at best only marginally soften the inequities of
existing arrangements. This is because of the way any market, including
that in education, operates. It reinforces the strong. And not only that.
Those schools with power, overtly or covertly, using whatever implements
are to hand, cultural, economic, political, social, do their utmost to depress
the performance, not so much of the very weak, but of those who show
signs of threatening their supremacy. And, needless to say, there is a
knock-on, or more accurately, a knock-down, effect.
It is this market mechanism, above all, which has enabled the strong
private educational sector to preserve its privileges for generations. And
this has been at the expense of the rights of the nation's children as a
whole, and of the interests of the nation as a whole.
Facing this situation, there is a bitter truth to be accepted. Since we live
in a liberal democracy, there is no overall policy which any government can
pursue with a realistic hope of establishing a system which appears just to
all.
However, there are certain strategies which any government interested
in justice would be morally bound to pursue.

In general terms, it should contribute, listen and respond to national

debate concerned to secure a fairer education system. In the absence
of discussion of the nature of educational justice, and of possible
means of achieving it, inequity is bound to remain entrenched.
It should develop and implement policies to deal with specific
injustices, identified in national debate, and which can command
significant support.
It should encourage and facilitate cooperation between every type of
school. From sharing of facilities, to increased mutual understanding
and trust, there can only be benefit in helping schools to break out
from the natural isolation and self-preoccupation to which they are, by
their very nature, so prone.
It should regulate the system as a whole. Schools exist, rightly, in a
mixed economy. That economy should be driven predominatly by the
national interest. If it is driven by the free market there is no hope of
justice. Accordingly, in education, as in other areas of government, the
actions of ministers and civil servants need to occur, whatever the

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particular and detailed arrangements, within a statutory framework, a

philosophy of politics, and a culture of power, concerned to ensure an
even-handed treatment of stakeholders.
Less formally, government should view and treat the education system
inclusively. This requirement has most obviously been ignored, over
many years, and by governments of all political outlooks, with regard
to private education. Schools outside the state sector have somehow
been regarded as apart. Yet, private and state education are
inextricably intertwined. Both share the same basic principles of
education, both teach to the same public examinations, both provide
for the same institutions of further and higher education, both send
students out to compete in the same employment market, both have
many teachers and parents with experience of both systems, both
exert political pressures on government to safeguard their own
interests, both, through their spokespersons, from time to time,
express concern over the national educational scene. No nation can be
educationally successful if government fails coherently to consider all
stakeholders as members of a whole.
Finally, government should ensure that resources are distributed
equitably. I refer to resources in the widest possible sense. I include
not only finances, but teachers, accommodation, grounds, training,
etc. Of course, just distribution of resources is not a universal
panacea. Resources can be squandered. Or they can be misused, for
lack of appropriate professional expertise. But it does not follow that
schools can manage satisfactorily without proper resources. They are
absolutely essential. And, what is more, they are something over
which government has the opportunity to exert some control.

Just distribution of resources does not necessarily require sameness of

provision. There may be differences which are fair. For example, the
education of students who are handicapped, or who have particular gifts,
may require extra resources and expenditure. Similarly, older students are
likely to require a wider range of specialist subject teaching and sports
facilities than younger children. Such differences, to provide for
contrasting needs, are fair, provided they do not result in inequalities of
regard, or of opportunity.
However, justice in education does require that schools are so funded
that all students have equal access to education of quality.
Within state schools such relatively minor, but nevertheless very
significant, discrepancies as may occur between types of school, individual
schools and regions can in principle be put right by initiatives which lie
almost entirely within the direct control of government. Where they do not
take place it is, essentially, through lack of governmental will, or, worse,
on account of government will.
An even more serious problem lies in the divide, discussed above,
which has developed between the funds available to pay for students in the
private sector and those available to pay for students in the public sector.
This divide is now almost certainly greater than at any point in the postwar era. It has been calculated that to achieve parity between private and

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public provision would require an extra 7 pence on income tax (Robert

Skidelsky, as reported in the Guardian, 18 March 1995).
This dramatic figure, however, raises an important issue. We do not
know whether private schools are giving value for money. There is a
strong case for all private schools to be regularly inspected and publicly
reported on in the same way as now happens to all state schools. Only by
analysing the sort of information which would emerge could a balanced
view be achieved of the overall quality of private schooling, its contribution
to national education, and its justifiable cost. Until such findings are
available, any debate about how far educational funding viewed in relation
to private and state schools needs to be levelled up, differently targeted, or
redistributed, will inevitably be conducted in a mist of partial data and
guesses.
In the meantime, it is clear that there can be no serious argument for
the state subsidizing private education. This is not a question of principle.
The health of a liberal democracy requires a thriving private education
system. If it were ailing, then help from the taxpayer might be desirable.
But just now the health of private schools is rude. Charitable status
arrangements, and so on, are simply icing on a very rich cake. In the
interests of justice, and of a good education for all, government needs to
channel all the resources it has to raising general standards.
However, whatever minor measures could be taken, it is true that the
current inequities of funding are simply too great to be righted in the short
term. Government needs to develop long-term policies, together with
related strategies, to promote equitable distribution of resources.

CHAPTER 12

The good school in the good

society

So, I come to the final question to be discussed in this book. Is there any
one system of schools which is more likely than another to encourage the
development and thriving of good schools?
But, first, a preliminary issue. How is this question best approached?
It is, I consider, a mistake to consider systems of schools primarily in
the light of one's vision of society - always, of course, assuming one has
such a vision in the first place. Such an approach has proved, at best, to
lead nowhere very much except towards inconclusive controversy. At
worst, it results in education becoming a political football, and, arguably,
must bear substantial responsibility for national failure to focus on the real
problems of education. Ideology, too often, has taken precedence over
pragmatism, to the detriment of the public good.
One should evaluate the merits of particular systems of schools not so
much in the light of one's vision of the good society as in the light of one's
vision of the good school. In other words, systems of schools should be
judged primarily in relation to educational, rather than to social or political
criteria. The question of whether one system of schools is preferable to
another is, accordingly, a question which ought to conclude any discussion
of the nature of good education, not to start it.
Put this way, the question arises in a fundamentally democratic context.
It is to do with empowering and respecting persons. It asks how individual
young people, in individual schools, can best be helped to give of their
best. It does not ask, as happens when one enquires what system of
schools can best support a particular vision of society, how young people
can most effectively be fitted to play their parts in a given notion of the
adult world. The latter approach betrays an implicitly organic, and
authoritarian, approach to education and society.
The vision of a good school which I have described is, I believe, more
likely to be realized where a particular system of schools enjoys pride of
place.
To recap briefly. A good school is one which successfully reflects in its
teaching and learning the qualities of respect for persons, truth, justice
and responsibility. These first virtues of education are both ends in

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155

themselves and means towards achieving the aims of the school. Any
school which neglects the moral and intellectual virtues is poorly placed to
help students develop as whole persons, spiritually, morally, socially,
culturally, artistically, mentally and physically. The practice of the
educational virtues is a necessary condition for the achievement of all
educational goods, whether utilitarian or idealistic.
Good schools are more likely to develop and be sustained where they
are within a system of schools which itself is committed, in theory and
practice, to the first virtues of education.
So, the question arises, what system of schools is best fitted to promote
respect for persons, truth, justice and responsibility?
At first sight, the answer seems, to me at least, to be a system of
comprehensive primary and secondary schools.
In principle:

Here, all persons, and educational ideals of what it means to be

worthwhile person, are respected.
Here, too, the significance of differing ideas of truth is acknowledged.
The system is grounded in justice. The rights of all students are
identified and observed. Equality of regard and opportunity is practised.
Equality of citizenship ensures that openness, participation and
answerability occur throughout, and that democratic values are taught
and observed within schools. There is no discrimination against, or in
favour of, any students, on any grounds, including gender, ethnicity,
ability, social background or the capacity to pay for education.
There is active acknowledgement of a duty to uphold the principles of
justice, and to encourage all concerned in education - students,
parents, school staff, members of external agencies, community and
political representatives, etc. - to exercise the responsibilities which
arise from the rights they enjoy in, and from their commitment to,
education.

Such a vision of a system of comprehensive schools is, needless to say,

vulnerable to various objections.
The first objection is that, to some at least, the vision may present a
picture distant from any recognizable reality. Whether or not this is so, it
seems to me to be an irrelevant criticism. For a system of schools, as for a
school itself, there has to be an idea of what it is, and of what it should be,
capable. In the absence of such an ideal, potential remains unfocused and
substantially unrealized.
A further possible objection is that other systems might equally well
respect the first virtues of education. I rather doubt it. A system of
meritocratic schools tends to undervalue the less able; a system of feepaying schools to favour those who are relatively well-off financially; a
system of religious schools to overemphasize religious truth; and so on,
and so on. However, the fact that we have no one of these systems to the
exclusion of all others means they have to compete, and so tend to have to
keep their less attractive tendencies in check.
And this leads to a final, and much more serious objection to seeing a
system of comprehensive schools as best fitted to support the good school.

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If it is to be the only system, then almost insuperable difficulties follow.

First, right of choice is denied. Or at least it is unless society has
reached the Elysian state where all are in agreement. And, of course, to
deny choice is to ignore the obligation to respect persons, which is itself a
first virtue of education.
Secondly, the possibility of exploring educational ideas and practices
different from those sanctioned by a system of comprehensive schools is
denied, or at the least, minimized. Any system of schools, including a
comprehensive system which enjoys monopoly status, is liable to become
lethargic, self-satisfied and unimaginative.
Thirdly, there are a range of highly specialist educational needs which
even a very good system of comprehensive schools might struggle to meet.
From the gifted, in different fields, to those with serious disabilities, there
may be groups of students who would benefit from schooling on their own.
So, what is the solution? It is to ensure, through the achievement of
democratically reached consensus, that:

There is a properly funded and resourced system of comprehensive

schools at the heart of the national educational system.
There is, through the success of the system of comprehensive
schools, no educational need for parents to purchase privilege.
Choice is available, through safeguarding the right to existence of
systems of schools, and of individual schools, which differ in approach
and principle from comprehensive schools. However, there should be
no right to a choice of school, or system of schools, which evidently
deny or neglect the first virtues of education.
Any very special or particular educational needs, which cannot properly
be catered for in comprehensives, are met in other types of schools.
All this, taken as a whole, represents what a good, overall national system
of schools, would look like. However, such a system could only exist where
there was a vision of, and a determination to achieve, a good society: and a
particular idea of the good society. Such a society would be one which, at
its heart, respected persons, and valued truth, justice and responsibility. It
would also be one which demonstrated its commitment to those values by
striving to promote schools, and systems of schools, and an overall
national system of schools, which enacted those values. The frustration of
a liberal democracy is that visions of good schools, and of good systems of
schools, and of good overall national systems of schools, and of the good
society, all compete. But its great mercy, and one for. which perhaps we
are not always as grateful as we might be, is that it allows us all to
articulate, and to strive for the realization of, our own visions.
I find it very hard to imagine why anyone should dissent from a vision of
the good school grounded in respect for persons, truth, justice and
responsibility. Or from the vision of a comprehensive-based national
system of schools, and of a moral national community, which that entails.
But, no doubt, there are those who will disagree. I suppose I must
accept that that is the glory of democracy.

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Index
Adorno, T. 16
aims 8, 127
Alexander, R. 92
Amis, Kingsley 1
Annan, Noel 40, 72, 145
Appleby, J. 90
Aquinas, St Thomas 20, 34, 76, 102
arete 36
Aristotle 20, 26, 76, 95, 100
Arnold, Matthew 39, 42
Arnold, Thomas 80
art 50-1, 75
arts education 80-1
Ashbery, John 16
Athens see Greece, ancient
Augustine, St 20, 32, 34, 67, 76, 102
Austin, J. L. 61
Ayer, A. J., Language, Truth and Logic
Bacon, Francis 76
Baker, Kenneth 94
Barthes, Roland 16
Bellow, Saul 81
Bentham, Jeremy 44, 104
Berlin, Isaiah 39
Better Schools (DES) 93
Board Schools 82
Boesky, Ivan 44
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich 33-4, 100
Bowra, C. Maurice 36, 75, 95
Bradley, A. C. 91
Brecht, Bertolt 15
British Humanist Society 55
Brooks, Peter 24-5
Browne, Thomas, 'Religio medici'
Bruner, Jerome 50
Buber, Martin 12, 27
Burke, Edmund 106, 113
Butler, R. A. 83

68

33

Calvin, John 32
capitalism 43, 44, 45, 113
Chekhov, A. 22
child psychology 48
child-centred education 55, 56
choice 54, 139-43, 149, 150, 156
Christianity: the Christian person 32-4;
influence on education 54, 58, 78; notion
of a person 101, 102; respect and 10;
responsibility 112; society 102; status
in religious education 83, 85; truth 67,
70, 71, 76
church schools 82
Church of Scotland 106
Chuter-Ede, Baron Qames Chuter Ede) 83
City Technology College 88

civil service 145-8

Civitas Dei 13
Clark, Kenneth (Lord Clark) 35-6, 39, 81
classicism 34-8, 49, 58, 101-3
Cobbett, William 87
cognitive psychology 51
coherence theory 67, 68, 69, 70
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 39, 50
Commission on Social Justice 113, 135
communitarianism 107, 110
communities, schools as responsible 126,
127, 132
comprehensive schools 58, 79, 139, 142,
143, 155-6, 157
Comte, Auguste 64
Conrad, Joseph, Nostromo 15-16
consciousness 16, 20, 24, 61
Copernicus, Nicolas 13
Cordingley, Philippa 137
correspondence theory 67, 68, 69
county schools 82
creativity 49, 50-1, 56, 57, 80
Cupitt, Don 33
curricular crisis of identities
12-17
curriculum, the true: the battle of the
truths 74-89; the way forward 97-8;
the whole curriculum 89-97
Curriculum Council for Wales 93
Darwin, Charles 13
Darwinism 64, 96
Davies, B. 70
Davies, N. 90
Dawkins, Richard 23, 82, 85
Dearing, Sir Ron 86; Review of
Qualifications for 16-19 Year Olds 47
democracy 101-5, 109-14, 116, 119, 120,
123, 129, 151, 153, 156, 157
Department for Education 88
Department of Education and Science 91,
92, 94, 145, 147
Department for Employment 88
Department of National Heritage 81
Derrida, Jacques 16-17, 65
Descartes, Rene 14, 20, 38, 68, 76
Dewey, John 104
divine revelation 71
Dollimore, J. 15, 19, 148
Donne, John 32
Dostoevsky, Fyodor 105
Dulwich College 136
Durkheim, Emile 64
duties in democratic institutions 123-4
Dworkin, Ronald, Life's Dominion 11
Eaglesham, E. J. R. 87

166

INDEX

Eckhart, Johannes 34
Education Act (1870) 82
Education Act (1902) 82
Education Act (1944) 82-5, 139, 145, 150
Education (No. 2) Act (1986) 92
Education for Economic and Industrial
Understanding (National Curriculum
Council) 47, 87
Education Reform Act (1988) 8, 48, 83,
84-5, 88, 92, 93, 96, 97
Eliot, George, Middlemarch 15, 46
Eliot, T. S. 32, 96
Elliott, Philip 42-3
Engels, Friedrich 62, 63, 66
English literature 90-1, 96
Enlightenment 20, 38, 46, 76, 80, 82, 101
equality 120-3, 127-8, 155
ethology 26
Eton College 139
Etzioni, Amitai 107
Euripides 35
evaluation 132, 144-5
falsification theory 69, 71
first virtues of education 5-9, 98, 154-5
Forster, E. M. 73
Foucault, Michel 16; 'Nietzsche, genealogy,
history' 25
Frank, Robert H. 46
free markets 43, 44, 45, 57, 101, 110, 111,
120, 142, 150
free will 19-20, 33, 61
Freud, Sigmund 16
Galileo Galilei 13
Gardner, H. 127
GCE/GCSE 135-6
gender 25
General National Vocational Qualification 88
General Teaching Council (proposed) 149
geography 80, 86
God: 'death of 33; and homo creator 49; as
Spirit 34
Golding, William 32
Gombrich, E. H. 50, 51, 81
the Good 67, 75-6, 78
good and evil 19-20, 33
the good school: defined 1-2, 154-5; fields
of education 3, 5; in the good
society 154-7; purposes 8; a vision of
the good school 2-9
government: as an institution 134; the
moral government of education 148-53;
societies and government 99-107
Graham, Duncan 136, 145, 146, 147
Gray, J. 45
Greece, ancient 34-8, 54, 75, 77-8, 95, 103,
107
Hadow Report, 1926 87

Hailsham, Lord (Quintin Hogg) 44

Hamlyn, D. W. 61
Hargreaves, A. 80
Hargreaves, David 26, 92
Harries, Richard, Bishop of Oxford 49
Harrington, Tim 137
Havel, Vaclav 20
Hayek, Friedrich 111
headteachers 127
Healey, Denis 14, 86
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 13-14, 61,
65, 66, 100, 108; Logic 62; Philosophy of
History 61, 62; Philosophy of Law 61
Hegelianism 66
Heidegger, Martin 16
Henry, Sir Denis 44
Her Majesty's Inspectorate (HMI) 92, 93,
94, 145, 147
Heraclitus 37
Hirsch, Donald 140, 141
history 80, 86, 90
Hobbes, Thomas 20, 25, 99-100, 107, 108,
116
Holbrook, David 50
Holmes, E. 87
Homer 20, 36
Hooker, Richard 70
Hughes, M. 141
humanism 13, 40-2, 55-6, 112
Humboldt, Alexander, Baron von 38
Hume, Cardinal Basil 32
Hume, David 14, 67, 124
Kurd, Douglas 113
Hutton, Will 43
Huxley, Aldous 34, 40
Huxley, Sir Julian 40
ideals 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57
imagination 49, 50, 51, 56, 57, 70
individualism 39, 105, 106, 112-14, 120
inequality 121, 134-7
institutions: government as an institution
134; schools as just 126, 127, 132
Jagger, Mick 14
Jefferson, Thomas 106
Johnson, Samuel 19
Jung, Carl Gustav 16
justice 5-8, 99, 107-12, 115-21, 123, 124,
126-33, 148, 151-3, 154-7; and the
national system of education 134-7
Kant, Immanuel 10, 20, 38-9, 106, 110
Keenan, Brian 22-3
Ker, Ian 70
Keynes, John Maynard, 1st Baron 40
Kierkegaard, Soren 33
Koestler, Arthur 50, 51
Laing, R. D.

16

INDEX
Lane, Robert, The Market Experience 46-7
Langford, Glenn 23
language 16-17, 65, 69
Lao-Tzu, Too Teh King 105-6
The Law in Education Project' 128
Lawson, Nigel 45
leadership 127, 130-2
Leavis, Frank Raymond 15
Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich 66
Levi-Strauss, Claude 16, 64
liberty, right to 120
local education authorities (LEAs) 92, 135,
136, 140
Locke, John 20, 24, 25, 67
Lorenz, Konrad 26
McDonald's 60
Maclntyre, Alasdair 6, 28, 29, 110, 112, 120
McLellan, D. 16, 62, 63
MacNeice, Louis, 'Snow' 15
Macpherson, C. B. 104
MacQuarrie, John 34
maintained schools 82, 127, 135-6
management 127, 130-1, 132, 133
Mansfield, Katherine 22
Marquand, David 25, 105, 146
Marx, Karl 13, 16, 64, 65, 66, 108; 'Eleven
theses on Feuerbach' 62; 'Preface to a
critique of political economy' 63
Marxism/Marxists 16, 63, 64, 100, 108,
109, 117
Maslow, A. H. 41
mathematics, in ancient Greece 78
Meijer, Wilna 28
Midgley, Mary 23, 26
Mill, James 104
Mill, John Stuart 38, 50, 83, 104, 106;
Utilitarianism 112
mind/body dualism 25
mixed education 141
Montaigne, Michel Eyquem de 14
Moore, G. E. 40
moral and intellectual qualities see justice;
respect for persons; responsibility; truth
Mozart, Leopold 73
Murdoch, Iris 11, 16, 20, 66, 68, 72, 98
Mussolini, Benito 101
National Association for the Promotion of
Technical Education 86
National Curriculum 54, 128; and the civil
service 146; development 93; and
religious education 90; revision of 86
The National Curriculum 5-16 (DES) 84
National Curriculum Council 91, 92, 93,
128, 136, 147
National Curriculum Orders for Art and for
Music 81
National Forum for Values in Education 3,
97, 128

167

national system of education: interests

and 137-48; justice and 134-7
natural selection 13
neo-Platonism 76, 79
New Labour 151
Newman, Cardinal John Henry 40, 70, 95
Newsom Report, 1963 87
Niebuhr, Reinhold 102
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm 20, 65
Northern Ireland Curriculum Council 93
Oakeshott, Michael 30
objectives 130-1, 132
Officer Training Corps 118
OFSTED 85, 136
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development 140
Parfit, Derek 14
Parmenides 37
Pascal, Blaise 14, 34
pastoral care 55
Paton, H. J. 10, 38
Perkin, Harold 96
personal school 52-8; aims, curriculum,
pastoral care 53-7; aspirations 53;
school nature and ethos 57-8
persons: centred person 13-17, 19-20;
Christian person 31-4, 101, 102, 105,
112; classical person 34-8, 101, 102,
103, 105; economic person 42-7, 102,
103, 104, 112; humanist person 40-2,
102-5, 112, 123; ideal 41-2; overall
approach of schools 18-19; person as
narrator in a quest 27-30; rational
person 38-40, 102, 103, 105, 112,
123; religious 123; respect for see
respect for persons; the school's working
model of a person 48-51; what a person
is 20-7
Peters, R. S. 107
Picasso, Pablo 51
Pico della Mirandola 27
Pile, W. 145
Pindar 35
planning 130, 131
Plato 20, 35-8, 46, 75-6, 78, 95, 100, 108;
The Republic 35; The Symposium 37;
Timaeus 22
Platonism 54, 67, 70, 76, 78, 86, 89
Popper, Karl 37, 49, 61, 66, 67, 69, 71, 108
practical education 86-9
Pravda newspaper 64
Praxiteles 36
Pring, Richard 23
private education 136, 150-3
Protestantism 101
Przysucha, Rabbi von 12
public schools 87, 118, 139;
curriculum 78-9, 80

168

INDEX

The Quest for Coherence (National Foundation

for Educational Research) 93
Rahner, K. 33
rationalism 38-40, 103, 112, 123, 146
Rawles, John 5, 110, 111, 119-22, 134
reason 24, 38, 40, 49, 62, 70
reductionism 25-6
religious education 82-6, 90, 128
Renaissance 13, 14, 15, 19, 76, 78
respect for persons 5-8, 10-11, 12, 21, 23,
31, 52, 58, 97, 133, 154, 155, 157
responsibility 5, 6, 7, 9, 97, 99, 107, 108-9,
112-19, 123-33, 144-5, 155, 156, 157
Ribbins, P. 95
rights of students 120-4, 127
Rogers, Carl 40, 41-2
romanticism 20, 39, 49
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 20, 26, 40, 41, 46,
72; Confessions 24
Rowntree Foundation 135
Ruddock, Ralph 24
rules 129
Runcie, Robert 59
Russell, Bertrand 40, 62, 67, 83
sanctification 33-4
Sartre, Jean-Paul 20
Saussure, Ferdinand de 16
school councils 129-30
Schools Council 84; The practical
curriculum' 88
Schools Council Curriculum Projects 80
Schools Council Religious Education
Curriculum Projects 84
Schools Curriculum and Assessment
Authority (SCAA) 3, 85, 90, 128
science: in the curriculum 79-80, 88;
scientific truth 91
Scott, Peter 96
Scott inquiry 60
Selbourne, David 106
selective education 142, 143
self-knowledge 22
senior management 130, 131, 132
'seven liberal arts' 78
sexuality 25
Shakespeare, William 15, 91
Singer, P. and Cavaliaeri, P. 23
single-sex education 141
Skidelsky, Robert 150-1, 152
Smith, Adam 43, 44, 150
Smith, Peter 149
Social Affairs Unit 87
social anthropology 26, 48
social capital 113
social psychology 26, 48
social sciences 80
sociology 64-5
Socrates 36

Sophocles, Antigone 34
soul 33, 34, 39
Southwark, London borough of 136
specialist educational needs 156
Spencer, Herbert 64
the state: the Greek city state 103; reality
and 61, 62
Strachey, L. 80
Strawson, P. F. 24
structuralism 16, 17, 65, 66
structure 127
Taylor, A. J. P. 83
teachers: evaluation 132, 144-5; legitimate
interests in education 144, 149;
performance 133; responsibilities 144-5
technical education 86
technology 88
Thatcher, A. 21
Thatcher, Margaret (Baroness) 106, 113
Thatcherism 96
Thucydides 35, 107
Tillich, Paul 70
Tomlinson, John 106
Toryism 106
truanting 139
truth 5-8, 154-7; the attack on truth 59-66;
the battle of the truths 74-89; ideas of
truth 67-73; logical 91; scientific 91;
and subject areas 90-1, 95;
transcendent 91; and Goodness 37; way
forward 97-8; whole curriculum 89-97
Turgenev, Ivan Sergeevich 90-1
Tytler, D. 136, 145, 146, 147
Ubermensch 20
underperformance 135-6
United Nations Convention on the Rights of
the Child 120-1
values 68-9, 72, 141-3
vocational courses 88
Walden, G. 151
Weber, Max 146
Weil, Simone 34, 122
Weldon, Tom 100, 101
West, A. 141
The Whole Curriculum (National Curriculum
Council) 93
Wiener, Martin 42-3, 80
Willetts, David 44, 120
Williams, Raymond 26, 62, 63, 122
Wittgenstein, Ludwig 16, 67
Woollard, Anthony 147
Wordsworth, William, Lyrical Ballads 81
work: and the Dealing Review 47; role of 46
worthwhile educational practices 3-4, 5, 8
Young, J. Z.

50