Michael Gove is not my favourite person. For me he is set on destroying 50 years of progress in Education, but according to him I must be one of those Marxist opponents. I certainly am to the left of Gove, along with Ghenghis Khan, but I am not very keen on Marx or even unions. Anyway I don't want to present my convictions I want to present those of others who might be more credible than Gove.
An excellent book is Education a Very Short Introduction. It argues very clearly and concisely with evidence and not convictions as to why "progressive" education is the way forward. It also shows that "progressive" is at least 3000 years old and the origins on the disciplinarian drilling of "traditional" teaching.
Now Gove is trying to take us back into the traditional teaching method as this will improve standards. So lets look at what someone who studied under that method said about it.
"To me the worst thing seems to be a school principally to work with methods of fear, force and artificial authority. Such treatment destroys the sound sentiments, the sincerity and the self-confidence of pupils and produces a subservient subject."
"One should guard against preaching to young people success in the customary form as the main aim in life. The most important motive for work in school and in life is pleasure in work, pleasure in its result, and the knowledge of the value of the result to the community."
"Education is what you have left after one has forgotten what one has learned in school."
The person who said this was a bit of a slouch at school and he was a late developer who did not speak until he was four. It was Albert Einstein and Gove is certainly no Einstein.
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