"No books until twelve," Jean-Jacques Rousseau suggested in his seminal book Emile.  This might sound extreme, but I appreciate his message - childhood, nature, play first; the intellect comes later.

Unfortunately, the prevailing, underlying message of today's 'education' is - books as soon as possible.  Now Rousseau was not referring to children's story books, but to the foisting of abstract concepts and ideas on those too young to understand or appreciate such things.

Good examples of this are: the studying of algebra, which, to most children, is unrelated to anything real in their world.  Until I was 25 I thought that quadratic equations were fiendish devices invented specifically to punish school pupils. Likewise, the study of plays like King Lear and Hamlet.  To even begin to understand the issues in these plays takes quite a bit of living first.

Abstract ideas mostly confuse children and should be left for them to discover naturally or else introduced to when they reach adolescence and beyond.

All this is best illustrated by a story told to me in Australia by a man at a party.

This man had a daughter of 8, let's say Susan.  One Sunday morning the doorbell rang. Normally this man or his wife would open the door, but on this occasion Susan got to the door first.  This is the conversation he and his wife overheard:

Stranger:  Hullo, little girl.  Tell me, have you been saved?
Susan:  Yes, last month I was saved by a lifesaver at Avalon Beach.
Stranger:  No! No!  I mean have you been saved by Jesus?
Susan:   Which beach is he at?

Since it is a bank holiday weekend in England, I am using that as an excuse to stray from the path my blog has been trying to follow, and post a series of thoughts that occurred to me during a deep reverie on a long train journey today:

Ever since we fell out of the trees millions of years ago, we have been at war with the tree - and everything else in nature.

Instead of marvelling at nature's power, balance, and beauty, we talk proudly of 'conquering nature' (as if we could anyway), we invent moral codes that are at complete odds with our human nature, and, best of all, we try to imitate nature in many artistic forms.  But, from our point of view, it is still a war on nature's 'perfection'.  Nature just IS.  It is we, the human race, who declared war.

As Nietzsche said: "It is time for the revaluation of all values".  And that goes for 'education' especially.

I know this is brief , but it is a holiday!

Next week, back to 'ranting and raving', as a friend of mine describes my blog.

I was pleased to hear Sir Ken Robinson on radio, criticising the present, straight-jacket school system and urging a far more creative environment.  Until we escape the 'another brick in the wall' mentality of the system, the status quo will remain, leading to greater illiteracy and conformity.

Unfortunately, politicians see 'education' as a hot potato - too hot to handle properly.  Their fear of the press and parents means that successive governments merely tinker with a system that needs replacing.

Britain has an authority problem.  It is ingrained in every aspect of life and has the stench of bullying about it.  

If you have power, you abuse it by treating those under you with contempt.  If you are the underling, you must become as obsequious as possible.  This strain is no more clearly evident than in schools.

The hierarchy is thus:  The governors, headteacher and senior management at the top, parents on the next layer down, then teachers, and finally the pupils - the majority of a school population, the lowest rung, whose thoughts and opinions matter not one jot in the running of the place.  A feudal system.
So until the false authority of schools is eliminated and pupils given the major say in their own schooling, we cannot call schools 'education'.

Sir Ken described his vision of a creative, flexible, mobile environment in schools.  Will the politicians listen?  What do you think?

In the late 1940s, Kenyan Radio wrote to George Bernard Shaw, asking for his permission to broadcast some of his plays to schools.  Shaw's reply was brief and to the point:

"No, you may not broadcast my plays to schools.  They were not written as instruments of torture!"
Well said, GBS.

The same should apply to the study of Shakespeare's plays and poetry.  Millions of people in the UK see Shakespeare as an 'enemy', having endured tedious and often incomprehensible lessons on his plays.  If William could re-appear today, I can guarantee that he would not be flattered that his works are forcibly studied at school, but rightly horrified.

Of course 'Shakespeare' should be an optional subject, taught by enthusiasts, preferably actors, and the plays acted out by the students, with the gravity and joy they inspire.  The study of the plays should be done in such a way that the students can see parallels in their own lives and in modern society, and in doing so, understand how truly timeless the themes of Shakespeare's works are.

Enforcing 'culture' on the young is the surest way to breed a philistine society.

As a footnote, I recall that dear Colonel Gaddafi once claimed that William Shakespeare was, in fact, an Arab, his real name being Sheik Spear.  But then the Italians claim him as their own, as do quite a few nations.  That would flatter WS, if he were around.

I was infuriated last week when a young man I know, aged 24, was labelled as 'autistic' - when he is anything but!  It got me thinking about labelling, especially of children, e.g. bright, stupid, Asperger's, lazy etc.

Labels are a convenient way of categorising, reducing someone to a word.  Labels give a certain sense of power to the person labelling, but are damaging to those who are labelled, often for life.

To some extent, we all use labels, but that doesn't mean they're a good thing.  They are a form of generalising, and all prejudices have generalising in common.

A sad and enraging story came from a teacher I worked with years ago. One day, she was about to enter the tube station near the school, when she bumped into a boy she had taught at another school.  He was now about 20. After greeting him, he said to the teacher:

"Miss, I'm not all bad!"  To which she replied: "You're not bad at all!"

How disgraceful that teachers can label a boy 'bad' until even he believes it to be true.

Next week, more humour and less anger.