Teach Secondary Issue 14.2

We should always review and interrogate what students are taught at school, concedes John Lawson – but we should also be guided by ‘challengeable expertise’... In 2016, Michael Gove shared his ‘expert’ view on political ‘experts’. Gove famously stated that “ People in this country have had enough of experts from organisations with acronyms who think they know best. ” We should know that nobody possesses sufficient expertise to tell us what all British people think about anything. While we can, and should demolish rules and arguments that are nonsensical, we must also be extremely wary of vain populists who set out to demonise as many regulations and experts as they can. Challengeable expertise When important decisions must be made, ‘challengeable expertise’ is indispensable – especially with regards to social welfare, the environment and education. I recently listened to a discussion on Teachers Talk Radio (teacherstalkradio.podbean.com ), in which one contributor floated a proposal to drop classic authors – such as Shakespeare, Dickens and Steinbeck – from the school syllabus to make way for more ‘relevant’ contemporary fiction. Perhaps, they ventured, Of Mice andMen and Macbeth could be replaced with novels by Barbara Kingsolver, Sebastian Faulks and Khaled Hosseini? All superb novelists, yes. Thankfully, however, TTR always welcomes dissenting non-expert voices, so I suggested that if we stop teaching Shakespeare, then 50 years fromnow, how many people will still regularly read this literary giant?Why, in 2074, would anyone opt to read Hamlet or Macbeth , let alone take the time to comprehend those works’ breathtaking language, rich symbolism, intricate structures and transcendental beauty, wit and wisdom? BanishingThe Bard The works of Shakespeare pack a punch, but much like holy books, can be almost impossible to appreciate without expert help. From the texts alone, we don’t know that he had to compete with live executions for audiences. The hags on the heath can be seen in those figures dog-whistling from the tabloids and social media channels. Barely anyone else has portrayed life’s greatest dramas – happiness, love, war and peace, loyalty, social class, justice, death, destiny – with the ageless finesse of the Bard. But it can take a guiding hand to show us that. I’d like to knowwhat the UK’s finest literature and ABOUT THE AUTHOR John Lawson is a former secondary teacher, now serving as a foundation governor while running a tutoring service, and author of the book The Successful (Less Stressful) Student (Outskirts Press, £11.95); find out more at prep4successnow.wordpress.com or follow @johninpompano THE LAST WORD drama teachers think about axing Shakespeare. After all, they’re the ones at the chalkface, daily gauging his impact on the nation’s teenagers – and the views of the latter matter too, of course. Are the arguments against teaching Shakespeare genuinely compelling and coherent? Is Barbara Kingsolver’s (superb) Demon Copperhead more engaging and relevant than David Copperfield ? Possibly. But why banish the Bard offshore, rather than celebrate someone admired globally for his incomparable contribution to literature? Abroad consensus I hope that our expert teachers can and will excoriate such false either/or propositions, and recommend that we continue teaching the best of classic literature alongside the works of our finest modern writers. Naturally, we can’t study every esteemed author, so there has to be a broad consensus over those who make the cut and who don’t. Yet how clear are we as to the raison d’etre for teaching classic literature? Stories play a huge role in the teaching of history, and our decisions over what beliefs and positions we should respect and reject. I’ve rarely seen students exhibit indifference toWilfred Owen’s ‘Dulce et Decorum est’. Animal Farm has given successive generations powerful warnings about the dangers of authoritarianism and deception. Lord of the Flies remains a brilliant exploration of adolescent angst, courage and cruelty. Keen to hear what our education experts had to say, I put the ‘ Should we scrap Shakespeare? ’ question to 107 teachers on #Edutwitter/X. To summarise their bowdlerized view: ‘ Yes – if you think theMissa Solemnis sounds better on a banjo ; yes, if you’d teach psychoanalysis without mentioning Freud and Jung ; yes, if you’d choose Gordon Ramsey as a peace envoy. ’ Seems like a resounding ‘No’. I’m sure there are many thousands of adults out there who find Shakespeare awesome, because an expert once taught themhow to discern classic literature from pulp fiction when they were a teenager. There are no questions that shouldn’t be asked – but there would surely need to be overwhelming justifications for England’s finest-ever wordsmith to be sidelined in schools. If the peerless Bard were ever to be dropped from the syllabus, I would let my tears pour forth without shame and make of them a pillow for my heart. How about you? “No darkness but ignorance” 82 teachwire.net/secondary