ABSTRACT
Anniversaries are times for embarrassing reflections. I want to reflect on our lack of explicit concern for political education in its quite ordinary senses. Our amateurism and irresponsibility in these respects is, at times, extreme. There has scarcely been any discussion in this country in recent years of the educational responsibilities of university and polytechnic teachers of politics, not even for their own institutions, still less for schools and colleges of further education. Of course, if nothing that we rationally and consciously do has any effect, if, as some say, everything is only a matter of understanding, appreciating and continuing tradition, or if everything is all a matter of socialized knowledge exclusively serving the interests of the particular class structure, as some others say, then there would be no problem. But it is likely that there are important links between our scholarly perceptions of what politics is all about and the general education of the whole of society. And it is also likely that what goes on in the teaching of politics in the universities and polytechnics (as distinct from scholarship and research) has relevance and responsibilities towards the tasks of the chalk-dust teacher in our schools-though this relevance is seldom acknowledged. So many of our students go on ‘to teach’, but seldom does it cross our minds that we have responsibilities in their direction or that basic concepts can be defined as to what can and should be taught at the most elementary levels which are conceivable and workable.
