ABSTRACT
The booklet from which the extract is taken attempts to explain the issues underlying the debate over standards in primary education which took place as a result of the Black Papers (pp. 40-4), the William Tyndale Affair (pp. 45-50, 236-45), and the publication of Bennett’s research, Teaching Styles and Pupil Progress (Volume 3). The authors argue that the issues go well beyond the question of how children should be taught in primary classrooms, and involve the kind of society we want to create. They characterize our present society as unjust and believe that schooling is a major means through which this unjust society reproduces itself. They argue that the focus of education needs to shift away from individual competition and narrowly conceived ‘standards’ towards an emphasis on cooperation, social responsibility, caring, creativity and joyfulness. Their social democratic stance is evident in the final paragraph: ‘The message we have inherited is outmoded and unjust. “To the many — education for drudgery; to the few — education for power”. This must now be replaced by a different message, the one to which so many of the positive changes in our schools have been pointing. “To all of society — education for life”.’
