Thoughts on equality
Patricia Gosling reflects on the idea and everyday reality of equality
My maternal family was Welsh and their attitude, although living in England, was that the English class system was a nonsense. They felt they were as good as anyone. This attitude must have rubbed off on me, in spite of my innate shyness and lack of confidence when young. I suspect it is what enabled me to move, during my lifetime, from somewhere near the bottom of the social pile to somewhere near the top. When I found myself at dinner conversing with a bishop, an MP or a business tycoon, I somehow managed this without disgracing myself – and discovered in the process that the more eminent the person, the more kindly and courteous they usually were.
This assumption of equality was the norm during my years of living in Wales as an adult. For me, it explained why so many people from humble and frequently impoverished backgrounds there went on to make distinguished contributions to our cultural life – in academia, the arts and politics. The Scots have a similar tradition. Why does this transition seem to be so much more difficult in England?
I grew up in a working-class district of a large industrial city. The usual attitude was that school was something to be endured until one could escape into working life. Book learning was seen as superfluous when one could earn good money from an early age in factories producing bicycles or cigarettes. It was particularly pointless for girls, who would only get married anyway. I don’t know to what extent this mindset still exists.
Perhaps the answer lies in history. When the Normans invaded England they repressed the indigenous inhabitants with brutal ferocity for two generations – until the inevitability of their dominance was accepted. Education – literacy – was in the hands of the clergy, but these were in the employ of the Normans and also acted as their intelligence system – their spies. Small wonder they were treated with suspicion.
I think that attitude has continued down the generations, and is still present in England. (The Normans never managed to exert quite the same stranglehold in Wales and Scotland.) When the bulk of the population were agriculturalists, or foot soldiers in times of war, it didn’t matter so much. Now it does. How, then, is it to be tackled?
I have had much experience of comprehensive schools as a mother, and currently as grandmother of a young teacher working in a school for pupils excluded from the mainstream because of behavioural issues.
The comprehensive educational system was an earnest attempt to remedy social inequality. Its success has been limited. The one-size-fits-all approach fails too many. Teachers are currently haemorrhaging out of the profession, complaining of over-work, poor pay and lack of creative space. The levels of anxiety in pupils, produced by continual testing, are accompanied by significant instances of depression and even self-harming among adolescents. I cannot believe that abolishing private education is going to modify this situation.
I have no direct experience of Quaker schools. I do know people educated in that tradition. They seem to be people of integrity and creativity, who are making worthwhile contributions to the wider community. Rather than abolishing these schools in the name of ideology, I would prefer to see them kept as examples from which others can learn – as sort of research institutions. We are used to research institutions in other, scientific, fields being privately funded until the state feels able to take them over. Why not in education?
I hope that the Religious Society of Friends will remain a community where different viewpoints can be expressed. I deplore the current fashion for ideological correctness. To me, it smacks too much of George Orwell’s ‘Thought Police’ from his novel 1984.
On consideration, I suspect I have absorbed from my engineer spouse an attitude common in the engineering community: ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!’
