 | | | | by Kevin Rooney |
In December 2000 education secretary David Blunkett unveiled guidelines to help teachers mould British schoolchildren into tomorrow's 'perfect citizens'. As one of those invited to teach citizenship, my reaction to 'Active Citizenship: A Teaching Toolkit' has been a mixture of hilarity and horror. The book's objectives are ambitious to say the least - no less than 'the spiritual, moral, social and cultural renaissance' of our children. Where the politicians, churches and arts have failed, teachers are expected to succeed, armed only with this magic book. In a ringing endorsement on the back cover, Blunkett claims that 'the future of our democracy depends in large measure on...citizenship'.
| So how are these grand aims to be realised? The book is packed with new age teaching tips. The author, American education guru Francine Britton, offers her own approach: 'as I teach, I project the condition of my soul on to the pupils, my subject, and our way of being together.' If that doesn't do the trick we are advised to play Whitney Houston's 'The Greatest Love of All' to the class (a song supposedly about 'valuing
education, pride in self and being a good role model'). And there are great ideas for practical exercises, like asking students to draw the 'ideal citizen' with parts of the body signifying aspects of citizenship. Hands could be compassion, mouth could be communication, and so on. Knowing the rather smutty minds of my own students, this exercise may be best avoided.
| Yet while it's easy to be amused by the touchy-feely aspects of this influential text, there is a dangerous side to these ideas and the whole concept of citizenship education.
| For me the most important problem is the almost total lack of academic content to the citizenship classes - increasingly taking the place of traditional subjects in our schools. In my own school, history lessons
have been reduced to make way for citizenship and there is talk of phasing out GCSE politics throughout Britain. At least the politics course is an attempt to educate young people about the institutions and
concepts that make up our political system. It has an academic rigour and educational content that is completely lacking in the relativist soup of citizenship.
| Citizenship education seems to assume that the reason we have so many apathetic, disengaged young people is that teachers have failed to educate them into taking an active role in society. The arrogance of
this is staggering: surely politicians should bear some of the responsibility for the state of politics? When the big debates of our time are about how to deal with a decrepit transport system or draconian
measures to control young people, it is hardly surprising that schoolchildren are not rushing out to become active in politics.
| | So citizenship education is unlikely to work. It is an empty shell that at best will teach schoolchildren to recite the New Labour mantra. Here's teenager Rebecca at yesterday's launch: 'Gradually, [through
citizenship education] we learnt how to respect each other - we finally learnt how to get along. We all tried hardest to be ideal citizens and hope we have succeeded. Instead of being a can't do society, we will
hopefully become a can do society.' She had obviously learnt her 105 'key citizenship words' on page 21 of the book.
| No doubt the government is genuinely grappling with how to involve young people in politics. But citizenship education is not the answer. The government should leave teachers to teach - if they are that bothered about apathy, the politicians should stick to worrying about the lack of any political visions that could inspire young people. Turning classrooms into politically correct therapy centres will fail to produce
active citizens and, more importantly, will deprive our children of a decent education.
| Kevin Rooney teaches A-level government and politics at a London school
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