Not to say, "The Perils of Adrenalin", "Patriotism: The Last Refuge", and even "The Politics of Appeasement".
Has Michael "Pub Quiz" Gove, although we'd all pay good money to see him in a public house with a pint of beer in his hand, ever read Andrew Roberts's Eminent Churchillians? Or any other history book from his own New Right?
None of that school, nor any of the remaining Old Right historians whose position is probably due a bit of a renaissance and may already be experiencing one, would ever use such terms as "Clive of India" or "gunboat diplomacy".
Would Gove be happy for English to be taught in anything like this way?
Would Gove be happy for English to be taught in anything like this way?
Yes, the "Pub quiz" was a funny one.
ReplyDeleteThat's NUT code for "actually getting kids to learn things".
I mean, perish the thought!
There's a hilarious debunking of the Pub Quiz thing in the Spectator today-asking "What Would Quintillian have made of it all?"
Any member of the NUT who refuses to teach the new literacy tests should be relieved of their post.
It's about time we who pay their wages, stood up to these anti-education imbeciles.
Point proved.
ReplyDeleteGove had to bin the draft by his hand-picked right-of-right-of-right team of historians and write his own because even they, of course, did not come up with this. It would comical if it were not actually happening.
The best that we can hope is that teachers will fill in the gaps anyway, never telling their charges that nothing above what reads like this parody, but sadly isn't, will be on the exam papers.
Like most Goveisms, though, believe in it when you see it.
The standards of literacy in schools are presently appalling-but the NUT is happy to carry on, as we are.
ReplyDeleteGove is right that children need to learn the basics by rote, before they can move on to the rest.
Niall Ferguson and the others remain quite supportive of his history curriculum. Most of the facts they recommended for inclusion, have been added in (unfortunately Mary Seacole keeps her unwarranted place in the curriculum, as a nod to the multiculti fanatics).
Are you really taking the side of Professor Richard Evans and his anti-British cohorts, who attack Gove for teaching of national history, on the grounds that it will undermine multiculturalism?
Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah.
ReplyDeleteI do work with undergraduates, you know.
Gove is unlikely to keep his job when the leader changes after the county results next month, he is only there because his wife is big mates with Dave's. He is personally insufferable which does not help him, and you are right that no one takes his curriculum ideas seriously. There are plenty of very right wing historians as you know. They might not go public like the left but they are just as horrified. As you say, he has never read of word of any of their books or he would never have come up with this. Or the Geography one. They read like spoofs but would that they were. Still, counting the weeks till he is gone.
ReplyDeleteOh, he's not without friends, political even if not personal. There'll only be a coup if Murdoch wants one, so the removal of Murdoch's little helper is not on the cards.
ReplyDelete"There are plenty of very right wing historians as you know.....They might not go public like the left"
ReplyDeleteYou can say that again!
The only people who have "gone public" against Gove are the anti-British Marxists who think history means teaching multiculturalism.
And of course the teacher's unions, possibly the last place on Earth where Marxism still lives, outside of some jungle retreat in Colombia.
If those types hate him, then he must be doing something right.
It'll never work. It can't. Gove is hopelessly out of his depth both where the material is concerned, and when it comes to dealing with the people whom he has antagonised.
ReplyDeleteFamously unable to conduct civilised relations with any human being, this time he really could be toast. You just cannot expect to get away with mandating the teaching of rubbish, literally rubbish that reads like a spoof, and with destroying two academic disciplines in this country by so doing.
He won't be allowed to do it. The teachers just won't do it. They will teach the real thing instead. All exam markers are drawn from the ranks of teachers or of academics in the disciplines that he is trying to destroy, so then, where will he be?