Philip John Harris

The Kids Don't Work Philip John Harris

Modern systems of mass compulsory education, state or private, have failed. Inclusion, a philosophy as enticingly noble as communism, has failed in a similar fashion. Inclusion's adherents are as deluded, Jesuit and authoritarian as their Soviet counterparts, knowing full well that the edifice is rotten, but clinging on, fearing for their reputations and careers the consequences of the system's collapse. There is nothing to fear. Those included against their will have nothing to lose but their chains. Students are now included for the sake of being included. This needs to stop. A small subset of individuals leave the mass schooling experience in any way truly educated, and the reasons for this have nothing to do with the internal nature of the system. The Students know this, the Teachers know this, but everyone else (Parents, Managers, the Political Class) chooses to insist that all is rosy in the garden, there is no alternative, and that the system is a roaring success. They make a conscious choice to double down on a cocktail of propaganda, deception, lies, wish fulfilment fantasy and, when all these fail, straight up bullying. There is a general agreement to enforce a code of silence on this issue. Teachers stay silent for their jobs, students enjoy a free ride at others expense, politicians dodge the issue and managers use bums on seats as a ticket to business class. Grades are manufactured and data manipulated to resent a picture of ever improving progress, where in fact students are becoming ever more blinkered, self-centred, indulged and ignorant. The nature of a true education, requiring independent motivation and patient, dedicated study, is being sacrificed on the altar of inclusion, a self-defeating act that will deliver neither inclusion nor education. It's time to change. Inclusion must end. Enlightened selection is the future. This book is written from the point of view of a Teacher with 25 years' experience in state, private and international schools and is a personal manifesto. I believe that there are others out there who share these views. This is my first lonely call to arms. If you want to be truly educated, and not spoon fed, you want to do the work in school to achieve that education, then you have nothing to fear. If you believe that your external personal life, mistakes and all, is your own, and that teachers have no right to advise or manipulate, then come on in, the water's warm. What are we waiting for? To the barricades!