Four neglected educational pioneers were responding to problems with both capitalist and socialist agendas, writes Walter Humes.
The editorial in issue 134 of Scottish Left Review, entitled ‘The Revival of Radical Education’, referred to historical and contemporary examples of attempts to raise political consciousness and challenge various forms of oppression. The final paragraph stated that ‘Revitalising a culture of radical education depends on opening our movements as wide as we can, and opening our minds to ideas from elsewhere’. What follows is an attempt to respond to that challenge.
Lessons from history
Despite boasts about Scotland’s ‘democratic intellect’, the country has not been generous in its treatment of educational radicals. Both A. S. Neill (1883-1973), founder of the progressive school, Summerhill, and Margaret McMillan (1860-1931), a pioneer in the field of pre-school education, had to leave Scotland in order to pursue their efforts to liberate children from a narrow, authoritarian curriculum (in the case of Neill), and the effects of poverty and ill-health (in the case of McMillan). Neill was awarded honorary degrees by three universities in England but no similar recognition from Scotland, despite having been a student at Edinburgh University. McMillan’s innovative work in deprived areas of Bradford and London led to her being made a Companion of Honour. It was only after her death that her thinking and practice began to make some impact in Scotland.
Another Scot who tried to introduce radical ideas was R. F. Mackenzie (1910-87), headteacher first of a junior secondary school in Fife and later of a large comprehensive in Aberdeen. In Fife, he promoted the value of outdoor learning, taking groups of youngsters into the Highlands, introducing them to a world beyond the mining communities into which they were born, and giving them confidence in their ability to shape their own future. In Aberdeen, his views on discipline and corporal punishment provoked opposition from traditional teachers, and the local press printed sensational stories about the school, which prompted the education authority (Labour-controlled) to intervene. Mackenzie was first suspended and later sacked. The series of books that he wrote expounding his philosophy give a good insight into the climate and culture of Scottish schooling during the 1960s and 70s.
Early in their careers, all three were attracted by socialism. Neill joined the Labour Party before World War I, but later admitted that his understanding of politics was poor, acknowledging that, like many left-oriented writers in the West, he was taken in by propaganda from Russia about the ‘liberation’ of communism. In a letter written in 1972, he said he had lost interest in party politics because of the compromises and corruptions that it involved. During her time in Bradford, McMillan had close links with the Fabian Society and the Independent Labour Party, and also wrote articles for the Young Socialist magazine. After she moved to London, her focus was on practical matters, seeking funding and other forms of support from agencies that recognised the needs she was addressing. Pragmatism became more important than ideology. Mackenzie was impressed by the efforts of John Maclean (1879-1923) to raise the political consciousness of workers, but he became progressively disenchanted by the assimilation of Labour politicians into the rituals and traditions of the political establishment.
Radicalism and state schooling
Mackenzie’s experience illustrates the difficulty of introducing anything that is perceived as ‘radical’ into mainstream schooling. This problem does not arise to the same extent with adult and community education, or with trade union education, since in these cases it is assumed that participants attend voluntarily, and are sufficiently mature to make rational choices. With youngsters, however, allegations of propaganda and indoctrination are likely to arise from those who assert that politics should be kept out of schooling. It is further argued that, in a democratic society, state schools need to cater for the whole population, not simply represent a particular ideological position.
This is a strong argument and few people would want to see the kind of brainwashing of the young that takes place in totalitarian states. At the same time, the notion that it is possible to have a state-run educational system that is ideologically ‘pure’ and untainted by any political perspective is an illusion. Elected governments have policy commitments which involve taking decisions about the values they wish to promote, the form and content of the curriculum, and the intended outcomes of the process. These represent the kind of society that they want to create and the kind of citizens, with particular knowledge, skills and dispositions, that they want to produce. In this sense, all state educational systems are political.
Professional conformity
Although Neill became alienated from politics, in his book Is Scotland Educated? (1936) he offered an interesting observation about a mechanism of control that ensures that schools and other public institutions have limited scope to move in a radical direction:
Capitalism very cleverly selects the brighter children of the proletariat, sends them to secondary schools and then to university, thus taking them away from the class to which they belong and for which they might conceivably fight, and turning them into castrated black-coated servants of capitalism.
Both capitalism and state education have changed substantially since this was written. The former is endlessly inventive, seeking to exploit new opportunities for growth and profit. Thus, the digital revolution and the global economy have helped to create a mega-rich class, whose power now threatens to undermine democracy. Educational change has been less dramatic, but opportunities have expanded greatly since the 1930s, with secondary education for all after World War II, the introduction of comprehensive education in 1965, and a steady increase in the number of university places, first in the 1960s (following the Robbins Report) and again in the 1990s. The four ancient Scottish universities (St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh) are now part of a higher education sector that consists of 19 institutions.
Despite this altered landscape, Neill’s acerbic comment still merits analysis. It is not hard to think of Labour politicians who started as left-wing agitators and now enjoy the creature comforts of the House of Lords after a career of progressive moderation and steady assimilation into the establishment. Despite decades of promises to reform that bloated institution, it was announced just before Christmas that thirty new Labour peers would be created and become eligible for the generous daily attendance allowance.
Neill’s comment can equally be applied to a much wider range of people than those directly involved in the political world. The period after World War II saw the expansion of the welfare state and opened up job opportunities for young people in central and local government, in teaching and the health service, and in public bodies of various kinds. Their parents, many of whom had experienced hardship in the 1920s and 30s, wanted their sons and daughters to obtain secure jobs with prospects of promotion, preferably with a pension at the end. The fact that many of these jobs were fulfilling important social functions was an added attraction. They represented not only financial security, but also ethical purpose. Entry depended on working hard at school, acquiring formal qualifications and showing commitment to the ideals of public service.
But there was a price to be paid for ‘getting on’ in this way. Public sector jobs were subject to the constraints of bureaucratic organisations. There was limited scope for individual initiative or deviation from established conventions. The German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) identified the distinctive characteristics of bureaucracies: hierarchical structures; prescribed rules; impersonality; deference to ‘expert’ knowledge; confidentiality; a tendency to extend territorial reach. Weber referred to the ‘iron cage’ of bureaucracy, which made it very difficult to effect significant change.
In such a context, caution and conformity were rewarded. Those with ambitions quickly learned that orthodoxy was preferred to innovation, timid respectability to adventurous challenge. Institutional ‘groupthink’ discouraged engagement with critical voices or new ideas. When public bodies were subject to external challenge, a familiar pattern of delay, evasion, obfuscation and denial was often in evidence. Protecting the interests of insiders, especially those in senior positions, became more important than providing good quality service to the public. In this climate, there was no need to seek out and suppress radicalism. Self-regulation became the order of the day.
This raises uncomfortable questions for the political left. Historically, unity and solidarity have been vitally important in advancing the socialist agenda. In campaigning for democratic reform and workers’ rights, progressive movements have relied on collectivism rather than individualism. The extension of the franchise, greater equality for women and resistance to oppressive legislation have all depended on group action, not just the voices of radical spirits. But, like professionalism, a collectivist mindset carries risks, particularly if it leaves no scope for principled dissent. It can become rigid and inflexible, seeking to expose ‘heretics’, who are felt to lack the fundamentalist zeal of true believers. Independent thinkers find that their contributions are no longer welcome and drift away. This may help to explain why the educational radicals described above lost faith in socialism and disengaged from the political process.
The Future
Elections to the Scottish Parliament will take place in 2026. The outcome is uncertain. The 2024 UK General Election brought a massive victory for Labour but many supporters have been dismayed by its initial policy decisions. The SNP will be hoping that it retains sufficient support to remain a credible force, thereby keeping the possibility of independence alive. The populist appeal of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK complicates the picture.
Whatever the outcome, education will remain high on the agenda. Dissatisfaction with Curriculum for Excellence, the flagship policy since 2004, continues to grow. Scotland’s standing in international rankings has been disappointing for some years, despite endorsements from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and in reports by an International Council of Educational Advisers. Official defensiveness stands in contrast to a conclusion by the Social Market Foundation in 2021, which described Scottish education as ‘cautious, conformist, risk averse and stuck in its ways’.
Against this background, the prospects for radical educational reform seem bleak. The most likely outcome is a reassertion of the importance of formal knowledge, represented by traditional subjects and assessment mechanisms that have credibility with both professionals and the public. There are those on the political left who would not see this as necessarily a bad change of direction. The Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), whose ideas were much discussed in the 1960s and 70s, argued that in order to transform society it was essential to equip working-class youngsters with the intellectual tools that only a traditional education could provide. Being able to speak the language of power was a necessary condition of social reform. The risk in this strategy, however, is that many of the beneficiaries would be subject to the kind of conformist socialisation and bureaucratic assimilation described above.
But if serious thinking about curricular reform is allowed to take place, the ideas of another radical thinker would be well worth revisiting. Although born in England, Lawrence Stenhouse (1926-1982) had strong Scottish connections. His parents came from Dundee – his father worked in the jute industry – and Stenhouse himself attended St Andrews and Glasgow universities, taught in secondary schools in Glasgow and Fife, and for a time was Head of Educational Studies at Jordanhill College. But he found the culture of Scottish education hostile to change and was persuaded to go south to direct an ambitious ‘Humanities Curriculum Project’, based first in London and later at the Centre for Applied Research in Education, University of East Anglia. His best-known book is An Introduction to Curriculum Research and Development (1975), which, like the writings of Neill, McMillan and Mackenzie, was not adequately appreciated in Scotland.
The Humanities Curriculum Project started from the premise that it was possible to teach controversial issues in the classroom in a way that was both balanced and intellectually rigorous. It drew on a wide range of material presenting different perspectives, requiring pupils to review the quality of sources, engage in constructive dialogue and think critically. The teacher was expected to adopt a procedurally neutral stance. Packs of teaching materials on the following themes were produced: Education; War and Society; The Family; Relations Between the Sexes; People and Work; Poverty; Law and Order; and Living in Cities. These topics would have to be reviewed for a contemporary school population taking account of economic, technological and geopolitical changes. New themes might include the environment, globalisation, migration and social media. Internet resources, unavailable in Stenhouse’s time, would inevitably open up questions about economic power, misinformation and conspiracy theories.
Like the other radicals discussed, Stenhouse had some involvement with the socialist movement early in his career, including through teaching trade unionists in the extra-mural department at Glasgow University, but he came to describe his work in terms that resisted easy ideological classification. He was an intellectual sceptic, arguing that all stances must be regarded as provisional, subject to review in the light of new knowledge. The tribal commitments of mainstream politics, which often require unquestioning loyalty to official policies, did not appeal to him. But there is no doubt that his agenda was emancipatory: he wanted to liberate young people from various forms of authority. He himself put it this way: ‘We are still two nations because we produce through education a minority served by knowledge and a majority ruled by knowledge – an intellectual, moral and spiritual proletariat, characterised by instrumental competences rather than autonomous powers.’
The SLR’s call to revitalise the culture of radical education is to be welcomed, but the process may involve addressing a number of hard questions. These include:
- What is the difference between radical education and political education?
- How can the tendency of public service professionals to submit to conformist pressures be countered?
- Where are the most promising sites of resistance to the worst excesses of global capitalism, including the control and marketisation of knowledge and the misuse of artificial intelligence?
Finally, questions about education need to be viewed in relation to the broader ideological context. For the last half-century, advanced capitalism has been re-shaping the world. Has modern socialism adapted sufficiently (in philosophy and practice) to offer a credible alternative?
Walter Humes is an Honorary Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Stirling.