Miracles

Image created by AI.

License Creative Commons

Giovanni Pelegi Torres

Perhaps it is because we are fond of returning to familiar territory—human beings are gregarious creatures, after all—but over the past few days I have found myself viewing everything that has happened in education this year through the lens of faith. Perhaps it is because every summer, when I finally have time on my hands, I watch Life of Brian again; or perhaps because of the Pope’s recent visit (literally, “bridge-builder”, a title inherited from the Roman emperors).

Yet rather than building bridges, the Department of Education has been digging trenches. Now that Corpus Christi is upon us, we are witnessing the miracles of turning failures into passes, the last-minute resurrections which, far from being enshrined in any sacred text, remain entirely at the discretion of individual teachers—apocryphal, one might say.

Speaking of heresies, pedagogism sees them everywhere: in teachers who rebel against a curriculum emptied of content, against ill-conceived projects, or against the Holy Spirit of digitalisation. Whoever attacks the dogma attacks the Church, as we all know, especially in times of Counter-Reformation. This year, we heretics have organised a number of strikes demanding better pay, structured curricula, democracy within schools and a different approach to inclusion. All because we do not believe in miracles. We do not believe in the false promises of a system which, years ago, through competence-based reforms—which are little more than the pedagogical veneer of neoliberal managerial reforms designed to hollow out public education—preached the coming of the Seventh Innovation.

We recognise perfectly well that these curricula are a fraud designed to dismantle academic rigour. That this model of inclusion is rooted in budget cuts rather than educational support and fails to meet the needs of those who genuinely require assistance; at best, it lowers standards across the board through a self-serving conflation of equality and uniformity. That the education system is no longer directed towards knowledge; that repeating a year is blasphemy, failing a pupil a sin, and demanding discipline an act of apostasy. More broadly, the entire system is built upon a great lie: the abandonment of teachers, the loss of educational opportunities for pupils, pyramids of bureaucratic domination and a pedagogist despotism that recognises no truth other than its own precepts—sometimes closer to faith than to evidence.

The Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo, who devoted considerable attention to the question of faith in postmodernity, reflected on the possibilities of religion in an age marked by the collapse of dogma. The end of the great metaphysical, teleological and dichotomous narratives brought about by postmodernity was expected to give rise to a “weakened” religion: more personal and secular, less constrained by monolithic interpretations (just as, in politics, one might imagine a form of “weak communism”, free of dogmatism). Yet our post-metaphysical world has not entirely escaped the legacy of metaphysics. We still cling to this all-or-nothing mentality, this attachment to a single truth and to purity of action.

Are we looking for solutions or for salvation? Were we seeking negotiation or redemption? I do not know whether this sounds rather like something from a seminary, but it seems to me that the Gospel was about something quite different—especially Saramago’s Gospel. The fact is that we have emerged from the trinity of screens, competences and methodologies that were supposedly going to save us. With the rosary of a ThinkBook keyboard at our fingertips, we recited the Hail Mary of Universal Design for Learning, celebrated the hagiography of projects and endured the Calvary of lesson planning. Bread and wine may no longer be multiplied, but forms and meetings certainly are. And may Judas Teachersaurus not hear us. For some time now, a few voices have been telling us that this was less salvation than prophecy, less science than alchemy, and less progress than demolition. The revolt began. What have these Romans ever done for us? Suddenly we discovered our own strength, free from the tutelage of self-appointed missionaries.

We are ending the academic year with a fragile peace and some significant gains to show for it. It is not everything we wanted, but you cannot achieve everything at the first attempt. What has happened since the agreement was signed with the Department, to return once again to the world of Life of Brian, has resembled the rivalry between the People’s Front of Judea and the Judean People’s Front. “We do not want miracles; we want results”. And what exactly are those results? Can everything really be fixed within a matter of months? Can we separate ends from means? What are we trying to achieve? How are we going to achieve it? And with whom? These are questions that often remain unanswered in those assembly-style conclaves, where the dogma of protest occupies the space that ought to belong to reflection.

Let me say one thing plainly, if I may be permitted a sermon: we have not done all this merely to exchange pedagogist theology for revolutionary dogma. Public education is a republican invention, and it is sustained by a commitment to knowledge, not by ideological gymnastics. Protest is a means, not an end in itself. Beware of those who seek to instrumentalise it.

Perhaps we need to rethink a few things. Rebuilding the system will be a long and difficult task, and we shall succeed only if our ideas are clear. Managing expectations from this point onwards will be enormously challenging. Trust those who explain things with evidence and the historical record in hand; those who combine prudence with passion; those who seek tangible results and avoid empty slogans. Rather than acts of faith, we need to discuss concrete issues. Now that the agreement has provided greater protection for the material conditions of the profession—pay, staffing levels and resources—it is time to talk about the model itself: academic rigour, effort, meritocracy, discipline, equality of opportunity, the autonomy of teaching staff, the curriculum and inclusion. We do not all need to agree on a single truth, but one minimal point of agreement might be this: the great lie that currently serves as the cornerstone of the system is exactly that—a vast cosmetic deception. Yet none of this resembles a dogma, nor are we placing our faith in miracles.

Source: educational EVIDENCE

Rights: Creative Commons