Gove Rigour & Really Useful Rigour

Opining that the Spurs defence could do with more rigour on twitter- a response to Arsenal fan Michael Rosen- led to the unpleasant thought of Michael Gove and Rigour.

For the Education Secretary the Enemies of Promise [if you are reading this he means YOU] are also those who introduce a lack of rigour into study with trendy notions of relevant teaching that engages students.

Gove’s view of rigour is a ‘body of knowledge’ approach to education. That is there is a set amount of facts that need to be shovelled into the brains of students. These facts consist essentially of what was taught in public schools in the 1950 and 1960s when the current Cabinet were attending them.

Rigour here, Gove style, means making sure that traditional approaches to study based on ‘fact’ are carried through without being impeding by teachers [often with beards] who are trying to engage and interest students. Rigour Gove style is about austerity in the classroom, most definitely not the joy of learning new things.

There is however what might be called Real Rigour, or perhaps after the educational historian Richard Johnson, Really Useful Rigour.

This is not about the themes of 1968, forty-five years ago. Letting a thousand flowers bloom, letting it all hang out and all that was tremendously liberating and opened a Pandora’s Box of ideas and strategies, but rigorous it was not. No doubt Gove would agree, at least with the last five words.

Neither does rigour mean, much as I might want to argue that it should, adherence to some kind of  scientific Marxism. Debates on this remain important ones, but not really for the classroom.

What it means, and certainly the test I apply as the convenor of the socialist history seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, is that research should involve the testing of ideas, questioning of research materials, conclusions provisionally reached and then revised as needed.

Alternatively it might mean none of the above. It might mean simply the putting forward of an idea or a line of thought together with an admission that it is just that and requires actual research to test it out.

Notice here rigour is not a passive subject, something to be done to students. Rather really useful rigour is an active process, something to be tried out and tested.

It’s something a self-respecting Education Secretary would support. But then there is Michael Gove.

PRESS RELEASE 21st May

Contact Keith Flett      07803 167266

CAMPAIGNERS JUDGE ‘ELTON JOHN GNOME’ BEST AT CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers that campaigns against beardism, has said that a gnome decorated by Elton John has been judged the best hirsute gnome at the Chelsea Flower Show

The Royal Horticultural Society the organisers of the Chelsea Flower Show, has lifted its 100 year ban on gnomes for the centenary of the Show for one year only. Sales of the gnomes will aid charity

The campaigners say that the grey beard of the Elton John beard adds gravitas while the pink costume is both fun and makes a good point amidst Parliamentary talk of ‘aggressive homosexuals’

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said The gnomes have had such a positive impact at Chelsea will hope the RHS will make their appearance a regular event. Beard Power amongst the flowers is to be celebrated not banned

Daily Telegraph report

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/chelseaflowershow/10066865/William-and-Kate-gnomes-signal-a-first-for-the-Chelsea-Flower-Show.html

On attending cricket matches

I have been attending cricket matches for a very long time.

I recall going to see Kent v South Africa at Canterbury in 1965 [aged 8] with my father which was a bit odd since he was a Scottish Communist and these were apartheid South Africans. There may have been a bigger plan at work- to keep the young Flett quiet for a bit. I was also at the Oval in August 1968 when spectators mopped up the pitch and Derek Underwood spun England to victory.

I’ve been a regular spectator at London Test matches ever since and, time permitting, other games at Lords and the Oval.

It is hardly news to note that watching international cricket matches has changed quite a bit.

I was at Lords on Thursday and Friday for the First Test against New Zealand.

I got my tickets on-line and the seats are a [little] bit more comfortable than they used to be in my day…

Until the arrival in particular of the widespread use of credit cards and the interweb, getting tickets in advance for International cricket matches was unusual. Agreed Ashes series sometimes sold out. But for the Saturday of a New Zealand Test you could turn up at lunchtime [checking the weather first] pay on the gate and find a seat without a problem.

Buying tickets in advance [often a long time in advance] has changed the nature of the audience at cricket grounds, as has the price of tickets.

The price of tickets- I paid around £70 at Lords- is hardly out of line with other sporting or musical events but that won’t help you if you’re on jobseekers allowance.

Still the issue of paying for a ticket, seeing little cricket and getting no refund has now been [mostly]sorted. Floodlights allow play when it was not previously possible and if it rains you get money back.

However not everyone plans their lives six months in advance [obviously as a socialist I believe in planning]and the fact that you can’t very often just turn up and get in on the gate at a Test match means that casual spectators, those who find they have some time free on the day etc can’t get in.

Instead we have seen the rise of the corporate spectator and not just in the sponsored boxes.

Sitting in the crowd at Lords, it’s clear that many have come to watch the cricket and know about it. But many more have very long lunches, drink lots of alcohol and are generally not that interested. For them a day at the Test is a spectacle, a cultural event as much as a cricket match.

Fair enough it might be said. They have paid their money and how they enjoy their day is up to them.

Cricket has always been associated with gambling and drinking so one can hardly be censorious but there is just a sense that the great showcase of cricket that is a tightly fought Test match is not now seen live by those who, like myself in the 1960s, are young and, bitten by the unique atmosphere of a day’s Test cricket keep turning up for life.

Indeed while attendances at international matches across the world are not uniformly down, the numbers of games played does seem to be causing a decline. In England that is not yet the case and that is a good thing. But it is a trend we need to be wary of.

Why can’t tickets for Tests be sold in the way some restaurants book their tables. A certain number can be reserved in advance and the rest are for walk-ups? That way Corporates can book their diaries and the young cricket fan who finds themselves free on the day would stand a chance of getting in as well.

Press Release                       20^th May contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

Gardens for the people not Flower Shows for the rich

CHELSEA:PUBLIC PARKS NOT GARDENS FOR THE RICH

The Root and Branch Gardener, the occasional organ of socialist gardeners, has urged a boycott of the Chelsea Flower Show, describing it as an orgy of gardening for the wealthy. ‘Ordinary’ people are only allowed in for the final three days of the Show and even here these are overwhelmingly the well to do. All Day tickets cost £55 a head on the Thursday & Friday. People who employ gardeners or who engage designers to landscape their gardens are likely to be much in evidence.

Editor of the Grass Roots Gardener Keith Flett said, ‘Gardening is a way for those who still have any money after three years of George Osborne to show off . Meanwhile at the grassroots, new roads are tearing up allotments and public parks are being neglected and spending on them drastically cut back. It’s time for a move towards grass roots and people’s gardening. We say tax the rich gardeners and use the money for parks and allotments.

q     The 2013 Manifesto for a Root and Branch Garden

• We are opposed to paving over of lawns or to the use of gardens for Parliamentary style activities such as barbecues and garden parties.
• We demand that the Government launch a massive programme of investment in public parks and provision for allotments so that all may enjoy the pleasure of gardens and gardening
• We believe in the right to roam over the gardens of the rich
• We support the nationalisation of the land and the creation of public parks and gardens as a matter of priority
• We believe that real gardeners should eschew the use of garden centres. If you need a new plant, simply liberate it from the garden of a wealthy neighbour.
• We support the hop as the ultimate in grass roots garden plants

PRESS RELEASE 20th May

Contact Keith Flett      07803 167266

KATE & WILLIAM ‘GNOMES’ AT FLOWER SHOW ARE NOT GENUINE

The Beard Liberation Front, the network of beard wearers that campaigns against beardism, has said that Kate and William Gnomes to be displayed at the Chelsea Flower Show this week are not genuine.

The campaigners say that real gnomes have beards and that simply putting a silly hat on the Royal couple does not transform them into gnomes

The Royal Horticultural Society, the pogonophobic organisers of the Chelsea Flower Show, has lifted its 100 year ban on gnomes for the centenary of the Show for one year only

For the first time ever, gnomes, mostly with beards, will be on display at Chelsea this week.

The Queen will inspect the gnomes on Monday ahead of the official opening on Tuesday and may find some have a similarity to Prince Michael of Kent.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said It is pretty obvious that the organisers of the Chelsea Flower Show are pogonophobes. They have had to accept gnomes for this year but are now bigging up Kate and William ‘gnomes’ which lack hirsuteness. It is wrong at so many levels

Daily Telegraph report

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/chelseaflowershow/10066865/William-and-Kate-gnomes-signal-a-first-for-the-Chelsea-Flower-Show.html

This post appears on the Left Unity Blog

Gove and the History Curriculum: What kind of Island Story

Michael Gove has an upper second degree in English from Oxford, which while is certainly does not prevent him from commenting on and having an opinion about history, does not particularly make him an authority on the subject.

Yet Gove, as Education Secretary in a Coalition Government, has loomed large in discussions about school history.

This is what he wrote in October 2010:

One of the under-appreciated tragedies of our time has been the sundering of our society from its past.

 Children are growing up ignorant of one of the most inspiring stories I know – the history of our United Kingdom.

 Our history has moments of pride, and shame, but unless we fully understand the struggles of the past we will not properly value the liberties of the present.

 The current approach we have to history denies children the opportunity to hear our island story. Children are given a mix of topics at primary, a cursory run through Henry the Eighth and Hitler at secondary and many give up the subject at 14, without knowing how the vivid episodes of our past become a connected narrative. Well, this trashing of our past has to stop.

At this point Gove announced that Simon Schama had been appointed to address the matter. As Schama recently reminded us at a memorial meeting for Eric Hobsbawm, while some may debate his historical judgements, he remains an historian of the left.

Schama disappeared from Gove’s history, as the ideology was ramped up. In his place came the undisputedly right-wing Niall Ferguson. More recently Gove has noted that his views on school history have also been influenced by a range of right-wing historians including David Starkey who is without doubt very right-wing indeed.

Gove’s emphasis has been on trying to ‘fiddle’ with the school history curriculum. I use the word advisedly.

He is not making the kind of structural changes to it that would require Parliamentary scrutiny. Rather he is tinkering.

Proposals for a new history curriculum content appeared earlier this year and were subsequently spirited off by Gove and his team for revision.

It was not clear exactly what transpired but at the end of the process Gove’s right-wing advisor’s on history were to be found criticising him rather than supporting him. Niall Ferguson produced a critical piece for The Guardian.

In the meantime a campaign had at least prevented Gove and other Tory ideologues from removing significant figures in black British history such as Mary Seacole from the curriculum altogether.

The most recent Gove history intervention has come in a speech at the Brighton conference in early May. Here Gove again supported school history as our island story and criticised existing school history teaching. In particular he was concerned that an exercise with Mr Men was being used to teach pupils about Hitler.

As with so much of Gove’s thoughts this was ideological bluster not reality. What was actually happening was that a group of senior pupils who had already learnt about Hitler by the usual method of studying the subject, were using Mr Men characters in an exercise with more junior pupils to demonstrate that they had grasped the essence of the matter.

Gove was quizzed about the matter at a Commons Select Committee on Education on 15^th May. Here he revealed the source for his Mr Men comments. It was- Gove. He had ‘researched’ the matter himself. He had of course come to the wrong conclusion about what was happening but instead of apologising he noted that no one could argue that Mr Men was involved in the teaching of history at a particular school.

Still perhaps Gove does have a point about our island story. It is one of colonialism, imperialism, a bloody Empire and slavery. It is also a story of those who fought back. The work of historians like Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker on the Black Atlantic has demonstrated that the history of the British Isles must go much further than Britain itself. Perhaps a figure like William Cuffay, the son of a black slave from St Kitts who had travelled to Medway as a cook on a British Navy ship, went on to become the leader of London Chartism and was transported to Tasmania for his efforts should be the cornerstone of Gove’s history curriculum

The real Borsetshire Echo: 60 years of class struggle in Ambridge

14th May 2013 CONTACT KEITH FLETT 07803 167266

Obituary: Jack Woolley

The BBC has announced the death of the actor Arnold Peters aged 87.

Peters for many years was also known as Jack Woolley. Like Peters in recent years Woolley had Alzheimers and has been a resident of the Laurels. His death has not been officially confirmed in Ambridge, not least because of the notoriously poor reception for BBC programmes in the Village.

It is thought that at one point Woolley may have had a striking similarity to the Rev David Latimer [1968-1973] but from 1974 when he divorced Valerie he has been a regular feature in the Archers, albeit he may have changed voice a little around 1980.

Woolley was a leading member of Ambridge’s ruling class although like Publican Sid Perks, also now departed, his background in the West Midlands suggested an extra-legal dimension to his earlier accumulation of wealth.

He was the owner of the Borsetshire Echo for many years and of the aptly named Grey Gables. Latterly he also put up the finance for Jaxx’s Café run by Kenton Archer without any obvious appreciation of the name’s double entendre.

Also features of Woolley’s Ambridge were his chauffeur Higgs and his bull terrier Captain.

He married another leading member of the Ambridge ruling class and Archers matriarch Peggy and it would be fair to say that voting Labour was never high on his agenda.

Woolley’s Alzheimers led to the Archers winning the Mental Health Media Award in 2007 underlining how good the programme is at covering issues that can be seen by some as awkward.

It remains to be seen if Woolley’s daughter Hazel who works ‘in the film business’ will inherit any of his Estate.

Ambridge Socialist Editor Keith Flett said Jack Woolley was a leading member of the Ambridge ruling class for decades, a class warrior and a worthy opponent. His alter ego Arnold Peters who has sadly died was a considerable actor, clearly dedicated to his profession

Ian Birchall adds

Peters originally played Len Thomas, Welsh farmhand and the finest representative of class-struggle socialism on the Archers – who was, of course, eventually suppressed.

In Other News

After an incident with a pig and the electric fence Jazzer opines that Tom is losing touch with reality. Tom agrees…

Next Week

Nigel Farage visits Ambridge. Will the BBC report it?

PRESS RELEASE 19th May

Contact Keith Flett      07803 167266

HIRSUTE SALUTE GNOME POWER AT CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW

The Beard Liberation Front, the network of beard wearers that campaigns against beardism, has welcomed the news that the Royal Horticultural Society, the pogonophobic organisers of the Chelsea Flower Show, has lifted its 100 year ban on gnomes for the centenary of the Show.

For the first time ever, gnomes, mostly with beards, will be on display at Chelsea this week.

The Queen will inspect the gnomes on Monday ahead of the official opening on Tuesday and may find some have a similarity to Prince Michael of Kent.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said Gnomes and beards go together. They are often organised and militant and it is excellent news that of 100 years Gnome Power will be at the Chelsea Flower Show this week

PRESS RELEASE 18th May

Contact Keith Flett      07803 167266

SUSPICIONS OF BEARD TAMPERING GROW AS PRIOR BAGS PAIR AT LORDS

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers that campaigns against beardism, has said that suspicions of beard tampering lie behind several failures by England men’s player of the year Matt Prior in the First Test against New Zealand at Lords over the last couple of days.

Prior who has been in good form with the bat for England was out lbw first ball in England’s innings. Later when New Zealand batted, he uncharacteristically dropped a catch off the bowling of Jimmy Anderson. In the second England innings Prior faced just eleven balls before being out for a duck thus bagging  a pair

The campaigners say that while happenstance could be an explanation for these events, they are so unusual for Prior, that beard tampering must be a real concern.

The BLF says that tampering can take a number of forms including slight trimming and reshaping of the beard while the wearer is asleep, to spraying the beard ‘accidentally’ with a soft drink or beer to impact on the interaction of follicles with the air.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said Investigations continue but the events of the last few days are so out of character for Matt Prior that beard tampering must be a serious possibility. Who would do such a thing is however a mystery

Limited overs or knock-out cricket in the UK is 50 years old this month. The Gillette Cup saw its first ever match played at the beginning of May 1963. The game was between Lancashire and Leicestershire and ended up lasting two days thanks to rain.

It was the sponsorship of Gillette that finally ended the distinction between the paid professional player and the supposedly unpaid amateur although divisions continued in various ways. In the wake of the abolition the cricketers trade union the PCA began for the first time to exert some genuine influence from the later 1960s.

The distinction seen by spectators prior to 1963 was that the professional cricketer, dressed in sober cricket clothes and the amateur, usually idiosyncratically dressed, entered the field of play via separate gates.

The divisions went much wider than that. The professional and the amateur used separate dressing rooms, and took their meals separately as well. Quite often the only time the professional and amateur cricketer, batting together on the field, would meet would be actually on that field.

At Lords and the Oval divisions went further. There were two dressing rooms for professionals. One for the more senior- and better paid- players and one for the rest.

The situation in the twentieth century up to 1945 continued in much the same way. The great England cricketer found that in order to become England captain he had to switch from professional to amateur status.  However social and economic trends were playing their part and the supply of amateur players was in decline by 1939.

After the end of the Second World War the game reluctantly dragged itself into new century, although in the first post-war season of 1946 all but one of the 17 County captains was an amateur. The great Yorkshire batsman Len Hutton, a professional, was appointed England captain in 1952.

As late as 1957/8 an MCC sub-committee concluded that amateurs had a valuable role in the game but the winds of change were blowing through cricket driven by declining attendance at County games.

In 1960 an MCC committee was chaired by Colonel Rait-Kerr and by December 1961 it had taken the decision to offer sponsorship to Gillette.

Gillette appointed Alan Campbell Johnson to negotiate with MCC Assistant Secretary Jim Dunbar

In November 1962 the Advisory County Cricket Committee accepted £6.5k from Gillette to sponsor one day cricket & abolished amateur status. The Times recorded that ‘cricket breaks with the past’.

The last Gentleman v Players game was held at Lords in 1962. The Gentlemen were captained by Ted Dexter, who stood as a Tory Parliamentary candidate in Cardiff. The Players were led by Fred Trueman, a former Yorkshire miner, also thought to be on the right of politics.

While Gillette had been sponsoring UK sport since the early 1950s, the move into such a high profile game as cricket, with its background of ruling class patronage required careful management.

The sponsorship was styled as a First Class Counties Knock-Out competition which was to be played for the Gillette Cup. Sponsorship for each game was limited to a Man of the Match Award of £50, a gold medal and a tie.

At this stage the commercialism was kept very much in the background.

The Gillette Cup marked the further rise of professional sport and the beginning of significant commercial sponsorship which is now a significant feature across sport.

In cricket terms the one-day game proved a huge crowd puller leading to the range of limited overs matches that are now a feature of the modern game.

This post also appears in the Morning Star