Thinkers Needed!

My current project is to put some shutters on our house. With those on the windows and doors hopefully the worst of the winter weather will be held a bit further at bay, and it will be our bit for the environment if we save some fuel because of it. Currently, I only have one pair of shutters up and working, whilst hopefully the others will be made next week. There's a reason for this ... generally speaking I make a few errors on a piece of wordwork, or see something that I could have done better, or more elegantly, and so it is with the shutters. Make one pair, see what I did wrong, or not as well as I could, and then make sure the rest are made better.

It's a bit like studying history. I love it. We can learn a great deal from how other folks worked or thought, so that we don't make the same mistakes over and over.

As I write this, there is quite an argument raging about cuts to education, as well as the arguments that have been on the front burner ever since Prime Minister James Callaghan announced his "Great Education Debate."

I'm no fan of Ofsted inspections, SATs, league tables, and a compulsory national curriculum. My view has always been that they are contrary to children's best interests.

So what has the current debate on education to do with Winteringham?

In July I came across this report in the Hull Packet newspaper of 16th January 1881. It makes fascinating reading ...

WESLEYAN BAND OF HOPE. – On Monday, the 5th inst., a lecture was delivered by the Rev. J. Whitely, principal of St. Augustine School, Hull, in the National Schoolroom, kindly lent by the Rev. C. Knowles, who presided over the meeting. In the course of his lecture, which lasted a little over an hour, the lecturer spoke of the benefit of total abstinence, which had been proved by many present for muscular energy, and by himself for brain work. The parents and friends of the young were strongly urged to help forward the movement. After speaking of the self-sacrifice of One whose example all were urged to follow, who so looked at our interests as a race, that He gave His life a ransom for ours, instances of heroic conduct and self-sacrificing courage in the history of our country were placed before the minds of the people. The rev. gentleman went on to show the danger in the present educational policy of our country of cramming rather than opening the intellect of our youth, and concluded with a warm appeal to the young men and women present to become thinkers, and thus general benefactors of their village and nation. The audience was large, and listened throughout with rapt attention, broken only by frequent bursts of applause, which demonstrations were loud and long. We are glad to learn that the lecturer has promised to pay the village another visit during the coming season.

Fascinating eh? The 5th January 1881, and in our very own National School was an eminent Headteacher from Hull railing against the kind of educational regime imposed on our children now!

By 1885, the Victorians had decided that teaching children to pass a test, a national curriculum, and an intense inspection regime, was not serving children or the country ... and yet a century later it was thought of as the best thing since sliced bread!

If only our politicians read history ... or better still - read the history of Winteringham!