The politics and pedagogy of schooling are becoming more authoritarian, coercive and utilitarian. Reactionary ideologies dressed and patched up with new managerialism (already moribund in the market place) are supplanting progessivist ideas. Even in its own cramped terms the new model will not work. But educationalists should not be content to oppose it with nostalgic stories. Progressivism was always at a loss to cram its ideals within the geography, architecture and timetable of a school day. It is the very structure (...) and context of schooling that needs overhaul. (shrink)

The politics and pedagogy of schooling are becoming more authoritarian, coercive and utilitarian. Reactionary ideologies dressed and patched up with new managerialism (already moribund in the market place) are supplanting progessivist ideas. Even in its own cramped terms the new model will not work. But educationalists should not be content to oppose it with nostalgic stories. Progressivism was always at a loss to cram its ideals within the geography, architecture and timetable of a school day. It is the very structure (...) and context of schooling that needs overhaul. (shrink)

The politics and pedagogy of schooling are becoming more authoritarian, coercive and utilitarian. Reactionary ideologies dressed and patched up with new managerialism (already moribund in the market place) are supplanting progessivist ideas. Even in its own cramped terms the new model will not work. But educationalists should not be content to oppose it with nostalgic stories. Progressivism was always at a loss to cram its ideals within the geography, architecture and timetable of a school day. It is the very structure (...) and context of schooling that needs overhaul. (shrink)

It has always seemed to me that one of my father's great contributions to monarchical practice was the manner in which, without apparent design, he managed to resolve the internal contradictions of monarchy in the twentieth century that requires it to be remote from, yet at the same time to personify the aspirations of the people. It must appear aloof and distant in order to sustain the illusion of a Monarch who, shunning faction, stands above politics and the more mundane (...) allegiances. At the same time it must appear to share intimately the ideals of the multitude, whose affection and loyalty provide the broad base of constitutional Monarchy. My father, with the instinctive genius of the simple man, found the means of squaring the apparent circle within the resources of his own character. By the force of his own authentic example – the king himself in the role of the bearded paterfamilias … he transformed the Crown as personified by the Royal Family into a model of the traditional family virtues, a model that was all the more genuine for its suspected but inconspicuous flaws. The King, as the dutiful father, became the living symbol not only of the nation, but also of the Empire, the last link holding these diversified and scattered communities. (shrink)