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Plowden (1967) Notes on the text Volume 1 (page numbers in brackets) Preliminary pages (i-xxii)
Part 1 Introduction
Part 2 The growth of the child
Part 3 The home, school and neighbourhood
Part 4 The structure of primary education
Part 5 The children in the schools: curriculum and internal organisation
Part 6 The adults in the schools
Part 7 Independent schools
Part 8 Primary school buildings and equipment; status; and research
Part 9 Conclusions and recommendations
Notes (486-495)
Research and Surveys about Plowden |
The Plowden Report (1967)
A Report of the Central Advisory Council for Education (England) London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1967
[page 266] 734. Many changes have taken place in the past 30 years or so in the relationship between children and adults. The causes of these changes include the increased employment of mothers outside their homes, the greater earning power of young people generally, the virtual disappearance of juvenile employment and the greater appreciation of children and their needs that has spread through the population. As a result, the children of today are more independent and less ready to accept parental authority than their parents were. The resulting relationship has some obvious good features, actual as well as potential. It allows a much freer interchange of opinions and a greater friendliness between parent and child than was usually possible under the old authoritarian relationship. At the same time it raises problems which have not yet been solved and which may give rise to anxiety and unhappiness. If authority simply decays the results can be negative. A new and positive relationship between parent and child, and indeed between old and young, still needs to be worked out. Some families have gone a long way towards it. Others are bewildered. 735. There are other changes, too, which have had an unmistakable effect in the schools. The first of these is the increased diversity of occupations available to school leavers and the decreasing extent to which particular occupations are tied to social class. Every school has to prepare its children for a wider range than 30 years ago. Even young children demand, and are given, if not always willingly, a much broader choice of outlook and conduct as well as of subsequent occupation. A school which tried to impose the kind of discipline that was common before the war would soon find itself in difficulties. The effects of these changes are naturally more acute in the secondary schools, yet it is the primary schools which have moved most quickly in the new directions that they demand. Relationships in Primary Schools 736. The general public is hardly aware of what a primary school run on modern lines is like and of the extent as well as the profundity of the changes that have taken place since the war. A middle aged visitor, educated in an ordinary elementary school at the time of the 1931 Report, who visited a good primary school in 1966, would find much to surprise him. If he arrived at the official opening hour he would find that many of the children had been there long before him, not penned in the playground but inside the school, caring for the livestock, getting on with interesting occupations, reading or writing, painting, carving or weaving or playing musical instruments. Probably some of the teachers would also be early, but whether they were there or not, would not affect what the children were doing. The visitor might be surprised to notice that when the bell rang, if there was a bell, no very obvious change took place. As the morning went on he would see various pieces of more organised *See Note of Reservation at the end of the main Report. [page 267] activity, backward readers being taken as a group, an assembly of the whole school for prayers and hymns, an orchestra, some movement, some group instruction in mathematics, some exploration outside and so on. During all this time he would hear few commands and few raised voices. Children would be asked to do things more often than told. They would move freely about the school, fetching what they needed, books or material, without formality or interference. Teachers would be among the children, taking part in their activities, helping and advising and discussing much more frequently than standing before a class teaching. Mid-moming break and even midday break for lunch would show little change and at the end of the day there would be no sudden rush from school, leaving an empty building, but a much more leisurely and individual departure, so that important tasks could be finished and interesting questions answered. In this kind of school it is common for some of the older children to spend two or three weeks away with their teacher in another environment. In this way many children have their first experiences away from the family in a secure setting, and also an opportunity for getting to know their teachers better. 737. These schools are not exceptional. What here concerns us about them are the implications for relationships and discipline and these are many. They raise the following questions. What kind of assumptions about children are involved in running a school on these lines? By what process does a school run on authoritarian lines change into the kind of school just described? In what circumstances is it impossible or too difficult to run such a school and, in such a case, what is to be done about it? 738. The relationships of the school described are certainly not the product of mere permissiveness. For all the appearance of free-and-easiness, for all the absence of the traditional forms of discipline, there is behind it all, not only a deep understanding of children, but careful planning. The two basic assumptions are that children respond in kind to courteous and considerate treatment by adults and that they will work with concentration and diligence at tasks which are suited to their abilities. Neither assumption is true for all children, or for any child all the time, but both are true enough to make them a workable basis for many primary schools. With them must go a great deal of perceptive thought and action. The balance between free choice and directed choice, the safeguarding of intellectual discipline, the few rules that are to be insisted upon, the richness, suitability and variety of what is provided, the means of ensuring and recording progress, the treatment of misfits - all these and many other problems need careful and skilful leadership. When the head or his or her staff can bring it off, it is a way of running a school which we think is ideally suited to the needs and nature of children and to their development as human beings. We believe that the atmosphere in a school run on these lines is healthier than one in which discipline is authoritarian, and can foster self-discipline, a sense of responsibility for others in the community, and honesty in action and in thought. There is, for example, no reason to cheat or to crib. If each child is valued for himself, there is less reason to lie, whether from fear, idleness or the desire for self-aggrandisement. 739. It is clear that to change a school run on traditional lines to one run on free lines requires faith and courage. The fact that a substantial number of schools have made the change is evidence that these qualities have not been wanting. They are certainly the first requirements in a reforming head, but [page 268] they are not the only ones. It is not a question of saying 'freedom is in, discipline is out', an attitude which could lead to instant disaster. The change involves the total life of the school, and the staff, or a substantial proportion of it, must at least be ready for change and must understand something of the philosophy underlying it. A small country school which had been run on traditional lines was able to make the change quickly because the staff of two retired simultaneously, and were replaced by a man and his wife who knew what they wanted to do and were able to set about it without delay. The children responded and in less than a year the school closely resembled that described at the beginning of this chapter. On one occasion the headmaster was obliged to be absent for two days and was unable to obtain a substitute. The children in his class were then left to their own devices, with only such supervision as the infants' teacher in another room was able to give them. 'There was no trouble' said the headmaster, 'and they had done two good days' work when I got back'. A ten year old boy at this school observed to a visiting HMI: 'The trouble with this place is that we haven't enough time to do all we want. We are trying to get Mr .... to start a night school for us, so we can get on with our work in the evening'. There will be many readers, including teachers, who will find this story almost incredible, remembering, as they will, the instantaneous, disorderly relaxation which used to characterise a class when the teacher went out of the room. The change is a major one which is beginning to revolutionise the primary schools of England, but it needs teachers of great personal qualities, strong character and a deep understanding of children, and it also needs first rate organisation. If, for example, children are allowed choice in what they do the choice must be genuine and the alternatives interesting and worth doing. Boredom is a deadly enemy. Time wasting occupations and exercises 'to keep the children quiet while the teacher is busy, or marking the registers' are fatal to good discipline and to good learning and there is no place for them, or need for them, in the kind of school we are discussing. Furthermore, although in such a school rewards and punishments in the ordinary sense may seem to have little or no place, there is in fact a substitute in the form of approval and disapproval. The more sympathetic a teacher is, the more successfully he or she establishes with the children a relationship of affection and respect, the more clearly will approval be a reward, and withdrawal in some sense a punishment. Such a system is preferable to arbitrary authoritarianism, but if it involves the abrogation of one kind of power, it bestows another and must be used with understanding and scrupulousness. Children like to know where they stand and what to expect. They must depend upon adults for their moral standards and for guidance on what behaviour is tolerable in society; an adult who withholds such guidance is in fact making a decision which involves as heavy a claim for his own judgement as is made by the martinet. There may be occasions, as the children grow older, when such guidance ought to be withheld so that children can think out problems for themselves, but this only underlines the fact that the teacher has a crucial role to play at every point in the 'free' school. 740. We must now consider why it is that this happy state of affairs is not commoner and whether there are schools or areas or circumstances in which it would be foolish or impossible to try to introduce it. Many older teachers brought up on authoritarian precepts may feel hostile or contemptuous when [page 269] they are told of 'free discipline' and, even if sympathetic to the idea, may feel afraid of trying it. The thought of the possible chaos is too daunting. Some may genuinely doubt whether, even if it comes off, it is good for the children. They fear that the school would be too unlike the world outside where people have to struggle, learn to take orders and face uncongenial and uninteresting tasks. We sympathise with these fears and anxieties, but the last one at least is quite unfounded. We believe that the modern, relaxed, friendly approach is a much better preparation for life in contemporary society than the old authoritarian one. 741. Not all reforming heads are in the fortunate position of the one described earlier. They may have staffs who cannot 'take it' and may feel that it would be unwise as well as unjust to the staff to force the pace. They will have to move slowly and wait patiently for favourable signs and developments. In addition, there are certainly schools and even whole areas where the difficulties involved in freedom are very grave. If a large proportion of the children come from insecure or unloving homes, they will be disturbed and, although they may need freedom more desperately than children from good homes, the transition may be too perilous to face. It is just the 'difficult' schools which find it hardest to recruit and keep good staffs and no one with any knowledge of such schools will wish to weaken the influence of teachers or make their task any harder. In a single class there may be children who are regularly and perhaps brutally thrashed at home, children who are taught implicitly or explicitly that all authority is an enemy and children who have never known any consistent discipline or control, let alone warm affection and interest. 742. Quite apart from these specially difficult cases, there are children, usually boys, in all areas and in most schools, who need to feel the pressure of authority in order to come to terms with it. The high spirited, mischievous child is traditionally regarded with affectionate tolerance. 'Boys will be boys', 'You're only young once', 'I was just the same when I was his age', people say, and generally win an approving nod. A boy who never gets up to mischief, it is suggested, is not a proper boy and a good spanking will keep him within bounds. The mental picture often seems to have an archaic rural background and to evoke the suggestion of a little mild apple stealing. Stealing from a supermarket seems to put the matter in a different light. Everybody loves Huck Finn, but he can be a thorn in the side of young and inexperienced teachers. Yet boys need an element of adventure and out of school activities can often satisfy this need legitimately. Punishment 743. We have made it clear that the kind of school that we should like to see is one in which the delights as well as the rigours and demands of learning are built into the whole life of the place, so that there is little or no need for the stimulus of marks and class places and rewards, or for the sanctions of punishment in the cruder sense. Such schools, as we have said, are not visions of the future. There are many of them. Nevertheless, many teachers will feel that punishment is sometimes necessary and that the right to give it when it is judged to be necessary ought not to be withheld. Few indeed will now consider it in any way positively 'good for children' to be punished, and few will regard punishment as a cure either for deep seated evils, such as persistent [page 270] cruelty, or for laziness, inattention and poor work. Punishment will be defended simply as a means to order. A single unruly member cannot be allowed to upset the whole of a class. The boy who 'tries it on' just to see how much the teacher will take, must discover quite soon that he will not take much. The child who persistently ignores rules of safety, for example, when crossing the road, must be sharply reminded of them. This we accept and we think that the decision whether to punish or not must be left to the individual teacher acting within the policy of the school. It is unwise to try to lay down precise rules which would confine individual professional judgement, but the excessive use of punishment of any kind should be regarded as an acknowledgement of someone's failure. 744. What kind of punishment should be given is more open to doubt. We have little hesitation in saying that punishment ought not to humiliate a child, though it sometimes ought to humble him. But children differ. Something that will bitterly humiliate one child may be accepted with cheerful indifference by another. Sarcasm is a weapon that should never be employed. A punishment must be understood by the child and be seen to be just and to this extent accepted by him; the most difficult children may be, at least temporarily, beyond this kind of understanding and be afflicted with a sense of injustice in spite of every attempt to remove it. The conclusion seems to be that in the matter of how to punish as well as in that of whether to punish, the judgement of the teacher must be respected, although in the most difficult cases expert advice on problems of behaviour should be sought from school doctors and child guidance clinics. We do not feel justified in leaving the argument there. Corporal punishment appears to us to be in a special category and to need special consideration. 745. We have considered the opinions of the teaching profession and of HM Inspectors and have studied the regulations of local education authorities. We have also considered the views of psychologists, a sample of parental opinion and practice in other countries. 746. From the evidence available to us the following conclusions can be drawn: (a) The overwhelming majority (between 80 per cent and 90 per cent) of the teaching profession are against the abolition of corporal punishment, though few support it except as a final sanction. (1, 2, 3, 4) [page 271] 747. The present legal position is that a teacher, who stands in loco parentis to a school child, is held to be justified in using a reasonable amount of force by way of correction. Magistrates can and do convict when they judge that an unreasonable amount of force has been used. Although it would be technically possible to make it a legal offence for a teacher to inflict any degree of corporal punishment on a child in school, this would present difficulties in practice. It would in particular make a teacher vulnerable to malicious prosecution. Moreover, it could be asked whether the same sanction should not apply to parents as well as teachers. In Denmark it has been possible to abolish corporal punishment in both school and home because public opinion was strongly behind the measure. 748. It has been almost universally outlawed in other western countries. (9) It can be associated with psychological perversion affecting both beater and beaten and it is ineffective in precisely those cases in which its use is most hotly defended. We think the time has come to drop it. After full consideration, we recommend that the infliction of physical pain as a recognised method of punishment in primary schools should be forbidden. 749. The most convenient method of carrying out our recommendations in the case of maintained schools seems to be an amendment of the Schools Regulations to provide that the infliction of physical pain as a method of punishment should not be allowed. No comparable sanction is available for independent schools generally and to prohibit corporal punishment in them would involve an amendment of the law. We believe that the law should be amended so as to give power to the Secretary of State to deny registration to any independent school in which the infliction of physical pain is a recognised form of punishment. In the meantime we recommend that no independent school in which this practice obtains should be granted recognition as efficient and we urge the professional associations of the independent schools to do everything in their power to ensure that it is discontinued in non-recognised schools. We hope that the schools themselves will take steps to abandon the practice entirely. 750. Our recommendations are likely to meet with some opposition. We may be accused of encouraging softness and of indulging the evil doer. The majority of teachers sincerely believe that corporal punishment may be necessary as a constraint. Indeed, a lack of corporal punishment in school will often contrast sharply with what happens in the child's home. We believe, however, that the primary schools, as in so much else, should lead public opinion, rather than follow it. Often corporal punishment is the result of school conditions trying the patience of both teachers and pupils. Smaller classes and the presence of teachers' aides (see Chapter 24) in all schools, particularly in the educational priority areas, may help those schools whose conditions are such that corporal punishment seems difficult to avoid. Teachers need to give time and individual attention to children who get into trouble; persuasion is a time-consuming business and cannot easily take place if a class is too large. On theoretical grounds alone, we believe that the kind of relationship which ought to exist between teacher and child cannot be built up in an atmosphere in which the infliction of physical pain is regarded as a normal sanction. The psychological evidence which we sought also supports this view. Our Report makes it clear at many points that we believe in discipline. But it can only come from a [page 272] relationship between teacher and child in which there is mutual respect and affection. There is nothing soft or flabby about this relationship. It is impaired by disorder, untidiness, boredom and slackness and only flourishes in an atmosphere of order and purposefulness. To achieve the right balance between encouragement and restraint, between permissiveness and direction, between reward and admonition, between withdrawal and intervention, is the teacher's art. It is with this art that much of this report is concerned and the art is not simply an amalgam or sum total of skills, knowledge, methods and aids, but rather a combination of these with judgement, discrimination, sensitivity, sympathy, perception and imagination, all of which are involved in the exercise of discipline and the education of children. Recommendations 751. (i) Decisions on punishment should generally be left to the professional judgement of the individual teacher acting within the policy of the school. 1. National Foundation for Educational Research: A Survey of Rewards and Punishments 1952.
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