young schoolteacher analysis of what she considers most reactionary element school. For obvious reasons she has to remain anonymous.
Schools are immensely powerful institutions of repression, reproducing in pupils the ideology -by physical violence, rigorous organisation, by sets of rules, by psychological and social enforce class behaviour in a variety of ways, some subtle and some brutal. In a public school pupils learn ruling CaSS behaviour, in a class school they learn submission. Ai the apex of this power in every school is the Headmaster.
The ways in which the headmasters' power may be exercised are such that at times he can be little short of a dictator. It is in his power whole infrastructure of the school; decides how many classes there will be, controls which class a child is in, whether the school how this is organised. He controls the allocation of rooms, ana can veto or en courage any structural additions to the school buildings. His may even be required on the position of the desks in a classroom.
Ine nead can decide learn: they must take either art or music in whether or not they may the sixth form. His influecisive at the most crucof a child's career. the contents of a testimthe minutiae of school life is command. He can conbooks that are used, magazines at will, he can Candwriting being used throughout the particular school The headmaster decides on the rules and on the sanctions. He child on the smallest pretext; for skippIng lesson, "playing teacher; or for swearing (3 weeks ago in the school | teach in the head caned a iz vear old bov unti his hand badly swollen, the skin broken, for beSG PUSO BPOMS 0 PA 2Л0 2111 In the privacy of his puysicaly assault a cnia, as nappened the oter day Eliot Comprehensive in Putney. cnia was SO that he has refused to go SCTIOOl. This overt brutalitv ening in schools every day, week all over the country The run of the mill method of controning cnuaren, or course, Is numiation, which is used so often as to pass BTOLCee Headmasters experts at this. The apogee humiliation is the assembly when the entire school, pupils and staff, have to kow-tow to the head as the symbol and pinnacle of authority in the school.
headmasters power TEOXE over the teachers as well as the pupils He controls which subjects they teach, to whom they teach them, content and form of their teaching. His permission is needed for the shortest outing, he can interrupt a lesson at will, he can insist on cerioln being worked for, he will supervise the content or internal exam papers.
gives her testimonials the references (files, her teacher's job.
the exercise of year teacher imposing on and teachers receive.
of by the value of pressure. function, cooperate working victimised are usually don't know how to, 'cause trouble' to control the The The for something streamed and was away, had done, COUES axrecHICHu rights as an individual.
which subjects whether or not Board institution they ruling Cidss composed of a interested parties. which means of control over Their main job can the senior appointments.
TrUST They
headship, make can cane a up *lets them governors are forced to happened when WaS against Duane of Risinghill, Board of Governors their task-they office a head can wrong man.
Cine tunctior manifested and shaken relationship berween back to and the staff is happ- relationship is a complex society it totalitarian. headmasters and can be gained within, if against. school system usually of this vital to socialism.
extends Quality of their and the ivered now.
over the schools exams pupils radical and confidential in fact), and these ultimately he controls the security of a become which allow The headmaster has specific aids in them.
This power; its acceptance is an integral part of the 3 but training that most School inspectors support it. Parents usually agree with obedience and see its instillation as a part of the school's more often than not they with the headmaster over discipline. Working class parents who think that their child may be being unwilling take the matter very far, either they For are afraid to If they do object they soon find that the official channels for complaints are so structured against them that their complaints peter out.
pupils expect the headmaster to act in this way (one boy at my own school was quite expecting to be caned another boy. wno because as ne put it, the headmaster 'wants someone -reDeHous pupil finds that ultimately he has no legal The ultimate authority in a school is Governors are a typical British formation "cross section' of M.P.s if it public school, local councillors if it is a state one. The governors are the chief the is to select une headmaster, and guide him in making They operate through a combination of scrutiny and vet thep applicants for "and selection then give him more or less autonomous power. So a head has maximum room for manouvre and to develop his skills down' and the intervene, the ILEA moved then the have failed have selected the of school is symbolised in the the headmaster and pupils. in this One, is authoritarian but not are Decal genuine knowledge the as whole. Such knowledge is potentially liberating and Though it will only be possible to completely destroy the position of headmasters inside the schools when political power outside is in the hands of the working class, even then it will not be possible to move against them effectively unless the actVOUHE WUNOSWN power is understood. play in capitalist so However blows can and must be del- from the vanguard For the perspective must be to smash the power of headmasters The SAU in the lange This can only be done by uniting teachers. these have any real power have councils, but none of and they InstitutIons CO COOrCuOr the headmaster to use attempt to SUCI councils wll take time and hard work, surely will easier than continuing in the present way.
iay Action The recent documents obtained from the files of Warwick University deal with two main fields of activity: with the dangers of allowing Schools Action Union militants into the universities: and of allowing militants in the Universities to agitate in the factories.
It is right that the two main dangers for the svstem should be seen to come trom the schools and from the links, however tenuous, of militants with the working class.
The schools, unlike the Universities, are socially representative of capitalist society. They contain not only the cream of the ruling class, which will pass on to the universities, but also, as the headmaster of a famous public school once put it 'the sons of the dustmen".
If the schools movement develops it can carefully provide a training ground, not just for middle class intellectual radicals but, more important, is a for millions of young workers who leave at 15 to go straight to monotonous f9 a week jobs, or into 4 year apprenticeships, at the same money, but with the promise of a future. And there is increasing evidence that these young workers are no longer so easily fooled.
The call for law and order in the schools is an interesting sign. The headmasters and senior staff are being recognized not just as the sods they are but as definite enemies to be attacked. At the moment many of the attacks are purely physical, such as in the school near Kings Cross where the banning of boots caused the students to paint bootmarks on all the walls and to burn down the door of the headmaster's sutdy with a Molotov cocktail. He now has a steel door. He nu P 1al1 BuE aul uosase nooo Doure outside the school was burnt down. Such physical attacks are on the increase but they are not indiscriminate as the right wing heads claim. On the contrary, the students discrimin ate all too clearly for their liking. It could be neir suuev uat ourus down next ane tnere ! no guarantee that they won't be in it Un, so boots aren t marxist, but tney aren't the only thing that school students are reacting to. In Tottenham schools there is a call for a School Union to control the currio ulum. This move does not come from the grammars and the sixth forms but from the fourth years in the comprehensives.
Universities have sit-ins and occupa but when they are over the power remains as before. The truth is th lies at the point of production academic institutions. So it is SAU to send out from the
The Black Dwarf 20th April 1970 Page 6